First Draft

Weekend Question Thread

Oldest, middle, or youngest child?

Of how many?

I'm the oldest of three.

Like you can't tell.

With the yelling and the bossy and all.

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Saturday Blogwhoring Thread

Post away.

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Friday Night Galactica Vid

Remember when Lee and Laura were friends and did mutiny and terrorism together? That was awesome.

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Jesse Helms Dies at 86

Obit:

Early on, his habit of blocking nominations and legislation won him a nickname of "Senator No." He delighted in forcing roll call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on federal funding for art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag-burning and other cultural issues.

In 1993, when then-President Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust. "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."

After Democrats killed the appointment of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, a former Helms aide, to a federal appeals court post in 1991, Helms blocked all of Clinton's judicial nominations from North Carolina for eight years.

Helms occasionally opted for compromise in later years in the Senate, working with Democrats on legislation to restructure the foreign policy bureaucracy and pay back debts to the United Nations, an organization be disdained for most of his career.

And he softened his views on AIDS after years of clashes with gay activists, advocating greater federal funding to fight the disease in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

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Patriotism

From Obama's speech:

I remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, listening to my mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence – "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I remember her explaining how this declaration applied to every American, black and white and brown alike; how those words, and words of the United States Constitution, protected us from the injustices that we witnessed other people suffering during those years abroad. That's my idea of America.

As I got older, that gut instinct – that America is the greatest country on earth – would survive my growing awareness of our nation's imperfections: it's ongoing racial strife; the perversion of our political system laid bare during the Watergate hearings; the wrenching poverty of the Mississippi Delta and the hills of Appalachia. Not only because, in my mind, the joys of American life and culture, its vitality, its variety and its freedom, always outweighed its imperfections, but because I learned that what makes America great has never been its perfection but the belief that it can be made better. I came to understand that our revolution was waged for the sake of that belief – that we could be governed by laws, not men; that we could be equal in the eyes of those laws; that we could be free to say what we want and assemble with whomever we want and worship as we please; that we could have the right to pursue our individual dreams but the obligation to help our fellow citizens pursue theirs.

It's hard to get your arms around an entire country. It's too big for the easy summations people like the Freepi give it; they draw the circle too small. It's hard to love them as part of the country you love, but if their pathology is that they can't accept us as part of them then our grace has to be that we can. At times I wish we could wall them off in their own state and let them have their weird theocracy so they don't poison everything that allows them to be, but who then would remind us we've always got farther to fall? They're on the fringes, pushing, reminding us that if we're not careful, look where we'll end up. Look where we are. I appreciate them for that; it's easy to start to believe that's everybody else, but it's not the case.

It's hard to get your arms around an entire place that holds so much anger and fear, and when you're a fighter you think that's all there is to do, fight, and you start seeing everything in terms of opponents, the problems, the gaps to be filled and the list of tasks yet to be done. I'm not saying take a break, I'm not saying it's okay to kick back today of all days; in four days Congress is gonna start fucking with the Constitution again and so we've all got phones to get on. But I am saying, it's easy to see all the broken places, and forget that, to paraphrase the great Leonard Cohen, the only reason you can see the breaks at all is from the light shining through them.

And that light for is everyone who ever did something kind for someone else, for the dollar that fed someone its giver never met, for the hand that opened the door to the prison camp, for the feet that marched the picket line, for the cooks in the soup kitchens and the people making beds in the shelters, for the voices answering calls for help in the middle of the night. For the New Deal and the 101st Airborne, the teachers for America and the doctors at the free clinic down the street. For the Spirit of '76 and the Freedom Riders, the fishermen on the lake at 5 a.m. in the summertime and the construction workers on the Dan Ryan at midnight. For Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy, for the astronauts and the cafeteria workers, for the singers and writers and painters and poets, for my neighbor who gave me matches when our power went out (300 candles in this house, and no matches or lighter) and the cop who comes through our alley and waves to the kids riding bikes and the guy who leaves the house across the street every morning yelling over his shoulder, "I love you, honey!" For you, and you and you and you, you, and you.

The quality of mercy isn't exclusively ours, of course, but the examples are, and for whatever yours are, I think, we can raise our voices and sing a venerable drunken tavern song:

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Friday Ferretblogging: The Boys Take A Ride

Riot likes the office chair, and Puck likes to be near Riot, so we gave them a little amusement park adventure. So long as it didn't go too fast, they enjoyed the ride.

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Your President Speaks!

Today, in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Royal "We"?

I am so honored to be here at Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. This is often called the "President's Hospital." The reason why is this is where the President gets medical care. But I'm relieved today not to be on the treadmill, weighing in and getting a blood test. I also will tell you that the care that the President gets here is extraordinary.

This Man Wear The Uniform!

This man wear the uniform of the United States military, and I'm proud to be with this veteran, and now public servant for the state of Maryland.

Early Catblogging

Willie asleep in his chair....

He almost seems to be saying--Shouldn't I have this. Ah well close enough to post an old favorite of mine from the teh hot Mary Chapin Carpenter...

OK as Virgotext notes in comments, the above song was written by Lucinda Williams and here she performs Passionate Kisses...

Dance

A new one.....

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Rightsizing. No, Really.

Just fucking kill me now.

Look. I'm gonna explain this one slowly for the publishers and top-level editors who I know are just sitting around the day before a three day weekend reading this blog. When you spout this crap, no one believes you, and what's more, they think you suck, and often tell you so. And you're always stunned that nobody's buying what you're selling. Always. And ... really.

You hired a bunch of people specifically for their advanced, highly developed bullshit detectors and confrontational attitudes. You put them all in a room together, where they could reinforce each other's paranoid delusions and tribal instincts and cheer one another on, while you paid them to say fuck you to anyone in any position of authority trying to sell them anything that smelled even faintly of insincerity. You gave them awards and bonuses when they said fuck you very loudly and very well. When they caught people in lies, when they tore down the "official" story and presented the unvarnished truth in defiance of what those in power wished, you held them up to one another as the best and the brightest and said this, this kind of work, this is what we want.

And then you sat across from them in a meeting in your pinstriped suit and you told them, from your position of authority, that even though you'd just shitcanned their colleagues (jingling your Infiniti keys in your pocket as you did so), it wasn't "downsizing," it was "rightsizing." When they asked questions, you got angry and defensive. And you have the temerity to be surprised when they treat you like a guy who goes around taking shits in baby strollers?

What did you expect?

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'I Guarantee You, The More You Hit This Bastard'

"The slower he's gonna GET!"

No daylight.

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Happy Obama Photo: First Family Edition

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Your President Speaks! Again!

Today, at the White House, during a mini-presser.

A Troop Loses Their Life

First of all, anytime a troop loses their life, whether it be in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere, our hearts go out to their families.

What You Got To Understand

One thing, however, that you got to understand is that we have doubled Afghan troops -- coalition troops have doubled from two years ago.

Gasoline Prices Are In Short Supply

It makes no sense for -- to watch these gasoline prices rise when we know we can help affect the supply of crude oil, which should affect the supply of gasoline prices.

What We Have Got

But I want them to understand fully that we have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home, in environmentally friendly ways, and they ought to be writing their Congress people about it; and they ought to say, you ought to be opening up ANWR and Outer Continental Shelf, and increasing oil shale exploration, for the sake of our consumers, as well as become less dependent on oil.

Get A Understanding

Yes, well, the first thing, John, is to make sure we get a understanding that all of us need to agree on a long-term goal.

What We Got To Do

Thirdly, if you really do want to make sure technologies move around the world, we got to reduce these trade barriers and tariffs that prohibit technologies from moving like they should.

President YouKnow

And that is why we have been pursuing multilateral diplomacy when it comes to convincing the Iranians that the free world is sincere about, you know, insisting that they not have the technologies necessary to develop a nuclear weapon.

Hates Pressers

As you might remember, I worked closely with Vladimir Putin on this issue, when I said that -- when asked at one of these innumerable press conferences, did you -- do you think they ought to have a civilian nuclear program, I said, of course, they should, but they can't be trusted to enrich.

Knowing How to Make a Point

So I was looking through those old WWII propaganda/motivation posters the other day, as you all saw.

And, you know, they're awfully effective.  They depict how individual actions add up in the long run--and that's something we don't see a lot of anymore.  They also demanded sacrifice from individuals for a larger end.

These posters make me think about how differently the country responded to the crisis of World War II and the current (and, of course, less dire) crisis of terrorism.  I could write a whole essay about how the problems are different, but I'll skip that by noting that all the pants-pissing poltroons on the right claimed that the threat of terrorism was JUST THE SAME as the problems we faced in World War II.  In fact, the more batshit insane of that group claimed that this crisis was even more serious than the world conflict against fascism. 

But, when push came to shove, did any of them call for sacrifice?  Did Young Republicans enlist en masse?  Was there any attempt to unify the country?

Fuck no.  Go shopping, Bush said.  Say a prayer.  Hug your loved ones.

Empty advice from an empty shell of a man.

I mean, this poster makes a point about overconsumption of resources:

And this one?  Holy fuck.

It would work with Osama bin Laden in the passenger seat, wouldn't it?  I mean, if people understood the connection between money flowing to Saudi Arabia and being basically transferred to terror organizations.

But you can't expect calls for conservation from former oil executives, can you?

Stradivarius

Wicked cool.

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Evite Loses The War on Ghei

The end of civilization is nigh:

Here at Evite, we love hearing about all the events you're planning. And we're really glad to be a part of your milestone celebrations, from special birthdays and baby showers to anniversaries and weddings.

Our goal is to provide you with the perfect invitations for all of your events, big and small. Recently, in response to your requests, we've added wedding invitations for same-sex ceremonies. You'll find them in the "Wedding Themes" design gallery.

The commenters at first congratulate Evite on joining the 21st Century, but then a few start to lose it:

I am very dissapointed that evite has chosen to condone this type of lifestyle by offering a specific evite for this alternative type of event. I will no longer use evite due to this.

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Simply Shameful! E-vite just joined the group of companies that contributes to disgraceful behavior.

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I LOVE evite and have been using it for such a long time! I must say that I am disappointed by this new design. I support Molly and Nicole in saying that I am disppointed in Evite for supporting this lifestyle. tsk, tsk...

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You know, people are going to do what they want to do, no matter what others may say or think, but I'm saddened by the outcome of so many believing that same-sex marriage is of God, even when california has approved it. I do love this service, e-vite, but I can't support your service anymore, because of my beliefs, this is not a hateful note and I fear what the world is coming too. Those who believe in same-sex think us, those who don't are all hateful, I am not one of those, I do think you need to read the word of God and find out the real truth in his word. God does love us all and he does not want anyone to go to hell, but it strictly says that those who live for themselves and in sin shall not enter in the kingdom of God. I spoke my peace, just don't bash me for speaking it, I have every right, just as much as the next guy. I may still use the service, It just isn't something I believe in, same-sex marriage, that is. Thank you for your time.

It's like Martha Stewart, Mike Huckabee's MySpace friends, and the Freepi raised children together, in an uholy (but color-coordinated) group marriage.

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Your President Speaks!

Yesterday, in North Little Rock, Arkansas, during a roundtable on housing assistance.

What We Got

Because we got some people who are -- just with some little help, some advice and some counseling will be able to figure out a way to stay in the home.

And Now In The Home!

That's what Patty bought -- she had a home and was very worried about being able to stay in it; got some good advice from Sue and now in the home.

There Is Some Good Programs

There's some good programs coming out of Washington, all aimed at saying to the American citizen, if you are worried about staying in your home, contact a counseling service, we'll help you -- "we" being the collective group of people there in this business, after all, this is a HUD-funded counseling program; you receive some money from HUD for your counseling.

What He Thinks We Can Get Us

Congress can help, when they come back, to pass a good piece of housing legislation that modernizes the FHA and reforms these GSEs. And I think we can get us a bill.

Brainwreck

This is an issue on people's minds. It's an issue where there is good help to be had. And so if people are looking for help here in Arkansas, it's a good place to turn to -- Family Services.

There Is Experts

And there are other places around the country where people can get help, where there's experts that are helping refinance their mortgages or work with their mortgage companies to help you stay in their homes.

The Challenges We Have Got

We're a country that has overcome challenges before -- and we've got some challenges: high gasoline prices, we've got some challenges in the housing industry.

We Depending Too Much!

We depending too much on energy from overseas; we ought to be finding more energy here at home.

More from Cochran on McCain's temper

Sen Thad Cochran told the Sun Herald of an incident back in 1987 when John McCain grabbed a member of the Sandinistas during a meeting on a diplomatic mission to Nicaragua:

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

There were no punches thrown and the two sat back down. The man, who appeared to be ruffled after the confrontation with McCain, was an associate of Ortega's, possibly a lieutenant, but Cochran said he was unsure of his identity.

If They Win This Election

It'll be because they didn't fail hard enough.

Speaking of overpaid athletes, here's a movie I watch every single time I find it on.

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Happy Obama Photo

I can't hear you over the sound.

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Russ Feingold Sends Me E-Mail!

Just me, of course. Not like seven billion other people. Just me.

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Today On Holden's Obsession With [Yesterday's] Gaggle

Peance and Freeance!  Part I:

Q I guess I might ask if you'd please take it -- last night, CBS "60 Minutes" had a horrific feature on the persecution of Christians and I guess other minorities in Iraq and it appears to be getting much worse. Is there anything that our administration -- your administration can do to try to prevent this?

MS. PERINO: Well, this is something that the President has raised with Prime Minister Maliki and our Ambassador is certainly aware of it. The President also spoke about it with the Pope in both of his meetings this year. So it is something that the President gets regularly updated on. He's concerned about it and he thinks that everybody should be allowed to worship freely. And he believes that Prime Minister Maliki agrees with him in that regard -- whether you're Sunni, Shia, Christian, Jew or otherwise -- that everybody should be allowed to worship freely and be free from persecution.

Peance and Freeance!  Part II:

Q U.S. forces in Iraq reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during a raid last Friday on a villa belonging to the Prime Minister's sister, and the villa is in Karbala province, which is supposedly under full Iraqi control. And Iraqi officials said they were not informed about the raid in advance. Was that raid a mistake, and will you issue an apology?

MS. PERINO: I think you'll need to call MNFI. I don't have any information on that.

Les' Unrequited Love For Apartheid

Q Yes, on this. Thank you, Dana. Two questions. Does the White House believe that apartheid South Africa ever killed and tortured as many blacks as Mugabe's Zimbabwe?

MS. PERINO: It would be impossible for me to quantify. I don't know, Les.

Q Does the White House believe that in the United States there have ever been as many demonstrations against Zimbabwe and against Amin's Uganda by black organizations like the NAACP than the 5,000 who picketed the apartheid South African embassy?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that any time anyone -- any time there is suffering or people aren't allowed to live free as everybody is guaranteed the right to under God, as the President has said, that that should be condemned. I'm not going to comment as to how many protests there are against a regime.

Q Well, do you think it was more -- don't you think it was more protests against --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to move on, Les.

Q You don't want to --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to move on. Olivier.

Q You don't want to --

MS. PERINO: I'm going to move on. Olivier.

The Jurisdiction Argument

Not our problem:

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Syrian-born Canadian man who had accused the United States of violating the law and his civil rights after he was detained at Kennedy Airport and sent to Syria under what he claims was an act of “extraordinary rendition.”

The man, Maher Arar, tried to win civil damages from United States officials in his suit, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled that because he was never technically inside the United States, his claims could not be heard in the federal courts.

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Happy Kerry Photo: Because Edition

Okay, I was not angry since I came to France, motherfuckers.

After the 2004 election there was the usual amount of "See, I TOLD YOU SO" from supporters of every other candidate on the planet and Kerry should have done this, Kerry should have done that, and I did as much post-mortem thinking as anybody else, I'm not excusing myself, but let's walk this through for a second. Whatever Kerry should have done or did do or didn't do four years ago, whatever Barack Obama should have done or did do or didn't do today, what these so-called Swift Boat assholes (and thanks, by the way, fuckers, for taking an entire mode of military transportation and making it into an insult on par with "bestial pervert," thanks so much there) did and are doing is the Original Not Okay, and I'm gonna be a hardass about this right now.

Let's not forget, let's not for one second ignore, that the point at which this equation starts to go off the rails is the point at which a bunch of ex-Nixon henchmen crawled out of the slime and, with their repentent-liberal allies in the daddy-don't-hit-me-I'll-be-good wing of the Demoratic party, began once again peddling their bullshit to the American people on TV every night. Their bullshit that the reason your life sucks is because we fucked up Vietnam, that we fucked up Vietnam because of all those hippies back here at home, that nobody would ever have to shoot or beat or fire-hose anybody into submission if only those stupid lefties knew their place, and by the way, now they want to take your Bible away. They broke our society, the hippies and the chicks and the blacks, too, they "went too far," and here's John Kerry, their leader, who deserves to go down for it all. And just like every hippie, he's a liar and a traitor and he sucks.

It's the story of the last 40 years, pushback and backlash, every time we get close to something decent here they come again, with the same old story: It's this guy's fault, not ours. And there's always five or six dozen fucking people willing to take up the position that if only we were quieter, if only we sat down nicely, if only we wore ties to the protests, then they wouldn't HAVE to be such bullies. If we'd just keep it down with our kumbaya, guys, they'd put their clubs away and leave us alone! It's so much easier to look at your friends and give them well-meaning advice than it is to look at your enemies and give them exactly what they deserve, and good and hard while you're at it.

So you know, Kerry should have pushed back harder against these fucks. And Obama shouldn't have played down what Clark said. They both should have greeted these nasty creatures with endless repetitions of the words "Richard" and "Nixon's" and "bitch" over and over and over until somebody started asking you know, whence exactly cometh these unholy throwbacks and why are they still so pissed off at the hippies, anyway? There's a million ways Kerry and Obama should have handled all this differently. I'm right there with you in thinking it and I'd never tell you not to say it. Hell, I'll be saying it myself several times in the next few days, at ever-increasing volume.

I will say this, though, first. Before I start bitching out Obama again, or Clark or any of the various Democrats at present flailing around trying to figure out something that has been evident to the liberal blogosphere for half a decade. Never for a second should our candidates' mistakes and missteps excuse what is being done to them in the name of hate and division. Never. That's on their accusers, that's on those Nixon henchmen. That's on them, and I don't care what Kerry and Obama did or didn't do. That's on them.

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Come On, Come On, Here We Go

Who you calling a bitch?

A day after retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, now an Obama supporter, discussed McCain's experience as a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam on a Sunday talk show, his remarks set off the pattern that has become familiar from innumerable earlier flaps over surrogate remarks during the presidential election year: The candidates, Obama and McCain, took the high road while the bare-knuckled language was left to their surrogates.

Amazing, isn't it, how that just happens all by itself? How with no help from anyone at all, a "pattern" is set off? A "firestorm" is created? All by itself. No, no siree, ain't nobody here marching to anybody's tune but his own. Fuck me black and blue, there is not enough $5 sauvignon blanc to get me through this election season in one piece. Every morning I resolve not to get worked up about this shit, and every afternoon, something so catastrophically dumb happens, like this meeting of the Solipsistic Dumbass Society, Associated Press Chapter, up in here. Screw it, pass me the bottle, just stick a straw in it. Puck, run fetch Mommy a straw.

Clark has said as much before, but drew little notice.

Goddamn, I wonder why that was. Don't it just make you wonder? Why it's a big deal today and not yesterday, yesterday and not the day before? Don't it just confound the ever-loving shit out of you? Could it be because this sort of crap is entirely manufactured and thus entirely worthless not to mention arbitrary? And could those observations perhaps lead just one or two members of our national press corps to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Republicans howling about whatever it is they pull out of the hat this week isn't fucking news anymore?

I mean, if somebody's a proven liar, and the lies he's spouting aren't new, you have yourself right there two reasons not to run with any kind of a story. Yes, Beth Fouhy, even if it's a phenomenon on the Internet. Even if it's all over TV. Even if Chris Matthews is pissing himself and Brit Hume's turning purple with orgiastic glee. Even then, you can still look at the set of circumstances and say, "eh," and go home for the night. Seriously, have a little pride, people. Have a little pride in what you do, and realize that at this point you're not just being played, you are literally WRITING ABOUT YOUR BEING PLAYED AS THOUGH IT IS HAPPENING TO SOMEBODY ELSE AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM.

Puck, sweetheart, c'mere. Mommy's going to show you how to mix her a Wildside. Come over here. Bring the liquor cabinet with you.

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Work To Do (A Few Pictures for Athenae)

Yes, we can.


Roll up those damn sleeves and register voters!


Hells yeah.


We have the awesomest candidate.

And, finally, while I was looking through old posters, I found this.  This is so what my life was like.  Let me tell you.

Yes I did.  This is a 100% accurate depiction of what it was like, too.

Today on Athenae's Obsession With The Freepi: We're Not A Hate Site, You Filthy Bitch, Pt. 2

The Washington Post takes them to task for spreading the Obama/Muslim smear, and they respond with the kind of peace and tolerance that has given them the reputation they have:

That bimbo Danielle Allen doesn't have the first clue about stalking. If I wanted to, I could have her entire credit and employment history, complete criminal history, and a whole bunch of interesting stuff from her neighbors past and present, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it.

I spent enough years doing skiptracing for a major corporation that I could figuratively put a microphone and a camera up her tail, have a good look around, write 'Kilroy was Here' inside her colon, and she would never have a clue.

They later post "that bimbo's" contact information, so you can call her up and tell her what you think. Stay classy, Free Republic.

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Gloating/Excuses

Go read the Crack Den and then go read Oliver and then come back.

And, look, I've been screaming this for years. There's no real point in arguing with people who aren't arguing. They're not coming up with reasons not to vote for Obama. They're coming up with excuses for why they just don' wanna, and it's pointless to get into it. This is like going out and asking Republicans why they're not Democrats and never will be, and then using their answers to prove the Democrats are DOING IT WRONG by not appealing to these people, instead of just accepting that some people aren't Democrats and never will be, shrugging, and moving on to register new voters whose biggest problem isn't that they got an e-mail but that they got a PINK SLIP. Jesus Marie. The fucking earth is caving in and what we want to do is find a half-dozen dickheads that think an e-mail they got is a reason not to vote for somebody? Let them alone. Being in the company of other morons is punishment enough for them. We've got work to do.

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Happy Democrats Photo: BFF Edition

More Happy Dems at the Flickr page, including this piece of brilliance. Real person this, Tweety.

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Exhibit shows how 9th Ward children are coping post-Katrina

From Chris Rose of the Times Picayune:

The Memory Boxes are remembrances of Hurricane Katrina made by students at the Martin Luther King Jr. School for Science and Technology in the Lower 9th Ward -- still the only school that has opened in that beleaguered neighborhood, almost three years after the storm.

They are story boxes, each with its own narrative, almost like time capsules. They are 2 feet by 2 feet, and generally decorated with paint, clay figurines and faces, shapes and objects made from wire or cut out from paper plates, and random indigenous accessories such as Spanish moss and Carnival beads.

But it is the narratives written on note paper or painted inside these boxes that hit home hardest.

"I lost my trust," one of the displays says. "I lost my faith. I lost my confidence. I lost my dad."

It's a far cry from the Dr. Seuss exhibit, to be sure.

Those words were written by a third-grader. For folks around here who insist that everyone should just move on from this thing -- and their numbers seem to be growing -- try telling that to this kid.

Read the rest

Sunday Morning My Head Is Bad*

Tee hee hee.

Well, it's Sunday.  It's absolutely gorgeous here in Madison, and I think I'm gonna spend most of the day outside.  Those of you who don't have that luxury, why not check out this site for some extra fun?  It's my little brother, who's also crabby beyond his years.  Enjoy!

*Extra super-duper bonus First Draft points to the person who knows where the title comes from.  It ain't that hard.