The Deciders, Instincts Strong They Have

So that is the excuse they are floating today to justify not covering the Obama-Blagojevich connection.

SCARBOROUGH: I know, but why didn't somebody investigate this six months ago when Ryan Lizza wrote it?  It's pretty fascinating, because in 2008 we knew he was the most corrupt governor in America.

MIKE BARNICLE: Let me put my newspaper columnist/newspaper editor hat on for you to answer your question about Wasilla, Alaska as opposed to the Blagojevich administration.

SCARBOROUGH: Not Blagojevich--Barack Obama.

BARNICLE: Whatever.  She was the next, new face. No one had ever heard of her. So you're going to send as many people as you can afford up to Alaska to explain to the reading public who she is. You're sitting there, you know Obama, you know the governor of Illinois --

SCARBOROUGH: You don't know Obama.  You can't even tell me whether he ran the 2002 campaign of the most corrupt governor in America.

BARNICLE: I can tell you this much: he was a state senator then, and he ran that campaign about as much as I did.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh really?  How do you know that?

BARNICLE: Just instinct.

SCARBOROUGH: Instinct?

BARNICLE: Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH [at moment of screencap]: Newspaper editor: shouldn't we have facts instead of instinct? That's what everybody's working on: instinct! You know what? I like him! So I expect that he's a really good guy. I hope if I ever run for politics again, I am given this much benefit of the doubt.

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Personally, I Would Prefer The Gold Watch

I guess some folks have a different view of how to celebrate a retirement.

The man had worked at the branch of a major transportation firm in Ritto, Shiga Prefecture. According to the complaint and sources familiar with the incident, about 40 people including the head of the branch and most of the other drivers working there attended a farewell party at an inn in Kusatsu on the evening of Nov. 18, 2007.

During the event, the 60-year-old's colleagues threw him into the air in celebration, but they failed to catch him, and he landed on the tatami floor. He suffered neck and backbone injuries, leaving him with a disability in which he lost the use of his limbs and suffered respiratory failure. He died in September 2008 from blood poisoning.

It was believed that more than three people threw the 60-year-old up into the air, but since the details on who was involved remained unclear, the complaint initially named three people whose involvement was confirmed.

Police have reportedly begun questioning colleagues who took part in throwing the 60-year-old into the air.

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Something To Ponder As I Scrape The Global Warming Off My Car This Morning

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Maybe he should be more selective about who he represents

That's the real, honest-to-God headline to an actual wire story.  Man, I love it when someone else does all the heavy lifting for me.  I'm lazy like that.

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No dogs allowed

Alun Elder-Brown, a blind Briton, recently had a rather unpleasant experience:

Mr Elder-Brown was taking his girlfriend out to celebrate her birthday with her five year-old daughter last week when he was told he would have to leave his dog, Finn, tied up outside.

He showed a card issued by the Institute of Environmental Health Officers certifying he and his dog were allowed into any premises but an argument ensued and the owners threatened to call the police if he did not leave.

"It was humiliating and degrading, especially as there were a lot of people around me," he said.

"I was made to feel like a piece of dirt. They told me I couldn't come in because it was against their religious beliefs to have a dog in the restaurant.

Go ahead and guess whose religious sensibilities were being offended by his guide dog. Yeah, that was easy.

Posted by: Sean M. at 09:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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This buddy of mine

I know a good number of you read The Hostages (and you should, I do, I just need to comment there every now and then), but if you don't you may not have seen This Buddy of Mine, run by one of the commenters over there.  It's a collection of various goofy/stupid stories, and there are definitely some good ones.

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Subprime rant part II

Wait!  Don't go away again!  This one will be shorter, I swear.

Now that I've slammed on the borrowers, let me slam on the lenders for a bit.  No, not for making the loans in the first place.  Well, not entirely.  Long, hard looks need to be given to the various access to lending programs to see if these programs turned from "goals" into "requirements".  I know what I think happened.  No, this is about something else.

Yes, I'll put it in the extended entry to spare y'all.
more...

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Sorry, server was down

But it is back up now.

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These kids will never be judged, I'm sure

My hubby sees a lot of...creative names working for an urban school district, for instance, the kid named Se7en, the kid named Orangelo, the teacher who has legally had her last name removed and her first name changed to a symbol. I think this goes beyond creative into four-percenter territory, though.

JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell and Adolf Hitler Campbell.

Good names for a trio of toddlers? Heath and Deborah Campbell think so. The Holland Township couple has picked those names and the oldest child, Adolf Hitler Campbell, turns 3 today.

Of course, this is making the news because a grocery store has refused to put "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler" on the kid's birthday cake.

I don't think the parents have thought this through at all. The dad's a little scrawny thing. I suppose this is a workable way to build hate into kids at an early age, though - the name combined with sticking a mullet on a three-year-old will ensure the kids have been beaten up so many times by junior high, they won't be able to help but be little walking balls of hostility.

Update: here's the link to the article.

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I Thought Zookeepers Knew What To Feed Animals

You would have thought they knew that a bunch of primates eating sprouts would lead to this, but I guess not.

'Sprouts can cause bouts of flatulence in animals and humans. But I don't think any of us were prepared for a smell that strong,' said Michael Riozzi of Chessington Zoo in Surrey.

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Divorce, DINK Style

DINK, for the uninitiated, stands for Dual Income, No Kids, which is the way more and more married couples live. And, predictably, when these marriages end, the custody hearings could become as unique and contentious as those involving couples with children. And more and more, dogs are caught in the middle of the new DINK divorces.

They are increasingly being asked to draw up legal agreements to set out custody and 'dog visiting rights'.

In some cases, feuding couples have spent up to £25,000 on court battles, which have involved calling in animal behaviour experts.

Partners who lived together but never married are also drawing up agreements after splitting.

Grant Howell, a family law partner at London firm Charles Russell, said one couple's row about access to their Jack Russell terrier had become so acrimonious the court felt it necessary to settle the dispute first because it was distracting from other points of the divorce.

'With animals it becomes very emotional,' he added. 'It's almost a peg on which to hang all the other frustrations and to try and get the better of the other person.'

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Maybe They Should Have Just Eloped

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of spending damn near $30,000 on a wedding, including, a horse-drawn carriage, is a tad pretentious. But, until this story, I never thought of it as dangerous.

Paramedics arrived and the bride's fiance, Karl Woods, was summoned from St Leonard's Church, in Bretforton, Worcestershire.

'I was waiting at the church when one of my friends came running up and said something terrible had happened to Sophie,' said Mr Woods, 36, who runs a clothes shop in Evesham.

'When we got there she was lying in the road covered in blood with a paramedic telling her not to move.' Miss Clarke, an accountant from South Littleton, was taken to hospital in a neck brace.

The £15,000 ceremony and reception for which she had spent years preparing, was cancelled. Reliving the experience, she said: 'Something spooked the horse. We thought we were going to die because we were heading for the railway crossing.

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One More Reason To Avoid Exercise

You never know what you will encounter while jogging.

The Darwin trio - two aged 18 and one 17 - allegedly bared all at the Nightcliff jetty before "shaking their genitals at each other" and jumping into the sea, police said yesterday.

But the nude act did not put a smile on NT surf life saving chief executive Tony Snelling, who said the trio were lucky to be alive.

"Jumping into the sea at this time of the year is absolutely stupid," he said.

"Coastal waters at this time of year have swarms of box jellyfish - one of the most venomous creatures on the planet. These jellyfish can kill and have caused more than 60 deaths in Australia over the past 100 years.

"They are difficult to see in the water because the main body of the jellyfish is colourless, but they have 40 ore more tentacles, each of which may be up to 2m long," Mr Snelling said.

A male passer-by reported the incident to police about 6.30am. The trio received an on-the-spot fine, worth $110, for the nude dash.

"They were fined for indecent behaviour in a public place," Sen-Sgt Harrison said.

It was not known if alcohol was involved [duh-ed]. Surf Life Saving NT used the case to urge Top Enders to wear protective clothes when entering the water.

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I Actually Have Faith In Humanity

Beer is returning to Sudan.

Entrepreneurs on bicycles would ride the rutted roads to Uganda, bringing back as many crates of alcohol as they could carry. Today restaurants in Juba offer wines, beers and spirits.

Finding alcohol in northern Sudan, however, remains difficult, though not impossible. In colonial times, British officers would sip pink gins or mugs of Camel beer in Khartoum's network of members-only clubs.

These, along with the British-built Blue Nile Brewery that produced Camel in Khartoum, dried up with the arrival of Sharia.

In recent years one restaurant in Khartoum became famous for serving beer in teapots — one just had to know to order the “special tea”.

Another establishment offered imported Tusker lager from Kenya; waiters would discreetly ask whether any Sudanese would be joining the table, before placing an empty bottle of alcohol-free lager on the table next to a full glass of the real thing.

Even these places have gone dry in the past two years and Westerners now have to rely on contacts at embassies or the UN, who are legally entitled to bring alcohol into the country.

The new brewery in Juba is expected to be up and running by February, taking water from the White Nile and producing soft drinks as well as the first Sudanese beer for many years.

David Raad, an advisor to SAB Miller, said: “The recipe is still being worked on but the market here prefers a lighter, crisper beer — a lager.”

South Sudan was left chronically underdeveloped by the civil war. Three years of peace has begun to change that, with new schools, hospitals and roads, but much of Juba is still given over to tent cities, where aid workers, businessmen and diplomats live and work while waiting for more permanent structures to be built.

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Remember, you voted for Sarah

This would probably be funny if it wasn't, for the most part, true.  Ugh.

(Via the comments here.)

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Bacon Rice Krispie Treats!

Bacon Rice Krispie Treats!

(h/t)

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Another reminder that the 2010 cycle has already started

Good news!  The GOP already has a seat to defend in 2010:

Less than a week after being reappointed as the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) will announce that he will not seek a tenth term in 2010, according to a source with knowledge of the decision.

[...]

Hoekstra will become the latest Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee to announce his departure from the lower chamber. The second-ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Terry Everett (Ala.), is retiring this year, while Rep. Heather Wilson (N.M.) lost a bid for Senate in 2008.

The retirement list could still grow. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) is considering a bid for a Senate seat left open by the retirement of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), the third-ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, had to be convinced to run for a twelfth term in 2008, leaving some to wonder whether he will run again in two years.

The good news is that he is said to be contemplating a run for governor.  He's starting out with a handicap in that he's not a complete idiot, so his election to a statewide office in Michigan will be difficult.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 01:25 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So who are the 4 percent?

I was listening to Hannity's Man on the Street last Friday and chuckling over the repeated dead air when the victims were asked, "Do you know what a Blagovejich is?" I was guessing that these people lived nowhere near Illinois, especially since the only person who answered correctly was admittedly drunk. I think I was wrong.

Most polls had the governor's approval rating in the low two digits, from 16% to about 25%, but a recent survey had Blago (as the Illinois public has grown to call him, unflatteringly) at an incredible subbasement-level 4%.

So who the hell are the four percent of Illinoisans that still approve of Blago?  Is "He's a four-percenter" going to be the new label for someone who is so far into idjitdom that it's beyond even moron comprehension?  Have they started polling lockdown dementia patients after sunset for approval ratings?  Instead of asking, "WTF is wrong with Wisconsin?", will we soon be asking,  "WTF is wrong with four percent of Illinois?" 

Posted by: Alice H at 11:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Baby, it's cold outside (and we're all gonna die)

It's been cold this year, so you know what that means...

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

That's right. If it's hot, it's an indication that Global Warming is a problem. If it's cold, that's even stronger evidence of Global Warming.

(h/t)

Posted by: Sean M. at 11:04 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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McCain just earned a big steaming pile of 'Screw You'

I'm sure you'll agree.

Speaking to ABC's "This Week," McCain was asked whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin could count on his support.

"I can't say something like that. We've got some great other young governors. I think you're going to see the governors assume a greater leadership role in our Republican Party," he said.

I'm hoping he doesn't run again in 2010, because I can't see how he's going to raise any sort of funds to get re-elected.  He owes a huge debt to Sarah for keeping him from being completely embarrassed in the November election, and this is how he repays her.

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