Are Republicans completely stupid?

I mean honestly.  How could the Republican Party let this special election in NY-20 get so close?  It's going to a recount. 

And, I know this may get me kicked out of conservatism (or something), but the voters are just as idiotic.  What the hell is up with voting for a Democrat because they say they're pro-gun or pro-life or pro/anti-whatever?  They fucking lie to you.  They think/know that you don't pay any attention to the things they do in DC.  They campaign on being pro-life, then they vote to bring pro-abortion bills to the floor knowing that they'll pass without their vote.  

When will you people wake the fuck up?  Say what you want about the Dems but, with very few exceptions, there aren't that many Democratic districts in Republican hands.  In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Rep. Cao in New Orleans. 

Geesh.  Rant over.

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:49 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Nuance

So, the Obama Administration has decided it wants to be a part of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which serves mainly as a forum for bashing our staunchest ally in the Middle East. I found the following very interesting:

Asked if Washington would attempt to shield Israel from criticism if it wins a seat on the council, [US ambassador to the UN Susan] Rice said, "The Human Rights Council has the potential to be and should be a venue for dealing with the most egregious instances of human rights abuses."

"And we are running for a seat on the council because we believe that human rights are universal, they need to be universally respected," she added.

Um, notice that she didn't, you know, actually answer the question. Huh.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:20 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Let it not be said that I don't have good timing

Headline: "Taliban Leader Vows To Attack D.C. 'Soon.'"

This weekend I'm moving to DC, about 10 blocks from the Capitol Building and a stone's throw from Nationals Stadium.  Should be fun. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 05:13 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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I've Heard Of Unique Uses For A Flashlight, But This Takes The Cake

I mean, if this fellow wanted to cheer himself up, he should have just chosen some booze.

Mr Shannon continued: “He volunteered to police that he had a stick and a torch inserted in his anus for sexual gratification. He had inserted it because he was depressed.”

Posted by: eddiebear at 04:57 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Hoe many people does it take to carry a teleprompter?

Obama is taking 500 staffers with him to the G20 summit. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 03:26 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Who is Richard Alpert?

I just caught up with "Lost" for the season and I have no one to talk to about it, so I'm gonna talk to you all below the fold.

more...

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 03:18 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment
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The Bailout Is Starting To Resemble Riding On The Back Of A Crocodile To Help You Get Across A Stream

because while you may get halfway across the stream, the crocodile will eventually stop and eat you. It's in its nature.

Kinda like asking The Man for help. Eventually, The Man will eat you too. And this looks like Phase I.

The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."

The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)

The legislation is expected to come before the full House for a vote this week, and, just like the AIG bill, its scope and retroactivity trouble a number of Republicans. "It's just a bad reaction to what has been going on with AIG," Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a committee member, told me. Garrett is particularly concerned with the new powers that would be given to the Treasury Secretary, who just last week proposed giving the government extensive new regulatory authority. "This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling," Garrett said.

Posted by: eddiebear at 10:02 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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What? Were Allahpundit And Peggy Noonan Unavailable For Comment?

Personally, I don't care either way about Glenn Beck, since I have scant opportunity to see or hear his various productions. But this review of his show by Keith Olbermann fanboy Brian Stelter and some other guy did have one interesting comment from a critic.

The "conservative" writer David Frum said Mr. Beck's success "is a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility."

Scare quotes and change in hue were my doing, by the way.

Posted by: eddiebear at 09:55 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Taken out of context

"To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling and weighing the toads and then euthanizing them was just...The children really got into the character of the event."

Uh, no, actually, that's pretty much in context. I'm not sure if Australians are budding psychopaths at an early age or if this particular city councilman needs to have his basement checked for a layer of limestone covering a bunch of dead bodies.

Posted by: Alice H at 09:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Alamogordo, the musical

While you rubes in flyover country were busy listening to your Rush Limbaugh talk-radio-hatefests, your cultural betters were busy watching this:



Unfortunately, no, I don't think it's some sort of elaborate joke.

Posted by: Sean M. at 04:44 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Smoke 'em if you got 'em

If you're a smoker like me (yeah, yeah, I know...it's a filthy habit) you might want to run out and stock up before the new massive and punitive tobacco tax increase wonderful expansion of health care For The Children!!!11one!!1!â„¢ takes effect on Wednesday.

Now, let us pause for a moment and think about how this tax hike makes any goddamn sense.  Sure, it's supposed to pay for government programs while, at the same time, discouraging people from buying the products that are already heavily taxed to pay for those very same government programs.  Uh-huh.  If you think that's in any way rational or a good idea, go ahead and punch yourself in the dick.  Or buy an economics textbook, maybe.

Posted by: Sean M. at 01:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Zombie Hooker Nightmare!

Best game ever?  I dunno.  Haven't played it yet, but the title is promising. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:13 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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abusing the posting privileges again

I've had a singularly craptastic day so instead of railing about the insanity of the universe I'm going to think about how much I love Gambit.  Even if Remy is a gigantic douche. 

Pic below the cut due to size.  Sadly not due to NSFWness. 

more...

Posted by: alexthechick at 08:46 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Surprise!

What was that again about Obama, promises, and expiration dates?

When President Obama signed the omnibus land conservation bill this afternoon, he again broke his campaign promise to post bills on the Web for five days before adding his signature.

The bill passed the House last Wednesday, but the White House did not post the document for comments until Friday, leaving just two weekend days for the public to register comments.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs addressed the shortened time saying: "Although not perfect, I think the president has made a greater step forward in transparency and feels like we're making progress on ensuring that the American people can see and read what their president is going to sign into law."

Gibbs was later tried for and found guilty of heresy for his statement that Barack Obama is "not perfect."

Seriously, though, I'm starting to wonder whether or not I'll actually ever receive my free unicorn.

Update: I should note that the article goes on to mention that this is the sixth out of nine bills that Obama has signed so far that he's neglected to post online for the promised five days. It also gives the White House's lame excuse that the President is leaving for his tour of Europe and Turkey on Tuesday. Yeah, so? Why not wait until he gets back to sign this? It's not like this was an emergency, and the public would have had extra time to view the bill for even more of that promised transparency.

Why, if I didn't know any better, I might think that he didn't give a shit about keeping his promises.

Posted by: Sean M. at 08:39 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Has Australia finally found a workable solution to the cane toad?

The cane toad has been a serious ecological problem for Australia for a long time.  They introduced the toads as a predator for a certain type of beetle that was destroying sugar cane.  Turned out that the toad wasn't a very efficient killer of these beetles to begin with, but it was however killing a lot of the native species that were trying to eat the poisonous toad.  Interesting solution they're offering up.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 07:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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No, Patterico doesn't hate Rush

I never thought he did, but apparently he felt it necessary to prove it.  I think, all the personal drama between him and Goldstein aside (and I mean every last grisly bit of it), Pat's overall a good soldier.  Occasionally he throws out a weird one, but at least he isn't endlessly antagonistic to conservatives or conservatism.  Certainly he should get credit for how relentlessly he hounds the LAT. 

I don't think we should dismiss Patterico, and if you're on Patterico's side, you shouldn't dismiss Goldstein either.  Jeff has a lot to bring to the table regarding classical liberalism, individualism, language and intentionalism.  I think ugliness of the personal drama is starting to eclipse the original debate, which was of critical substance.  As I said in my first commentary on the whole thing, we need both of them.  I meant it.  I don't think it serves any of us well to have Pat and Jeff completely destroying each other, or their readers trying to do the same by proxy in comments and elsewhere.  I'm hoping they call a truce at some point, and this goes back to being solely a philosophical argument.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 07:26 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I May Not Like My Mother-In-Law, But This Is Ridiculous

I mean, it's just better to post snarky, passive-aggressive comments about her behind a wall of fake intertube goodness.

Bosnian Miroslav Miljici wanted revenge after blaming his wife's mum for the break-up of his marriage.

And when his mother-in-law survived the rocket attack on her home, he tried to finish her off with a machine gun, a court in Doboj, Bosnia, was told.

Amazingly, she survived both attacks with barely a scratch, judges heard.

In defence Miljici - jailed for six years for attempted murder - told the court he could no longer take his mother-in-law's nagging.

Posted by: eddiebear at 12:03 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Remember Ray "Chocolate" Nagin?

Looks like he is as skilled at managing his real estate as he is in managing New Orleans.

According to a Dallas television station, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is in danger of losing his Dallas-area townhome.

At issue is approximately $1,500 in late fees reportedly owed to a homeowner association.

The station, KTVT, reports that Mayor Nagin could lose the home in the suburbs of Dallas over the issue.

The Mayor and his wife own the home in Frisco. It is a 1,700 square foot home that the Mayor purchased after Hurricane Katrina in 2007.

Court papers show that the homeowners association will foreclose on the property April 7.

The court filings also show that the association placed a lien on the townhome back in February.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Behold The Glories Of The Nanny State

When Fail Britannia isn't busy tagging pensioners for speeding on their Model T vehicles, they are invoking "health and safety" rules to keep neighbors from saving a family trapped in a burning house.

Another witness said some friends and neighbours ignored the police warnings and tried to reach the family with ladders and a hosepipe. But again the police intervened and stopped them.

Chris Richardson, 37, said: 'It was shocking. I couldn't believe the police were acting like that.

'One woman climbed over the garden fence and went to the house but there was a policeman at the back who stopped her.'

Firemen using breathing apparatus-found Mr Colley, a DIY store supervisor, in the master bedroom with his wife. Sophie was in another bedroom and Louis on the landing.

Witnesses said police arrived 'several minutes' before firemen but South Yorkshire police refused to give the exact time, citing 'data protection' rules.

Detective Superintendent Peter McGuinness said: 'I would like to commend our officers. The Fire Brigade were only minutes away but our officers were faced with a raging fire. They handled the incident as professionally as we would expect and then worked long into the night.'

Experts said the blaze was not suspicious.

Posted by: eddiebear at 11:07 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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What did noted conservative firebrand Meghan McCain do this weekend?

Why, attend Perez Hilton's 31^st birthday party in West Hollywood, of course.  Her gift to him was not saying how "in love" she was with the Republican Party every two or three minutes. 

She seems to love people who spend the last year or so telling the world that her dad is New Hitler. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 10:49 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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