Good? He is not good, he's terrible, he's the worst.. there is not any man like him anywhere in the world!

Poor conservatives. It's almost like the universe has it out for them. Jindal says volcano monitoring is a waste and a big ol' volcano erupts right in the middle of the republicanist state with the republicanist governor in the country. DHS releases a report warning that right wing violence may ensue out of frustration at the election, the righty talking heads go apeshit and just a few months later a wave of right wing terrorism sweeps the land.

They just can't catch a break. Reality keeps tieng them up, stuffing a gimp ball in their mouth and shoving them roughly into a chest.

Yet, like happy little troopers they aren't going to let the fact that they live in a world built wholly of delusion constructed out of the combined imagination of people like Malkin, Beck, Rand (*) or Goldberg. They're the energizer bunnies of bullshit.

Triumph of the Will indeed.

The current Champions of Asshattery have to be Sarah Palin and her legions of mouth-breathing followers who are taking the art of manufactured outrage to 11.

It's clear to any sentient being (and most of the non-sentient elements listed on the periodic table for that matter) that David Letterman's joke about Palin's daughter was aimed at Bristol Palin, not the 14-year old nobody outside of Eastern Crazy Wingnutia has ever heard of. This is the same adult Bristol Palin that's spent the last few months dancing around on my teevee babbling about not engaging in any acts of depravity before you were ready. Once you're old enough; deprave away! I know I like to deprave every chance I get.

Just a few remarks culled from the legions of Big Thinkers defending Palin-

Palin is dead-on. Letterman is expired. NBC is garbage. This backsliding American culture keeps lowering the morality bar lower and lower. Palin and others who stand up to the fall should be praised. - American

CBS should fire lettermen, i will avoid there sponsors,criminal action should be taken and letterman should be listed as a child porn person.he should have to register as a sex offender. - Chad

Letterman is a moronic pig. No matter what I think about Palin, Letterman is pathetic and will do anything for attention. The disgusting thing is that democrats just love him and as long as he's spitting over the fence, they don't care who he offends. - Richard

I know, I know. You're probably reading those comments and thinking to yourselves the same thing I'm thinking - "I'm hungry. I wonder how long that sandwich has been in the fridge at work and will my coworker miss it if I snag the the thing?"

You also might be having some of the other same things going through your mind as I did after regarding those comments. Why does the mainstream media cover this nonsense? Who are the pond scum that are on Letterman's case and why am I developing that eye tic that's making me look like Clouseau's Chief Inspector Dreyfus?

When you were young did you ever play a board game with a friend that didn't like losing so they just made up new rules as the game went along? Didn't it make YOU feel crazy? That's how I feel when I turn on the television or read the newspaper these days.

You know who the sanest among us are? People like liberality or Fran who pretty much dropped blogging about politics. They've made a wise, healthy decision not to abide crazy.

Good on 'em.

Also for indecent exposure... doesn't anyone wear any clothes around here?

That's no baton...

Nude Sunbather Attacks Man With Baton, Police Say

I see you are familiar with the falling-down-on-the-floor ploy.

Happy Friday! Here's the second chapter of my murder mystery--

Chapter Two: Death Punches Back on the Clock

Homicide Detective Sean O’Hallahan was staring at the weirdest crime scene he’d ever seen.

An hour ago he was blissfully asleep. He’d been enjoying a particularly pleasurable dream in which Katherine McPhee was feeding him grapes when his ringing cell phone rudely dragged him into consciousness. The last thing he remembered thinking to himself as he watched McPhee fade out of his vision was “what kind of idiot has a job which would call you at three in the morning?”

He was that idiot.

What made it even worse is that it couldn’t have been the desk sergeant or dispatch but had to be Captain Chancey himself on the other end of the line. Captain Chancey only had one mode of communicating: yelling. He yelled at his boss. He yelled at his subordinates. He yelled at his wife, kids and goldfish. Now he was yelling at O’Hallahan.

“I need you to get your ass out to the Ponderosa estate!” he screamed. “Dead heiress. You're up!”

“Who tagged it homicide?” O’Hallahan asked.

“McGrue,” replied Chancey. “Now get your ass down there now!”

O’Hallahan sighed. Officer Mike McGrue was actually nicknamed “Officer Magoo” by the rest of the cops. He was unquestionably the worst policeman on the force. Magoo was notorious for an off-duty incident in which he completed a personal deposit during an armed bank robbery without noticing anything irregular, least of all the three guys waving Uzis around the place. It was only when he walked out the front door and into a ring of squad cars and shotguns pointed at him that he realized something wasn’t quite right.

Now Magoo was the reason O’Hallahan was standing in an enormous foyer staring at this bizarre death scene and wishing he was still in bed. There was no justice in the world.

By the looks of things Mrs. Ponderosa had taken quite a fall down the bulk of the long stairway and landed squarely on top of the baby grand piano at the foot of the stairs. The impact of her fall had crushed the piano with the piano returning the favor.

O’Hallahan couldn’t help but darkly observe that with her large polka-dotted feet sticking out of the wrecked piano it reminded him of the Wizard of Oz only this time the Wicked Witch of the East fell on Dorothy’s house and not the other way around.

The bespectacled officer Magoo was on the other of the piano standing next to a statue of Venus. O’Hallahan wondered if Magoo didn’t realize it wasn’t real and was trying to chat her up. Might as well get this over with. He shambled over to Magoo.

“Mike,” muttered O’Hallahan. “Whataya got?”

Magoo snapped to attention, startled. “Just a second, baby,” he whispered to the statue. He grabbed O’Hallahan’s arm and led him closer to the body of dumpy heiress.

“Notice anything funny about the belt?” he asked O’Hallahan.

O’Hallahan immediately felt himself turning red. He knew it. He’d been dragged down here in the middle of the night for some bullshit reason. Of course this was lost on Magoo, who continued babbling out his theory.

“The belt. It’s a Sashay but the print is all wrong,” said Magoo. “They don’t do a zebra-skin.”

O’Hallahan realized there was a whole hell of a lot he didn’t know about Magoo and for that he was thankful.

“Not only that, but check out the flange on the buckle. It’s aluminum, which is ridiculous on this style, and it’s been bent.”

O’Hallahan looked closely at the belt. He may not understand fashion as well as Magoo but he did get an "A" in metal shop in high school. Sure enough the buckle was discolored and bent in an unnatural fashion.

“Are you saying somebody tampered with her belt?” O’Hallahan asked.

Magoo was triumphant. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. This woman was murdered.”

It dawned on O’Hallahan as he watched Magoo move back over to the statue of Venus and sheepishly put his arm around it that, for the first time in his career as a police officer, Magoo may actually be right about something.

Charisma Ponderosa, heiress to the Ponderosa Kitty Litter Corporation fortune, had been murdered.


Chapter One: Charisma Hits the Dance Floor.

Of course it won't be easy; nothing worthwhile ever is. That is why I have always failed where others have succeeded.

A wise sensei once told me "never take the elephant's droppings for food." He was speaking of course of Oregonian columnist David Reinhard. A man who dares to find no thought too banal, no idea too rote to work into his droppings, er column. He is a living, breathing embodiment of an RNC blastfax and the wise avoid his column at their own intelectual peril. (studies show that reading Reinhard's columns kills brain cells somewhere between the scope of a shot of 151 rum and a major concussion.)

Today the intrepid GOP stenographer double-dutch dares both President Bush and the critics of the war in Iraq to answer a series of questions. Three years into the war and you have questions David? Better late than never, I guess.

And the answers? Well, both sides might try sparing us the certitudes and sloganeering that have come to characterize our Iraq debates. Humility and honesty would go further. Really, we're well past the point in Iraq where anybody can be quite sure they have the answer. It's a bit more complex than that.

Translation: Of course one side was completely wrong and the other side was completely right on how the war would turn out but let's just put that aside and pretend that those of us who were completely wrong can pretend we're on the same intellectual footing and not dumber than a box of rocks.

I'll skip his questions to Bush as irrelevant. They're questions the CIC should have had to ask and answer before the war. It's only because of the shouting down of critics by tools like Reinhard that he didn't. So let's skip ahead to his tough questions for critics-

What leads you to believe a "surge" won't work?

I dunno, maybe because the generals say it won't? Maybe it's because the conflict is beyond military resolution.

Would you support any military option other than the withdrawal of U.S. forces?

I might have three years ago. Now the point is moot.

What is your plan? Specifics, please.

Murtha's phased withdrawal was just fine with me and the details are readily available. Not that you're really interested in the specifics, but would rather "sloganeer" Murtha as a cut n'runner.

Is it fair to criticize Bush for not having more troops right after the fall of Saddam Hussein while criticizing him for advocating more troops now?

Only to those who aren't neoconservative simpletons and understand (and understood) what a small window of opportunity we had at the end of the initial conflict to build a working democracy.

Is the world better off without Saddam?

No. Isn't that clear to most mature adults with at least two working brain cells? Oh, wait.

If a U.S. pullout led to increased Iraqi violence, would you accept responsibility for the additional bloodshed?

The bloodshed is inevitable, troops are not. It falls on you and yours that advocated and prosecuted this war as to the responsibility. If a car runs off the road into a lake and begins sinking and the driver tells a passenger it's his turn to get behind the wheel it doesn't make that passenger responsible for the disaster.

Do you believe the Iraqis are capable of representative government and living in peace with each other?

Maybe, but not under any government or plan put together by American conservatives.
What would be the consequences of a U.S. defeat in Iraq?

What's your plan to manage the consequences of such a defeat?

Save American lives and keep you and yours the hell away from the reigns of power for the rest of my God given lifetime.

Would U.S. failure in Iraq enhance Iranian and Syrian power across the Mideast?

You mean more than "success" has?

Would it matter if Iran and Syria became more powerful in the Mideast?

A question that you should have been asking your side before the war, but since you didn't care then why should I take that question seriously now?

Would a U.S. defeat in Iraq be a victory for Islamic terrorists?

Define "defeat." Or "victory" for that matter. For one thing the loss of our constitutional freedoms here has done more for the cause of Islamic terrorists than anything that's happened in Iraq.

Would a victory for Islamic terrorists in Iraq be a plus or minus in the war on terror?

See question above. The two things are not related outside the feverish imagination of second-rate conservative thinkers, Mr. Thick-as-a-brick.

Do you think "victory" is possible in Iraq?

It's inconcievable under this administration and with conservatives guiding foreign policy.

Would you even favor U.S. victory in Iraq if it were possible?

How long have YOU been beating your wife, Dave?

I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one.

Apologies for the Peter Sellers posts twice in a row but when I read this headline:

"White House Calls Iranian Letter a Ploy"

I could only hear Clouseau saying "Ah, ze old Iranian letter ploy."

The article itself is full of all sorts of humorous absurdities. How can something that quotes Ambassador (shouldn't it be "Acting Ambassador?") to the United Nations John Bolton who does his best Edward G. Robinson impression:

Iranians are always interested in talking right before everyone puts the squeeze on them….

"See youze guys, we're gonna put the squeeze on them with our heaters and if they don't see things our way they'll be swimming with the fishes."

There is one useful observation, though. Of course it's not made by anyone in the administration--

"The U.S. is thinking we should exhaust the stick before we try the carrot, and the international community is thinking we should exhaust the carrot before we try the stick," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank in Washington.

I'd just add that we don't really have a stick anymore as most of our stick happens to be stuck in Iraq. At best we can muster a small branch, probably more like a twig.

When it comes to pushing Iran around we just don't have the wood.