When you gonna drop Magnum on us, buddy?

This gallery of movie stars posing in shots that call back their iconic roles years later is chock full of WIN. Probably my favorite out of the bunch...

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!

For the last month or so the local radio stations have been playing an advertisement for Schuck's Auto Supply which mention that a good way to save gas would be to make sure you aren't carrying around junk in your trunk and that your tires are at the correct pressure. Sensible suggestions to most normal people on the planet who don't live daily suffering from the dreaded effects of Cranial Posterior Immersion.

This weekend the McCain campaign collectively mocked Barack Obama's recent suggestion that consumers do the same. McCain surrogates went so far as to carry tire gauges into interviews as props, claiming that demonstrates the sum total of Obama's energy policy.

This is part of the reason many of us work hard to try and avoid news of politics these days. If the presidential primary was largely made up of "silly season" then the general election has swung fully into "stupid season." Fueled mostly by the coordinated strategy of Republican political strategists working for McCain and a drooling, moronic media that continues to simply let them get away with the most outrageous bullshit imaginable.

In a sane world somebody like McCain supporter Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty would whip out tire gauge during an interview and claim this was Obama's energy policy the reporter would burst into laughter, turn off the mike and shut of the camera and tell Pawlenty to take a hike until he wanted to give an interview that wasn't composed of childish talking points.

This is what I let drive up my blood pressure. Not that these boneheads push this stupid crap but that the media doesn't call them on it. It's infuriating because it's a challenge to the very concept of objective reality, not objectivity.

Conservatives try an innoculate themselves from being called on this crap by trying to make it sound like those of us grounded in objective reality are elitist. It's considered bad form to call conservatives stupid or dumb.

Fuck that. Conservatives that repeat this stuff are slope-browed, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging morons. They're idiots who add absolutely nothing, zip, nada to the discourse. In fact---
Conservatives are so dumb they got hit by a parked car.

Conservatives are so dumb they tried to put M&Ms in alphabetical order.

Conservatives are so dumb they tripped over a cordless phone.

Conservatives are so dumb they got locked out of a motorcycle.

Conservatives are so dumb I told them drinks were on the house and they went and grabbed a ladder.

Conservatives are so dumb they think Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company.

Whew. I feel a little better.

How bout I answer your question with another question; how many abo-digitals do you see modelling?

What's funny about this FOX News interview with President Bush is that you really do get the sense the guy sees himself as some sort of sagacious elder statesman dispensing wisdom to the ignorant masses rather than the guy who struggles with the cap on his toothpaste and almost chokes to death on pretzels. Not all of us spent the first forty years of our lives on a coke binge, Mr. President. Some of us have actually been interested in how the world works since we were children.

"If John (McCain) is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative, and I'll be glad to help him if he is the nominee," Bush said on "Fox News Sunday.

If McCain's the nominee won't he at that point need to focus on convincing people that he's NOT conservative or crazy? Won't he have to put on his "uniter" costume?

"In his first expansive public discussion of the 2008 election, the president also depicted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as a political mystery whose muddled foreign policy would have the United States attack an ally and coddle an enemy."

"Muddled?" As in the rational discharge of U.S. influence through diplomatic and military means? Realpolitik? You know; the thing you threw out the window the minute you were sworn in.

Bush brushed off their high-profile disagreements over the years on issues such as taxes and interrogation policies, depicting them as natural for any senator. "The question I asked myself, and I hope voters ask, [is] what are the principles by which this person will be making decisions?"

Actually this is a good point. If the next President will be making decisions using the same bedrock principles President Bush utilized then voters would be cautioned to run screaming in the other direction.

As for conservatives who doubt McCain, he said: "If you're seeking, looking for perfection, you'll never find that person. I certainly wasn't a perfect candidate for a lot of folks."

As bad a candidate as you were you were an even worse President.

Of course President Zoolander finishes his interview with this wonderful Bushian question:

"The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack," he said. "And for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them, which attack would they rather have not . . . stopped?"

The one involving the abo-digitals, Mr. President.

What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read... if they can't even fit inside the building?

So after he retires Bush plans on founding the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too. He wants to call it the "Freedom Institute.” Left unsaid is the only freedom Bush would be qualified to speak on would have to be of the tampon variety. The actual concept of "freedom" is way beyond his limited presidential intellect.

Oh, Snap!

Glenn Greenwald has the goods on the Specter bill. Harry Reid said on a conference call that - if it makes it to the floor - it will be fillibustered hard and rode home wet.

If you have the time you can read the bill (pdf) here. I've spend some time punching through it trying to see if the clearly unconstitutional retro-active application of the changes to FISA was still included but one passage from "findings" section where Specter is outlining the necessity of the bill really struck me. He is using the failure to nail Zacarias Moussaoui by the FBI as proof that the FISA law is to restrictive as stands.

"For days before September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspected that confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was planning to hijack a commercial plane. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, could not meet the requirements to obtain a traditional warrant or an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to search his laptop computer (Report of the 9/11 Commission 273-76)" (emphasis mine)

Specter sure makes it sound like the FISA court denied the FBI's request for a warrant, doesn't he? If one took the bill at face value and assumed the 9/11 Commission Report said exactly what they said then one would certainly be left with that impression.

I didn't. I read through the pages of the report covering Moussaoui and found this-

This set off a spirtited debate between the Minneapolis Field Office, FBI headquarters and the CIA as to whether the Chechen rebels and Khattab were sufficiently associated with terrorist a organization to constitute a "foreign power" for the purposes of the FISA statute. FBI headquarters did not believe this was good enough, and its National Security Law Unit declined to submit a FISA application."

Say it ain't so. Arlen "magic bullet" Specter isn't shooting straight in his FISA reform bill?

Next thing you'll tell me Brittany Spears is a bad parent or Colin Farrell has an anger management problem.