Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Headlines - Wednesday

Hoekstra's defense: "uhhhhh, is, uhhhhhhhhhh, ya know..."

After yesterday's news of this embarrassing screw-up:

Someone other than Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra appears to have purchased the URL petehoekstra.com and the results aren't exactly promising for the Michigan Republican.

... the site's authors lash out at the lawmaker for fundraising off the bungled airline bombing that took place on Christmas Day. They also take glee in reminding Hoekstra that he failed to register the website they now run.

... Hoekstra defended the pesky little oversight:

We went out and registered a number of campaign sites. To believe that we could go out and register ever every potential campaign site that might in some way be affiliated or pop up when someone typed in my name, uhhhhh, is, uhhhh, ya know, what people do in this new Internet world.

Uhhhhh, uhhhhh, it was petehoekstra.com, for crying out loud.

So, if some (misguided) voter is looking for information on Hoekstra, they could potentially decide that petehoekstra might in some way be affiliated with Pete Hoekstra, type it in and here's what will pop up:  

buffoon

Pure comedy gold.

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World's tallest building, a half-mile-tall skyscraper, opens in Middle East. 
 
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Both parties handicapped in 2010
 
Hey look, it's 2010. Election year. The good news for Republicans is that Democrats have spent the last half of 2009 blowing it. The good news for Democrats is that voters don't seem to have forgotten that Republicans suck. Still, the GOP is poised to be the big winner in November, provided nothing much changes between now and then -- which is an impossible expectation. How big might the Republicans win be? Despite the hullabaloo about a "big Republican year," most give them a very slim chance of retaking the House of Representatives and no chance of retaking the Senate, meaning that -- in all likelihood -- dems will retain control of both Houses. My own personal take is that Blue Dogs will be the biggest losers in the Democratic caucus, which actually means that very little will change. The Democrats are almost certain to lose that "filibuster-proof" majority, but since that's proved to be entirely theoretical anyway, it's hard to get too worked up about it. In both chambers, it's easy to envision the same sort of legislation breaking down to the same number of votes for and against. Unlike the party, I have no interest in electing Democrats merely to elect Democrats. If you aren't going to actually do anything positive with those seats, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I won't miss Democrats who've voted with Republicans most of the time anyway.
 
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Subject: Who do we screen for?

Every time someone tries to blow up an airplane we start asking the question, "How do we spot terrorists? Who is safe to let through?" 

One thing that is common to all these terrorists is a strong belief in God. No Atheists are out there blowing up innocent people. That's because Atheists don't have an invisible friend promising us sex with virgins in the next life if we 
blow up a bunch of innocent people. 

So when you get on a plane you might want to ask yourself who you would rather fly with, Atheists or Muslims, because an Atheist is much more interested in keeping everyone safe in this world.

Marc Perkel, founder of the Church of Reality
http://www.churchofreality.org  

Bartcop says: for the record: 
I would rather fly with realists than the religiously insane. 
A sexually repressed loser who's been promised plyable women is a dangerous thing.

....but how was he going to enjoy those virgins with his balls burned off? 

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Bristol Palin & Levi finally speak about Sarah Palin! (Juno Spoof): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGwfrt3gWdo&feature=player_embedded
 
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Jon Stewart, on the underwear bomber: "If the bomb works, there's gonna be 72 very disappointed virgins."
 
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"The recovery will not be jobless much longer."
 
http://carmenmillet.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dorightcast.jpg

http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/curses_foiled_again_small.jpg

Darn that President Obama and his silly stimulus/recovery plan! If it works, and if health care reform catches on, he'll ruin all the Rushpublic fun!
With a new employment report due Friday, Bloomberg reports economists believe the "worst U.S. employment slump in the post-World War II era may have almost ended in December, signaling the recovery will not be jobless much longer."

"Stimulus-driven gains in global demand mean American companies may need to start boosting payrolls in 2010 after eliminating 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007."
 
Curses. Foiled again.
 
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Don Davis: Cat 'Yusuf' Stevens returns, with 'Buddha and the Schlocklate Fox'
 
Oh Very DUMB Oh very DUMB What will you heave up this time You're just advancing wingnut Christian Fascist bile And though you dream of turning Tiger now That will vanish away, like Bill Kristol's WMD ...   
Still hot after all these years.
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Don Davis: Buddhist monks urge Brit Hume to take vow of silence 
"We've finally broken our vow of silence...just to tell Brit Hume to STFU!" 

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Obama: 'Dots not connected in airline attack - I will not tolerate it'
 
"The information was there," Obama said, blistering agencies and analysts for not figuring out the threat – but without singling any out by name. 

"I will accept that intelligence, by its nature, is imperfect," Obama said. "But it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/05/new-airline-safety-measur_n_411501.html

What about airport security? 
 
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Limbaugh Girlfriend
 
Rush Limbaugh's girlfriend, Kathryn Rogers gives an inside account of his heart scare: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/05/rush-limbaughs-girlfriend_n_411726.html
 
 
... just thinking he has a girlfriend.
 
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Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to retire.
 
Meanwhile, Richard Pombo is making a comeback.
 
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A space telescope that hunts Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars has scored its first success, with the discovery of five new worlds beyond the solar system.
 
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Terrorball
 
The first two rules of Terrorball are:

(1) The game lasts until there are no longer any terrorists, and;
(2) If terrorists manage to ever kill or injure or seriously frighten any Americans, they win.

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2010/01/terrorball.html
 
There is no end. We are always at war with Oceania.
 
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This is, perhaps, the dumbest thing I have heard ever.

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It may not be "fair", but yes, Democrats DO have to be cleaner than Republicans
 
There's the world as we'd like it to be, and then there's the world as it is. We might want to live in the utopian world we'd like, but instead we live in the hypocritical, double-standard world that exists now. In this world, a successful terrorist attack that kills 3,000 people shows George W. Bush is a strong leader and a failed one that kills no one shos Barack Obama is a pussy. In this world, John Ensign can remain in office after his parents pay off his mistress' husband and still oppose gay marriage, David Vitter can utilize the services of paid prostitutes to dress him in diapers and still preach about family values and morality, and Mark Sanford can use state funds to fly first class to do the horizontal mambo with his Argentine sweetie and not be removed from office. And this is all OK because they are Republicans. Just like the clean-slate Christianity they follow; the same one that Brit Hume says offers the best deal at the lowest price for Tiger Woods to achieve redemption, Republicans are held to a different standard. They're held to a different standard by the media, and therefore they're held to a different standard by most Americans. The IOKYAR doctrine is the de facto law of the land, and it is not going to change.
http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-may-not-be-fair-but-yes-democrats-do.html
 
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Tales from Soviet America
 
Not surprisingly, our own homegrown secret police are part of the Department of Homeland Security. This is the money quote, by one of the senior officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is now functioning as the American Gestapo, or the KGB, take your pick:
"If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear," James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination
This is no different from the powers claimed by the Bush Administration, only then the magic words were "enemy combatant", not "illegal alien."

This is nothing short of a black stain on what is left of our national honor.

This needs to be fixed, now.
 
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CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect.
 
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Security theater of the absurd
 
The Underwear Bomber flew to Detroit on Christmas Day. He had no luggage. He didn't have a winter coat. He bought a one-way ticket and paid cash for it (about three grand). He got to pretty much skate through, up until the point that he basically burned off his dick,

But
the DHS Border Goons arrested Michael Yon at the Sea-Tac Airport because he refused to tell them how much money he made. When the real cops finally came on the scene, they let him go.

If the TSA were a movie, the guys at
MST3K would be throwing popcorn at the screen.
 
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Shocker: Challenges to the constitutionality of health reform funded by health industry money!
 
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Profiles in pussydom
 
Former Bunnypants officials avoid publicly supporting Obama's policies out of fear of 'Cheney's circle,' gunsights.
"A half-dozen former senior Bush officials involved in counterterrorism told me before the Christmas Day incident that for the most part, they were comfortable with Obama's policies, although they were reluctant to say so on the record.

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Some worried they would draw the ire of Cheney's circle if they did, while others calculated that calling attention to the similarities to Bush would only make it harder for Obama to stay the course. And they generally resent Obama's anti-Bush rhetoric and are unwilling to give him political cover by defending him."

Yglesias adds: "It's really staggering what this says about the ethical caliber of the people we're talking about…."
The WHAT?
 
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Mike Lupica hits one out of the park:

Only Cheney looks at a near tragedy on Christmas and sees opportunity. When he does, he doesn't just sound like some old crank in the park. He sounds like a bum.

This war isn't a party issue. It is an American issue, about our character as much as any politician's. Cheney gives an interview to Politico and worries about the "social transformation" he says Obama is trying to fashion. "Reclamation" is a better word, a reclamation of the values and ideals trampled by the previous administration…

Cheney used to be a much better liar than this. But that was back when he was selling this country a bill of goods on Niger and uranium and weapons of mass destruction. He must believe if he can sell all that, wholesale, he can rewrite his place in history, the mess he and George W. Bush left to this President.
-- Dude. More here.
 
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Keepin' it in the family Bristol Palin is now a registered political consultant, poised to be the recipient of campaign cash raked in by her mom between now and the week before Super Tuesday in February of '12 when she will drop out of the race in order to win. Or something.