A sample:
Student 1: “Okay, so we need someone to do a biographical sketch.”
Student 2: (points to another student) “You look like you can draw.”
Tag Archives: Egreggious @ TPZoo
John Edwards on “This Week”
This weekend Democratic presidential contender John Edwards appeared on This Week in a one-on-one interview with George Stephanopoulos. All in all, Edwards did a good job, even when Stephanopoulos made bone-headed comments like the following:
Non-signing statement?
CNN – Completely Nutty Numbskulls
Sunday Talking Heads
Site for sore Red eyes
Cheney’s newest war idea is popular
A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.
By party affiliation:
Democrats (63%) are most likely to believe a U.S. military strike against Iran could take place in the relatively near future, but independents (51%) and Republicans (44%) are less likely to agree. Republicans, however, are much more likely to be supportive of a strike (71%), than Democrats (41%) or independents (44%).
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Here we go again.”
~ Egreggious
Baltimore, Marines, lawsuit, funerals, Baptist Church, gays, protests
From the Baltimore Sun:
A Baltimore federal jury awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, deciding that the family’s privacy had been invaded by a Kansas church whose members waved anti-gay signs at the funeral.
It was the first-ever verdict against Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka that has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
Halloween Condi
Terror law invoked in non-terror case
Here’s some evidence of the slippery slope as we sacrifice our former rights in the name of the GWOT:
In the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, 36 states enacted laws that would guarantee harsher sentences in terrorism cases. Gov. George E. Pataki signed New York’s law within six days of the attack. Like the others, it was aimed at international terrorism organizations like Al Qaeda.
But yesterday, in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, jurors for the first time found a defendant guilty under New York’s statute, and he did not fit the stereotype of a terrorist. The defendant, Edgar Morales, is a 25-year-old recreational soccer player and gang member who fatally shot a 10-year-old girl and wounded a second man outside a christening party in 2002.
We have been assured that such things as warrantless wiretapping, torture, and suspension of habeas corpus will not be used except in going after terrorists. But wasn’t that the reason this New York law was created as well, only to go after terrorists? How long until these other activities are used against non-terrorists? Is it happening already?
~ Egreggious
Raggedy Ann
Haven’t heard much from Ann Coulter lately (and it is Halloween, after all):
Responding to Alan Colmes’ questioning about her comment that Christians “just want Jews to be perfected,” Ann Coulter said that she “wear[s]” criticism from Jewish groups over the remark “as a badge of honor,” adding, “The point is: This is the same old fight we see all the time with the irreligious trying to stir up trouble with the religious.” Responding to Colmes’ assertion that Coulter “doesn’t want to own up to” her statement, Coulter said: “I gave a beautiful description of the Old Testament and the New Testament, but it’s very frightening to secularists.”
~ Egreggious
Site for sore eyes
Scrambled Eggy
Gay Republican outing of the day
Yes, here’s another one.
This time it’s Washington’s GOP State Representative Richard Curtis.
So how do you tell if someone is gay?
~ Egreggious
Speaking of debates…
From Play This Thing!
The contest between Kennedy and Nixon for the presidency in 1960 was a watershed moment in American history….
This election has been transformed into a board game by Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard. 1960: The Making of the President is a game whose simple and straightforward mechanisms manage to recreate this struggle for the presidency in all of its gritty glory. It presents an battle between asymmetrical forces that is nonetheless so balanced that the result is often in question right up to the final election.
Site for sore eyes lips
PBS News features insane guy
And that other insane guy is beating the same drum:
Before his press conference today, President Bush met exclusively with a group of GOP congressional leaders. According to Fox News, which spoke with some of the members at that discussion, Bush unequivocally promised that he would attack Iran if Iran “were ever to attack Israel.” Bush told the lawmakers, “I know I would respond. … In order for diplomacy to be effective, all options have to be on the table.”
And, of course, the two insane men talk to each other.
How about some words from a sane fellow*?
“I adamantly reject any move towards a war with Iran. There is no justification for it whatsoever.” – Dennis Kucinich (Tonight’s Democratic Debate, thanks to TMM)
*sane fellow with UFO problem. 
~ Egreggious
Max Blumenthal vs. Value Voters
From the Huffington Post.
Scrambled Eggy
- Bruce Springsteen’s new album? “Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, isn’t interested.”
- Here’s something you don’t hear me say very often: Let’s hear it for Hillary! “Judge Mukasey has been given ample opportunity – both at his confirmation hearings and in his subsequent submission to the Judiciary Committee – to clarify his answers and categorically oppose the unacceptable interrogation techniques employed by this Administration. His failure to do so leaves me no choice but to oppose his nomination.”
- Not sure if I’m supposed to be giving Stephen Colbert’s presidential bid more publicity.
- I’ve beaten up on Osama, er, Obama enough lately. Here’s some words in his defense. OK, that’s enough. Now back to the thrashing! And here’s another one!
- The end of the Petroleum Age. Revolutionary? Yes or No?
- Ezra Klein comments on Rudy Guliani’s “crazed belligerence.”
- From Greg Mitchell: “Gen. Petraeus’ Spokesman Denies Sending Angry Email — Plot Thickens.” Glenn Greenwald has more as well.
- Via ABC News: “The [Supreme] Court blocked the execution until it decides a separate, pending case next year on whether death by lethal injection is so cruel and unusual it violates the Constitution.”
- The Huffington Post reports: “GOP ‘Scheduling Conflicts’ Postpone Another Black Voter Forum.”
- That’s not my penis! “A family values campaigner accused of taking pornographic photographs of himself has been dumped as a candidate for Australia’s November election by the Christian-values Family First Party.”
- James Traub on the possibility of the UN intervening in Iraq: What indicators have you seen that suggest the US would support a robust UN-led diplomatic endeavor? Only desperation.
- Dick Cheney, a gun, and Al Sharpton.
- Are you reading the right blogs?
- Paul Krugman on “Islamofascism” and “Fearing Fear Itself.”
- Finally, more layoffs expected, this time in Afghanistan.
Site for sore eyes
Check out my fellow-Portlander Jeff Frane’s blog, Rants of the Hedgehog. He’s a great photographer, and not a bad book reviewer either!
~ Egreggious
Scrambled Eggy
Again, not much time today, so I’ll just throw a few things out there.
- Barack Obama just keeps digging himself in deeper. Guess he doesn’t really need the support of the LGBT community. Atrios, Stoller, and Digby join in the criticism.
- Little Green Footballs is now a liberal blog!!! “They are basically a puppet of the multiculturalists and believe that Islam is not the enemy of Western civilization and Christendom.”
- Matthew Yglesias: “Conservatism = Torture.”
- Via Denver’s Channel 7 News: “Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo said Monday he will not seek re-election to his Colorado seat in the House in 2008.”
- Studs Terkel on wiretapping.
- Via McClatchy: “Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.”
- John Avarosis: “[W]hat a strange other-wordly precedent requiring this thing – what do they call it? – a “warrant,” yes, that’s it, a war-rant in order for the government to search an American citizen. I mean, how daft can the Congress be, trying to codify some crazy idea that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
- From The Onion, news that the Surge is working!
~ Egreggious
“Embrace the ex-gay” concert series
Rev. Donnie McClurkin, who headlined the final installment of the Obama campaign’s “Embrace the Change” Gospel concert series, did not comment on the controversy until the just before the concert’s finish, when he told the crowd of about 2,500 African-Americans: “I’m going to say something that’s going to get me in trouble.”
“They accuse me of being anti-gay and a bigot,” McClurkin said. “We don’t believe in discrimination. We don’t believe in hatred, and if you do you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s the whole premise of God. That’s the whole premise of Christ is love, love, love. But there is a side of Christ that deals in judgment, and all sin is against God.”
McClurkin has said that homosexuality is a choice and that he overcame homosexual desires through prayer, comments that drew fire from gay and lesbian activists and caught the Obama campaign, which has been using faith to reach out to African-American voters, off guard.
…
“Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay, when I have been touched by the same feelings,” McClurkin went on. “When I have suffered with the same feelings. Don’t call me a homophobe, when I love everybody … Don’t tell me that I stand up and I say vile words against the gay community because I don’t. I don’t speak against the homosexual. I tell you that God delivered me from homosexuality.”
…
Meanwhile, Obama staff were inside and outside the building, working the crowd and trying to register new voters.
…
A September poll conducted by Winthrop University and ETV showed that 74 percent of South Carolina African-Americans believe homosexuality is “unacceptable.”
“When I have suffered with the same feelings,” McClurkin says. Suffered? Get a grip, buddy. If you suffered, you weren’t doing it right.
~ Egreggious
Tortured logic
Oh yeah, I guess I might vote for him …
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Judiciary Committee, and John McCain of Arizona, a Republican White House contender, voiced concerns about Mukasey but neither said whether they may vote against him.
“I am convinced as an individual senator, as a military lawyer for 25 years, that waterboarding … does violate the Geneva Convention, does violate our war crimes statute, and is clearly illegal,” Graham told “Face the Nation.”
“I think it would serve the attorney general nominee well to embrace that concept,” Graham said.
Asked if he would oppose Mukasey if the nominee refused to do so, Graham said, “If he does not believe that water boarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind.”
McCain, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” said, “Anyone who says they don’t know if waterboarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct of warfare and national security.”
Asked if he would oppose Mukasey unless he declared waterboarding to be illegal, McCain said: “I can’t be that absolute, but I want to know his answer.”
Of course, it probably just depends on who’s doing it.
~ Egreggious
Site for sore eyes
Scrambled Eggy
- Time on libertarians: “Republicans are far more likely to identify themselves as libertarians and to vilify the government in the abstract. And yet Republicans have a clearer vision of what constitutes a good society and a well-run planet and are quicker to try to impose this vision on the rest of us.”
- Apparently Iowa is the only place where the Hillary machine can be stopped. “Clinton has called Iowa her ‘hardest state,’ and it’s the best — some say only — chance her opponents have to get past her.” Some people from the Hawkeye State aren’t that crazy about the female candidate.
- Meanwhile, Atrios wonders why Osama, er, Obama, is making an issue out of social security?
- The “Friends of Justice Thomas” are mad that his new book isn’t more popular.
- Where did all the water go?
- “Redaction” is a word we hear a lot of these days. But why would the Justice Department censor a quote from a Supreme Court decision?
- Glenn Greenwald: “A bizarre, unsolicited email from Gen. Petraeus’ spokesman,” the politicization of the military, and denials.
- From the AP: “Iraqi police say 10 sheiks allied against Al Qaeda have been kidnapped.”
- The Sunday puzzle from NPR’s Morning Edition: “Name something you might wear in the summer. The answer will have two words, with five letters in the first word and three letters in the second. Remove the next-to-last letter and read the result backward and you’ll get a word that means ‘blocks.’ What words are these?”
- Finally, a man named Craig: “A man was arrested after a government agent allegedly found him in an office building restroom lying next to an inflatable, anatomically correct doll with his pants down. Craig S. McCullough, 47, was charged Wednesday with indecent exposure, a misdemeanor.”
