Noted without comment.

Embarrassing.

NYT:

LOS ANGELES — The Southern Christian Leadership Conference — the 50-year-old civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others — is seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter in response to his support of same-sex marriage in California.

Way to honor Dr. King's legacy, assholes.

Nooners unloads on Palin again.

I made this point in comments under my FDL post, but I really think it needs to be made again. As undereducated and shallow as Palin is, she's a far more impressive figure than George W. Bush was when Villagers like Nooners discovered his Reaganesque qualities during his first term as governor of Texas.

It's fine for people like Nooners and Frum and Brooks to laugh at Palin now. But they were all marching behind The Boy Wonder 10 years ago, when it was clear to everyone with half a brain that he was a total idiot.

I Got Nothin'.

Watch this. Either put on headphones or turn up the sound.

Give the Anarchist a Cigarette.

This is a couple of days old, but well worth reading.

Sally Quinn has balls.

Jane smacks a Townhall wingnut around.

Obama = Hitler

When Code Pink said this about Bush, it was a national scandal. But somehow when one of the most prominent Republican senators says the same about Obama, it's a big yawn.

Top Five Threads.

It's a pleasant feature of liberal blogs that the comments threads are, perhaps inevitably, at least as entertaining as the posts that precipitate them.

So, inspired by this Balloon Juice thread in which Peter Daou hilariously ignores Lincoln's dictum, and results in such inspired such marvels as

Who the fuck is Peter Daou?

The “leave Britney Hilary Sarah alone” boy?

...I bring you The InstaPutz Top Five! These threads were either madly entertaining, or had unexpected long-term repercussions.

1. Alex Rawls loses his shit (Tbogg)

Post Premise: Alec Rawls, whose father apparently took some bad DNA in college, believed the memorial design was Flight 93 was an "Islamo-fascist shrine."

Thread Reaction: Laughter. Rawls subsequently doubles-down on the crazy.

Sample Gem:

People here seem to be under the impression that a half mile wide crescent, oriented on Mecca, can occur by random chance. I think that is pretty flakey, but don't worry, Murdoch provided plenty of confirmation. Look further into my analysis. There is also an array of crescents of trees in the Tower of voices section of the memorial. These are turned exactly 90 degrees to the large red crescent, so that a line across the tips of the crescents points to Mecca. There are numerous other proofs of intent in Murdoch's plan as well. He obviously anticipated the willfull blindness of people like you tboggers, and put in the multiply redundant proof necessary to make his accomplishment irrefutable once it is a fait accompli. Wake you little brains up. Take a look.

As for whether rotating the whole structure 90 degrees would make it acceptable, not at this point. Once the terrorist-memorial is discovered, obviously no remnant of it can be allowed to remain, because that is a remnant of a terrorist memorial.
# posted by Alec Rawls

The thread immediately attains legend status.


2. Former Penthouse letters editor is aware of all internet traditions (LG&M)

Post Premise: Wingnuts believe Michelle Obama is a racist. Duh?

Sample Gem:

Donald,
I am aware of all internet traditions and also of literary conventions in which placing something in quotes or in a blockquote means that your are quoting that person.

But here you are not.

It seems to me that what your are about is, well, sort of questionable.

Can you please expand on the idea your propose that putting something in blockquotes that does not appear at the linked item is a fair thing to do.

Most people would find it, absent a reasonable explanation, to be very strange.
vanderleun | 06.17.08 - 12:16 am | #

Within two a half hours, Van der Leun would have his epitaph and his fine work as Pajamas Media editor would be forgotten.


3. A short history of cock, as told by Jeff Goldstein (Sadly, No!)

Post Premise: Jeff Goldstein, the proprietor of Protein Wisdom, had an inexplicably good rep within the wingnut community. Until Retardo's cock compendium was published, that is.

Sample Gem:

So, Kevin can suggest I’m a breastfeeding coward (”I never said he was a coward — just that he was hiding under his kid’s crib and needs to go enlist NOW, or at least, as soon as he’s done giving the boy his breast milk”), but when I offer to meet up with him so he can repeat this to my face, I’m out of line?

Must be that old cycle of violence thing. I started it by having no fucking idea who Kevin was, Kevin posts some personal shit about me, and I respond by offering to slap him across the face with my dick. In between breast feedings. Where, you know, milk comes out of my nipples and goes into my son’s throat.

But yeah, I’m the one with issues.

You can pretty much draw a direct line between Sadly, No!'s effort and the fact that Ace of Spades no long returns Jeff's calls.

4. A Kaus meme is born (Matthew Yglesias)

Post Premise: Though Mickey Kaus was later (sigh) vindicated, Yglesias believed the Slate blogger's rationalization for harping the Edwards/Hunter story was weak.

Sample Gem:

Hey, you know what I hear, Mickey Kaus likes to fuck goats.

Posted by Pritesh | October 14, 2007 5:24 PM

Micky Kaus blows goats. I read about it on another internet site and has not been refuted yet. Thus, it is true, and, if anything, underestimates how much Micky likes to blows goats.

-

Posted by Hank Essay | October 14, 2007 5:29 PM

the discussion over at Eschaton is both lively and factual. three independent sources confirm that Mickey Kaus blows goats, the real question is if he swallows or spits.

How many goats do you need to fellate before Jacob Weisberg lets you go all the way with the Slate office dog?

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | October 14, 2007 5:34 PM

47,000 hits later...


5. A Jarvis/Quick cage match (Bill Quick)

Post Premise: Jeff Jarvis calls bullshit on Pajamas Media. Bill Quick is displeased. The two bloggers, both of whom are among the most loathsome folks on the planet, proceed to bloody each other -- to the immense delight of the left side of the blogosphere.

Sample Gem:

Bill Quick
November 5th, 2005 | #31
Dean, just speaking for myself - I have no privy to PJM plans - I suspect that down the road a piece one of the intentions may be to equip most PJM members with the “Blog reporter’s tool kit” that I, Glenn, and others (including Wretchard) have discussed from time to time, so as to transform the organization into a distributed news network fully capable of doing on-the-scene reporting - and then market the news product to commercial news consumers or display on a portal site of some sort. Something like that most definitely would compete with the likes of NYT. All the major news nets, as far as it goes.

Hehindeedy!

Reminder

Last chance to get aboard the National Review cruise, which is, in every possible way, exactly like that delightful film Boat Trip. And. AND. You might see K-Lo in a bikini.

It sells itself.

Holy fucking fuckballs.

Do you have high expectations for Fox News? Me neither. Nevertheless, this managed to stun me. Brian Kilmeade, one of the John Tesh-wannabe candy-ass empty suits on the 'Fox and Friends' morning show, had this to say while bantering about a study from Sweden suggesting that married people get Alzheimer's Disease at lower rates.

"We are -- we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other..."

At this point his co-hosts, idiots all but apparently not mentally inert like Kilmeade, tried to talk over him and get him to shut the fuck up. But he wouldn't.

"See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes .... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society."

Brian, maybe you need to sit the next couple of plays out.

Final Exam cheat sheet

Alberto Gonzales is finally off the dole. He'll recruit minority students to Texas Tech University and teach one political science course per semester. Fine, I'll go with the obvious joke: Is writing "I don't know" or "I don't recall" 78 times in two hours an acceptable answer on his final exam?

As a fellow professor of political science, I welcome Mr. Gonzales' insight in a course entitled "Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch." I hope that the first time a student raises his or her hand to ask Prof. Gonzales a question he freezes with the same oops-I-shit-my-pants smirk he so wantonly used before Congress.

Also, holy shit does Lubbock blow. One of the saddest excuses for a city I've ever seen and a perfect place for Gonzo to be forgotten. When interviewing at TTU, one of the ways they try to sell prospective faculty on living in the middle of nowhere is by touting the excellent burn unit at the University hospital. True story. That's actually in their sales pitch.

Meet UT's Next Constitutional Law Professor.

From Equire's interview with Jeb Bush, we learn that Glenn Reynolds' desire to have sex with robots is not, uh, singular.

Says Jeb:

I'm reading a wild book. It's The Singularity Is Near. [The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil] The book is about how technology is going to overtake the human mind. There's basically like an L-shaped advancement that's going to take place. There's a convergence of our own intellectual capacities and technology. There's going to be a merger, and we're going to, this guy believes, live in an era of unbelievable intelligence and advancement. It's wild.

I bet.

Ho.

Editor!


In related news, Dan Riehl is the new editor of The Corner.

Biden goes after Boehner.

Again, the reason the GOP's bitching about the stimulus is so outrageous is these are the same people who were advocating doing nothing or worse, in Boehner's case, spending freezes.

The problem for Obama is they can now simply say "It didn't work" -- and they've got a good argument.

Krugman was right. It should've been bigger.

It Burns.

Obama made a funny and the wingnuts are, as is their wont, steamed.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama made a pointed quip Tuesday about Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States in the 19th century.

Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:

"Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you."

Czar Alexander II's sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million in gold, around 1.9 cents per acre, was regarded by Russians as a national disgrace -- particularly once it became clear that the province was rich in oil.

Moscow was short of cash at the time.

Via Putz, the fourth stooge, Moe Lane, writes:

God, I miss the days of the Bush administration, when we didn’t do things like this.

I know! During the Bush administration, the president didn't make lighthearted jokes. He simply informed the fucking United Nations that unless it forced Saddam Hussein to destroy weapons he didn't possess in response to dangers that weren't, in fact, "gathering," the entire institution would abdicate "the purpose of its founding" and be rendered, said Bush, "irrelevant."

That Word "Obviously", I...

VDH:

On the one hand, Palin is obviously bright. ...

She has natural intelligence and is curious.

I'm pretty sure the only word that isn't completely wrong is the pronoun.

Later, VDH calls Obama a "cosmopolitan metrosexual," which only goes to show that even the good farmer occasionally read Gawker five years ago.

Ahem.

TNR today asks "Was Gorbachev the Man of the Century?" and finds the case for the affirmative "very convincing."

Twas not ever thus. TNR, January '07:

Who knows what animates Gorbachev? Maybe he hopes just to be remembered. He won't be. Certainly not by the Russian people. A passing figure. Not even one on whom American colleges will bestow honorary degrees.

A Shoo-in for the Kippies.

In case you were wondering, Peter Daou is still an idiot. Or, as K. generously puts it, "one of the left’s most hypocritical pearl clutchers."

His latest mung-bomb is a thing of beauty, really, and actually reaches the heights of poetry.

Really shitty Joyce Kilmer-level poetry:

I don't want to rehash whether or not any of it was warranted -- I'm more interested in another angle that's been completely overlooked in the torrent of punditocracy about Palin's resignation.

It's that Sarah Palin, like Hillary Clinton, is a person, a human being, a mom, a wife, a daughter, once a little girl.

Vulnerable, like all of us.

Self-centered, like all of us.

Fragile, like all of us.

Opinionated, like all of us.

Defensive, like all of us.

Deceptive, like all of us.

Lost, like all of us.

Yikes, buddy. Projection much?

Exit question: have Peter Daou and Alanis Morissette Joan Osborne ever been seen in the same room?

QOTD.

Bob Herbert:

Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson’s icy-veined, cold-visaged and rigidly intellectual point man for a war that sent thousands upon thousands of people (most of them young) to their utterly pointless deaths, has died at the ripe old age of 93.

The whole piece is pretty good.

Palin-Induced Suicide Watch Part 10173

Someone run to Rich Lowry's house. Confiscate the knives and shoelaces. His Palin Apostasy might not seem troubling....

It’s just too absurd. Palin mentioned Alaska or Alaskans 34 times in a 17-minute statement that must be a new record in the history of protesting too much. Palin says she hates politics as usual, and true to her word, on July 3 she staged a spectacle in politics as unusual. But she still proved adept at the traditional political art of extreme disingenuousness...(hatred from liberals) can’t propel her into the presidency. For that she needs substance, not the hackneyed sound bites she clings to for dear life.

....until one recalls the depth of his love just a few months ago which he described in an NRO Corner post he no doubt typed one-handed:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

And now all of the sudden he wants substance and hates hackneyed sound bites? Get a grip, Rich. On something other than your wang during Vice-Presidential debates.

UPDATE

BT adds, huh?

Wherever she goes, she’ll draw crowds and attention. If she can command $60,000 per paid speech, as an aide speculates, she’ll match her annual gubernatorial salary with a mere two gigs. That’s welcome income for a woman who isn’t rich and who has five children and one grandkid.

Palin's net worth is over a million and she makes $250k/year. That's not rich?

Resolution

As long as famous idiots keep dying, we'll all just assume that the situation in Iran worked itself out somehow. Possibly involving magic and trains.

If it hasn't been resolved I'm sure the media would let us know.

The Palinistas are too wingnutty for even Ace of Spades.

Hehindeedy.

It's this insane idea that if you want something to happen, you will also of course agree that it WILL happen, and if you don't agree it will happen, obviously you don't wnat it to happen.

In other words, if you're cheering for one side, you must of course believe that side will win, and if you suggest our side won't win, well, gee, you must be cheering AGAINST us.

It's insane. I wanted thte Giants to win against the Eagles in the playoffs, but I predicted they'd lose, because the Eagles had their number and they were coming apart at the seems. They did lose, for the reasons I guessed (I think). That did not mean I wasn't "on their side," I've been on the Giants' side all my life.

But there is a mentality in the nutroots that if you dare to post a poll showing republicans down and say "we're in trouble, we need a game-changer," well, that means you're secretly rooting against our side.

And if you say that Fred Thompson isn't catching on as hoped, well, you hate Fred Thomson.

And if you do not believe that Sarah Palin has some double-secret probation plan for the presidency, you must hate her too, and you're rooting against her, and cheering for the other side.

This is fucking insane and it must stop. I will not be bullied by this ludicrous magical thinking brigade who insists that only Nice and Positive Words must be uttered or else one is contributing one's Evil Energy to the Wrong Side.

It's insane.

I disagree with you. I have tried to do so pleasantly but I am tired of the imputation of bad motive simply because I am more realistic and less prone to flights of hopeful fancy than you.

If you think I'm wrong, say so (like eman). I do not mind being called wrong. I do, however, greatly mind being called a traitor, of harboring a secret agenda I hide from you in order to advance the MSM's interests, etc., and all the rest of this insane bullshit.

Someone can be wrong HONESTLY, without the need of claiming he's wrong dishonestly, wrong because he's actively intending to subvert the cause (so he can of course get invited to these famous DC dinner parties, etc.)

Stop jumping to claim some one is not just wrong but actively malicious.

It's insane. It's fruit fucking loops. and it's tiresome.

And I do think I am taking off the week. You guys only seem to want to talk about sarah palin and furthermore you only want to hear the same thing -- she's running, this is a great move, she's now perfectly poised for the race, etc.

It's nonsense. And I hardly need to blog about it, because you all seem to know the words to the song. So you don't need me as part of the chorus. You can sing the same words well enough without me.

I am really tired of this relentless nonsense and occasional nastiness whenever someone is believed to have departed from the conservativey correct line.

Occasional?

Ross Douthat's Christian martyr.

Please.

And that's pretty much exactly all of wingnuttia -- and Putz's take.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with her decision, but she’s been subjected — along with her family — to more abuse than any other non-national-officeholder I can think of.

Proving yet again that wingnuts are the whiniest bitches on the planet.

UPDATE

The comments on Putz's poll are pretty funny. A sample.

I was raised under Reagan and spent my adulthood as a Republican, that is, until the GOP blew its own brains out. Now, I"m a Libertarian.

I write this because I want my views taken in context.

Sarah Palin should NEVER involve herself again in National Politics. Between believing the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs and her idiotic treatment of wolves and other animals, she has turned herself into the poison pill of politics.

The Tea Party movement is too important to be undermined by her presence. I fear her presence will push people away. It will do so for me, instantly.

Yes, to an actual libertarian, a half-wit Christianist like Palin should be incredibly alarming.

I like Palin, but, don't think she is Presidential material.

Don't think?

Please. The admiration for Palin indicates just how the barren is the field of GOP candidates. We are so desparate for a "winner" that we of Eisenhower, (general), Nixon (lawyer, congressman, senator and VP), Reagan (twice gov of Calif., long time Pres of SAG, comitted to conservative principles) settle for a nice and energetic but rather inarticulate, small town mayor who has not finished one term as Alaska's gov. This veneer of experience is why we rightly criticized Obama.

I don't dislike her and admire her for what she's done (while being a mom 5 times, take that Maureen Dowd, you barren woman), she is not ready for prime time. Her understanding of principles--why small govt matters for example--is only micometers deep if that. Her speaking ability is not much better than GWB's.

So let her practice speaking, ponder the federalist papers, read some history, and be somehting more than a "maverick." Then we'll see.

The key to success

We at Instaputz Headquarters (pictured here and known as the Fortress of Solid-Dudes to avoid copyright infringement) have noted that Sarah Palin's threat to sue the Alaska blog which reported rumors that she is being investigated by the FBI has brought tremendous attention to that site. Not only has Ms. Moore's blog received tremendous traffic, but she is now an invited guest on Olbermann and a number of other big talk shows.

The market has spoken. Salacious gossip is rewarded. Accordingly, Instaputz would like to report the following:

1. The source of Mitt Romney's political power, wealth, and campaign funds is a hoard of Nazi gold.
2. Mark Sanford's Argentine mistress is 12.
3. Mark Foley is currently employed as a counselor at a secluded summer camp for confused boys aged 14-17.
4. John McCain died in 2007. The man who ran for President in 2008 was just a shaved Wilford Brimley.
5. Sarah Palin's husband Todd was a member of an extremist group that advocated secession.

You heard it here first.

The keyboard cat was created for Palin.

Via Sully.

Quitting is a traditional American, Christian value.

Or something.

Then there's this.

But there's just a nagging feeling I have that when it comes to the Republican Party base, reason and logic are largely irrelevant. The kinds of voters who participate in, say, the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa in 2012, may not care whether Palin has thoroughly discredited herself as a credible and serious political figure. Hell, they might very well think, "Sure, Palin may quit the White House in 2014 if the going gets tough, but I'd rather have two years of the Quitta from Wasilla than none at all."

Can Palin recover from her humiliating fall? She shouldn't be able to, and the country will be better off if she isn't able to, but I'm not quite ready to rule out the possibility.

Maybe, but the problem for Palin is the base isn't all she needs to win the primary. She can certainly be a spoiler, and will undoubtedly draw lots of fundies (40% of the Republican vote) -- but that won't be enough to take Willard down.

I love you, K-Lo

Please don't quit as Editor, K-Lo. Your mastery of the English language is as unprecedented as you are politically astute.

Rather than just be a celebrity, this could be a real opportunity for her to show us her stuff — what's important to her, what she wants people to know about her, why we should pay attention to her, why we should consider her for the highest office in the land (after already gone with the cool dude with little national electoral experience — though in his case it was little experience, period). To get people to know her for something more than being Sarah!

I bet your editor can't use the wrong tense (in a massive run-on sentence) followed by a sentence fragment and an exclamation point, the literary equivalent of putting a big, shiny red bow on a pile of horseshit.