That rock music is all a bunch of noise if you ask me. Now Mitch Miller, there was a bandleader…

The big news story was that the featured comedian, someone named Steve Colbert, apparently bombed. He did a virulently anti-Bush routine that got few laughs. Hot Air has good footage of both routines; you can judge for yourself who was funnier.

I wasn’t surprised by this, inasmuch as I’d never heard of Steve Colbert, and it’s been a long time since I heard a political humorist who was very funny. Comedians, in general, don’t seem very funny to me nowadays. For that matter, neither does politics. If you want to take a break from current events and remind yourself what it was like when comedians had no agenda other than being funny, check out this clip from the Jack Benny show on Power Line Video.
Posted by John at 03:35 PM | Permalink

Then again, here’s something funny.

Because it almost looks like he’s… Oh, never mind: You’d have to explain it to Hinderaker three times, and by then he’d be all cranky, like he gets when the kids walk on his lawn or when the Safeway runs out of the scuffless rubber cane tips or the special mint-flavored Metamucil.

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Another one wanks the nuts

First Adam Yoshida said we should do it. Now it’s JB Williams’ turn:

There’s no need to waste American lives on such insanity. If they [Iran] are so damn determined to have a nuke, I say we just send them a couple of ours…special delivery.

And they lived happily ever after…

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A review of what can be considered teh funny

Given Bush’s (and some journalists’) reaction to Stephen Colbert’s material during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, what better time to highlight what Bush does find teh funny:

Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. (Laughter and applause.)

Yes, that was so funny it turned out those weapons Saddam was supposed to have weren’t there at all.

Nope, no weapons over there. (Laughter and applause.) Maybe under here. (Laughter.)

Well, not everyone can be funny like Bush while yucking it up about preemptive wars of aggression.

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Holy Crap… I Agree With Charles Krauthammer

I know I’m flushing my left-winger badge down the toilet here, but I think Charles Krauthammer is basically right:

If you thought the Dubai port deal marked a record high in Washington cynicism, think again. Nothing can match the spectacle of politicians scrambling for cover during a spike in gasoline prices. And this time the panderfest has gone all the way to the Oval Office. President Bush has joined the braying congressional hordes by ordering the Energy and Justice departments and the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into possible gasoline price fixing.

What a disgrace.

Even if energy companies are colluding to keep prices high, the larger trends indicate that gas is going to keep getting more and more expensive. Instead of attacking oil companies for jacking up the price when demand rises, we should be searching for serious alternatives to oil, be it nuclear or wind or ethanol. But unfortunately, our culture dictates that it’s uncool to ask the American people for sacrifices, so we’re stuck with this shitty energy policy.

Incidentally, this is an area where the Democrats should be creaming the Republicans. Instead of going on television and shrieking about how evil oil companies are for reacting to market demand, Dems should be pushing for comprehensive energy reform that includes (gasp!) a tax on either gasoline or gas-guzzling SUVs and Hummers. But this unfortunately means that Democrats would have to show some political courage, and so far they’ve been scared to push for any new taxes because the RNC would send out blast faxes of their photographs with the word “FAAAAAAAAAGS!!!!!” written underneath. But courage means making difficult decisions, folks. It’s time to get crackin’.

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He’s a rebel and he never ever does what he should

Behold the power of the NASCAR dad.

Kathleen Parker is really working overtime to diminish the significance of GOP presidential candidate George Allen’s youthful admiration of the South’s racist traditions. A New Republic profile of the Virginia senator (which Parker slyly insinuates Hillary was behind) reports that Allen wore a Confederate flag lapel pin in his high school yearbook photo and displayed one on his car’s front bumper. Yeah, yeah, big deal, some might say — lots of people do that (Christ, you should see some of the trucks in my neighborhood) and they’re just honoring their Southern heritage, as well as, um, being a gentleman. But the diff — and this is sort of relevant — is that I live in Kentucky, which actually has a Southern heritage, while Allen grew up in Southern California, not the South. Even so, Parker’s decidedly nonplussed:

My dear Dr. Watson, what could it all mean?

Allen didn’t have an answer because he said he couldn’t remember the pin. Maybe he was just showing off? Being a cut-up? A renegade?

If Allen were in high school today, maybe he’d get a tattoo or wear a ring through his nose, but in the early ’70s kids didn’t have many options for self-expression or shirking convention. You could grow your hair, maybe, or do something really radical like wear a lapel pin.

I used to know a guy whose parents were real artsy and liberal, and he rebelled by becoming a stockbroker and a Nazi sympathiser. Like, as in, defending white supremacist views, decorating his house with actual Nazi historical artifacts and occasionally wearing an SS uniform out to bars. So, obviously, being a rebel isn’t always just, y’know, “being a rebel.”

Lizza and others have pointed to other “signs” suggestive of Allen’s “race problem,” such as a Confederate flag he used to display in his home that was part of a flag collection. Allen also had a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his law office that was part of his Western collection and symbolic of his tough attitude toward crime.

Hmmm. Well. Seeing that hanging is no longer a part of our system of jurisprudence, and has so many other, shall we say, negative connotations, that noose hanging from a ficus tree in Allen’s law office (presumably past the youthful indiscretion stage, no?) sends a certain signal. And that signal doesn’t have as much to do with admiring “The West” as Allen or Parker might like to think. Even if it were surrounded by a whole roomful of cowboy hats, six shooters and Navajo blankets, that noose would stand out like, well, a noose hanging from a ficus tree in somebody’s law office.
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Who put the cock in the cocker spaniel?

And who put the anal in Global Economic Analysis? (Click on the image unless you have really amazing eyesight.)

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A little bit of housekeeping…

Well, it’s the weekend and what better time to ask for your opinion now that you, our few regular and faithful readers have, as proud liberals, started your weekend ritual of drinking and choking kittens.*

Chances are S,N! will be doing the old switcheroo (or, as some call it, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander) on the blog software front at some point in the near future. That gives us a chance to mess things up in new and interesting ways (Dahonger is in the house!!!!1!), which we like. It also gives us a chance to ask what you want, which we don’t like. Given that the layout will change slightly, some of the issues we put to you include:

Saturday NFL Draft Thread

Use this thread to vent if your favorite team does something stupid like wasting a second round pick on a kicker (*COUGH!* Ianua Ditis! Jets fan! LOL!!1! *COUGH!*).
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Wingnut math

Non-oil edition:

During the investigation, authorities seized prescription records from several drugstores from which Limbaugh obtained 2,000 pills over six months, prosecutors said.

Last year, Black said Limbaugh was prescribed eight hydrocodone pills a day for seven months, “which is not excessive and is in fact a lawful dose.”

30 days x 8 pills x 7 months = 1680. (Or 1440 over 6 months.)

Roy Black has a way with words as well:

Although Black urged reporters not to call it an arrest — because Limbaugh turned himself in and was never handcuffed — a sheriff’s spokesman said technically he was under arrest during his booking.

Wait, it gets better!

Limbaugh was planning on remaining in treatment anyway, Black said, so “we believe the outcome for him personally will be much as if he had fought the charge and won.”

Except he didn’t and that Limbaugh is a drug addict who only sought treatment for the third time once his addiction was reported in the National Enquirer.

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Recently, a wingnut pulled shit out of his ass

The week’s over and The Rant The New Media Journal.us [Wingnuts ‘R ‘Us] has some Amazing Wingnut Facts (AWF®, AWF is a registered trademark of Sadly, No! Enterprises,) delivered to us through the toaster Lee Ellis:

“Bush polls have fallen to a new low,” shout the newspaper headlines or the news anchors on television. “President Bush and Congress have reached their lowest numbers yet,” they continue, trying to speculate whether this is caused by the high gasoline prices, the current economy, or the war in Iraq.

Shout the news anchors? Is Garrett Morris doing the evening news again?

This is strange since there is good news, mostly hidden by the media, about all three.

Hidden where, Lee?

Recently, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey: “We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates: In Colorado and Utah, we have 8 times as much oil as in Saudi Arabia, 18 times as much oil as in Iraq, 21 times as much oil as in Kuwait, 22 times as much oil as in Iran, 500 times as much oil as in Yemen!”

Wow! The “U.S. Energy Department” (probably the little mischievous brother of the U.S. Department of Energy) releases official reports with exclamation points! I bet they even have wingnuts in party hats! Google powers, activate!
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Scaring White People for Fun and Profit (and Votes!)

The Editors makes an excellent point:

Modern conservatism, and the Republican party it serves, exists by scaring white people. When the rubber hits the road, the people who run the show just want to get paid (which is why the Bush administration needs to be on both sides of [the immigration] issue), but what gets them into the position to get paid is scaring white people. What specifically they are scared about, and the degree and direction of any post hoc rationalizing about the scary thing is left to the descretion of the individual white paranoid.

While I’m reluctant to paint all conservatives with this brush, it’s certainly true that scaring white people has become the staple component of the bizarre right-wing populism that started with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, came to fame with AM talk radio in the ’90s and that reached its peak with Bill O’Reilly and FOX News right after 9/11. Just look at Michelle Malkin’s front page, and you’ll find a cornucopia of supposed mortal perils for the white race. Wherever there are Mexicans waving flags, scary Islamists holding crazy signs, deranged black studies professors advocating genocide, or 7-year-old girls reciting black nationalist poetry, Michelle is there to tell you all about them and let you know that THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU.
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Fukuyama’s Gift

Here’s a story of importance, via Matthew Yglesias, who doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of what he’s discovered. Francis Fukuyama, the apostate neoconservative, says that in the 1990s, neocons tried to manufacture an enemy, because they felt that the Republican Party “didn’t do as well” when there wasn’t a ruthless, monolithic pinkomuslimcommienihilist threat to America.

People, this, coming from Fukuyama (who would know), is big. It’s as big as Ike’s warning about the military-industrial complex; bigger than Bill Kristol’s admitting that “The Liberal Media” is a useful wingnut delusion. It’s big because it provides the final and conclusive missing evidence for something that the Left has known and argued for years but could never prove: That wingnuts contrive monolithic foreign enemies, either by exaggeration or by invention from whole cloth. The Left just never knew whether such a position came from a conscious decision, or if it was instead organic and structural (i.e., simply stupidity). Now, at least for the example of the 1990s, we have a formidable testimony, from the inside so to speak, that it was conscious and deliberate.
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C’est beaucoup d’air chaud tout ça!

Over at HotAir (yes, we know,) Michelle Malkin slams “French critics”* [see below] who complained that United 93 is racist because of its depiction of the hijackers praying in the morning of September 11. The background picture that accompanies this statement is:

In case you can’t see the text, we’re happy to provide a link. What’s this? A review by a guy named Cole Smithey? Written in English? By a guy born and raised in Virginia who lives in New York city? The lengths to which “French critics” go to disguise themselves is simply incroyable!

As for actual French* [see below] critics making that complaint, Google News.fr reports:

Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (”united 93″ raciste).

Malheureusement, Non!

* A reader notes she slams fringe, and not French, critics. So while the comment is accurate, it’s targeted at a totally meaningless and unrepresentative review written by a guy basically no one has heard of. On top of which, one guy = critic, not critics. Some improvement.

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Fixing the Internet — Live-Action Special

(Because nobody’s posted anything yet today)

[SebShrugs adds: Sorry, been busy looking at that picture of Liddy in a speedo.]

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En hommage to Miguel

HAHAHAHA LOOK AT THE RETARDEDS!!!!! IT IS TO FUNNY FOREVER!!!1!

and everyone else to0 uncle sam wingnut creature!!!! AIIEEEEEEEEEEEE MUST ESC—


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