just had to stifle a laugh at the latest ‘breaking news’ on Fox.
apparently a California Rep, Xavier Becerra, smiled when an ‘operative’ for a Republican Congressional candidate stood up in the middle of a Union Meeting and insisted that everyone stop what they were doing and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Fox’s breathless coverage includes the following killer quote, from Ari David, the Republican seeking to unseat Henry Waxman in a different District:
“Considering these people want immigration reform, shouldn’t they say the national anthem before a public meeting with their elected official there?”
poor Mr. David seems blissfully unaware that the National Anthem is meant to be sung, not said.. and also that the Pledge of Allegiance is not our National Anthem.
if bill o’reilly and ann coulter were to produce a child, and then that child were to gain access to rush limbaugh’s stash of oxycontin, the differently-abled result would be one glenn beck.
mr. beck has a new book out, entitled Arguing With Idiots.
there’s going to be a lot of disappointed retrocons out there when they discover that the ‘book’ on which they’ve just wasted $20 is nothing but a single page, and that on that page is just one sentence:
“I spend a lot of time in front of mirrors.”
“what color paper?”, you ask.
of course you would ask that, because you’re obviously a filthy despicable racist.
and that’s just it. the debate thus far about Resident Evil 5, Capcom’s latest release in the venerable survival-horror-zombie-killfest videogame franchise (which has also spawned a hugely successful movie series), has little or nothing to do with the game’s alleged racist content, and *everything* to do with the latent racial prejudices and/or sensitivities of the observer.
read more »
…and welcome to observulsion 2.0
now we shall see what we shall see.
just for the record:
2007 has been the deadliest year so far for US forces in Iraq.
2007 has been the deadliest year so far for Coalition forces in Iraq.
-
2007 has been the deadliest year so far for US forces in Afghanistan.
2007 has been the deadliest year so far for Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
-
US casualties in Afghanistan in 2007 have surpassed the combined casualties from 2001, 2002, and 2003.
Coalition casualties in Afghanistan in 2007 have surpassed the combined casualties from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.
-
Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in Iraq have been dying of self-inflicted wounds at an average rate of one every 13 days.
-
…and there’s still six weeks left in the year.
(all statistics taken from icasualties.org)
ok, for this to be a true ‘WOTD’ entry i would’ve had to have included at least one word sometime in the history of this almost-blog. maybe i’ll start with regular blog entries and work my way up to vocab.
but, be that as it may, i have a word for you, inspired by the reagan/bush/clinton/bush administrations (and doubtless countless administrations before them - the aforementioned are just the only ones where i was old enough to be paying attention, excluding Carter):
Prestigovernmentation - \ pres-tə-,ˈgə-vər(n)-mən-ˈtā-shən \,
noun: The act of governing by sleight of hand.
i’ll explain this later, if necessary.
two quick things. because everybody’s going to have, and likely already has had, something to say about this fiasco.
first there’s the recent revelation that FEMA held a fake news conference on Oct. 23, in which FEMA employees posed as reporters, asking softball questions about the agency’s response to the California fires.
whitehouse spokeschick Dana Perino said on Friday “it is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House.” - neglecting to add “after all, we’ve already been caught paying reporters like Armstrong Williams and giving press credentials to neocon prostitutes like James Guckert. not to mention the Defense Department paying Iraqi papers to plant ‘positive’, American-penned stories about the war.”
but it gets even better. because ‘pat’ philbin, FEMA’s director of external affairs (and presumably the orchestrator of the fake news conference) is leaving the agency before mike chertoff has a chance to ‘reprimand’ him.
leaving to embark on a ‘bring your own audience’ speaking tour?
no.
leaving because his current position doesn’t pay well enough for him to be able to afford health insurance for his family?
no.
leaving because HE’S BEEN NAMED THE HEAD OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
bingo.
funny thing about the director of national intelligence. fancy position, grandiose title. originally it was meant to have been ‘national intelligence director’, but with so many federal acronyms pronounced as words, somebody didn’t like the sound of ‘nid’ (rhymes w/ ‘kid’) - so they changed it to ‘dni’ (rhymes w/ ‘deny‘). brilliant.
CNN’s Michael Ware suuuure is controversial, and frankly i’m shocked that CNN hasn’t abandoned him in Baghdad (yet).
no, he hasn’t been drawing maps in the sand to give away troop locations. he hasn’t been maligning Retired members of the US Military. he’s been reporting the ground truth from Iraq, since before the war even began. and some people don’t seem to be very fond of that.
read more »
130,000 troops mired down in an uncivil war just isn’t enough, let’s make it 150,000… no wonder the President looks so happy. Happy enough to tell the TRUTH, if only for a moment.
All hail our dear leader, george “money trumps peace” bush.
anna nicole smith died on Thursday.
on that same day, a US airstrike killed 13 ‘militants’ west of Baghdad.
great, right? well, sure - until you find out that the same airstrike also killed up to 45 civilians.
that’s 45 CIVILIANS - women, children, etc…
what? you hadn’t heard about that story, because of the minute-by-minute ‘breaking news’ coverage of the death of a mentally unhinged, perpetually drugged, celebrity slutcake? *gasp*
alas, poor anna nicole, i hardly wanted to know about ye…
