(Previously Released Photo: INDC) Click for Larger Image

Revisit last year's photo-rich coverage of the dedication of the World War II Memorial, Part One and Part Two.

(Previously Released Photo: INDC) Click for Larger Image

And make sure to read Blackfive's advice on how to celebrate Memorial Day, as well as his list of charitable groups that support our military personnel.

(Photo: INDC)Click for Larger Image

And TacJammer has the definitive round-up of Memorial Day posts.

GOP infighting on stem cells:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday that he believes the Senate has enough votes to override a threatened presidential veto of legislation easing restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but a fellow Republican vowed to keep the bill from reaching the Senate floor.

"I've been taught a lot of lessons from the Democrats lately, so I've got some ideas on how one can get this done," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said on ABC's "This Week." "And I think it's important that we move forward."

(Emphasis mine)

No comment.

And the key element to this bill:

Specter said he and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, set up the program for adopting the embryos last year and it has resulted in 100 adoptions.

"If we could create 400,000 snowflakes, if we could have all of these embryos adopted, I would be the first one not to use them to save somebody else's life, if it could create a newborn child," Specter said.

...

Specter replied that he was "a lot more concerned, at this point, about when my life is going to end," to which Brownback responded that he prays for the Pennsylvanian and asked again when life starts.

"It certainly doesn't start in a laboratory dish," Specter replied. "This potential for life on these embryonic stem cells cannot begin to occur unless it's implanted back in a woman. We know for sure, life does not start in a laboratory dish."

Yet Brownback, et al, would rather keep hundreds of thousands of unused embryos in either indefinite cold storage or let them continue to pour down drains, rather than make them available for research purposes.

INDC Journal just passed 5 million page views, according to server stats. With 10 million, I think I get a special hat and a phone call from Reynolds. This excites me.

I've noticed this as well. And it's odd, because the Post is usually more even-handed than many of those other publications. Nepotism for Newsweek? I'm unsure.

More on the rest of Michelle's linked article to follow (hopefully).

UPDATE: Compare the Washington Post's treatment of the newest wrinkle in the story ...

Pentagon Confirms Koran Incidents
'Mishandling' Cases Preceded Guidelines Established in 2003

(Emphasis Mine)

Pentagon officials said yesterday that investigators have identified five incidents of military guards and an interrogator "mishandling" the Koran at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but characterized the episodes as minor and said most occurred before specific rules on the treatment of Muslim holy items were issued.

... with the NY Times(!):

No Intentional Abuse of Koran at Guantánamo, General Says

(Emphasis mine)
...

WASHINGTON, May 26 - The American military commander at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, said today that investigators had found "no credible evidence" that a Koran had ever been flushed down a toilet there to unsettle detainees, and no serious incidents of intentional mishandling of the Muslim holy book by Americans.

The commander, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood of the Army, said 13 possible incidents had been investigated in which the book might have been mishandled: 10 by guards and 3 by interrogators. Of the 13, only 5 embody "what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran," the general said, but declined to provide details.

In several other incidents, he said, guards had accidentally touched the book or touched it "within the scope of their duties." And in two other incidents, both involving interrogations, there was possible inadvertent mishandling, General Hood said.

Each of the two leads leaves you with quite a different impression, no? I have to conclude that the WaPo is bent on covering Newsweek's ass, much like the Boston Globe tried to do for CBS when the National Guard story broke (both outlets were involved in the original presentation of the documents).

Well, don't tell me that I didn't warn you about this:

More than half of those responding to a new poll said they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton if she runs for president in 2008.

This is the first time she's achieved a poll number over 50%, according to CNN.

Randall Terry and Tom Delay on the bullhorn, the stem cell veto and Frist relating God and Judges do not sell well with swing moderates. Combine that with Hillary's masterful triangulation over the last few years (she's almost been the anti-Dean and the anti-Kerry on swing issues like national security), and she's got an outside shot, depending on the heft of the GOP nominee.

BONUS SILVER LINING FOR THE GOP: Howard Dean will probably keep serving up those wacky soundbites.

Cox and Forkum

A Dem feels a wave of giddiness about the impending veto on the stem-cell bill:

Perfect. Just what we need. Take an issue where public sentiment is clearly with the Democrats, and set it up so the radical conservatives of the Texas Republican Party are standing between sick people and miracle cures. Exectly the right issue for the 2006/2008 elections: science and health v. fanaticism.

I think that he overstates the issue's resonance and mileage with the general public (though it obviously has an impact with me), but otherwise, his instincts are correct. A couple more pieces of emergency Terry Schiavo legislation and anti-science pro-life proxies spun by the Dems as "the rise of far right elements of the Republican Party," and the GOP could have a bad 2006. Which frankly might not be a catastrophic thing, from where I'm sitting.

Tom Delay's decision to go high profile on these issues is especially harmful.

(Via OTB)

The Washington Post rushes to the defense of its sister publication with the dramatic front-page revelation of actual Koran-abuse ... allegations ... ... by ... inmates:

Detainees told FBI interrogators as early as April 2002 that mistreatment of the Koran was widespread at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and many said they were severely beaten by captors there or in Afghanistan, according to FBI documents released yesterday.

The summaries of FBI interviews, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing lawsuit, include a dozen allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor or withheld as punishment. One prisoner said in August 2002 that guards had "flushed a Koran in the toilet" and had beaten some detainees.

Now, some of these allegations may or may not be true, and actual incidents of physical abuse would be very serious, but who is making these standard accusations and why would they have the motivation to make them? If the information was corroborated by anyone on the other side of the cage, be it an investigator or whistleblower, it would be relevant, especially in light of the Newsweek rap. But ...

But the Pentagon said yesterday that the same prisoner, who is still in custody, was reinterviewed on May 14 and "did not corroborate" his earlier claim about the Koran.

"We still have found no credible allegations that a Koran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement last night.

These are people picked up as enemy combatants in a war on terror, probably most of them radical Islamists. And the trumpeting of these claims by the MSM - with the implication that the news of suspected terrorists in prison making allegations is shocking, revelatory or necessarily true - well, that comes awful close to serving as a bullhorn for propaganda designed to inflame the divide between the West and Islam. It's a fine line, but it's in the ballpark. I'm just not impressed with the facts in this story or the exagerrated presentation, which specifically do not exonerate Newsweek's reporting:

The newly declassified accounts, written primarily in 2002 and 2003, were released in the aftermath of an international uproar over a now-retracted story by Newsweek magazine, which reported that an internal military investigation had confirmed that a Koran was flushed down a toilet.
...
Pentagon officials said last week that they had not investigated claims of Koran desecration because they had not been presented with any specific or credible allegations of such activity.

"[I]nternal military investigation ... confirmed." Allegations by inmates with a clear motivation to grind an axe are not a confirmation nor dramatic vindication, WaPo. Find me a verdict by a government agency that is independent from the Army, or this is a bottom-fold, second-page story, at best.

In Related, Breaking News:

The entire Death Row population at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana testified that "the food is terrible and I'm 110% innocent. I swear. Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a smoke, would you?"

UPDATE: At least the online headline is accurate and straight: "Inmates Alleged Koran Abuse." I'll check the print edition and compare.

UPDATE: For the record, CNN covered the story perfectly this morning - middle of the hour, both sides, stressing that they were unconfirmed allegations and how that differed from Newsweek's report.

UPDATE: The Llama Butchers:

THE TOP TEN OTHER GITMO PRISONER ALLEGATIONS

8. Took my liver even though I was still using it.

7. Head held under water for three hours straight before every meal.

6. Forced us to move entire island of Cuba six feet to the left. Then forced us to move it back.

Click for the rest.

And Michelle Malkin is smacking this story around like Johnny Fontaine. In fact, she made a much more persuasive argument than I did.

Malkin.

(As a reminder, that's said like, "Newman.")

UPDATE: Another must-read from Dean.

** click **

Here's my membership application. If that ain't "chillin'," I don't know what is ...

Hilarious, and more than a bit bizarre:

NEW YORK (CBS) Actor Burt Reynolds slapped a CBS assistant producer in the face at a movie premiere in New York City.

The producer was asking Reynolds, 69, about his new movie "The Longest Yard" outside the premiere in Chelsea Tuesday night when the actor became annoyed.

"You don't know anything about the movie?" Reynolds asked.

The producer acknowledged he hadn't seen it or the original 1974 version. Reynolds then slapped the producer. "What ... kind of guy are you?" he asked.

From experience, I can assure you that slapping around CBS News is a singularly satisfying endeavor. (Metaphorically in my case, of course)

(That gem via Goldstein, who has his own take)

MediaSlander.com:

"The goal of Media Slander is to hold journalists and bloggers to high ethical standards regarding coverage of the War on Terror and other military-related issues. We plan to achieve this by highlighting bias, rumor and falsehoods that have been creeping into military coverage under the guise of objective news.

We by no means advocate censorship or the deliberate suppression of well-researched and relevant stories about the war and the military.

As much as journalists feel that they are the guardians of the First Amendment, its true protectors are standing watch in Iraq, Afghanistan and places no one will ever hear about. Journalists owe it to the true gatekeepers of our liberties to be fair, balanced, relevant and accurate in covering them.

Signed,

The entire staff of MediaSlander.com"

And in case you've been living underground, here's another good reason why the site was created.

Today's Media Notes column in the Washington Post:

This item in INDC Journal caught my eye because it involves Monday's Media Notes column about the Newsweek debacle. Bill Ardolino points out that there was a photo of a protest sign--"Newsweek Deserves to be Banned"--in the print edition, with the caption: "The Koran story is a new wedge in the culture wars between left and right." Deniability clause: When I saw the photo in the paper, I assumed, probably like most people, that some conservatives were picketing Newsweek.

It turns out the photo was closely cropped so you couldn't tell that it was taken at a demonstration of Indian Islamists. Standing next to the protester with that sign was another Indian with a sign that read, "Bush Should Apologise for Desecration of Quran." Given the way the picture was cropped and the lack of an explanatory cutline, I'd agree the effect was misleading.

... but will America be content to play "follow the leader?"

Everyone has their political tipping point, and Bush's promised veto of the new stem-cell bill approaches mine. Having a strategic vision to confront terrorism and tyranny in the 21st Century is vital - but so is giving American scientists the opportunity to continue domination of leading edge biotechnology as the world hierarchy flattens and we lose our structural advantages, as well as fulfilling the overwhelming moral responsibility of curing horrible maladies when the means are nearly within our grasp.

And the bizarre thing is, that while many of the usual suspects on the right view the issue as the unrepentenant destruction of nascent human life - as another proxy or equivalent to the abortion issue - other pro-lifers recognize the astounding potential applications of this avenue of research, and how it differs from terminating a pregnancy. In addition, this bill does not encourage the creation of embryos expressly for the purpose of destruction; it just advocates using unwanted embryos already created via other means:

The legislation, which has strong support in the Senate, would make federal money available for research on embryonic stem cells extracted from frozen embryos donated by couples who no longer need them for fertility treatments.

What's next to be defined as inviolably protected life, individual sperm?

All of this causes me to wonder: considering the fact that President Bush hasn't vetoed a single bill that's come across his desk, why would he decide to break that odd streak by torpedoing this one? And I have to confess, it makes me pretty damn angry; we're selling out part of America's future to appease a minority position, when we will eventually have to wade into this research and set practical ethical rules to govern its advancement and conduct within this country.

And what was the last big issue that secular, small government* GOP'ers won "big" under GWB?

Related: For GOP, Deeper Fissures and a Looming Power Struggle

UPDATE: * I hastily parroted Bill Quick's linked language with the "big government" description. Along with that, see my rationale under Tom Maguire's valid critique.

*** The funny thing is, I had this exact same idea (click and just keep scrolling down the page), except my web site was going to use ferrets as an interpretive tool to make political arguments. For reals, yo.

(Via LB)

*** Part dog, part machine. Better, stronger, faster. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-deh! D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-deh!

*** Colorado cat spreads bubonic plague.

*** Vladimir Putin trashes his dog in an interview with MosNews.com ...

How is your wonderful dog? Is she looking for a gentleman dog? Will she have puppies?

She is a very serious young lady, loyal. She has a friend, she’s doing quite well. Perhaps a little too well. She’s gotten quite fat lately, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. A somewhat lazy young lady. But she has a wonderful character. Sometimes I don’t know if she’s a dog, really.

... and puts those burning extraterrestrial(?) questions to rest:

Vladimir Vladimirovich, I have a serious question. I want to ask about aliens. Ever since we have had presidents in this country, there’s been a legend that every time a new head of state is elected, he is told a terrifying secret, that aliens visit the Earth. It’s said that U.S. presidents are taken to a special “green room”, where the frozen bodies of aliens are kept to show him that we are not the only life form in the universe. Has anyone ever told you such secrets?

Hm, a green room? I see… I want to point out that I do not consume strong drinks. When I was in the United States, the U.S. president did not show me any “green rooms.” They say that he stopped drinking a long time ago. I assure you, no one has told me such secrets — there is no such topic on the presidential level.

More on the obesity/sedentary lifestyle cancer influence:

Being physically active boosts the odds that breast cancer patients will survive the disease, according to the first study to produce evidence that exercise improves the prospects of beating any malignancy.
...
The findings add strong new support to the growing body of evidence that healthy lifestyle factors such as eating well and exercising regularly provide significant health benefits, possibly even offering protection against cancer recurrences about on par with radiation and chemotherapy.

See also "A Cautionary Note on Obesity."

When you read up on how the body digests and absorbs various types of food, as well as what diabetes is, this conclusion seems like common sense. Which is why it's surprising that there was/is so much resistance to the idea.

UPDATE: You might want to check out my previous discussion of low carb/Atkins diets.

... centrist Senators struck a deal that avoided the abolition of the judicial filbuster, and I'm supposed to be all crazy-mad about it. Or something.

But I'm not. Mainly because I share much of this sentiment and this sentiment (especially that last sentence).

Besides, I have like three recorded episodes of Chico and the Man to catch up on.

UPDATE: Some procedural political analysis, for those of you that didn't get your fill in the last two Star Wars flicks.

Last night on Penn & Teller's "Bullshit," Showtime's fantastic show that debunks scams and misguided conventional wisdom, the comical magician/skeptics addressed the topic of sainthood, taking chunks out of the exagerrated mythos surrounding the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Ghandi.

For Mother Teresa's portion, they predictably featured the sainted nun's go-to nemesis, the brilliant Christopher Hitchens. At one point in the interview, they showed outtakes of him chain smoking and downing glasses of scotch, with the narration (paraphrased), "And after another cigarette, and another scotch and another cigarette and another scotch, Mr. Hitchens was finally ready to answer our question." Now, I'm not one to automatically chuckle at a man's incredibly high-functioning alcoholism, but it was hysterical. And Hitchens was typically overflowing with dry, machine-gunned vituperation for his habited bete noir.

Bonus factoids: apparently, the Dalai Lama presided over a rather exploitive caste system prior to his flight from Tibet, a system that employed torture as a means of administrative punishment. Of course, the subsequent rule of the Chinese was much worse. The CIA also funneled over a million dollars to the Dalai Lama in order to fund anti-Chinese resistance forces, which isn't something that I would condemn, yet sits interestingly at odds with his one-size-fits-all pacifism.

BTW, I saw the Dalai Lama speak at a commencement ceremony a few years back, and it was sort of like listening to Yoda deliver a 45-minute lecture on the power of "love," "love," and, well, "love." No backward syntax or telekinesis, but otherwise, if I closed my eyes, it was almost as if I was sitting on the swamp planet of Dagobah.

Howard Kurtz wonders about the fallout from Newsweek's false Koran-flushing story in today's Media Notes column:

The bashing of Newsweek over its horribly handled item on Koran desecration has mushroomed into a sweeping indictment of the media, which some conservatives now accuse of deliberately slandering the military.
...
Is any of this true? Or has Newsweek's retracted story simply handed the right a new club with which to beat journalists?

Fair enough; Kurtz is entitled to his opinion, and the article is more or less even-handed, in the sense that it proffers a variety of opinions from across the political spectrum. But ...

In the print edition, the column runs next to a picture of a protest sign that reads "Newsweek Deserves to be Banned," with a caption of, "The Koran story is a new wedge in the culture wars between left and right."

Obviously, since those on the "right" are the ones shellacking Newsweek, it would appear that some right wing protestors have expressed that "Newsweek Deserves to Be Banned," which is a pretty fascistic sentiment. There's one problem with this appearance: you can't tell from the close cropping, but the sign is actually from a rally of Indian Islamists. A different shot of the same sign (there are many):

(New image via Knowledge is Power, who points out some confusion on the part of the protestors)

The WaPo's version only shows the sign, and they've effectively projected the impression that some domestic right-wingers are clamoring to ban Newsweek, by using an artfully presented and captioned picture of Islamic protestors expressing decidedly non-Western sensibilities regarding censorship.

Congrats to the Post - effectively undermining any of Kurtz's points about overblown perceptions of ideological bias with a silly and ridiculously misleading edit.

AND AN EXTRA EDITING BIAS BONUS:

The other day, the "Express" version of the Post, which is handed out at various Metro stations as a commuter read, had an interesting headline describing George Galloway's testimony before the Senate regarding his bribery implication in the Oil-For-Food scandal.

Was it, "British Lawmaker Questioned for Iraq Bribery Ties?" Nope.

How about "UK MP Denies Pre-War Bribery Charges?" Nope.

It was something like (paraphrasing)...

Read More »

I'll be unplugging for a bit, due to outside projects/commitments, etc.

And the squirrels.

Be sure to check in over the next few days to Val Prieto's random live-blogging from the Cuba Nostalgia Convention.

Con~o, such a beautiful culture and people, and their true beauty only allowed to express itself in exile.

Attack of the Canadian Black Squirrels!

As immortalized in London, Ontario's hit song: "The Black Squirrels Of London." Also, "fanatical eugenics policies" and anit-miscegenation sentiment in backwards squirrel towns, and to shoot or not-to-shoot "Aggressive Screen-munching Squirrels?"

The original blogger radio guys score a show on Boston's WRKO after the station drops Newsweek radio. Very cool.

First guest: James Taranto. The show is on at 9PM EST on Sundays, and you can listen live here.

*** Oh man, this is funny, especially with the first comment.

*** Someone please slap some manacles on Coldplay, stat. That's your nice, pleasant dose of irony for the day.

*** Thirsting for Creationism in the classroom? The Commissar has a school for you.

*** Blackfive: "When Hunting 'Nixons' Helps The Enemy." I love the title's allusion to every journalist's Woodward and Bernstein fantasy.

While George Lucas is busy misapplying his allegorical vision in moonbat ravings about Vietnam, Iraq and George Bush, the WaPo's Stephen Hunter presents a more appropriate perspective in a generally effusive and interesting review of Revenge of the Sith:

He's a director of action and ideas, and in Anakin he gives us a man comprising both. Anakin is the classic man who gives up freedom for security, and ends up with neither. He's all those happy good Germans of 1938 who sold out to a Leader who would protect them from Bolshevism and who served thereafter without remorse or doubt until the world collectively rubbed their noses in it. Or he's the brilliant generation of young radicals who gave it up for Stalin's golden utopia and paid no attention to the messy steps of forced starvation and internecine slaughter of millions on the road to paradise. I suppose he's any man who believes in something so hard that he gives up his soul for it, and to forget the pain of the lost soul, he squeezes the new faith even harder until he's lost in moral space.

(Emphasis mine)

Thanks, Mr. Hunter, it's so refreshing to see a mainstream pundit of any stripe point out the horrors and apologism of Communism. Perhaps you should send Lucas a copy of the WaPo clipped to a helpful historical reading list.

See also, Chrenkoff's enthusiastic leap to the dark side.

UPDATE: Then again, to temper Hunter's postive review:

Since Christensen has never come close to that level of gravitas, we're eager to see how Anakin the testy apprentice, the surly, conflicted boy, will emerge, corrupted, from the shell of his innocence.

He does and he doesn't. Anakin's journey to the Dark Side is sparked by half a dozen different motivations, none of them entirely convincing.

...

All of this is so talky and abstract, however, that Anakin's gathering storm seems hokey from the start, a function of the fact that it's simply time for him to begin getting mad. The trouble with "Revenge of the Sith" is that we're never really shown what we're told about endlessly: Anakin succumbing to the temptations of power.

Hyscience complements (and puts to shame) my superficial mention of the new study about low-fat diets and lower breast cancer recurrence with an actual analysis of the study. He points out some notable caveats to the results:

But as encouraging as the results are, the reliability of the study's outcome is questionable owing to factors such as the modest weight loss seen in the low-fat group or increased consumption of fruit and vegetables, may have contributed to the outcome, and an even more important variable that could make a difference is that some, but not all of the women in both study groups, were treated with chemotherapy following surgery. The researchers have not yet analyzed whether chemotherapy was associated with improved survival. That difference alone could have affected the outcome of the study. No statistical data was provided in the non-scientific review.

Failing to account for chemotherapy in some participants was a pretty big wild card, I'd imagine. The other nutritional factors (like that results were perhaps influenced by eating more vegetables rather than just less overall fat intake) are less problematic, as they just speak to the chosen mischaracterization of the diet. Instead of labeling dietary advice as "eat less fat," it's likely that more appropriate advice would counsel, "eat better food," a natural corollary of which is a diet lower in proinflammatory fats. I still think that there is a huge distinction to be made between "good" fats and "bad" fats in any course of action, a distinction that's ripe for a follow-up study.

Oh yes, that's the stuff. Every sweet word a righteous fix of calm, economical, brutal rejoinder punditry, a soothing antidote to Sullivansteria.

For those of you more in tune with the pro-wrestling rhetorical stylings of most blogs (including this one, obviously), a translation of understated Reynolds-speak: that was a bloody, screaming takedown, like performing a nephrectomy with fake anesthesia, a rusty saw and barbeque tongs, while wearing a pair of those oversized foam "We're Number One!" hands instead of rubber surgical gloves. The coup de grace:

As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he'll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.

So much ... blood. It's in my shoes.

UPDATE: More reaction here and here.

UPDATE: Bill Quick piles on:

Let's start with abu-Ghraib: Anybody who places such an overwhelmingly high level of importance on a few isolated instances of abuse in a war we have fought more cleanly than any nation in history has not just lost his moral footing, he's lost his ability to make rational distinctions.
...
Sullivan knows I support gay marriage. That said, Andrew, perhaps you'd do better to write a bit less about that, and a bit more about the butchers who would cheerfully stand you up next to a wall for your sexual proclivities, and then push the damned wall over on you. Talk about misplaced priorities! We are fighting a cleaner war than has ever been imagined, against religious fanatics who would like nothing better than to slaughter us wholesale, and Sullivan tries to pretend that the rules are those of an A-list clog dance in P-town.

Indeed.

Holy crap, Bo Bice can sing.

Baldilocks' post about international racism reminds me of a story that a friend once told me; this friend lived in a house with 5 others that attended a notable international graduate school in DC, and one day they took on a Frenchman as a new roommate. Being the hospitable sort, my friend took this fellow out to dinner on his first night in town, settling on Bistro du Coin after listening to an earful of the newcomer's invective against all cuisine that was either American or bastardized by Americanization. After roasting his host country's food, the uninhibited visitor moved on to other favorite topics, such as the depredations of American hegemony, the ugliness of American cities and the bankruptcy of American culture (I believe), finally settling in on perhaps his favorite subject - America's animated and systemic racism against blacks. According to this fellow, (white, powerful) Americans were uniquely racist and determined to subjugate blacks as a permanent underclass, in contravention to the international standards of justice and humanity upheld by the rest of the civilized world.

Having had enough of this jaw-dropping arrogance, my obviously mild-mannered friend (I would have dropped the jerk by then) finally stung back, "America is racist? What about France's treatment of the Algerians?"

To which the Frenchman started and quickly quipped, without irony, "Oh ... but zee Algerians, zey, zey are so durtee!"

A Pew study on the impact of blogging prior to the 2004 election is available for review. The full report is in pdf format here. The portion on Rathergate is interesting, starting on page 20, and getting good on 22 with "The Rathergate Bloggers as Political Smart Mobs," though I think that the report underplays the fierce resistance to the story by many liberal blogs. It also ignores the early expert analysis of Dr. Philip Bouffard (as well as other early professional testimony), focusing on Joseph Newcomber as the first relevant expert to analyze the documents.

Otherwise, a pretty good read on how blogs work in concert. Best line:

The middle of September, by contrast, was a perfect time for a reality show worthy of the name "CSI: CBS."

What a boring show - a bunch of bloggers in white coats waving blacklights over grainy copies of superscripts, shouting, "Eureka! Your ass is mine, Danny-boy!"

*** Stephen Green notes that Roger Ebert is off his rocker. Further proof: he gave the Godfather, Part II only 3 stars, which is less than his rating for the new Star Wars, Godfather Part III(!) and Kingdom of Heaven!

*** Everybody's crazy 'bout a ...

*** A guest poster at Blackfive pens an interesting read: "Has Feminism Killed Femininity?"

*** And finally, note the Llama Butchers' new logo on the top right of the page ... I always suspected that Robbo was the "princess" and Steve was the "rogue."

Must Read.

All of it. Don't come back until you're done.

Some may be scared of this ...

Traditionally, human technologies have been aimed outward, to control our environment, resulting in, for example, clothing, agriculture, cities and airplanes. Now, however, we have started aiming our technologies inward. We are transforming our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities and our progeny. Serious people, including some at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, consider such modification of what it means to be human to be a radical evolution -- one that we direct ourselves. They expect it to be in full flower in the next 10 to 20 years.

"The next frontier," says Gregory Stock, director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at the UCLA School of Medicine, "is our own selves."
...
The power of information technology will double every 18 months, for as far as the eye can see.

Sure enough, in 2002, the 27th doubling occurred right on schedule with a billion-transistor chip. A doubling is an amazing thing. It means the next step is as great as all the previous steps put together. Twenty-seven consecutive doublings of anything man-made, an increase of well over 100 million times-- especially in so short a period -- is unprecedented in human history.

This is exponential change. It's a curve that goes straight up.

... but I'm so excited that I'm wetting my pants. And in the future, nanobots will clean up my mess and convert it into tasty, cancer-destroying super snack cookies.

This point is especially interesting, and reflects why I'm pretty apathetic about tactical outrage over doping in pro sports:

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A new study links dietary changes to a decrease in breast cancer reccurrence:

Breast cancer victims can cut the chances their tumors will come back by adopting low-fat diets, according to the first study to produce direct evidence that a lifestyle change can fend off any type of tumor.

The study of more than 2,400 middle-aged and elderly women found that those who reduced the fat in their diets after undergoing standard treatment for early breast cancer were significantly less likely to suffer a recurrence in the next five years, researchers reported today.

It's unsurprising that dietary change can impact cancer risks, though the study fails to distinguish between "bad" fats (pro-inflammatory, saturated, animal) and "good" fats (anti-inflammatory, fish, plant-based), the latter of which have been shown to have powerfully protective effect against other maladies, like heart disease. My suspicion is that the mechanism for decreased cancer recurrence is a reduction in inflammation and/or unnatural estrogens via the consumption of less bad fat, but that's just an educated guess. It's also possible that the reduction of ingesting all fat could reduce the production of hormones that encourage breast cancer development (as well as have a role in normal function, and the growth of breast tissue in general). I would think that making a distinction about what type of fat needs to be reduced is vital before doling out dietary recommendations with confidence, as a low, low fat diet (that cuts all fats, including the anti-inflammatory variety) can jack up the risks of other maladies.

Now for the annoyance - the article includes the inevitable patronizing official fretting over the public's consumption of the information:

Some experts and patient advocates, however, worried that the findings could create the impression that people have more control over whether they get cancer or suffer recurrences than they do, prompting feelings of guilt and blame.

"People should not take this study as an indication that if someone with breast cancer had just done this, they wouldn't have cancer," said Barbara Brenner of Breast Cancer Action, a patient advocacy group.

Depends, Babs.

God, I hate Newsweek. It only grows and grows, my hatred, flourishing like an aggressive mycotoxic mold in the dark, damp crannies of my psyche.

UPDATE: Baldilocks:

Publishing a report on an unverified desecration of Islam’s holy scripture was merely a tool meant to undermine the military’s mission in the War on Terror(ists) and thereby discredit the war’s author, the president. But like many tools wielded by unskilled “warriors,” it missed the mark and hit the wrong targets: at least 15 Afghanis, now dead.

Nice shooting, clowns.

Jane's friend Nabil al-Wazer has been kidnapped, and the Yemeni government may be involved. Please visit this post and perhaps leave a comment to help generate the idea of widespread interest in the case to the right people.

Jane is an American blogger who's been actively publishing pro-democracy articles in Middle Eastern publications and cultivating relationships with reformers in the region. Please help her out.

UPDATE: He's been released. That was fast.

One of my posts made Wikipedia's entry for the term "Islamofascism."

External links
Andrew Sullivan Interview from INDC Journal

And though it includes an accurate description of the term, it's also a post specifically marked as satire.

I assume that they didn't scroll down to the pictures of bears frolicking in a hot tub.

Sara Berg, the sister of murdered hostage Nicholas Berg:

Some things are unforgivable. What Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his many accomplices did to my brother Nick is unforgivable. It was not an act of war; it was a cold-blooded, premeditated heinous crime. To call it anything else suggests that it is an acceptable act of war, an acceptable response to America's military action. It is not.

The world would be a better place if al-Zarqawi was no longer in it. He is pure evil. I don't think someone like him is capable of any human feeling anymore. The only way to keep people like him from harming thousands of other people is to eliminate them.

Before this happened, I did not comprehend the magnitude of his evil and of people like him. But to experience the heinousness of what he did to someone as good and as innocent as my brother has totally changed my perspective. I don't know how to respond in a humane way to such inhumane acts. I don't think a humane response is necessary.

Read the rest for her additional swipe at the media in the ultimate paragraph.

Her father obviously had a slightly different opinion when I spoke with him.

A moving picture.

(Via Kadnine)

I'm not sure that I agree with the overall prediction, but this guy employs some pretty sound logic in his criticism and analysis of the video game industry:

And this is no joke; this is not flame bait or Luddite wishful thinking. Beginning with the 2005 wave of consoles, the video game market is going to crash.
...
If I'm right about this, the gaming industry is about to face its first real exodus of existing customers, a hard-core group they've relied upon for decades to snap up every new box on the shelf. And if the young kids don't see anything new and novel in this next round of machines...

I suppose that when you're looking at the business model of a growing industry, any stagnation would constitute an effective "crash."

UPDATE: Check out more from an "industry insider."

"But, the healthcare!"

And the literacy rates, don't forget those.

The mockery of Glenn Reynolds at the Huffington's Toast parody site had me wiping away tears through my laughter.

Though to quibble, the writing needs a few "Tom Maguire says some great things that are too numerous and uniquely wonderful to highlight. Please click through to his main page and keep scrolling around until your eyes bleed" lines in his entries, if you ask me.

My favorite? This one, mocking the Professor's digital photography skills and typical choice of subject matter.

PS - It's my suspicion that Allah Pundit is the secret author of the Reynolds entries. Wild guess, but I think that I can smell his humor.

UPDATE: There's some Tom Maguire ...

UPDATE: Not authored by Allah. My nose is for shit. Still funny as Hell.

UPDATE: My nose isn't totally for shit, he did write some of the Reynolds entries. And there endeth the annoying updates.

The Citizen Journalist Report had changed timeslots, but Jeff G and I decided to go ahead and take a break for a few weeks, as the work commitment (plus inherent laziness, multiplied by lack of reward incentive) has been difficult to manage lately. The show may return within a couple of weeks on a new schedule.

UPDATE: BTW - the same rationale applies to "FYI - Where Was the Blogging?"

Andy at World Wide Rant highlights the dumbest column that I've read in recent memory:

Put this to a dedicated Darwinist: How did two apes, two animals driven by nothing but instinct to survive, mate and produce a thinking, discerning, right-from-wrong-knowing human being?

My mind reels and hurls at the nearly infinite, dizzying layers of slippery hubristic ignorance required for the honest formulation of that question.

UPDATE: An excellent column is William Saletan's exaltation of Intelligent Design (sort of) in the service of condemning literal Creationism:

Six years later, evolutionists in Kansas are under attack again. They think the old creationism is back. They're mistaken. Homo erectus—the defense, on pluralist grounds, of the literal account of Genesis—is beginning to die out. The new challenger, ID, differs fundamentally from fundamentalism. Like its creationist forebears, ID is theistic. But unlike them, it abandons Biblical literalism, embraces open-minded inquiry, and accepts falsification, not authority, as the ultimate test. These concessions, sincere or not, define a new species of creationism—Homo sapiens—that fatally undermines its ancestors. Creationists aren't threatening us. They're becoming us.
...
Perversely, evolutionists refuse to facilitate this collapse. They prefer to dismiss ID proponents as dead-end Neanderthals. They complain, legitimately, that Calvert and Harris are trying to expand the definition of science beyond "natural explanations." But have you read the definition Calvert and Harris propose? It would define science as a continuous process of "observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena." Abstract creationism can't qualify for such scrutiny. Substantive creationism can't survive it. Or if it can, it should.

It's very possible to look at theories of Intelligent Design without scorn, as the best of these theories acknowledge scientific standards of proof and logical determination for the knowable, while complementing the philosophical (and completely theoretical) gaps with religious faith - this is the inevitable compromise between science and religion. But to me, the conflict arises again when any religious beliefs requiring particular and subjective brands of faith are presented in the context of scientific inquiry and education. Man will never "know" God through anything other than the most personal "evidence," therefore the belief in a sentient Creator is a topic that naturally sits outside of the parameters of a science education. Theology? Philosophy? Yes. Not science.

See also: Creationism vs. Intelligent Design: Is there a difference?

Frothy again! My favorite exchange:

Dennis: "So there are no bad teachers?"

O'Donnell (voice lowered, since he was speaking to Dennis again): "There are some bad teachers, yes, I've never met them in the California system as long as my child's been in it."

Me: "Because he kills them."

Ha. I'd like to see him and Al Franken wrassle.

(Via Malkin)

I just slashed, slashed, SLASHED my Blogad rates!

Please consider advertising, or just check out my brand new sponsor.

Such actions only strengthen my hand against the aliens.

When Kansas Creationists lie down with dogs, they're bound to pick up some literalist Islamist fleas. And which version of Intelligent Design do we teach?

Via the Commissar, whose post includes a more extensive round-up of Kansas's attempt to introduce theology into science education. The nutty dissonance of this effort (Earth only 10,000 years old?!) is really pretty mindboggling in a modern cultural and scientific context.

Me personally? I think that we were placed on earth 2,000 years ago by space aliens, tricky bastards that planted fossils and the like to confuse us, all for their sick entertainment. Oh yes, that's right - they're watching us right now.

I KNOW THAT YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU SADISTIC SPACE ALIEN BASTARDS! AND I'M TELLING YOU RIGHT NOW - I'M NOT YOUR DAMNED MEAT PUPPET - YOU CAN'T SUBTLY INFLUENCE ME TO ACT OUT IN TOTALLY ABSURD WAYS SO THAT I MIGHT SUPPLY YOU WITH SILLY SPACE ALIEN SHITS AND GIGGLES! NOSIREE, ASSHOLES! NOT THIS RATIONAL HUMAN!

I'm on to your game. And someday soon, I'll be right there when we finally go Independence Day on your asses, looking you square in your 12 red eyes as you beg for the merciful act of GLONDeQUEARRRK-NEDWIIZZEEEDAAANG!! -- jeGLICK! ** tsdwee **

Scaly bastards.

Did you catch any footage of the President wiggling his hips on the news last night?

After a day's activities in Moscow, the Bushes were scheduled only to take a short stroll around Tbilisi's elegant old town with Saakashvili and his wife and then retire for the night. Bush is known not to enjoy sightseeing and often finishes such events early. But Saakashvili arranged for an elaborate series of dance shows. Every time one ended, another began and the boyish 37-year-old Georgian president kept glancing over to see if Bush was enjoying himself.

It seemed he was. Bush ended up clapping enthusiastically, bobbing his head to the beat and finally gyrating his hips. He got so excited that he jumped onto the stage and posed for pictures. "Yeah! Yeah!" he yelled, cheering a 6-year-old boy who danced with furious energy.

Oh, it was so bad, very similar to the fourth option from the top on this handy old simulation. What an impossibly hysterical goofball (expressed with affection colored with mild embarrassment). Bonus: Laura kept hustling him off the stage each time he started into one of his hip wiggles.

UPDATE: But hey, what do I know:

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the pro-Western leader catapulted to power 18 months ago in the peaceful "Rose Revolution," escorted Bush and his wife, Laura, on a tour of Tbilisi's old quarter where performers representing different regions of Georgia serenaded him and danced.
...
His moves impressed Saakashvili. "Some dancers told me they like his rhythm. He captured the whole thing immediately."

(Last link via Florida Cracker, whose link round-up focuses on boring stuff, like the geopolitical ramifications and underlying message of the visit)

UPDATE: Check out some brief video.

(Thanks to milowent)

Malkin:

Arianna is very good at what she does, which is to collect people like curios and throw sprawling house parties for them--parties that attract never-ending hordes of looky-loos simultaneously bemused and repulsed by the grand spectacle of obsequiousness and megalomania dressed up as political dialogue.

Indeed.

Better get on some of that elemental Chinese ...

"Hello" -- "Ni Hao" (Nee-how)

"Goodbye" -- "Zaijian" (ds-aye-jon)

"Thank you" -- "Xie Xie" (She-a She-a)

"Where is the bathroom?" -- "Xishoujian za nali?" (You figure it out)

... and most importantly ...

"Thank You, Master!" -- "Xie Xie Tzu!"

Fareed Zakaria's informative treatise on the rise of China:

China's rise is no longer a prediction. It is a fact. It is already the world's fastest-growing large economy, and the second largest holder of foreign-exchange reserves, mainly dollars. It has the world's largest army (2.5 million men) and the fourth largest defense budget, which is rising by more than 10 percent annually. Whether or not it overtakes the United States economically, which looks to me like a distant prospect, it is the powerful new force on the global scene.
...
When historians look back at the last decades of the 20th century, they might well point to 1979 as a watershed. That year the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, digging its grave as a superpower. It was also the year that China began its economic reforms. They were launched at a most unlikely gathering, the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held in December 1978. Before the formal meetings, at a working-group session, the newly empowered party boss, Deng Xiaoping, gave a speech that turned out to be the most important one in modern Chinese history. He urged that the regime focus on development and modernization, and let facts—not ideology—guide its path. "It doesn't matter if it is a black cat or a white cat," Deng often said. "As long as it can catch mice, it's a good cat." Since then, China has done just that, pursued a modernization path that is ruthlessly pragmatic and nonideological.

The results have been astonishing. China has grown around 9 percent a year for more than 25 years, the fastest growth rate for a major economy in recorded history. In that same period it has moved 300 million people out of poverty and quadrupled the average Chinese person's income. And all this has happened, so far, without catastrophic social upheavals. The Chinese leadership has to be given credit for this historic achievement.

This analysis is particularly interesting:

The Chinese threat or challenge will not present itself in the familiar guise of another Soviet Union, straining to keep pace with America in military terms. It is more likely to be what Ramo describes as an "asymmetrical superpower." It will use its economic dominance and its political skills to achieve its objectives. China does not want to invade and occupy Taiwan; it is more likely to keep undermining the Taiwan independence movement, so that Beijing slowly accumulates advantage and wears out the opponent. "The goal for China is not conflict but the avoidance of conflict," Ramo writes. "True success in strategic issues involves manipulating a situation so effectively that the outcome is inevitably in favor of Chinese interests. This emerges from the oldest Chinese strategic thinker, Sun Zi, who argued that 'every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought'."

At least that's the plan. The trouble is that while maintaining this long-term strategy, China often lapses into short-term behavior that seems aggressive and hostile. Perhaps this is because the rational decision-making that guides its economic policy is not so easily applied in the realm of politics, where honor, history, pride and anger all play a large role. So with Taiwan, last week Beijing was playing out its long-term plan, "normalizing" relations with the island's main opposition party, and smothering it with conciliation. But last month it passed the anti-secession law, which angered most Taiwanese and alarmed Americans and Europeans.

Read the whole thing. And if you'd like to go a little deeper, this 2001 document (PDF) is interesting, highlighting how the Chinese view of international relations differs from American sensibilities:

Chinese worldviews tend to see an ever-evolving, ever-changing nature, without a set beginning and with no “end” to which the world is inexorably evolving; Chinese “analogical” or “correlative” thinking “accepts the priority of change or process over rest and permanence” and “presumes no ultimate agency responsible for the general order of things.”

This philosophical approach sees history more as a dialectical or cyclical, rather than linear, process. Worldviews in the United States, based on Western/Judeo-Christian philosophies and Enlightenment values, tend to presume a philosophical “beginning” and “end” point, that history moves linearly from an initial chaos, anarchy or “law of the jungle” toward a desirable, universalistic end, and that man can shape that destiny through concrete action. In its approach to foreign policy questions, U.S. views would then tend to favor action over acquiescence, regularized, formal, transparent, and predictably ordered relationships, and to mark progress by the steady and timely achievement of binding instruments and arrangements.

Chinese philosophical views spill over into the country’s international relations, and affect understandings of time, relationships and agreements: Chinese interlocutors will tend to take a politically pragmatic, even cynical, “long-term view”, and prefer personal, informal relationships forged on trust and mutually recognized codes of conduct rather than formal, institutionalized relationships based on legally-derived, concrete covenants.

I'd think that such a cynical, fluid worldview presents serious challenges to Western "ends," such as endeavors to "end terror" or "end tyranny," as well as undermines the potential for lasting, firm authority from international organizations like a reformed UN or the WTO. It also supports the idea of an asymmetrical conflict. China should keep the 21st Century interesting.

Honestly? Keeping it real? I think that more five-year olds should be handcuffed. A lot more. Close to all of them, really.

Loud, squirrely little bastards.

Sticky fingers.

Read More »

Geekfight!

(Via IP)

Read More »

When I go to my local video store and ask for copies of "the Sting" and "the Bad News Bears," the clerk proffers rather unexpected versions. I shit you not.

Blockbuster Video, wherefore art thou?

Humanity's most imperfect food.

Read More »

I feel exhausted from just reading all of this, and that man lived it. Rest in peace.

(Via Malkin)

Enjoy. (AVI File)

Compare it to the original.

And related, but switching gears: "The Hand That Feeds," NIN's new single.

(The last two links require Quicktime Plug-in)

The new single is kind of predictable Reznor, and it gets a bit talky-goth pretentious towards the end, but there's an undeniable catchiness to that guitar riff and bass line.

You know when a little kid or baby is just plain homely, but everyone is too polite to say the obvious?

Well, there's a statute of limitations on such decorum.

(I kid, I kid!)

And note what a good looking fella Val grew into ...

The "number of the beast" is really 616?!!

Ace ponders the recall of heavy metal songs and paraphernalia.

Case in point. (WMV file)

This is a really, really, really good post.*

* Social cons are advised not to get huffy about the title and quit - read it.

*** "[B]udget deficit appears to have crested." Fingers crossed.

*** This picture is astounding.

*** Malkin's post also links to this web site's "moving tribute" to the soldier in that incredibly touching photograph. In the middle of otherwise agreeable discourse, the blogger drops the following cliche:

This American soldier is cradling in his arms a dying child. An innocent child. Probably no more than five or six years old. He is a victim of those whose only true faith is the faith of death. This faith is islam. The "religion of peace".

Apparently, it fails to occur to the writer that, presumably, the "innocent child" was Muslim, as are any grieving parents and family members, along with the other victims, Iraqi soldiers, politicians and everyday folks that are fighting the murderous terrorists that kill for radical religious or entirely secular motivations.

So can we all be good rational humanists and drop this hatefully sweeping, sarcastic "religion of peace" bullshit? I'm not supporting our efforts to Democratize and modernize the Middle East in order to convert a billion people in a "death cult" to Christianity, Judaism or anything else, as that intolerant comment implies.

You know, just a thought.

Can't we crack wise
About a horse's junk?
Is it Yahweh's final warning
On the depths to which we've sunk?

Can't we sling jokes
About a stallion's dong?
Is it the counsel of Jesus
That His disciples have gone wrong?

And what about the llama
The monkey, the goat, the ewe?
Does chiding meat with God's disfavor
Can't we kid about spanking them too?

I cannot know the answer
'Tis for those upright and stiff
But meantime have you heard the one
About the Scotsman, the sheep
and the cliff?

This calls for a Cartman-like "Shuweet:"

Alleged al-Qaida No. 3 arrested in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The man thought to be al-Qaida's operations commander, and who might know where Osama bin Laden is hiding, has been arrested in Pakistan, the government announced Wednesday.

The arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a Libyan who is also wanted in two attempts to assassinate Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is seen by U.S. officials as significant because of his alleged control over the daily operations of al-Qaida.

The joke: Laura Bush's wisecrack about her naive husband accidentally milking a male horse:

"George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. ... But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."

The reviews:

The American Prospect:

It simply is amazing how complacently accepting the princely Bush first couple is of all the cheapness and rot in our culture. (And I won't begin to analyze the Bush milking the male horse joke and what it says about the Bushes' cynical use of the religious right.)

Someone clue me in here ... what exactly does the "milking the male horse joke" say about Bush's "cynical use of the religious right?" Is the religious right metaphorically represented by the horse? Or perhaps they're roosters in the barn, scandalized by the monstrous image of an ignorant bumbler fumbling with a boy-horse's junk? I'm not afraid to admit that I'm confused.

Let's check the rule book:

Leviticus 18:23

"Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion."

Yup, bestiality is there, no bones about it. But does accidentally milking a male horse make one a de facto horsosexual? You know, if it was just an innocent, accidental equine reach-around in search of calcium-rich goodness? What if I just laugh at the joke while picturing the act - does that make me a horsosexual too? And not to unnecessarily compound the evening's transgressions against Leviticus, but I'm fairly certain that the C-SPAN cameras also caught Lynne Cheney nibbling on some cocktail shrimp. Chew on that.

Following the American Prospect's stinging condemnation, there's a doozy of a review at this blog, which I'm still attempting to decipher - earnest commentary or flat-out satire?

Wow. It is hard to put into words how horrendous and out of character this is for our first lady. Laura Bush is known as the book-wormy librarian. The model for Christian Conservative women across America... and here she is telling jokes with insinuations of beastiality and homosexual behavior. What a sad commentary on the state of the conservative movement in our society. The Republican party is moving rapidly toward the left while the Democrats are moving even further left than they already are. I believe we are being herded like cattle. Our ranch masters are leading us down the path they want us to go... which is straight towards international socialism.

Ah-HA! I was right about the religious right ranch metaphor! But the religious righties aren't the violated horse at all, they're jealous McCarthyite cattle!

Is it any wonder why the libs are fawning over this performance? Laura Bush has desended to their level... and they love it! But what does this say about our country...? How will our allies view this performance? Will it confirm their worst fears that our President is a bumbling fool? How about our enemies? Will Al-Qaeda be intimidated by the homosexual imagery of our President, masturbating a male horse? Or will they be emboldened? Will they come to the conclusion that we are just a bunch of idiots, or that we are decadent fools who need to die?

See, I was still unsure that the joke even inferred that Bush was in fact engaging in bestiality, yet now I'm confronted with the double-whammy of GAY bestiality. I mean, I'd just thought that it was a good-natured poke at a city dude that doesn't know his way around farm animals, but good conservatives saw the true, insidious nature of the joke's sexually-charged punchline - that George Bush was having gay horse sex, lovingly stroking the horse-hood of his softly neighing gay lover. In a gay way. Gay.

Which naturally begged the more important question - what will Al Qaeda think? And aren't we asking to die for such filth?

Moving on to our next review, she may be a prude, but she's our prude, and consistency is certainly one of Michelle Malkin's virtues:

Most of Mrs. Bush's humor at the correspondents' dinner was just right: Edgy but not over the edge. But I think the stripper and horse jokes were totally beneath her.

Just put it to the other-shoe test: If it were Teresa Heinz Kerry standing up on the dais telling the same jokes, the conservative commentariat would be buzzing for the rest of the year about what a tasteless skank she is.

If Teresa Heinz Kerry were standing on that dais, we'd have a lot bigger things to complain about than farm jokes, I'd imagine.

"Lighten up?" How about cleaning up? The First Lady resorting to cheap horse masturbation jokes is not much better than Whoopi Goldberg trafficking in dumb puns on the Bush family name. Unlike many Beltway and Manhattan commentators, I do not think the Wonkette-ization of the White House is a good thing.

And there we go with the "masturbation" again. Was it a sexual act? Is there any record of the horse enjoying it? For how long did Bush "milk" the animal? Did the horse in fact gloriously climax into the President's tin milk bucket, or did Bush just briefly grasp the appendage via the inept judgment that it was a milk teat? And what if had been a teat? Is that not akin to rounding second base with a farm animal?! I suppose it would dodge the homosexuality bullet, but what about the bestiality implications of heavy-petting your girl pets?!

And if we're looking at the "Wonkette-ization of the White House," I must know: for God's sake, what else did George Bush do to that horse?!

And what about the shrimp?!

The mind boggles.

UPDATE: And what about this wanker?

And will I ever stop asking questions?!

UPDATE: I'm currently getting spammed by a huge quantity of porn trackbacks advertising "horse-sex." Coincidence? Or God's angry wrath?

UPDATE: A burst of verse.

I'd agree with this assessment:

Thirty years later, and largely thanks to Landau, Springsteen is no longer a musician. He's a belief system. And, like any belief system worth its salt, he brooks no in-between. You're either in or you're out. This has solidified Bruce's standing with his base, for whom he remains a god of total rock authenticity. But it's killed him with everyone else. To a legion of devout nonbelievers—they're not saying Bruuuce, they're booing — Bruce is more a phenomenon akin to Dianetics or Tinkerbell than "the new Dylan," as the Columbia Records promotions machine once hyped him. And so we've reached a strange juncture. About America's last rock star, it's either Pentecostal enthusiasm or total disdain.

Music-wise, Springsteen's overaffected, raspy gasping never moved me (too self-conscious, too sloppy and simple, too dense), and his cliched foray into politics moves me even less. I like a wide variety of music, but his immense appeal has always escaped me.

*** Do people this uptight really exist? Thanks for the reminder, Bill. Put a craps table in a Chippendales club and Bennett would be there six nights a week.

UPDATE: More wacky conservative (and hypocritical, opportunistic jackass liberal) condemnation of Laura Bush's stand-up routine. No pompous scolding yet from John Hawkins. "Yet." (The third link at OTB is satire, btw - yet it's so subtle that it's barely distinguishable from the real reactions).

*** In between posts featuring her characteristically understated yet paint-peeling sarcasm, Florida Cracker is dishing out the earnest schmaltz lately. And though I'm all man, I'm not necessarily complaining.

* sniffle *

*** Don't forget the good news from Afghanistan.

*** Evangelical Christians under attack! By an evangelical Christian, aka "the Fighting Quaker."

I huddle, watch and softly munch my heathen popcorn with nary a revelatory crunch nor crackle.

*** What influence would shape public education in Kansas if Muslims (or any other group) were to become a new majority in the area? Quick, someone start mail-dropping "Kansas: Main Street America" brochures to Moroccan and Saudi Arabian emigration offices and consulates; let's help learn those Kansans about the Establishment Clause by putting some Sharia in Seneca.

Oh, what a feeling:

"I was so angry," says Samir, who immigrated to St. Louis eleven years ago after fleeing Iraq. "I began cussing at him, calling him a motherfucker, a son-of-a-bitch -- you name it. I told him I was Shiite from the south and was part of the revolution against him in 1991. I said he murdered my uncles and cousins. He imprisoned my father.

"All these years of anger, I couldn't stop. I tried to say the worst things I could. I told him if he were a real man he would have killed himself. I asked him: 'Why are you living in that dirty little hole, you bastard? You are a rat. Your father is a rat.'"

In Arabic, Saddam told Samir to shut up. And when Saddam called him a traitor, an enraged Samir silenced his prisoner with a flurry of quick jabs to the face.

"I punched Saddam in the mouth."