I'm Not Sure Which Half Of This Combination Is Scarier...

Family Circus + Cthulhu = SUCCESS!!!

Belated hat tip to Spear and Magic.

Cognitive Dissonance? What Cognitive Dissonance?

A week after writing a great column about how our terrible foreign policy is making us hated around the world, David Ignatius returns to the wank mines with a rave review of Condi's brilliant performance as Secretary of State. Oookay.

High praise indeed:

Colleagues say... that she's as good at administering her own agency as she was bad at coordinating interagency disputes when she was national security adviser.

If only everyone in the Bush administration could be as competent in their second term as they were incompetent in their first...

Sinking Ship, Meet Rats.

Funny, this sort of thing never used to bother them before...

Must be something in the water.




Like Their Own Blood.

Inaugural Late-Night Tripod Blogging

Well, tonight was the maiden voyage of my new Slik Sprint tripod, and what did I use it for?

Creepy light-up nativity photos!


I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the Three Kings may be of the Burger variety...

Now I Can Die Happy.

My blog is not just the top result, but the top TWO results if you Google light up codpiece.

My entire life has meaning now.




(Must not dwell on why someone was searching for light-up codpieces, must not dwell on why someone was searching for light-up codpieces, must not dwell...)

Almost Unbearable Cuteness

Baby panda video, courtesy of USA Today.


I wonder what qualifications you need to be an Assistant Curator for Pandas.

Chim Chim Cheree...

I have just been informed that chimney sweeps will be coming to my apartment sometime in the next week or two, despite its advanced state of non-fireplace-havingness.

I am not making this up.



It's something to do with checking the heating vents, apparently. Alas, I will not be home at the time, so I won't get to see if their breath is all sooty like in the FedEx commercial.

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke Of Jail...

One down, 200-something to go...

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

(snip)

Cunningham answered "yes, Your Honor" when asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted bribes from someone in exchange for his performance of official duties.

Later, at a news conference, he wiped away tears as he announced his resignation.

"I can't undo what I have done but I can atone," he said.

(snip)

"He did the worst thing an elected official can do -- he enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there," U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said....

The case began when authorities started investigating whether Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, used the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy the $2.55 million mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 -- a loss of $700,000.

The last paragraph is my favorite:

Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas had to step down as majority leader after he was indicted in a campaign finance case; a stock sale by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being looked at by regulators; and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted in the CIA leak case.

I hope this is a sign that the Republican teflon is finally wearing off, but we need more like this. Much more. I want congresscritters to be a lot more wary about whose money they take and what they grant in return, and I want ethics rules with some teeth. Frankly, even if some Democrats go down, I don't really care. I just want someone to clean House. And Senate.

Just Call Me Wanker Of The Morning

Ugh. Yet another reminder of why I can't stand conservatives.

Today's NYT has an op-ed piece by National Review writer John J. Miller, who starts out eulogizing the conservative, recently-liquidated Olin Foundation and what structural and strategic lessons it offers the liberal foundations trying to emulate it.

Okay, so far, so good. But then he abruptly puts the wank pedal to the metal:

So, is it possible to create a liberal version of the John M. Olin Foundation? I have my doubts. The success of any idea certainly depends to some extent on whether it can muster financial support, and it may also benefit from effective marketing. But in the end, not all ideas are equal. Some are simply better than others. After all, if money were everything, then liberalism would have nothing to worry about: the Ford Foundation's coffers alone dwarf the combined resources of the conservative grant makers.

Conservatives never would have risen to prominence without their compelling critique of the welfare state, their faith in the power of free markets to create economic prosperity, and their belief that religion can play a constructive role in the public square.

The economist Thomas Sowell once joked that Hank Aaron was a lucky man, because he was always stepping up to the plate when a home run was about to be hit. Likewise, conservative ideas took flight not because wealthy philanthropists were suddenly willing to finance them, but because they identified actual problems and offered sensible solutions.

If liberals now want to create a counter-counterintelligentsia, it's going to take more than money; what they truly need is a set of really good ideas.

Oh yeah, those conservative ideas are great. They've worked out really really well for us. Much better than silly liberal notions like Medicare and Social Security and not blowing up other countries for no damn reason. Arrrrgggh.

Welcome To My Nightmare

Last night I dreamt that I was walking home and I saw this absolutely spectacular view of the full moon lighting up the clouds in the night sky like they were a stage. I ran the rest of the way home to grab my camera to get the shot, and when I got there, I realized that my camera was sitting face-up with its lenscap off. When I took a closer look, sure enough the lens had all kinds of crud on it, and when I tried to gently brush it away, it left greasy streaks so that the lens would need a thorough cleaning, by which time the beauty moon/clouds shot would be long gone.

It. Was. HORRIBLE.

*shudder*

(Look at me; I'm so traumatized I can't even make a joke about shudder speeds...)


And before anyone asks why I didn't have my camera with me, there are certain occasions where I don't bring it along, like if it's raining, or I'm getting groceries, or I'm snooping around a secret underground complex trying to copy data about aliens onto my USB flash drive.

It's, Ah, "In Development"...

I have a movie title that I know will be box office dynamite if anyone decides to run with it:

Anaïs Ninja.

I don't believe any further explication is necessary.

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

"And then two small bladders came out of their mouths. Just as she was starting to hum, too."

From The World Of Henry Orient, where two teenage fangirls sort-of-stalk concert pianist Peter Sellers.

I have no idea what the quote means.


And, of course, there'll be other people's cats...


The triumphant return of the Amazing Black & White Mocha!

Thank You, Science!!!

A bit of Friday meta-cat-blogging: my blog is the first result if you search Google for scientifically cats reasons why having mustaches...

Good to know.

Good For You, Robot Monkey Heads!

The shadowy and mysterious Codename V. has some extremely compelling and important thoughts to share on the subject of Robot Monkey Heads.

Go. Read. Now.

YOUR VERY LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT.

Oh, Snap!

I almost missed this! From the NY Daily News' Rush & Molloy gossip column's reportage of the White House turkey-pardoning ceremony, by way of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin:

The President peered into Marshmallow's eyes and stroked the bird's fluffy white feathers with a tenderness usually reserved for members of the Saudi royal family.

It has been my observation that the NY Daily News trends a wee bit to the left of its Post-y counterpart...

Ignatius Nails It... Mostly

I seem to recall him saying some jerky things about war critics recently, but David Ignatius is almost completely spot-on in his latest WaPo column:

When I lived abroad, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It was a chance to scrounge up a turkey, gather foreign and American friends, and celebrate what America represented to the world. I liked to give a sentimental toast when the turkey arrived at the table, and more than once I had my foreign guests in tears. They loved the American dream as much as I did.

(Okay, that's laying it on a little thick, but stay with me here)

I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years. The public opinion polls tell us that America isn't just disliked or feared overseas -- it is reviled. We are seen as hypocrites who boast of our democratic values but who behave lawlessly and with contempt for others. I hate this America-bashing, but when I try to defend the United States and its values in my travels abroad, I find foreigners increasingly are dismissive. How do you deny the reality of Abu Ghraib, they ask, when the vice president of the United States is actively lobbying against rules that would ban torture?

Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, this may be the worst. We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines what it means to be an American.

(I snipped some good stuff about how torturing and disappearing people used to be what other countries did)

The United States must begin to replenish this stock of support for America in the world. I would love to see the Bush administration take the lead, but its officials seem not to understand the problem. Even if they turned course, much of the world wouldn't believe them. Sadly, when President Bush eloquently evokes our values, the world seems to tune out. So this task falls instead to the American public. It's a job that involves traveling, sharing, living our values, encouraging our children to learn foreign languages and work and study abroad. In short, it means giving something back to the world.

(We're screwed.)

We must stop behaving as if we are in a permanent state of war, in which any practice is justified by the exigencies of the moment. That's my biggest problem with Vice President Cheney's anything-goes jeremiads against terrorism. They suggest we will always be at war, and so it doesn't matter what the world thinks of our behavior. That's a dangerously mistaken view. We are in a long war but not an endless one, and we need to begin rebuilding the bridges to normal life.

Ignatius hones in perfectly on the mentality that has led to America's flirtation with The Dark Side, but I'm skeptical about his prescription for what we, the people can do about it. Sure, raising our kids as world citizens wouldn't hurt, but I don't think it would be much of a counterweight against a malevolent, out-of-control government.

The only way it could solve the problem would be indirectly, by spawning a new generation of American voters raised with a global, big-picture, humanist perspective who would vote the crazies out. Of course, the rest of us have to hold the line against the nation-at-war-so-anything-goes mentality enough so that we still have meaningful elections by the time the new generation is old enough to vote.

Masters Of Irony

It always amazes me that Republicans can maintain a straight face when they say this sort of thing. In this case, they're referring to Bush's tumbling poll numbers (especially on honesty and integrity) following Democratic accusations that the administration lied us into Iraq:

"I do think that it demonstrates that if you spend enough money and repeat the charge enough, the old political axiom in Washington can come true: that charges left unanswered can stick," he said. "That's why we felt it important to marshal a vigorous defense by calling out our critics and the transparency of their charges."

Well, yeah, Dan. You guys wrote that chapter of the textbook. I wish Kerry and Shrum had bothered to read it...

Ratings Advisory Of The Week

From the NYT review of the new Usher movie, In The Mix:

"In the Mix" is rated PG-13 (Parental guidance suggested). It has strong language, sexual situations, considerable gunfire and one unfortunate accident involving a shiny disco ball.

Do not taunt Happy Disco Ball.

You Go, Girl!

Good news/bad news from NY Newsday:

South America's latest beauty queen won't be campaigning abroad for world peace any time soon, unless, of course, she's granted early parole.

Angelica Macua, a statuesque Angolan serving five years on international drug smuggling charges, on Thursday was voted Miss Penitentiary 2005 after a six-hour contest pitting 40 women inmates from 10 prisons around Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo.

"People told me, 'You're tall; you should enter the contest,' so that's why I entered," Macua said. "I've always been interested in fashion."

I just watch it for the jumpsuit competition.

Basking In The Glow

Yes, I am a happy happy blogger today. Not only did the WSJ release the most encouraging poll numbers ever, not only was my blog the number one Google search result for both an althouse batshit crazy and hot liberal blogger, but The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin has winked kindly upon me. The very last item in his WaPo online chat session this afternoon:

Pittsburgh, Pa.: Longtime huge fan -- your column is one of my favorite reads.

My question is, as all these revelations [come out] about how the administration gamed the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, why haven't the Downing Street Memos resurfaced? Not necessarily as a story in their own right, but as more of a data point, or an old story that has now been vindicated? I haven't see any mention of it in either the conventional media or the blogosphere.

Dan Froomkin: I do think it's about time for a retelling of the whole story, and from what I can tell, most of the facts support the Downing Street Memo version of things. (I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that Bush or his aides were, privately, even contemplating not going to war, for instance.)

Senator John Kerry mentioned the memo the other day, actually, which I suspect was a first for him. So maybe that's a sign.

Woohoo! Okay, I'm done grinding my wee axe. I think. For now.


I'm pretty sure I've also set a new personal record for most links in a single post. Huzzah!