Also Sprach Mitofsky
On Wednesday night's broadcast of Nightline, Ted Koppel entertained the Democratic fringe's conspiracy theories behind their recent electoral losses to the GOP. I'm not sure why this indulgence was necessary, except maybe to keep Koppel's bona fides with the liberal element living amongst us, but he gave it as much of an airing as it should ever deserve again.

One of the main characters in the Left's mythology of the 2004 Elections is Warren Mitofsky, the owner of Mitofsky International, which is a firm contracted by the major media outlets to conduct exit polling. (Edison Media Research was the other major supplier of exit polling data to this consortium.)

In the morning and afternoon of 2 November 2004, the Kerrion and Big Media's anti-Bush forces were eating up Mitofsky's data because it showed that Kerry was doing quite well across the board. But by late afternoon and early evening, it became evident that the polling data was crap. Mitofsky himself admitted this on Nightline, saying that no one's perfect.

And you know what comes next. After the smoke cleared and this country was delivered from a victory for those who hate her, the Democrats began complaining that the election had been stolen. On what grounds did they claim this? In large part, it was because of the exit polling. It was too divergent from the final totals ---meaning, obviously, that Bu$hitler had somehow bought off Diebold and thousands of crooked county elections officials all across the United States and King County, Washington.

Professional dissident (and part-time Congressman) John Conyers certainly saw it that way. In an open letter to Mitofsky and Edison, Conyers writes (emphasis mine):

To be frank, blaming such factors as distant restrictions on polling places, weather conditions, the age of exit poll workers, and the fact that multiple precincts were contained at the same polling place, as your report does, does not come close to explaining why the exit polls overstated support for the Kerry/Edwards ticket in 26 states and support for the Bush/Cheney ticket in only 4 states. Many of the factors you point to appear to merely be random characteristics of the election and your exit polling, rather than quantifiable and justifiable explanations. Nor can I believe that the massive discrepancies can credibly be written off to eagerness of Kerry voters to participate in the exit polls.

As a result, I would like to reiterate my request to receive the actual raw exit poll data that you obtained. I would also like to obtain copies of all internal deliberations, memos and other materials of your employees and consultants concerning or seeking to explain the discrepancies. To the extent you have concerns regarding releasing propriety [sic] information, I am willing to work with you to either receive this information on a confidential basis, or alternatively to bring in a neutral, outside expert to review these materials.

I don't know what jurisdiction Conyers or his committee has in this, but it strikes me as bully-boy bullshit. There's more of a justification for John McCain to take piss samples from Barry Bonds than what this stuff entails.

Here's the bottom line: the American People have spoken. Bush won a majority of the popular vote ---as well as winning the Electoral College. John Kerry's election would have been universally understood as a retreat from our mission to crush international Islamofascism. It would have consigned Iraq to oblivion ---and everyone knows that. Thus, in their wisdom, the American People rejected Kerry's lies and cleverness and chose a man who is committed to our safety and the pursuit of the democratic ideal across the world.

Conyers and the rest of the Democratic craphounds are not willing to admit reality. It's not just creepy ---it verges on sedition. For the second time in four years, the party of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ---two of the most notorious election thieves of the Twentieth Century--- has the temerity to call the election of the President into question ---without justification and without regard for the integrity of our system. It is time to sit down and shut up. To persist with this nonsense about stolen elections is a dangerous way to go.

A [Thousand] Road Apples
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: "Get Together" by The Youngbloods
Yesterday, a large group of abortion survivors ---calling themselves peace activists, anarchists, communists, Dean supporters, video camera operators, whatever--- blocked off the Congress Avenue Bridge here in Austin to protest the Second Inauguration of George W. Bush, President of the United States. NBC affiliate KXAN obligingly provided a helicopter's eye view of the whole mess and our ABC station KVUE followed up today with some footage from one of their tower cameras. It literally looked like a truckload of lab rats had spilled out onto Congress Avenue.

The first thing to notice about these proud heirs of Martin Estevez and Tom Hayden is that many of them like to wear bandanas over their faces. Why is this? Do they fancy themselves Zapatistas? Did they have some plan to vandalize something? Why not have some principles, kids? If you're so upset about the exercise of democracy in this country, why not stand up and put your names and faces to your own dissent? I'd hate to think it's because you're a lot of lousy cowards who don't have the stones to do it. Maybe you're just imitating Clinton ---trying to maintain your "political viability." Is that it?

One of these lab rats, a little female named Victoria Cloud (who, unfortunately, did not wear a bandana in her interview), said that this is a "repressive state" and expressed her willingness to do "anything" to make sure her voice was heard. She is also charged with felony assault on a police officer. Ah, yes. How romantic. It's the manufacture of anecdote, see. Little Victoria's earning her street creds ---just like the kid with the Long John Silver's hat on.

Or was that Napoleon's? You know, it may very well have been lined with tinfoil.

All I know is that if I had been on Congress yesterday and those turds had been in my way, I would have gone off on them like a teamster and beat some patriotism into their sorry hippy asses.

Four more years, beeyotches.

No? Then Let Me Turn It up for You
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: something from the Knights in Satan's Service
Okay, so it's cute enough that the Bush family's "Hook 'em, Horns!" hand gestures at yesterday's inaugural parade were widely interpreted in Norway as a sign of devil-worship. After all, how would your average godless Norwegian know that we University of Texas Longhorn fans and alumni have been using that gesture for a half-century? But how does the local CBS affiliate here in Austin approach this amusing story?

This afternoon, KEYE reporter Julie Simon goes and interviews "international hand gesture expert" Jurgen Streeck, who helpfully observes that:

"It just confirms stereotypes that people already have and reinforces negative views."

What the hell is that supposed to mean?! What, is this culture and our government perceived around the world as actual Satan-worshippers? What nonsense! Is that a stereotype that "people" have ---or is that just Streeck's own particular view of his host country?

How about if ---just this once--- the fault of ignorance isn't ours? Norwegians don't understand some hand gesture used by sports fans at an American university? Really? I don't understand why Norwegians are [shocked] and [confused] by something thats context is pretty obvious. Let's see: the Bush family wasn't flashing that gesture at any other group of parade participants before or after the marching band from the University of Texas went by ---replete with enormous displays of long horns--- but they chose to do so only then because that would be the perfect opportunity to profess reverence for the Prince of Darkness? Am I to believe this? Are Norwegians actually that imaginationally stunted?

Simon continues:

And since one of the meanings [of that gesture] has to do with the Devil, Streeck says, before flashing any hand gesture, one might want to think about how it could be interpreted half a world away.

What? And forfeit my right to practice my local and tribal customs? Somebody, get me the UN!

Simon also says:

The "Hook 'em, Horns!" sign, for hundreds of thousands of people, is really the ultimate symbol of school pride. But with the ever-increasing negative perception of Americans around the world, many say this misunderstanding is the last thing we needed.

No, Julie, the last thing we needed was for you to take a funny story and make it into this hour's reason to blame America ---and those uncouth Texans, in particular--- for being insensitive to The Other.

Me, I'm just itching to show an Arab the sole of my shoe.

Delicious
Now Playing: "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground
Laura Bush is one hot babe. Hmmm. Am I allowed to say that?

Now...where are her daughters?!

Chief
I was moved to see Rehnquist come in under his own power. It may very well be the last major act he performs and, as such, was a noble and historical effort.

Good Stuff
Mood:  a-ok
An excellent and profound speech. One that asshole traitors were unable to stop.

Freshen Your Drink, Guvnuh?
Mood:  suave
Hastert was wigging out just then. Was he nervous? Cold? Irish?

Is Some Guy Protesting?
Someone's making noise on CNN. Did the attendees receive some signal to stand and drown him out?

Liveblogging the Inaugural: What an Awful Song
What on Earth is that man singing? A nice voice and all that, but what an inappropriate selection for this sort of occasion. Let us have Sousa, obnoxious though he is.

Moron
Philip Nobile was on Bill O'Reilly's show Tuesday night, discussing this theory going around that Abraham Lincoln was gay. O'Reilly was obviously deeply troubled at the very notion ---and loudly reminded Nobile several times that he, too, was an "historian" ---and that the whole thing was just bunk.

This annoyed me for several reasons.

First, Bill O'Reilly isn't an historian in any meaningful, legitimate, or actual sense of the word. And it's fucking nonsense for him to say so and not be kidding about it.

Second, I would be utterly astonished to learn that Bill O'Reilly is any kind of an expert on the life of Abraham Lincoln. Is there any reason to believe he is? I'll bet I could kick his ass in "Double Jeopardy" on that topic ---and I wouldn't call myself an expert on Lincoln or an historian.

Third, it takes a high degree of egotism for a former gossip-peddler to sit there in front of an actual investigative journalist ---and, I daresay, an historian--- and presume to match wits with him on any historical subject. Philip Nobile is a well-respected writer and a great debunker of myths. His legendary 1993 Village Voice article exposing Alex Haley as a fraud had a huge impact on me ---and I've been an admirer of his work ever since. (If anyone reading this knows how I can come by a copy of that article, please drop me a line.)

Lastly, it seemed to me that O'Reilly's only interest in the subject of Lincoln's homosexuality is to use it as a cudgel on the Log Cabin types in his audience. It wasn't an historical question for him; it was a current events topic. And, as such, invalid.

If Lincoln was gay ---and I don't believe he was--- it would be a very interesting fact of his life ---and would have absolutely no effect on his stature among America's Great Men. History is full of great men who were as gay as Isaac Mizrahi at a dance recital ---and the world is a far greater place for their existence. So stop politicizing that stuff, Mr. and Mrs. Republican. It doesn't flatter you.

Not incidentally, Nobile thinks the Gay Lincoln theory is bullshit, too. But Nobile hardly needs the bloviating Bill O'Reilly to help him make his case ---except as a conduit to the size of audience his work deserves.

Commentary Would Be Superfluous
Mood:  don't ask
Go visit Captain Ed and read about this request found at ABC News' website today:

Jan. 19, 2005 -- For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20. If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below[...]

What can one say? As the Power Line notes:

Note that only the families of Iraqi war dead need apply. If a soldier died in Afghanistan, or aiding tsunami victims in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or in a training exercise, never mind. That isn't the "balance" ABC is looking for.

And Captain Ed adds this:

The sheer chutzpah and shallowness doesn't surprise me as much as the laziness that this demonstrates. It's not enough that some bloodsucking leech wants to use the grief of some poor family as entertainment and political theater. They are too freakin' lazy to go out and find one themselves, so they want someone to get them an invitation to the funeral.

Whoever posted this at ABC needs a soul transplant. Disgusting.

Remember: last year, Ted Koppel dedicated an entire episode of Nightline to nothing but a roll call of all the American military deaths sustained in Iraq to that point. Not the deaths of our fighting men in Afghanistan or elsewhere, but Iraq only.

And this isn't supposed to be seen as a partisan decision? Goddamned propagandists. Don't even have the courage to show that they pulled the request off their site.

More on Boxer's Lies
Via Professor Reynolds, go see this excellent post at CrushKerry.com wherein Barbara Boxer's nonsense spouted to Dr. Rice about WMD being the sole reason for the Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq is refuted:

BOXER: Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote.

Yes. The "causation." What a fucking lightweight.

Anyway, the guys at CrushKerry.com give it to her with both barrels. After going through the full text of the resolution, boldfacing the multiple reasons why we went to war for Iraq, they sum it up:

1. Iraq's harboring of Al-Queda terrorists
2. Iraq's support for International Terrorism
3. Iraq's "brutal repression" of its citizens
4. Iraq's failure to repatriate or give information on non-Iraqi citizens detained and captured during Gulf War I, including an American serviceman;
5. Failing to properly return property wrongfully seized during the Kuwait invasion
6. The attempted assassination of former President Bush in 1993
7. America's national security interests in restoring peace and stability to the Persian Gulf

I didn't get to watch but maybe an hour of the hearings, but the above remark made by Boxer to Rice happened to have caught my ear. Weapons of mass destruction certainly were a major cause of our intervention, but they were never the sole cause. But that is how the anti-war Left chooses to remember things. It is in keeping with their hyperlegalist mentality ---which, rather than being a matter of principle, is intended only to obstruct. As in the insistence that only United Nations resolutions authorizing force are legitimate or that the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorists. Both of these legal avenues are littered with the anti-war Left's desperate garbage.

Crush these hypocrites. They are friends to monsters.

Barbara Boxer, Lying Craphound
Barbara Boxer's performance yesterday at Condoleeza Rice's confirmation hearings was rude and moronic. It was also, when she began to attack Dr. Rice for supporting the war for Iraq, hypocritical. According to a story at NewsMax.com, Boxer was just fine with Bill Clinton's bombing of Baghdad:

[...]six years ago, Boxer enthusiastically backed President Clinton's decision to attack Iraq after he argued that Saddam Hussein was prepared to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons against the world.

A lot of Democrats went in for that then. Anything to give their "Big Dog" some bite for his bark.

In December 1998, however, after Clinton launched four days of air strikes on Iraq's suspected WMD targets, the California Democrat had a different reaction.

In quotes unearthed Tuesday afternoon by radio host Sean Hannity, Boxer claimed that Saddam had forced Clinton's hand.

"The president had no choice but to act today," she said in a statement issued by her office. "Anyone who questions the timing of his decision ignores the fact that we committed a month ago to act if [chief U.N. weapons inspector] Richard Butler reported that Saddam was not cooperating."

"These critics are blinded by political considerations," Boxer added.

It's stuff like this that justifies my utter contempt for the Democratic Party ---an organization so traumatized by Lyndon Johnson's legacy of a half-hearted war that they are no longer able to understand our country's long-term strategy in the world.

If we can fight to establish legitimate self-rule in Iraq, it will be the cause of more democratic reforms throughout the Muslim Middle East. That is a huge and noble goal ---something worthy of a great power like ours. There shouldn't be any question of its value among those of us who think, but among the others is constant pessimism and subversion ---the merest partisan hackery of the Democratic Party. Where is their idealism? Where is their commitment to ending the rule of tyrants and theocrats? Once again, the far Left in America has demonstrated that its infatuation with Castro, Guevara, Ho, and Mao was no mistake: they are, at heart, totalitarians.

Which is why craphounds like Boxer are so afraid of Bush: because he is the great liberator of the age ---the surest prophet of the power of democracy.

Played?
Via The Corner at NRO comes Roger L. Simon's suggestion that the Bush Administration may be using Seymour Hersh to scare the mullahs with tales of targeting Iran.

When I heard about his latest infusion of goo in The New Yorker this morning, to wit that the US is spying on Iranian nuclear installations and trying to figure out what to do about them (planning special ops, air raids, etc.), I thought "Here he goes again, leaking top secret information!" But then I thought - duh, what top secret information? Is it possible that any US administration, Democrat or Republican, at this juncture in history would not be directing its intelligence agencies to take a long hard look at Iranian nukes and game plan how to deal with them?

Of course, if Iran were to lash out against us or the Israelis or anybody else, the evil Bu$hitler War Machine, Inc. would be branded a bunch of incompetent and unprepared idiots who hadn't planned on such an obvious contingency. And don't tell the kids putting flowers in their hair and in the rifle barrels around them that we have plans in place to go to war with Sweden, if need be. We've only been thinking that way for the past 60 years, you know.

So then why The Big Leak? Well, if I were someone in the government who wanted to announce that we were taking a tough line and had some nasty surprises for the mullahs (to scare them, of course), but didn't want to make this an official public policy statement, what would I do? I'd leak it to Seymour Hersh and count to five.

It sounds like a plan to me. What did Lenin say about useful idiots?

"A Microphone Listened for Thunder"
Mood:  a-ok
It's all good in the Solar System today with the successful landing of the Cassini-Huygens probe on the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan.

Titan is [...] the only moon in the solar system to retain a substantial atmosphere, one even thicker than Earth's.

The 703-pound, battery-powered Huygens probe parachuted through Titan's clouds of methane and nitrogen for two-and-a-half hours, sampling gases and capturing panoramic pictures along the way.

Huygens hit the upper atmosphere 789 miles (1,270 km) above the moon at a speed of about 13,700 mph (22,000 km/h). A series of three parachutes slowed the craft to just 15 mph (24 km/h). Chutes and special insulation protected Huygens from temperature swings and violent air currents. Strong winds -- in excess of 311 mph (500 km/h) -- buffeted the craft.

Its sensors deduced wind speed, atmospheric pressure and the conductivity of Titan's air. Methane clouds and possibly hydrocarbon rain was analyzed by an onboard gas chromatograph. A microphone listened for thunder.

Is that not bad-ass?

Man, I've got to go listen to some Pink Floyd!

The Principled Atheist, a Rectal Probe
Now Playing: "One Toke over the Line" by Brewer & Shipley
As an atheist, I find the vast majority of other atheists to be obnoxious. Or maybe it's just the ones who are religiously and politically devoted to being atheists. They are, in fact, worse than politically active gay rights types because their cause is usually infused with a kind of nihilism that offends a polite society, whereas the homosexual agenda is something that's life-affirming (as well as fabulous).

Take, for example, this worm named Michael Newdow, who got his 15 minutes a few years ago during his fight to keep his precious daughter from having to hear the phrase "under God" incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance. Now this rectal probe is going for another shot at the big time with a lawsuit seeking to preclude the invocation prayer at the President's Inauguration next week.

"I am going to be standing there having this imposed on me," Newdow told the court by phone on Thursday. "They will be telling me I'm an outsider at that particular moment."

Michael Newdow, you absolutely need to go fuck yourself. You don't have a Constitutional right to not be subjected to religion. This is a pluralistic society, full of religious traditions and the people who observe them. What kind of a sterile, fucked up world do you live in when you are so intolerant of the Christian religion that you can't bear the thought of seeing others practice it?

You need to make peace with these people, dumbass. You need to be charitable ---in the best sense of that word--- and realize the power of their beliefs in their lives and in the life of this nation. It wasn't godforsaken Mohammedans or Oriental navel-gazers who founded this country's political and economic culture; it was Christians. Learn some History and know that this was no accident.

Reconstruction of the Fables
Here's a neat story at CNN.com:

A Roman statue of Atlas -- the mythical titan who carried the heavens on his shoulders -- holds clues to the long-lost work of the ancient astronomer Hipparchus, an astronomical historian said Tuesday.

The statue in question is known as the Farnese Atlas, a 7-foot tall marble work which resides in the Farnese Collection in the National Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy.

What makes it important to scientists is not the titan's muscular form but the globe he supports: carved constellations adorn its surface in exactly the locations Hipparchus would have seen in his day, suggesting that the sculptor based the globe on the ancient astronomer's star catalog, which no modern eyes have seen.

I like stuff like that. Like echoes and adumbrations of unrecoverable things by which we can still know some part. Paintings only known through copies. Different colors of bricks in the walls of an old house, suggesting some now-lost window on a completely different view. It's some sort of fossil-love, baby, and it's all around us: in our etymology, in our genes, and in our faces.

Noah ben David
Mood:  celebratory
Welcome to the world.

Commanist
People don't use enough commas. I've been using and abusing them since at least high school English class, but I've managed to winnow out most of the superfluous ones over time. The one I find missing most often is the one that belongs in what I guess is called a vocative statement where someone is being addressed. People are omitting it from its proper place before the name of the addressee. It doesn't look right and it's confusing in certain contexts.

Don't you agree, gentle reader?

Shitcannery Row
Mood:  happy
The CBS News report is out.

Film at 11.