I Worship This Woman's Body

Playing Both Ends against the Middle
Now Playing: "Common Disaster" by the Cowboy Junkies
Is this a joke? In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, ABC News correspondent Terry Moran said:

"There is, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media ..."

Recall that this is the same moron who jumped all over Scott McClellan last week for the latter's temerity in suggesting that Newsweek magazine be as zealous in reporting that their information on Koran flushing at Gitmo was wrong as they were in making the charge in the first place.

It's plenty bizarre. Moran admits that Big Media is biased against the military, yet takes it upon himself to accuse the White House of intimidating people who exhibit such a bias. Is that supposed to make sense? The White House isn't allowed to make the same point about lying propagandists that Moran just did?

A Near Run Thing
Now Playing: "Waterloo" by ABBA
Tomorrow, I am supposed to close on my house. I am nervous. I have been nervous for weeks.

The only advice I can think of to give a prospective homebuyer right now is this: moneymen like to know that you are in debt. They like to see that you like them and their kind enough to have given yourself over in dozens of different ways to various credit card companies and department stores and gas stations. If you do not have this sort of record of indebtedness ---and, instead, prefer to live simply and within your means--- you will be considered by mortgagers and other moneymen to be a suspicious character.

Therefore, even though you may not like it, force yourself to go and get a credit card from one of the big oil companies. Get one from a major retailer. And, every now and then, use these cards. But be absolutely certain that you pay your monthly charges on time and in full. Don't let it overwhelm you, but do use them.

This will show those from whom you wish to buy a house that you are a fully functioning member of our consumer society. Don't worry about it, though: the privilege of home ownership in our culture is tremendous. It is a blessing that too many people in too many places will never know.

I am grateful to my benefactors and I am hopeful that tomorrow will be one of the most important days of my life. That isn't an understatement. That isn't an overstatement. That is the American Way.

Tania, Is That You?
Now Playing: "Dancing Queen" by ABBA
I'm watching this great American Experience documentary on Patricia Hearst and I can't help noticing how familiar her rhetoric is.

She is the archetype of most everybody I argue with these days. Utopian horseshit with the veneer of intellectual sophistication. "Stickin' it to the man" 'cause you can afford to talk like you are. Good stuff there.

And what's become of Patty? Well, she looks great. But she came back over to the dark side. You know: where all of her money was waiting for her.

Grate
I'm listening to the CNBC replay of this morning's edition of Meet the Press with Howard Dean and the only thing he's said that I can agree with ---and I'm paraphrasing here--- is that the Schiavo Case will prove to be a turning point in how the public regards the Republican Party as a party of individual rights and small government. And that's true. Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum and the other hardline Republicans have gravely harmed the GOP with these flashes of evangelical madness. It still appalls.

As for Howard Dean, he's still an angry little twitch of a man. I wouldn't trust him with a sack of shit.

Language
Mood:  not sure
My Momma accidentally came across this blog the other night ---as she does once or twice a year--- and she said that my foul language is just too hurtful. Or something like that. Well, I agree ---at least about the language I used in my post about Terry Moran and Newsweek. I was just venting, of course, but foul language is no substitute for good writing.

Sorry. I'll try to keep it cleaner.

Pretty Good
I went and saw Revenge of the Sith Friday night with some friends who had a free pass for me. It was all digital. And it's a pretty good movie, too. Very interesting to see the origins of Darth Vader.

My old friend Jones and I were remembering going to another Star Wars movie some 22 years before ---and in almost the same spot (near Highland Mall here in Austin). But Return of the Jedi was a disappointing commercial of a movie. This one, though, is so visually interesting that it's hard not to like it. And it ties up all the loose ends.

I never bothered to see Attack of the Clones, though. Phantom Menace was such a kids' movie that I figured Clones would be just as bad. Who knows? Maybe I'll look at it some time if it comes on the TV.

As for Revenge of the Sith, you can't not see it if the Star Wars saga is of any interest to you at all. It explains everything that led up to the original movie. Check it out.

Whiny Little Prick
So ABC News correspondent Terry Moran goes crying to Scott McClellan that the White House is putting pressure on Newsweek magazine to explain why they fucked up and how the Koran is actually treated ---by regulation--- by the United States military? What a whiny little prick! Newsweek shouldn't have to be told that their shit reporting has been the trigger to murder and rioting in the streets of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They should own up to what they did when they let Michael Isikoff spread his anti-military propaganda in their pages.

What about journalistic ethics, Terry? What the fuck is this bullshit about the White House "pressuring" the goddamned media? Newsweek published a lie: let them be as conspicuous in copping to that as they were in running with it in the first place.

Go blow O.J., you sniveling jackass.

A Scotsman on a Horse's Ass
Now Playing: "Take It to the Limit" by the Eagles
I enjoy watching Leftists praise George Galloway. It's the surest evidence yet that he is guilty.

Cud
People who are better with animals than they are with other human beings are sociopaths. At the core of this incontrovertible fact is the issue of control. If you do not have decent social skills or sufficient intellectual capacity, then the easiest relationship to cultivate is one of pure dominance. This is when a sociopath turns on an animal, most conveniently one that he owns and has made dependent upon himself.

When such people start making clothes for their dogs, it's time to withdraw.

Appearing Soon in a Memory Hole near You
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
In an obvious cave-in to pressure applied by Chimpy McHalliburton's Rethuglikkkan $torm Troopers, Newsweek magazine is now reporting that they were wrong about the story from Gitmo that our guys are, among other things, flushing the "Holy Koran" down the toilet in order to offend their Muslim prisoners.

I don't care whether that part of the story is true or not. It's not like our personnel would be doing this to rare or valuable copies of the damned thing ---with old annotations or some special provenance--- so what the hell? These things just get replaced.

But the important part of this story of anti-war propaganda is that it's actually caused rioting in the streets of Afghanistan ---leaving more than a dozen dead. That's bad PR ---and something we don't need.

Oh, and can you feel the heat from the usually mild-mannered Glenn Reynolds? He writes of Newsweek:

Two points: (1) If they had wrongly reported the race of a criminal and produced a lynching, they'd feel much worse -- which is why they generally don't report such things, a degree of sensitivity they don't extend to reporting on, you know, minor topics like wars; and (2) If a blogger had made a similar mistake, with similar consequences, we'd be hearing about Big Media's superior fact-checking and layers of editors.

People died, and U.S. military and diplomatic efforts were damaged, because -- let's be clear here -- Newsweek was too anxious to get out a story that would make the Bush Administration and the military look bad.

Yes, but they do regret the violence their lie has occasioned.

Yeah, As a Matter of Fact, They Do Have an Obligation
Charles Johnson posted this picture taken by one of his readers at today's big rally in Washington, D.C. ---sponsored by Free Muslims Against Terrorism.

Ahem.

Something I Wrote at The Left Coaster and Pasted Here Because I'm Too Lazy to Elaborate
I think I'm starting to tease out what you guys are: you're economic isolationists who only go in for multiculturalism if it's not tied to globalization. Do I have that right?

Why don't you go with this some more? Why don't you stand more with those like Hillary who want an end to illegal immigration? She knows that that's a perfect policy to appeal to the disaffected worker in this country who sees his wages depressed by cheap Mexican labor.

We aren't benefited by this huge influx. Not culturally, politically, or economically ---except in the short-term. But the liberal-Leftist view of a borderless world is hallucinatory. You can't argue for protecting the job of the average worker or advocating better health coverage for him if you're also selling him out in the face of this deluge from Latin America.

Too many of you here are griping about the ideological impurity of certain Democratic politicians when you can't even see your own ideological illogic.

America for Americans. Try believing that sometimes.

Time to Quit Smoking That Chronic, Dave
Now Playing: "I'm So Tired" by the Beatles
What the hell's going on with Dave Chappelle? Now he's run off to South Africa and the third season of his Comedy Central show's been cancelled?

Get your head out of your ass and get home, Dave. You're a very funny man and you need to share your stuff. So quit smoking that chronic and get it together.

Must See TV
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: "Mull of Kintyre" by Paul McCartney
You'll love this:

A DEFIANT George Galloway is to defend himself before US senators next week in the oil-for-food row, and last night predicted he would "give them hell" when he enters the lions' den.

Their allegations are that he received vouchers for millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein.

The Scottish MP, who dismissed the claims as absurd, told his aides when he heard of an invitation from Washington: "Book the flights, let's go, let's give them both barrels," adding quickly: "That's guns, not oil."

If this actually happens, it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Be especially sure to watch how the American Left associates itself with this dhimmified fuckwad. It will be most instructive.

Getting over It
Anti-Bush liberals and Leftists don't want John Bolton to become this country's ambassador to the United Nations because they value that organization more than they should. They profess concern that Bolton will show the worst possible face to the rest of the world community at the UN; yet, you don't have to probe too deeply into Leftist opinion to find that our country and its leaders are already hated the world over. But most especially at home by these same people who think that Bolton could actually make world opinion worse. Really? Is it possible for a grown-up to believe that Bolton will be so singularly abrasive and belligerent that he will shift the whole paradigm of geopolitical self-interest?

What's happened is that the Left's rhetoric has been so overblown in this instance that they can no longer be taken seriously on this.

John Bolton will be the next American ambassador to the UN. Y'all may as well start getting over it now.

Saturday Voting
Just got back from voting in the City Council elections. They also had a vote on whether to expand the smoking ban to just about everywhere.

I voted for Margot Clarke because I think she's hot. Don't ask me why. And if I could have voted for that Asian chick, I would have.

I voted against the ban. I have absolutely no problem with banning smoking in restaurants and such, but when it comes to bars and clubs, a smoking ban is plainly ridiculous. When people drink, they smoke. Even people who don't usually smoke will do so if they're also out drinking and having fun.

Too, I voted against the ban because I resent seeing so much money and slickness being spent on abrogating what should be a business owner's decision. Yes, smoking is for suckers and there's no good reason to do it, but people do ---and that's their choice, except insofar as it's an addiction.

The Web Host for This Site Sucks and Always Will
Mood:  don't ask
I am done with Tripod, the host for this blog. They are a bunch of idiots who can't keep a promise.

As soon as it is feasible, I am leaving this joke of a service.

If any of you have a recommendation for a better host, please leave a comment.

Thanks.

Magnificent
Zahi Hawass and a team of Egyptian archaeologists have found a magnificent mummy in a shaft tomb near the Saqqara Pyramids, south of modern-day Cairo.

The mummy dates from about 350 years before the birth of Jesus.

The picture you see is a detail of the sarcophagus, brilliantly painted and incredibly well-preserved.

(Hat tip to the Power Line.)

Context Is Everything
Mood:  a-ok
As Charles Johnson reports, there will be no court-martial of the young Marine who "double-tapped" the wounded terrorist in that Fallujah mosque last year. As the craphounds at the Associated Press put it:

SAN DIEGO -- A Marine corporal who was videotaped shooting an apparently injured and unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque last year will not face a court-martial, the Marine Corps announced Wednesday.

A review of the evidence showed the Marine's actions were "consistent with the established rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict," Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, said in a statement.

Damned straight. Our man had been around the day before when another so-called "injured and unarmed Iraqi" was concealing an IED underneath his own body ---and detonated it, killing one Marine and injuring five others. That had been about a block from the mosque into which these filthy rats had retreated and where NBC reporter Kevin Sites followed our boys when he and his cameraman captured the so-called war crime on tape.

Enough of shit. The vermin who are resisting us in Iraq aren't freedom fighters or Minutemen (as Michael Moore, who is a traitor, characterized them); they are murderers who use their own so-called holy sites as ammo dumps and snipers' redoubts.

Fuck 'em all.

And a good thought goes out to that young Marine and his buddies. Thank you for your bravery and your service to our country. I am, as are all your countrymen, in your debt.