« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »
This is Hugo sound asleep in his Jungle Hut, a plush teepee that hangs from the ceiling to align with the third floor of the hamster penthouse.
UGLY HUGO PHOTO OF THE DAY:
Wonder Hugo! Wonder Hugo!
All the world is waiting for you!
And the power you possess!
In your satin tights,
Bashing human rights...
I mean, look how cute this captive sailor is! Unfortunately shown on video today giving some B.S. confession in front of a cheesy Iranian shower curtain (the Iranians could take some cues from the evolution of al-Qaida's production value). This after the video showing the captive Brits eating Iranian TV dinners -- don't know what that was supposed to do for Iran's P.R. except prove that the Revolutionary Guard can operate microwaves.
But here's the headline of the day, chaps: "Iran prickly over British appeal to the U.N." First of all, if your citizens were in danger is the U.N. really the first place to go for help? Second, isn't it pathetic that they have to beg to the U.N. in the first place? Wasn't this illustrious (*cough*) body created to tackle these sorts of disputes? Instead, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N.'s new high prince of ball-less-ness, “expressed his wish to see an early resolution,” according to a U.N. read-out of talks between Ban and the Iranian foreign minister at the Arab League.
A classic part from the AP story:
"Iran stoked the flames itself Wednesday, airing a video of the captives, including Turney wearing a black Islamic head scarf. London was outraged by the display and questioned whether she had been under duress."
They had to ponder whether she was under duress? Nah, it's just that Kate Moss had been wearing one the week before and she thought they were all the rage. Holy cow, people. (Of course, according to Hanoi Rosie, the latest hostage crisis -- "GOOGLE IT, PEOPLE!" -- is all just a ruse to provoke war. So, under that "logic," was the nearly identical 2004 hostage crisis just a faux incident that failed to piss off enough folks?)
To bring the Brits home, one really needs to be asking -- sung to the tune of a certain "South Park" movie song -- what would Bibi Netanyahu do?
Please tell me that other Republicans also find it supremely annoying that Mr. Focus on the Family sits on high and casts lightning bolts at candidates who don't fit his definition of an acceptable believer while making like his voting bloc's blessing is the be all and end all of GOP presidential hopes -- like in this U.S. News and World Report piece from yesterday (prompted by, they note, an unsolicited phone call from Dobson):
"Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.
'Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,' Dobson said of Thompson. '[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression,' Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. 'Thompson is indeed a Christian,' he said. 'He was baptized into the Church of Christ.'
In a follow-up phone conversation, Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger stood by Dobson's claim. He said that, while Dobson didn't believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, Dobson nevertheless 'has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith.'
'We use that word—Christian—to refer to people who are evangelical Christians,' Schneeberger added."
So "Christian" now only refers to born-agains? Find one theologian who agrees with that. Go tell the pope or Archbishop of Canterbury that. Shame on Schneeberger and Co. for attempting to bogart a 2,000-year-old faith as theirs and theirs alone. Shame again on Focus on the Family for their backhanded response to the U.S. News and World Report story:
"'We were pleased to learn from his spokesperson that Sen. Thompson professes to be a believer,' said Nima Reza, a Dobson spokeswoman. 'Thompson hasn't clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him.'"
Translation: Well, at least you SAY you're a believer, but until you hit the evangelizing circuit and we anoint you an official Christian you're just a big poser. (Or, conversely, do a Gingrich-style confessional on the Dobson show.)
This clarification of a "Christian" being a born-again, though, sure shows us the priorities of Dobson & Co. in 2008: Make sure the Catholic front-runner (or that damn Mormon) doesn't get in the White House. Giuliani: Catholic! McCain: Episcopalian! Shudder!!
So apparently it's open season on non-Evangelicals by the Christian-right leadership, which has seen no problem in embracing a self-proclaimed messiah billionaire felon. Fellow Republicans, this HAS to be the election season where our voices drown out the fringe factions that have to this point had wayyyy too much influence over the party. Wait -- according to the polls, it's alreay happening! No wonder they're calling reporters to dis' the poll leaders.
UPDATE: Memorable, kick-ass contributions from Dave in Texas and My Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!
A couple of new polls give Fred Thompson a boost for the Republican nomination even though he has not entered the race. In the USA Today poll, Thompson takes support from Giuliani and Romney while the Zogby poll shows McCain’s support waning. Either way Thompson will be a force to be reckoned with if he decides that running for President is preferable drawing a fat paycheck for drinking scotch on Law and Order. One can certainly understand his dilemma.
One of the numbers in the poll that I have not heard one peep about is Nancy Pelosi’s favorable/unfavorable numbers in the USA Today poll. While Pelosi had 44% favorable and only 22% unfavorable in January, her unfavorable rating has jumped 11 points in the latest poll and her favorable rating had dropped 7 points. Pelosi’s latest "victory" consisted doling out the pork in return for votes to pull out of Iraq only makes it look like she is more interested in embarrassing the President than winning a war. I predict that when the Iraq timetable fight is over, Bush’s numbers will improve, and Pelosi will have higher negative numbers than positive numbers.
Or so went the plot on "South Park" tonight, a parody of "24" that featured Cartman interrogating Muslim suspects with his most powerful (and pungent) bodily function and Hillary Clinton (referred to as "Hill Dog") secreting a bomb in her... well... let's just say she'd have an interesting story to tell at "The Vagina Monologues." Now, I've been a "South Park" watcher from the very start, and my mouth dropped several times during this episode, laughing till it hurt mixed with "I can't believe they did that!!" Since the bomb that threatened South Park was up Hillary's ... well... rhymes with "batch," the variety of WMD was called a "snuke." Hillary was drawn with a big bubble butt, and the moment she stepped in front of the South Park crowd to speak, she -- you guessed it -- adopted a hokey, twangy Southern accent and waxed about how towns like these were her roots. It was priceless. A bomb-sniffing pig, er, located the WMD.
As different agencies are tripping over each other to be in charge of locating the detonators in time, Kyle traces the terrorist group through MySpace, YouTube, MapQuest, etc. (and notes that the suspect is an "old-school communist" who shows up to every Hillary Clinton rally). When one of the government agents tells her boss about intelligence they'd just unearthed, she told him the source was Drudge Report. After Cartman and the new Muslim kid in school are seized by Russian terrorists, they reveal they've been paid to detonate Hillary's hoo-hoo as a diversionary tactic so America's "oldest enemy" can attack. "Russians?" Cartman asks. "Before that!" the terrorist replies. "The Germans?" Cartman guesses. "Before that!" the terrorist answers. "The Germans again?" Cartman ventures. "Before that!" the terrorist responds. "The greatest enemy American has ever known!"
It then cuts to a fleet of British ships packed with Redcoats, and a captain conversing by cell phone with the queen ("We will get those traitors to the crown!" the captain declares). Meanwhile, a bomb squad hesitantly tries to disarm the WMD, with the lead officer complaining that he can't send any of his men where no man has been for 30 years (this was one of the "Oh no they di-dn't!" moments). Finally an officer tries and gets mauled by some creature within Hillary (editorial comment there?). And a few American jets swiftly take out all of the British ships. As the Redcoat captain, clinging to ship wreckage, calls the queen on his cell to admit that they failed to finally beat the colonials, she hangs up and blows her brains out.
"South Park" took the "special relationship" and gave it a swift kick in the ass, gave Hillary Clinton a whole new reason to fear the gynecologist, and I'm STILL laughing...
Thirsty for defeat and hungry for pork, Democrats have pushed through a bill that not only declares preemptive defeat in Iraq, but also provides billions in new spending for pet projects at home. Democrats loaded the bill with money for everything from shrimp to peanuts as they took their principled stand to end the war. My dear old grand dad was a peanut farmer and I might have followed in his footsteps if I would have known the current bunch of goobers would hold the purse strings of this country.
Dennis Kucinich even had a chance to weigh in and show what kind of presidential timber we have on the far left. In the wisdom of Kucinich, "If you want peace, quit funding this war". Damn, why didn’t FDR think of that during WWII! All those lives lost and all we had to do for peace was quit fighting. Someone needs to pull Dennis the Menace aside and let him know that, as a complete idiot, he will never be the Democratic pick for President. Usually, complete idiots do not make it higher than the VP position in Democratic primaries.
In spite of today’s bombing in Tal Afar, the violence in Iraq has been decreasing dramatically. General Petraeus is getting high marks from all sides for finally making real progress in Iraq. Although we are seeing real improvements in Iraq, critics are saying that it is too soon to tell. Too soon to tell if we can win in Iraq, but apparently not too soon to declare defeat.
Today the California Assembly will take up AB 374, an assisted-suicide bill closely modeled after Oregon's. To say that this is a slippery slope is an understatement -- when coupled with the fact that HMOs are supporting the Democratic-sponsored bill, it's downright scary in a state where the health care system is reeling. As California takes up the issue again, we'll be assaulted by the phrase "death with dignity" -- as if all natural death is not dignified, as if the disabled are not dignified, as if the terminally ill somehow lose dignity upon diagnosis.
Read more in my Los Angeles Daily News column today:
"... Far from being some portrait of a terminal illness robbing a person of dignity, everybody who knew or read Cathy (Seipp) reaped valuable lessons of love and friendship in her last days. Her dignity only grew, if that was possible, as she faced the end with courage and grace.
Hence it seems fitting that this is the week when California again wanders into that moral morass called assisted suicide, and the ubiquitous catchphrase 'death with dignity.'
Assembly Bill 374, modeled after Oregon's law, allows someone told he or she has less than six months to live to take a fatal prescription. In one corner are Democratic sponsors backed by the California Association of Physicians Groups (which represents HMOs). In the other are groups representing the disabled who fear the ramifications of such a bill.
'The public must know what this would do to the most vulnerable of our society - a quick hundred-dollar lethal prescription is vastly cheaper than offering long-term care,' said Marilyn Golden, policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
Invariably, when society decides that some life is less valuable, less worth caring for, than other life, the results can be disastrous. Some 'merciful' laws have descended into involuntary euthanasia as well, resting on the argument of keeping those humans around who would have an acceptable 'quality of life.' After the Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2000 for 12-year-olds and up, the Groningen Protocol was established to ensure doctors wouldn't be prosecuted for killing infants they deemed not fit to live.
'My observations in the Netherlands persuade me that legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia are not the answer to the problems of the seriously or terminally ill,' wrote Dr. Herbert Hendin, executive director of the American Suicide Foundation, in Psychiatric Times.
'The Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia (called `termination of the patient without explicit request').'..."
You know, when I was pulling together research for this column I read about the Nazis' initial killing of handicapped infants (striving for "purity" among non-Jewish Germans by eliminating the "weak") and expansion into the killing of handicapped adults in 1939 with this short memo from Adolf Hitler:
"... broaden the powers of physicians designated by name, who will decide whether those who have - as far as can be humanly determined - incurable illnesses can, after the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death."
How much does that sound like some of the rhetoric we hear today, particularly in the Netherlands' policy? Power of physicians. Careful evaluation. Mercy death. If that's not enough to scare the bejeezus out of you, consider this: How horrendous is it that the disabled in our society even have to form an activist group called Not Dead Yet to battle the euthanasia and assisted suicide movement?
Yep. That's Hillary. Apparently she'll be in South Park for a campaign rally and Cartman unveils a terrorist-attack plot. But everyone's wondering -- what will the spin on Hillary be? A few weeks ago, Stan's dad had to literally kiss Jesse Jackson's ass after solving a puzzle with the N-word on "Wheel of Fortune." Here are a few clues as to Trey Parker and Matt Stone's potential take on Hill:
As written by John Tierney about last year's Reason in Amsterdam conference: "Stone and Parker said they were rooting for Hillary Clinton in 2008 simply because it would be weird to have her as president."
From Animation Magazine: "This new batch of seven episodes will include a parody of the FOX action series 24, as well as a visit from presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton." Since Parker and Stone are equal-opportunity in their bashing (see first and second halves of "Team America"), look for the "24" parody to poke at the right, therefore Clinton should not emerge from her episode unmocked.
Clintonian history with "South Park": In the second season, Cartman's mom sleeps with Bill Clinton to persuade him to legalize fortieth-trimester abortions, which he readily agrees to after getting some nookie.
I'm loving this -- Six Packs for Soldiers. "No politics -- just beer." As they say:
"Six Packs for Soldiers is a 'beer-partisan' campaign to thank our troops. We are grateful Republicans, Democrats, and Independents joined in a simple mission - we want to buy our soldiers a beer. And you can help:
Simply click here to upload a photo of yourself toasting the troops with a beer (or non-alcoholic alternative, if you prefer). For every 'virtual toast' we get, we will deliver one real beer to a soldier (thanks to our sponsors for springing for it).
Red state, blue state? Who cares! Liberal, conservative? Doesn't matter! We've got our differences...that's true. But for just a moment, we are putting them aside, joining together, and sending a frothy, refreshing 'thank you' to our fighting men and women. Please join us, make a toast, and make this just the first thing of many that you do to help these brave men and women."
This is so American! With a hearty dose of Irish, of course. (As you see, GOP VIXEN is in favor of sending troops more than a can, but a whole damn pitcher.)
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Change is good
Recent Comments