By VictorM: So, tell me honestly, were you one of the many people who eagerly awaited to know who was the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby? Serioulsy, if you had more than just a passing interest in that piece of “news”, you’re an idiot.
Come on now, tell the truth? 
Tags: Anna Nicole Smith
By VictorM: Camille Paglia is a columnist for Salon. com. She identifies herself as a libertarian Democrat. Her current article is a set of questions and answers about politics and pop culture. Even in disagreement, I find her answers thoughtful and interesting.
Ms. Paglia voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 because she felt the country needed a strong Green party. Yet, she is a global warming skeptic. I was curious to read her views considering she has sane credentials. But after reading her answers, it turns out she’s just a run of the mill skeptic.
To illustrate, here’s one of her points:
Too many of my fellow Democrats seem peculiarly credulous at the moment, as if, having ground down organized religion into nonjudgmental, feel-good therapy, they are hungry for visions of apocalypse. From my perspective, virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.
Proof. That’s the usual refrain. They lack proof, she says. Well, before Katrina hit landfall what proof was there that it would cause the damage it did? Did Ms. Paglia think that anyone who was predicting dire results was being ”hungry for visions of apocalypse”? What proof is there that any oncoming storm is going to wind-up flooding whole cities? Or that a predicted storm will turn out to dump 24 inches of snow paralyzing cities and airports? When the weather forecast calls for rain or sun what proof is there it will be right? Yet, how many of us don’t heed the warnings?
Ms. Paglia and others like her fail to realize that when it comes to global warming, if something is proved, IT WILL BE TOO LATE! Proving global warming is the last thing we want to do!
Tags: Camille Paglia, global warming skeptic, proof of global warming
By VictorM: My blog was down for several days so it may seem that I’m too late to the party, but there’s not way I can skip bringing up Don Imus as the idiot of the day.
In case you aren’t aware of what I’m talking about, here’s a recap what he said referring to the Rutgers female basketball team member:
This is not the first time Imus made racist remarks. Just as before, he apologized but only because the controversy picked up more steam than he anticipated. His words of remorse now ring hallow given the sequence of events: his insensitive remarks, the delay in apologising, and the ridiculing of those who found his remarks offensive. I can only reach the conclusion that this was not just a remark in search of laughs; this was a reflection of the man’s character.
There is no remorse, just Imus reflecting his sick right-wing mentality.
Tags: Don Imus, racist remarks
By VictorM: Blogger hasn’t allowed me to update the site since Friday. Maybe it’s only a problem with blogs with their own domain and ISP. I know quite a few people are complaining about the same problem.
But anyway, I’m tired of the repetitive problems with Blogger and decided to switch to WordPress. It’ll take a day or two to get everything setup. I’ll resume blogging shortly.
By VictorM: Today is the start of the 2007 Major League Soccer (MLS) season. After the busiest and most exciting off-season ever, the 2007 season starts with much promise. A few of the major developments:
1. Signing of world-class players: English superstar David Beckham, Mexican icon Cuauhtémoc Blanco, and America’s most accomplished player, Claudio Reyna will be playing with LA, Chicago, and NY respectively.
2. TV Contracts: All games will be televised, with ESPN2 showing one game every Thursday night during prime-time. There will also be games shown every Saturday and every Sunday.
3. Soccer specific stadiums: Colorado and Toronto will start the season playing in their own stadiums. Chicago will start their first full season in theirs. And stadiums are under way, or will be shortly, in New York/New Jersey and Salt Lake City.
4. SuperLiga: A summer tournament pitting 4 MLS teams versus 4 Mexican teams.
By VictorM: Over at dailykos, thereisnospoon and Christopher Day engaged in a great point-counterpoint that shows how liberal are willing to challenge each other, not merely being ditto heads.
Tackling Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh’s claims that Democrats want to lose the war in Iraq, thereisnospoon says:
We control the government. We control the streets–or have the ability to do so with a single military raid. We control the infrastructure. We control the prisons. We control the economy. It is within our power to let the population live, or to “pacify” it brutally and without mercy. We own Iraq in every sense of the word: there are no enemy leaders to kill; no territory to seize; no infantry battalions to crush; no navy to sink; no air force to shoot down; no landmarks over which to place our flag in triumph. We are quite simply NOT fighting a war of any kind in Iraq. Indeed, the reason there is no military solution to this war is because there IS NO WAR. See how tidy that is?–and we don’t even have to put on bullshit protectors over our ears!
But Christopher Day sees it differently:
I hate to break this to you, but its still a freaking war. It wasn’t ever really just about removing Sadaam Hussein even if that was once the rationale of the week. People here act like its a big aberation that we were lied into this war. News flash: Its a rare war that isn’t sold to the people with lies. Remeber the Maine? Tonkin Gulf anyone? Medical students in peril in Grenada? I could go on.
Sorry, the purpose of this war was to secure U.S. domination over Iraq and its strategic resources and to project our power over the rest of the region. As everyone who knows what PNAC stands for should know. There is nothing inconsistent with us running both an occupation AND a war. In fact its a pretty common combination. Its a war of occupation.
These two snippets don’t give either blogger due credit for their ability to question each other. Go read the whole post and the many comments by others to see honest and thoughtful debate in action.
By VictorM: One of the notions put forth by the Bush administration to justify the criminal Iraq war was that of cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda before 9/11/2001. Sane people in the world knew this allegation made no sense at all, but the repetition by this lying administration (even as of yesterday Cheney was lying about this) and the gullibility of their base has allowed this notion to fester.
Now, we have one of those “no duh!” moments after recently declassified documents were released:
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassification came as a result of Democratic Senator Carl Levin’s request. I can only imagine what else we will be finding out about the most corrupt regime ever in the history of this country.
By VictorM: Ah, the worst person in the world, the creepy Bill O’Reilly, makes our list. I’ll let Crooks and Liars take you the rest of the way:
“A young girl was tragically killed by a drunk driver. But this was not enough for O’Reilly. Instead, because the criminal was an illegal alien he added this incident to his ongoing crusade against the brown people. Luckily Geraldo was on the show and he - to his credit - called out O’Reilly’s xenophobia for exactly what it was. This drove Bill O’Reilly insane. I was almost certain he was going to reach across the table and hit Geraldo.”
GERALDO: “Cool your jets! It has nothing to do with illegal aliens…it has to do with drunk driving! Don’t obscure a tragedy to make a cheap political point. It is a cheap political point and you know it!!”
Crooks and Liars has the video. Go watch it.
By Gov. Howard Dean, on an e-mail from the Democratic National Committee:
President Bush’s impending veto of the Iraq War supplemental bill is an insult to Congress, to the majority of Americans who voted for change in November, and to the brave men and women who risk their lives every day we remain in Iraq.
One thing is for certain: A Democratic president wouldn’t veto that bill.
But that’s not all that President Bush is doing. He’s defending Alberto Gonzales for firing eight U.S. Attorneys, claiming he has “100 percent confidence in the Attorney General.” And he’s apologizing for the conditions of Walter Reed Medical Center six weeks after the conditions were exposed — making promises to “fix the problem” that sound eerily similar to those he made to Hurricane Katrina victims.
The days of a do-nothing Congress are over, but the days of a do-nothing President are still going strong.
By Jesselyn Radack, commenting on the statement by Monica Goodling’s attorneys that what’s happening to her is reminiscent of Senator Joseph McCarthy:
And as for McCarthyism, the best example is this Administration’s behavior during the past six years. It has rounded up hundreds of Arab and Muslim men based on racial and ethnic profiling and bogus material witness warrants; kept 500+ people in the legal black hole otherwise known a Guantanamo bay; held people, including American citizens, without charge, conviction or judicial review; reversed the usual presumption into a bastardized “guilty until proven innocent” standard; denied due process under the inaply-named Patriot Act; conducted secret trials; tortured; eavesdropped on American’s phone calls; wiretapped citizens without warrant; put anti-war protesters and political dissidents on terrorist watch lists; resurrected long-interred relics of the McCarthy era like denying entry to aliens for pure speech; and gone on witch-hunts and missions of personal destruction that make Eugene McCarthy look like Floyd Abrams. Terrorism is the new Communism.
By VictorM: Some right-wingers will pick on liberals just for the sake of picking on them. Even when it denotes blatant hypocrisy. We have this right-winger (among many others) pick on Nancy Pelosi for wearing a scarf over her head during a visit to a masque in Syria:
This has to be a joke. The Speaker of the House is not only going out of her way to defund America’s troops in Iraq and shake hands with leaders of terrorist states like Syria, but is now donning the garb of America’s enemies.
I wonder if this idiot thought the same thing when Laura Bush did it:
(White House photo. Clich here for full size)
Here’s another picture of Ms. Laura Bush appeasing the enemy:
And here is Condi Rice “donning the garb of the enemy”:
Right-wingers… really stupid people!
By S.W. Anderson: Who did flak-jacketed Sen. John McCain think he was fooling, going for a half-hour shopping trip in Baghdad, claiming the place is much safer than reported, all the while surrounded by 100 protective U.S. troops, while three Blackhawk and two Apache choppers provided air cover? (Click here for several other interesting questions)
By VictorM: We hardly talk about any issue today that doesn’t have to do with abuse of power by George Bush or the conduct of the Iraq war. The mighty United States of America will be in such limbo until the Bush administration ends. These two paragraphs in a Washington Post story pretty much sum up where the United States federal government stands:
As Democrats see it, Bush is having a hard time adjusting to life in a two-party government. His vow to veto any spending bill with timetables for a withdrawal, they maintain, betrays a unilateral approach to governing. “He is president of the United States, not king of the United States,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) told reporters in his home state. “He has another branch of government, a legislative branch of government, he has to deal with.”
Democratic presidential candidates quickly accused Bush of ignoring the public sentiment expressed in the November elections and in recent opinion polls. “This is vetoing the will of the American people,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said in Iowa. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) added: “The American people and their Congress have said repeatedly that they will no longer accept a war without end in Iraq.”
George Bush… the man who wished to be king. Democrats… the only knights that can stop him. The American people… expressing their wish in rejection of Machiavellian mentality.
It’ll be like this the rest of the way until he’s gone.
By VictorM: I was talking to a coworker. She asked me what I thought ABC would do to Rosie O’Donnell. I thought she was referring to the Rosie-Trump silliness, but no, she was talking about Rosie saying that America killed those 3,000 people during 9/11.
Since I had not read such a thing anywhere I asked where she got that information. She said it was from Bill O’Reilly. I asked: “You listen to that piece of trash?” She was a bit startled by my tone, stuttered a little and tried to imply that she heard it elsewhere too. I just got up and left.
So when I got home I decided to look this up. Yep, Rosie mentioned something in her blog back in mid March about the conspiracy theories we’ve heard for the longest time and that for the most part have been debunked. I couldn’t find any story about it in the mainstream sites. And for good reason. As you can see below, this is a non-story. Only a dimwit like O’Reilly or someone of his ilk would bring it up.
This site has a transcript of what Rosie said in The View and she didn’t say our government was involved, she just had questions about how building 7 came falling down. God forbid Rosie dares to question something that doesn’t make sense to her. In this entry in her blog (I assume it’s her blog, I don’t even know for sure), Rosie explains what she finds odd about the collapse of that one building.
OK, so Rosie brought up questions about the collapse of building 7. Even if you consider Rosie’s statements dumb, nothing she said is any dumber than these:
Look, I don’t care what Rosie says. No one is dying because of her opinions.
If you’re a conservative you have plenty to worry about; Rosie is the least of your problems.
By VictorM: It’s irritating to hear so many well-to-do white guys playing victims. Guys with great educations, jobs, wealth, and yet, they can’t stop complaining. It’s a testament to their indifference to the human condition and to the greed that is such a part of who they are. Count Glenn Beck, CNN TV personality as the latest idiot to play victim:
Glenn Beck claimed he “can’t win” because he is “American,” “white,” “Christian,” and “conservative.” He said: “[I]f you are a white human that loves America and happens to be a Christian, forget about it, Jack. You are the only one that doesn’t have a political action committee for you.” He also said: “I mean, I was talking about it with my family yesterday. I said, ‘I’m tired of being the least popular person in the world.” Beck also said that being “Christian” is “not popular anymore” and went on to say, “I’ve got to find one thing that I agree with the rest of the world on, I guess. I’m tired of being in that group.”
By Josh Marshall: The president keeps saying that the Democrats are substituting their judgment for that of the generals on the ground. But this is an easily rebutted statement. The entire story here is that the president substituted his judgement for that of the generals on the ground. Remember, they didn’t think the surge was a good idea. So what happened? He fired them. That’s why Gen. Petraeus is there. The president looked around until he could find a general willing to agree with him. And when he did he put him in charge. This isn’t about the ‘generals on the ground’. It’s about President Bush, whose judgment has been catastrophically abysmal from the start.
By VictorM: It’s becoming easier these days to find candidates for the Idiot of the Day. I was a bit rushed today and thought I might have to skip this feature but in a few minutes I had my guy. What’s prompting this onslaught of idiotic behavior? Fear, as always.
Take this guy… please. What an amazing level of hyperbole and stupidity. And the all caps are his:
WHILE THE UK’S LEFT-WING PM COWERS AT THE FEET OF THE MULLAH’S IF IRAN, THE TOWNS AND CITIES WITHIN HER OWN SHORES ARE RAPIDLY BECOMING ISLAMIFIED. 70 YEARS. AND THEN SHARIA.
UNLESS EUROPE TAKES HARSH ACTION NOW, EURABIA IS INEVITABLE, AND WITH IT THE END OF A CIVILIZATION.
THIS IS A REAL THREAT - UNLIKE “MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING”.
Ooooo, how scary. As we all know, Muslims are war-mongers, homosexual hating, male chauvinistic, religious fanatics, bent on forcing their religion on the rest of us. Oh wait… um… those are right-wing Christians.
Projection is a darn thing.
By VictorM: When confronted with possible wrong-doing by someone in their flock, right-wingers go into deflection mode. If you recall, with Mark Foley, they started pushing the “when did Democrats know?” defense rather than deal with the skeevy details of the man’s behavior. In the case of Purgegate, the common refrain from them now is that “Democrats are just after Rove”.
OK, let’s for the moment assume they are correct, Democrats want to nail Karl Rove. I have a few questions for you, right-wingers:
1. What is wrong with going after Rove? After all, Rove has been toxic in American politics for a long time, is the architect behind using 9/11 and the Iraq war for political gain, and has been the mastermind of numerous shady campaign practices. Doesn’t matter if you agree or not, if Democrats think he’s corrupt, why shouldn’t they try to prove it?
2. Even if that is the Democrats’ sole intention, does that alter the facts of the Purgegate case? After all, Monica Goodling pleading the 5th, Kyle Sampson contradicting his boss, and Alberto Gonzales blatantly lying are strong signals that there is something serious being hidden. There’s plenty to investigate for very good reasons. Unless you hate democracy, that is. Do you?
3. Do you believe that just because people consider themselves conservatives they are incapable of being corrupt or incompetent? Among the millions of members of your flock, aren’t there some bad apples? Why not get rid of them?
Protecting corruption or incompetence in the government is something you should not stand for, but you do. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the massive quantity of bad apples you’d find, including yourself? Could it be because you know that unless you lie and cheat you will never get into power?
So, are Democrats out to get Rove? I sure hope so. For if they get him, they take a big bite out of corruption. And if that happens, democracy wins, America wins. You’d have to be unpatriotic to be against that.
By VictorM: It’s discurraging when you find out elected politicians who are too lazy to care. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who has been on a solid streak of saying idiotic things, gets recognition today with this:
A truly embarrassing moment for House Minority Leader John Boehner at today’s Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony honoring the Tuskegee airmen.
During his short speech to those in attendance, Boehner six times mispronounced the group’s name as the “Tusk-E-gee,” eliciting audible groans from the front to the back of the Capitol Rotunda. One woman standing in front of me leaned to her companion and whispered, “This is so embarrassing, and he’s from my state.”
He is either too lazy, doesn’t care, or thinks the words “sumbliminable” and “nucular” are also pronounced properly.
By VictorM: Today is a good day to take a break from keeping up with the news; you never know which story is the April Fools Day joke. I will not be quoting any stories today for that reason. Although I have to admit, it’s fun trying to pick which story might be the joke.
For example, Yahoo is carrying this AP story: Bush: Gonzales ‘honorable and honest’… um, that has to be a joke, no?
The Washington Post has this beauty: Tommy Thompson to Run for President. Come on guys, try not to be so obvious.
The New York Times tries to be funny with this one: McCain Says Baghdad Is Getting Safer.
CNN had me laughing with this headline: White House tries new immigration plan
Oh yeah, and Google is giving away free wireless internet access.. (read the whole thing, it’s pretty funny)
By VictorM: Notwithstanding David Beckham’s signing, the success of soccer in America continues to be an uphill battle. In an effort to contribute to that success, Major League Soccer’s (MLS) Houston Dynamo team is looking to built a soccer specific stadium in or around Houston. One of the bidders is the city of Webster. City Councilman Carlos Villagomez said this recently about his support for the bid (emphasis mine):
“Soccer is a big sport, especially here in Texas,” Villagomez said. “It’s getting hot. Every time they’ve had a soccer team come to Reliant Stadium, it’s a sellout. I think soccer is going to be bigger than football.”
Come on. Statements like this just aren’t helpful. That’s just an idiotic statement, specially for someone from Texas where some high-school football games draw more fans than many MLS soccer matches.
Mr. Villagomez, please help the Dynamo get a new stadium, but sir, keep your mouth shut about the sport — you don’t know what you’re talking about.
By VictorM: It was a beautiful day in Washington, DC, so I decided to go downtown to watch Manchester United vs Blackburn in an Irish pub, and then made my way to the Washington Monument area to catch a glimpse of the cherry blossoms in full bloom.
As I walked among the many thousands of good people it was clear to see I was not the only one enjoying myself. People were flying kites, picnicking, strolling, reading poetry, taking photos, listening to music, eating ice cream, waiting patiently in line for the restrooms, playing with their children, and in general, just enjoying a glorious spring day.
Just like me, I assume that most good people there shoved aside the knowledge that there are a number of folks in foreign lands who would do us harm if they could, and some at home so bent on having things their way that they lie, cheat, and invent “facts” to scare the bejesus out of us.
I am sure that many of those good people would disagree with me on many of the issues facing our society, but throughout my walk from the Metro station, around the Washington Monument, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and back to the Metro station, not once was I called a traitor, unpatriotic, a coward, a faggot, a communist, or an appeaser.
We, the good people may never fly a “Mission Accomplished” banner, but I know that we will prevail against those who would do us harm or try to scare us.
[PS. To see my pictures from today, including pictures of the cherry blossoms, click here.]
By VictorM: In this series of posts, if nothing else we’ve shown that right-wingers live in a land of make-believe. Well, more precisely, in the land of make-shit-up. We have another example today. This idiot goes about making statements that are totally made up simply because it fits a preconceived notion in his distorted little mind.
Talking about Democrats and the Afghanistan war, he says:
They never supported that war either, despite their lying insistence on treating it as “the good war” now.
Their support for the Afghanistan campaign began the moment the Iraq war did and not one instant before…
Does he include any references to justify that view? No. Does this view have any resemblance to the truth? No. It’s just more made-up shit from a delusional right-winger who doesn’t care if American kids are dying in the streets of Baghdad for no good reason.
By Harry Reid: President Bush has to understand there’s a new Congress. For six years, he’s ignored Congress. The Republican-dominated House and Senate gave President Bush everything he wanted, and look at the fix we’re in as a country. We have 3,300 dead Americans in Iraq, we have 25,000 wounded, we have a President who didn’t take care of the necessities so that these men and women coming back to America after fighting in Iraq would have proper training to get them well. It simply has been a mismatch from the very beginning.
So I say to President Bush: Understand that this Congress has done what the American people asked us to do. You listen to the American people for a change.”
By VictorM: The more we learn about Purgegate the more disturbing things become. Forget for a moment whether there are illegal or unethical activity. Just the knowledge that people like Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, who have extremely thin resumes and amazing lack of experience, were placed in the position of recommending the removal of far more experienced attorneys boggles the mind.
This is not a partisan issue, at least it shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t we, no matter what political party is in power, expect that qualified people get hired for important positions?
Something is really rotten with the way this administration conducts business and even worse, with those who defend their behavior.
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