Sunday, December 31, 2006
sunday night music club
the elements by tom lehrer and sir arthur sullivan - animation by mike stanfill, private hand
Labels: skippy's music club
prospero ano y anthony bourdain!
the top 20 stories on skippy in 2006
#1.
skippy practices real journalism by interviewing prof. richard hanley of quinnipac university school of communication on the role of blogs in the lieberman-lamont race.#5.
daryn kagen, the first person to mention skippy's blog on national tv, retired from cable news and got into blogging.#9.
skippy writes letters and makes phone calls...one letter to jay rosen's forum defending jane hamsher of firedoglake over the whole deborah howell printing assumptions about the abramoff scandal as facts fiasco; one to albequerque tribune pointing out that the majority of americans think awol should be impeached; one call to sen. feinstein asking what was the senator's position on sen. feingold's censure resolution; another call to sen. feinstein asking her to promote net neutrality; a letter to wonkette dressing her down for spreading the false "dkos is 0 for 20 in picking winning candidates" meme (and wonkette wrote back!); another call to bill clinton's office warning that he should look into the fact that joe lieberman's staff refused to let jane hamsher and spazeboy into a joe-nertia rally; a letter to slate asking why this blog should plug slate's stories when slate referenced this blog without a link; an email to keith olbermann's countdown stating that rudepundit was the first to investigate the annthrax coulter plagiarism story; a call to the california sec. of state decrying macpherson's midnight certification of diebold voting machines; and emails to every disney email address we could find to protest abc's showing of the docufantasy "the path to 9/11."#13.
skippy is interviewed for bluegrassroots radio. ben and alex, the guys at bluegrassroots, were always kind to skippy, and they have, since this interview, gone on to law school and internships in government. good luck to them both!#17.
skippy sells skippy t-shirts. and there's still a few left, at the rock bottom price of cost to us, $15! buy one today, while they last!and there you have it, the skippy year-end review. what's that you say? oh, we thought you wanted the top 20 stories about skippy in 2006. sorry.
happy new year
spc. dustin r. donica, 22, of spring, texas, was killed thursday by small arms fire in baghdad, the defense department said.
the grim milestone was crossed on the final day of 2006 and at the end of the deadliest month for the american military in iraq in the past 12 months. at least 111 u.s. service members were reported to have died in december.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
War criminals

Details at The Washington Post:
Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.
snip
The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague."
The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy.
When is the next tribunal?
The Saddam within
saturday night music club
cream - strange brew
Labels: skippy's music club
how do you handle a problem like saddam?
he's no doc ock
we hope it's just temporary
we hope he comes back soon!
in the althouse again
derve gives us the low down on yet another attempt by prof. alternative outhouse to drive up her blog traffic:
what i ask your readers to think about:
how easy is it to manipulate blog comments? why does she allow some vulgar comments to stay up, yet delete honest others who may choose strong words? does she know certain commenters are, tracking their isps? really though, how easy would it be to pretend you are a left-leaning voter and comment outrageously to make them look bad? is this happening there? is anybody tracking the commenters? (i’m just glad they’re not being portrayed in nyt articles as the “voice of the people” anymore, without a positive verification of who’s writing what.)
finally, is there a line that should not be crossed when a professor is blogging? because it sure felt like it reading my name there this morning. if you disagree with what derve wrote, disagree. i have several times said my real name that i posted under previously was “mary”. my blogs are linked. i’m not hiding anything.
but to identify me, mary, as someone else writing negatively about you, and then to wrap that all up with the “former student” label, that’s not cool, professor. not cool to uw, not cool to me. i’m not going to generate all the much traffic for you; why the heck would you choose to lie on your blog about a former student? i honestly don’t get it.
my defense – that’s what i was trying to get into the comment section all morning on her blog, which originally contained the falsehood. it kept getting deleted, as she let in the posts repeating the lie and joking further on it. was it really worth it?? why target somebody small like me?
perhaps the good professor is being "abused" online. perhaps she should use her tracking system to determine who is "abusing" her before making false accusations against former students. in short, don't lie online about your former students, professor.
mad about canadian ice shelf melting
letters...we get letters...
maybe, you can tell me how often you can use a lozenge, nowhere on the box is that indicated. tried calling the 800-# left a message two days ago. thanks
money could have been saved
Friday, December 29, 2006
some in this administration believe

“in order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our national park service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated peer executive director jeff ruch. “it is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the grand canyon is ‘no comment.’' - public employees for environmental responsibility
wow...ain't that just "grand"
friday night music club
martina mcbride & pat benetar - we belong
Labels: skippy's music club
he hopes it keeps up
nearly a quarter of the crowd of more than 800 were unable to squeeze into the elementary school cafeteria where edwards was to speak.
the former north carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee ended up giving his introductory remarks outside, using a microphone that broadcast his voice inside, before heading indoors.
"what we're asking is for you, the people of new hampshire, not to wait for the next election to take responsibility," he said. "identifying a problem and talking about hope is talking about tomorrow. we can't wait until tomorrow."
holy evil doers, batman!
barrack to basics
edwards - iowa 20% - nevada 8% - s. carolina 31% - n. hampshire 18%
obama - iowa 10% - nevada 12% - s. carolina 10% - live free or die 21%
Thursday, December 28, 2006
take that, wendy mccawcaw

a federal agency filed a complaint against the santa barbara news-press, claiming the newspaper retaliated against employees who wanted to join a union.why don't you take your ex-husband's millions and go mess up someone else's local newspaper/community.
...it concluded the newspaper fired a reporter, issued two-day suspension notices to 11 employees, and canceled a weekly column written by a staffer because it wanted to discourage workers from engaging in union activities. - san jose mercury news
good to have electricity again
winds gusting with near-hurricane force left tens of thousands without power thursday while the tail end of a storm front dumped snow that closed a major freeway....i was half-way expecting to see ruby red slippers underneath the house this morning with different landscape.
on wednesday, high winds downed trees that crushed several cars and also felled power lines, causing dozens of small fires in santa barbara county. - sfgate
thursday night music club
chrissy hynde & the pretenders - back on the chain gang
Labels: skippy's music club
say hello
speaking of dead people
we are unable to confirm the fact that mark spittle, of spittle and ink, was poisoned with radioactive polonium, and died on christmas day in tampa, fla. his website states:
mark leaves behind a wife, solange, and three sons, marjorie, bettina and judith. he was buried next to his mother, who hated him passionately, at kensico cemetary in his home state of new york. his only dying wish was that his tombstone read “don’t organize. mourn!” this was honored.
addendum: keeping with the theme, poutonian over at digby's place has a guest post by the late, great political cartoonist herbert block.
gee whiz, it must stink being white...
that's quite an accomplishment, when you think it over. the pro-business gop has abused, and thereby squandered, the fierce loyalty of much of its corporatist bloc. this party of jesus has likewise alienated many a devoted evangelical, charismatic, pentecostal, and fundamentalist. americans who would preserve the flag first and the republic later have begun to realize that the republicans have been cynically running them up the flagpole all these years, and now they're disillusioned, too. the same goes for people who live to outlaw abortion. if only what little money going to the troops overseas for body armor could be used to inform people about the evils of abortion, why, the world would be a more moral place -- but they've given up on the republicans selling that sort of gospel, never mind delivering what was promised to them before election day. and times must be really trying for those who can't bear the thought of gay people being one hundred percent human. it's bad enough that upstanding anti-gay preachers in colorado are being exposed as closet homosexuals with drug issues -- how can you, as an incorrigible rabid gay-basher, trust a conservative christian party that willingly harbors a grown male representative who talks dirty to boy pages while congress is in session?
(cross-posted at the f&#k-the-white-conservative-male-identity-movement's medley...)
ho ho ho oh oh

christmas shopping wasn't all that jolly this year. bloomberg:
retail sales rose 1.7 percent last week, the smallest gain since february 2005, prompting the international council of shopping centers to say growth in november and december will be at the ``low end'' of its forecast for 2.5 percent to 3 percent. mastercard advisors, which measures purchases made by cash, checks and mastercards, said holiday revenue gained 3 percent.
the fourth quarter is critical to retailers' profitability, with companies such as wal-mart stores inc., target corp. and federated department stores inc. earning the largest portion of their net income in the period. about 32 percent of the industry's profit came in the last quarter of 2005, according to the new york-based icsc.
according to the international council of shopping centers, same-store sales rose 2.0 percent for the week ended saturday compared with the previous week. same-store sales rose 1.7 percent compared with the year-ago period. same-store sales are sales at stores open at least a year and are considered the standard way to measure a retailer's health.
based on results so far, michael p. niemira, chief economist at the international council of shopping centers, now believes same-store sales growth will be at the low end of his already-reduced range of 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent for the november-december period.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
the deification of ford

we hate to say we told you so, but we told you so.
now that president ford has passed on to that great un-elected office in the sky, the mmm (multi-millionaire media) have begun to remember what a powerful, forthright, healing, integritous leader he was.
uh, are they talking about the same gerald ford that we remember?
not to speak ill of the dead, but the best thing we can come up with as ford's legacy is "whip inflation now." and if all that one can remember of your administration is a catchy slogan, we're not so sure that you qualify as a brilliant leader.
(granted, we bet awol hopes and prays to his god nightly that the worst people remember him for is his catchy slogans: "bring it on!" "raise the pie higher!" and "fool me once, shame on, shame on you, fool me, can't get fooled again!")
mind you, there was nothing particualrly terrible about ford. of course, following nixon could make coolidge look like wilson, wilson look like roosevelt, and roosevelt look like roosevelt.
but we'd have to ask ourselves, having not only lived through ford's presidency, but having made actual comedy for a salary about him during those years, is the ford in today's papers the same one we remember? we think not.
gerald r. ford: a healer of wounds sez the washpost.
woah! not only deified, but performing miracles! and by acts of god, no less:
and the asspress spares no superlative in describing president ford's tenure: former president gerald ford hailed as selfless leader who led nation through strange chapter.
[ed. note: if the 70's were a strange chapter, this the 21st century is a heavy metal comic book.]
time magazine pulls out all stops: gerald ford: steady hand for a nation in crisis.
again, we have to say, if we were in crisis back then, then today we are in the apocalypse! and ford's hand wasn't all that steady (certain his wife's wasn't...but enough aa jokes). sure, he oversaw the helsinki accordes, and the salt ii agreements, but we had to look those up to even remember his accomplishments.
we're not saying he didn't do a good job. compared to the last few guys who held the office, he rated a solid b-. but we are afraid that the media is going to use his passing as an excuse to prop up an ailing publian party...any old excuse for a tongue bath, as the saying goes.
don't get us wrong. president ford was a moderate republican, the last of a dying breed, and were he in politics today, limbaugh, hannity and coulter would be screeching him out of the party for being so wimpy. he was a good man, and a decent president. we offer our sincere condolences to his family (and betty, sorry about the 'steady hand' joke).
but he was no healer of a divided nation. if that were true, why are we more divide than ever?
addendum: neurophius, in our comment section, puts it far more succinctly than we do (and we apologize for being so sneaky as to mention it at the end of our long-winded tirade, rather than the beginning, where you would be able to skip our words completely):
ford didn’t heal the nation. what he did was to take a major step toward healing the republican party so that it could come back and bite the country on the ass in 1980 with the election of reagan.
or so it seems to me.
i say this with all due respect for the departed former president. but let us not forget the facts.
wednesday night music club
eric clapton - layla (what else?)
Labels: skippy's music club
john edwards crosses over, enters presidential race
"damn! i sure wanted to bring the troops home, but that stupid html code is forcing me to concentrate on domestic issues!"
nedra, nedra, nedra! commas, even parathases, are your friend. use them wisely.
she goes on to explain:
the slip-up gave an unintended double-meaning to his campaign slogan on the john edwards '08 web site: "tomorrow begins today."
aides quickly shut down the errant web site but could not contain news of the obvious, even in the shadows of former president ford's death.
"better a day earlier than a day late," said jennifer palmieri, an edwards adviser.
while going north...
fortunately, that didn't happen...
Memory Lane - David Brooks edition #3
I think the Democrats have committed political suicide. I think in the 1990s they had a solution, a formula for winning elections. This was the third way formula that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton came up with. It was for middle class tax cuts, it was moderate but religious on values; it was for free trade. And this was like a quarterback with a pass pattern that works every single time. The defense doesn't know what to do about it but they gave it up. They walked away from that strategy. And it's mystifying to Republicans why they would walk away but they have walked away and they walked away in part because some of the things Mark has talked about, which is the polarization of both parties. I'm not sure it is all Bush and DeLay's fault. I think the country has just become polarized. It is become much harder for either party to be a third way centrist party.Why is David Brooks so sure, so vapid and so wrong? Because he knows no matter what he says, he'll never be fired. And people complain about tenured professors. Sheesh.
going to pot
who needs to prof read?
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
tuesday night music club
mott the hoople - all the young dudes
Labels: skippy's music club
the great ones always die in threes...
gerald ford, rip
addendum: cbs/asspress corroborates:
details on his death tuesday were not immediately available.
ford had been fitted in august at the mayo clinic with an implantable cardiac pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat after he had been admitted to a colorado clini days earlier for tests.
administrations idea on handling immigrants....
the armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks -- including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to us citizenship if they volunteer -- according to pentagon officials. - boston.com
30 days hath september, april, june and saddam hussein

saddam only has 30 days, beginning tomorrow:
the sentence "must be implemented within 30 days," chief judge aref shahin said. "from tomorrow, any day could be the day of implementation."
say hello
top 10 stories you might not have heard of
- 10) hackable passports
- 9) what's worse than the bird flu? the cure.
- 8) petro powers drop the dollar
- 7) gender gap gets smaller
- 6) iran and isreal hold secret talks
- 5) united states funds the taliban
- 4) russia fuels latin american arms race
- 3) bush's post katrina power grab
- 2) china runs up african debt
- 1) india helps iran build the bomb, while white house looks the other way.
- 1) bush administration moves to elimiate open government
- 2) media coverage fails on iraq: fallujah and the civilian death
- 3) another year of distorted election coverage
- 4) surveillance society quietly moves in
- 5) u.s. uses tsunami to military advantage in southeast asia
- 6) the real oil for food scam
- 7) journalists face unprecedented dangers to life and livelihood
- 8) iraqi farmers threatened by bremer's mandates
- 9) iran's new oil trade system challenges u.s. currency
- 10) mountaintop removal threatens ecosystem and economy
- 11) universal mental screening program usurps parental rights
- 12) military in iraq contracts human rights violators
- 13) rich countries fail to live up to global pledges
- 14) corporations win big on tort reform, justice suffers
- 15) conservative plan to override academic freedom in the classroom
- 16) u.s. plans for hemispheric integration include canada
- 17) u.s. uses south american military bases to expand control of the region
- 18) little known stock fraud could weaken u.s. economy
- 19) child wards of the state used in aids experiments
- 20) american indians sue for resources; compensation provided to others
- 21) new immigration plan favors business over people
- 22) nanotechnology offers exciting possibilities but health effects need scrutiny
- 23) plight of palestinian child detainees highlights global problem
- 24) ethiopian indigenous victims of corporate and government resource aspirations
- 25) homeland security was designed to fail
what stories are on your list?
je suis tesla
what a christmas present
in a span of a few hours, 2,973 people were killed in the sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. in a span of 45 months, the number of american troops killed in iraq exceeded that grim toll as the war continues.the milestone in iraq came on christmas, nearly four years after the war began, according to a count by the associated press. - nytimes
happy boxing day
Monday, December 25, 2006
perenniel winner
the pogues: fairy tale of new york
featuring the late great kristy mccoll
sprechen sie vomit?
david hasselhoff sings "silent night"...in german
our christmas wish
here's wishing you and yours a peaceful, prosperous new year.
christmas classics
we take great pleasure in answering at once the communication below, expressing at the same time great gratification that its author is numbered among the friends of nro:
“i am 8 years old. some of my liberal friends say there is no war on christmas. they say it’s just another code-word-filled wedge distraction to keep us from discussing real issues like iraq, the deficit, the patriot act, katrina and the administrations abysmal record on human rights. papa says, 'if you see it on the internets, it’s so.' please tell me the truth, is there a war on christmas?"
virginia o’scamlon
virginia, your liberal friends are wrong. they have been affected by the secularism of a secular age. they do not believe except what michael moore tells them. they think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their godless minds.
yes, virginia, there is a war on christmas.
it exists as certainly as lesbian feminazi’s who want to abort all the babies in the world exist, it exists as certainly as communist jewish pinkos who want to force children to worship satan in the schools exist. alas! how dreary would the world be if there were no war on christmas! it would be as dreary as if there were no loofas or falafels. there would be no unquestioning faith in republicans, no pollack jokes, no unfettered greed to make tolerable this tenuous economy. the eternal light with which childishness fills the american dream would be extinguished.
not believe in the war on christmas! you might as well not believe in the war on terror. you might get your papa to hire men to watch all the malls during december to catch godless communists trying to force people to say “kwanzaa hannukah ramadan,” but even if you didn’t see anybody try to wrestle christ away from the true believers at the gap, what would that prove? nobody ever sees secular heathens actually try to drink the blood of christian children, but that is no sign there is no war on christmas. the most real things in the world are those that neither logical men nor rush limbaugh can see. did you ever see jesus ride a dinosaur? of course not, but that’s no proof that he didn’t. nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are available only to the truly faithful, who shall delight in watching their enemies be smitten down in flames when the lord takes his rightful place in the mall.
you tear apart a david brooks argument and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the most evil liberal, nor even the united strength of all the hateful secularists and the aclu and all godless jews who ever lived could ever tear apart. only undying allegiance to talk radio, complete loyalty to fox news and our beloved leader, george w. bush, can push aside that curtain and view the eternal joy of the beauty of the faithful, rejoicing by god’s side as the evil-doers burn in torment, including those who watch the daily show and listen to al franken.
is the war on christmas real? ah, virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real.
no war on christmas? thank god it lives forever and ever, as long as filthy multi-culturalistic pedophiles want to keep christ out of the malls in december. a thousand years from now, virginia, nay, 6,000 years from now, because the earth itself is only 6,000 years old, the war on christmas will continue to make glad the heart of neocons all over.
most outrageous quotes of 2006
we feel bad
greg kohl, of the chitrib, tells us:
but that image is a cliché. brown was a great showman, but he was no cartoon. that he was demonized by legal troubles didn't help. but he was no circus act. he was a brilliant singer, musician, band leader and conceptualist. from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, he had a run of innovation, creativity and popularity that rivals any recording artist of the last half-century. in 1986, he was among the first batch of artists, including presley and chuck berry, to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.
"you gotta dance to release that pressure," he told the tribune in 1991. "but you need to set an example too."
addendum: we alternately grieve and marvel at the timing of our recent saturday night music club selection of two weeks ago, when we brought you james brown singing with joss stone on it's a man's world and papa's got a brand new bag, which we reproduce here, in memoriam of the godfather of soul:
Labels: skippy's music club
feliz navidad
Merry Christmas
video
On the other hand, a big part of being a Christian is to live your life in consequence of the Incarnation, not simply despite, but rather because, of people like aWol. On the third hand, the dogs are waking Mrs. P., so it time to open presents.
Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men, everyone.
merry christmas!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
sunday night christmas music club
all i want for christmas is you - two cute goofy girls
Labels: skippy's music club
sunday night christmas music club
Labels: skippy's music club
happy fesitivus
say hello
happy birthday general clark
does america needs a 'surge' protector?

"forget talks, bush prefers plan for 'surge' of 30,000 troops into iraq" - uk telegraph:
the report, put together by frederick kagan, a conservative military analyst, and jack keane, a retired general, proposes "surging" at least 30,000 extra us troops into baghdad and other iraqi hotspots, as a first step to quelling the bloodshed and restoring security.
the strategy is at odds with the much-vaunted findings of the bipartisan panel of experts of the iraq study group (isg), not to mention the army's top commanders who argue that they do not need more forces on the ground and fear a further strain on resources.
but when mr bush announces his plans for iraq next month, he is expected to draw heavily on the kagan-keane plan – put together over a single weekend last month, after a brainstorming session with other senior, former military officers and defence experts.
beware....
"i'll be broke"
the governor is scheduled to have surgery on his right femur when he returns to california after christmas, mere days before his scheduled jan. 5 inauguration, according to the governor's office.
he was treated and released saturday from a hospital in sun valley, where x-rays revealed the fracture in his femur, located in the thigh.
[ed. note: cookie jill already blogged about this here. we really outght to start reading our own blog before we write]
forget the muslim democratically elected to congress

in all the brouhaha stirred up by virginia republican u.s. rep. virgil goode over the first muslim ever elected to congress using a koran in his private swearing-in ceremony next month (the official swearing-ins are done sans holy books of any kind), little attention has been paid to the fact that on nov. 7 the first two buddhists to ever serve in congress were also elected. - stevensonblog.tuscaloosanews.comwho knew?
Saturday, December 23, 2006
who knew reuters
oh, poor ahnuld
california gov. arnold schwarzenegger was briefly hospitalized saturday after suffering a leg fracture that will require surgery. the injury occurred while he was skiing on a family holiday in sun valley, idaho, the governor's office said saturday night. - sfgateand, what, skiing in "kahliforneya" isn't good enough for him?
saturday night christmas music club
mister heat miser, and
mister snow miser
plus, bonus extra added attraction! "wazzup, snow miser?"
very funny mash up of the 'wazzup' budweiser guys vs. the misers
Labels: skippy's music club
we got fruitcake
sonny and cher spread the joy
if only listen to one silly song parody this holiday season, listen to this one
jolly old st. nicholson
jack does christmas
let that reindeer fly
pam tillis sings the story of blitzen and vixen
the x-mas files
scully and muldar investigate
jingle bell schlock
buying crap set to music
the politically correct christmas album
offends no one!
goes where no christmas album has gone before!
a star trek christmas
protect your car this christmas!
with the ho ho ho-jack!
the 12 days of shopping
gifts for everyone!
guerilla theater
(cross-posted from ofp)
we'll take traffic from wherever we can get it
(and, we highly recommend all the tips!)
a story for our own beloved dbk
it's going to be the hayward fault
a small earthquake rattled the east bay this morning, the third in the same area this week. - sfgate
usgs california/nevada earthquake page. hayward fault...wikipedia.
and, did you know, today in earthquake history:
1906 | Kodiak Island, Alaska
![]() | 7.3 | 100th Anniversary One of the Largest Earthquakes in the United States. |
1972 | Managua, Nicaragua
![]() | 6.2 | 5,000 deaths. Thousands injured. Preliminary estimates indicate approximately $800,000,000 damages in Managua. Hundreds of aftershocks were reported, but only two exceeded magnitude 5, and these occurred within an hour of the main shock. From Significant Earthquakes of the World 1972, and Earthquake Information Bulletin, Volume 5, Number 1. One of the world's deadliest earthquakes. |
double congrats

big congrats to our own mimus pauly, whose blog, mockingbird's medley, was a runner-up in this category (so you can't complain you don't ever get nominated any more, mimus)!
Memory Lane - David Brooks edition #2
DAVID BROOKS: We are closer to war than we were a week ago. Saddam Hussein's report was an insult to the U.N.; Hans Blix accepts that. The French ambassador accepts that. Colin Powell expressed that very eloquently yesterday. We are closer to war because Saddam Hussein is driving us to war....[h]e hungers for an apocalyptic conflict.
Historians of this era will be required to theorize the personal and social processes by which members could share the psychological projections of their cult leader.
more macaca hits the fan
but his constituents in virginia's 5th congressional district should be hopping mad, because goode now has the nation believing that they are as small-minded as he is.
goode never intended for everyone to know that he fears now that one muslim has been elected to congress, illegal immigrants and terrorists will pour over our boundaries. his letter -- the one that has made national news for a few days running -- was intended to go out to only his xenophobic supporters.
one copy mistakenly went to a non-supporter in what goode's office claimed was a "clerical error." too late. they couldn't take it back or deny it. instead, goode defends his stance and claims it mirrors his constituents' views.
would that include his thousand or so constituents of arab descent? or those of african descent who make up about 23 percent of his district?...
the people of his district look the other way when he gets wrapped up in a campaign finance scandal; they excuse him in martinsville where the town is on the hook to pay back a substantial grant because of a goode scheme with disgraced mzm officials. they have forgiven him so easily because they believe good-old goode is "one of us"…
goode's got another two years in congress, but his constituents will have little representation during that time. no one, other than of a handful of his bigoted supporters, will ever take goode seriously again. not that he'll notice.
Friday, December 22, 2006
5 troops killed by iraqi insurgents...time for a 'surge'

so far this month, 76 american troops have died in iraq, the same number that were killed in all of april. with nine days remaining in december, the monthly total of u.s. deaths could meet or exceed the death toll of 105 in october.
as american deaths in the war pushed closer to 3,000, iraqis continued to fall victim to sectarian violence between shiites and sunnis. police recovered 21 more bodies in the cities of baghdad, baqouba and kut. with 140,000 u.s. troops now in iraq, president bush is considering whether to send thousands more to control the bloodshed. - asspress
friday night christmas music club
the waitresses - chrsitmas wrapping
pls. forgive the homemade video accompanying this great song...but this girl's performance is infinitely more watchable than the only other version of the song available on youtube...trust us.
Labels: skippy's music club
merry christmas
yo, yo-yo ma! yo mama!
very funny, even (especially?) for those who don't like classical music.
top story of the year: housing sucks!

the asspress biz section sez the biggest story in business this year was the declining housing market:
the sudden stall in home sales, home construction and home prices -- and what that will mean for the economy -- was voted the top business story of the year by u.s. newspaper and broadcast editors surveyed by the associated press.
at the housing market's peak, buyers rushed to open houses, blank checks in hand. lenders gave big-money mortgages to people who could barely afford their monthly payments. that ended in 2006, when home builders scuttled projects, walked away from land they'd hoped to develop and would-be buyers canceled orders.
the story bumped high energy prices from the top of the list, where it had been for the past two years. many of the year's other top business stories were the latest installments of years'-long sagas, such as u.s. auto makers' woes and the unraveling of enron corp.
some of the new faces on the list, including hewlett packard co.'s former chairwoman, patricia dunn, and separately, the growing group of executives who manipulated their stock options, might wish they were elsewhere -- even at a lonely open house.
not that there's any cause and effect.
(thanks and a tip of the hat to cookie jill for the story!
new jersey politician of the year a blogger

politicsnj.com, the top news web site for new jersey political news, has a list of its year-end winners and losers. this year's winner of politician of the year is juan melli, the man who started bluejersey.com (where I have the privilege of being a front-page blogger). i could go on about how hard he's worked and how successful he's been all year (and not just this year), but politicsnj.com says it very well without any help from me:
it's not easy to balance an aggressive activist bent with the ability to work with the established politicos, but melli and the folks at blue jersey, the progressive blog he started, have been able to do it. The online presence is often caustic and pointed, and willing to take on powerful democrats like sen. bob menendez after his fall vote to authorize wiretaps without warrants, or to ridicule governor jon corzine for flip-flopping on property tax reform. but melli is able to tap fellow blue jersey bloggers and his own real world network to get podcast interviews with these same politicos -- including menendez -- and get them to give blunt assessments on the record. the reason is that melli is always fair and unwilling to go after someone unless it is deserved, and politics watchers, from the most radical activist to the most entrenched politicos, know it.this is so sweet and so well-deserved.
at least one previous winner of this prestigious award is awaiting sentencing.
(cross-posted at blanton's and ashton's, where we secretly substituted instant coffee for fresh-brewed)
operation surge and splurge
read the article and enjoy the photo (which cracks me up bigtime).
Memory Lane - David Brooks edition
Iraq's approaching deadline
MARGARET WARNER: Let's switch to Iraq. This is the final build up to the big declaration coming up this weekend. You've got a week plus of these early inspections.How well do you think the White House has handled this so far?
DAVID BROOKS: I think quite well. I think Saddam Hussein has handled it well for them. If they stick to their story that they have no weapons of mass destruction, that just makes life easy for the Bush administration. They could have come out and said we have this and this but not nukes or not that. That would have made it tough.
But if` you come out and say we have nothing, well, then that makes it easy to say this is a material breach of the U.N. Resolution. The U.N. resolution says no omissions, that's in Article IV; in Article III, the U.N. Resolution is very fastidious about what you have to list, and if this 8,000 page document doesn't list the stuff and does have omissions, it becomes easy for the Bush administration to say next week or two weeks later it's a material breach and win some support around the world for that position.
Which leads us to the question, why does the NewsHour still feature Brooks every week? The answer: because the main stream media is a full employment act for Republican propagandists.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
it's bad when an entire museum distances itself from you
in november, the board member, dennis prager, a conservative commentator and radio show host, said that keith ellison, the newly elected muslim member of congress, should give up his post if he could not take his oath on a bible, which mr. prager said was the traditional religious text of the united states.
in its resolution, the council’s executive committee criticized mr. prager’s remarks as “antithetical to the mission of the museum as an institution promoting tolerance and respect for all peoples regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.”
mr. prager, one of 68 members of the board, known as the holocaust memorial council, was appointed to the unpaid post by president bush, and is serving a five-year term, which expires in 2011, said andrew hollinger, a spokesman for the council.
mr. hollinger said mr. bush had the sole power to remove mr. prager.
special thursday night christmas music club
bing crosby & david bowie with little drummer boy/peace on earth.
complete w/corny dialogue up front.
Labels: skippy's music club
thursday night music club
the california guitar trio doing bohemian rhapsody
Labels: skippy's music club
there's snow business like snow business

denver shut down as major storm hits:
the storm comes after forecasters predicted a dryer-than-average winter, rick salinger of cbs station kcnc-tv in denver reported.
the wind-whipped snow was finally expected to taper off in colorado on thursday afternoon. to the east, warmer temperatures meant even chicago was only forecast to get heavy rain as the storm moved through.
in colorado's eastern half, though, few travelers were going anywhere thursday morning. the colorado springs airport reopened and some airlines were flying, but getting there was nearly impossible.
some denver airport monitors tantalized travelers by listing "on time" beside arrivals and departures, but [airport spokesman steve] snyder said that was probably caused by a computer glitch.
people spent the night at the airport on cots, in chairs or on the stone floor. some slept within the roped-off lanes in front of the check-in counters, hoping to get first crack at a flight.
in colorado’s socked-in eastern half, few travelers were going anywhere.
the colorado springs airport reopened and some airlines were flying, but getting there was nearly impossible.
gov. bill owens declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard, which assisted dozens of motorists on the highways around denver and delivered diapers, formula and bottled water to denver’s airport.
long stretches of interstates 70 and 25, the main east-west and north-south routes through the mountain west, were closed. interstate 76 was closed from denver to nebraska.
police in the denver suburb of broomfield rescued nearly 100 people who had been stranded in cars along u.s. 36, the main route between denver and boulder.
national guard and sheriff’s deputies rescued about 50 people overnight from snowbound vehicles in weld county, where up to 22 inches of snow fell. about 18 others were still stuck in their cars thursday morning, said weld county emergency management director roy rudisill.
addendum: cookie jill sends us the link to the colorado snow cams! watch it snow! live!
double addendum: our blog buddy jeralyn merritt has wandered out into the snow to take pictures! she's nuts! but here they are!
triple addendum: big thanks to jeralyn for using our pic of her blog snow-bound! we love photoshop!
don't go read atrios
we're atheists, god willing
it’s all part of the continuing promotion for flemming’s worthy documentary film, the god who wasn’t there . the film, in the words of newsweek, “irreverently lays out the case that jesus christ never existed.” uber-athiests sam harris and richard dawkins appear, helping flemming make his sacreligious point.
mad about shopping
the must have product for the holidays
forget the alamo
as much as 20 percent of the state remains in exceptional drought and a similar percentage is enduring extreme drought, texas cooperative extension drought specialist travis miller said.
...the drought, now in about its 20th month, also sparked deadly wildfires and dropped lake levels to their lowest point for this time of year since 1978.
...the drought cost the state -- the nation's leading producer of cotton and cattle -- $2.5 billion in lost crops and $1.6 billion in livestock losses
...in september, about 24,000 texas producers in 216 drought-stressed counties became eligible for $16.1 million from the federal livestock assistance grant program.sen. kay bailey hutchison, r-texas, recently told texas farm bureau members she had "every confidence" federal disaster assistance would materialize in the next budget. - ap
hey kay, hate to remind you, but there ain't no money. your buddyboy awol's spending it all over in iraq. and, um, in regards to money going toward disaster assistance, you might want to talk to louisiana on how that's coming along.
housekeeping
addendum: by popular demand, we are also adding watergate summer to our blogroll, just in time for christmas, because enigma has been such a good little girl.
we're a little miffed we couldn't think of a word that begins with 'p' for 'blogroll,' but we do what we can.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
things that make you go....
schwarzenegger released his deep list of 22 inaugural committee co-chairs, which includes incoming house speaker nancy pelosi and assembly speaker fabian núñez, as well as u.s. sens. barbara boxer and dianne feinstein. during angelides' unsuccessful campaign, he named all four democrats as his own co-chairs in hopes that their popularity would extend to his own effort. the inaugural co-chairs are ceremonial positions. - sacbee
tip o' the kangaroo tail to calitics.
hey....i've got an idea....
john mack's record for the biggest bonus ever paid to a wall street chief executive didn't last even a week. it was smashed by the $53.4 million that goldman sachs gave its chief executive, lloyd blankfein.
...the bonuses come after goldman reported last week that it had earned the highest yearly profit in the history of wall street. net profit rose 70 percent to $9.4 billion on revenue of $37.67 billion. goldman and other firms have benefitted from a surging market for takeovers and a strong stock market. - sfgate
pentagon meet goldman sachs employees....the pentagon wants the white house to seek an additional $99.7 billion to fund the wars in iraq and afghanistan, according to information provided to the associated press.
the military's request, if embraced by president bush and approved by congress, would boost this year's budget for those wars to about $170 billion. - sfgate