David Sirota has some discouraging words for Rick Santorum:
A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Santorum's opponent, Pennsylvania State Treasurer Bobby Casey (D), already has a 14 point lead over Santorum. Santorum has responded by deploying his media consultant to attack Casey for supposedly not answering questions. This, despite Philadelphia Daily News columnist Gar Joseph writing Friday that he got straight answers from Casey when he called to ask his position on five controversial issues. "We got straight answers. No spin. No Kerry-style nuance,? Joseph wrote. That apparently bothers the extremist Santorum, whose consultant actually criticized Casey for being "so adept at taking the middle positions." As if it's a bad thing to be a mainstream politician instead of an insane ideologue like Santorum.

Santorum has a lot to answer for in his upcoming race. It was the supposedly "compassionate conservative" Santorum who publicly said he wanted poor people to suffer. "Making people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing," Santorum said in justifying his efforts to slash welfare. It was Santorum who crassly likened homosexuality to bestiality, prompting criticism from his own party. It was Santorum who tried to eliminate all minimum wage protections for roughly 7 million workers. And it was Santorum who tried to rip off taxpayers by attempting to force a Pennsylvania school district to pay for his children's education, even though he has abandoned his home state and become a fulltime resident of Virginia.
It's obviously too early to count on a Democratic victory in the Keystone State, but still this is great news. Could Santorum's distress be an early sign of a public backlash against religious extremism in American politics?
2.5.05 15:24


Gay hurricane alert


Here's a quote that didn't make it in Time Magazine's 5,000-word love letter to Ann Coulter:
"Cheney is my ideal man. Because he's solid. He's funny. He's very handsome. He was a football player. People don't think about him as the glamour type because he's a serious person, he wears glasses, he's lost his hair. But he's a very handsome man. And you cannot imagine him losing his temper, which I find extremely sexy. Men who get upset and lose their tempers and claim to be sensitive males: talk about girly boys. No, there's a reason hurricanes are named after women and homosexual men, it's one of our little methods of social control. We're supposed to fly off the handle.
I must have missed Hurricane Seth.


Possible letter to al-Zarqawi cites low morale

Am I the only person who thinks this supposed letter came at a convenient time?

Dear Sheik:

It was great seeing you at the mosque last weekend. I can't believe it's already been two years since the infidels invaded our land between the rivers! How time flies when you're on the run. How are your darling children? My Mohammed just turned nine years old, and he was asking about you the other day. After he heard about the failed detonation near the Baghdad waste water treatment plant, little Mohammed asked "Daddy, was that a sewer side bombing?" They grow up so fast.

Anyway, you seemed kind of rushed the last time we met, and you said you wanted to talk later, so I thought I'd scribble out a fast note to let you know that some of the mujahadeen have concerns about the level of commitment to our struggle against the infidels. I'm not saying your leadership is lacking or anything like that, only that, well, morale is kind of low, and the men could use some encouragement. Not that they aren't happy to strap bombs to their bodies and martyr themselves. They just feel that they need something to fight for. Just the other day, I overheard Saed and Azziz question the desirability of 70 virgins when they have Maxim Magazine. I know this type of talk is blasphemous, and I punished Saed and Azziz by sending them out to blow up a tanning salon, from which they did not return, but still, this type of grumbling does not bode well for our movement.

We're doing our best to keep spirits up, but it is not easy. Last week, we had an ice cream social, which was going well until a Predator drone passed overhead, and we had to dive for cover. By the time the cursed plane was gone, all of our ice cream had melted in the 120 degree weather. We tried to organize a soccer league, but half of our mujahadeen are missing a right leg, and the other half are missing their left.

So anyway, Sheik, I will try to leave another message with your secretary. You certainly do seem to be "out" a lot these days!

Allah Akbar!

Your faithful servant,

Abu Jihad al Tikrit


Cartoon of the day



My brother sent me this one.
3.5.05 14:09


Shameless hack


Pat Robertson says Muslims have no business sitting as judges in US courts:
Right now, I think people who feel that there should be a jihad against America, read what the Islamic people say. They divide the world into two spheres, Dar al Islam Dar al Harb. The Dar al Islam are those who've submitted to Islam, Dar al Harb are those who are in the land of war and they have said in the Koran there's a war against all the infidels. So do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn't.
The good reverend also says Thomas Jefferson would not allow atheists to serve in government, and that ACLU lawyers are communists. And don't get him started on gays!

This man is crazier than the proverbial restroom rodent, and still the President is returning his phone calls. When will the GOP middle wake up?
4.5.05 20:02


Marquette Gold


Marquette University used to call its athletic teams "The Warriors", which I thought was really cool. The school had this dude dressed in full Indian head dress dancing at basketball games, and the name spoke to the fighting spirit that made the Warriors basketball team so sucessful, year after year.

But some people didn't like the name, and in the early 90s, the school changed its name to the Golden Eagles. The outcry was predictable - everybody thought the new name sucked.

The grumbling continued for about the next 10 years, and reached a crescendo last year when some alumni promised to pay the school $2 million to change the name back to the Warriors. The school's board of trustees, faced with a no-brainer decision, chose not to use their brains and rejected the offer. But they did promise to "look into" the matter.

Well look no more. Last night, the no-brainer faction selected a new name: Gold. The Marquette Gold. Yeah, you got it. Gold. Like the color. Or chemical element, I suppose.

Public support is underwhelming. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel poll that Neill just sent me shows 90 percent of self-selected respondents think the name is not a good thing.

It's no wonder. Gold is not a team name. It's an adjective. What does it modify? Bar? Standard? Tooth? Even the University of Alabama had the good sense to let the other shoe drop, following the word "Crimson" with a noun, "Tide". Crimson Tide. See how that works, Marquette?

Maybe the school trustees had a credit card tie in in mind. Marquette Visa Gold!

Textbooks for one semester: $400
Two kegs of Miller for your frat brothers: $70
A new kitchen rug to replace the one you hurled all over: $60
A lame ass athletic team nickname you can bitch about well into you alumni years: Priceless




Three, four, five, six, Texas is pathetic

Some Texas lawmakers are upset about overly exhuberant high school cheerleaders, and want to make it illegal to, uh, cheer:
The state's House of Representatives voted 85-55 to approve a bill that would forbid sexy cheers and give the Texas Education Agency authority to punish schools that allow "overtly sexually suggestive" routines at football games and other events.

The proposal must go to the Texas Senate for consideration.

"People are calling and telling me how disgusting it is to see sexually suggestive routines on the part of marching units or cheerleaders," said State Rep. Al Edwards, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill.
Somebody needs to tell Rep. Richards to hit the showers. The cold showers.
5.5.05 18:10


Friday Texas high school cheerleaders blogging




Because I couldn't resist. This one from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
In an unlikely turn of events even by Texas standards, the Texas House has taken over the punishment of school cheer, dance and drill teams when the bump and grind turns into a crouch-and-grind lap dance.

A veteran Houston lawmaker from a proud family of inner-city Missionary Baptist church pastors, Al Edwards, is now the butt of jokes nationwide.

His bill would order state education officials to investigate any school-sponsored performance that is "overtly sexually suggestive."
Did they say "butt"? I'm calling my congressman right now.


How Tony Blair will be celebrating his electoral victory

Hilarious.
6.5.05 21:05


Fun with search engines


Googlefight!

Speaking of which, somebody reached my site by Googling Hitler + soccer. I'm link number two.

Take that, NeillOBrien.com!


Sharecropper's daughter

Conservatives delight in calling federal court nominee Janice Roberts Brown a "sharecropper's daughter", this conferring a populist flavor to the most illiberal of President Bush's problematic nominees, who says things like this:
Thus, lawyers have secured the right of topless dancers to perform, but have banished prayer from public life. They have won the right for indigents to take over public spaces, even our children?s libraries, and for the mentally ill to live on streets and shout obscenities at passersby. Legal advocates have guaranteed the right of students to be ignorant by opposing competency tests, and ignored their brazen possession and use of weapons in school.
The sharecropper narrative works for conservatives, because it provides an alternative to the "liberal" solution to instittionalize racism, which as any right winger will tell you includes forced busing, quotas, speech codes and the like. Now, when white senators speak up against Janice Rogers Brown, Trent Lott gets to remind us that it's really the Republican Party that has been looking our for the interests of African Americans all these years.

Nice, huh?

Hat tip to Oliver Willis.


Marquette Gold cheers

CHEER #1:

One nine six point nine six eight

That is our atomic weight.

Goooooooo Gold!

CHEER #2:

We are gold

We ain't no dopes

We have 18 isotopes

Goooooo Gold!

CHEER #3:

You can run

But you can't hide

We come from auric chloride

Goooooo Gold!

CHEER #4:

Tell your mama

Tell your pa

About our team

You'll be in AU

Goooooo Gold!

I think these will do
7.5.05 18:15


Falses choices


Are you a God-fearing conservative or a spineless liberal? Take the quiz!

I am so tired of this crap.
8.5.05 22:49


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