Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Falcon Got You Sucka

You Lie!

"[L]et's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude." [Obama, on every Sunday political talk show not on FOX.]

This approach hasn't been working for me at all! In reality, the easiest way to get on television, at least in this context, is to be a powerful member of the political elite. As for those having attained the requisite status: being rude is is the least of their shortcomings.

Can I Just Say One Thing?

Man, FUCK the Beatles.

Yoko Ono is a fucking hero.


Play Revolver the new Beatles, first person shooter video game! Now in stores!

Or listen to Revolver by Rage Against the Machine:

Brian Kilmeade: Open Mouth, Insert Bus

But it's alright as long as the members of these different species are from opposite genders...

via Gotcha Media

Michael Jackson: Still Dead

When Rick Sanchez isn't posting banal tweets about his birthday or chowing down with his family he is providing careful insight into the story selection process of cable network news.

Man, I really hope this Twitter thing is just a fad - but considering that Sarah Palin is going to launch a national campaign for relevancy via 140-character statements, I think we are going to see a lot more from this ugly social networking tool. 

I, Rube

I would be shocked Froomkin's pings haven't drastically fallen: those who'd never read him still wouldn't, most who read him for Bush-flaying stopped the day after Obama won, and a significant number who did stay have since quit, repelled by Froomkin's Obama-flaying.

Irony being, if McCain had won Froomkin's site would be profitably pinging, which should remind not just neocons but all rubes everywhere what priorities rule.

(And here is proof of my roobiness, that I'd think neocons would find Froomkin more valuable disillusioning Obama supporters than he was as house liberal.)

(And here is proof of my roobiness: I obsess on this because I remember the civic pride in calling the Washington Post my hometown paper.) Stuff.

(S)P(L)URGE?

Common sense requires assuming the neocon fuckfarts at Fred Hiatt's op-ed page said Fire that fucker Froomkin or else...." what, Charles will wetfart and mean it this time?

Why fire Froomkin? Again common sense requires we assume neocons are pussies and will not tolerate accurate, documented proof of their pussiness, yeahsureyeah, but what if...

Froomkin has already shown he will hold Obama to the same standard of accountability that he did George Bush. What if firing Froomkin is a neocon nod they know Obama is one of them (and will help keep their secrets)?

!hEh! Neocons are so pussy they're dimly aware Froomkin's a vital weapon against Obama but order his execution anyway because Froomkin has to call them pussies to call Obama a pussy. Patriotism, bitches.

More stuff.

Not just a muslim, a sodomite muslim

Saw this this morning in a Safeway and, well, it explains everything.

More stuff here, including a link to a poll where you can choose your favorite form of ancient executions.

Irony Alert

So a writer from the New York Times plagiarizes a blogger. Nice.

If this damages Dowd's career -- or somehow harms the Times -- it'll certainly give credence to the idea that blogging is bad for reporting. Heh, heh.

What I wanna know, of course, is did Dowd sneak into Marshall's mother's basement to steal his words, or did she access them some other way?

Six Random Things

Most of the shit that pisses me off has to do with politics. But don't think for a minute that some nonpolitical happenings don't drive me batshit. So I give you six random things that are pissing me off, and ask you to add your own nonpolitical psychotic hatreds in the comments.

1. Angelina Jolie's uterus - it seems as though Brangelina might be pregnant again - her seventh child (3 are adopted), and her fourth with Brad Pitt. That total does not include the sixty or so third-world children they will likely adopt in the next eighteen months. Enough already. You are annoying people, and your children are likely to spend most of their time on this earth in rehab. Stop reproducing.
 

2. Victoria Osteen - a multimillionaire snake handler, she tells people affected by the economy that she thinks "we could all do better sometimes ... not overextending ourselves." First, this ignorant bitch needs to STFU. Second, she needs to investigate the rumors that her poofy-haired preacher husband is pestorking poolboys in the poolhouse. Just sayin'. 3. Brett Favre - yes I wanted you to come here, yes I wanted you to start every game, and yes, I would be OK with it if you stayed. BUT MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND! NOW! If you decide to go, we've got some scouting to do. Fuckwit drama queen.

4. The Red State Strike Force - Another group of Keyboard Kommandos (aka the 101st Chairborne) that prefers to wage the War of Ideas™ over here rather than risk getting hurt doing the actual work of Empire over there. You can read more about them here, and you can see a more appropriate logo for the group here. And yes - I know it's more or less political, but they really piss me off.
 5. Hugh Hefner - I am eternally grateful to you for thinking up Playboy - it helped get me through puberty. But dude - you're 82. I mean, 19 year-old twins? Most guys half your age would have trouble keeping up with that. And it's just skeevy. Can't you settle down with some hottie in her 30s and get off the stage?

6. Ford Expedition/Lincoln Navigator - face it Ford, anybody who needs a vehicle of this size and class buys a Suburban. These fucking things are ugly, they get abysmal mileage, and you never see them shuttling big shots around. They sent an Expedition for me once instead of a Town Car, and it was uncomfortable and seemed, from the back seat, to handle like a fishing trawler. Make some Fusion Hybrids instead - people will buy that shit.

Tom Friedman's Conscience Speaks

Did he fall and hit his head?

But to have been so completely and fundamentally wrong about so huge a disaster as what we have done to Iraq — and ourselves — is outrageous enough to prove that people like me have no business posing as wise men, and, more importantly, that The New York Times has no business continuing to provide me with a national platform.

In any case, I have made a decision: as of today, I will no longer write in this or any other newspaper. I will immediately desist from writing any more books about how it’s time for everyone to climb on board the globalization high-speed monorail to the future. I will keep my opinions to myself. (My wife suggested that I try not to even form opinions, but I think she might have another agenda.)

Sure it’s a spoof, but I can dream, can’t I?

yet dick cheney still walks the earth ...

Jack’s wife of 35 years, Carol (right), died suddenly on Friday morning. She was, he said, “his wife, his life.”

What else is there to say?

Civilization Teeters on the Brink

Lots of annoying things have forced themselves onto my radar.  Michael Bolton, Yanni, Kenny G, and Cher for example.  Knowledge of the existence of Sylvester Stallone (he of the third testicle) is lodged in my brain, and I know of the oeuvre of Pauly Shore.  I am also aware of lesser mediocrities like Adam Sandler, Mandy Patinkin, and the perpetually-overrated Garth Brooks.  I have been dragged,  kicking and screaming, to a Stevie Nicks concert, and I lived.

On the other hand, I’ve expended lots of effort to avoid knowing who Hannah Montana is - until the Vanity Fair kerfuffle, I didn’t know the name Miley Cyrus.  I had never heard her speak nor had I heard her sing. I was blissfully unaware that Hannah was the spawn of the bathetically awful Billy Ray Cyrus.  If pressed, I could not have picked her out of a lineup.

But no more.

The History of Fox News

Piggy-backing on Frederick's post on the state of journalism yesterday, here's a two-part faux documentary on Faux News from The Daily Show.

journaminimalism

...and there you have it.

Wank Wank Wank

The "liberal hawks" over at Slate are having a wankfest about how wrong they were on the Iraq War.  Each has written a little missive entitled "How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?" - and as you'd expect, they suck.  A smattering:

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I believed the groupthink and contributed to it," by Jacob Weisberg.

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I seriously misjudged Bush's sense of morality," by Andrew Sullivan.

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I didn't realize how incompetent the Bush administration could be," by Jeffrey Goldberg.

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? Rather than bore you with the answer, here are lessons from the experience," by Lord William Saletan.

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I thought we had a chance to stabilize an unstable region, and—I admit it—I wanted to strike back," by Richard Cohen.

"How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I didn't," by Christopher Hitchens.

Commentary after the jump.

Lord Black Heads for the Slammer

Conrad Black used to run a publishing empire - Hollinger International.  He was sort of a pint-sized Rupert Murdoch.  He became a British lord in 2000, and he gave up his Canadian citizenship to do it. He’s also a peerless wingnut, and he’s married to another conservative nutjob - Barbara Amiel Black.  He’s an author, though some criticize him for using three words where one would do.  And, as of yesterday, he’s federal prisoner 18330-424.

What did Conrad do?  Eh, just a bit of minor-league looting of his company, but he’d forgotten that company was publicly-traded and didn’t belong to him. Ooops. More fun facts after the jump.

Just Say It

The New York Times on the Dear Leader's speechification yesterday:

In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies.

In other words, he's lying.  Could have cut that sentence by about two-thirds by just telling us he's lying.  As usual.

Ouch

Pictured is the late Count Gottfried Alexander Leopold Graf  von Bismarck-Schonhausen.  I would say this tribute puts the 'bitch' in obituary.

Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.

Read through until the last line - it's the kicker.

h/t - tata, who found it here.

Have a Scooter 4th!

Josh at TPM tells us why we might not be completely fucked.  Watch the whole thing.

On a lighter note, the teevee tells me that Al Gore's son was pulled over for doing 100 mph in his Prius.  Apparently they found some dope and prescription drugs - hardly hanging offenses.  What I want to know is, how did he get a hybrid going that fast?  I thought the only way to get a Prius to go 100 mph was to drop it out of a plane.

Poor Scooter

Surprise - the Wall Street Journal editorial page says the Dear Leader should have issued a full pardon for Scooter the Obstructor and describes the whole thing as a "personal tragedy.  The WSJ screens their comments - what do you suppose the chances are they'll post mine?

Comment:
1.  The Niger memo was a forgery, and Wilson's accusations are true.

2.  The right wing complains constantly about the Marc Rich pardon and uses it to excuse this commutation, but guess who Rich's lawyer was?  Wait for it ... Scooter Libby.

UPDATE:  6:45 pm EST - not posted yet, but some of the comments they allowed (all pro-Scooter) are a fucking riot.

Elsewhere, Novakula laments the whole situation and confirms that the reich wing isn't happy Scooter has to face just a little bit of justice.  Unless, of course, Bush pardons him on the way out the door.

Cold Cash Jefferson

Fox News is the gift that keeps on giving.

I wonder why Fox abandoned these pieces?

Huh? You mean Jefferson doesn't sport an afro?

Victory is Ours

At last, our long national nightmare is over.

Now onto the custody battle!

The Mav

Who is the tall, dark stranger there?

Maverick is the name.

Ridin' the trail to who knows where,

Luck is his companion, Gamblin' is his game.

Same as it Ever Was

Home	Away
Divided Democrats Back Down on Iraq NPR Divided Congress Prepares to Debate Financing and Strategy for Iraq War The New York Times Democrats Split Over Iraq Plan Details ABC News Dems Split On War Power Limit Plan Time Democrats Back Away From Iraq Plan CBS News	Democrats To Attach Add-ons To Iraq Bill Guardian Unlimited UK Congress aims to shift war's course International Herald Tribune, France US Democratic leaders revamp anti-war plan Zee News, India U.S. Democrats Not to Turn Their Backs on Troops Kommersant, Russia

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