Evidence of GOP voting fraud in Florida?

Some weird shit being dug up. Worth a read, seriously. Read More......

ALERT: Call the FCC and tell them that you don't want THIS on your TV

I am OUTRAGED. I turn on my television in the middle of the day and look at what I have to see:

A married man fornicating with an unmarried woman. This is outrageous. This man is the President of the United States, just look at that look on her face! Look at him! What is he doing? Is he licking her ear?

Call the FCC, tell them that you don't want that kind of immoral behavior on your television in the middle of the day. Think of the children!!!

But this is not the first time that she has been fornicating with our married Christian President. She even seems to think that this might be her husband:

At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, "As I was telling my husb—" and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, "As I was telling President Bush." (New York Magazine)

This is a clear violation of the Tenth Commandment:

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's."

Calling a married man your husband when he's not married to you? Covetous! Evil covetousness!

Again, what's with the look on her face -- she's a nasty fornicator!

Paul clearly states in First Corinthians 7, versus 1-2:

Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

This single woman should not be behaving in this un-Christian way with a married man on national television.

(Thanks to corrente and Atrios for the photo inspiration.) Read More......

NFL says sexy ad was "Unsuitable for our Monday Night Football audience"

As a gay man I join the tens of gay men and straight women across America who religiously watch Monday Night Football and were simply mortified to see scantily clad women injected into what is usually such a peaceful, Christian three hour pageant of uber-crotched-men slapping each on their hot tight asses, then beating the crap out of each other while blonde bimbos bounce up and down dutifully on the sidelines, their sublime T&A; cleavage daring us with suggestions of slippage out of their tight little hooker cowboy outifts. (Ok, so I'm no hetero porn writer.)

Yes, quite a break indeed from the usual wholesome fair NFL viewers are accustomed to.

You can see the ad here. Praise be Jesus. Read More......

More chilling of free speech? - ABC's Monday Night Football Problem or Good PR?

Well Red States, this is the America that you voted for. Now you've got it, they are taking away your right to see hot girls and football together. Last night, ABC ran a promotion for its Desperate Housewives show at the beginning of Monday Night Football. For those of you who missed it, here's how it went "down" according to AP:

The spot showed Owens and Sheridan in an empty locker room, with Sheridan wearing only a towel and provocatively asking Owens to skip the game for her.

After she dropped her towel, he smiled, agreed to be late for the games and she jumped into his arms. Sheridan was shown only from behind and above the waist after she dropped the towel.

Then the shot panned out to two more stars of "Desperate Housewives," Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman, watching the scene unfold on a television and commenting on desperate women.

The NFL's response:

ABC's opening was inappropriate and unsuitable for our Monday Night Football audience. While ABC may have gained attention for one of its other shows, the NFL and its fans lost.

Okay, did I miss something? Seriously - what did I miss? This is the same NFL who will happily take billions from ABC with money earned from Coors ads with The Twins?

There is an alternative read on this, however, from Mike Cleizic at NBC Sports:

I watched Monday Night Football, and I'm offended and outraged. My sensibilities, poor delicate things that they are, have been damaged beyond repair, and my children have doubtless been launched down the path to depravity, wickedness, sin and degradation.

But it wasn't because of that opening segment with Nicolette Sheridan and Terrell Owens. It was the hypocritical response of the NFL and ABC to the reaction to that steamy little house ad for "Desperate Housewives" that has my knickers in a knot.
...
"We have heard from many of our viewers about last night's MNF opening segment and we agree that the placement was inappropriate," ABC said in a statement. "We apologize."

Excuse me while I vomit. The statement suggests that the wizards who decided it would be great fun to have a naked woman approach a player much like a randy dog approaches your leg had no idea that anyone in America would be offended.
...
My guess is that ABC wrote the apology even before it filmed the spot and figured that all the publicity it would reap for its new show would be well worth any fines the FCC might decide to impose. They were right. The spot itself was seen by maybe 20 percent of the country. The replays and pious diatribes against it are seeping into every nook and cranny of the country, and every story mentions "Desperate Housewives." You can't buy that kind of publicity.
...
The NFL was glad to take more than a billion dollars from Fox and CBS for a new television contract, knowing full well that the networks do not recover the rights fees with advertising sales. To the networks, buying the NFL is buying advertising time on their own stations. They don't carry the NFL to turn a profit on football, but to sell their other shows and turn a profit on them.
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If the league cared about the morals of our youth, it would refuse to have any part of money generated by ads whose selling points are getting drunk, driving fast, chasing people of the opposite gender and taking pills to cure all your ills. And it wouldn't sell video games that give extra points for sadistic violence.

But it doesn't do any of those things, because there's billions of dollars involved, and ABC does what it does for the same reason.

So, good PR or the chilling of free speech? You decide. Either way, hot chicks and football evidently are no longer part of George Bush's America. If THAT isn't the end of Western Civilization as we know it I don't know what is. Read More......

Early evening open thread

Only post here if you're a former girlfriend of Ken Mehlman. Read More......

eBay reinstates Virgin Mary grilled cheese auction

Yes, it's true. Hey, maybe we can put grilled cheese sandwiches in courtrooms across America to honor our Judeo-Christian heritage?! Read More......

Ashcroft's goodbye card, from the office

See a larger, more readable version, here.

From Wwwdbook.com
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Afternoon open thread

Chit chat Read More......

Eliot Spitzer message to the Dem's

Over on DailyKos there's an interesting discussion about the recent OpEd that Spitzer wrote in The New Republic. Some of the themes mentioned are well worth a look and considering the excessive corporate ripoffs that we've witnessed in recent years, he just might be on to something for us to build on in the coming years.
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EBay Cancels Bids for Virgin Mary Sandwich

Why does eBay hate the Virgin?

Read this, it's good. Read More......

At least she's candid...

"Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia."

So said Condi Rice last year. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say this was a vast over-simplification of her recommendations for American foreign policy.

Actually, no I'm not. "Punishing" France is just stupid, because in a global marketplace their financial futures are intrinsically linked to ours. Besides, since this Administration so royally screwed up the flu vaccine supply we're relying on the French to supply us with some.

"Ignoring" Germany? The largest economy in Europe? Stupid for the same reasons. Also, we're relying on them (along with the French and the Brits) to negotiate with Iran on nuclear proliferation, since American foreign policy has so undermined our credibility in the Middle East we'd be better off acting like George Costanza as "opposite man."

"Forgiving" Russia simply highlights the criminal hypocrisy of this administration. We're willing to overlook the dismantling of a free media, the re-nationalization of entire industries, the imprisonment of political oppostition leaders, and human rights abuses when it suits us.

But hey, at least we know going in what she thinks.
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Just watch the Marine cover up begin

Hey, we don't abide by the Geneva Conventions, so why not just shoot everyone in the head? Oh that's right, we're the GOOD guys. [Slap to head.]

And this from an NBC correspondent:

"I have witnessed the Marines behaving as a disciplined and professional force throughout this offensive. In this particular case, it certainly was a confusing situation to say the least."

Yeah, real confusing there buddy. The video shows a quiet room, the Marines walking around slowly and calmly, then one Marine saying "hey, this one's faking he's dead" - he then shoots the guy in the head, and says "he's dead now." Uh huh. Real confusing.

Then we have this little ditty:

"I would have shot the insurgent too. Two shots to the head," said Sergeant Nicholas Graham, 24, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "You can't trust these people. He should not be investigated. He did nothing wrong."

Gee, wonder who he voted for. Read More......

Man who set self on fire at White House was terror informant

Fishier and fishier. Read More......

Bankrupt...the prevalent concept for Catholic Bishops

Now, I am writing this as a Catholic, admittedly a fallen away one. And, fortunately my very devout mother did not send me to Catholic schools growing up. I was a CCD kid.

There is something too rich about the US Conference of Bishops choosing the leader of a bankrupt diocese to run their organization. That bankrupt theme has become pervasive in the leadership of the church: Bankrupt of morality and bankrupt of their basic mission. They spend way, way too much covering up crimes and way, way too much time bashing gays.

Instead of sucking up to Karl Rove and the right wing evangelicals, the bishops should read and practice the beautitudes or start practing the corporal works of mercy.

It seems that the whole Bush agenda is basically a contradiction of basic catholic teaching. But, the Catholic hierarchy has no problem with that hypocrisy. Bankrupt all around. Read More......

Condi (but really, Rumsfeld and Cheney) as Secretary of State

Today's papers are filled with stories about our incoming Secretary of State as if she is going to be in charge. Everyone watched Rumsfeld and Cheney roll her at the NSC. The Washington Post let us know, Condi "has forged an extraordinarily close relationship with President Bush..." whatever that means.

I also love this quote from one of Reagan foreign policy guys, Ken Adelman, from another piece in today's Washington Post:

Rice, by contrast, "certainly shares Bush's views and has learned better than anyone what Bush's views are," Adelman said. "You are not going to have that split in a second term."

Sure she share Bush's views. She has channeled Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to tell him what those views are. There is no moderation in US foreign policy.... the rest of the world should be afraid, be very afraid (and parents of draft age children should also be very afraid).

But, during her confirmation hearings, will someone please, please, please ask her about the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." That's the document that said Bin Laden was operating in the U.S. and was going to hijack airplanes. That didn't raise any red flags in the White House....and unfortunately, during the campaign no one asked Bush why he stayed on vacation after he got that warning. She should at least be asked the question, not that we can expect a real answer. Read More......

Wholesale prices jump 1.7% in October

This comes as a considerable surprise to the market who was expecting about a third of that amount. So what impacted this jump? The high oil prices, which are still in the high 40's. Even with the recent decline in price we are still locked solidly into the $40-$60 range. Remember when Greenspan and other administration apologists told us that the price of oil would not have an impact? Now those apologists are saying that inflation won't hurt the economy and that there's nothing to worry about. So why am I now so worried?
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Get ready to bail out the airlines... again

It's more likely than ever that taxpayers will pay for the promises airlines made, and will soon break, to employees and retirees. United Airlines' decision to terminate its pensions falls on the back of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal entity created in 1974 to deal with disasters such as this. Of course, PBGC was intended to deal with companies hit by major disasters OTHER than criminal mismanagement.

So many large corporations are now breaking their promises that PBGC is now more than $23 billion in debt itself, doubling its debt from last year. Apparently, that tax cut for the extraordinarily wealthy that Bush rammed through Congress isn't helping PBGC much.

Speaking of the insanely rich, CEO's are being "encouraged" by the nation's largest public pension fund not to pay themselves obscene amounts of money just to retire, like the $76 million golden parachute an HMO guy got. Anyone sense a theme here?
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Baquba, Mosul, Kirkuk and Suwaira erupt

With fighting slowing down in Falluja, the insurgents who slipped out of town are now kicking up the action across Iraq. Did anyone really think that 12,000 troops could seal off a city of 300,000 people? Our media has been pumping us yet again with Pentagon spin that only a fool would believe. Funny how reality can run counter to a media hype campaign.

Guerrillas in Baquba, Mosul, Kirkuk and Suwaira stormed police stations, set oil wells ablaze and struck at American military convoys with suicide car bombs, routing Iraqi security forces in several coordinated assaults and severely damaging parts of the country's petroleum-based economic lifeline.

The wave of attacks across the Sunni Muslim heartland suggested that guerrillas were ready to carry on the war despite the loss of their safe haven in Falluja. The most intense fighting took place in the morning in Baquba, northeast of the capital. Insurgents there ambushed American troops near a downtown police station and laid siege to another station in a southern suburb.

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Chirac to Blair: You received nothing for your support of Bush

Chirac may be leave much to be desired domestically as President of France and a political opportunist, but he sure hit the nail on the head here. Blair whored himself to Bush and besides embarassing his country by being Bush's poodle we have yet to see anything received in return for his support of the Bush administration. Despite all of his education and brain power, Blair has been taken to the cleaners by the Bush team.

"Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see much in return," Chirac was quoted as saying in the Times. "I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically."

"I said then to Tony Blair: 'We have different positions on Iraq. Your position should at least have some use'. That is to try to obtain in exchange a relaunch of the peace process in the Middle East."

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Study says gays and lesbians have as well adjusted kids as straight couples

For those of you who know gay and lesbian couples with children, this will be old news. For those who have not had this first hand experience, I encourage you to read this article from Yahoo:

Adolescents who have two moms as parents are no different from teens growing up with a mother and a father, a new study finds.

On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors, the teens with same-sex parents were as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. The authors found very few differences between the two groups. A more important predictor of teens' psychological and social adjustment, they found, is the quality of the relationships they have with their parents.

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