Top Spanish fashion show rejects 5 women for being too skinny

Interesting. A part of me says "good," and another part of me wonders if this is just a bit too much. Then again, I've been watching "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" on Oxygen (don't laugh), and it's creepy how much they focus on how "fat" the already quite skinny models are.

"The show, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, decided in September 2005 not to allow women below a body mass to height ratio of 18 to take part. One of the rejected models had only reached a ratio of 16, the equivalent of being 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing less than 110 pounds."

Read the rest of this post...

Jon Stewart on the Snickers ad

UPDATE: Comedy Central's wonderful new video service is holding up the loading of the site, so we're taking the video down and not using it in the future. Great idea getting all of us kicked off of YouTube for posting clips from Jon Stewart, Comedy Central. Your new service is a dream. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney: "A deputy president with a shadow operation"

So much has been learned and validated by the Libby trial: the lies, the spin, the manipulation of the media. And, of course, the fact that the many in media did know about the Plame leak but never reported on it (while the dutifully reported all the denials about the leak -- including the ones from Bush.)

But the most important confirmation is summed up nicely in by an expert interviewed in an Associate Press article:

"What didn't he touch? It's almost like there was almost nothing too trivial for the vice president to handle," said New York University professor Paul Light, an expert in the bureaucracy of the executive branch.

"The details suggest Cheney was almost a deputy president with a shadow operation. He had his own source of advice. He had his own source of access. He was making his own decisions," Light said.

Cheney's been exposed. No wonder he's been acting so deranged. Read the rest of this post...

Iran is laughing at us right now

All the saber-rattling from George Bush and the Washington Post and New York Times and CNN about how Iran is now the bad guy behind everything wrong in Iraq (funny, it used to be Saddam Hussein, and then Al Qaeda, but just ignore that for a second).

If I were Iran, I'd be laughing, hardy har har har.

With what possible Army, and what possible support from the American people, is Bush going to launch HIS THIRD WAR? The first two wars are hardly going well, and he thinks we're going to have a third? He's nuts or bluffing, or both, and what's worse, the Iranians know it. We don't even have the men and equipment to supply our current needs, and Bush thinks Iran is going to be scared by our threats? The Irani government may be evil, but it's not stupid.

Bush gets us into a third war, and you just watch how quickly his government falls, not to mention, you can kiss every single Republican candidate buh-bye come 2008. The sad part is, this is exactly Bush's plan - to get us into a third war. From Newsweek:

"They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," says Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs.

Since the conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard is such a hawk, I hope we can count on Australia sending more troops for Bush's escalation in Iraq, and the new war in Iran. Seriously, where are the additional troops from Australia? Prime Minister Howard has a paltry 850 troops in Iraq, compared to our going-on 150,000. So, let's see if big-brave Prime Minister Howard is willing to put his money where his mouth is - after all, Al Qaeda is watching, and when they see Mr. Howard afraid to send more troops, it just serves to empower them. Read the rest of this post...

Lead (white) Republican strategist/pundit says (black) Obama would have been pro-slavery

Calling a black man pro-slavery isn't just insane, it strikes me as overtly racist as well. The only reason Kristol is throwing this bizarre charge against Obama is because Obama is black. And I wonder whether Kristol is hoping that Obama reacts by saying something like "As a black man..." - i.e., give the majority-white public a quick dose of "remember, Obama is B-L-A-C-K."

And big surprise, the racist broadcast was on FOX. Read the rest of this post...

Unconfirmed report: Another US helicopter shot down in Baghdad

Unconfirmed, from Reuters. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post hatchet-man reporter John Solomon writes hit piece on McCain, but unfortunately I don't trust this reporter any more

UPDATE: Joe just phoned in from Key West to tell me to look at the end of the article. Solomon does it again. He writes an entire article attacking someone, only to hide the tidbit exonerating the person at the every end of his story. This is exactly what he did to Harry Reid, repeatedly, and to John Edwards. Check out the end of the story - Common Cause, one of the biggest critics of big money in government - has given McCain the green light to do all the things the article criticizes him for doing, but you don't find this out until the very end of the very long story (quelle surprise):

McCain's allies in the campaign finance reform movement seem resigned to the fact that he will not abide by many of the principles he advocated for a decade as a reformer, including public financing and its associated spending and fundraising limits.

"Certainly we are disappointed that he has decided not to take the lead in fixing the presidential-financing system he is competing in," said Mary Boyle of Common Cause, the ethics watchdog that cheered McCain's reform efforts for years. "But it is understandable he is opting out.

"It is apparent to us that to run a competitive presidential campaign inside a system that is still broken, that is what he has to do," she said.

That quote from Common Cause IS the story. But it's buried at the very end - why? - because Solomon wouldn't have a hit piece if he put the truth at the beginning. The Washington Post should be ashamed of itself.

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If I need to write a post undercutting a story attacking John McCain as a hypocrite, in order to convince the Washington Post how serious a problem they have with reporter John Solomon, then so be it.

The Post has a front page story today, entitled "McCain Taps Cash He Sought To Limit: Onetime Reformer Calls on Big Donors," eviscerating John McCain for being a hypocrite on campaign finance issues. The problem? The article is written by John Solomon, the same mediocre reporter who used to work at the Associated Press, and who is known for "investigate reporting" that's not-quite-right.

McCain is an idiot, and has become absolutely two-faced over the past few years, going back on pretty much everything he stood for (straight talk, standing up to the religious right, defender of our military), so I'm happy to believe that he's become a hypocrite on the campaign finance issue - his signature issue - as well.

But the Washington Post made the mistake of using a reporter who has a track record of writing these kind of hit pieces, only to find that the hit pieces usually don't hold together on closer inspection.

And while I can't stand John McCain, Bush's biggest defender of sending even more American troops to the Iraq quagmire, I'm not going to endorse crappy journalism in order to take McCain down. Some of us still have journalistic ethics. Read the rest of this post...

Romney not crazy enough for some on the right

Oh dear, Mitt. Are we going to see another position change to reach out to the extremists who dominate the primaries?

In the heated debate among conservatives over whether Mitt Romney deserves their vote, the focus has been largely on whether his big swings to the right on social issues are sincere.

But on the charged issue of stem cell research, he's facing conservative criticism of a different shade: that he hasn't swung far enough.

Unlike many on the right, Romney supports research on excess embryos created during fertility treatments. Because couples are making embryos to have a baby, he reasons, it is ethical to use the leftovers for research when they would otherwise just be discarded.

I'm smelling another position update. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Iraq, Iran and, looks like we may even hear about Afghanistan on CNN. FOX is giving neocon Douglas Feith the chance to defend himself against the Pentagon report that trashed his work on Iraq intel. No Bush administration officials today. They're probably too busy cooking the intelligence on Iran. Here'e the lineup:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG), 9 a.m.: Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.); former defense undersecretary Douglas J. Feith.

THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA), 10 a.m.: Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN), 10 a.m.: Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA), 10:30 a.m.: Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC), 10:30 a.m.: Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

LATE EDITION (CNN), 11 a.m.: Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.); Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.); Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations; Terence R. McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee chairman; Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, outgoing top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; retired Army Col. Pat Lang.

Provide the real commentary. Or just thread. Your call. Read the rest of this post...

McCain wants Europe to address US failures in Afghanistan

Why do people like McCain think that other have to fill the troop gap in Afghanistan when it was the unilateral decision by the Bush administration to remove US forces, equipment, supplies from the real war on terror and shift it to Iraq? The US had no problem making this decision without debate so why all of the fuss now? The decision to go into Afghanistan was in the best of interest of the US and Europe, but let's be clear, the US had the most at stake and the most to lose by failure in Afghanistan and yet that is what was chosen by Bush and the GOP.

If people like McCain had done their job and asked questions a few years ago we might not be in this situation today. If John McCain was unable to do his job in the Senate, why does he think that he's uniquely qualified to do the job in the White House? Read the rest of this post...

Aussie PM attacks Obama, says pro-debate crowd encourages Al Qaida

I've never liked this little man and prefer to ignore him but this is just too much.

"I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Howard said on Nine Network television.

"If I were running al-Qaida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."

Ahhh, the voice of desperation as his his own re-election campaign nears and Aussies have to decide if Howard's economy is going well enough to make them forget about the failed war based on a pile of lies or if they want to finally address the reality that they voted for a complete ass.

It takes a big person to admit that they were bulldozed with lies and voted for a complete fraud who dragged a nation into a war that was a failure from the beginning. Who really likes to admit that they were lied to...repeatedly...over and over and over...and over. For a political weasel like Howard who specializes in licking the boots of George Bush, how else are you going to change the subject from your own failures and lies since that's all that was offered for taking the country into war?

Then again, I'm sure Howard is occupied now that he's busy solving the race riot issues in Australia because I'm sure they were just a minor blip and had nothing to do with decades of racist policy that was propped up by leaders of his own party. Naaah, nothing at all like that. I'm sure Howard isn't a racist himself and just found it convenient to launch into a black man instead of the others who also think the war is a failure or the majority of the American public who want out. Uh huh, positively not a racist so just keep repeating it and maybe you will believe it. Read the rest of this post...