Things you may have missed...

Here are just a few cool tidbits that might not have crossed your radar in the past week...

• Have you been to Awkward Family Photos yet? The offerings there range from the hilarious and the spooky to the downright creepy! UPDATE: and the oh, so patriotic!

• Elsa Barnouw has lived for 90 years in the same NYC apartment.

• Ellen Degeneres gave a fantabulous graduation speech at Tulane.

• Emmie's got some wanderlust.

• This is so freakin' cool if you're into history, architecture, or lifestyles of the powerful and famous: tour the White House -- the current one, or historical versions (and the East and West Wings). I could spend hours here!

• How much space does your commute take up?

• Jon Stewart on the back-and-forth between Obama and Cheney.

• And the Quote of the Week, from Ron Reagan, the son of Rush Limbaugh's greatest hero:

Limbaugh hasn't had a natural erection since the Nixon Administration; think he's compensating for something? Now, I wouldn't pick on him for any of this stuff, not his blubbiness, not his man-boobs, not his inability to have a natural erection—none of that stuff—to me, off limits until! until! Mr. Limbaugh, you turn that sort of gun on somebody else—once you start doing that, you're fair game, fat boy. Absolutely, you jiggly pile of mess. You're just fair game, and you're going to get it, too.

Right Wing Watch

Tidbits from the Right Wing as the week came to a close:

1. Oh, but the world is coming to an end because gay people in Iowa can get married! At least, that's what you'd gather if you were hanging out with the freepers or other right wingers yesterday (my favorite comment in the response to the response: "It seems God turns a blind eye to the high straight divorce rate, pedophile priests, straight criminals etc. I didn't know that homosexuals such as myself were so powerful and could bring about Armageddon but if we are responsible it will be fabulously well run and organized. Oh what to wear?").

2. Pope condoms are selling well in France.

3. Look who is finally leaving New York (don't let the door hit you in the ginormous ass, Rush!)! UPDATE: Rush forgets.

4. And lastly, is Glenn Beck unraveling before our eyes?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10.31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Enough is Enough

When Chickenhawks Attack

by Brandon Friedman [more here]

Earlier this week, someone on the Republican side of the aisle put out the word: The best way to discredit combat veterans who disagree with the President’s policies is to insinuate (or directly say) that they are being "used" by the nefarious Left, that they are being "fed" information, and that they can’t think for themselves.

The idea is to suggest that common soldiers couldn’t possibly formulate the complex, nuanced, and knowledgeable opinions on military and foreign policy needed to compete on the national scene—at least not to the extent that Beltway sophisticates like Joe Watkins can.  Or hypocritical draft-dodgers like Rush Limbaugh.

Yes, unfortunately, it’s come to this.  Republican strategists and radio hosts haven’t had a leg to stand on all week with the Rush Limbaugh suicide bomber hoopla.  So when we at VoteVets.org (and other media organizations) have come after them, they’ve had to fall back on accusing us of being ignorant simpletons.  I’d like to share a few examples with you.

Monday Links

Here are a whole lot of Rush Limbaugh's phony soldiers. Sure, they didn't get out of serving with an ass pimple, and most of them probably don't abuse painkillers or a certain male dysfunction medication, but aren't they just a bunch of nancy-pants phonies!

If the presidential election ends up being a contest between the New Yorkers (Hillary vs. Rudy), will that knock the hard-core activists out of the fight? We've already gotten a glimpse of how the left wing feels about Hillary. Apparently it's about the same way the radical right feels about Rudy. Will either group hold their noses and vote for their party's nominee? Or would this matchup bring about even lower voter turnout? Or some third party fun? Stay tuned....

Are the woes of the black American male simply the result of racism as Al Sharpton would have us believe, or is there more to it than that? Anthony at The Institute quotes Orlando Patterson at the NYTimes and asks why the church hasn't stepped up to the plate. The discussion is interesting.

Schadenfreude-a-palooza

I'm finding it hard to believe that Ann Coulter is as stupid as she appears to be. She makes her living by stirring the pot, so you'd think she would be on her best behavior, anticipating that her many enemies would put her, and her work, under a microscope. (Then again, the same standard applied to Rush Limbaugh, Bill Clinton, Tom DeLay and a bunch of other poliltical lightening rods, and they couldn't figure it out. When will people learn?)

As I've been following the saga of Joe Lieberman this past week, I've been wondering why people are so confused about how political parties work. (We've been having a related drama here in Chattanooga this week, as Democratic officials have been shocked to discover that they are expected to support Democrat candidates and not those of the opposition.) Here is the way things work in a nutshell: if you want to be an official member of a political party, you will be expected to support the candidates fielded by that party. If you want to play à la carte politics, you should not become an official of a political party. If you hold an elected office of a political party, you are expected to adhere to the general philosophy of that party. If you become enamored with your party's nemesis, don't be surprised if your party goes shopping for a better candidate. And if you're an official member of that party, you will be expected to support the nominee, even if he's not the incumbent. OK. Is that clear now?

(Oh, yeah, and if you read a local politics blog, don't be suprised to discover that it's a partisan site... Sheesh! Why is that such a shock for some people?!?)

I know some people wanted to see Ken Lay rot in prison, but he dodged that bullet. I hope his numerous victims are able to pick over what's left of his estate. If there is a hell, it's a bit more crowded today.

And finally, how much does it suck to be a falafel-lovin', lefty-hatin' Bill O'Reilly and see a snarky, smug liberal overtake your deranged, hate-spewing show in the ratings?

I guess neither Ailes or O'Reilly realize that when you tie your entire show and network to a president, you become as popular or unpopular as Bush has. Or as Nickolas D. Kristof said in the NYTimes [alternate link]:

"The real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked, but the conservatives who believed it....."

SCOTUS, Harris, Rush's Drugs, & the Gore Movie

I'm sorry -- I'm in the process of moving (we've maybe found a place to live but if you own property in Chattanooga area and would like some roomies, let me know!), and don't have my usual time to surf the blogs when the big news bits hit the fan. This SCOTUS smackdown of Georgie is a juicy story, but I haven't been able to enjoy it like I should. AmericaBlog, Tennessee Guerilla Women and Kos (ha!) are on the case, though.

p.s. In case you're wondering about the increasingly deranged behavior of Katherine Harris, I don't think it has anything to do with Rush Limbaugh's drug/impotence problems. I suspect he's not the type to share his drugs, and it's not like Viagra could be responsible for the mental problems she's stuggling with anyway...

pp.s. If you're in Chattavegas and plan to be at Friday evening's 7:10 Bijou showing of An Inconvenient Truth, you'd better prepay because it's expected to sell out. And if you do manage to get tix, I'll see you there! Peaceout!

So, you were a homo?

Jon at the Pensito Review raised a very interesting point today about all the wingnuts who stubbornly insist that homosexuality is a choice, which is the underlying admission: if homosexuality is a choice, so is heterosexuality.

What fascinates me about rightwingers' belief that sexual orientation is a choice is that, while they project this decision making onto those of us who grew up to be gay, they are apparently blind to the converse decision-making that it implies about themselves.

If homosexuals "decide" to be gay, then the corollary must be true: Heterosexuality must be a lifestyle choice, too.

What this means is that, at some point in their lives, these conservatives seriously considered becoming gay but then decided to pass.

This decision must have been wrenching. And over time, their suppressed desires turned into self-loathing — a disgust which they came to project onto others who, they believe, did not have the fortitude to conquer their attraction for members of their own gender.

This internalized homophobia is like bulimia of the spirit. Its victims starve their psyches by regurgitating their self-loathing.

(This could explain a lot about Rush Limbaugh, who, as I'm sure you've heard by now, was recently caught coming back from the Dominican Republic with a stash of Viagra.)