Things I don't get

So Rupert decides to apologize for the imfamous "chimpanzee" cartoon depicting the author of the stimulus package as the chimpanzee that went on a rampage in Connecticut last week and was ultimately shot and killed by the cops.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Rev. Al and a lot of folks both black and white were understandably upset by the implication that President Obama be shot, I guess so a better stimulus package could be written.

I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation.

One thing I don't get is how you're supposed to pick that up from the cartoon. The whole thing read to me like a non-sequitur where cartoonist Sean Delonas just drew 2 cops standing over a dead chimpanzee and then filled in the word balloon with whatever happened to be the news of the day.

Here's some possible captions:

Well, it looks like that Global Warming thing is over...

So much for bipartisanship...

Finally, the Knicks can take the Eastern Conference this season.

See, anyone can play.

Another thing I don't get is why editors at the Post decided to turn an easy opportunity to defuse the situation into a swipe at Sharpton and virtually anybody on the Post's enemies list:

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Really? So the Post is doing so well that they can afford to indulge in the exercise of pissing off some or all of its readership just to look like they aren't capitulating to Al Sharpton?

I would think that Rupert would be interested in any high-profile activities undertaken by one of his less-than-profitable subsidiaries that stood to not only maintain that status, but also endanger his more profitable ones. That is, unless he's not so much the pragmatic moneyman his apologists claim him to be.

But that's not all I don't get. If it's the position of Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, et. al., that Delona's cartoon was tantamount to a call for assassination, why aren't they going after this guy:

He's going to destroy this country and we're either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.

That guy is well-known lunatic Alan Keyes, but unfortunately, I haven't heard anything about Al Sharpton picketing him.

Encouraging Watchman news

Wil Wheaton got an early preview of the new Watchman movie, and to put it bluntly: it rawwwks.

Hear me now, my fellow geeks: you have nothing to worry about. Watchmen is fucking awesome.

One thing to note:

For the next two hours and forty-five minutes, I gasped, I cheered, I applauded, I was stunned and I was blown away.

WTF? 2:45?

Anyway, after 20+ years, I'm finally getting around to reading it, so don't anybody tell me how it ends.

H/T Candleblog

I learned something today

For what may be the first time, the Letters to the Editor section of the local paper proved useful other than as a quick way to raise my blood pressure and ruin breakfast with my wife.

In yesterday's exciting episode of DoMMeSTC, I referred to what I call the Unified Theory of American Conservatism: namely, that we must govern in such a way that nobody ever get what they don't rightfully deserve.

Revan Tranter of Berkeley, reminds us that none other than the esteemed J.K. Galbraith once said:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Interestingly enough, despite nearly 34,000 Google matches for this quote, it doesn't appear to have a source.

UK Justice Secretary says no to FOIA, yes to continued Iraq coverup

Not to sound too arch, but UK Secretary of Justice Jack Straw has vetoed a Freedom of Information request to produce the minutes of legal discussions held in the runup to the Iraq War.

Despite a ruling from the Information Tribunal supporting the publication of the minutes, Straw chose a first-time ever veto rather than appeal. His "justification" leaves a lot to be desired:

"There is a balance to be struck between openness and maintaining aspects of our structure of democratic government," he said.
"The damage that disclosure of the minutes in this instance would do far outweighs any corresponding public interest in their disclosure."

Why do I feel like the damage would have more to do with the revelation that the Government was acting against the wishes of its people than a desire to protect the integrity of future Cabinet meetings?

Neo-populism

Atrios nails the Unified Theory of American Conservatism:

But one day I hope this country grows up and recognizes that the fear that maybe someone is getting something I'm not and they don't deserve shouldn't be the primary philosophy of governance.

Oh, but for the GOP, it is. On every domestic policy issue that will come down from the White House, the core objection raised by the Right will be that someone might get something they don't deserve.

via Eschaton

President-elect Barack Obama

I'll go ahead and say it: for the first time (in a long time), I'm proud to be an American.

...but not so much to be a Californian.

Election Day Free Food!

You don't have to prove you voted to take advantage of these deals, but your conscience will gnaw at you...

Y-- on 8 wasting their infinite hate money on AdSense

Yesterday, I got this from my wife:

Salon is running "Yes on 8" adds in their RSS feed headers. Booo....

Turns out, "Yes on 8" bought a crapload of Google AdSense spots, and hit a bunch of lefty/tech sites. A Google search shows that a lot of people are pissed about it, both Google for trying to play both sides, and "Yes on 8" for contaminating their site.

MacInTouch got hit:

Without our knowledge or consent, Google displayed political propaganda on this website today as part of our participation in its AdSense advertising program. This is contrary to our own advertising policy.

TPM got nailed, so Josh had to put up a note explaining their policy on ads.

We follow this policy because it is essential to preserving the editorial integrity of our product, which is news and information. Precisely because we are in the news and opinion business, advertising tied to ideas, issues or advocacy presents us with a particular challenge. If we reject ads that we disagree with, every ad we accept becomes, to one degree or another, a de facto endorsement. In other words, if we run ads only from candidates or causes we support, then the ad relationship also becomes an endorsement relationship. Even worse, a paid endorsement. That threatens the integrity of what we do -- which is to report the facts we find and explain the opinions we have.

As I'm linking to this, the ad is still up on the TPM website, but you know what? I can respect that policy. We often get wound up when some network won't air an ad produced by a progressive group because the content supposedly violates some "advocacy" policy that only seems to apply to progressive advocacy. Unfortunately, it works both ways: if you want to maintain that kind of editorial integrity, you have to put with the stuff you disagree with as well.

E-Day

For god's sake...please vote today.

Stick a fork in him

I probably should have seen this coming, after all the signs were there: the introduction of the wisecracking female sidekick, the decline in the ratings polls, and finally messing with the schedule.

I dare say the McCain show has jumped the shark.

Ask her to prove it

To our friends in the "liberal media:"

If you refuse to call Sarah Palin a liar for her bogus claim that she told Congress Alaskans didn't want that "Bridge to Nowhere," the least you can do is demand some sort of proof.

Ask her to produce the "Dear Congress" letter. How hard can that be?

Nativism?

I confess that I don't know much about the controversial Alaskan Independence Party, in which Todd and Sarah Palin are either remotely associated with or members, depending upon who you talk to.

I do kind of wonder whether they have some kind of "children of the soil" concept that requires them to emphasize the importance of having a native origin, ie. birth on Alaskan soil.

I ask that because of the many stories popping up about Sarah Palin, one of the more intriguing is the lengths she went to make sure that Trig was born in Alaska.

The story has it that she got on an airplane, made several stops, and finally landed in Wasilla while she was essentially in labor. It's certainly possible that she really wanted to have the child with family around, but why bother to take the trip in the first place?

It's just speculation for now, but I'd be curious to know whether AIP has some native-born requirement tucked away in its manifesto.

Vice Presidential Idol

Via Digby, Nomi Prins writes about the reality show aspect of Sarah Palin's nomination:

Then, I realized that Palin's omnipresence isn't about John McCain or Barack Obama, or even this week's RNC. It's not about her experience or stance on issues. It's about the "Pop" American Dream.

The old American Dream is dying. Rampant economic inequality makes the cost of working hard to achieve prohibitive. In a culture where more people vote for the next American Idol than for the next president, no wonder Sarah Palin is the top story: She defines the new American Dream, where leaping to the top against all odds is the end goal in itself. Of course there are voters appalled that someone 'like her' can be a 'heartbeat away from the presidency.' But there are also plenty of voters delighted that someone 'like her' has a shot at the ultimate American Dream—a spot in the White House.

This is an aspect of Palin's nomination that frankly has me a bit baffled. Clearly, as someone who has only recently become the governor of a relatively small population state after being mayor of a relatively small population town, and who has publicly admitted to not knowing what the position entails, she isn't even remotely qualified to be Vice President or for that matter, President of the most powerful country on earth. The correct answer to the McCain people should have been: "I'm flattered and honored, but for the good of the country (Country First?), I respectfully decline."

Have we gotten to the point where we really believe that anybody can become President? Our mythology has always been that anyone can aspire to become President, but you shouldn't just get to be Vice President because someone asks you to do it. There should be some sense of qualification involved.

Seriously. Suppose you happened to be visiting the hospital one day, and suddenly a gunshot victim is brought to you on a gurney, and the orderly grabs you and says "you have to operate or the patient will die." If you had any sense, you'd probably reassure him there are undoubtedly real, trained and experienced trauma surgeons in that very hospital, and that since you are not even a doctor and you have no business getting near the patient. You would not succumb to vanity and start scrubbing up, hoping that maybe you can cram a bit, and wing it.

But there she was, Ms. Wasilla herself, standing up front of the slobbering Republican masses in the XCel Center claiming that she has the guts to stand a heartbeat away from the Button. Good for her–she's won the lottery–but since we are talking about the lives of every American here, frankly I'm getting a little sick and tired of being treated like I'm nothing more than the audience member of a reality show.

I make predictions

I give Palin 10 days, 30 days tops before she tearfully and respectfully "requests that her nomination be withdrawn" so she can "spend more time with her family."

Disposable

John McCain has tapped former Monty Python member Michael Alaska governor Sarah Palin tojoin the ticket as his VP candidate. Now, you might think this is a attempt to balance John McCain's obvious youth and good looks with someone younger and prettier like Dan Quayle.

If I'd bothered to write it down, I would have guessed they'd make female pick after finding out that Obama selected Biden.But if they really were serious about putting a woman on the ticket (and not just making a backhanded gesture to Hillary's deadend PUMAs), they could have gone with any number of outstanding Republican women like Liddy Dole or Christine Todd Whitman. Hell, they could have even picked the gawdawful Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

No, this was to protect them.

They can smell defeat already.

Sarah Palin is a disposable nominee.

Update: Obviously I should give some thought to the all-important MILF constituency.

In a world...

From TUAW, comes word that Beau Weaver, the voice talent behind just about every movie trailer ever made has graciously produced a free ringtone opening with his signature "In a world..." You can download it at his website.
Update: I should have more correctly characterized him as "the voice talent behind many movie trailers." I clearly forgot the incomparable veteran Don "The Voice of God" LaFontaine, who sadly passed away Tuesday.

Biden for VP

If you haven't received your text from Team Obama yet, it's now official:

"Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!"

In all the blogospheric analysis, I've yet to run across a mention that it was Biden who sank Rudy Giulani's campaign by calling it the now trenchant "a noun, a verb, 9/11."

Update: For the record, my text came in at 1:09am PDT, and the email finally arrived at 7:54am PDT.

Not that it will change anything

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a report confirming that WTC 7 collapsed as a result of fire, not alien attack, Special Forces, Black Helicopters, mutants, or Rudy Giuliani.

A PDF (7MB) of the report can be found at the NIST.

Sad News from Ohio

There have been conflicting reports on the condition of Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the 11th District Representative from Ohio, who apparently suffered a massive aneurysm last night and is reportly in critical condition. Earlier reports had erroneously claimed that she already passed away. You may remember her appearance on The Colbert Report:

Update: She's gone.

Maddow goes to the big show

From Atrios comes the most welcome news that starting Sept 9, Rachel Maddow will be taking over the 9pm Dan Abrams' Verdict slot. She has been terrific subbing for KO and undoubtedly will be a great addition to the MSNBC lineup. Well deserved congratulations go out to Rachel.

Let's see, that makes it now:

• 1 liberal TV host and
• 2 openly gay women hosts.

I guess that means they'll have Pat Buchanan replace David Letterman to compensate.