"Attacked" McCain Supporter Made Story Up

She has admitted it. More here.

Good Lord, what a seriously dumb thing to do.

And she's not alone. College Republicans, the spawn of Rove.

"I Thought Liberals Were Supposed To Be..."

A boy named Ruben pulls his smarterer pencil out of his Scooby-Doo bookbag and writes something wicked awesome on the back of his folder.

CNN prints it.

McCain Starting a "Joe the Plumber" Tour

Could the McCain campaign be stupider? Benen:

This is terribly odd for a variety of reasons, but the problem that stands out for me is that McCain has chosen a man to be his mascot who doesn't actually prove McCain's point. If Joe Wurzelbacher was a small businessman whose taxes would go up under an Obama administration, all of this would make a lot of sense. It's about attaching a real-life person to a policy point the campaign wants to emphasize. In this case, McCain desperately wants regular folks to think Obama will raise their taxes, reality notwithstanding.

But that's just it -- McCain is exploiting Wurzelbacher for no reason. Under Obama's tax policy, Wurzelbacher would get a tax cut, not a tax increase. Indeed, I don't know the details of Wurzelbacher's finances, but there's reason to believe he'd end up far better off under Obama's tax plan than McCain's.

So why is it, exactly, that McCain sees the need for a "Joe the Plumber" tour? I've never seen anything like this level of inanity.

Tomorrow: McCain launches the "Keating 5 Tour" to stress how much of a financial maverick he is.

Another Surgery for Seve Ballesteros

Seve Ballesteros's brain tumor is malignant, located deep in his brain, and another surgery is necessary.

Seve's message to his fans.

* Main Seve post here.

Glenn Beck Quarantined For Highly Toxic Stupidity

Into the stupid ward.

Republican Vote Suppression

This Republican went to prison for vote suppression:

The operation also jammed the lines inside a firefighter's union hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, where Jeff Duval and other local firefighters were lining up car rides to help senior citizens get to the polls.

"It almost felt to me like an election might have been stolen," Duval said. "I know for a fact that we received calls a few days later from people saying 'we tried to call you.' And I say 'did you get out and vote?' And they said 'no.' "

And there's this Republican who was arrested for defrauding people registering to vote:

Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.

John Stromberg for Mayor

If, for no other reason, and there are plenty, because that photo is on his Web site. (They're his grandkids.)

IMF Bails Out Iceland

Iceland is officially a Third World Country.

Obama Shirt: No Vote

Wearing an Obama shirt (or a McCain shirt, one would hope, at least) is considered "campaigning" in New Mexico, and that's illegal within 100 feet of a polling place. So this woman was told she couldn't vote.

A U.S. citizen, by wearing a T-shirt, is campaigning? What nonsense.

Obama is a "Terriost"!

Did they just call him a dog?

I Can't Wait (To Do a Tracheotomy)

That's just one of the songs you can buy from my CD, Bottomfeeders, if you're in the song-buying mood today.

Got an account with a different company? Check the list under "Vital Links" at the top right to see if it's there.

That is all!

7-0 in the 7th

You now have to believe that the Red Sox are going to the Series. How can you not?

Ken Davidoff says they lose 6-2 on Saturday. He's wrong.

35,000 call in sick in Boston. My head hurts for them.

And a, uh, Red Sox fan. Probably not safe for work.

Joe the "Republican Stooge" Plumber Would Get a Tax Cut

More stupidity from the McCain campaign.

And Joe might be related to CHARLES KEATING? CHARLES FREAKING KEATING?

He can't be related to CHARLES KEATING, can he? I mean the McCain campaign can't be that stupid, can they?

CHARLES KEATING?

And: the mean annual wage for plumbers in the U.S. last year was $47,350.

Idiots.

Message to Sarah Palin - and John McCain

This young women would like to have a word with you.

Best Pic From the Debate

Posted without comment. (via)

Seve Ballesteros: surgery to remove brain tumor [updts]

Oh. Final update, May 8, 2011.


[Several updates at bottom, last on May 6, 2011.]

Golf.com:

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Seve Ballesteros had surgery to remove a brain tumor, and the 51-year-old golf great was conscious and stable Wednesday.

La Paz hospital said there were no complications from Tuesday's surgery. Spanish state news agency Efe reported the operation lasted 12 hours.

The hospital said a sizable part of the tumor was removed. It was not immediately known if it was malignant and it would be several days before the results were announced.

"Sizable part." Damn. Speedy recovery, Seve.

Seve's homepage, which I wish I'd seen before:

Madrid, October 12th, 2008

“Once that I have been able to inform my three kids (two of them were not in Spain) and their mother, I now can inform you about the illness that I am suffering. After a thorough medical check-up realized at La Paz Hospital in Madrid, a brain tumour has been detected.

During the whole of my career I have been one of the bests facing obstacles in golf courses. Now I want to be the best facing the most difficult match of my life, with all my strength, and counting on all of you who are sending me encouraging messages.

Next Tuesday I will have a biopsy performed, and then the doctors will decide how to proceed.

I have always felt very close to people who suffer serious life threatening diseases, even more severe than mine. I want to remind them that with courage, faith, serenity, confidence and lots of mental strength we have to face every situation no matter how difficult it is.

Now, my wish is to ask for respect for my family and specially for my kids. We will keep you informed.

Lastly, I want to thank from the bottom of my heart all of you for your kind interest and for all your support.”

Thank you very much.

Kindest regards,
Seve Ballesteros

Seve on wikipedia.

Update: More here. (10/23/08)

Update II: Seve sends a message to his fans. (12/31/08)

Update III: February 13, 2009: My spirit is "unshakeable."

Update IV: March 31, 2009. Seve talks to reporters for the first time (BBC):

MADRID (AP) — An emotional Seve Ballesteros has spoken publicly for the first time about his fight against a cancerous brain tumor.

The 51-year-old Ballesteros looked frail and thin in photos published by Spanish sports daily Marca on Tuesday along with the golf great's first interview since he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the right side of his brain nearly six months ago.

"This is the most important shot of my life. I'm fighting to win my sixth major," Marca quoted the five-time major winner as saying. "Life has given me a second chance."

I guess I haven't mentioned this before, but my sister Nancy was diagnosed with brain cancer in March, 2003. She went through three surgeries, chemo, radiation, and lived for 18 months longer. She was 42 when she died, and Nancy was the first of my direct family - parents and eleven children - to die. It's weird to say it was a beautiful 18 months, because it was of course full of pain and fear and frustration and anger and more un-fun things, but Nancy was such a beautiful person through all of it, an embodiment of grace that I'm not sure I've ever encountered before, that it really was a high point, along with a very, very low, of my, and mine and her family's, life.

It appears that Seve is a good and graceful fighter of this disease, too. Keep up the good fight, Seve, you still have a lot to give your family and friends, and a bunch of us out here, too.

Just found this PDF at Seve's Web site. It's got some great photos of him working out, and looking damn good.

Update V: Another letter from Seve to fans here.

Update VI: I missed a message dated August 11. Six rounds of chemo finished and radiotherapy started. A few more weeks of that, I guess.

Update VII: March 24, 2010, Seve speaks about Tiger's chances at the Masters.

Update July 9, 2010: Seve will not make it St. Andrews. That's a tough article to read.

Update October 3.

Update May 6, 2011: This is the first we've heard about Seve in a long time, which I've always taken as a good thing. The news today, however, is unfortunately not good:

THE BALLESTEROS FAMILY INFORMS THAT SEVE’S NEUROLOGICAL CONDITION HAS SUFFERED A SEVERE DETERIORATION.

THE FAMILY WILL INFORM ACCORDINGLY ABOUT ANY CHANGE IN HIS HEALTH CONDITION AND TAKES THIS OPPORTUNITY OF THANKING EVERYONE FOR THE SUPPORT THAT BOTH SEVE AND HIS OWN FAMILY HAVE BEEN RECEIVING DURING ALL THIS TIME.

THEY ALSO INDICATE THAT THEY WILL PROMPTLY REPORT ON THE STATE OF THE SPANISH CHAMPION THROUGH THE WEBSITE WWW.SEVEBALLESTEROS.COM

Obama's Gay-Friendly High School

CNN's top story right now is about a "gay-friendly" high school that may open in Chicago, Illinois. Barack Obama's home.

I'm sure it's the only one in the country, and therefore deserving of big-story status.

Oh wait, it's not. Schools like that have been around for decades, founded to help gay teens who get bullied or worse in public school.

This on the same day that the McCain is coming out with a new stump speech, saying "Obama is already measuring the drapes for the White House."

Is CNN working with the McCain campaign to get the gay out?

Arab/Jewish Riots in Israel

Hadn't heard a word about this. It's been going on for four days.

Palin denies she abused power

And she's lying.

That was easy.

By the way: the vote was 12-0. And there were 8 republicans on the panel.

The report explained. (She broke no laws regarding Monegan's firing; she broke the law in regards to the pressure put on him to fire Wooten.)

The Anchorage Daily News gets out the chainsaw:

The governor let her husband, Todd, use the governor's office and its resources, "including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired," Branchflower wrote.

"She had the authority and power to require Mr. Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act," he wrote.

This created conflicts of interests for the state employees Todd Palin was contacting. "They must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior's displeasure and the possible consequences of such displeasure. This was one of the very reasons the Ethics Act was promulgated by the Legislature," Branchflower wrote.

[puts on chirpy squirrel voice] "I'm gonna reform Washington!"

Uh huh.

"Marriage is between a man and a woman"

If you believe that - wonderful. Why would you think that someone believing differently harms that belief? It is so illogical. It's so weak. You might as well attempt to outlaw Judaism because it might harm your belief in Jesus.

Why is it still so acceptable to be a bigot?




ACORN must - by law - turn in bad forms [updtd]

The ACORN story, in a nutshell:

ACORN has been registering people to vote for almost 40 years. Millions of them. Because they register low income families, many of them minorities, they help Democrats get elected.

The extreme Right hates ACORN. They help the poor, the help minorities, they help Democrats. The most vile - Malkin, Limbaugh, etc. - regularly attack ACORN. If one voter registration form is filled out incorrectly, they use it to accuse the entire organization of willful fraud on a massive scale. If not raping babies.

This has been going on for years, and the extreme Right is very pleased right now because a month before the election "fraud at ACORN" is a huge story.

Here is a statement from ACORN. First:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

Think about that. One bad employee could fill out a thousand voter registration forms fraudulently. ACORN does their own checks, finds out they're false - and they have to turn them in anyway. They're legal documents. No problem: they flag them. They let election officials know that there are problems with those forms. But...

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Hard to fight that, y'know? You act in good faith, the other side doesn't - who wins? The other side often does, at least in the short term, and the Limbaughs and the Malkins of the world know this.

More:

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans.

Don't get duped by the quick take on this story. There is much more there.


Update: Much more at TPM.

Chicago sheriff won't evict foreclosure victims

Meet Sheriff Dart, one of the good guys. He finds out that banks have been sending his sheriffs to throw out renters...

"We were completely surprised," Maria said. "We've always been on time. We paid our rent."

Never missed a rent payment, they said, but they and others in the building were going to be evicted because the building's owner had stopped paying the mortgage - then fled the country.

Sheriff Dart: no way I'm throwing those people out.

Dart is suspending all foreclosure evictions until the banks take two basic steps in court.

So here's how it works: Let's say you own a building and rent someone an apartment. They've paid the rent faithfully but you don't pay the mortgage and face foreclosure. The bank has to indicate they live there and give them sufficient time to look for another place to live.

Dart says an ideal time is four months.

Pretty simple, huh?

Glenn Beck is dumber than a pumpkin

But you knew that.

Much bigger story here regarding NSA domestic spying crimes.

McCain/Van Palin!

That's the ticket!

Parents want yoga banned from school

You know what's really going on is that extremists who want Christianity taught in schools are lying and cheating their way toward that goal. They are simply not to be trusted.

I had an O.J. poster when I was a kid

I grew up on the outskirts of Buffalo. O.J. joined the Bills when I was six. Six. Just when I was beginning to get the excitement of big sports, one of the best running backs in the history of the game joined MY team. And he was MY running back.

What a sorry sight.

And what a thing to read "O.J. found guilty."

John Cole does his one post on the subject.

90-year-old attempts suicide over foreclosure

Jesus:

A 90-year-old Akron, Ohio, woman who shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis Friday.

Addie Polk is being treated at Akron General Medical Center after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon, her city councilman said.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.

"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill."

Fuller story here.

Jeff Merkley's Gonna Kick GSmith's Ass!

Sorry. Just trying to wake myself up here.

Check out this video of my soon-to-be senator, Jeff Merkely:

Kingston Trio Co-Founder Dies

Dang. Really ought to be a national day of mourning. These guys were so immensely influential.

The Kingston Trio Web site. Nick Reynolds on wikipedia.

Here's a great old video, from probably 1961, maybe earlier. Nick's the short one on the right.



This video, from a 1965 Jack Benny show, has a nice little solo moment with Reynolds.

Ralph Stanley Sings "O Death" to McCain Campaign

Too bluegrass freaking cool.

Here, too.

Cop Commits Suicide After Taser Death

Oh man, this story was horrible before, and it just got much worse:

A police lieutenant committed suicide Thursday, days after he ordered another officer to fire a stun gun at a naked, distraught man who then fell to his death, police said.

The body of Lt. Michael Pigott, a 21-year police veteran, was found in a police locker room at a former airfield in Brooklyn, New York, dead apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Paul Browne, deputy commissioner for public information. He used a weapon that was not his, police said.

Condolences to the officer's family and friends. What a tragedy.

Jeff Merkley for Senate!

Goodbye, Gordon!

Merkley raced [quarter-midget cars] as a child, and once owned -- and crashed -- a Harley. He roomed with an impoverished family in Ghana as a teen, hitchhiked across Israel as a young man and went on, as he puts it, to help shut down one of Portland's worst crack alleys.

Go take a look, give a little, do what you can, help Merkley defeat Bush, I mean Gordon Smith.

300 People Still Missing Since Ike

Third world America trudges on:

Alligators loom over submerged cars. Mountains of debris are embedded in the ground. Cows, trucks and the remnants of homes are sunk into the ocean. And unverified sightings of missing loved ones are still making the rounds.

More than 300 people are missing since Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast last month, and the obstacles to finding them are frustrating family and friends who desperately want to know if their loved ones are dead or alive.

These family and friends want answers: Why are so many still missing? Why is the first organized search for bodies, to be held Thursday on the battered Bolivar Peninsular, taken so long?

The first organized search for bodies starts today? it's been more than two weeks. Unbelievable.

Kate Moss Solid Gold Ugly

Call me picky, but I don't like it.

The artist's Web site.

John McCain's a Liar

He lied before when he approved the ads saying "Obama supports comprehensive sex education for kindergartners," and he just lied again when called on it and said "he did." He knows it's a lie, and he repeats that lie.

John McCain is a liar. Witness him, my friends, being a liar:



Here are some facts. Here are some more. This goes back to 2004 when professional asshole Alan Keyes tried this against Obama. and more, from FactCheck.org.

Did I mention John McCain was a liar?

Obama's a Half-Breed Muslin!

My friends, I bring you the love-child of Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.