I lost the camera batteries, so for a while we had no new ferret footage. Woe. Luckily we located them about a foot from where I’d been searching for days, and thus we can present this incredibly rare and valuable freaky dingo b-roll for your edification. It kind of reminds me of last night’s debate. A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging
Next Saturday, Oct. 11, I’ll be atBusby’s in Santa Monica signing copies ofIt Doesn’t End With Us at the Badger/Penn State football game at an event with theLA Badgers. It’s not a reading per se, but I’ll be there to talk about student journalism, this crazy election, how awesome Scout and Jude are in real life, and anything else you want to bring up. Come on out and say hello! A. Continue reading West Coast Book Stop Oct. 11, Santa Monica, CA
As always, posts in the van belong to their posters, not to Jude or Scout or me or Puck or Riot. No violence. Behave yourselves. Share. Update: Van closed! Thanks for sharing the epic fail. Freep your local paper’s poll. If you can remember the name of your local paper, of course. You could just Freep them all, if you read them all. A. Continue reading VP Debate Van
So, tonightGovernor Palin gets a first last-chance to convince the electorate–or at least the pundits–that she’s the equal of Dan Quayle; in other words, the bar hasn’t been set so low you’d need a micrometer to measure as much as it’s been hammered/buried into the ground. Spelling “potato” correctly would make Tweety swoon. My single prediction: if Palin doesn’t utterly embarrass herself–and there’s a reasonable chance she won’t–look for Matthews and his ilk to declare her “the winner.” Because that’s the pretzel logic under which they, for lack of a better term, function. Meanwhile, the more I think aboutJohn McCain’s … Continue reading First as Tragedy, Then as Farce
This probably should have been done long ago. FromThe Guardian: NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Federal officials will investigate the fatal shootings that took place on a New Orleans bridge following Hurricane Katrina. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Orleans announced Tuesday they will investigate. The announcement comes after the dismissal of charges against seven New Orleans police officers accused of gunning down two men on a bridge in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Religious and civil rights groups in New Orleans had called for the district attorney to refile … Continue reading Feds to Investigate Katrina Bridge shootings
Crack van opens at 7 p.m. CST. Debate begins at 8 CST. And Howard Kurtz is still a puss: Even as some conservative commentators have panned her performances and fretted about how the Alaska governor will fare against Sen. Joe Biden, Palin has challenged the ethics of those interviewing her. Her running mate, John McCain, has complained about “gotcha journalism.” And a top campaign official says female journalists are being especially mean to Palin. All this may or may not add up to a stab at the age-old technique of preemptive spin. I hate this passive shit he and the … Continue reading The Sarah Palin-Gwen Ifill Debate Tonight
Most of you already know aboutProposition 8, the ballot initiative Californians will vote on during the General Election this November 4. But maybe you don’t realize how important it is to all of us that this initiative is defeated. Thanks to the state Supreme Court, the California constitution now guarantees marriage equality for same-sex couples. If passed, Proposition 8 will amend the constitution to include a section stating that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. That result could possibly be challenged under the federal constitution, but it’s not guaranteed that such … Continue reading Prop 8 matters to everyone, not just Californians
For the most part, the First Draft Crack Van is kind of like Casablanca, or maybe Las Vegas. What happens in the Crack Van stays in the Crack Van. Which probably explains the way the carpet smells…but I digress. I’m going to out my van self here because I want talk a bit more about that first debate. Yeah, the debate itself is old news but what I’ve been thinking about is going to come up over and over in this last home sprint to November 4. As other FD crackheads can attest, I was certainly one of the most … Continue reading How low can we go?
The Republican motto. With apologies to Mr. Watterson. First, let’s look at some of the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth inFreeperville, shall we? Rope-a-dope. McCain has one chance, a surge of his own at the end. Sarah will present herself to the American people in a forum where she can’t be easily edited. –new comment– how about this scenario, Gov. Palin has in fact been acting or doing a Tina Fey in reverse, she is in fact very articulate and in command of the issues from past debates I have seen her do, it has all been a … Continue reading Clutching At Straws
The national Republican party feels at home campaigning. Attack ads, nasty whispering campaigns, intimations of inadequacy, thinly veiled threats … it’s a mindset they’re comfortable in. They slide into it like the body into a dance learned years ago, kinetic memory taking over. Parry, thrust, bazooka. It’s not so surprising, the U.S. attorney firing scandal. We’ve known for a long time that there was nothing they wouldn’t use. We’ve known about it at least since Valerie Plame was outed, maybe before that, maybe all the way back to McCain in South Carolina, that there was nothing they wouldn’t leverage for … Continue reading Process
Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve will pump an additional$630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression. … The Fed’s expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a$700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone. David Callaway fromCBS Marketwatch: While groups of politicians bickered like schoolchildren over the failure of … Continue reading Big figures
Scene from McCain campaign headquarters, just after Palin’s first interview. Problem? That’s right. For McCain, bitches! Right now, the only good thing she’s doing for him is making him look marginally more qualified. But it’s not much of a boost in that department. As for the rest, it’s like Jefferson’s old “wolf by the ears” adage. McCain can’t keep her, but he can’t safely let her go. The longer she stays, thedumbersheprovesherselfto be. Right now, she’s somewhere between “bag of hammers” and “box of rocks.” So she looks like a terrible, terrible choice. She’s such a bad pick, I’ve begun … Continue reading The Palin Problem
Yeah, he spent too much time with that shaker over North America. Wow. Wanna peer into utter insanity? Look here. But be warned! It’s far, far worse than Free Republic, even. Really, it’s stunning that these people have mastered brain stem activity. That they can type seems miraculous. And thank theRude Pundit for wading into this sewer and shining a light. Continue reading More Insanity, But Of The Non-Religious Variety
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Fail: Couric: If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why? Palin: I am pro-life. And I’m unapologetic in my position that I am pro-life. And I understand there are good people on both sides of the abortion debate. In fact, good people in my own family have differing views on abortion, and when it should be allowed. Do I respect people’s opinions on this. Now, I would counsel to choose life. I would also like to see a culture … Continue reading Arguing Abortion With Sarah Palin
Serious question. The more I see of this Couric interview the more I wonder. There was one time I took a Benadryl, forgot I had taken a Benadryl, had a glass of wine, and woke up eight hours later on plane to Jamaica. I had meant to go to Jamaica, it had been planned, but between the wedding at which I drank the wine and the plane itself was a giant black hole in which I have only my husband’s word I didn’t commit any felonies. I keep thinking this has got to be like that, for Sarah Palin. I … Continue reading Was She Stoned?
Jon exhorts Congress and Our Fearless Lame Duck to, like, do their job:Kill Bill, Volume 1 http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml Sarah Silverman does her part for Obama:The Great Schlep (definitely NSFW) http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1808434&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1The Great Schlep fromThe Great Schlep onVimeo. Continue reading Happy New Year!
Just saying. Restoring Galveston’s public school district after Hurricane Ike is an enormous and expensive task, but Cleveland knows that functioning schools are key to bringing the island back to life. Families won’t move back if their children can’t go to class. Most of the district’s 11 schools held up surprisingly well, but carpets were drenched; air-conditioning units needed repairs; and computers, library books and school buses were ruined. Estimates put the cost of damage between $25 million and $45 million, Cleveland said, and the district’s flood insurance will cover only a sliver of that — about $11 million, or … Continue reading Others In Need of a Bailout
I got nailed to a two-by-four, and this is how you thank me? Those crazy, crazy, radio-show-having Christians. Here in the upper Midwest, we are treated to a daily talk radio program called “CrossTalk” (clever, no?). These people are so crazy, they need to be locked away immediately and heavily sedated. Otherwise, they might hurt themselves. You know, it’s easy to trip and fall down the stairs if you think the Devil’s gonna jump out at any moment. That kind of shit makes it hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other. ‘Cause, you see, these people … Continue reading Jesus Must Be Rolling Over In His Grave