No, Al Franken wasn’t declared the winner of the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race on Friday like I predicted, but at least I’m wanting this thing to wrap up. The predictably wingnuttish Opinuendo, however, is hoping to “bat around.”
The Associated Press noted this week that the Coleman-Franken battle — not the campaign, but the battle that started the day after the election — has now consumed parts of four seasons. It began in the fall, burned through winter and spring, and now is still unresolved in the full blossoming of summer.
As we wait for the Minnesota Supreme Court to rule — take your time and get it right, justices!
— we wonder if we can bat around. That would mean extending the battle to Sept. 22, the first day of fall.
Could be difficult … but wait! We just found 5,000 uncounted ballots in our basement!
Much funnier, I’m sure, if you speak talk radio. Funnier than Maureen Dowd, as a matter of fact. Opinuendo, however, went on to ask for a female politician to get caught philandering. Equal time and all that. [And in fact a current wingnut talking point making the rounds.]
It would, of course, have been too much to ask that they honor the deceased. Too bad, it’s the only claim to fame Helen Chenoweth ever had.
Opinuendo is also apparently discounting Neal Boortz’s timeless slur. You remember when he called Cynthia McKinney a “ghetto slut” don’t you? Then again even Boortz had to apologize for that one, McKinney not in fact having any kind of history of promiscuity. Still, I’m sure the boys at Opinuendo considered her fully in their own special one-handed way.
But after five minutes of intense Google-based research, I can say authoritatively that the current and former sluts in Congress are [drumroll please]:
Nydia Velazquez
Loretta Sanchez*
Katherine Harris*
Cynthia McKinney
Helen Chenoweth*
Sue Myrick*
The asterisks are for those women who did/do apparently in fact enjoy a good time.
The truth is, obviously, that most cheaters are men, especially on the Republican side. Republican men are the first to cheat and the first to call a female member of Congress a slut. Class acts, the lot of them.
But it’s a stupid, stupid fight. The sluts and cheaters aren’t a problem. It’s the hypocrites I worry about. Googling about I came across this unsigned small town newspaper editorial that reminded me Marilyn Musgrave could sleep with the fleet and it could only serve to improve her character.
And personal immorality leaves Michele Bachmann unscathed. She of the 23 foster kids (if each had been her own she’d have the widest stance in Congress). Which is worse? Sleeping with the fleet, or spouting nonsense that could easily result in a Census taker getting shot?
But if you really want a sex scandal, stick with the guys.
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200 Iraqis died this week. News at never o’clock.
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From reader, critic, and all around fucking Swede Jonathan, Gazprom’s new Nigerian venture sets world record for tastelessness in marketing.
The new company’s name? Nigaz.
Good luck getting people to pronounce it Nigh-gass.
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Stonewall/Gay Pride links:
Frank Rich
Chicago
Minneapolis
(About actually has a better summary, the Twin Cities pride parade being so institutionalized as to have a committeefied website)
New York
WoW
Shanghai
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Michael Jackson links:
How the “Smooth Criminal” shoes worked
WSJ’s Speakeasy currently has EIGHT stories frontpaged
Cops talk to Jacko’s “doctor”
“Doctor” talks back
A reporter looks back on years of her own Jacko coverage
A Syrian looks back on Michael Jackson and the Arab world
L.A. Times
The Death of Peter Pan
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GWill manufactures more reasons why Americans are greedy scum-sucking dogs for wanting better healthcare.
Here is my nominee for the most disgustingly misleading “fact” ever:
Only 9 percent [of Americans] buy health coverage individually, and $84 of every $100 spent on health care is spent by someone (an employer, insurance company or government) other than recipients of the care.
What Will is pointing out is that the vast majority of Americans who don’t get employee-provided healthcare don’t have any insurance at all. That’s it. That’s the only objective fact in play here but Will gives it a new context that is to lying as suds are to soap.
Maybe GWill would prefer the Kenyan system. Even BoingBoing is posting stories about what healthcare in Canada is really like.
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Ronit Avni on the critical role North American Jews and evangelicals play in egging on settlers’ intransigence.
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More blighted GI lives dumped on KBR’s doorstep.
[KBR] notes air quality studies concluded the Indiana Guard soldiers were not exposed to high levels of hexavalent chromium. But Costa says those tests were done when the wind was not blowing.
Both soldiers and former workers say there were days when strong gusts kicked up ripped-open bags of the chemical, creating a yellow-orange haze that coated everything from their hair to their boots.
“I was spitting blood and I was not the only one doing that,” recalls Danny Langford, who worked for the KBR subsidiary. “The wind was blowing 30, 40 miles an hour. You could just hardly see where you were going. I pulled my shirt over my nose and there would be blood on it. I also saw the soldiers. They had blood splotches on their masks.”
Strip this American version of I.G. Farben of their corporate charter, audit them to death and then shoot the corpses and remaining stockholders.
And yes, that comparison is unfair to I.G. Farben. Farben never made Nazi troops take those risks, that’s what the Jews were for. Worse, after WWII, Germany didn’t wait for civil suits to be filed before starting to make things right.
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Romance novels have evolved and now erotic fiction is slaking readers’ thirst for bodice-ripping yarns.
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How corporations are “buying” their own courts in Texas.
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Chicago cops hold Days of Rage reunion, met by protesters.
: )
But the protesters dodged the Bhut Jolokia on this one. Crowd control is becoming a science and the days of protest may be coming to a close. Demonstrations won’t stop, but thanks to improved police science we’ll skip the peaceful ones and go straight into riot mode in the future.
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If music downloading is illegal, how can it be legal to sell “fake receipts from the city of your choice”?
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Dragonwell green tea and Quaker cheddar cheese Quakes for breakfast.
And you?
