Pic of the Week

There were so many to choose from at yesterday's Rally to Restore Sanity / Keep Fear Alive, but this was one of the best (note the jug of corn syrup). Favorite signs were -- among hundreds of great ones -- "Tea Parties are for little girls," "Down with Zippers," "Having a Sign Makes Me Right," and "I Think We Can All Agree that Boobs Are Awesome." Here's more.

That's "Slub" To You

Former half-term Alaska Gov. Winky You Betcha is miffed that her anointed Senate candidate Joe "Brawny Man" Miller's slipped into third place, after acknowledging that he lied to his former employer about unethical computer use. She's particularly mad at the CBS affiliate, which she says stands for "Corrupt Bastards Club," apparently not realizing that "club" doesn't start with "S."

Well, Winky bounced around several schools before grinding out a "sports journalism" degree at the U. of Idaho, where she must have earned her intellectual stripes. As preznit, she wud be jes grate, if she don't kwit!

(photo: D'oh!)

"What Jon Stewart Missed"

We did notice one clinker in the otherwise sublime "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear," and Taylor Marsh nails it. In watching Jon Stewart conflate the fact-free, vicious rantings of Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al, with the occasionally over-the-top (but truth-based) rants of Olbermann and Schultz, we're reminded of Robert Frost's (!) description of a liberal:

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."

These are times when one should not be fearful about pushing back against and calling out the lies and liars of the fringe Right. There simply isn't an equivalence between what's going on in the Rethuglican/ tea party/ Fux New Nutwork/ hate radio noise machine and the push back on the left. There isn't. And Jon Stewart should be aware enough to know it.

It All Depends on Who Shows Up Tuesday (Duh)

Another pre-postmortem of possible results on Election Day comes via Steve Benen who helpfully compares polls of "registered" voters versus "likely" voters. Since most if not all pundits are using the "likely" voters model, the predictions have been dire for Dems. But if those "registered" voters got off their asses and showed up on Tuesday, the results would be quite different. Ah, repose on Tuesday, repent for the next two years.

Early Postmortem

Granted, we won't know the extent of Democratic losses until after next Tuesday, but whether it's along the lines of historical midterm losses (25-35 seats) or a Rethuglican tsunami (50+), or something in between, Eric Alterman has what we think is a reasonable analysis of a main reason why it's come to this point (spoiler: his name might be Rahmbo).

As far as what to expect from a Rethug-majority House, Paul Krugman (linked by Steve Benen) has the dire forecast.

VOTE!

Stewart/Colbert Rally Today

Today on the Mall, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and thousands of others (including Silver Spring bureau chief Brian and his lovely wife Chi) will be rallying to the cause of Restoring Sanity and Keeping Fear Alive (?!). If you're regular viewers of the Daily Show and Colbert Report, you know all about what's going on -- and if you don't, you're keeping company with the "concerned," humorless media who have multiple critiques of the rally, but who, gosh darn it, just don't get it. Counted among the latter are such pearl-clutchers as Kaplan Daily's reliably "moderate" Anne Applebaum, and critics Paul Farhi and Carlos Lozada. We must be reminded, these are Serious People, whose panties must be disentangled from their posteriors whenever decorum is breached.

As Ryan Kearney notes, the rally "has few opponents outside the Fox news studio." Few opponents, yes, but the usual share of Concerned Thoughtful Voices.

UPDATE: If you look at the crowd pictures (eg., at Huffington Post, MSNBC, etc. it appears that the gathering was an order of magnitude greater than the Boo Hoo the Hoot nutfest in August - looked like several hundred thousand to our Silver Spring bureau chief who was live on the scene; packed from one side of the Mall to the other from before 3rd Street to beyond 7th Street. Let's see how it (down)plays with the "mainstream media" tonight and tomorrow.

UPDATE II: HuffPo reports CBS and Canada's CTV are pegging the crowd at over 200,000 (more than double CBS' estimate for the Boo Hoo the Hoot Nutfest in August).

From the Sports Desk: Giants Among Men

We had to share this hilarious WaPo story on the San Francisco Giants' pitcher Brian Wilson, who's quite a character on a team of characters. Here's the opening paragraph:

"One day in late August, the local Fox Sports channel in the Bay Area was conducting an interview with Brian Wilson, the San Francisco Giants' notoriously flaky closer, who was at his home on a webcam. Wilson, holding his pet dog on his lap, was in the middle of an answer, when all of a sudden the TV host, and the entire viewing audience, got an unexpected eyeful. A man appeared in the background, naked except for a leather thong, leather harness and leather mask. 'What was that!?' gasped the flabbergasted host. After first playing dumb, Wilson finally deadpanned, 'Oh, that's the Machine. He lives next door. He doesn't say much. He comes over for sugar every once in awhile.'"

Apparently "the Machine" is now a YouTube icon of sorts. Here's another priceless snippet from the article:

"Their first baseman, Aubrey Huff, has been known to parade through the clubhouse in a red "rally thong" for laughs. Their ace pitcher, Tim Lincecum, has become a counterculture hero in San Francisco, in part because of an offseason marijuana-possession arrest - which has led proponents of Proposition 19, a proposed statute that would legalize marijuana statewide, to use his face on placards and T-shirts that say, 'Let Timmy Smoke.'"

All we can say is, GO GIANTS!

(photo of Brian Wilson by E. Risberg, AP -- cooool man!)

Saturday Song

We'll go back a way in time for this song by Bobby Darin from 1959. It was the golden age of solo singers (Sinatra, Bennett, and all of the teen idols), and Darin was among the best.

Violent Wingnut Linked to Beck

Although the Beltway media has virtually ignored hate media's instigation of violence on the teabagger right, Think Progress reports that wingnut Charles Wilson, a man charged with threats against Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), was apparently inspired by Boo Hoo the Hoot Beck. According to court documents, Wilson's family said he "came under the spell" of Boo Hoo's unhinged paranoid rants against health insurance reform legislation:

"He became basically housebound due to illness and his small world became even smaller. His brother got him a computer and he was able to stay connected with family. And he watched television and found Glenn Beck… I understand how his fears were grown and fostered by Mr. Beck’s persuasive personality."

To say demagogues like Boo Hoo, Limpballs, and others in hate media are responsible for inciting violence is taboo among the Beltway media poobahs, who are courageous when ferreting out waste in government programs aiding the poor, but terrified of the reactionary bully who threatens to punch him. And if another Oklahoma City occurs, they will spend hours of airtime "analyzing" the root causes and conclude that Obama should have compromised more.

Looking Up

This Kaplan Daily story caught our attention. Astronomers at the University of California-Berkeley are estimating that the Milky Way galaxy alone may contain billions of Earth-sized planets. They also determined that there were 166 solar systems within 80 light years from Earth, which would make exploration more feasible. Whether any have livable environments similar to Earth is another question.

Humans may never make physical contact with these other planets -- we may destroy ourselves first. But the fact that we're able to increasingly understand and appreciate the immense neighborhood we live in is progress -- and humbling.

(photo: NASA)

Quote of the Day

"Though. . .conservatives are allergic to facts, they do love anecdotes. Nothing disproves years of global warming research like a cold day in July, and food stamps are a waste of money because some guy somewhere traded them for a flat-screen TV. As soon as a conservative pundit has found one counterexample, he’s done all the research he’ll ever need." -- blogger "mistermix" at Balloon Juice. Rethug icon St. Ronnie of Hollywood was, of course, the master of the misleading anecdote, and his latter-day followers have honed the misleading anecdote-as-universal truth to perfection.

Meg-a Gaffe

California Rethug candidate for Governor Meg "Mega Bucks" Whitman has made one of the biggest political gaffes of this election season with a statement in her own campaign ad: "You know, 30 years ago, anything was possible in this state."

True, and the Governor 30 years ago? Her opponent, Jerry Brown. Now, Brown has turned it into a devastating campaign ad. Maybe Mega Bucks' campaign staff isn't familiar with "the Google." BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

(Image: How true)

Mid-Week Song

In the late '60s, Joni Mitchell wrote this beautiful, wistful song about love, life and clouds. Judy Collins turned it into a major hit, and it wears well to this day.

"I Lied"

Teatard favorite and Alaskan Senate candidate Joe "Brawny Man" Miller admitted in a 2008 e-mail that he lied about his use of government computers for political purposes while working in local government in Fairbanks:

"I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally I admitted what I did."

The e-mail was part of a number of documents released under court order by a judge after former Fairbanks mayor Jim Whitaker raised the issue of Brawny Man's ethics while employed under him.

Brawny Man's Kool Aid-drinking right-wing supporters are impervious to their candidate's flaws, but it may hurt him among Alaska's independents, who are keeping Sen. Lisa "Murky" Murkowski's hopes alive for a write in ("Let's see. . .Mir. . .cow. . .)

Buck: No Separation of Church and State

Colorado Rethug candidate for Senate Ken "*uck" Buck has opined on the issue of separation of church and state (you know, First Amendment), joining with tea bagger luminaries Sharron "Obtuse" Angle, Christine "No Dildos" O'Donnell and no doubt countless other American talibangelists in denying this fundamental premise of American democracy. While there has always been a push and pull with those, mainly on the right, who want to have (Christian) religion integrated into every aspect of American civic life, this election cycle seems to have brought out more than the usual number of numbnuts running for office who claim adherence to the Constitution but who have no real idea of what the Framers intended and what the courts have upheld over the course of two centuries.

We would be happy, if he doesn't "agree with the concept of separation of church and state," to direct Mr. Buck to a few countries where no separation exists and see how comfortable he is living there.