Roger's Year-In-Review Quiz 2006

Well, it's already 2007 in many places, but it's still 2006 here.

The highlight of this blog's year, of course, was when I took a vacation and several more able bloggers took my place. But you can't have the highs without the lows, so I've trotted out this hoary quiz for its annual beating.

Until I started preparing the quiz, I was unaware of how much of 2006 I've already forgotten. (I think the pleasant outcome of the November elections gave my cerebral cortex a nice light rinse. That, or the generic Vicodin.) But, like a person with recovered memories, now that I've recalled all these things, I'm going to make everyone else suffer too.

A perfect score is 50 points. Answers and a grading scale will be posted early in the new year.

Good luck.

Part I: Grand Old Police Blotter - The Year in Republicrime

(1 point for each correct answer)

It's another banner year for criminality in the Party of Law and Order. Match the Republican with his or her crime. (Note: All persons listed are innocent until convicted of their crimes, at least until the Republican Party gets its way.)

a. Bob Ney

b. Chad Castagana

c. Jeff Skilling

d. Ted Haggard

e. Jack Abramoff

f. Bruce Tinsley

g. Bernard Kerik

h. Tom Noe

i. Ann Coulter

j. Randy "Duke" Cunningham

-0-O-o-

1. Embezzlement

2. Terrorist threats

3. Voting illegally

4. Fraud, conspiracy, false statements and insider trading

5. Drunk driving, public intoxication

6. Conspiracy, making false statements

7. Solicitation, methamphetamine use

8. Bribery

9. Fraud

10. Ethics violations (accepting/failing to disclose gifts)

Part II -- Who Said It?

(one point each)

Pretty much self-explanatory.

1. "Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"

2. "And he [Jack Abramoff] had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties."

3. "i always use lotion and the hand"

4. "Voters know it's hard to do a risky thing like define marriage as a legal entity that can take place only between an adult human male and an adult human female."

5. "You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to the math."

6. "Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I've kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe."

7. "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."

8. "And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes."

9. "I'm not Lee Siegel, you imbecile. If you knew who I was you and your n + 1 buddies would crap in your pants."

10. "I didn't kiss him back."

Part III -- Multiple Guess

(One point each)

1. Which one of the following moronic statements by a blogger is fake:

a. "[K]nowing what I think I know about Cheney, there is no one in North America who I'd rather hunt with." -- John "Assrocket" Hinderaker
b. "Instead of picking up a gun and commanding an army, [Patrick] Henry relied on his better skills and went into politics and rhetoric to fight for freedom." -- "Captain" Ed Morrisey
c. "All women with large breasts are sluts." -- Ann Althouse
d. " If you seek hostility to Jews and Israel, you will find it in the same left wing blogosphere that spreads the vile venom against Lieberman." -- Marshall "Bullshit Moose" Wittmann

2. Which of the following Senators voted for the cloture motion which allowed the nomination of Samuel Alito to go to a vote of the full Senate?

a. Robert Byrd (D-VW)
b. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
c. Maria Cantwell (D-OR) (D-WA)
d. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
e. All of the above

3. On his low-rated radio show, Matt Drudge offered the following defense of Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL):

a. Foley was working on a sting of Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen
b. "The kids are egging the Congressman on."
c. "Bitch set him up."
d. "Foley's not gay; he was almost married once."

4. Which of the following drunks sought treatment before his high-profile scandal in 2006?

a. Charles Kennedy (Lib Dem -- Ross, Skye and Lochaber)
b. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL)
c. Mel Gibson
d. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)
e. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)

5. Which of the following Presidential hopefuls supported Bush's invasion of Iraq? (Choose all applicable names):

a. Sen. Joseph Biden
b. Sen. Hillary Clinton
c. Sen. Chris Dodd
d. Sen. John Edwards
e. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
f. Sen. Barack Obama

6. The biggest loser, percentage-wise, in the November 2006 elections was:

a. Thomas Kean, Jnr.
b. Sen. Rick Santorum
c. Sen. Mike DeWine
d. Sen. Lincoln Chafee

7. The following author/s and book were featured on Meet the Press with Tim Russert:

a. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, co-author, Crashing the Gates
b. Glenn Reynolds, author, An Army of Davids
c. Sheri Zollinger and Scott Clevenger, authors, Better Living Through Bad Movies
d. John Podhoretz, author Can She Be Stopped?
e. Michael Berube, author The BeRube Code

8. Which 2008 G.O.P. presidential hopeful once said "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

a. Sen. Sam Brownback
b. Gov. "Mitt" Romney
c. Rep. Duncan Hunter
d. Sen. John McCain

9. In the November 2006 election, the Democrats gained how many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives?

a. 12
b. 21
c. 26
d. 31
e. 35
f. 46

10. As of December 2006, the cost of Bush's invasion of Iraq is:

a. At least 354 billion dollars in U.S. expenditures
b. At least 3,000 U.S. soldiers' lives
c. At least 52,000 Iraqi civilian lives
d. Not one second of George Bush's sleep
e. All of the above

Part IV -- Dr. Phil In The Blank

(One point each)

Frankly, not my best effort. I'm sure there are a lot of catchphrases I've missed. (Note: All answers are one word or one hyphenated word, with the exception of number 1.)

1. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for ___________."

2. __________ Mitt Romney.

3. __________ options (2006-2007 business scandal)

4. "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, __________, or whatever his name is."

5. "It's Hard Out Here For A __________."

6. Saparmurat __________, also known as Turkmanbashi

7. Loans for ___________ scandal

8. Palestine: Peace Not ___________

9. "What do you think you're looking at, ___________?"

10. "John McCain, what a ____________! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork."

Part V -- WTF?

(1 pt. ea.)

Deabbreviate the following.

1. DPW

2. FISA

3. B: CLOAFMBGNOK

4. OSM

5. IAEA

6. VOIP

7. 6PT

8. ISG

9. WATB

10. AIPAC

And a HNY to all!

John Edwards hasn't yet hired me as a consultant or even added me to his One America Blogroll. It's never too late to make the best decision of your political life, John.

At least lose Instapundit: He's a Republican, his wife's nuttier than he is and he isn't even a real lawyer.

(Other websites where I'm conspicuously absent: Joe Biden's Unite Our States, Kucinich.us and Tom Vilsack's My Space page.)

That's The Sound of Eulogies Being Rewritten

Gerald Ford hated America, hated the troops and hated Jesus, it can now be revealed:

Describing his own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq [in a 2004 interview], Ford said he would not have gone to war, based on the publicly available information at the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. "I don't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer."

Ford also suggested that Junior's Invasion was neither in the national interest nor beneficial to national security. So we know he wasn't suffering from any mental disabilities as of July 2004.

Technical Assistance Request

When I switched over to "New Blogger," two features (at least) got screwed up on the template.

1. The permalink now repeats the number code twice, so the link doesn't work; and

2. The archive links (previously located in the sidebar under "Stale and Tired") have disappeared.

If anyone can suggest a fix for either of these, it would be greatly appreciated. By me. You can contact me at the fastmail.fm address.

(I'm also looking for a research intern to put the finishing touches (Chapters 2 through 35) on my meticulously researched and persuasively argued book, Grand Old Police Blotter: The Book, which will be available on amazon.com beginning September 11, 2007. And a publisher as gullible as Doubleday.)

By the way, did anyone see Tom Brokaw on the Today show, suggesting that Michael, John and Steven Ford were banging their dates in the Lincoln Bedroom?

Cold Duck

This week, the comic strip of accused drunk driver Bruce Tinsley is featuring "New-Year's Resolutions," accompanied by a drawing of a booze-swilling duck in a party hat:

It's nice of Tinslard to give his endorsement to his fellow Columbus, Indiana resident, Mike Pence. One wonders whether Pence appreciates the endorsement of a such menace to society. (One is tempted to ask.) One also hopes that Mike keeps his kids indoors when Bruce drives around the neighborhood.

Gerald R. Ford, R.I.P.

Gerald R. Ford, born in 1913, was the longest living President, having lived longer than Ronald Reagan by a matter of weeks. President Ford likely owed more a third of his long and blessed life to Oliver Sipple, a Marine, a wounded Vietnam veteran and a gay man.

A fitting tribute to Ford, and Sipple, would be the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Joementum 2: The Rise of Biden

Senator Joe Biden, who couldn't get elected president of the Hair Club for Men, is throwing his plugs into the ring for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. And Joe has already endorsed himself in the most glowing terms, according to the Boston Globe:

"Frankly, I think I'm more qualified than other candidates, and the issues facing the American public are all in my wheelbarrow," Biden said. "I know I want to be president, I know what I believe, and my message is important."

And that's what sets Joe apart from the presidential candidates who don't think they're the most qualified, don't know whether they want to be president and don't own a wheelbarrow.

P.S. -- Yes, that is the same wheelbarrow that Joe uses to haul his contributions from CapitalOne, MBNA et al. to the bank. It was smart of Joe to announce before voters got their December credit card statements.

Let's have a great Christmas.... Let's have the best year of our whole lives

Many bloggers are posting about their favorite Christmas movie, and I know I'm a little late, but I'll give the nod to the often overlooked and underappreciated Ordinary People.

I'm serious.

And let's have the best year of our whole lives.

Dreaming of A White Supremacist Christmas

Dana "American Taliban" Rohrabacher is spending the last days of a Republican-controlled Congress wrapping steaming presents for his fascistic Freeper friends.

WASHINGTON -- A two-year congressional inquiry into the Oklahoma City bombing concludes that the FBI didn't fully investigate whether other suspects may have helped Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols with the deadly 1995 attack, allowing questions to linger a decade later.

The House International Relations investigative subcommittee will release the findings of its two-year review as early as Wednesday, declaring there is no conclusive evidence of a foreign connection to the attack, but that far too many unanswered questions remain.

...

"We did our best with limited resources, and I think we moved the understanding of this issue forward a couple of notches even though important questions remain unanswered," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the subcommittee chairman, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

You have to read to the end of the article for the disclosure of Rohrabacher's real motive: an attempt to legitimize the lunatic ravings of World Nut Daily favorite Janya Davis, who believes the whole thing was an Iraqi plot. The report castigates the FBI for ignoring "Information [sic] from a former TV reporter concerning an Iraqi national who was in Oklahoma around the time of the bombing."

Tim McVeigh was a murderous racist right-wing shit, impure and simple. He wasn't Saddam's co-conspirator, nor was he the Manchurian Candidate from Iraq.

Rohrabacher's no doubt got a hard-on for the FBI because of its persecution of his "honest," "fine" and "good" friend, Jack Abramoff. And he's certainly met more times with foreign terrorist representatives than domestic terrorist McVeigh. But he can't whitewash the facts with bogus "questions."

For sane Americans, Christmas came in November, when voters wrested control of Congressional committees from dangerous chuckleheads like Rohrabacher. God bless us, every one!

Joyeux Noel

Practice Test

In anticipation of Roger's Year In Review Quiz, we link to the inferior and less challenging 2006-2007 King William's College Quiz.

Think of it as a Stanley Kaplan pop quiz in preparation for the main event.

Holy Shit

Tim Russert hosted his annual Christmas Crusade on this morning's Meet the Press. NBC pimped the revival meeting thusly:

Exclusive! In a special holiday edition, Dr. Rick Warren, author of the international best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life" & Jon Meacham, Newsweek's Editor and author of "American Gospel," discuss Faith in America.

Exclusive indeed. The competition for Jon Meacham's prattlings must have been intense. And I bet Tim was smarting over the fact that FOX poached the D.C. Catholic Archbishop this year.

Much of hour was spent bashing atheists and atheism. (Sample reasoned discourse: "Stalin was an atheist. Mao was an atheist.") Yet it never occurred to Russert to invite an atheist to join the discussion.

Unfortunately for the pious Pumpkinhead, he inadvertently gave the last word to skeptic Robert Frost, who once wrote "I turned to speak to God/About the world's despair/But to make bad matters worse/I found God wasn't there."

The Bitch Of The Magi, or It's A Whinerful Life

Here's an old tragic tale from Gregg Easterbrook, who was forced at gunpoint to celebrate Christmas in an ostentatious and over-indulgent manner.

It's Christmas, festive season of goodwill, time of sparkling delight for the little ones, and... argggghhhhhhh, how many hundred chores left? For parents of young kids, the run-up to Christmas is the most exhausting period of the year. A dozen large boxes of decorations and lights to string. Two trees in our household, plus miniatures for each kid's room. The Tyranny of the Presents: dozens of relatives are present-qualified in our extended family group, and each of the five of us gives an average of 2.5 gifts to each, meaning uncountable gifts to buy or make. Plus toy drives and Secret Santa events, parties to attend, parties to give, stockings to stuff, the wrapping of those uncountable gifts, rehearsals for the pageant (our offspring are two camels and a shepherd this year), all the while regular homework and housework and income work continue. By Christmas morning, my wife Nan and I are in a state of pure fatigue. Then the event goes by in a blur and it's time to start cleaning up. As a child, my favorite moment each year was Christmas Eve, when bells were ringing and everything was in prospect. As a parent, my favorite moment each year comes around the morning of December 29, when I've finally caught up on sleep.

....Doctor: "Then stop doing that."

Now if you're not registered with The New Republic (and why would you be?) you might think the whole article is about Easterbrook the status-driven, self-pitying yuppie. Or that he ends by blaming his ordeal on avaricious Jewish movie executives.

But Easterbrook isn't quite that dense. He goes on to assert that you should send a dollar "to the needy or to charity" for every dollar you spend on family and friends. Strangely, Easterbrook never actually says whether he follows that standard himself.

And then he goes on to gripe about how Amazon overcharged him for shipping on a toy order exceeding 99 bucks, and how Amazon is hostile to workers -- which doesn't stop him from using Amazon.

My suggestion: Take that $29.95 the New Republic keeps asking for, and buy a DVD of An Inconvenient Truth instead. You could even send it to Easterbrook.

Grand Old Police Blotter: A Drunkard Fillmore Update

I was incorrect when I posted earlier that Bruce Tinsley was lawyered up. The only attorney listed in the electronic court file at that time was William Nash, who appears to be a D.A.

But there's another lawyer listed now, a bilingual criminal defense attorney named Dominic Glover. And it appears that Mr. Glover is a friend of the bleeding heart missus:

Director [Arlette] Tinsley completed multiple trainings and received an invitation to provide the anti-bullying & harassment training for St. Peter's Lutheran School in December. She provided the legal perspective, "On Being Gay" at the Center for Teaching and Learning. Both the director and deputy director provided a presentation on diversity for Leadership Bartholomew County. Director Tinsley provided a historical perspective of diversity in Bartholomew County. Deputy Director Smith developed a diversity self-assessment and resource guide to aid individuals with their incorporation of diversity into work and personal lives. Tracy Souza and Dominic Glover provided an overview of the Heritage Fund's Welcoming Community Outreach Project and the results obtained from the focus groups.

Perhaps the thought that his wife supports gay rights and opposes Lutheran bullying drove Ed Bruce to imbibe copious amounts of the local moonshine.

Meanwhile, the court records now reflect two separate criminal cases involving Edward Bruce Tinsley, filed separately on December 7 and 13, 2006, respectively. Whether this reflects a crime wave in Bartholmew County, Indiana or simply a duplicate filing is unclear.

Shorter Mona Charen: My constant bitching about big government and do-gooders doesn't apply to my family's needs.

Marty Peretz, Class Warrior

Martin Peretz drops trou and squeaks out a few bars of Fanfare for the Common Man:

I have a question I've been reluctant to ask. Do the Clintons have any friends who aren't really rich? Maybe just a few, for old time's sake. But, as I read the clips about them, they consort largely, and maybe only, with zillionaires and very high-pay Hollywood types. It is not an axiomatic vocational hazard of politicians. Let me take Gore as an instance. He and Tipper have musician friends and professor friends and artist friends and just plain worker friends and farmer friends, for sure. Not that they don't mix with computer magnates, as well. But the Gores are rooted in ordinary life--in real, even quotidian activity. For example, he actually writes his own books. Believe it or not, it's true. The indulgent wealth that surrounds Bill and Hillary is, I am sure, corrupting. And that corruption--of taste, of moderation, of what is essential--cripples the soul and distorts life itself.

Yes, only the "really" rich and "very" highly-paid and the "indulgently" wealthly are soul-crippling life distorters, whereas the moderately highly-paid and the deserving wealthy are God's blessing upon us all. The cut-off line? One penny above the current Singer family fortune.

P.S. to Marty - You don't actually write your own books either.

Nice Per Se

Coming not-that-soon: A book about the ordeal of sex workers in Cambridge, MA:

Djuric said that one idea that has been tossed around for the book proposal is a collection of autobiographical stories about how different Harvard students lost their virginities.

While Chen said the idea is still in its nascent stages, she envisions it being a sort of guide to sex at Ivy League schools.

"A guide to everything there is about sex," Chen said. "Not on how to have sex per se, but a manual with a certain Ivy League legitimacy."

I though sex per se was the only kind Harvard students had.

Young Goode-man Brownshirt

Representative-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN) schools an ignorant cracker:

In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode [R-Inbred] said that Americans needed to "wake up" or else there would "likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."

...

Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode's comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. "I'm not an immigrant," added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. "I'm an African-American."

Since the November election, Mr. Ellison said, he has received hostile phone calls and e-mail messages along with some death threats. But in an interview on Wednesday, he emphasized that members of Congress and ordinary citizens had been overwhelmingly supportive and said he was focusing on setting up his Congressional office, getting phone lines hooked up and staff members hired, not on negative comments.

Christianity, the religion of peace. I wonder how many of those death threats came from Clownhall contributors.

"And the Snowflakes Should Be Portrayed By Actual Snowflake Babies!"

Reg Against The Machine

New York Sun staff writer Robert Assshiner Asahina takes a brave stand against the persecution of Dame Judy Stench:

But aren't publishers supposed to be daring, even if they act in dubious taste? In a publishing environment that is increasingly bottom-line driven, Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Regan's immediate superior at HarperCollins, Chief Executive Officer Jane Friedman, can hardly complain that Ms. Regan's daring hasn't paid off. In fact, she has probably been the single most successful publisher in the industry, perhaps in recent memory.

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ms. Regan was fired not for her legendarily difficult personality -- and not, or not just, because of her longstanding rivalry with Ms. Friedman -- but for her repeated affronts to the bland conformity of New York publishing.

Assshiner then takes the time from mailing his ms. to Ms. Regan to portray her as a victim of the elitist liberal publishing industry:

Would Ms. Regan be considered even remotely controversial if she had published, say, Noam Chomsky, Al Franken, and Karen Finley? By this measure, Ms. Regan's chief sin seems to have been that her authors sold millions of books to exactly the kind of readers that New York publishers wish weren't their customers.

If she recruited Noam, Al and/or Karen to write a book about how they might have knifed two people to death (who had in fact been knifed to death), probably, yes.

(By the way, Regan published books by Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, and Joe Trippi. Isn't that the exact same thing?)

Don't worry, Bob, there are plenty of other sewers Regan can infest, and it's more likely she'll return your calls now.

Blogging For Dumbfucks

Here's a remedial lesson for subliterate, underwear-soiling bloghacks.

I guess we'll never find out how that real-life remake of Six Days Seven Nights turns out.

Happy Pundit New Year

December 16 marks the day when Washington pundits, teevee news personalities and other indolent blowhards call it a year. Their Year-In-Review and 2007 Prediction columns were finished weeks ago. (Bill Safire finished his in September, just in case.) Their personal assistants have completed their Christmas shopping for their families and Ken Mehlman, and they're all sleeping off last night's corporate party hangovers and/or intern seductions. Pumpkinhead Russert still has to kneepad Laura Bush and Cardinal McCarrick and (my guess) either Rudy Guiliani or Lynne Cheney for his Spiritual State of the Nation show, and Larry King has to doze through a couple of pre-tapes with Rick Warren and Mark Russell, but everyone else has already left for Aspen or the Vineyard. Only the wingnut bloggers remain vigiliant, waiting for an e-mail from a desperate MSNBC booker or news that a Muslim farted in public.

But don't worry. There's always Roger's Year-In-Review Quiz to keep you amused.

Roger's Medical Corner

Here's a bit of news for all those bashers of Canadian "socialized medicine." A group of Toronto doctors and researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children, Research Institute report the following:

In type 1 diabetes, T cell-mediated death of pancreatic β cells produces insulin deficiency. However, what attracts or restricts broadly autoreactive lymphocyte pools to the pancreas remains unclear. We report that TRPV1+ pancreatic sensory neurons control islet inflammation and insulin resistance. Eliminating these neurons in diabetes-prone NOD mice prevents insulitis and diabetes, despite systemic persistence of pathogenic T cell pools. Insulin resistance and β cell stress of prediabetic NOD mice are prevented when TRPV1+ neurons are eliminated. TRPV1NOD, localized to the Idd4.1 diabetes-risk locus, is a hypofunctional mutant, mediating depressed neurogenic inflammation. Delivering the neuropeptide substance P by intra-arterial injection into the NOD pancreas reverses abnormal insulin resistance, insulitis, and diabetes for weeks. Concordantly, insulin sensitivity is enhanced in trpv1−/− mice, whereas insulitis/diabetes-resistant NODxB6Idd4-congenic mice, carrying wild-type TRPV1, show restored TRPV1 function and insulin sensitivity. Our data uncover a fundamental role for insulin-responsive TRPV1+ sensory neurons in β cell function and diabetes pathoetiology.

Or, in terms understandable too those simpletons who parrot Rush Limbaugh, Mallard Fillmore and The Corner without engaging their brains:

"In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

"Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

"'I couldn't believe it,' said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. 'Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more.'" (Link added.)

Meanwhile, fucking American hospitals can't even fucking bill their patients correctly.

Miracle On 53rd Street

This holiday season is just full of wonderful surprises. Today's Christmas cracker: Anti-Clinton hysteric and Bernie Kerik gun moll Judith Regan has been terminated by HarperCollins Publishers for her efforts to publish a book which was only slightly more sleazy than her usual HarperCollins fare, but also caused bad publicity for her employer, Rupert Murdoch:

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 15 -- Judith Regan, the firebrand editor who stirred up decade-old passions last month with her plan for a book and television interview with O. J. Simpson, was fired on Friday by HarperCollins, the publishing company that oversaw her book business.

HarperCollins announced the firing, "effective immediately," in a two-sentence news release that was issued about 7 p.m. Eastern time. The announcement was made by Jane Friedman, president and chief executive of HarperCollins, who has long had a strained relationship with Ms. Regan.

The statement said Ms. Regan's publishing unit and its staff would continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group, but it is unknown whether that group would remain in Los Angeles, where Ms. Regan moved it from New York earlier this year.

It is also unclear whether Ms. Regan has been terminated wholly from any employment with the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's giant media company, which owns HarperCollins. Over the years, Ms. Regan has gained a growing amount of sway within the corporation because of her ability to generate profits from books and other ventures.

(On The Daily Show this week, Regan was credited with announcing a new tome at the Iranian Holocaust conference, entitled "If We Did It, Here's How It Would Have Happened." Best laugh I've had in weeks.)

Anyway, I'm sure Regnery or WND Books or Crown Forum will be sure to hire Regan at a much discounted rate. I hear Ben Domench's job is still vacant. Or maybe Regan will use her free time to write a tell-all about the vile things that went on at the FNC under Roger Ailes (the other one).

My Other Name, Colon, Means Full Of Shit, And So I Am

Move over Nooners, there's a new wingnut in town, and she's gunning for your job:

Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have shown that the readership of the Times is down -- as it is in other liberal publications -- and so are the television ratings of the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.

Nevertheless, the propaganda of the enemedia -- an excellent descriptive term coined by one poster to Lucianne.com -- continues to sully news coverage, thanks to Mr. Drudge. A study of press bias by a professor of political science at the University of California-Los Angeles, Tim Groseclose, listed the Drudge Report as one of the most liberal sites on the Web because it consistently posts articles from left-of-center sources.

My patience with the Drudge Report ended when I saw a photo of Frank Rich of the Times posted on the site along with his words: "We are losing in Iraq." It isn't too encouraging to the morale of the nation, but posts like this are common on Drudge.

Finally, the truth behind the Miserable Failure's miserable failure is revealed:

The site gives top billing to every possible negative statement about the Iraq war and the Bush administration, and it gets about 13 million hits a day. Is it any wonder that President Bush has record low approval ratings?

Well, is it? Is it? Huh? Answer me that!?!

I suppose the 295+ million Americans who don't read Drudge never get asked their opinions.

And if Alicia thinks that Drudge is a liberal website because Eggboy "posts" (sic -- links to) articles from lefty sources, what does that make her, as her own crappy site links to Drudge? Answer: A Colonic Enemedia.

Graham Crackers

A fitting tribute to the Nation's most famous evangelist and Nixon toady:

But at this moment everyone's attention is on the visitor, crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, who is talking about a memorial "library" that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, headed by Franklin [Graham], is building in Charlotte. Cornwell toured the building site and saw the proposed burial plot. She was asked by Ned [Graham], who opposes Franklin's choice, to come and give his father her impression.

"I was horrified by what I saw," she tells Billy, in the presence of a reporter invited to be there.

The building, designed in part by consultants who used to work for the Walt Disney Co., is not a library, she says, but a large barn and silo -- a reminder of Billy Graham's early childhood on a dairy farm near Charlotte. Once it's completed in the spring, visitors will pass through a 40-foot-high glass entry cut in the shape of a cross and be greeted by a mechanical talking cow.

A fitting tribute to a leader in the manufacture of bovine gas, from his even more odious son.

More Fill

As long as we're beating a dead duck, here's wingnut Harry Stein on Eddie Bruce and Chris Muir:

But the tenor of the strip [Day by Day] tends more to be gentle than angry, reflecting none of the bitterness so common today on the Left. Indeed, Muir's girlfriend, the primary model for one of his characters, "is a total liberal." [It's the one with the goatee and the paunch -- RA.] As it happens, the same holds true for Mallard creator Tinsley, whose wife is a civil rights lawyer. There's perhaps a lesson here. "It's a funny thing," Tinsley says. "All her liberal friends are incredulous that our marriage works, but none of my conservative friends have any trouble with it at all. They understand you can think differently about things and still be civil to one another."

Almost immediately, this observation leads Tinsley to reflect on something else. "You ever notice how often liberals seem to think that, because they hold these lofty social views, it excuses them from having to be civil to bellboys and cabdrivers? I really think that by and large conservatives are just much nicer." He pauses, thinking it over. "One of these days, I've gotta do a cartoon about that."

(Links added)

You ever notice how often conversatives think that because they pretend to respect the rule of law, no one will notice that they don't? I think I'll do a series of blog posts about that one of these days. Hmm... what can I call it?

Grand Old Police Blotter: Too Drunk To Duck Edition

This is the best Holiday Season ever. And Atrios has gotten me just what I wanted for the Holidays:

Hoosier Edward Bruce Tinsley, creator of the conservative comic strip Mallard Fillmore, was arrested in Columbus Dec. 4 and charged with operating a vehicle under the influence -- his second alcohol-related arrest in less that four months, according to the Bartholomew County Sheriff's Department.

Tinsley, 48, who lives in Columbus, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.14 -- almost twice the level at which an Indiana driver is considered intoxicated. He posted $755 bond. On Aug. 26, Tinsley was arrested for public intoxication, according to the sheriff's department.

The right-wing tosspot knows all about the dangers of drunk driving; in fact, it's a running gag for him:

Perhaps Tinsley was endangering the lives of others in solidarity with his idol, Mel.

And it looks like Tinsley's liquored lawyered up already.

Kudos to the Bartholmew County Sheriff's Department for keeping Indiana safe.

Update: Damn, Nicole Richie beat me to the punch.

For those curious about what Mary Cheney does as a Vice President of AOL, apparently she writes copy.

Scum, Scum Rudolph

Here's a story designed to bring some holiday cheer: Terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph isn't well pleased with the prison in which he'll die someday. Seems that maximum security incarceration interferes considerably with his hobby of murdering women, non-whites and gays.

Rudolph whines that the SuperMax Arms "is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis." Yet, despite his isolation, Rudolph manages to write his penpals at the local newspaper and get his letters ridiculing his victims out for publication on the terrorist Army of God website.

Needless to say, even the most contemptible prisoners should not be denied a healthy diet, exercise, access to legal counsel and the right to religious observance. But I'd hardly take Rudolph's word that he's been denied any of those. As for the likelihood of causing Eric mental illness, it sounds like Rudolph's the same sociopath he always was.

The I-Man

It's nice to see that despite Don Imus's long history of anti-Semitic tirades, one man of principle has refused to disassociate himself from the decrepit bigot. That independent thinker is Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

The Bullshit Moose might call this "turn[ing] a blind eye to anti-Semitism." If he was an honest man, that is.

On Weird Christian Soldiers

Both S.Z. at World O'Crap and Pam Spaulding at Pandagon have been commenting on "America's Conservative Comedian" Brad Stine. Stine is devoting some of his ample free time to a fundamentalist men's movement called "GodMen," which apparently posits that every Christian demonination in America is controlled by a cabal of women and girly-men.

To prove his bona fides, Brad engaged in the butchiest of all masculine pursuits, blogging. Here's an excerpt from "The Stine"'s post on "Man-Church:"

I was performing at a church in Pennsylvania for what was supposed to be a "Men's" event. I said supposed to be because on the way to the event the coordinator told me that some of the women at the church wondered if they could slip in to see the show. Apparently they were fans of mine and felt left out.

Now folks, the last thing I am is anti-woman. I love women, need women,and respect women. Heck, my mom's one! But it really ticked me off that they would think it ok to enter our man cave. Men have very few events that they are allowed to have just for themselves w/o women feeling we are being insensitive. Women want to get into everything that used to be exclusively male including our sports. From little league , to fireMEN , women want in.

Women want to get into Augusta which is a private golf course where the Masters is held. (I know you guys know this but this is for any women who have sneaked onto our site and are reading this.) Ladies , why can't we have a tournament or PRIVATE club just for men? Men are better golfers and need to compete with each other for the shear sportmanship of watching another man crumble at the sight of our superior drive. Women want to even compete in mens golf tournaments. Listen ladies I have no problem having you in our tournaments as long as we can compete in yours. Of course if men went out for WPGA events there wouldn't BE any ladies making the cut. Why because we are better at it than you.

Funny how in our culture even that pragmatic, documented , truth, is supposed to be censored for the sake of not hurting someones feelings. Saying men are superior than women in certain areas isn't insensitive...it's true. Just like women are better at some things then men. You would have to be a tenured professor of sociology at Berkley to be too stupid to grasp that.

After reading The Stine's man-ifesto, I was a bit surprised to see GodMen opposes "Anti-Intellectualism ... which has driven many thinking men from the fortress of faith."

But there's no doubt Brad's a real man's man.

Parsley, Stooge, Rosacea and Stine (second from left)

Hey, Brad. Hillary Clinton called. She wants her pants suit back.

Out, Damned Spot

I suppose I should take the Iraq Study Group seriously, especially if I want to be taken seriously as a serious blogger. Their report's worth 10 posts, at least.

But since two of its esteemed members -- James Baker and Sandra Day O'Connor -- are in large measure responsible for the death and destruction in Iraq, I can't seem to even feign interest. Lord and Lady Macbeth can scrub themselves raw, but I have no interest in watching.

Shareef Don't Like Wetzel's Pretzels

Here's all you need to know about the one-day wonder domestic terror story that was all rage in rightwingnutisan:

The CS then stated: "All you need is like $100, that's two grenades," and SHAREEF answered, "I'm pretty sure I can get more than that from my sister." Several minutes later, SHAREEF stated: "If Allah wills a lot of people around that garbage can, that place is crowded."

If Allah can't get this genius a hundred dollars, how the hell is he going to get a crowd to stand around a garbage can? Making the faithful swap their stereo equipment to wage jihad just makes a deity look like a cheap-ass.

As a good lefty blogger, I suppose this is where I should point that every faith has its adherents who are unstable and believe that God calls upon them to engage in acts of senseless violence. But you already know that.

For me, the most interesting part of the story was the number of articles that placed the mall in "Chicago" or a "Chicago suburb," even though Rockford's close to 90 miles from Chicago. (See USA Today, for example.) That's like saying Sacramento is a suburb of San Francisco.

I won't be joining those mourning the death of Jeane J. Kirkpatrick.

After all she wasn't just a U.N. Ambassador, she was a political activist.

And her corpse is too, if Bill Bennett has anything to say about it.

I Can't Complain But Sometimes I Still Do

It's undoubtedly a measure of how fortunate I am that the last three months probably have been the least pleasant of my adult life. That "persistent but not-particularly-serious" medical problem I mentioned in mid-September was a little more serious and persistent than I'd manage to convince myself. (Just like the outcome of the mid-term election was a little more serious that Karl Rove thought.) Every day for the past six weeks, I've spent more hours dealing with the problem than doing anything else besides work. (And that includes sleep.) But that's over. I still have a medical condition to deal with, but I'll just have to take medication and see the doctor on occasion. (When I no longer have the condition -- then I'm fucked.)

All that's left is to wait and see what my insurance covers -- and doesn't cover. That's the scary part.

Now that I've got my free time back, I'll be blogging more often again. Stay tuned for my sixteen-part series, Health Care in Crisis: The Nation's Worst Hospitals, Physicians, HMOs and Drug Companies. And some Mary Cheney jokes.

Dumbfuck Blogger of The Day

A dumbfuck writes:

America was frightened of nothing when she began, not because she was brave, but because she was afraid of everything, being a mere niche on a coastline in a once distant and still foreboding land.

This blogger is too stupid to be a moron.

(Dumbfuck revealed later)

Later: It's Dan Riehl. TBogg links to the same post here.

Get The PNAC

Conrad Black's dogsbody inadvertently diagnoses the root cause of failure:

David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who co-wrote Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, accusing Iraq of being part of an "axis of evil," says it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them. If you are your typical, human non-hero, then it's very hard at this point to justify to yourself and your family taking any risks at all on behalf of the coalition." This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on "failure at the center."

Yes. And that center is the Center for Security Policy. And the American Enterprise Institute. And The Heritage Foundation. And the Project for the New American Century. And every other repository of bloodthirsty old chickenhawks who aroused themselves with delusions of martial grandeur, and now complain that the Bush administration didn't supply them with enough towels.

Twenty-First Century Foster Brooks

Having served his tour of duty in Iraq, warflogger Chris Hitchens returns home to consider matters domestic. Namely, "Why Women Aren't Funny":

There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.

Perhaps Hitch should consider the possibility that straights and gentiles and ectomorphs aren't funny either. That's three more columns right there.

Hitchens then disproves his own theory (or discloses his true gender) by trying out his own comedic riff:

Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she's just had? ("And then Quentin was there somehow. And so were you, in a strange sort of way. And it was all so peaceful." Peaceful?)

Is this thing on?

If you want laughs, Hitch, just republish your columns glorifying the invasion of Iraq. Those killed, man!

The Last Supper, Served At Four, With The Senior Discount

Get out your discount coupons and walk, don't run, to theatrical event of the holiday season. They're reviving Jesus Christ Superstar and they've resuscitated Ted Neeley as titluar hippie. Neeley's only thirty years older than the character he portrays.

Corey Glover from Living Colour is Judas.

And Levitra is now the answer to "I Don't Know How To Love Him."

From the New York Times crossword, Saturday, December 2, 2006:

30 Down: Amateurish (4)

The Lord Douchebag Glover

Actually, getting paid not to blog about candidates is where the real money is. The last three months have been a windfall for me.

As Atrios points out, this article by K. Douchebag Glover and its
accompanying chart are disingenuous in the extreme. Neither mentions that Jesse Taylor no longer blogs at Pandagon and that he announced the fact when he went to work for Strickland. It's not like the douchebag Glover didn't know that fact - he fucking blogged about it at the time it happened. But douchebag Glover states that "Few of these bloggers shut down their 'independent' sites after signing on with campaigns," while failing to mention that Taylor did exactly that.

And why doesn't Glover mention Holy Joe Lieberman's hiring of Bullshit Marshall Wittmann in his article/chart? Glover was actually pimping the idea of Wittmann's paid blogging for Droopy the Republican:

If Wittmann [sic - Lieberman] really wanted to embrace the interactive, transparent spirit of the blogosphere, he would have made Wittmann's continued blogging a condition of his employment. He also wouldn't have yanked his campaign blog and deleted the archives days after the race ended. I will be surprised if Wittmann or anyone else on Lieberman's staff starts a blog at his Senate Web site, but I suppose anything is possible.

So paying the Bullshit Moose to blog is a shining example of the "interactive, transparent spirit of the blogosphere," while Jesse Taylor is engaged in "politics as usual." (Unjust world that this is, I'd guess the Bullshit Moose is getting a much bigger paycheck that Mr. Taylor.) I guess the spirit of transparency -- in the sense of telling the truth about your subject -- isn't required when engaged in paid hackwork for the New York Times

Meanwhile, Ann Outhouse's overflow on the subject demonstrates that her grasp of the English language is limited to words of two letters or less:

Politicians: If you're worried a blogger might undercut your campaign, know that about $2,000 a month will not only cut off the criticism; it will buy you a stream of free ads, written by a free ad writer. What a bargain!

What a fucking moron!

Update: Oh dear! I seem to have coarsened the discourse with facts. Run away! Run away! Unclean!

Further Update: I've altered the title, in the spirit of civility.