An Incredibly Bad Idea

Kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido recorded love songs years ago that suggested he was fond of young girls, a former customer of Garrido's home-based printing business said.

Former Antioch glass shop owner Marc Lister said Friday that he dug up the music after Garrido, 58, and his 54-year-old wife, Nancy Garrido, were charged in the alleged kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard. Both Garridos have pleaded not guilty.

...

Lister, who hired Garrido to print his business cards and invoices, said he plans to share the music with law enforcement if they want it but also hopes to raise money from it for abused women and children.

Perhaps Mr. Lister will call it "Rock and Roll Part 3."

Secret Police Wanted: Apply Within

Now that he's finally mastered breathing, libertarian moron Clayton Cramer turns his thoughts to Big Brother. He quotes the following post from Ken "Boehm Boehm" Boehm at the "National Legal and Policy Center."

NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House "maintains a presence."

In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation # WHO-S-09-0003, it is posted at [REDACTED].com [sic]. Click here to download a 51-page pdf of the solicitation.

Try to stop laughing.

Now picture Clayton as he strokes his beard and muses, "If The Bush White House Had Let A Contract Like This...."

Now try to stop laughing again.

(DO NOT GO to the site named in this blurb, as it tries to load some sort of spyware on your computer. The correct name of the site ends in .gov.)

Bedlam Is Dreaming Of Rain

A placard reads "the end of days"
Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze
More a question than a curse
How could hell be any worse?
The flames are stunning
The cameras running
So take warning!

When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning

Michael Goldfarb reporting something that's not true?

He's learning well from his master, Bill Kristol.

Update (9/2): Goldflab goes on the offensive! He criticizes the Daily News for "caryring water for the group [WWF] without asking any tough questions...." Funny, since Goldflab published first, and never asked any questions later.

What a Barone!

Simpering wingnut Michael "The Barone-ass" Barone is outraged that the Washington Post is publishing the actual words of his fellow Republicans:

Item number one on the Macaca Watch is the Sunday front page story on the thesis Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 at Regent University where he obtained a masters degree in public policy and a law degree. This is, as the story acknowledged, a publicly available document and its contents would certainly be a legitimate part of an article on McDonnell's background and the evolution of his political views. But the first paragraph of the story, prominently on the front page, sends the culturally liberal voters of Northern Virginia in the Post's local circulation area a pretty clear message: you better not vote for this guy. He went to an "evangelical" school (Regent University Law School), described feminists as "detrimental" and "said government policy should favor married couples over 'cohabitors, homosexuals or fornicators.'"

The Barone-ass is particularly outraged that a media outlet would engage in such politically biased reporting without writing him a paycheck.

The Barone-ass doesn't accuse the Post of misrepresenting the facts -- after all, he's not talking about a Krauthammer/Will/Cohen column. No, he's enraged because the Post is reporting facts which liberals might enjoy reading more than his fellow wingnuts. But Barone hasn't finished spluttering yet:

Item number two on the Macaca watch is Tuesday's front page story headlined "Governor's Race Erupts Over McDonnell’s Past View." The "eruption" consists of a bunch of emails sent out by Democrats quoting from McDonnell’s thesis and a McDonnell conference call with reporters answering questions — pretty routine campaign stuff, hardly front page material.

Is a conference call in which reporters answer questions really a routine campaign event, or is Barone just a shitty writer?

Yes, sending e-mails and taking reporters' questions are routine campaign events. It's the subject of the e-mails and questions -- McDonnell's repulsive bigotry -- which makes them front page news. Sexism and hatred of gays isn't front page news in The Barone-ass' G.O.P. circles, of course. It's the public disclosure of such rancid views that offends Barone.