"I Spent Thousands To Get My Hair Cut, But I Got A Shitty Haircut

Mark Sanford, fiscal conservative:

Sanford said that some of the claims in the story — for example, that he took a flight from Myrtle Beach to Columbia simply to get a haircut — were taken out of the context of his full daily schedule. He noted that he went to get the haircut not at a fancy salon, but at the chain "Great Clips."

With those sailcloth partitions and a well-placed barber cape, no one could see he was sexting with his mistress.

Unfortunately for the missus, Great Clips wasn't the only place where G-Mark was getting his trim.

Surely I'm not the only one who has noticed that the right-wing story line of the moment involves a black man conspiring with Jews to commit genocide:

Among the drawbacks are the president’s two closest health advisers, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and Dr. David Blumenthal.

Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, believes that the Hippocratic Oath (do no harm) is taken way too seriously by doctors. Blumenthal advocates slowing down medical innovation to control health spending and has no problem with healthcare “rationing” to save money. These medical advisers are reinterpreting medical ethics. Casting aside moral guidelines, they advocate federal legislation to provide government support for abortion, euthanasia, and confinement of the "mentally retarded."

In case that's too subtle for the intended audience, the author concludes with "Who knew that Obama's 'audacity of hope' would rest on the discarded concept of a master race?"

All that's missing are some racist caricatures slobbering over a plump blonde baby, with knives and forks in hand. Pictorial caricatures, I mean.

Update (8/11/09): The meme is spreading.

Doctor Jim Geraghty, at NRO, commits intellectual malpractice:

"David Schuster apparently likes to amuse his audience by getting basic news facts spectacularly wrong, and turning spotting the error into a game, kind of like 'Where's Waldo?' ...

Schuster said that Gladney had 'no obvious injuries' from the event, and that he had no health insurance.

From the first sentence of a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story from yesterday: 'Kenneth Gladney sat in a wheelchair on Pershing Avenue Saturday, his knee bandaged....'" (Italics Geraghty's)

Because you can't sit in a wheelchair or wear a bandage unless you're injured.

Union thugs also poked him in the eyes, or else he wouldn't be wearing glasses.

More on Fraudney King:

Meanwhile, though Gladney appears to be just fine in the video right after he was supposedly beaten up, he showed up the next day at a tea party event in a wheelchair. At the event, Bill Hennessy, the organizer of the St. Louis tea parties, asked the crowd to donate money to Gladney to help him pay for his injuries, despite the fact that he now says he has insurance. When I asked Brown about this, he said: “Well, who doesn't need a donation? If people want to give him a donation because he's injured and unemployed, that's up to them.” Brown said Gladney has raised about $1,100 in donations so far.

Suckers.

Andrew Dimbart: I Am Fraudney King

Andy so identifies with Fraudney's plight that he gets around to it in paragraph 15, after recounting his own 'bagging exploits with Orson Bean and a guy from the Bay City Rollers.

And Andy's a genuine constitutional scholar:

On Sept. 12, I will be attending a tea party in Quincy, Ill., joining Instapundit professor Glenn Reynolds, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft, and Tucker Carlson.

With the Democratic Party in control of all branches of government and the Fourth Estate acting as the Democratic Party's protector, the tea party movement is the closest thing America has to checks and balances.

Yes, the Democratic Party controls the judiciary. You read it here first.

Bob Herbert writes the column "Doctor" Helen would write if she was sane.

Sometimes Coking Is Not The Solution

Billy Mays' enthusiasm for OxiClean may have been chemically enhanced:

TAMPA, Fla. – An official autopsy report released Friday found that cocaine use contributed to the heart disease that suddenly killed TV pitchman Billy Mays in June, but his family called the finding "speculative" and considered getting an independent look at the results.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner's office previously determined that the bearded, boisterous TV spokesman had a heart attack in his sleep. His wife found him unresponsive in bed in their Tampa condo June 28.

Mays, 50, was a pop-culture fixture with his energetic commercials pitching gadgets and cleaning products like Orange Glo and OxiClean.

While heart disease was the primary cause of death, a report released Friday by the medical examiner listed cocaine as a "contributory cause of death."

The medical examiner "concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and thereby contributed to his death," the office said in a press release.

Reminds me of another corpulent blowhard with a Florida residence who loves his Oxy. Except for the wife part.

Just say no to the Jupiter Jack, kids.

This is unfair:

"Republicans seem to have a problem fulfilling their oaths of office," said DSCC communications director Eric Schultz. "Republicans in elected office can't bolt fast enough apparently. First Sarah Palin quits, then Kelly Ayotte quits, and now Mel Martinez quits. The country faces enormous challenges right now, and voters are watching who is up to the task."

Has Trent Lott been forgetten so quickly? Give the man his due.

And what about Larry Craig?

Rube Views Boob Tube

"Doctor" Helen has been watching a very special television:

When you see commercials about men who cheat, they are being punched, had their cars destroyed and other abuses that are just taken in a matter-of-fact manner as if it's no big deal because a woman is dispersing "justice."

It was getting so bad I threw my television out, and I urge the good "doctor" to do the same.

And to take a writing class.

As for the triggering episode, "Doctor" Helen and her outpatients are pretty down on the women involved, although they'll probably recalibrate their outrage once they get all the facts and consult their hierarchy of victimhood. (Perhaps this storyline would better fit for their worldview.)

"Doctor" Helen has a unique fetish for stories of male victimization. A few days earlier, she linked to this story in which a woman poured boiling water onto her husband's crotch, was arrested and charged with assault and is waiting arraignment. This report got "Dr." Helen to thinking: "Imagine if the sexes were reversed...."

It's easy if you try!

(via alicublog)

Annus Hilarious

Not all the economic news is bad:

News Corp.'s fiscal 2009 is sure to go down as an annus horribilis. The firm recorded a $3.4 billion loss for the fiscal year, which ended June 30. Last year the company recorded a $5.4 billion profit. Advertising difficulties at newspapers and TV coupled with lackluster digital operations all contributed to a particularly tough 12 months.
Fourth quarter operating income was $268 million. Earlier this year the company took a near $9 billion write-down on the value of its assets and recorded operating charges of $312 million.

The television segment-which encompasses broadcast television operations, the station group and Asian TV operation Star-reported a $4.4 billion loss in operating income in 2009, compared with a $1.1 billion gain the year before. The earnings released showed an impairment charge of $4.5 billion in the TV segment. The local TV station ad market was down 27% for the quarter and 21% for the year. Television revenue was $1 billion for the quarter and $4.6 billion for the year.

Just think how much Rupert would have lost if he had kept the Weekly Standard.

Sad Bitch

Washington Post/CNN gagmeister Dana Milbank is teary-eyed and chin-quivering upon learning that no one appreciates his sense of humor:

The withering and often personal criticism of Milbank and Cillizza exploded Friday afternoon after the liberal Web site Talking Points Memo posted and criticized the latest video. Both men, who frequently appear on television, became high-profile targets, particularly among left-leaning bloggers but also on such outlets as Twitter.

"It's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere," Milbank said. "I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."

I guess that makes you the bloggers' bitch, Dana.

To Your Health Care

Insipid cable news coverage aside, isn't it nice to see a U.S. President who can handle his alcohol and enjoy a cold brew without abusing his family or choking on a pretzel?

Republican Family Values: Focus on the Intern Edition

Sad news from the Land O' Instacracker:

[Tennessee] Republican Sen. Paul Stanley had maintained a low profile until his announcement late Tuesday that he was resigning from the state Senate effective Aug. 10, after his affair with a 22-year-old intern and a subsequent extortion attempt was revealed to the public.

Stanley, a 47-year-old evangelical Christian with two children, said in his resignation letter that he has "decided to focus my full attention on my family."

Alert Child Protective Services.

"Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true," he told Memphis radio station WREC-AM Tuesday. "And just because I fell far short of what God's standard was for me and my wife, doesn't mean that that standard is reduced in the least bit."

Put it away and focus on your family, Paul. No one wants to hear from you.

The fun started when the intern's boyfriend, J.P. Watts, found the G.O.P.'s Funniest Home Videos:

Watts, 27, allegedly discovered a memory disc with explicit photos of [McKensie] Morrison that were taken in Stanley's apartment on a cell phone. "Watts communicated to Stanley if he did not pay the money, the photographs would be sent to other individuals, including the media," the document states.

"Good morning, sir. How are you this fine day? McKensie and I have been talking, and I feel that I have a video and some pictures you might be interested in seeing," Watts allegedly texted to Stanley, according to a transcript read aloud during the hearing, as reported by The Associated Press.

Sounds more like a Twitter than a text message.

Tennessee Republican Party Chair Simmons and Representatives Criss and Frehley had no comment. Stanley is expected to return to his second love, painting.

P.S. -- It's all those damn bloggers' fault! Says the Senator:

I guess with the blogosphere and just more people being engaged and the advent of the Internet, people get on the Internet or the airwaves or whatever and just say whatever, and I think they need to be more cognizant of they way they treated [sic] ...

'Twas not the intern, but the Internet, that brought the Senator down.

Uninteresting Answers to Unasked Questions

I bet you were just dying to know this.

The real answer, of course, is that people have to give her stuff.

The unintelligible given answer apparently is so that people won't think she's a dyke.

An Explanation of Sorts

Some bloggers opine about health care reform; only Roger Ailes puts its author on the line to goes in depth and undercover to blow the American health care system wide-open. Unfortunately, the whole experience was so depressing and frustrating that he probably wn't blog about it.

Next time, remind me to assign myself a trip to Hawai'i to investigate President Obama's birth cirtificate instead.

Atrios looks to a future where novels are dramatized on television rather than in the movies:

Obviously the economics - and I have no real knowledge - will ultimately dictate whether things are made into movies or serialized TeeVee shows, but I do look forward to the day when the obvious visual translation of a good novel isn't the big screen. Or, hell, bring back serials on the big screen!

Though, ultimately, nothing is medium specific anymore. Someone should try a big serial. My guess is that if Harry Potter came out today (with associated popularity) it might be a good test case.

That future may soon be here:

The 37-year effort to bring "Atlas Shrugged" to the screen is finally gaining momentum.

Sort of.

Oscar winner Charlize Theron has been meeting during the past several months with Lionsgate and producers Howard and Karen Baldwin, who are developing the project's latest iteration, about starring as main character Dagny Taggart.

Theron has been eager to play the role but has been concerned that a feature would lose many of the nuances of the monster-sized novel. So the Rand adaptation would, under a plan she and producers discussed, be turned into a miniseries for Epix, the pay-cable network Lionsgate is forming with MGM and Viacom/Paramount.

The project, according to this plan, would be to make the mini one of the fledgling network’s programming linchpins. While insiders are not ruling out the possibility of releasing a condensed version to theaters, the main thrust would be the network, where the mini could be used to lure the book's legion of fans to subscribe.

And a resultant drop in water consumption at trailer parks and assisted-living facilities during the hours when the series is run.

The Deaths of American Soldiers Mean Nothing to Me, Says Glenn Reynolds

From the Instacracker:

ONE OF ANDREW SULLIVAN’S GUESTBLOGGERS is, ironically, enough, slagging people for being too pro-war in 2003. Yeah, not like Andrew was back then. At any rate, according to a comment in the linked post, I was off by 39 for the casualty [sic - fatality] toll of the invasion through "mission accomplished." I'm willing to admit the error. That's better than Ted Kennedy, who predicted we'd lose "battalions a day."

Reynolds is referring to a comment which identified US deaths in Iraq before "Mission Accomplished" as 139, whereas Reynolds offered "100" in response to the question asked. But the question which was asked of the 'Cracker was this:

If we go into Iraq, how many casualties do you expect to see (on the side of the US and our allies)

The question says nothing about the period of "the invasion through 'mission accomplished,'" an event of epic meaninglessness even apart from its absence in the question. If your son or daughter or husband or wife or father or mother died after the flight-suit prance photo-op, Reynolds couldn't give a shit. He's only concerned with rewriting the question (and history) so it looks as if he was merely off by 39, and more prescient than Teddy K. The thousands of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen who died later, and those from other countries who died, don't matter to Reynolds.

In fact, Glenn is pissed that people have forgotten his greatest sacrifice when the speak of the war.

And I didn't take a post-invasion "mission accomplished" vacation, either.

Some gave Dollywood.

To be fair, David Keene also offered FedEx the opportunity to have his son whack, Scott Davis, the chairman of UPS, for a little under $500,000.

(Backstory here and here and here. Remember, a liberal is a conservative who couldn't get special treatment from prison authorities.)

The Anchoress Would Like To Think

...and doesn't realize it's beyond her limited capabilities.

Here is the Red Nun, on the occasion of Walter Cronkite's passing, linking to things she just can't understand:

I'm sure Cronkite would have loved President Obama, just like the rest of the media hordes. But I would like to think that he would not have countenanced this sort of news-manipulation on his watch – that he would not have ignored those grassroots movements that did not fit his ideology, or enabled startling doublestandards, but who knows? Perhaps he’d have jumped into Free-American-Press-into-Pravda Devolution with both feet, if it made him feel like he was part of something "too big to fail."

The "news-manipulation" link goes to another blog which bitches about how the New York Times didn't put the CBO health care reform numbers on page one, above the fold, while the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal did.

The "ignored" and "grassroots movement" links go to Instacracker, who in turn links to teabaggers who self-report that groups of 30, 150 and 250+ 'baggers managed to find their way to various home state Congressional offices.

The "startling doublestandards [sic]" link makes no sense whatsoever in the context in which it's placed, but it leads to this, which is a lovely example of disinglennuousness at its finest and features a cameo from a former unemployed blogger turned unemployed creepy cartoon enthusiast to boot.

One gets the impression that the Red Nun collected a bunch of links, decided it would be a sin to delete them without using them, and then shoved them into the Cronkite post to avoid confession.

The Red Nun ends her funeral oration thusly:

So, RIP, Mr. Cronkite. I will not blame you for the media excesses we will have to endure for the next week to ten days.

I recall hoping that Tim Russert's sad death would inspire some self-reflection within the ranks of the press, but that did not happen, so I doubt Cronkite's death will wake them from their self-destructive sleep, either.

Say what the fuck? How or why Pumpkinhead's death would cause self-reflection in the press is a mystery, since his death had nothing to do the way the press operated. The way Russert conducted himself in life might cause those in the press with a sense of self-awareness to question the ethics of acting as combination answering service, father confessor and megaphone for the G.O.P. (although it surely didn't in Howard Kurtz's case), but his death provides no particular illumination on how a free press should do its job.

The Principal Is Your Pal; The Governor Will Just Fuck You And Then Dump You To Save His Own Ass

Governor Mark Sanford writes some crap about how getting caught banging his soulmate has made him more humble:

I've realized that as much as I have and will continue to advocate for things ranging from restructuring to responsible spending to school choice, my approach needs to be less about my will and more about looking for ways to more humbly present the greater principals and ideas at play. It needs to be less strident and more about finding ways to work with legislative leaders to advance the ideas so many of us believe in. It means less time fighting the tide, and a greater awareness of the fact that God controls it. In working with a few alterations to my approach, I think this could be a far more productive last session than the one that would have been had the tragedy that has unfolded not occurred, and in turn, people's lives can be made better.

Apology not accepted.

Anyone who pimps "school choice" without knowing the proper spelling and usage of the word principles is not fit to hold any office. Nor is anyone who characterizes government confiscation of private property to subsidize Big Religion. Nor is anyone who considers self-inflicted mockery a tragedy.