Place your bets ladies and gentlemen, the main event is about to start.

In the red(star) corner we have Matthew "raging bull" Yglesias, weighing in at 4 paragraphs of envious screaming attack frenzy.

If youÂ’re a connoisseur of people pointing out that Jonah Goldberg isnÂ’t a very intelligent man while simultaneously being too polite to come out and say so directly...

In the American corner we have Jonah Goldberg who attended Goucher college in Baltimore. Goucher college? WTF is that? Charlie Gibson just tweeted he's never heard of it, and neither have I. Must be one of those matchbook cover mail order diploma mills. Certainly nothing to compare to fracking Harvard!!! Jonah, dude, an uneasy mood seems to be settling into this crowd, I'm just saying... Oh, wait, he did a year overseas as an English teacher. That sounds sort of like a real job. The crowd seems placated for the moment...

Yglesias is hopping up and down gesticulating wildly now talking smack in a big way and throws this zinger down:

...ThereÂ’s this nice, very cushy gravy train out there awaiting anyone who wants to be a loyal footsoldier and one consequence of that is that the standards in terms of the personnel are quite low.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 01:27 PM | Comments (58)
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Give me the gavel.

From his own internal poll (which of course can be expected to favor him a little)...

“Republican congressional challenger Allen West’s campaign released a poll this morning that shows West with a 44-to-42 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton. The poll of 400 “likely general election voters” was taken April 18-19 by Republican polling firm Wilson Research Strategies and has a 4.9 percent margin of error. That makes the race a statistical dead heat — which is not good news for an well-financed, well-known incumbent.”

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (119)
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Not really funny, but evidence people are noticing:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (74)
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Disappointing, but not surprising:

On Friday, Norris told a radio talk show host in Seattle that she came up with the idea because "as a cartoonist, I just felt so much passion about what had happened..." noting that "it's a cartoonist's job to be non-PC."

That passion, it appears, has lessened. And fast.

Her stark website today reads: ""I am NOT involved in "Everybody Draw Mohammd [sic] Day!"

"I made a cartoon that went viral and I am not going with it. Many other folks have used my cartoon to start sites, etc. Please go to them as I am a private person who draws stuff," she writes.

It went viral, however, because she was the one who passed it around. Sending it to people like Dan Savage, a popular Seattle-based blogger and nationally syndicated sex advice columnist.

Once it became a national story she reeled back, asking Savage -- in an email he provided to The Ticket -- if he would "be kind enough to switch out my poster" with another one -- a much tamer version which has no images attributed to Muhammad. "I am sort of freaked out about my name/image being all over the place," her e-mail reads.

When asked about her change of heart, Norris told The Ticket that she didn't intend for the cartoon "to go viral."

Then why did she send the cartoon to the media in the first place? "Because I'm an idiot," Norris replied.

"This particular cartoon of a 'poster' seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for," she said.

Top of the Ticket's Jimmy Orr notes that Norris is not alone. The creator of the Facebook group that promoted the event is also getting skittish.

Of course, the thing they fear—being singled out for death threats—is what "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" was supposed to address. To this point, Islamic death threats work because they're directed at only a few people and those people inevitably make the reasonable choice to save their own skins by bowing to the threat.

EDMD changes the calculation because there are too many people to threaten. Retaliation becomes impossible without making more people want to draw Mohammed. Safety in numbers meets diminishing returns.

Will EDMD go on without Norris? Absolutely. It's May 20, 2010.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:00 AM | Comments (203)
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Shelby has a better poker face than McConnell:

Shelby, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said he wasn't optimistic that senators would reach an agreement to move forward with the legislation. He did express confidence that the Senate's 41 GOP members would stick together to block a motion to proceed to debate on the bill.

"I don't believe we'll have a deal today. I believe we'll have the votes this afternoon," Shelby said during an appearance on ABC when asked about this evening's vote on Wall Street reform.

Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled the vote for this afternoon after 5pm Eastern.

One of the things keeping the GOP senators together may be the possibility of introducing their own financial reform bill. Drafted over the last few months, it will be difficult for Democratic screeches of "Party of No" to stick when the GOP moves on their own bill. Particularly after Obama rejected the Maine Sisters' attempt at bipartisanship.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:37 AM | Comments (40)
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Given that today is boobquake day, this seems pretty relevant, it also seems about as retarded a steering system a human being could possibly design.

...Tired of spinning that steering wheel? Try this: German researchers have developed a new technology that lets drivers steer cars using only their eyes.

Raul Rojas, an artificial intelligence researcher at Berlin's Free University, said Friday that the technology tracks a driver's eye movement and, in turn, steers the car in whatever direction they're looking...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:25 AM | Comments (70)
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In a competition between retarded explanations for earthquakes, I think we've got a pretty close race here.

..."Many women who do not dress modestly... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media...

[Update]
My crack research staff has just received Sedighi's PhD thesis and are poring over it right now. Apparently it is a groundbreaking analysis related to the buoyancy of witches.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:40 AM | Comments (115)
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On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell demonstrated yet again that the GOP has no competent or cohesive strategy to deal with Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

MCCONNELL: The president and vice president and Leahy and Reid had all filibustered Justice Alito. We had a big debate about that around the time that you just pointed out on the screen. And unfortunately, the no filibuster ever on judges position lost. That was my position and the position of Senate Republicans but Democrats established that that is a possibility.

It's highly unlikely, however, unless the nominee is an extraordinary individual outside the mainstream with really bizarre views, but now that the Democrats have established that as a precedent, against my better judgment, that is the precedent of the Senate and remains a possibility.

WALLACE: But you are putting it out as a pretty remote and pretty extraordinary circumstance.

MCCONNELL: Yeah, I never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee. The vice president and Senator Reid have. So far I've never done that. It would take an unusual nominee to justify that.

Way to preemptively disarm yourself, dummy. You're supposed to make the other guy call your bluff!

This goes right back to my complaints about Senator John "Hide Under His Desk From the Scary Latina" Cornyn's failed strategy with then-Judge Sotomayor. Her extensive history of race- and gender-bias should have been an obvious and easy disqualification for any judgeship, not least the highest judgeship in the country and the blogosphere had already done all the heavy lifting digging up her history. But Cornyn and the Senate GOP wavered and fretted and wrung their hands and today Justice Sotomayor is making empathy-based decisions that will bind Americans for generations.

Will the Senate GOP do any better this time around? Maybe they're ready to go to the mattresses if Obama decides on someone other than "safe picks" Kagan or Wood. But I doubt it. McConnell obviously didn't learn anything from last year's failure. He just wants to preen and prance for not filibustering anyone yet.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:34 AM | Comments (72)
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The President is kicking off the 2010 election campaign with a message for certain Americans:

"It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African Americans, Latinos, and women, who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again. If you help us do that – if you help us make sure that first-time voters in 2008 make their voices heard again in November – then together we will deliver on the promise of change, hope, and prosperity for generations to come.”

The post-racial president strikes again. I've tucked the DNC's new web ad below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:10 AM | Comments (136)
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Speaking at the Washington Institute For Near East Policy last week, Obama's National Security Advisor James Jones thought it would be fun to start his remarks with a joke.

I'd like to begin with a story that I think is true, a Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban, the jokes goes on, begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”

When I put this on twitter, some folks questioned whether it was offensive or, even if it is offensive, whether it's appropriate to be offended by it.

The putative lesson of NSA Jones' joke is that crafty and heartless Jews give people the runaround and make a buck off it. Yes, it's offensive. It feeds a stereotype Older Than Print that became the justification for quite a bit of bad behavior toward Jews. And NSA Jones thinks this particular story has an element of truth.

It's also quite all right to get offended by it. The Obama Administration is systematically destroying the American relationship with Israel. Cracking jokes about Jews who won't cooperate—while Obama is in the middle of a fight with Israeli leadership over settlements—is a bit timely, wouldn't you say? Jones is either too stupid to realize that or knew it, but went with his "true story" anyways.

YID with LID notes that the White House transcript of the event conveniently leaves the joke out, as does the official video. He found his own video of it, click over if you'd like to see Jones' not-very-comic delivery.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:47 AM | Comments (159)
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