Friday, Friday, Friday and not a moment too soon.
Oh and some of you in The Group are bouncing emails. So if you haven't got any emails in a few weeks, you might need to re-enable email.

Death by Puppeh
Here thirteen 6 week-old Golden Retriever puppehs display their vicious technique of licking you to death. Do not underestimate them - together they're even more lickthirsty than the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:31 PM | Comments (1055)
Post contains 518 words, total size 5 kb.

Just saw this linked by Allah on Twitter. From the Republican Governors Association.

It's good.

Focus on the mission.

Added. Yeah, I'm late, he posted it at HA, with some background, including that Time Magazine is suggesting that "Remember November" is an allusion to anti-government British terrorist Guy Fawkes (not our Guy Fawkes, that other one).

Well I'll just offer the simple moron Dave analysis, a) Time Magazine is being hysterical because this is effective, and b) November might just mean elections.

Stupid? Sure, it's my bread and butter. I trust me more than Time.

Bigger vid than the embed here.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:22 PM | Comments (62)
Post contains 114 words, total size 2 kb.

Brokered depositors, Democratic Candidate for US Senate from Illinois hardest hit.

Federal regulators shut down the bank owned by Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias' family on Friday, setting up an expected but daunting challenge in his bid to keep President Barack Obama's old Senate seat in Democratic hands.

Frankly I don't see the problem here. If Geitner can blame TurboTax, surely Alexi can pin this on QuickBooks.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:38 PM | Comments (104)
Post contains 76 words, total size 1 kb.

As you probably heard on cable news, Lane Bryant tried to run a sexy ad featuring plus-sized models during the family hour (8-9 pm), and ABC and Fox balked. Bryant claims sizist discrimination, because their ads, they say, are just like Victoria's Secret ads, which have been run at that hour.

But then, the knockers are twice as big, so I guess there's a little too much vavavoom going on.

(Incidentally, that tracks with something I've noticed: Big breasts are associated with porn in people's minds. Yeah, I know that's obvious, but there is some kind of societal/literary double standard about demure breasts being arty and big breasts being lurid and pornographic. Every time I read a sex scene in a "good book," the author makes sure to tell me the woman's breasts are small, just to remind me I'm reading Art, not Porn. D-cups don't exist in high-minded literature, I guess.)

But I don't care about that debate... O'Reilly's going to be getting to the bottom of this story, with lots of video, all the way through sweeps, because it's just that important. He's going to feature big-knockers-pictures at the end of every broadcast, asking the important question of each rack, "Pinheads or Patriots?"

For the folks. For the folks, people. Just lookin' out for the folks.

I'm too high-minded for that, of course, so instead I'll pick on the very-professional news organization CNN.

Someone altered the ad so that the text message the zaftig woman read was not a come-hither sext, but instead a funny advertisement. (I won't give away the joke so you can appreciate it when you see it.)

Headline News -- which is CNN, of course -- intended to run the real ad in discussing the non-story/publicity stunt, but instead ran the joke ad, by accident, because they're just that detail-oriented.

So, on CNN at least, Lane Bryant's ad is designed to insult buxom women rather than flatter them.

The alteration occurs at 0:38.

Thanks to MattM.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (294)
Post contains 342 words, total size 3 kb.

Governor Jan Brewer to Obama: Screw you.

She called a press conference to announce her decision and just signed it at the event.

Well played Governor.

I think there are still some issues with the criminalization of day labor and how that might be overly broad and apply to citizens and those authorized to work here. Overall though, seems like good stuff.

John McCain emails to say, "It's a nice a start but personally I won't rest until every illegal immigrant is thrown out of this country or until the day after my GOP primary. Whichever comes first."

More: Of course the debate as Obama and his lapdogs in the media want to frame it is this means we need 'comprehensive immigration reform'. Actually what it shows is that people want enforcement. Do that first for awhile and then maybe, maybe we can talk about the rest.

Are the terms of this bill harsh? Yes. Are there going to be some abuses that need to be watched out for, punished and corrected? Yes, just like there is with every law.

But these kind of hardcore reactions are what you get when the political class not only ignores the clear desires of voters (secure borders, enforce the laws) but continues to try to force them to accept something they don't want (amnesty).

Posted by: DrewM at 12:33 PM | Comments (306)
Post contains 233 words, total size 1 kb.

McCain fetishizes his "integrity." And, while it generally seems that "integrity" consists of whatever temper tantrum McCain is having this day or that, there was something a little appealing about his often self-delusional idea of principle. Even though his integrity chiefly consisted of his whims and caprices, snits and piques, there was little doubt that McCain couldn't actually be bought.

That's not really true anymore. McCain, facing a tough election, is now talking like the people he used to accuse on a daily basis of racism. For some, that might be a welcome development.

Not for me. For one thing, I don't believe a word of it, and I think McCain's principled liberalism will come back the moment he's got a new six-year lease on political life.

For another thing, his most recent contortions demonstrate that he's not, in fact, McCain the Incorruptible at all, but merely McCain Who's Pretty Much Had A Lot of Easy Elections And Who Thus Has Never Been Really Tested As Regards His Incorruptibility But Who It Turns Out Is Pretty Easily Corruptible The Moment He Needs a Bit of Corrupting.

"Virtue untested is no virtue at all." -- Jack Donaghy.

McCain did have his uses in the past. Although on any truly important vote, there was a one in three chance he'd not only vote against you but do so with relish, hurling insults like "racist" at you, when he actually took your side -- a majority of the time -- he had a certain cache with the liberal press and with some independents that made him an effective advocate. That is to say, by screwing us with such vigor one third of the time, he was uniquely posed to carry our message as an independent, no-nonsense truth-teller when he was actually on the team.

But now that he's contorting himself to out-conservative JD Hayworth, he's lost a lot of that, and will lose a lot more when he reverts to his immoderation moderation.

McCain's a good spokesman, when he's on our side, but he's not on our side enough, and we've got better spokesmen waiting in the wings. Frankly, if we're to have a moderate wing, I'd rather it be lead by Scott Brown than John McCain.

Right now it's more important we have a reliable vote than a mercurial leader.

With veteran tough-on-illegal-immigration GOP challenger J.D. Hayworth (whom I support) just five points behind McCain in the latest Rasmussen poll, Not-Maverick has now abandoned (or rather re-abandoned) his notoriously long-held open borders stance. Just a few short years ago, Not-Maverick was attacking Rush Limbaugh as a "nativist" for opposing the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty plan. When GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions introduced an amendment to bar illegal aliens from receiving the earned income tax credit, McCain likened it to Jim Crow laws.

Sessions: "Â…I do not believe we should award people who have entered our country illegally, submitted a false Social Security number, worked illegallyÂ… I do not believe we should reward them with $29 billion of the taxpayers' money. That is a lot of money."

McCain: "What's next -- are we going to say work-authorized immigrants are going to have to ride in the back of the bus?"

When Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico called for a cap on the number of visas for legal permanent residents at 650,000, McCain called it un-American and accused Bingaman of "discriminating" against poor foreigners (never mind that the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill itself had a visa cap of 290,000). Like the true progressive he is, McCain never lets the facts get in the way of playing the race card. Unless it's an election year, that is.

...

Actions speak louder than the pro-enforcement, strong-borders rhetoric McCain adopted for his failed 2008 presidential run -- and which he has now resurrected to save his seat in his border violence-plagued state of Arizona.

I think, on the whole, McCain's a good man. Just not as good as he thinks.

But in the end this isn't about good men or rewarding men for prior service. I think nominating him as our standard-bearer in 2008 was a pretty good recognition of his past service. We can't endlessly reelect a man who doesn't represent our interests and aspirations to repay him for his steel in Vietnam.

It's time for him to go.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (259)
Post contains 739 words, total size 5 kb.

Well, that's my takeaway, anyway. CNN writes of the Vengeful Goddess Gaia, determined to strike us down for failing to appease.

"Release the Kraken," she hisses, but by "Kraken," she means "earthquakes and volcanoes."

Yes, CNN is actually pushing the Global Warming Causes Earthquakes and Volcanoes "theory."

Anyone notice that whatever Vengeance of the Goddess calamity befalls us, a "consensus scientist" informs us it's all due to Global Warming within a week?

Both Iceland and the United States exalt democracy as a social achievement worthy of lasting an eternity. Yet the latter's unprecedented strength has derived not just from enlightened government, but from the release of its own hot clouds: exhaust from its vast industries, fleets and mechanized agriculture.

As we have learned, these gases form an invisible barrier that, like a greenhouse's glass ceiling, keeps reflected heat of the sun from escaping our atmosphere. The denser that gaseous barrier grows, the hotter things get and the faster glaciers melt.

As they flow off the land, we are warned, seas rise. Yet something else is lately worrying geologists: the likelihood that the Earth's crust, relieved of so much formidable weight of ice borne for many thousands of years, has begun to stretch and rebound.

As it does, a volcano awakens in Iceland (with another, larger and adjacent to still-erupting Eyjafjallajokull, threatening to detonate next). The Earth shudders in Haiti. Then Chile. Then western China. Mexicali-Calexico. The Solomon Islands. Spain. New Guinea. And those are just the big ones, 6+ on the Richter scale, and just in 2010. And it's only April.

[And then Guam capsizes -- ace.]

It's looking like this may be a long decade. And if we don't pull carbon out of the way we energize our lives soon, a small clump of our not-too-distant surviving descendants may find themselves, as Gaia scientist James Lovelock has direly predicted, like the first Icelanders: gathered on some near-barren hunk of rock near one of the still-habitable poles, trying yet anew to eke out a plan for human civilization.

Good Goddess!

Thanks to Slublog.

Oh: Thanks again to Slublog -- Weisman is totally like a scientist and totally qualified to speak authoritatively about Gaia stretching her legs after shrugging glacial ice from her mighty shoulders.

He is a professor of literature, which, you know, means that he's a "climate expert," because anyone who believes in Gaia's Green Vengeance is a qualified climate expert.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (247)
Post contains 416 words, total size 3 kb.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe, not guilty.

Keefe — one of three SEALS charged in the case — was not accused of assaulting Ahmed Hashim Abed but of failing to prevent the abuse.

Breaking story (via andylevy on Twitter)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 10:28 AM | Comments (45)
Post contains 60 words, total size 1 kb.

But of course.

"Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others," Mr. Obama said in the Rose Garden ceremony. "That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe."

He said he has instructed his administration to "examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."

The president said that comprehensive immigration legislation, debated for years, is overdue, and noted that Democratic congressional leaders have agreed to try to move the issue this year. "I welcome the commitment of House and Senate Democratic leaders to take action," he said.

He noted that there are 11 Republicans still in the Senate who voted for an immigration overhaul when President George W. Bush was pushing it. "I'm hopeful that they will join with Democrats in doing so again, so we can make the progress the American people deserve," he said. The measure included a pathway to citizenship for some people in the country illegally.

I did not know that "basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans" includes allowing people to break the law.

As for the 11 Republicans in the Senate, if John McCain is off the the amnesty bandwagon (at least until the primary is over), then you can forget about it.

Even Lindsey Graham doesn't want to do immigration now. He's got more important things on his mind. Like Cap and Tax.

Graham also said moving ahead with immigration would scuttle the Senate’s capacity to deal with climate legislation. “It destroys the ability to do something like energy and climate,” he told reporters in the Capitol.

Graham has been working with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on an immigration plan, but reacted critically to reports that Democratic leaders may try to move on the issue.

“If immigration comes up then that's the ultimate CYA politics,” Graham said. He warned against bringing up a bill in a “haphazard way.”

The Democrats are really planning on going out in blaze of, er, glory. Aren't they?

UPDATE: Arizona Governor has a press conference scheduled for 4:30 eastern today about the bill.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:18 AM | Comments (80)
Post contains 420 words, total size 3 kb.

Shocking, right? Much like David Brooks finding out Obama isn't really a moderate, it was totally unforeseeable by everyone.

This isn't some wingnut study, it's from Obama's own Department of Health and Human Services.

President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law will increase the nation's health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation.

A report by economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department said the health care remake will achieve Obama's aim of expanding health insurance -- adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls.

But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, however, since the report also warned that Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, forcing lawmakers to roll them back.

The mixed verdict for Obama's signature issue is the first comprehensive look by neutral experts.

...The report from Medicare's Office of the Actuary carried a disclaimer saying it does not represent the official position of the Obama administration.

The official position of the Obama administration is that this bill will lead to everyone getting a Unicorn processed of magical healing powers thus eliminating any need for health care.

So, with the law safely signed and on the books Now It Can Be Told! This is nothing more than a scheme to give poor, mostly Democratic voters, health care coverage at the expense of everyone else.

Hmmm. Not sure why they didn't make that their major selling point all along. Must be all that Obama "pragmatism" we heard so much about.

It's actually going to cost much more because as the report notes, most of the spending cuts are never going to happen and that's going to lead to, wait for it, new taxes and wait for it again, decreased economic growth.

Jim Geraghty notes a fair number of endangered Democrats justified their health care votes on cost cutting grounds. They've now got some 'splainning to do.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:44 AM | Comments (172)
Post contains 399 words, total size 3 kb.