This thread sponsored by Old Spice.

**OK, by special request, here is a link to the Hot Old Spice Guy.**

There were a lot of great suggestions in last Sunday’s thread and I promise I’ll get to them, but in light of the events this past week I thought it’d be nice to use the travel thread to talk about the places we’ve visited – or would like to visit someday – that renew our spirits and inspire us to carry on. Through all the struggles we endure in our every day lives, where do we go to find solace? Where do we feel closer to God (or feel a part of some Bigger Meaning, irrespective of if one believes in a higher power)? I think this is a primal urge that humans have – to find meaning and purpose for our lives beyond those that we share as animals (eating, drinking, reproducing, surviving). It’s a central part of who we are and one that I think it’s important to nourish. Travel can be a great way to do that.

Back in the day, I had a chance to do a fair amount of traveling (although not nearly as much as many of our globe-trotting morons and ‘ettes). These are some of my favorite “sacred” places (below the jump):
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:04 PM | Comments (232)
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We haven't had a new thread for awhile, so let me see if I can slap something together here.

OK, so I hope you all remember the classic "chalice from the palace" bit from the Danny Kaye movie The Court Jester. If you don't, here it is, in all it's tongue-twisting glory:

Me, I think this is almost as good as Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" sketch, but, as the poet says, YMMV. What you may not know, however, is that this is not an original comedy bit. It appears to have borrowed heavily from a similar routine in this 1939 Bob Hope movie:

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:45 PM | Comments (278)
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Ah yes, tomorrow is Groundhog Day. You know, Punxsutawney Phil is more accurate with his predictions than so-called climate scientists and their global warming models.

Speaking of Groundhog Day, here's an interesting question. How long was Bill Murray stuck in Groundhog Day?
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Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (574)
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2013 political fundraising numbers out and outside conservative groups are doing very well.

Four Republican-leaning groups with close ties to the party’s leadership in Congress — Crossroads and its “super PAC” affiliate; the Congressional Leadership Fund; and Young Guns Action — raised a combined $7.7 million in 2013. By contrast, four conservative organizations that have battled Republican candidates deemed too moderate or too yielding on spending issues — FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth Action Fund, the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Tea Party Patriots — raised a total of $20 million in 2013, according to Federal Election Commission reports filed on Friday.

“This is by far the biggest nonelection year we’ve ever had,” said Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which has feuded with party organizations. “It shows how committed people are to electing true conservatives and to advancing conservative principles.”

Now when you add in the party committees like the RNC, National Republican Senatorial Committee, The Republican Governor's Association and the National Republican Congressional Committee, the "establishment" is going to have far more money.

The thing is the outside groups don't have to go dollar for dollar with the establishment ones because the outsiders are usually targeting their money to a few primary campaigns. The "establishment" groups have to spend money playing defense against the outside groups and the Democrats, so a 1:1 dollar match isn't all that important.

No wonder Team GOP types like to pretend that the Ted Cruz and Senate Conservative Fund types are only in it for the filthy money...they are losing their stranglehold on the life blood of politics and the poor dears don't like it very much.

Fun fact: Karl Rove's Crossroads fund only raised $6 million last year. Now, it's an off year after a Presidential year in which they raised hundreds of millions so maybe they backed off a bit to avoid donor fatigue and will ramp up this year. Or...people didn't like giving all that money with precious little to show for it.

Time will tell if it's a blip or the start of a trend.

But it's something these outsider groups should keep in mind...it's great to raise all this money but you can't be seen wasting it, either on non-candidate expenses or on races where you back too many loser.

Like anything else in life, if you want people's money, you better produce.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:08 AM | Comments (269)
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While you're waiting for Dave's official Cavalcade of Elbows, you might want to check this out. This is more egregious than the usual Guess the Party situation.

As Newsbusters tells the tale, within the short space of 40 seconds, (MS)NBC's Brian Williams reported on two politicians caught up in scandal -- Tray Radel, the Florida Congressman who was busted with cocaine and who just resigned over that infraction, and former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, on trial for 21 counts of bribery in accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars for awarding city contracts to companies that bought his favor.

Within 40 seconds, these two stories were reported (briefly). The party affiliation of one of the men was reported, but not the other.

Can you guess the party which was prominently mentioned in this story, and which party went entirely unmentioned?

Spoiler Alert: Yes, you can guess. More specifically, you can guess with 100% accuracy.

For years, I have made this point: This persistent bias in reporting can be almost entirely cured by simply writing, into each news organization's style book, a directive as to when to report a misbehaving politician's partisan affiliation (always) and where in the story to do so (the headline, always).

There is one simple reason the media does not include such an unbiased rule in their stylebooks: They wish to be biased. To make an even-handed rule would limit their ability to do just what Brian Williams did last night -- to use their own partisan leanings to decide if they should note the political affiliation of a corrupt or embarrassing politician -- and they do not wish to be even-handed.

They want to keep on doing this, forever, and forever, and forever more.

By the way: Also note that Tray Radel's infraction can be characterized as "personal misbehavior" (a la Clinton) whereas Nagin's trespass -- bribery -- gets right to the heart of job performance, that is, his position within the political structure.

Thus, Nagin's misbehavior is more political and has more to do with actual political outcomes than Radel's, which is more personal, and has almost nothing to do with political issues our outcomes.

And yet, and yet. Brian Williams wanted you to know Radel is a Republican, and he wished desperately to make you forget that Nagin is a Democrat.

At the link, Newsbusters recounts some recent media refusals to label Democrats as such (for example, Bob Filner, the 20 year Congressman and progressive wingman to Nancy Pelosi, turns out to not belong to any political party, in the media's reportage at least). Video at the link too.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (117)
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Greetings gardening morons and ‘ettes! Welcome to your Saturday gardening thread. Without further ado, here's some thread-fodder...

Fun facts about plants from Better Homes & Gardens:

Tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio, honoring the part A. W. Livingston of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, played in popularizing the tomato in the late 1800s.

(Pretty sure homemade root beer is the official state beverage of Utah.)

From a botanical standpoint, avocados and pumpkins are fruits, not vegetables, because they bear the plants' seeds. Rhubarb, on the other hand, is a vegetable.

This is just an excuse to post a clip from one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies:

If you've never seen Zorro: The Gay Blade, I highly recommend it. Very silly. George Hamilton is one of the kings of camp.

Below the jump... take it away, WeirdDave!
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:53 AM | Comments (266)
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Happy Saturday, horde.

Today begins a series on the yin and yang of the car world: The Mutts and Jeffs. The Beauties and the Beasts.

In the car world, beauty is somewhat relative, and without the awkward, ill-designed dog of a car that offends one's senses, could we truly appreciate the graceful lines of a beautiful automobile?

Countrysquire reports this week on those cars that are so ugly, some might call them cute:

This plan for this weekÂ’s Saturday Car Thread post was to write about the most beautiful cars on the planet. Knowing how our discussions typically progress (or digress), it made sense to begin with an ugly car thread today and follow with the good stuff next week.

A quick internet search will pull up a number of top-10 lists of cars that have been judged to be ugly, but some cars make those lists simply because they were poorly built or were hated for some other reason. I tried to keep this list focused only on styling and not let other negative characteristics come into play. While most of vehicles listed were available here in the states, some from other markets were simply too bad to ignore. Eastern-bloc built cars are not included because they all were awful, as were those built before the late ‘20s. There were literally hundreds of different auto manufacturers before the Great Depression and the coach-building technology was very primitive. Most closed cars had an upper body comprised of a simple wooden frame wrapped with sheet metal, and the designs never integrated well with the rest of the car. As we’ll see next week, that all changed in the 1930s.

So letÂ’s get our hate on and look at a few of these:

Citroen Ami:

‘Ami’ is one of the few French words that I know. It means friend, of course, and who doesn’t like to have an ugly friend? The color coordination on the one pictured is horrible, but does seem to fit it quite well.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 PM | Comments (357)
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Let me be the first to welcome you to February. It's a chilly but blissfully short little month where sports go to die (unless you're one of those hockey-loving weirdos like Drew M. and Ben K.).

Posted by: andy at 03:57 AM | Comments (296)
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