More courting of the values vote, this time by immunizing oneself against "Redneck Cooties."

Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and committee chairman, responds to concerns by Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord, North Carolina, that committee staffers should be immunized against certain diseases before attending NASCAR races.

...

"I have been to numerous NASCAR races, and the folks who attend these events certainly do not pose any health hazard to congressional staffers or anyone else," Mr. Hayes said.

A committee staffer says that the Republican staffers have declined the shots but that two Democrat staffers were immunized before attending the race at Talladega last weekend.

The NRCC is having a bit of fun with this. Here's their press release:

Talladega Frights: Democrats Allergic to NASCAR Nation?

Leading Democrat Displays Ignorance of NASCAR Voters, Advises Staff to Get Immunized Prior to Contact

Washington– Democrats seem to have traded in their usual white flag of surrender for a caution flag as they prepared to travel to Alabama and North Carolina for two of NASCAR's biggest races of the year. While red-blooded, patriotic Americans were packing their coolers and gathering their families in preparation of attending last week's race at Talladega, a leading Democrat was advising staff to get immunized.

Maybe the House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson was afraid his fellow Democrats might come down with a case of Red State Republicanism after coming in contact with hundreds of thousands of regular Americans attending the event. No matter what his reasoning, Thompson's ignorant behavior is inexcusable and clearly exposes the fundamental disconnect between the Democrat-led Congress and the rest of America.

In a letter to Thompson, Congressman Robin Hayes (R-NC) registered his disbelief:

"I have been to numerous NASCAR races, and the folks who attend these events certainly do not pose any health hazard to congressional staffers or anyone else. "

(Letter from Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) 10/5/07)

Trillion dollar tax hikes, removal of "God" from American flag certificates, and now advised immunizations for Congressional staff attending NASCAR events. What's next from the Democrat-led Congress?

The Democratic Party thinks you're anti-Christian, stupid, racist, and diseased.

Please consider voting for them. They can help you.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (78)
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Real? I dunno. Ringling Bros. has real unicorns, doesn't it?

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (27)
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Wow. Now that's courting the Values Vote, accusing them of Templar-like blasphemies.

Reid also told reporters the Republican Party has been driven by evangelical Christians for 20 years. “They are the most anti-Christian people I can imagine, the people from the Christian far right.”

In other red-meat religio-political news, Ann Coulter quips that Jews in America need to be "perfected" into Christians:

COULTER: But yeah, I think that's reflective of what's going on in the culture, but it is completely striking that at these huge megachurches -- the idea that, you know, the more Christian you are, the less tolerant you would be is preposterous.

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or --

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly -- you're too educated, you can't -- you're like my friend in --

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean --

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don't I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can't believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, "Let's wipe Israel" --

COULTER: I don't know if you've been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: "Let's wipe Israel off the earth." I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners --

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued -- when you say something absurd like that, there's no --

COULTER: What's absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I'm going to go off and try to perfect myself --

COULTER: Well, that's what the New Testament says.

DEUTSCH: Ann Coulter, author of If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, and if Ann Coulter had any brains, she would not say Jews need to be perfected. I'm offended by that personally. And we'll have more Big Idea when we come back.

An impolitic remark to be sure but part of standard Christian theology -- Christians are supposed to believe that Christianity is for everybody, etc. It's an enduring problem: How does a Christian preach his faith as he's supposed to without creating the inevitable (and necessary) implication that unless you're a Christian you're not redeemed and going to hell?

Stuff like this doesn't offend me, despite the fact that I fall into that unredeemed and hellbound category, because I do understand the basic tenet of the faith. I don't think most secular or nonchristian people do, mainly because almost all of the Christians they know have resolved that tension by strongly downplaying the "testify for Christ" aspect of the religion in the interests of politeness, etc. I have no problem with that take either, and, not being a believing Christian, really have no expertise with which to weigh in on such a charged topic.

I note that few religions call themselves "One of Several Correct Religions," and that the Jewish faith, for example, teaches that the Jews are the Chosen People, not a Chosen People. It's fairly standard for religions to assert their metaphysical rectitude and superiority, but we only seem to have these controversies when a Christian expresses it.

I can't fault Jews, Buddhists, atheists, etc., for being peeved when they hear a Christian say that Christianity is the true religion, but I think part of the annoyance is reserved exclusively for Christianity. Even when radical Islamofascists assert all nonbelievers, "polytheists," and "infidels" are going to hell, it usually rates nary a peep from the elite academic/media opinion-mongers. The scorn for a religion asserting its superiority -- again, perfectly commonplace -- seems reserved only for those who believe in Christ.

Putting Me Some F'n' Knowledge: I suppose I shouldn't have said so broadly that "Christians' feel an obligation to testify to all, including Jews. ThomasD doesn't think that's true of Catholics, though I don't know and I'm not sure he's sure himself:

4 I'm pretty sure Catholicism has a work around for this problem. Basically it boils down to 'God doesn't break his deals.' Meaning that the Jews have a Covenent with God and as long as they abide by it they will be saved, no Jesus necessary.

Everyone else is expected to get with the program though...

He's speaking of the Old Testament "covenant," the deal between God and the Jews. Most of the more fundamentalist or charismatic or whatever Christians believe this covenant was replaced by a new covenant upon the resurrection of Christ. Which is to say the "deal" established by the Old Testament holds for all Jews who died before Christ announced his divinity and redeemed man.

Again, I'm not sure if it's true that Catholics believe the covenant continues or not, but as I don't know I thought it was important to correct myself.

Eric J explains the Chosen People thing:

Let me speak up a bit on that whole "Chosen People" thing. The Jewish belief is that G-d chose us to have a special relationship with him, and to follow particular laws of ritual purity. Effectively, we were to be a Nation of Priests.

For everyone else not of our tribe, there's a set of 7 laws given to the sons of Noah. Pretty much any monotheist is going to be cool, and have their place in The World to Come. (Now, there's some controversy about whether Trinitarians are in fact, monotheists, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.)

Which is why despite our controlling the media, you're not subjected to a lot of anti-shellfish and pork propaganda. We don't really care what you eat, as long as it's dead.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (163)
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Damascus Dan:

Foreign journalists perused the rows of corn and the groves of date palms pregnant with low-hanging fruit here this week, while agents of SyriaÂ’s ever present security services stood in the background, watching closely, almost nervously.

“You see — around us are farmers, corn, produce, nothing else,” said Ahmed Mehdi, the Deir ez Zor director of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands, a government agricultural research center, as he led two of the journalists around the facilities.

It was here at this research center in this sleepy Bedouin city in eastern Syria that an Israeli journalist reported that Israel had conducted an air raid in early September.

Ron Ben-Yishai, a writer for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, grabbed headlines when he suggested that the government facility here was attacked during the raid, snapping photos of himself for his article in front of a sign for the agricultural center.

He said he was denied access to the research center, which sits on the outskirts of the city, and he did not show any photos of the aftermath of the raid, though he said he saw some pits that looked like part of a mine or quarry, implying that they could also be sites where bombs fell.

His claims have compelled the Syrian government, already anxious over the rising tensions with Israel and the United States, to try to vindicate itself after a recent flurry of news reports that it may have ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.

President Bashar al-Assad, in a BBC interview, played down the Israeli raid, saying that Israeli jets took aim at empty military buildings, but he did not give a specific location. His statement differed from the initial Syrian claim that it had repulsed the air raid before an attack occurred.

Israel has been unusually quiet about the attack on Sept. 6 and has effectively imposed a news blackout about it. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli opposition leader, on Sept. 19 became the first public figure in Israel to acknowledge that an attack had even taken place. Some Israeli officials have said, though not publicly, that the raid hit a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip, but they have not specified where.

On Monday, journalists toured the agricultural center at the government’s invitation to prove, Mr. Mehdi said, that no nuclear weapons program or Israeli attacks occurred there. “The allegations are completely groundless, and I don’t really understand where all this W.M.D. talk came from,” Mr. Mehdi said, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

“There was no raid here — we heard nothing,“ he added.

There aren't the droids you're looking for. Sorry, that trick only works on the weak-willed.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (13)
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Before Python, Cleese and Chapman worked with Marty Feldman and some guy who would go on to to "The Goodies" (remember them?) in "At Last the 1948 Show." They did the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch there, which would later be seen in The Secret Policeman's Ball and various Monty Python live shows.

All tapes of this show were erased. Well, all but a couple. This site links the only video remaining. Here are the last remaining proto-Python sketches.

Below, the Four Yorkshiremen sketch as it was first aired. Marty Feldman seems kind of out of it.

Thanks to Dr. Reo Symes for the "Ur Python" as he calls it.

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (11)
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Are you f'n' kidding me? Don't we do that now?

Called part of the government "crackdown" on illegal immigration, the rule required employers to check for mismatches between names and social security numbers, and gave them three months to correct the error or fire the employee. Companies that failed to act faced possible fines.

"Crackdown". You keep using this word, crackdown. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'm generally not a fan of imposing the responsibilities of the government on the private sector. It shifts the cost and burden of accountability away from where it rightly belongs. That said, I understand employers have some responsibility here to ensure that SS funds are properly accounted for, and when they hire illegals they contribute to the problem.

And I'm also not too crazy about forcing the employer and the individual to depend on the effed up Social Security Administration to resolve problems.

Still, this seems pretty basic to me.

But then I'm a moron.

Posted by: Dave In Texas at 08:10 AM | Comments (40)
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But still a little funny. And dirty is enough.

Not safe for work. Pretty much almost porn, plus lots of profanity.

Porn Star Under Attack For Using Racial Slur in Sex Scene

Whoops: It's an Onion News Network piece, but it freezes on a particularly pornographic image from the thing. So it's tucked under the fold.

Don't click down unless you want a face full of NSFW.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:46 PM | Comments (26)
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Seriously -- kind of -- they're doing it partly on the pretext of breast cancer awareness.

The cover the classics first -- starting with Mae West -- before diving into the gutter like they should with the Russ Meyers girls.

Thanks to CKM.

Is It Too Late... to link the Blogger Boobiethon?

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (22)
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What's the lad's name?

Apparently there are emails... or supposedly, at least.

The National Enquirer claims to have enough of the Edwards cheating-on-cancer-stricken-wife story, including "bombshell" e-mails, to run with. ... P.S.: They "met in a bar."

Kaus has lots of links with those exclamation points that suggest there's more. I haven't dug in yet myself.

Shock: The MSM doesn't want to report this. Go figure.

Thanks to Dave At Garfield Ridge.

It's not old! Indeed, it's quite new!

Okay... Here's Kaus' dirt. Is he implying this as a guess or because he hears something but hasn't been legally cleared to say so?

In Kaus' bit, he notes the happy cheating couple met in a bar, then says "Sounds familiar!" with a hyperlink to this story about a woman producing Edwards' campaign "Webisodes:"

The Webisodes are the brainchild of Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker who met Edwards at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting. "I didn't think it was John Edwards," Hunter recalls, "because the public persona did not mesh at all with the person who was sitting in front of me." Hunter pitched Edwards on the documentaries as a medium for bringing the "real John Edwards" to the people.

Rielle Hunter?

Is that girl's name? I dunno.

A bit more:

Edwards still has a ways to go. In the midst of a short theme sequence that begins each Webisode, the camera lingers over the former senator's behind as he tucks a starched white shirt into his pants. Still, Hunter, now under contract with Edwards's organization, says she sees the untucked John Edwards coming more and more to the fore.

Hm. I'll bet.

She looks a bit like Lief Garrett, doesn't she?

Posted by: Ace at 05:41 PM | Comments (98)
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Not safe for work. But not so awful you'll be fired.

This is called "Real Talk," and I think the conceit is that this song is actually just a transcription of actual conversations on the phone, just set to an indifferent bit of music. They're pretty funny.

It's R. Kelly, and he's a pervert and has short-eyes, but this is fuckin' funny shit right here.

Thanks to Demure Thoughts.

Posted by: Ace at 05:25 PM | Comments (17)
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