At this point, the Giants, Cowboys and Packers are just fighting over who gets to lose to New Orleans and Minnesota.

At least I don't have to watch Dallas get stomped by New Orleans this Saturday night. Thank you, NFL Network.

Results from Ben:

buzzion 123
Superfly TNT 119
Peoples Republic of Baltimore 119
Truman the Greek 117
Michael in MI 117
moflicky 115
Nam Grunt 115
Monkey Sleeping 115
Svenster61 115
Carthago Delenda Est 114
Aewl 113
The Tards Ninja's 112
Uncle Screech 111
Murph 111
Sock Puppet Steve 111
Ben B+

That's right. I ain't even in B+ range but I'm getting close.

Posted by: Ace at 06:50 AM | Comments (18)
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Y'know that sci-fi villain who wants to use some God-like power to erase all of history and rewrite it in his image? I could totally do that.

Posted by: Ace at 05:25 AM | Comments (139)
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Andrew Sullivan once declared himself in the media the proprietor of "the most popular one-man blog on the internet."

One man?

Really?

His ghost-blogger -- that's right; it's come to this: ghost-blogging -- lets out the oh-so-sad truth:

As always, it a pleasure to step in while Andrew gets some much needed rest. Guest-blogging is not all that different than my day-to-day activities on the Dish – 24 of the 50 posts currently on the front page were written by me. All the substantive posts are Andrew's work, but it's my and Chris's job to read through the blogosphere and pick out the choicest bits. Andrew edits, approves, and spins what we find, but the illusion of an all-reading blogger is maintained by employing two extra sets of eyes.

Substantive posts = Trig Trutherism and anti-semitic conspiracy theories.

And the posts he is referring to are those printed before Sullivan's hiatus -- when Sullivan was supposedly posting all this material himself.

Now Andrew Sullivan is an excitable type feller, and he attracts an excitable type audience. So this revelation caused some great upset with his stupid readers, See, Andrew Sullivan whines endlessly that his blog's lapses into lunacy must be excused and overlooked, because his blog (unlike, um, no other blogs) is intensely "personal" and utterly "honest."

So his readers are a bit butthurt to discover half the blog isn't personal to Sullivan at all, and all of it is dishonest.

So here's the whining and back-pedaling. A mention that all is not forgiven among those once famously cadged into paying for Sullivan's supposed $100,000 bandwidth and site design costs:

Life As Part Of Sully's Brain

by Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

To learn that nearly half the posts on Andrew's blog are not his posts proper (but admittedly prepared under his aegis) is somewhat disheartening. I think the blog owes it to the readers and its own high standards to start putting bylines on all posts.

We tried bylines once and it made the blog read funny. Almost all the posts I write are naked links or excerpts, which makes Andrew a weather-vane in the gale of the larger debate.

I've marinated in Sullivan's cerebral juices for a few years now and know intuitively what he interested in and what to bring to his attention. If Chris and I were forced to byline the posts we write under Andrew's supervision, we would have to own those opinions and draw contrasts with Andrew, as we do when he takes vacations. Bylines would fracture the solitary voice of the blog.

Bylines would reveal the solitary voice of the blog is not the solitary voice of the blog. Is that what he means by "read funny"?

I've got bylines here; do they "read funny"? They don't read at all, half the time; a lot of the time, people don't even notice who is writing whose posts.

This is, simply, a fiction, a lie. Bylines don't make blogs read funny anymore than author's bylines in collections of fiction make the collection "read funny" -- unless by "read funny" it is meant that the editor who put together the collection wishes to take credit for items not his own by obscuring the truth authorship.

And -- "stewed in Sullivan's cerebral juices"? Did you get your shots first, dude? You are aware, I trust, that he's the most notorious schizophrenic on the internet.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:53 AM | Comments (178)
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Happy Monday all. Just 10 more shopping days until Christmas. Stressed yet?

When the Asian Carp Get Out of Hand, the Rednecks go Bow Fishing
Bows - is there any problem they can't solve?

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:10 PM | Comments (574)
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The London Time reports:

...In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”...

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,”

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:38 PM | Comments (96)
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You don't even need to try on the glasses to see the message.

Thanks to Slublog, who provided most of the jokes and all of the work.

Posted by: Ace at 05:10 PM | Comments (75)
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He wants to be known as the deficit-fightin' president, you know.

In March, President Obama announced he would sign a $410 billion omnibus spending bill containing, according to taxpayersÂ’ groups, 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion, but he said he would push to reform the earmark system. He seemed a little embarrassed about the whole deal, refusing to sign the bill in public or even to release a photograph.

...

Today Gibbs was asked if the President was contemplating vetoing the $447 billion omnibus spending bill passed by the Senate yesterday -- which has more than 5,000 earmarks – as a way of sending a signal to Democrats to stop the earmarks and wasteful spending.

...

Gibbs said he was “led to believe” President Obama would sign the bill.

In related news, the Santa Claus is coming, and he will give all the children B+'s.

Anyone remember the days, just a short 350 days ago, when the supply of paper money was not infinite?

Crazy, huh? That old-timey economics.

All seems as quaint now as listening to serials on the radio and providing for your children.

Update: Gabe tells me the major media are faking the number -- the $447 billion (with a B+) is for discretionary spending only.

The whole bill is for $1.1 trillion when you include nondiscretionary spending, which you should.

He writes:

However, the WashTimes, AP, The Hill, and Politico noted the truer $1.1 trillion number. WaPo, NYTimes, Roll Call did not.

So sorry, I B-plussed it up.

Posted by: Ace at 03:02 PM | Comments (120)
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Tipped by Intrepid.

I actually should have waited until I got confirmation but I tend to trust strangers on the internet posting under false names.

I give my reporting skills a "B+."

Link: TPM confirms the basic story.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) just walked walked into the Democrats all-important caucus meeting tonight sounding defeatest about the chance that a Medicare buy-in or public option trigger will survive Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) decision to block the compromises this weekend.

Asked by a reporter if the Medicare buy-in will be pulled out, Harkin said "looks that way," before praising a Democratic health care bill without the two public option compromises.

"There's enough good in this bill that even without those two, we gotta move," he said. "All the insurance reforms, all the stuff we wrote so hard for prevention and wellness in there, the workforce development issues that we have in there, the reimbursement based on quality not on quantity -- there's good stuff in this bill. It's a giant step forward, changing the paradigm of health care in America."

Confirmed: Major Garrett reports Harkin says the Reid Medicare Option is now out of ObamaCare.

More: Garrett also reports Lieberman can vote for the rest of the package, which is bad news, but not really new news, as he essentially already said he'd vote for the bill if it just contained the "subsidies" and restrictions on insurers.

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (98)
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Which is a half-vote majority, 218-217.

Cook rates 160 Democratic seats "safe," 39 seats "shaky," and the 21 most imperiled seats "a solid B+."

There's my commentary. That's what I got right now. Sorry, all I've got is an endless series of B+ jokes.

It's not my fault. Society made me this way.

Posted by: Ace at 02:21 PM | Comments (43)
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Arizona (8-4) vs. San Francisco (5-7).

Solid B+

Also, I put up a Bowl Pickem Group this weekend if you're interested. Group id 26976, password "paulanka".

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:04 PM | Comments (40)
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