Well, I’m sold.

How about you?

Hillary’s campaign takes a nice shot Dr. Martin Luther Obama in an ad airing in Wisconsin:

It’s typical of frontrunners to avoid debating, however, Obama is supposedly so brilliant and loaded with ideas and change and all that other crap, you’d think he would jump at the chance to spew forth with his meaningless populism a few more times.

Pandora is a cat truly enamored with her litterbox. She loves playing around in it and spends an inordinate amount of time rooting around, but not actually “going.”

Any other cat owners have something similar with their bundles of feline joy?

It’s a few days late, but it’s the first time I’ve been with my family since my birthday

• Hotclock
  The script Leo Laporte uses for his break reminders on his radio show.
  (tags: radio broadcasting clock broadcast)

You know a song is bad when even Eddie Vedder won’t sing it… Yep, this is Pearl Jam. On lead vocals? One of the guitar players.

Yep. This is the world we face if El Insipido is elected.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

ABC News really sums up my feelings on the campaign about nothing.

Joe Klein, writing at Time, notes “something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism” he sees in Obama’s Super Tuesday speech.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said. “This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It’s different not because of me. It’s different because of you.”

Says Klein: “That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.”

You already know I’m going to tell you to go read the whole thing, so get your ass moving and kudos to ABC News for having the stones to say it. They’re the first mainstream outlet I’ve seen that isn’t dazzled by him just because he doesn’t speak ghetto.

These are my favorites. Did I miss any?

Full commercial here

Barack Obama has really pounded home his message of hope and change. Oh sure it doesn’t actually mean anything, but that hasn’t stopped him from injecting those two stupid meaningless words into every sentence of every speech since he was one of 7 other candidates. One of the consistent themes is that it won’t be politics as usual if we believe in hope and change and elect Barack Obama as President. He’s going to end the politics of fear and bring this great divided country back together.

Asked about Clinton’s recent comment that she would not allow herself to be victimized by the type of Swift Boat-style attacks that were leveled against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 race, Obama said he had been vetted by his opponent in the nominating campaign.

“I have to just respond by saying that the Clinton research operation is about as good as anybody’s out there,” he said.

“I assure you that having engaged in a contest against them for the last year that they’ve pulled out all the stops. And you know I think what is absolutely true is whoever the Democratic nominee is the Republicans will go after them. The notion that somehow Senator Clinton is going to be immune from attack or there’s not a whole dump truck they can’t back up in a match between her and John McCain is just not true.”

Translation: Vote for me or the dirt they dig up on Hillary will make her lose and we’ll have at least four more years of Republicans.

“I have no doubt that I can get the people who vote for Senator Clinton. … It’s not clear that Senator Clinton can get all the people I’m getting,” he said.

Translation: No worries, folks. No division here. It’s all in your imagination. Her people versus my people isn’t division, it’s hope. Or change. Or something.

So how exactly is this not politics as usual?

Source

Romney’s campaign has gone off the deep end…

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign accused Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee of “a backroom deal” that gave the early Super Tuesday win in West Virginia to Huckabee.

Romney, who addressed the state GOP convention in person Tuesday, comfortably led the first ballot at the convention, leading to a three-way second ballot contest between the three contenders.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic reported Tuesday that, after the first ballot, McCain’s campaign called his supporters there and urged them to vote in favor of Huckabee.

“Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change,” Beth Myers, Romney’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

HUH?

Does that make any sense to anyone at all?

Jeff Jarvis makes a good point…

Two things trouble me about the Obama campaign: First, its reliance on empty rhetoric: “Change” and now “yes, we can.” But change how? Can do what? And second, the candidate’s lack of experience is an issue. I fear that we could end up with Jimmy Carter: a well-meaning incompetent, as it turned out, rather than the Second Coming of the Kennedy; there’s just no way to know now. Worse, we could end up with someone who tries to backfill the rhetoric and defines change in ways we didn’t bet on.

I hear people saying that Obama’s impressive oratory gives them something to believe in. That sounds nice. But that, too, is dangerous. I don’t want to hire a spiritual leader for the White House. We have someone now who thinks he stands on spiritual principles and backfilled his definition of them in disastrous ways.

No, I want to hire a manager: tough and experienced and practical. That is what we need, especially now.

And now the requisite plea to read the whole thing.

I’ve spent a lot of time on here lately pointing out just how empty Barack Obama’s campaign really is. From the vapid promises to the supporters who know nothing about him to his non-existent record, there’s not much about Barack Obama worth talking about. Oh sure he’s the darling of the media and all they can talk about is how he’s black and he speaks well (as if a man running for President should show up at the debate yelling “I’m gone be Prez-o-dent”) but despite the folks that are ramming Obama down everyone’s throat, I never bought into the “hope” and “change” stuff.

I’ve also never bought into the “inspirational” thing, because if you need an outside person to inspire you, you probably should be looking elsewhere than a political candidate. That being said, some people have credentials, and some people have promises.

Hillary Clinton has credentials.

The automatic assumption, based on skin color no doubt, is that Barack Obama is a uniter. Hillary Clinton, however, has proved after working in the Senate for 8 years that she’s a doer, not a talker, and that’s evidenced by her 60% approval rating in a state where people were sharply divided about even electing her in the first place. She’s so popular in New York, in fact, that the GOP didn’t even run an actual candidate against her in the last Senatorial election.

That’s inspirational.

Though unsuccessful, she immediately acted as soon as she became First Lady to become more than just a figurehead for the President and spokesperson for some governmental program, and began working on a plan that would guarantee health insurance for all americans. Her reputation as an active First Lady often drew scorn and the term “bitch” has been used to describe her more times than I care to count, but in the end, she has forever changed the perception of the duties of the First Lady.

That’s inspirational.

In the 1960’s, when the civil rights movement was ramping up, she was there in the trenches. In 1965, she challenged segregation by bringing a black classmate to her all-white church, causing a minor uproar at the church. In 1995, she gave a speech in China that criticized China for its continued oppression of women. In many ways, Hillary Clinton has spent most of her adult life fighting for the rights of women both in the United States and abroad, and despite being diplomatic at times, spares no one from criticism for their policies when they’re anti-woman. She’s been on the front lines since day one.

That’s inspirational.

In 2006, she voted against the bill and constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, proving that free speech is exactly that; free speech. Despite the unpopular nature of her opinion, she stuck to it and voted against it. Free speech is free speech; end of story.

That’s inspirational.

When her husband cheated on her with an intern in the Oval Office, instead of running out, playing the oppressed woman, and breaking up her marriage and family, she stood by her husband, much to the chagrin of many who thought it demonstrated weakness on her part. Most of those same people, of course, patted David Vitter’s wife on the back for forgiving her husband for a similar indiscretion. In the end, Hillary and Bill Clinton are still married and, as far as we know, happily so.

That’s inspirational.

While I’ve disagreed with Hillary Clinton over the years on many an issue (Affirmative action being one, her endorsement of punishing hate crimes differently another), her rise to become one of the most influential Senators in Washington is nothing short of incredible. Rising from an idealistic young college protestor to the First Lady of Arkansas to a prototypical new-age First Lady in Washington to a Senator in one of the biggest states in the country to a candidate for President of the United States is a story that’s not matched by anyone in this election or in any elections past.

If you seek your inspiration in someone’s ability to speak, then by all means, go with the silver-tongued Senator from Illinois. If, however, you want a story that’s just a hair more substantive than “she can speak really well!” then do what you have to do today. Vote for Hillary Clinton to represent the Democratic Party in November.

This is totally hysterical…

Thanks Joe!

For those of you who don’t know, Joe is a great oratator too. Just like Jesse Jackson.

via Buzzmachine

I saw an article in today’s New York Times that really bares repeating…

One of two Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza who apparently sneaked into Israel from the Egyptian Sinai blew himself up at a shopping center in this southern desert town on Monday. He killed an Israeli woman and wounded 11 people, medical officials said.

Israeli police at the scene of a suicide bombing in Dimona, Israel, on Monday.

It was the first suicide attack in Israel in more than a year.

The second bomber failed to detonate his explosive belt and was shot dead by a police officer, a police spokesman said.

Militant groups in Gaza made the names of the attackers public later on Monday, saying they had come from Gaza.

Over the previous 11 days, residents of Gaza were able to move in and out of Egypt with relative ease because of a temporary breach in the Gaza-Egypt border. The Egyptian military resealed the border on Sunday, and crowds began to gather at the crossing on Monday. One Palestinian was killed and 16 people were wounded, including Egyptian border guards, when the guards used tear gas and fired on the crowd, according to medical officials in Gaza.

Did you catch what I caught?

A breach in the border? Border “resealed?”

Doesn’t anyone see what’s going on here?

The Arab countries in the Middle East are desperate for us to feel the plight of the poor Palestinian people, yet when it comes time for the Palestinians to enter another Arabic country, they’re kept in refuge camps and segregated from the population. Instead of allowing the free movement between countries that they constantly demand of Israel, they seal their own borders and restrict entry.

Why?

Because the myth of Palestinian oppression only exists so long as the rich Arab nations surrounding Israel can keep fomenting hatred by not allowing Palestinians to move on from the areas they lay claim to. And the left in this country falls all over themselves to sympathize and continuously blame Israel for all the ills of the terrorist-controlled Palestinian territories.

In chess, we call them pawns.

• A Brief History of the Sitcom - Funny Videos | Cracked.com
  The history of the sitcom. No shit!
  (tags: sitcom funny history video)

Jen at Gothamist didn’t like my original post proving their pro-Obama out of touch bullshit. In an addition to the post I quoted, they’ve added the following…

Vinny at Insignificant Thoughts thinks there is scientific information showing who people will vote for and links to some polling data indicating Clinton is a favorite. However, the polls still include Edwards as an option and do not slice the data to the NYC-level - we can see how Hillary is a popular choice for New York state, given her years of getting to know upstaters.

And, hey, if we see a Hillary Clinton - or Mitt Romney/John McCain/Mike Huckabee - bake sale, we’ll let you know. Or you can let us know - tag your photo on Flickr with “gothamist” or send the photo to photos(at)gothamist(dot)com.

Jesus Christ, Jen. Yet another myth that takes about two seconds to defeat. Yes, the polls listed did, at the time, count Edwards because he hadn’t left the race yet (imagine that? They were counting a guy that was still in the race at the time?). I’m guessing that Jen was trying to prove the data that RCP was using was stale. EPIC FAIL JEN. Even so, at most, he was pulling 11%.

It just so happens, however, that RCP has updated their NY Primary polling data, without John Edwards, and guess what? Hillary is still beating Barack Obama by an average of 20 points.

Here’s the relevant data with John Edwards removed, again updated after he dropped out of the race (in other words after my original post…

That literally would’ve taken one click, but instead Jen chose to disprove my data by bringing up an irrelevant argument. After all, we know that Real Clear Politics is nowhere near the source for political polling that flickr is.

They should go back to talking about graffiti and third-rate comics and authors.

I’ve been cringing every time I hear it… There’s a horrible story out of Iraq proving the kind of savages these folks are capable of being (and by these folks I mean the “insurgents,” “terrorists” or as Patty Murray would call them, “Freedom Fighters)…

More than 90 deaths in Baghdad are being blamed on two suicide bombers.

The were women who are believed to have been mentally retarded and may have been unwittingly used for the killings. Authorities say both had been strapped with remote-controlled explosives.

The coordinated blasts, coming 20 minutes apart in different parts of the city Friday, appear to reinforce U.S. claims that al-Qaida-in-Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men to carry out such missions.

More cringeworthy than the story itself is the absolute idiocy I hear coming out of people’s mouths with regards to it being a “new low” for Al Qaeda. What? A “new” low? Let’s examine some of Al Qaeda’s handiwork over the past few years…

3000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks. Their crime? Going to work.

They were linked to the organization that did the Bali bombings at a resort that killed 202 people, most of whom were on vacation.

They killed 191 people in Madrid for being bold enough to ride a train.

224 people were killed in 1998 at various US African embassies.

Thousands more have been maimed and killed at the hands of Al Qaeda, most of them innocent people going about their daily business. Hundreds of men, women, and children were killed on 9/11 inside the planes, completely not counting the ones that died in the buildings.

After all those deaths of innocents, this is a new low?

Go fuck yourselves.

Why? Because they’re retarded? Have we gotten so lost in political correctness that we can call the death of two people “a new low” over the deaths of thousands of other innocent people?

Not for nothing, but I really hope someone has the balls to dare and tell me to my face this is a “new low” so I have an excuse to knock them the fuck out. Anyone who thinks that way is a moron and deserves a swift punch, so do your country and common sense a service. Introduce these idiots to your knuckles. My guess is they need to meet.

• Pizza Showdown: The Best Delivery Pizza for Your Super Bowl Party
  Good to know in case you’re having a Super Bowl party with more than two guests. No, I’m not bitter.
  (tags: pizza food dining restaurants)