Tonight CBS Evening News will air the first part of Mike Wallace's interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We've already gotten a preview, however, of Wallace's impressions of the Iranian leader:

Of Ahmadinejad, Wallace said, "He's an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He's obviously smart as hell."

Wallace said he was surprised to find that the Iranian president was still a college professor who taught a graduate-level course.

"You'll find him an interesting man," he said. "I expected more of a firebrand. I don't think he has the slightest doubt about how he feels ... about the American administration and the Zionist state. He comes across as more rational than I had expected."

This is reminiscent of the way journalists and others would react after meeting Hitler. He wasn't a raving lunatic, like I expected! He was calm! Rational! Even Charming! (I wonder whether Ahmadinejad is a vegetarian.) What did Wallace expect? That a village idiot somehow ended up running a nation of 68 million?

From: "Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106

"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.

While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.

'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'

I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.

'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights." [Carlson, Talk, 9/99]

[Ed. Note: During the Larry King-Faye Tucker exchange, Tucker never asked to be spared.]

posted by tbogg at 12:39 AM

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Thursday, August 10, 2006

 

"Who's your baddy? C'mon, say it! Say it!
Who's your baddy?"

Between the desire
And the spasm

This morning:

One word that you'll note that is missing from first coverage--well here, see for yourselves:

Sky News' Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said those arrested were mainly young, British-born Asian men.

The missing word is "Muslim." Young, Muslim men from Pakistan. Bloomberg News mentions the word in its report, not to describe the suspects, but only in a stupid bit of editorializing

and

No. I am sick to death of tiptoeing around this issue of the true nature of our enemies. That kind of “sensitivity” may be fine when speaking about groups with legitimate grievances against society. I am not necessarily totally against the notion of what we on the right sometimes mis-identify as political correctness.

But the time has come to put away childish things and grow up. Our enemies will not give us much leeway to indulge us our puerile need to universalize this threat lest we offend someone. They have no such problem in identifying who they see as the enemy. Why should we?

Tonight:

The British authorities said Thursday that they had thwarted an advanced terrorist plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States using liquid explosives that would have escaped airport security.

The officials said they had arrested 24 men, all British-born Muslims, who planned to carry the liquids in drink bottles and combine them into explosive cocktails to commit mass murder aboard as many as 10 flights high over the Atlantic.

Oh, yeah...sweet release.

Thus concludes this episode of Red States/Blue Balls

In other news:

Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D. That same number admit that they do hold some "prejudice" against Muslims.

Upon reaching fifty percent, Internment Camp Fever will take hold and the government will then raise the Official Michelle Malkin Lubrication Advisory from "Florida Humid" to "Atlantis".

posted by tbogg at 11:49 PM

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Everybody is a critic

I was looking for a book to take to the beach last weekend and I started looking for some of the titles that I had picked up, waiting for the mood to strike me. And it was kind of like this:

Where is Stiff?

Beckham ate it.

Okay, how about King Leopolds Ghost?

Beckham. Totally shredded.

I know I have a copy of The Historian which looks like good summer readi-

Beckham. Like it exploded...

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell?



The Stone That the Builder Refused



So for those who are new here, now you know why he has a reputation.

Now where is my copy of Dark Side of The Moon....

posted by tbogg at 10:09 PM

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From Townhouse to Outhouse

Atrios was in Connecticut helping out the Lamont campaign which, of course, made him part of Lamont's inner circle allowing Atrios to try and convince Ned to refer to Joe Lieberman as a "wanker", but to no avail. So caught up in the excitement was he, Atrios committed the blogging version of a mortal sin and posted what appear to be cleverly Photoshopped pictures of people in blackface which will probably make the Novemeber election a lot tighter than it needs to be.

Kos is going to be sooooo pissed.

posted by tbogg at 9:22 PM

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Pre-Friday Random Ten

Louise is the girl with the perfect skin
She says turn on the light, otherwise it can't be seen
She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin
And she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan

To be honest I'm getting tired of doing these (it's kind of played out), but I do enjoy the suggestions in the comments, so we'll keeping it going for awhile. Here you go:

Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song) - Fionna Apple
Horsey - Hem*
The Moon Song - Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny**
Maxwell Murder - Rancid***
Blackhawk - Emmylou Harris
Moby Octopad - Yo La Tengo
My Life As A Creep - The Minus 5
Smoke It - The Dandy Warhols
There Goes The Fear - Doves
Perfect Skin - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

Bonus #11 (Something Else Is) Working Harder - The Golden Palominos

Okay. I have to admit, that was a pretty good shuffle.

*Hem will be playing the House Of Blues in San Diego on 9/15 and for $10 a ticket, it's a steal. Unfortunately the Black Keys will be playing that same night at The Casbah. Crap. That a tough call.
**Charlie Haden and Quartet West at The Lobrero in Santa Barbara on 11/29. Looks like a trip north is called for.
***Rancid three nights at the House of Blues. 10/8, 10/15, 10/16. We just saw them with Tiger Army about six months ago. 10/8 is an all-ages, so the lovely and talented Casey can go.

posted by tbogg at 8:01 PM

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Thursday Night Basset Blogging

The TDoggs - Beckham & Satchmo(clickable)

I'm not sure how he does it, but Beckham has a knack for sticking out his tongue just as the flash goes off. I'm not sure if he's messing with me or if he's just being lascivious.

Some things are best left unknown.

posted by tbogg at 7:54 PM

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Great Moments in blogging triumphalism

Time to award another Croix de Photoshop:

We’ll have the latest from Lebanon. And Jim Hoft of the blog Gateway Pundit will join me later to talk about his brilliant expose of a New York Times photo spread that forced the newspaper to issue a “correction.”

Looks like someone is going to be parlaying his fame into a good table at The Viper Room, marrying J-Lo, the messy divorce, an eventual stint in rehab, and his own episode of Behind the Expose on VH1.

Fame is both a demanding mistress and a bitch...

posted by tbogg at 11:05 AM

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Bold, insightful analysis

Quoth the Dick:

Q Yes. Mr. Vice President, thank you for joining us today. With Lieberman in Connecticut losing, Joe Schwarz in Michigan, Cynthia McKinney in Georgia, is there an anti-incumbent wave this year? If so, which party does it benefit?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I guess, I’d be hard put to think of what the wave is, or what parallel you can find between Joe Lieberman, Joe Schwarz and Cynthia McKinney.

Q Well, they’re all incumbents and they all lost.

Well, there is that, but should we expect more from a man who said:

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." –Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press," March 16, 2003 (Source)

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." --Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005 (Source)

I think not.

posted by tbogg at 9:42 AM

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I did not know that

In the comments in a previous post about Dick Morris, zuzu points out that his co-writer, Eileen McGann, is his wife.

And, sure enough.

Either it takes two of them to write a 400-word column, or Eileen won't let him out of her sight for a moment. Can't blame her for getting suspicious when Dick says he's going downtown to talk to his "sources" (wink wink nudge nudge)

posted by tbogg at 9:28 AM

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You can look it up

David Horowitz says "Democrats are worse than terrorists"

Let's compare: David Horowitz was an avowed Marxist whose parents were long-standing members of the Communist Party USA and he provided legal and financial assistance to the Black Panthers. Currently Horowitz receives financial backing from Richard Mellon Scaife, a man who was commited to overthrowing the previous duly-elected President.

I, on the other hand, am a Democrat whose father was a Republican (Mom is a Democrat) and I provide financial assistance to Planned Parenthood, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Make-A-Wish foundation. The only radical group that I have ever been associated with is Little League. I have a job with no political strings attached.

Who you gonna trust?

posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM

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The coolest thing ever...

on the internets.

Added: It looks like the varitalk feature has been overloaded. This is what happens when you only spend $15 a month on your server.

posted by tbogg at 8:55 AM

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Peretz Watch: Blame it on Lamont and the coloreds.

It's been about seven hours now since information on the possible snakes liquid bombs on a plane in London plot became available and Marty Peretz has yet to blame it upon our rejection of Joe Lieberman, which only sends a message to our enemies that we are deeply unserious about fighting evil.

But it's still early...

posted by tbogg at 7:09 AM

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

 

Dumb, dumber, dumbest.

What? Me stupid?

Steve asks:

HOW DUMB ARE YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS?

...and gives two examples.

Yup. Pretty dumb.

But they are no match for Gavin's Dumb Monkey Kung Fu

posted by tbogg at 10:54 PM

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Project Runway: Wassa Matta With My Schmatta Edition

You're supposed to be married by Fat Elvis,
not marry Fat Elvis (click to enlarge if you must)

White Lace and Rocket Fire: Israeli Couples Won’t Let the War Ruin Their Wedding Day

The dancing went on for hours, with brides swathed in satin and tulle hoisted high on chairs and on shoulders along with their young grooms, smiling at last.

Fifteen couples from northern Israel whose weddings had been canceled because of the war took leave of rocket fire and bomb shelters to marry in a group ceremony just after sunset on Tuesday on the campus of Tel Aviv University.

The couples streamed down a grassy hill toward their individual wedding canopies hung with lanterns and flowing white gauze, each with room for their own guests.

“It’s like a dream,” said David Saadiv, 31, a groom from Haifa, walking hand in hand with his bride, a fellow immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Olesia Yurov, 23.

Up until today it never occured to me that Hezbollah might be entirely made up of fashion critics armed with Katyushas.

Vera Wang ululates in sorrow...

(Okay. The dresses on the right are very nice, but the one on the left looks like it was purchased off the rack at Fredericks of Haifawood.)

posted by tbogg at 10:10 PM

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Congratulations

...to Greg Gutfeld for creating this , thus making Danielle Crittenden's IM Chronicles compare favorably to Beyond the Fringe.

posted by tbogg at 9:56 PM

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Bartleby the Senator

Pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn

Joentropy at work:

To prepare for his indie CT SEN run, Joe Lieberman asked for, and received, resignations from his entire primary campaign team (staff and consultants).

In essence, they were fired, much like Joe was fired yesterday by Connecticut Democrats. But when Joe was told that his services were no longer needed and was asked to leave, he simply replied, "I would prefer not to."

So I think that his staff and the consultants should show up for work tomorrow and just sit at their desks doing nothing, in much the same way that Joe Lieberman has done nothing for his constituents and the Democratic party during the Bush administration.

It has a wonderful symmetry to it, doesn't it?

(Image courtesy of the wonderful Lindsay)

posted by tbogg at 8:44 PM

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Thankyoupalooza

Slow dance on the killing ground

In our house every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday when we invite over our Aztlan Overlords and plan La revolución. Later we whack a Michelle Malkin piñata and have flan.

On Wednesday night it is Father/Daughter Night at Casa de Tbogg, when the lovely and talented Casey and I go out to dinner, just the two of us, and talk about school and the Red Sox and soccer and the Padres and college and the suck-ass Yankees. Then we come home and whack a Michelle Malkin piñata and have Ben & Jerry's.

Tonight is no different.

But before I go I wanted thank the following individuals for their generosity:

• David in San Francisco for the The Passion of Joan of Arc - Criterion Collection DVD

• Lori in Seattle for the Collected- Massive Attack CD

• Jeff in Bellingham for the Babette's Feast DVD (if you haven't seen this, you should)

• and Candice in Los Angeles for both the Brahms: Cello Sonatas (Yo Yo Ma & Emanuel Ax) and the Eat Drink Man Woman DVD (see notes on Babette's Feast above)

Thank you all very much.

It is nice to be appreciated, but I just want to remind people that I blog because I love it and because I care about what happens in the world.

The fact that it also causes four-hour erections merely gilds the lily.

posted by tbogg at 5:48 PM

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The kiss of death

Joe Lieberman is doomed... doomed, I tell you.

If the toesucker says it's sunny outside, take an umbrella.

Of course, no former client of Dick Morris can simply walk away without getting stabbed in the back:

In the general election, Lieberman can paint Lamont (a former client of mine) as the rich, light-weight dilettante he is (heir to the fortune of J.P. Morgan's partner) and can focus on the broad range of his legislative agenda.

Dick Morris's loyalties only run hooker-deep.

posted by tbogg at 11:31 AM

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Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need

The endorsements come flowing in for Joe Lieberman from Bill Bennett, Mona Charen, Cliff May, etc.:

The leadership of the national Democratic party has abandoned the center and moved far to the left. The Republican party must seize the center once again. There is no credible Republican running for U.S. Senate in this race. As a matter of integrity on the issue of winning the war on terror, Connecticut and national Republicans should assist Joe Lieberman’s independent candidacy. We know we can’t count on him on most issues, but on the most important issue today, we can.

Politically Senator Lieberman may give three Republican Connecticut members of Congress a way to win in November. I predict they will embrace him.

...and he'll embrace them right back, so really, nothing will have changed.

I predict more kisses. Maybe a little tongue action...

posted by tbogg at 10:15 AM

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Shorter Marty Peretz

Only the shvartzes supported Ned Lamont and we know what those people are like...

posted by tbogg at 8:36 AM

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...and this is the thanks I get.

What can I do to get on the right track
I wish they'd take some of these knives off my back -The O'Jays

Lanny Davis walks point for Republicans for Lieberman and Mark Levin shoots him the back, pisses on the corpse, and sets the body on fire:

I'm intrigued by the bizarre attention so many conservative websites and bloggers are paying to Lanny Davis's silly op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal.[...]

As an aside, no one has been more steadfast and thoughtful in his support of Israel than Rush (indeed, no one has been more intelligent in their exposition of conservatism than Rush). Moreover, George Bush — the Republican president Lanny Davis and his liberal ilk undermine on a daily basis — has been spectacular in his defense of Israel, unlike so many Davis’s fellow Democrats. And while Davis correctly condemns the poison flowing from his own side, this is a serious problem for the Left, not the Right. Our nuts are on the fringes; his nuts run the DNC, their PACs, and their think-tanks.

Davis was a mouthpiece for one of the most corrupt president’s in history. More to the point, Bill Clinton and his wife were specialists at using slurs and personal attacks against their opponents (including numerous women). Davis defended all of it.

We are nothing like the Left.

I hope Lanny already cashed the check. Since Joe lost, I smell buyers remorse...

posted by tbogg at 12:07 AM

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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

 

Peretz puts the "u" in putz

I am Marty, Bringer of Nothing To the Party...

Oy:

THE CLINTON FACTOR:

I was for Joe Lieberman. I wrote an article about the race between him and Ned Lamont in Monday's Wall Street Journal. It was not neutral. But, though it got plenty of attention in the blogs and on television, it did not, alas, help Joe very much. Worse can be said of Bill Clinton's stumping in Connecticut for Joe (and Hillary's endorsement, too.) When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman and Lamont were running dead even in the polls, more or less. Clinton's appearance began Lieberman's decline. Within two or three days, Lieberman was down by ten points. (In the last few days of the campaign, Lieberman recovered considerably ... but not enough.) I know there's some nostalgia in the Democratic Party for Clinton and for Hillary, too. But for many, in the party and out, the Clintons are a nightmare. A nightmare, as James Joyce said, from which we are trying to awake. The common wisdom is that Al Gore would have won in 2000 had he embraced Clinton more or had he allowed Clinton to embrace him. Well, look at what happened to Joe.

--Martin Peretz

So basically Peretz has just stated that he lacks influence in two theoretically different venues; the Right Wing WSJ editorial pages and his own Joe Lieberman Times demi-quasi-pseudo if-you-squint-and-turn-it-sideways classically liberal New Republic.

Without Joe, he's O magazine without Oprah.

And really, can't these people get their message straight?

But that's not what's astonishing about this piece. It's that Richard Goodstein came to the attention of journalists and observers in Connecticut during the Ted's Burger joint stunt where a bunch of Lieberman supporters ambushed Lamont in a small restaurant. What made Goodstein stand out was that he was screaming "Are you a Sharpton Democrat or a Clinton Democrat" over and over again. That's called race baiting, folks.

[...]

This particular line seemed to be Goodstein's specialty, since he showed up at a rally the next day with a sign that said "Lieberman = Clinton, Lamont Weicker = Sharpton." He was taped giving an interview to the local press in which he said "Lieberman has the support of Bill Clinton who speaks for inclusion and Ned Lamont has the support of Al Sharpton who speaks for divisiveness."

So Bill Clinton is good for Lieberman until Marty needs an excuse for being completely fucking wrong. Again.

Such is the power of the Clenis to cloud men's minds...

posted by tbogg at 10:43 PM

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Joe to Connecticut Democrats: "Fuck You"

I do not accept the decision of the voters

Classless till the end, Joe Lieberman concedes, announces that he will run as part of the First Second-Place Party, and then trashes Ned Lamont.

What. A. Dick.

Of course this will result in cash and resources that should be going to the real Democrats down ticket being spent fighting off a Vichy Democrat.

But it's all about Joe.

The last big election?

George Bush 51%
John Kerry 48%

Ned Lamont 51.8 %
Joe Lieberman 48.2%

A walk through time (courtesy of Media Matters):

The Wall Street Journal: "The voters did [decide the election] -- including millions of conservative first-timers whom the exit polls and media missed -- emerging from the pews and exurban driveways to give President Bush what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term. ... Just because an election is close doesn't mean it isn't decisive. ... We do already know ... that Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive." [Wall Street Journal editorial, "The Bush Mandate," 11/4/04]

William J. Bennett, conservative author and nationally syndicated radio host: "Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it." [National Review Online, "The Great Relearning," 11/3/04]

Tucker Carlson...oh, who cares what Tucker has to say?

Pat Buchanan, MSNBC political analyst: "There's no doubt about it, this was a vote against, by the red-state folks who gave the victory to George Bush, it was a rejection of blue-state America. It was a rejection of their values, their attacks on the president. ... And the idea, it seems to me, that somehow the folks who won should now surrender part of whatever mandate they have to the folks who lost -- I can tell you, what we're hearing on this panel, people out there in red-state America are finding it very offensive." [MSNBC, Hardball with Chris Matthews, 11/3/04]

But that was pre-8/8/06 thinking...

(Added): Ezra in the same vein.

posted by tbogg at 8:19 PM

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Just for the record

...at 6:13 PST the firedoglake sever is down.

I blame Joe Lieberman for using the same denial of service attacks on FDL that he has used on his constituents, lo these many years.

Sneaky bastard, isn't he?

(Added): with 50 % of the precincts reporting the vote stands at

Joseph I. Lieberman - 64,700 god-fearing security-loving puppy-snuggling patriots

Ned Lamont - 70,444 shrill America-hating bloggers, hackers, GTA-enthusiasts, and minions of our Dark Lord Kos.

...and the Mets are beating the Padres 3-2 in the eighth.

posted by tbogg at 6:20 PM

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She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage?

Joe Lieberman today:

"I feel they were flirting with the other guy for a while, wanting to send me a message," he said Monday during a stop at a restaurant in Hartford. "I got their message. I think they want to send me back to Washington to continue working with them, fighting for them, and delivering for Connecticut."

Joe Lieberman tomorrow, should he lose today:

Get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly.

Then he'll go boil Connecticut's bunny. A bunny, I might add, that is from a different spurned lover movie.

posted by tbogg at 10:25 AM

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Blowing all of our blood and treasure on some magic beans

Hugh "Sugar Tits" Hewitt finally comes out and admits that he is pro-tax and spend and anti-military conservative.

So nice of him to finally come out of the closet.

posted by tbogg at 8:38 AM

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"In return for our support, they have promised us some land. And we shall proudly call it 'I-Rand'"

Fresh from her return from the front where she was doing it For The Boys, Ambasadress Taggart heads home and finds an important telegram waiting:

UPDATE: From the David Holcberg, Ayn Rand Institute;

Western world leaders fear the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. But they should welcome it.

The current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is a crucial battle in the war between Western civilization and the Islamic totalitarians who want to destroy it.

Western countries should not only help Israel to destroy Hezbollah, they should act to bring down the terror-sponsoring regimes in Syria and Iran.

The sooner we in the West engage and defeat these regimes, the safer we will be.

The people of Lebanon can now expect a bombardment of heavy volumes loaded with shrapnel and ballbearings turgid prose and cardboard characters.

Oh. The humanity.

posted by tbogg at 7:15 AM

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