Beckinsdale?

Subsequent visits to the site from which this was purloined show a typo-free add. Either that or Ms. Beckinsdale was replaced in the film by Ms. Beckinsale. They're both real purdy.

The Specter of Pennsylvania

Holy crap! Arlen Specter is jumping off the Republicans' sinking ship and joining the Donkeys.

For a while now, Specter has been one of those on-the-fence types of guys that can occasionally be counted on to weigh reason and Republican talking points and come down on the side of reason. Not always, but enough of the time so that he and the two Distinguished Ladies of Maine are the ones with the fullest voice mail inboxes in Washington. Not much point in trying to get James Inhofe to talk about anything. Those three? They're swayable.

Of course, Specter is looking ahead to the next election, in which he was looking like lunchmeat to the Republican Party as they tried to run a right-wing challenger in the primary. So his stated reasons for switching were probably secondary, even if valid. But take it where you find it.

The downside to this? Norm Coleman and his crew are going to fight even harder to delay seating Senator Al Franken. Oy.

The other downside? He just went from being a moderate Republican to being a conservative Democrat. Do we really need another Joe Lieberman to gum up the works? Eh, it beats having another James Inhofe. But it does prevent a more liberal Democrat from maybe unseating him next year. Oh well. We'll take the vote now, thank you.

Welcome aboard, Senator. Please enjoy your stay.

Talking Heads Auto Tuned

Not those Talking Heads. The kind you see on the teevee.

This is awesome. Enjoy.

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The NHL Goes All to Hell

Now they've really done it.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, in their insane lust for power, have made a bargain with... ooh, I can't say it.

It all seemed so normal at ESPN.com.

Celtics looking old and glum. The usual hirings, firings and trades. But wait, what's this in the Headlines section?

Pens turn to whom? SATAN? Oh no. For shame, Pittsburgh. Is winning really worth your immortal soul?

Okay, okay, I'm probably only about the eight gazillionth person to make fun of this guy's name. Even Yahoo Sports thinks it's funny. Don't believe me? Check out the URL to his profile there. And it's pronounced shuh-TAHN. I guarantee you he will never play for the Devils. That would be just too too much.

PYSBRIoM: E.J. Dionne and the Gun Lobby

E.J. Dionne writes a column for the Washington Post. He's not earth-shattering or strident. He's just a decent, common-sensical, somewhat liberal columnist. He also pops up on NPR periodically to debate something or other with the NYT's David Brooks. Dionne usually makes more sense.

On the tenth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, it's a fine idea to contemplate just how much sway the gun lobby holds in our country.

Dionne puts it in some perspective here.

Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns, including assault weapons, were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.

Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"

That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited
Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to make [an] unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference withMexicanPresident Felipe Calderón.

BO's statement, and more, at the link.

That's What I Said

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the absurdity of the Bushies' criticism's of The President. Jonathan Chait even calls Rove's and Gerson's accusations "projection", just like someone else I know. Thank you thank you.

"The Bush veterans have systematically discovered that every flaw associated in the public mind with their hero turns out to be a defining trait of Obama. I am not a trained psychologist, but some form of projection seems to be at work."

It's way worse than the pot calling the kettle black. It's the pot calling the kettle a pot.

THIS Is Our Biggest Problem?

Oy. Remember last week when I mentioned how much I love it when George Will writes about baseball? Well, have I told you how much I love it when George Will writes about baseball?

What the hell is this?

Good gravy Marie. Is this really such a problem? That we wear clothing inappropriate to our tasks? Hey, George. Is that tie helping you to write? Dude, maybe we just like the way it looks. Or the way it feels. Or the way it doesn't wear out as quickly as those three-piece suits you wear.

Crikey, if this is your biggest concern then we've got nothing to worry about here in this country. Do we?

I Refuse to Make Any Teabagging Jokes

Sorry. Over it.

Here's a photo from Salon's Mike Madden, currently tweeting (hate...that...word) from D.C.'s Lafayette Park, where a bunch of idiots are pretending that returning the marginal tax rate on the very wealthiest Americans to 10% lower than it was during most of Ronald Reagan's presidency is some kind of unprecedented tyrannical socialist crime against America, worthy of not just protest but revolt.

The vast majority of the people at these protests actually had their taxes lowered by Obama. So maybe they're really protesting the higher rate they have to pay today. See? It's all just a big misunderstanding. Wait 'til next year.

The whole concept behind these "protests" is ludicrous, of course. And it's a pretend "grassroots" protest (aka Astroturf), which was actually orchestrated by Fox News and Dick Armey, who never met a rich person he wouldn't defend. I'm sick of it already and I don't feel like getting too far into it.

But I did want to comment on the particular stupidity of this sign. So there's this quote from the unassailable Abraham Lincoln juxtaposed with a non-quote from Barack "Don't Forget the Hussein" Obama, president of someplace called "Ameristan" (xenophobic much?). See, he wants all yer munny fer his stinky gov'nt.

But wait, what was Lincoln's full quote again? Oh, yeah. "[A] government of the people, by the people and for the people". Whoops. They skipped the government part there. That changes things a bit. Or it should, anyway. See, America is governed by its people. That's the whole freaking point of what Lincoln said. I know that in practice this isn't always true. And the right has done a great job of turning "gov'nt" into the hated other, rather than something we (should) own, even while running it themselves. (A neat trick, that.)

But really, people. We still have a representative government. And right now, it's doing what the people elected it to do, for the most part. The whole premise of this sign is either wholly ignorant or wholly dishonest. Either way, it's false.

Screaming your head off that this is some form of fascism because Glenn Beck told you to just makes you look really really stupid. Get over it, people.

Deviation from the Norm

For the love of the flying spaghetti monster, will someone please make Norm Coleman go away already?

Look, in a race this close, it's really impossible to tell who actually won. The margin of error --due to many factors including poorly designed or completed ballots, voter disenfranchisement, clerical errors, etc. -- is higher than the vote differential. It's possible that Coleman won. It's possible that Franken won. But what we really have here is a tie. Of course, someone has to win. And, based on the rules of the State of Minnesota, Franken is the winner.

Remember back on election night when Coleman had a teeny-weeny lead and he declared victory and said Franken should just accept the results? Remember that? Nope. Much more important now to point out the glaring deficiencies in the process that led to the heinous disenfranchisement of Minnesota's voters.

Coleman is technically within his rights to keep pursuing this. But it's pretty obvious at this point that there isn't a case here. He actually lost votes in this last challenge, for crying out loud. Everything was conducted as fairly as possible by all accounts. No one is making accusations of fraud or inconsistency.

Let's be honest. This isn't about trying to get Coleman seated. (Although they'd like that.) All it's about at this point is delaying the day when the Democrats have one more vote in the Senate. Every day they delay Senator Franken being sworn in is a small victory for the Republican'ts.

Will and Grace

I've noted several times that as much as I disagree with George Will politically, I do respect him. And when he writes about baseball, I downright love him. He has great knowledge of the game's history, rules and arcana, and he's a fantastic writer.

He has a terrific piece in today's WaPo about umpires, which I can't recommend highly enough.

The whole thing is great but this particular bit is priceless.

"Sport -- strenuous exertion structured and restrained by rules -- replicates the challenges of political freedom. Umpires, baseball's judicial branch, embody what any society always needs and what America, in its current financial disarray, craves -- regulated striving that, by preventing ordered competition from descending into chaos, enables excellence to prevail."

I'm swooning. Enjoy.

The Republican Party: Torture or Get Lost

This is awesome. Professional blowhard Rush Limbaugh rarely lets any real debate happen on his program. It's refreshing when one of his listeners squeaks through his call screeners and actually challenges him.

The caller in this clip is a right-leaning, Republican McCain voter who just happens to think that torture is wrong. Oh no! Rush has no idea what to do with the guy. So he calls him names. If, as Olbermann says in the post-video commentary, the litmus test for what makes a good Republican is support for torture then these guys are going to have a long stretch of time in the minority.

How sad is it that we're even debating torture in this country?

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Almost everything Limbaugh throws at the listener would apply directly to himself. "You're embarrassing and ludicrous." Project much?

Michael Gerson: Comedian

I always find it hilarious that the right includes The Washington Post in its list of the pernicious "liberal media". This paper lets the following left-wing nutjobs write for it.

• Staunch Libertarian and Conservative Icon George F. Will
• Neoconservative War-monger Robert Kagan
• Neoconservative and Compulsively Wrong William Safire
• Big Flaming War-monger and Israel Apologist Charles Krauthammer
• G.W.Bush Speechwriter Michael Gerson

Not to mention regular old conservatives Kathleen Parker, Ruth Marcus and David Broder. They let liberals write there too. But the deviation from the center is nowhere near the same. Harold Meyerson is the only one that I would consider a true liberal. Maybe E.J. Dionne. But neither of them are anywhere near as far left as the average person on Air America, or even MSNBC, whereas people like Krauthammer, Kagan and Safire are as far right as you can go.

Will is smart. I like him, but I usually don't agree with him. Kagan and Safire are idiots who continue to act as apologists for the worst failures of the Bush administration and to pretend that hundreds of thousands of dead people and billions of dollars out the door is actually buying us democracy in the Middle East, regardless of what those pesky "facts" might be. Gerson, as noted above, was a Bush speechwriter. Do you need to know anything else?

His column today is a scream. It is positively Rovian in its hypocrisy. As you know, the Rove model is one of pure projection. Whatever is wrong with you, just assert that the other person is the one who has that problem. Then they'll have to fight that charge and it'll never stick to you.

Gerson laments the polarization of today's political culture. The main culprit?

[Wait for it.]

Barack Obama!

That's right. It wasn't Bush. It wasn't Cheney. It wasn't Tom Delay or Newt Gingrich or Karl Rove himself or any of the talking heads at Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. It was the president.

Here are some fine nuggets of joy from Mr. Gerson.

"Who has been the most polarizing new president of recent times? Richard Nixon? Ronald Reagan? George W. Bush? No, that honor belongs to Barack Obama."

Yes, the man with a 66% approval rating. Not the man who left office with a 28% approval rating. Gerson offers some statistics to back his claim up, but they demonstrate the way the culture has changed, not anything about the current president. Gerson as much as admits this, basically refuting his own point. Oh, but wait, here comes that projection I talked about.

"Obama has been a unifier, of sorts. He has united Democrats and united Republicans -- against each other."

Ha! Um, sorry. That happened a long time ago, and the list of culprits was mentioned a few paragraphs ago. It's the one that starts with Bush, although I think Rove gets the lion's share of the blame. The fact that the Permanent Republican Majority so quickly fizzled out is the main reason these caged rats are biting so ferociously. Their dreams have been shattered. And it's their own fault. They're desperately trying to blame someone else. They couldn't be wrong.

"[L]ast week's votes on the budget resolutions [were] a landmark of ineffective governance. Not a single Republican in the House or Senate supported the bill, largely because the Democratic majority forced its will. Republicans were flattened, not consulted."

I've already written about what a farce this concept is. I'll decline to comment further, other than to snort derisively. You can picture me snorting derisively, right?

"Obama's polarizing approach challenges and changes the core of his political identity."

His what? His polarizing approach? Excuse me, no. Projection again. Big time. Least polarizing approach in history, possibly.

"Polarization in American politics has its own disturbing momentum, aided by some strident Republican voices. But that does not require a president to make it worse. And it is a sad, unnecessary shame that Barack Obama, the candidate of unity, has so quickly become another source of division."

Ah, yes. Begin with a weak denunciation of some unnamed Republicans. Then blame it all on the guy who inherited the culture, is trying to change it and is being thwarted by those same Republicans. But don't just blame him for not changing it. Say he's actually made it worse.

If Michael Gerson has a mirror in his house, I doubt it gets much use.

Coach Cal Likes Him Some Bluegrass

'Cause it's really green.

A little over a decade ago, John Calipari put UMass basketball on the map. With the help of current NBA star Marcus Camby, he took a program that was strictly local and made them, briefly, a national power. After a few exciting NCAA Tournament experiences, they got all the way to the Final Four in 1996. Although, due to some hanky-panky involving Camby and some overzealous agents, they were stripped of their appearance after-the-fact. Which is like getting your marriage annulled. The official papers say it never happened, but everybody knows better.

Coach Cal split right before that particular piece of shit hit the fan to coach Memphis. He's done pretty well there too, taking the Tigers to the Final Four in recent years and making them a national power, albeit one that can't make a free throw, clutch or otherwise, to save its life.

Now he's bolting for Kentucky and a whole pile of money. It's kind of ridiculous that the NCAA still likes to pretend that it's a loving caring organization that functions like a souped-up PE class for the future doctors and lawyers of the world, when at its high end it's basically a professional sports organization that doesn't have to pay its talent. Oh, yes, free education blah blah blah. Like all of those freshman who play one year at OSU or Kansas and then bolt for the NBA. I'm sure they're using their education well.

So, without paying the players, there's plenty of scratch left for the coaches. And Cal is going to be making close to $4M a year to mold fine young men into Wildcats. While they cut the women's soccer team due to "lack of funds". Wonder where they went.

UMass, meanwhile, has sunk back down to their prior level of irrelevance. They made it to the NIT final last year, and then they had another coach bolt on them and started really sucking again. Former UMass coach Travis Ford is now happily coaching at Oklahoma State, who happened to make the big tournament this year. Hey, it worked for Cal.