#navbar-iframe{opacity:0.0;filter:alpha(Opacity=0)} #navbar-iframe:hover{opacity:1.0;filter:alpha(Opacity=100, FinishedOpacity=100)} Ed's Daily Rant: 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004

Because face it.
I'm right, and you're wrong.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Here's Bush the other day in his "Everythings fine. No need to worry. Just go about your business." speech.

Thank you all. Thank you and good evening. I'm honored to visit the Army War College. Generations of officers have come here to study the strategies and history of warfare.

True. In fact if Bush listened to them instead of Ahmed "you'll be greeted as liberators with with flowers and puppy dogs" Chalabi, maybe he would have heard the Army War College back in February of 2003:

"After the first year, the possibility of a serious uprising may increase should severe disillusionment set in and Iraqis begin to draw parallels between U.S. actions and historical examples of Western imperialism,"

"Any expansion of terrorism or guerrilla activity against U.S. troops in Iraq will undoubtedly require a forceful American response. Such U.S. actions could involve a dramatic escalation in the numbers of arrests, interrogations, and detentions of local Iraqis. While such actions do improve security and force protection, they seldom win friends among the local citizenry. Individuals alienated from the U.S. occupation could well have their hostility deepened and increased by these acts,"

"Without an overwhelming effort to prepare for occupation, the US may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."


I ahve a sneaking suspision that this President isn't very good at his job.

They must've loved writing up this one.

Tee hee!

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Peggy Noonan is an insane freak.

But shes an insane freak who scribbles down her insanity and gets it published.


Get this. E.L. Doctorow gave a commencement speech where he was critical of the president. Here is a relevant passage:
"One story he told was that the country of Iraq had nuclear and biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction and was intending shortly to use them on us," he said. "That was an exciting story all right, it was designed to send shivers up our spines. But it was not true.
"Another story was that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was in league with the terrorists of al-Qaida," he said. "And that turned out to be not true. But anyway we went off to war on the basis of these stories."


At this point the crowd started booing and Jeering so loud he had to stop.

Peggys reaction?

She starts of by saying "god bless em forever". God bless em. For booing. For being rude and discourteous (remember that word). Hey whatever flaots your boat you freaky ass dolphin worshiper.


And Peggy quotes relatives and parents (SHe has no quotes from any actual student) with gems such as :
"If this would have happened in Florida, we would have taken him out"

To this lovely veiled threat of violence Peggy has nothing to say. Her outrage is at Doctorow for doing the unthinkably unamerican, and horrific action of critizizing Bush.

Later on she actually does quote someone who actually made sense:
On Sunday night a Hofstra official said that while Mr. Doctorow had the right to his views, he violated the unwritten code that college commencement speeches should inspire and unite a student body. But a Hofstra faculty member came to the fore, defending Mr. Doctorow. "I thought this was a totally appropriate place to talk about politics
because that's the world our students are entering," sociology professor Cynthia Bogard told Newsday. "I only wish their parents had provided them a better role model."


Peggys reaction? Hurl some insults:
What a fool. What a snob.

So now we've gone from the "god blessing" of the boos, to quoting threats of violence against Mr. Doctorow, to herself hurling insults at anyone who dared to say that the booing may have been, well, kinda rude.

But she ain't done yet. Here is the coup de gras. The money shot.

This is how, and I'm not kidding, Peggy Noonan explains why E.L. Doctorow was booed and jeered:
I want to explain to Ed Doctorow why he was booed. It was not, as he no doubt creamily recounted in a storytelling session over drinks that night in Sag Harbor, that those barbarians in Long Island's lesser ZIP codes don't want to hear the truth. It is not that they oppose free speech. It is not that the poor boobs of Long Island have
an unaccountable affection for George W. Bush. It is that they have class.

The poor stupid people of Long Island are courteous, and have respect for the views and feelings of others


You see, they were only being rude because they are courtous, and have class. They booed because they respect the views and feelings of others. I swear to god I'm not making this up.
And EL Doctorow thinks that they are "boobs" and "Barbarians". Don't get bogged down in the details of whether Doctorow ever said they were (he didn't), Peggy just knows thats what he thinks. And Peggy, who spends her time going from elitist wine aprty to elitist wine party in the upper west side, is all of a sudden "one of them" and its Doctorow whos the elitist snob who is creamily (WTF?) recounting the story in Sag Harbor. Peggy Noonan, blue collar regular gal?

To keep in the Noonan spirit, let me share my thoughts.

Peggy, you're an idiot, an elitist snob, A stuck up, preening, hypocritical obnoxious and vapid hag. You are rude, stupid, and a right wing whore without even the barest shred of human decency.

You are also ugly. Very very ugly.


But I only say these things because I am courteous and have class.

Ignoring journalistic ethics seems to be the flavor of the week.
Unofficially, however, according to the DrudgeReport, reporters were debating whether another Kerry comment about the spill should be considered off the record.
Kerry reportedly said, when told the president had fallen off his bike: "Did the training wheels fall off?"


Of course saying Worldnetdaily practivces "Journalism" is a stretch in and of itself.

This is a good preview of how the republican media is going to defend Bush, by abandoning all precepts of journalistic integrity. And the Bush white House is fully complicit. Ethics and morality are not as important as winning to these people.

Don’t believe me? Administration officials often give background briefings to reporters on major issues. These briefings are done off the record. But a few months ago when the decree from the White House was “smear Richard Clarke”, FOX News stepped up to the plate and as usual, did the White Houses bidding. They took their recording of Clarkes off the record briefing, which was done a year before when Clarke was with the administration, and in something Journalists have never done, asked the White House for it to be put on the record.

Why?

Because they felt it made Clarke look like he was giving contradictory statements (he wasn’t). The White House happily complied.

Now that Bush’s approval rating is 41%, expect them to get desperate, expect it to get worse.

The only outlet for true honest news from now on is Ed's Daily Rant.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Lessons in Jornalism part 2

It looks like getting drudge to do the dirty work is working out nicely for the conservative press.
Kerry said as much himself over the weekend when he heard the president fell off his bike. "I hope he's OK.... I didn't know the president rode a bike." (He also reportedly said — thank you, Drudge Report, "Did the training wheels fall off?" But we'll leave that alone. There's quite enough to work with without it.)

Ignoring for now that the artuicle is monumentally stupid (My president can beat up your President!), notice how she not only quotes Kerry directly on an off the record comment, but then even says "But we'll leave that alone" after she repeated it.

Jennifer Graham was overheard in the bathroom of a D.C. bar saying that she likes to suck off strangers for crack, according to a website I saw.

But lets leave that alone shall we?

Lessons in journalism from the Washington Times.

What happens when a Presidential candidate says something off the record that can be used against to try and make him look bad?

For the Super right wing Moonie Washington Times always eager to be Bush's bitch, it presented quite a quandary. They want to smear Kerry, but have to pretend that they are “journalists”. So they pulled what I call a Newt. Back when Newt was a congressman and he wanted to viciously smear someone he did it by having his people leak the vicous smear to the press. The press then reported it, and Newt would hold a press conference to “comment” on what he “read” in the newspaper, I.E. the smear he planted.

SO today instead of reporting on Kerrys off the record joke about Bush, they do a “news report” on how a website posted the off the record comment. Like so:
"Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?' " Mr. Drudge reported on his Web site, www.drudgereport.com.

This lets them reprint the comment in full, call it an insult, and they can safely pretend they are still “Journalists”.


Friday, May 21, 2004

Did U.S. forces slaughter a wedding party? Maybe. But there will be an investigation to find out for sure. Why an investigation?

Well that would seem obvious. Because of conflicting reports from eyewitnesses, because of videotape of the bodies of dead children?

Nope. According to Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, senior military spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, the reason is:
"Because of the interest shown by the media, we're going to have an investigation,"

SIckening.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Jon Stewarts commencement speech at William and Mary

Bush gets it right.

Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

And of course later in the article he reverts to form...

When asked what short-term measures he would use to rein in the prices, Bush did not list any new initiatives but lambasted Democrats for blocking his sweeping energy bill.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Truth In Advertising

Reel Truth Part 1

Reel Truth Part 2



1st is the funniest. You need quicktime

Franken Vs. Coulter. A recap.

I'm a bad and disjointed writer so bear with me. And I’m sure any interesting bits I missed can be filled in by steve who also attended. Basically, they both looked stupid at times, but she looked a whole lot stupider. And at least Franken was funny. They didn’t so much debate as talk around each other.

Coulter kind of avoided debating specifics and kept to her “Liberals hate X” mantra. If I had a dime everytime the woman mentioned “swarthy men” I’d be rich. She was pretty underprepared, whereas Franken came in with freaking crib notes to rip her apart.

Moments that made Ann look stupid involved pretty much anytime she opened her mouth. When you literally insult an entire race of people, which she did repeatedly, you could hear audible gasps in the audience along the lines of “did that crazy mother fucker just say what I think she said?”. IF anyone dared boo her when she hurled out the most vile statements she would respond to the audience with a “See how rude liberals are?” response, of which the irony was apparently lost on her.

If anyone read Franken’s recent book you’ll remember the chapter about Wellstone, his memorial and the election. Franken was a friend of Wellstone, and gets very emotional about the whole thing. Ann was very aware of this and kept intermittently, and out of nowhere, repeating the mantra “Senator Norm Coleman…” the empty suited dirty campaigner who took Wellstone’s seat. A obvious attempt to bait Al, of which he for the most part ignored. One part that made AL look silly was when Ann said Trent lott got onstage and was booed at the memorial. Al was outraged “that never happened!” they go back and forth for 5 minutes on this. So Trent Lott was shown on the screen and was booed but never got onstage. Big freaking deal.

The moderator Steve Roberts did piss him off by getting annoyed at the whole Wellstone back and forth saying “I don’t want to keep talking about some obscure Senator”. Franken got pissed at that.

AL did have a lot more substantive takedowns of Anns various lies in her book. A funny moment was when he was recounting how he was out to dinner with friends and his wife stops to put on lipstick in front of a bookstore where Anns newest book is displayed. He bet his friend he could open the book and find a lie before his wife got the lipstick on. And he did.

HE talked about how she always say Liberals like to call people names and insult there appearance. Then Al would trot out a long list of times Ann insulted people.

There was one long fruitless exchange about whether or not Ann lied on her drivers license. A waste of time that made Al look silly. Yes, I understood the point was Ann was part of the rule of law crowd with Clinton and there she was lying on a government document, but still. So she lied about her age on her drivers license. Big deal. Move on.

And Ann just isn’t funny. Putting her up against Franken who is really fast on his feet, was almost cringe worthy. Here’s her idea of a joke.
"When we won the war in a few weeks with amazingly few casualties, all the liberals had to complain about was some broken pottery. Any college student who was ever forced to gaze at Mesopotamian pottery was relieved."

Ha ha.

Best “WTF?” moment for Ann was when she claimed that William Safire of the NYT was not a conservative. That to me crystallized the night. The woman is so far a field of reality, that to even pretend to take her seriously invites questions of your own sanity.

By far the best part about the night was the audience. I was at the simulcast a few blocks away and it was a freaking free for all. Yelling jeering, some big muscle head told some guy to “go climb a tree liberal” and almost went roid rage on him.

When they were debating gay marriage and how the bible says homosexuality is evil, AL was making jokes about how the bible says its its ok to sell you wife into slavery, etc. Some nutso stood up and started screaming “that’s the old testament! Read the new!” Freaking kooks.

Q and A session was kinda funny. One guys question card was simply “Ann would you marry me”. Roberts made some remark about “can this guy please stand up”, Ann saying no no no, at which point AL said “Actually, I’d like to see this guy too.”

All in all I agree with Steves impression. The whole thing was goofy. If you like Ann you think she won, if you like Al, you think he won.

Friday, May 14, 2004

From Pandagon.

The following quotes are drawn from the Republican Party Platform at the 2000 convention:

"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration’s diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries." [ed. this is referring to Clinton's administration]

"Gerrymandered congressional districts are an affront to democracy and an insult to the voters. We oppose that and any other attempt to rig the electoral process."

Tuesday, May 11, 2004



Monday, May 10, 2004

Rumsfeld about the prison torture scandal:
"It happened on my watch, and I take full responsibility,"

Bush the next day:
''You're doing a superb job."


Welcome to the era of personal responsibilty.

Democratic congressman and Vietnam Veteran John Murtha made the following statement last week:
“We cannot prevail in this war as it is going today. We either have to mobilize, or we have to get out. … The direction’s got to be changed, or it’s unwinnable, in my estimation.”

Here was the reaction:
Majority Leader Tom Delay (never served)
"this morning, in a calculated and craven political stunt, the national Democratic Party declared its surrender in the war on terror."
(notice the juvenile insult of calling it the "Democrat Party")

GOP Rep. Michael Burgess (never served)
"basically are giving aid and comfort to the enemy."


Today:Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who spent much of the year in western Iraq, said he believes that at the tactical level at which fighting occurs, the
U.S. military is still winning. But when asked whether he believes the United States is losing, he said, "I think strategically, we are."

Army Col. Paul Hughes, who last year was the first director of strategic planning for the U.S. occupation authority in Baghdad, said he agrees with that view and noted that a pattern of winning battles while losing a war characterized the U.S. failure in Vietnam. "Unless we ensure that we have coherency in our policy, we will lose strategically," he said in an interview Friday.


Press conference declaring our miltary leaders in Iraq as giving aid and comfort to the enemy and surrendering has yet to be convened.

http://singlerepublicans.com/
Frumpy late thirties chick with a "get it over quick and don't make noise" look in her eyes.

http://singledemocrats.com/
Hot smoking chick with an "I'll try anything" look in her eyes.


Friday, May 07, 2004

Just to reiterate, I will never vote for this duechebag again, and the vote I did give him in the past will be something I will be sorry for for the rest of my life.

"The people who attacked us on September 11 never apologized."--Sen. Joe Lieberman at the Abu Ghraib hearings.

Best commencement speech ever.



Worst one ever
.

Thursday, May 06, 2004

I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of a need to blow some steam off?

These always crack me up.

Saved by the Bell DVD Amazon.com customer review #63

SBTB WAS MY GOD AND STILL IS, August 12, 2003
Reviewer: Josh Bissonnette from RI,USA
O MAN THIS DVD IS A MUST OWN FOR ANY KID/TEEN!! IN THE LATE 80'S WHEN IT CAME OUT, I NEVER WATCHED IT BUT UP UNTILL A FEW YEARS AGO, EVERY WEEKDAY AT 7:00,7:30,12:00, AND 12:00 I'VE TAPED SBTB ON TBS SUPERSTATION. I WAS UPSET ABOUT THERE NOT BEING A DVD BUT NOW I CAN ENJOY IT WITHOUT HAVING TO FASTFORWARD MY TAPED EPISODES TO FIND THE ONES I WANT. IN MY OPINION, SBTB IS THE GREATEST SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN. IT WAS HUMOURUS, TAUGHT US ALL MANY LEASONS, MOST EPISODES WERE FUNNY BECAUSE ZACK AND SCREECH GOT INTO TROULBE BUT SOME WERE DEPRESSIONG, AND MADE US CRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME ...

Also, for anyone who still whines that the episode “King of the Hill” shouldn’t be episode 15 because it’s the pilot, it’s a flashback episode, you goddamned f*cktard.

This one defies description.

I can't even begin to describe it. It's sickening.

Part of me wishes that Bush would be caught on videotape raping a 12 year old Filipino boy while high on crack just to see how Cal Thomas and Rush Limbaugh will try and explain in excruciating detail why pedophelia and crack aren't really all that bad because maybe he didnt inhale and since Bush has no plans on marrying the kid, it's OK because gay marraige is the real enemy.

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

It Looks like Rush got into a little hot water with his comments equating sadistic Anal rape, torture, beatings, and possible murder of prisoners with frat hazing. So he has tried to explain himself further to someone at the National Review.

He made the observation that "the photos don't show anything more outrageous than we could see at a Brittany Spears show."

It is my opinion that Rush limbaugh lets his conservative bias show in some of his statements.

Rush regarding the torture of Iraqi prisoners:
This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

From the Taguba report:
"Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

When some people want to let off steam, they get high on oxycotin and sodomize people with a broomstick.

I just have a beer. But thats just because I'm a liberal elitist.

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

I’m not sure what’s sadder. That this story appears in CNN’s Science section, or that the expedition is taking much needed resources from Project Lucky Charms.

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Who should be my next celebrity girlfriend?

Anne Hathaway or Lindsay Lohan?

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