And Neither is Big D

Crunk ain't dead, y'all. So says Lil Jon and $500,000 of his money.

Supporting (Some) Of The Troops

General Pace, the Pentagon's top military officer, pulled a Tim Hardaway and is unapologetic about it. The US, along with Iran, Libya, Iraq, and a few other countries remain among the last nations with large military forces to prohibit openly gay soldiers from serving (I'm reminded of a biblical saying, something about judging a man by the company he keeps). In contrast, our brother country from another mother, Israel, along with Canada, Great Britain, Germany, South Africa, and the vast majority of NATO nations choose not to discriminate against their patriotic citizens, despite who those citizens choose to fuck (apparently, drag balls have yet to break out in Israeli barracks).

I'm reminded of two WWII veterans I met while working at a small White Plains Law Firm several years ago. They were both members of segregated black units that were not, until nearly the end of the war, permitted to engage in combat. Instead, they did maintenance; support tasks; one was even a member of a travelling military baseball team. Aside from obvious equality and fairness issues, preventing people from specific groups from fully serving their countries also prevents those groups from having the kinds of heroes and legacies upon which every community draws pride from. Schools, roads, and monuments are erected to honor those who've served, who gave their lives to protect our country. These acts of public recognition become part of the formal and informal history of our country. We can point to the people who defended us, and we laud them and the values they represent. And rightfully so. Our gay soldiers deserve no less.

Too Late

I once worked with someone who smelled like a mix of elephant shit and horse piss. Aside from febrezing his seat when he left the office for lunch, my colleagues and I wondered how we could slip some zinc into his diet - someone among us having heard that zinc helps reduce B/O production. This gum from Japan would have helped big time. Chewing it apparently leaves one with that clean ass smell. Brilliant.

Fun With Captions

A retrospective of some of Fox's best captions. See more here.

How can something that doesn't exist be a good thing?

Better than the guy he shot I would imagine.



Sadly, no other network dared take on the threat of El Queda.

Don't Clean That Car!

Artist Scott Wade creates art from filthy car windows

80% Guilty or 20% Not Guilty

Scooter Libby, fomer top aide to Vice President Cheney, has been convicted on 4 of 5 charges in the Valerie Plame case. Larry Johnson focuses on Libby's old boss and unindicted co-consipirator:

If a President can be impeached for lying about a blow job then by God a Vice President should be impeached for setting in motion the forces that destroyed an intelligence network during a time of war.

Larry, why do you hate freedom?

Girly Men and Manly Women

Several of you have been talking about Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a fag at a major conservative convention. She didn't mean to imply he is gay (married father of four that he is), just that he is a weak, girly man.

Digby says:

The underlying premise of the modern conservative movement is that the entire Democratic party consists of a bunch of fags and dykes who are both too effeminate and too masculine to properly lead the nation. Coulter says it out loud. Dowd hints at it broadly. And the entire press corps giggles and swoons at this shallow, sophomoric concept like a bunch of junior high pom pom girls.

Greenwald adds:

The converse of this is equally true. As critical as it is to them to feminize Democratic and liberal males (and to masculinize the women), even more important is to create false images of masculine power and strength around their authority figures. The reality of this masculine power is almost always non-existent. The imagery is what counts.

Ronald Reagan never got anywhere near the military war (claiming eyesight difficulties to avoid deployment in World War II), and he spent his life as a Hollywood actor, not a rancher, yet to this day, conservatives swoon over his masculine role-playing as though he is some sort of super-brave military hero. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter, who actually graduated the Naval Academy and was assigned to real live nuclear submarines, is mocked as a weak and snivelling coward who should not have a ship named after him.

And the ultimate expression of faux, empty, masculine courage and power is, of course, the Commander-in-Chief himself -- the Glorious Leader whom John Podhoretz hailed in the title of his worshippful cult book as The First Great Leader of the 21st Century -- with the ranch hats and brush-clearing pants and flight-suit outfits that would make the Village People seethe with jealousy over his costume choices ...

Orcinus adds:

The "edgy" hate talk that she has been pushing for some time now especially appeals to the frat-boy level of sophistication that is her intended audience, and this latest iteration is all about justifying the new bigotry. Coulter's underlying logic is simple: Bigots are just people with different ideas, not hateful misanthropes whose beliefs are innately poisonous.

Our very manly leader:

One Love

(photo by Travis Ruse)