Fox News Stoops to a New Low

Simply breathtaking:



The woman's name is Liz Trotta. You can sign the petition to have her fired here.

Leave it to someone on Fox to top Hillary Clinton.

Update: Trotta has apologized.

In Defense of Hillary Clinton

The headline of the New York Post states that Mrs. Clinton "links prez race with RFK assassination." Matt Drudge has officially shat a chicken. The media is going to have a field day, and all in all, Mrs. Clinton will probably stay in the race for a little bit longer. Of course, she should drop out, but I don't think she will. She still feels, for some odd reason, that she deserves the nomination. She's been trying to make her case for staying in so long, and when she made the RFK gaffe, that's exactly what she was doing.

While the woman makes me physically ill and I cannot wait until the day when she disappears from the realm of politics forever, I do not think she was suggesting that she should stay in the race "in case Barack Obama gets assassinated." She was simply making the case that election battles going well into June are not unique. She cited her husband's race to the nomination (he officially wrapped it up in June) and reminded us all that we were mourning Robert Kennedy's assassination in June when he was competing for the Democratic nomination. Here's what she said in March to Time Magazine:

"I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual."

While she is correct that primaray contests have stretched into the month of June, RFK's primary season did not start until March and her husband had the nomination effectively wrapped up as soon as March of that year. Regardless, in neither of her examples did the primary season start more than a year before the general election and we were not voting a few moments after New Year's. This election has dragged on far too long and for her to pretend otherwise leaves me nonplussed. For someone who is supposed to have the political swagger of President James Bond, Hildabeast really needs to work on her delivery and making sure her cited examples make sense. Has it not occurred to her that she could be destroying her political career by staying in the race this long? The assassination comment is my case in point: why would you ever talk about the "a" word when, for the first time in history, a black man looks likely to become President?

Not smart Hill. Not smart at all.

YouTube and the Terror War

YouTube can be a pretty scary place.

I subscribe to a channel authored by a video poster named Sheikh702. He first caught my eye because he had a video referring to Osama Bin Laden as "Sheikh," the Arabic word for Elder, which is often given as a title of respect or honor. Basically, if someone is calling Osama Bin Laden "Sheikh," they are certainly more than merely sympathetic to his cause.

From that point on it gets pretty scary. Just looking at the profiles of the people who post comments on his videos is quite a trip. One guy has a backround graphic of a bunch of American Military graves and his profile description says:

"The backround picture on my channel is the grave yards of bushes capitalistic henchmen. Courtesy of the Iraqi resistance." (Siced hard.)

Like I said, YouTube is a freaky place, and it only gets worse from that point on. After spending a few minutes clicking around you begin to realize you are staring at enemy; you are watching his videos; you are reading his comments. This is a reminder to me that even though I often post about how I disagree with the Iraq War, I very much believe that the Terror War is real and that is must be won. I don't agree with the neoconservative approach to the War, but I do agree with them that it is the most trying event our generation faces. The Islamic world is in the middle of a schism: one side sees the West and wants to destroy it and the other side sees the West invading its countries and is sympathetic to the cause, and then there are a whole bunch of normal Muslims caught up in the middle.

How do we deal with Fascism with an Islamic face? The same way porcupines kiss: very carefully. And Reza Aslan has some pretty good ideas.

Do You Believe?

AS Roma rightback Cicinho says Roma will win the Scudetto on Sunday:

"I think we deserve to win it, we have had an excellent season and we have shown everyone that we are right up there."

Italian soccer (Serie A) has been the most entertaining thing (and too often not) on television this year. I am a big AS Roma fan and watching them fight to capture first place for the past few weeks has been an emotional roller coaster. Roma now sit only 1 point behind league leaders Inter Milan going into the final game on Sunday. Roma plays Catania, a team that is facing relegation to the lower tier of Italian Soccer, Serie B, should they lose. Inter play Parma, a team that is also facing relegation should they lose. Millions across Europe will be tuned in this Sunday to watch. Do I think Roma can do it?



I believe.

Gay Marriage in California

Tomorrow is the day. If it happens, expect it to become a big topic of discussion this fall. And don't expect too much of a difference between McCain or Obama on the issue. Obama is against gay marriage (but for civil unions), and McCain is against gay marriage, but open to civil unions. It'd be interesting to see how the court decision affects their rhetoric.

Autistic Savant

Pretty amazing:



I like that New York is his favorite city. Sometimes I think that when we see Autistic people we are watching Evolution at work (and I'm not alone.)

Cheers.

John McCain vs. O'Reilly on Torture

Stands up for what is right on one of the bastions of hard-core rightism. He may have had a few missteps on the torture issue thus far, but he still remains on the right side of the issue and that is notable. Amongst a party that is following the Bush-Cheney line on the justification of war crimes, that is most notable.



Way to go John.

Tom Waits Is Brilliant.

I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I am kind of a Tom Waits freak. Anyway, here is a press conference starring Mr. Waits. And I really do mean "starring."

Waterboarding

Unleashed:



If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, it probably is a big effing duck.