Star Wars Gangsta Rap: Chronicles

Yeah, that's right. Lando be big pimpin':


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Deal With The Devil

I've never had a problem with the Devil but that's just me. Certain Catholics can rejoice; others can wail:


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TDS: Stewart Trys To Watch Hannity's Apology

This is pretty much how I watch Hannity's show as well:

You can watch Stewart's take down and Hannity's full apology here.

[Update: A Daily Dish reader with experience in television shares my opinion of Hannity's "apology":

When I first heard that Hannity was offering up an apology (confession?) for his video lie, I was impressed. I honestly didn't think he had it in him. And then I watched the damn thing. Turns out I was right. Forget the tone, which I found gratingly smug. Or the final punchline thanking Stewart's writers for watching, a lame attempt to diffuse the troubling transgression with humor. What keeps nagging at me is his claim that it was some sort of accident. That no one meant for it to happen. Sorry, but I don't buy that for a second. Those sorts of things don't simply "happen".

Let me explain.

I have been working in television for the past 15 years. I know in detail how these things work: 1) you are assigned a story, 2) you send out a crew to shoot the necessary footage, 3) the footage is brought back to the studio and loaded into the Avid, or whatever editing system you are using, 4) you cut together your piece based on THE FOOTAGE AT HAND.

For footage from a different event that took place months earlier to find its way into an entirely new piece, well, someone had to: 1) make the decision to lie in the first place (and lets be clear, it IS a lie), 2) locate the old footage, 3) cut the footage into the new piece, 4) a producer or the like had to approve the clip for air.

Yes, accidents can happen. But I guarantee you someone on his show said, "Man, we need to make those crowds look bigger" (don't get me started on the ethical quagmire of that decision) and a writer, producer or editor said, "I know, we can use some stuff from Glenn's rally. No one will ever notice." True, Hannity may not have been aware of that editorial decision (he cannot supervise every piece of footage that airs on his show) but let's be clear: contrary to what he said, someone DID mean for it to happen, they simply did not mean to get caught. And his lame apology is covering someone's ass. It also leads me to wonder how often this is being done on his network.

I think we all know the answer to that last bit of speculation.]

Something Someone Else Said

"The main reason I can’t march along with the right wing blogosphere any more, not to put too fine a point on it, is that most of them have succumbed to Obama Derangement Syndrome. One “nontroversy” after another, followed by the outrage of the day, followed by conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, all delivered in breathless, angry prose that’s just wearying and depressing to read.

It’s not just the economic issues either. I’ve never been on board with the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment radical religious right. Once I began making my opinions known on issues like creationism and abortion, I realized that there just wasn’t very much in common with many of the bloggers on the right. And then, when most of them decided to fall in and support a blogger like Robert Stacy McCain, who has neo-Nazi friends, has written articles for the openly white supremacist website American Renaissance, and has made numerous openly racist statements on the record ... well, I was extremely disappointed to see it, but unfortunately not surprised." -Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs. Johnson has become a pariah within the right-wing blogosphere merely for not towing the line of the Obama-hating Christianist base of the Republican party. You can read of my own verbal spar with Robert Stacy (yes, Stacy) McCain here.

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TDS: Stewart Catches Lie, Hannity Apologizes

A few days ago Jon Stewart noticed something peculiar about Sean Hannity's coverage of Representative and free-range cougar Michelle Bachmann's anti-health care reform rally in Washington, DC:

Caught in his lie, Hannity offered the following apology and explanation:


Now call me a cynical bastard but based on the dozens and dozens of examples of FOX News making "inadvertent" mistakes like this I doubt the veracity of Hannity's claim but at least he somewhat copped to it.

(hat tip: Doug"e")

Picture Of The Day

President Barack Obama descends the stairs of the stage from which he led the memorial service for the 13 people killed in last week's massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.

Chart Of The Day

Rather telling, isn't it? And this is just the UK. Because of the decades long smear campaign here in the states I'm sure the media coverage is much more skewed against cannabis, a plant that is far less deadly than ordinary everyday aspirin. Also, the starred phrase "highly questionable" drastically understates the reality of these "cannabis related" deaths, which is also how they're recorded by hospitals here as well, i.e. if you ingest an eight ball of coke, several tabs of ecstasy, a case of beer and smoke half a joint before you die it's a "cannabis related" death which is then dutifully entered into the statistics.

The truth is that there has not been one death in all of recorded human history that can be directly attributed to the use of cannabis. It has been estimated that in order to receive a lethal level of THC, the main active chemical produced in the plant, a person must ingest approximately one third of their body weight all at once, which is so obviously physically impossible that it's laughable. I can't think of any other health related issue for which the popular perception of the medical science has been so blatantly and drastically skewed by our government and the media. One of the silver linings of the economic straits we currently find ourselves in is that people are finally starting to wake up and seriously reexamine the stupidity of the laws concerning this plant and it's myriad of uses.

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The Empire Sabotages Back

The sci-fi classic is set to the Beasties:


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Tancredo Gets Smackdown From Veteran Kos

This is what's known as being called on your chickenhawk pussy bullshit:


After college Moulitsas completed a three year voluntary enlistment in the army. Tancredo was too depressed to fight in the Vietnam War when he graduated college and became eligible for the draft, although he was an outspoken proponent for America's involvement there. Which actually puts him in pretty good company, Republicanwise:

There are similar stories [of avoiding service in Vietnam] about almost every other prominent rightwing Republican of recent vintage. Newt Gingrich, ex-Speaker of the House, went the Cheney route [of obtaining deferments]; Kenneth Starr, Clinton's legal nemesis, had psoriasis; Jack Kemp, Dole's running mate in 1996, was unfit because of a knee injury, though he heroically continued as a National Football League quarterback for another eight years; Pat Buchanan had arthritis in his knees, though he soon became an avid jogger.

The best story concerns Rush Limbaugh, the ferociously bellicose radio personality, who allegedly had either "anal cysts" or an "ingrown hair follicle on his bottom". It is not my custom to mock others' ailments, but anyone who has listened to Limbaugh's programme can imagine the dripping scorn he would bring to the revelation that a prominent Democrat had skipped a war over something like that. Also, in his case, a pain in the arse is peculiarly appropriate.

It's easy to be enthusiastic about wars when your neighbor's sons are the ones fighting them for you.

The Zoomquilt II: A Collaborative Art Project

The only way I can explain it would be to say that it's like falling through a wormhole with Salvador Dali, Hieronymus Bosch and M. C. Escher. Very cool. Check it out here.

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