I Don't Like You Either

Department of Viral Videos: 'Some Say the World Will End in Fire'---An Animation of an Asteroid Crashing into Earth

Via.  At least it appears we'll go out to Pink Floyd.

Snark O' the Day: How Much do Conservatives HATE AMERICA? Sadly, No! (& Its Commentariat) Attempts to Answer

All during the campaign we kept hearing from Sarah Palin that Obama and his supporters didn't think about America the same way she and the morons who voted for her aspire to think of it or give it the same blind love and loyalty that the wingnuts claim to give it.  In a way, this is true.  We think it's the duty of the citizen of a democracy to place democratic ideals before blind loyalty and that "tough love" is required to keep the country on the right path. 

Joel Stein, who---at least when writing in character--- is a conservative's idea of a liberal, may or may not understand this.   Affecting to speak for all liberals, he said:

Sure, we liberals claim that our love is deeper because we seek to improve the United States by pointing out its flaws. But calling your wife fat isn’t love. True love is the blind belief that your child is the smartest, cutest, most charming person in the world, one you would gladly die for. I’m more in ‘like’ with my country.”

Conservatives had a field day with this, ingenuously taking him at his word and assuming that he is infallible on the subject of liberalism and is appointed by all liberals to speak for them.  And so Clif at Sadly, No! thoughtfully compiled a list of all the things those America-lovin' wingnuts HATE HATE HATE!!!!! about their country.

Britblogs React to British Culture Minister's Plans for Making the Internets Safe for *the Children*

(Sir Baz says this story is "days old", but we liked it too much to delete it.)

British Culture Secretary (Hey, why don't we have one of those?  We should get one of those ASAP!) Andy Burnham, worried about the effect of the internets on children---good; good; we like children too--- has a solution!

Ratings for websites!

Okay, scratch what we just said about getting one of those.  According to the BBC,

Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.

More Awards! GoLeft TV Chooses ALL of Fox News as "Media Moron of the Year" for the War on the "War" on Christmas

Via Video Cafe, this gift of seasonal awesomeness: 

Transcript is over here.

Gay Penguins in China Zoo Given Their Own Eggs

The zoo separated them because they kept stealing other penguins' eggs---"they were caught  placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs." (MailOnline)  This is the sweet part:

But angry visitors to Polar Land in Harbin, northern China, complained it wasn't fair to stop the couple from becoming surrogate fathers and urged zoo bosses to give them a chance.

Colbert: "The Unbearable Lightness of Supreme Being"

Colbert fights in the war against the war against Christmas.  "Christmas really burns atheists up, which they can think of as a preview of their afterlife.". 

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - The Unbearable Lightness of Supreme Being

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

More on Blago's Frightening 'Do

Via expert hair deconstructor Princess Sparkle Pony---which gets a special mention---this CNN video comments on the probable role of Blagojevich's hair in the current scandal.

Bill Ayers on "Hardball"

Here's "the washed-up old terrorist," as McCain called him, speaking for himself but also with strange prescience.  Highlights:

Asked about his reaction to Palin's "palling around with terrorists remark, Ayers said: "I thought it was outrageous and profoundly dishonest, and I chose not to react to it at the time."

Ayers added, "I was on a board with President-Elect Obama, we did live in the same neighborhood, but the dishonesty of the narrative is that if you can place two people in the same room or prove that they took a bus downtown together, that they're somehow responsible for one anothers politics, policies, outlook, and behavior, and that seems to me to be patently absurd."

Tweety concluded that  "Ayers is a changed man." Uh, as Jason Linkins said, make of that what you will.

Jon Swift on Derrierism, the Sensible Conservative's Answer to "Hollyweird"

Conservative Andrew Breitbart intends to start a new website on which conservatives will review films. Derrierism, a new school of film criticism that Jon Swift identified in August 2007---and a tag which made its way into the Urban Dictionary--- has evolved from "an esoteric school of film criticism championed by a few forward-thinking critics." (Swift 12-9-2008).  Quoting extensively from Mr. Swift, the Urban Dictionary defines derrierism as follows:

The critical method of judging movies by whether your buttocks moves in the seat while watching them. Derrièrists dispense with such niceties as subtlety and thought in movie criticism, believing that intellectuals, relativists, existentialists, pacifists, and no doubt the Communist Left have had the upper hand in film-making for too long.

In short, a "derrierist" is a film reviewer who pulls film reviews out of his---or indeed her---ass.

Joe the Plumber Rips on McCain; Thinks Palin is "the Real Deal"

"Who in the what now?"  I hear you thinking.  "Joe the---oh, you mean this guy?"

No:  Joe.  JOE WURZELBACHER. Joe the Plumber?  McCain's pal?  Remember him?  Sure you do.  Big block-headed guy---claims to be a plumber--- summoned up out of obscurity by McCain during one of the debates?   Nothing? 

Dept of Valedictions: Bush and the Plutocrats ("There Goes the Neighborhood")

As Bush prepares to move into his exclusive new neighborhood his neighbors are worried that his presence might disrupt their Way of Life.  Those neighbors include "former presidential candidate Ross Perot and Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner" and some guy next door who just installed a "trout-filled lake" on his property.  (Raw Story)

Will Bush turn their American dream into a Bush administration-style nightmare?

Dept of Valedictions: Let's All Give Outgoing Bush Some Credit and Make Those Popularity Levels Soar!

Mick Arran at Fact-esque calls for a round of very slow clapping for Bush.

Snark O' the Day: The Supremes to Consider the Obama Birth Certificate "Controversy

Bark Bark Woof Woof woofs about this glorious waste of taxpayer dollars in the interests of settling once and for all a "worrying" "issue":

The United States Supreme Court is going to decide whether or not to hear a case claiming that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to serve as President of the United States...

This Just In: The RNC Spent More on Palin than You Made in the Three Years Before the Lay Off

They didn't exactly put it that way, but that's what it comes down to. 

It's getting kind of hard to keep track of all the numbers, but Politico seems to have done the math:

Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Twice Hangs Up on a Call From Obama; We Blame Palin

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of our Florida GOPpers, hung up twice on the President-Elect, thinking she was being punked and pranked and pwned. (Politico)   Oh, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Tch.

Judicial Watch: Clinton Ineligible to be Secretary of State!!!!!!!!

With Judicial Watch on the case, can anything save Hillary now?  BZZZZZZT!  She's out---and on a technicality!

Gawker has the nutshell version of the underlying law.  ABOVE WHICH NO ONE, NOT EVEN HILLARY CLINTON, IS!!

Colbert: A Man Called Plaxico

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - A Man Named Plaxico

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Dept of "And the Scales Fell from His Eyes": Townhall.com Lets Itself & Marc Ambinder Down

Marc Ambinder is clearly pained that Town Hall is "spot-lighting" a certain questionable fund-raising plea "from a foundation that wants to prove, in court, that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to be president and therefore wants to do a whole lot of bad things involving amnesty, illegal aliens and the United Nations. Obama'd be the "Usurper in Chief.""

Jon Stewart: Is MSNBC Fox News for Progressives?

We love MSNBC---but then we're progressives.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

MSNBC Replaces Fox News

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin Busy Stumping for Saxby Chambliss; Spokesman Says "State Business is Unaffected" by Her Absence

Man, Palin and her people don't give the political comics and satirists a chance, do they?  They're out there in the ring all the time, in clown make-up, orange wigs, and comical two-foot long shoes, falling off bitty little bicycles, sitting down on whoopee cushions, falling off the tight ropes, dancing with pink French poodles with ruffles round their necks, and using the safety net as their personal trampoline.   

Snark O' the Day: IOZ on the Secularization of the Season

by Damozel | Writing on Henniger's dog-whistling about the secularization of the season, IOZ says:

Adam Smith it ain't.

It takes no particular perspicacity to note that our holidays-without-the-holy came about not through the secularizing efforts of "Northerners and atheists," the gangs of post-doctoral post-modernists slavering to gnaw on the soft edges of Christendom, but through the commercializing efforts of the various and sundry pillars, columns, flutes, and scrolls of American state capitalism. The gradual erosion of "Merry Christmas" in favor of "Happy Holidays" doesn't mark a moral retreat in the face of religious multiculturalism or anti-Christian laïcité. It marks the commerce-driven extension of a shopping season, one that now extends from before Halloween to the post-New Year sales. "Happy Holidays" isn't culturally inclusive; it's commercially inclusive.

Which --- as the sinners of Hadleyburg remarked in a slightly different context --- has got the Hallmark on it.

Not a Peep Out of Biden?

blue stockings | The Politico and others wonder why we aren't hearing more from Joe.

Turkeygate Part 2 (I Can't Believe I'm Defending Sarah Palin)

by Blue Stockings | I can't stand Sarah Palin, but the squeamishness over Turkeygate doesn't sit well with me.   I said why here, but IOZ says it better.  Thanksgiving Day seems like the right time to make this point.

A New Clinton Administration?

by Blue Stockings | Doubtful.  Amazing the powers people attribute to Hillary, who didn't even beat Obama the first time.

The Mahablog discusses the gloomy forebodings of Clinton-averse right-wingers.

Snark O' the Day: "Raging" "Impotent" Netroots, Eh?

by Blue Stockings |  I don't think so.  But it's a meme that's emerging since the Lieberman thing and the media are running it for all it's worth.  Here's a piece by James Kirchick in The New York Daily News to prove it, all "Obama isn't afraid of the raging, impotent netroots because Joe Lieberman blah blah netroots furious rah rah blah dee blah blee." Read it yourself. 

Snark O' the Day: WSJ Blames Atheists for the Collapse of Wall Street

by Teh Puppet Mistress | Myers:  The Wall Street Journal is a Very Silly Place

The United States has some serious problems: an ugly war, a shaky economy, a bad government (on the way out, at last). It's been a rough eight years. So of course it must be someone's fault, and Daniel Henninger has a simple explanation: blame the atheists. Especially blame the atheist's successful war on Christmas. He says, "A nation whose people can't say 'Merry Christmas' is a nation capable of ruining its own economy."

Talkin Turkey: The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter Incident

by Blue Stockings | Palin is interviewed. Turkeys are slaughtered in the background. I'm just not sure how to interpret that. Or rather, I can't improve on HuffPost.

Some videos you just have to see to believe. On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being SLAUGHTERED in the background!! Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Be warned, it's kind of gruesome.

Yeah, it is. But maybe it will do people good to see where their food comes from?

Suffering Fools: GOP Senators Get Sent to Funky Town

by Teh Puppet Mistress | I don't usually find The Politico laugh-out-loud funny, but this article filled me with effervescent glee.

Conservatives Declare Us the Victors in Iraq: "THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON"

by Teh Puppet Mistress | I've been steadfastly ignoring this latest wingnut meme all week, but The Toot sees off the most recent attempt of wingnuts who miss blowing hard on the big bullshit horn about their superior superiority and want to feel right-eous and holler and bloviate about something.   They need their fix of self-congratulatory self-righteousness.

Stephen Colbert is Concerned About the War on Christmas

"....because if there's one thing Jesus cared about, it's semantics."