Going the way of the Whigs?

Let's hope so.

Ethanol bust?

The bloom, it would seem, is off the rose -- or the stalk.

So Newt's out after all

Too bad. It would have been fun.

Fox News accuses U.S. generals of betrayal

Wow. The right-wingers who have taken it upon themselves to protect American military leaders against criticism suddenly have a huge workload.

You already know about the big dustup over the MoveOn.org ad in The New York Times that dissed Gen. David Petraeus. And we've told you about the episodes involving Rush Limbaugh (here) and American Conservative magazine (here). Well, now Fox News has waxed treasonous with sharp criticism of our valiant military leaders.

Retired Army Col. David Hunt, a military analyst for Fox News, has written a piece for the network's Web site in which he declares: "Our generals are betraying our soldiers..."

The headline on the essay pulls no punches: "Top Military Officials are a Disgrace to Those They Lead."

Isn't it strange that in the few short days since Congress approved resolutions condemning the MoveOn.org ad for daring to question Petraeus, we've had this rash of denunciations of American troops and their leaders by conservatives?

Conservative mag rips Petraeus

What will the pseudo-patriots say about this?

American Conservative magazine says Gen. David Petraeus is a "sycophant" and "a political general of the worst kind -- one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes."

The piece by Andrew J. Bacevich says Petraeus "has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly."

Now, we'll see if the right-wingers who got their undies in a bunch over MoveOn.org's famous anti-Petraeus ad in The New York Times have anything to say about this far worse slap at their hero.

Let's not expect much. So far, these wingnuts haven't raised any fuss about Rush Limbaugh's latest slander of U.S. troops.

UPDATE: John McCain and Mitt Romney have criticized Limbaugh for calling antiwar U.S. troops "phony soldiers."

The Boss

Dig it (and stay with it past the first song; there's a lot of music on this clip):

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msnbc&vid=45faa98f-3264-490d-8bd1-72e72cbf62b5&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:c586e3a4-0373-444a-b03b-046cce897194,870b2cf1-5acb-4681-9bb8-a2f6c04c2795,8cb4d767-ae3f-468d-827a-9270fc07839a,e717d3c9-de72-4daf-9664-d55ce7cb9e00,d7ecb4b7-842f-4a86-92b7-32d6a9739349,7bf48160-0f5f-4af7-ad19-5b4c36ecc355&from=Msnbc&tab=m368

Ah, baseball!

Despite all the misfortune that has befallen it through its long history, our National Pastime is experiencing its umpteenth rebirth as it heads into the final weekend of the 2007 regular season.

Attendance is at an all-time high. There is greater parity among the 30 major league teams than ever before. Excitement is at a fevered pitch with all four playoff berths in the National League still up for grabs among seven teams. A new generation of superstars is emerging. The game has survived the steroids scandal and all its other attempts at suicide.

Yes, the most democratic of our three major sports (football and basketball depend too much on players of outsized physical proportions --7-footers and 320-pounders) is in good shape.

What fun these next three days will be for fans from the concrete canyons of New York City to the natural canyons of Arizona, from historic Philly to tacky Tinseltown, from the heartland precincts of Chicago and Milwaukee to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Baseball. What a magical institution.

Limbaugh: Lots of U.S. troops are '"phony"

Recovering drug addict and serial prevaricator Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio blowhard who tells America's dimwits what to think, says the thousands of U.S. troops who have indicated any misgivings about the war in Iraq are "phony soldiers."

One wonders if this slander of our men and women in uniform will engender the kind of umbrage among Republican conservatives occasioned by the recent MoveOn.org newspaper add questioning the veracity of Gen. David Petraeus.

FLASH: THE WAR IS OVER! WE WON!

The number of Iraqi insurgents who have been killed or captured now exceeds the number the U.S. military said we were fighting.

By God, this is cause for celebration. George Bush's manhood finally has been validated after decades of doubt in the wake of his chickenshit avoidance of service in the Vietnam War, which he had otherwise enthusiastically supported.

Watch your local media for times and locations of the victory parades.

Oh, and stand by for the start of the war against Iran, which will happen any day now.

Run, Newtie, run!

Welcome to the race, Mr. Gingrich.

You're not going to be elected president, but you might just raise the intellectual level of the rhetoric among Republican hopefuls. (Of course, that also could be achieved by any lunatic wandering the streets in a snot-covered sweatshirt, muttering about the bastards who stole some brilliant invention of his.)

You're a fun guy, Newtie. I've always said so.

Navy to pay $600,000 to rid itself of swastika

After 40 years, the U.S. Navy finally is going to do something about a swastika-shaped barracks complex at a base in Coronado, Calif.

Who were the idiots who designed this place to begin with?

Karl Rove meets Harry Potter

This is funny:

Teach your childrens well

George W. Bush, the pride of Andover Prep and Yale University, declared today that "childrens do learn when standards are high."

The man has a problem with words...among other things.

Must-See TV

Ooh! I can hardly wait for this.

Katie gets a well-deserved smackdown

How did this person ever get the seat once filled by the likes of Walter Cronkite on the network where Edward R. Murrow once worked?

Not to be rude, but where's this Abboud dude?

It's been a couple of months now since Barrington Hills Mayor Bob Abboud announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican Don Manzullo in the race for Congress in the 16th District of Illinois.

Since then, however, Abboud has been silent. Oh, he's got a Web site (such as it is), but there's nothing new on it. All manner of issues and events have arisen in recent weeks, and we hear nothing about them from this guy.

If Abboud is going to have a chance to win in this traditionally Republican district, he'd better get off his tractor pretty soon. (At least his dog seems eager for action.)

Eyes Wide Open

A project of the American Friends Service Committee, Eyes Wide Open is an exhibit in which empty boots represent American troops killed in Iraq and empty shoes represent dead Iraqi civilians:

Have sympathy for global warming skeptics

Gosh, I can't help but feel sorry for the few folks who are still skeptical of global warming reports. The poor bastards!

These people are forever looking for signs that the climate situation isn't as bad as Al Gore and his ilk make it out to be. And they're forever looking for evidence that the general public isn't buying the alarmism over global warming. Their quest on both counts, however, is futile.

Some of you may remember the fun we had with the deniers a few months ago when they got all excited about a poll indicating widespread skepticism about global warming -- only to have their enthusiasm dampened when it turned out that the poll was totally bogus.

Well, now they're facing even more discouraging news. There's a new BBC World Service poll -- an honest-to-God scientific survey -- showing that people all over the planet are convinced that human activity is contributing to global warming and want something done about it.

The question arises: What are the skeptics going to do now? Most climatologists disagree with them. Most of the world's population disagrees with them. The only people still on their side are the creationists, the Limbaugh dittoheads, the Fox News crowd and assorted other mouth-breathers.

The skeptics are left only with the barely comforting thought that when they're finally proven wrong on this climate-change thing beyond any doubt, the human race might well have been made extinct by then, thereby sparing these idiots the humiliation and derision they'll so richly deserve.

Pity them.

Ralph Nader, go to hell!

So-called consumer advocate Ralph Nader seems interested in offering more help to the Republican Party.

Here Comes Success

(H/T to DailyKos)