Don’t Do It, Joe Gibbs

8:00 am EST August 30th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 7 Comments

In order for the Washington Redskins to be successful in 2006-7 they need to score points. For the Redskins to score points, it is ideal that the following four players be as healthy as humanly possible. In order:

1. Jason Campbell (QB)
2. Clinton Portis (RB)
3. Santana Moss (WR)
4. Ladell Betts (RB)

And yet, I read this in today’s paper:

After injuring his left knee in the Washington Redskins’ second preseason game on Aug. 18, quarterback Jason Campbell is set to start tomorrow night in the team’s preseason finale at Jacksonville. Meanwhile, tailback Clinton Portis, who has missed nearly all of training camp with tendinitis in his right knee, returned for yesterday’s practice and also could play, Coach Joe Gibbs said.

There is no need for the starting QB and RB to play in today’s game. The game means nothing. There is no upside to playing them and exposing them to even the possibility of harm. The first game that counts is 10 (!) days away. In addition to me hating the preseason, did you know that God hates it too? You’re a very religious man Coach Gibbs, so you can’t have thought it was a coincidence that last Saturday’s game versus the Ravens was interrupted by a thunderstorm by accident?

That was a sign: The Lord Hateth The Preseason.

What should be done is for the four aforementioned players to be sealed in protective Nerf-like spheres and locked away from the world until the night of the 8th. It’s the right thing to do. Don’t play them.

Please.

Topic: Redskins

Remember The ’80s and ’90s?

12:36 am EST August 30th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Elle McPherson was back there. And yet, some things haven’t changed. Kudos to her.

(The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue just ain’t the same anymore, and I don’t know if it’s the Internet that ruined it or that the current crop of “supermodels” just aren’t as “Super” as ’90s staples like Cindy Crawford, although I’m pro-Bundchen and Ambrossio – both of them need a hearty steak dinner every night for a month though)

Topic: Women

Why Media Bias Claims From The Right Are Ridiculous

12:16 am EST August 30th, 2007 | Media | 2 Comments

From the conservative blog, The Cable Game:

And on CNN, one sees, routinely, all manner of jabs at Bush: John King, for example, saying that George W. Bush’s popularity was “in the dumps.” Excuse me, but that’s bias.

That’s actually not bias, but reporting. President Bush has an average approval rating of 32.4%. By any objective measure of political approval, a 32.4% approval rating is “in the dumps”. Saying otherwise could at best be charitably characterized as b.s. but it’s certainly not “bias” and especially not a liberal one.

Here are some actual instances of misinformation from CNN’s John King, but conservatives have defined down “bias” to include anyone who doesn’t kiss the butt of the Republican party.

Good Luck Chuck Looks Horrible But Jessica Alba Is The Sexiest Clumsy Woman Ever

11:44 pm EST August 29th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I determined this using science.

Topic: Women

Surge

10:48 pm EST August 29th, 2007 | News | 8 Comments

The Iraq policy is still failing, but the administration just wants to spin it. As usual.

Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush’s Iraq war strategy, The Associated Press has learned.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline for Bush to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public, also said the administration is preparing a case to play down its findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, “all or nothing” standards when compiling the document.

Topic: Iraq

Katrina, Two Years Ago

10:45 pm EST August 29th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Topic: USA

Tucker Carlson Beat Up A Gay Man

4:25 pm EST August 29th, 2007 | News | 20 Comments

Compassionate conservatives strike again.

Do The Democrats Have Balls?

3:05 am EST August 29th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 29 Comments

George W. Bush, one of the worst presidents ever and the architect of American failure in Iraq is going to ask the Congress for a $50 Billion blank check.

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request — which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.

The Democratic congress has achieved mediocre ratings not because they’ve passed good legislation on the minimum wage, stem cell research, ethics reform and the like but because they have capitulated time and time and time again to the President on the seminal issue of our time. Iraq is a giant suck hole pulling in billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and the security of a nation. This commander in chief is a miserable failure and there is absolutely no sense of any sort in continuing to give him rope with which to hang the American military and public.

The Congress needs to show the American people that it stands for the principles for which it earned its majority or it will sacrifice its morality.

This is all part of the Republican strategy with the White House authored "Petraeus" report containing more of the same swill we have heard for over four years now about "victory" being right around the corner.

Topic: Democratic Congress

What Planet Does Patrick Ruffini Live On?

11:40 pm EST August 28th, 2007 | Republicans | 12 Comments

Patrick writes.

Using the outers’ logic, it is now legitimate to throw this time-hallowed tradition out the window, and for conservative Christians to inject their personal moral and theological views into their voting decisions, and in deciding who gets to continue in public office. Is that the road they really want to go down?

Go down the road? The religious right not only built the road of imposing personal morality and theological views on everybody, but they paved it and put in a multi-lane express highway. There is no Republican party without Christianist theocrats like Falwell, Dobson, Perkins and their acolytes like Bush, Ashcroft, and beyond. Patrick has followed politics for a long time, he knows the history of the conservative movement up and down, but then he simply discards that in order to make an untrue point.

Good Riddance To The Pathetic Alberto Gonzales

11:28 pm EST August 28th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

A love note from TPM Media.

Does anyone remember when con commenters here on this very blog were bitching at TPM and the rest of us on the left for talking about this Alberto Gonzalez nothingburger story ?

Yeah.

Topic: U.S. Attorney Scandal