The Truffle

You Are Austin A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick What American City Are You? I actually think of myself more as New York or Chicago, but hey... You Are Rain You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing What Type of Weather Are You? Now this weather is just NOT me. Your Haloween Costume Should Be Candy Corn What Should You Be For Halloween? Halloween is a few months off, but maybe this costume is a possibility. Your World View You are a happy, well-balanced person who likes people and is liked by others. You question whether many conventional views on morality are valid under all circumstances. You are essentially a content person. Sometimes, you consider yo...

Carey Lee Cramer, the brains behind an anti-Gore attack ad, has been found guilty of sexually molesting two girls. One of the victims, incidentally, appeared in Cramer's infamous ad. Cramer faces 149 years in prison. Well, for once, justice was served.

Dan Froomkin suggests that the wingers doth protest too much. Turns out that SWIFT, the program that monitors bank transactions, isn't a secret. Not when it has a Web site and puts on a trade show. And especially not when its name appears on wire transfer forms. Glenn Greenwald points out that the wingers hate America's free press even more than they hate the troops. Real un-American bunch these Bush cultists are, aren't they?

Britney and Ursula from "The Little Mermaid": Separated at birth?

Right wingers are enraged because The New York Times published the details of the government searching bank records to catch terrorists, in partnership with an international an organization called SWIFT. According to the wingers, the Times has committed a crime by sharing this information with the public. So where was their righteous anger when Bob Novak revealed the name of a covert CIA agent, thus jeopardizing her work and her contacts in the Middle East?

So sez this news article.

Sigh...snif...

The amendment failed 66-34. Okay, now can Congress debate actual important, substantial issues facing our nation? Pretty please? In the words of Senator Daniel Inouye, who lost an arm fighting for his country in World War II: While I take offense at disrespect to the flag, I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States senator to defend the constitutional right of protesters to use the flag in nonviolent speech. Ay-men!

It's pretty easy: call them on their pathological hatred of patriotic American veterans. Exhibit A: Why Do Republicans Hate America's Troops , by Bob Geiger. Just yesterday, Geiger--himself a veteran--ripped Amanda P. Doss a new one in response to her FrontPage-generated John Murtha hate site. At this rate, poor, persecuted Ms. Doss will never get around to putting anything on her site.

Shakespeare's Sister reports that a political consultant behind a 2000 anti-Gore attack ad has been charged with sexually abusing two girls--one of whom appeared in the ad. This kind of news isn't even shocking anymore.

Warren Buffet, second richest guy on earth, calls the estate tax--aka the Paris Hilton Tax--"a very equitable tax." See, Mr. Scaife? Even your fellow rich people think that you should pay tax like everyone else.

Guess who's been detained for illegal prescription drugs?

Today's crybaby conservative is Amanda P. Doss, wannabe Swiftboater. The above photo shows Ms. Doss at an anti-Jane Fonda protest. Ms. Doss is the Web "designer" for Operation Street Corner , billed as "the Vietnam Veterans' Grassroots Campaign Against John Kerry and Jane Fonda, traitors to our country." (She claims to be a professional Web designer, and, to be fair, she does seem to have a decent grasp of the Frontpage web editing program.) Anyhow, Doss must've gotten bored with Kerry and Fonda, because she's now created a Web site called Murthalied.com . You can guess who the target is here. Unfortunately for her, the reality-based blogosphere has grown wise to Swiftboat-style smearing, and Ms. Doss found herself on the receiving end of angry e-mails. Subject lines like "BURN IN HELL, FASCIST" and messages like "Go fuck yourself. Better yet, prepare for the swiftboating we're about to do to you!" A social worker sugg...

How can you not love this nontraditional family? The story of Owen, the orphaned hippo, and Mzee, the 120-year-old male tortoise who became his surrogate "mom," has been e-mailed all over the world. And according to Snopes, it is not an urban legend. Now, there are plans to make a movie based on Owen and Mzee's story. It's probably a hippo searching for a mother figure and a tortoise willing to let the hippo follow along, but it's just too sweet!

Sometimes, in the summer, the sky turns gray and the air hangs warm and sticky from the humidity. The sun is hidden behind clouds, and you know it can mean only one thing: a thunderstorm. But the sky stays gray, the day stays hot, and you sit there waiting and waiting, but the rain doesn't come. Not a drop. Nothing. And you wonder about this suspense when there's no ear-splitting thunderclap and no sudden whoosh! of lightning. The thunderstorm doesn't come, the rain doesn't fall...until you step outside to make an emergency run to the grocery store. I hate when that happens, don't you?

John Murtha at Huffpo on the horrible murder of two US soldiers. Meanwhile, not only are Iraqis killing Americans, they're also killing other Iraqis. Can you say "start of a civil war"? From a letter to the local newsweekly: Bush once again did his eye examination. When in 2001 he looked into the eyes of Putin he said, “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Now, he stealthfully flew to Iraq to look Prime Minister Maliki in the eye. Let us hope that Bush’s vision has improved. But maybe I’m being too critical. Perhaps he is merely a closet optometrist. Surely he couldn’t handle that job any worse than he has his present. Yaaaaaaaay! Lewis the kitty is saved! The cat had been attacking neighbors, including an Avon lady, and he was fighting for his life in court. Now, the judge says he will live, but has to stay indoors for the rest of his life. Elayne Riggs has discovered the Highway Sign Generator. As it turns out, there's more w...

Noo Yawkas da most polite in da woild! And don't you fuhgeddaboutit!

Larry King has all 9 Democratic women senators right now (including La Hill). Patty Murray from Washington was talking about how badly underfunded the Veterans' administration is, and Mary Landrieu concurs. Larry asks the women if they feel frustrated as women in a minority party. All say "Oh yes!" Then Dianne Feinstein talks about "tax cut after tax cut after tax cut in the middle of a war," with money coming out of government programs. Barbara Mikulski says, "We are frustrated because of the agenda!" Meaning Bushco's, of course. She's frustrated over "amendments that aren't going to take us anywhere." Meaning the gay marriage amdnement, of course. And, of course, Bushco's fiscal policy. The senators all emphasize the need to pursue a better energy policy. La Hill is being a team player here. Nobody's even mentioning her as a possible presidential candidate. Just found out that Cher is campaigning to provide our...

Things still look fairly crappy right now on the national stage. The malaise permeates the entire country. While about one third of this country are still immersed in the Bush personality cult, the remaining two-thirds either want the guy impeached or are just biding their time until 2009. But there's a shift in national mood. With the rise of Bushco and Republican control of all three branches of government, conservatism has entered its decline. The Bush administration has tried to turn America into a testing ground for all sorts of right-wing frames and ideas hatched in conservative think tanks when it should've been, y'know, running the country. William Greider calls for a new economic approach to replace conservative orthodoxy. Recent years have demonstrated that Reagan-style trickle-down economics don't work. Shrinking government until it can't provide the basic needs of the people doesn't work. The everyone-for-themselves mentality doesn't w...

Could the Democrats finally have a plan for Iraq? One that involves getting US troops out of there? Of course, we can expect to see the usual shopworn talking points; "cut and run," "white flag," and "party of surrender" are the most common ones. Yo! Republicans! Your president told Iraq's prime minister that Iraq's future is in the hands of its new government. It's their job to run the country--NOT ours.

That's how Bill O'Reilly would run Iraq. Gee, with attitudes like his, who needs Saddam, anyway?

From Think Progress, we have a complete transcript of hawkish war veteran John Murtha tearing Rove yet another new one: He's in New Hampshire. He's making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside-saying stay the course. That’s not a plan! We've got to change direction. You can't sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying seventy pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels-hit with IED's every day-seeing their friends blown up-their buddies blown up-and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

Anatomy of a celebrity urban legend: A satirical web site publishes a couple of mock news articles about a celebrity. The text clearly indicates that the story is intended as satire. At least one gossip site recognizes the story is bogus, but then the regular news media , entertainment Web sites , and blogosphere are reporting the story as possible fact. All this even though the original site is a collection of spoof articles and the original piece that started everything includes the following: Like Jolie and Pitt, Spears too, might be expected to arrive in Namibia with Kevin Federline, her husband of twenty-one months. Asked why she had chosen Namibia for the birth of her child, Spears apparently said: "Kevin has always been a fan of African-American culture. I'm sure he'll feel at home there, rapping with all the natives. Besides, there's lots of quiet unpaved roads where Sean Preston and I can go driving." The story circulates the net and news med...

...Which means Dorothy Gale is off frolicking with dwarfs in a forest somewhere and trying to keep Toto from eating suspicious apples, right? Anyway, you'd think a state like Kansas would have a credible GOP challenger to the Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius, right? But when she's wooing former Repubs over to the Democratic side, that's a little hard. Suffice it to say that the Wichita Eagle has taken to calling Sebelius' re-election bid Snow White vs. the Seven Dwarfs. Note to national Dems: Governors like Mark Warner and Sebelius seem to be doing something right here. Maybe you should ask them what it is.

This is a little old, perhaps, but Bruce Willis, die-hard GOPer, supporter of every Republican candidate since, I dunno, Ulysses S. Grant, has proclaimed that he is not a Republican. He was asked about current events, thus setting off the spiel below: "I'm sick of answering this [expletive] question," he says. "I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion. I want them to stop [expletive] on my money and your money and tax dollars that we give 50 percent of... every year. I want them to be fiscally responsible and I want these [expletive] lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican... I hate the government, OK? I'm a-political. Write that down. I'm not a Republican." What could've caused this change? Maybe he was blackballed by the liberal meanies in Hollywood? Nah, didn't think so.

Here's Senator Man-on-Dog in a happy-dippy-dappy springtime mood on the Senate floor. Doesn't he just look festive? From Senate Majority, complete with a rebus!

I can't take credit for the term "Coulter Republican." However, the term deserves to replace "Goldwater Republican" or "Reagan Republican" in the political lexicon. It represents a form of conservatism that has nothing to do with all those things Goldwater believed in--you know, restraint, small government, balanced budgets, and the like. Those Republicans are nearly gone. The Coulter Republicans are those who follow a set of talking points and stick to it. They never met a straw man they didn't like and never met a dissenting voice undeserving of their contempt. There are, of course, shades of opinion among the Coulter Republicans. Sure, they might be troubled over Iraq, but they'll never publicly admit that they made a mistake. They'll react to any semblance of bad news by ignoring it and focusing on--ho hum--liberal Democrats. Doesn't matter how nonsensical the rhetoric is, the Coulter Republican doesn't dare deviate fro...

Remember "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie"? Well, while Bush sang Brownie's praises in public, he was privately hoping that Brownie would take all the blame for the NOLA disaster. CNN's Situation Report got a hold of an e-mail provided by Brownie's lawyers. In this e-mail, a White House official quotes Bush saying, "I'd rather they beat up on him [Brownie] than me or Chertoff." The sender adds, "Congratulations on doing a great job of diverting hostile fire away from the leader." Klassy, huh?

I bought a new cell phone. It's an LG that flips open, just like those Star Trek communicators. I can even take pictures with it, which is kind of cool. I'm still trying to figure out how everything works on this new phone. They included a headset with the phone, which is tempting. However, I don't want to end up like those people who seem to be talking to themselves when they discuss the stock market. They just look kind of strange. Anyway, I switched to Verizon and tossed my old phone in a bin they've set aside for antique cell phones. The antique phones are then donated to domestic abuse victims, so hopefully my old phone will be useful to someone before it finally expires for good.

If the Democrats retake the House this fall, Nancy Pelosi will become the new Speaker. Which will leave an opening for House majority leader. Which John Murtha is interested in seeking if this comes to pass.

The Bugman gave his farewell speech to Congress today. He bemoaned--YAAAAWWWWWWN--liberalism and liberal Democrats, trotting out old, tired cliches: In any place or any time on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More -- more government, more taxation, more control over people's lives and decisions and wallets. How many times have we heard this? Seven hundred? Eight hundred? How many liberals actually feel this way? Three? Four, at the most? The Bugman, meanwhile, wants people to forget how he inserted himself into the Terry Schiavo case. Who's trying to exert control over people's lives and decisions, Mr. Delay? Over at Juanita's, the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, we get a first-hand look at what it's been like to be a Bugman constituent. Hint: the blog owner is not a fan. Nonetheless, she's kept a great sense of humor about the wacky Texas GOP, which seems to attract thugs and wingnuts the way sugar attracts ants.

Sorry, Paris. Looks like the ultra-rich are going to be paying estate taxes after all. (First the gay marriage amendment flops and now this. Have they started taking sanity pills up in Congress?)

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is now in a very warm place along with Saddam's sons and Timothy McVeigh. Finally!

These are the words of Louisiana's junior senator, Republican David Vitter (above, far right). Okay, it's quiz time, folks! What's this all-important issue he's talking about? A. The new hurricane season. B. The rebuilding of New Orleans. C. The gay marriage amendment. The correct answer is... C ! That's today's Republican party for you! They may be clueless foul-ups, but at least they make sure that homos don't get married. Of course, Vitter also said, "Eventually, Congress is going to have to catch up to the wisdom of the American people or the American people will change Congress for the better." In other words, Vitter's toast in the next election, right? Sometimes, with these politicians, the jokes write themselves...

When you see a bunch of Ace Frehly and Paul Stanley wannabes in a bowling alley, you know things have gone too far.

"A shameful political ploy" is what he calls it. Okay, that's like saying water is wet, but it still shows why Russell Feingold is one of my favorite Democrats in office.

Following up this post about Kansas's GOP defectors, it seems that the national media has picked up on the cracks in the Kansas Republican Party. USA Today has the details. Meanwhile, Kansas still, believe it or not, has some level-headed Republicans, who've let themselves be drowned out by the Brownbacks long enough. There's a group called the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority who are trying to take back their party. So who are these guys and what do they believe in? The Kansas City Star explains: "Think Ike. Think fiscal conservatives. Think Bob Dole or Nancy Kassebaum or Bill Graves, pols who stood for personal freedom and limited government..." This was bound to happen sooner or later. The fundies overplayed their hand and the normal, level-headed Republicans got fed up. That's what happened with Mark Parkinson, the GOP chair turned Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. And while Parkinson has left the party, other Republicans hav...

"An Inconvenient Truth" is at number 9 for weekend box office results. It's in 77 theaters (so far) and brought in $1.7 million. Wow. WOW! Crooks and Liars has the interview here. Apparently Gore is leaning toward not running. Oh well. I seriously want the 2008 candidate to be someone who a. is not a senator and b. doesn't have so much baggage. Yes, it rules out Hillary (or La Hill as I call her). Still, a President Gore would be...well, pretty cool.

There. I've said it. Yes, I'll admit that I have a cell phone. It's a cute little red Nokia cell phone that I got in 2003. And yes, I know how handy and convenient they are and how necessary they are and how some people can't live without them. Nevertheless, I still don't like cell phones. They're a necessary evil, like cough medicine and the IRS. That's all. That's it. Consider the reasons... 1. They've provided more opportunities for outright rudeness. Years ago, before I met Le Sweetie, I went on a date with a jerk who insisted on chatting on the cell phone while driving, with me in the passenger's seat. Yes, that's a great way to break the ice with a date. As it turns out, the cell phone was the least of this guy's problems, but that's another story. There's a time and a place for everything, but now that everyone's carrying these things around, they think they can just whip out the cell phone and start a conve...

Just in time for 2006, too! Yes, Bush is once again trying to lure the 31 percenters to the polls with a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. YAAAAAAAWWWWWWWN. This is getting tired. Will the wingnuts figure out that they're being taken for a ride? Who knows? This quote is telling, however. Just over half of all Americans oppose same-sex marriage, according to a March poll by the Pew Research center, down from 63 percent in February 2004. What a difference two years makes. Perhaps Americans decided there were more important things to worry about

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "My party came to New York and all I got was this lousy T-shirt and a 40 percent cut in anti-terrorism funding."

Jazz over at Running Scared stumbled on to this LTE, with an ingenious solution to corrupt government. David Rossie's May 21 column contrasting "honest, representative government" with the sorry bunch of politicians trying to get elected got me thinking. No politician can be representative of me because I'm not a politician. Only people like me and the rest of us can represent us. Politicians can only be representative of politicians. Here in Tarrant County, there are 10 qualifications required to be a juror. There are three qualifications required to be president. As jurors, we are deemed qualified to make decisions about life and death, terms of imprisonment, how much this party owes that party. And we are required to serve our government as jurors on pain of punishment should we refuse. So, we would get truly representative government -- and more qualified representatives -- if we fill all elective offices with people picked at random from the jury rolls. You wou...

This is how Homeland Security makes America more secure: 1. Issuing color-coded alerts 2. Mishandling Hurricane Katrina 3. Cutting money for the two cities who were attacked on 9/11. Yes, the department slashed NYC and DC's anti-terror funds by 40 percent. Wow, I feel so much safer under Bush, don't you? More on the subject here. Now, even the professional Bush butt-sniffers at the The New York Post are pissed. "DC's Stupid Scrooges Slash NYC Terror Aid and Splurge on the Sticks" is the headline. I'd have fun watching the Post foam and froth if I weren't reeeeeeaaaaallly nervous about another possible attack.