This guy is awesome

...and we must support him!

SO psyched for Dems '06!

Actually it's this one

Pup bus

Dogs ride the bus to camp

This seems to be the funniest picture ever taken.

TV ALERT!

Watch this.

Senator, I knew Chris Garver. I worked with Chris Garver. Chris Garver was a friend of mine and Senator, you're no Chris Garver.

Plots, thickening

If we can teach you nothing else, we want you to remember this: never trust a grown man named Scooter.

And we've made Gawker

The building collapse that keeps on giving.
In all seriousness, though, there is something really effed up about the situation, and it ain't the collapse. Some asshole is planning on building a 30 storey (or so) residential building (read: luxury co-ops) on each side of the street. This is a neighborhood of 3-10 storey buildings. 30 (times two!) would be completely out of proportion, flood the neighborhood with more cars, make the subway station even more packed, and generally up obnoxious yuppie scum population.
If any good comes from this (other than the thrill of 'copters overhead) maybe the buildings will be re-examined.

Respect!

Our 'hood makes the BBC!
This morning I got up early and was doing the dishes (really) when about a million sirens started going by. Since the corner a block down is a popular site for spectacular car crashes, I went downstairs to see what was happening.
The old Gristede's supermarket had collapsed, which is sort of dramatic, I guess. But really? It was abandoned and one storey tall. But for no good reason there were hundreds of rescue workers all over. It was 9/11 style, I swear. Ran into Azulita, on her way to work. She had to turn around because the subway was shut down. We returned to BBD HQ and lo, it was all over the TV. Looked at Google News and it was the top story. It's made the BBC! CNN International! The Times-Picayune!
We are famous.

Breaking news

Hey yall. Check out what's going on in our hood. It's on TV and out the window!

BBC dogs Fox

Just a quick quote from Roger Mosey, the head of BBC Television News:

A contributor to Fox [News] said after the London bombings that "the BBC almost operates as a foreign registered agent of Hezbollah and some of the other jihadist groups". On the Fox website today there is an opinion piece, "How Jane Fonda and the BBC put you in danger". I am writing this in a building which was bombed by Irish terrorists. My colleagues and I are living in a city recovering from the wounds inflicted last week. If I may leave our customary impartiality aside for a moment, the comments made on Fox News are beneath contempt.

Hee hee. Fox sucks. Heh heh. I said "suck."

Pile on

More thoughts on Plame-gate (spending the whole afternoon listening to the radio while looking for vacation rentals makes me an expert now).

It's obvious that Novak squealed to Fitzgerald months ago, and that's why he's not in jail. What I don't understand is why Rove didn't see this coming. Why would he have given a waiver to talk? He knew he was the source, and Miller & Cooper were both willing to go to jail to protect him (inexplicably). So why did this all come out at all? Why did Rove give the OK to reveal him? The only thing I can think is that, like I said, Novak talked months ago. So Rove's cover (as it were) was already blown. Which would make Novak a hero? **shudder**

Again, though, Rove must have been able to guess that this was going to come out - so why?

Wheels within wheels.

Schadenfreude

Ha ha ha ha Scott McClellan is a big douche! (Link is transcript of today's press briefing.)

Finally the White House Press Corps throws down the shackles of oppression and realizes that a press corps united shall never be defeated.

More seriously, watching this whole Rove thing play out is very interesting. In case you missed it, it is now confirmed that Karl 'Turd Blossom" Rove was the one who leaked Valerie Plame. Now the White House is trying to spin it. They're saying, it seems, both that he didn't know that she was undercover and that he never named her by name - just as "Joe Wilson's wife." Which is sort of like being, "I didn't out Tom Cruise - I just said Katie Holmes's fiance is gay."

I think it is totally possible that Rove will neither be prosecuted nor fired. I think they will grease their way out of this one, either with some way of discrediting the reports or distracting us with something else (like, I dunno, a terror bombing) or lie (always an option) or just through slippery legalisms. Sort of 'depends on what the meaning of 'is' is' stuff. But no matter the outcome, I don't think this is going to reflect well on them.

Heh heh.

Hopefully it will put their credibilty in the crapper in time to allow the Dems to put up a half-decent SCOTUS fight.

Ken Livingstone is a beast

If you're unfamiliar with Red Ken, the mayor of London, you should know that he's a badass. Especially when contrasted with that nasty combed-over piece of shit Giuliani (why oh lord why was he in London? And why could he not have been a victim instead of a witness?), Ken just rocks. Here are his comments yesterday, a few hours after the bombings (and it's worth reading it all):

I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith – it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other...

...Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

A lot better than "they hate us for our freedom," isn't it?

Bombs away

Terrorists suck. That's sort of the bottom line. We don't like them. WTF? Let them enjoy the Olympics.

That said, and I hope it's not too soon to be all analytic, but really it wasn't so bad. If you take as a given that sooner or later the tube was gonna get hit (and, if I remember from when I lived in London, we basically did) then this was not so bad. No nuclear waste, no collapsing buildings, etc. London is a big city and the transport system is pretty clogged, not to mention deep underground - so 30-60 people dead is really not the end of the world. I know that sounds terrible, but still true.

Londoners, who still talk about how they were so cool during the blitz, seem to be taking it all in stride, and bully for them. They get mad respect for not being all apeshit and assholey. But never fear, there is something that still has the power to terrify loose in London.

So love, respect, sympathy to our friends across the pond. We'll be visiting you and riding the tube next month, because otherwise the terrorists have won.

Un-Sprung Heroes

Discovery Channel is doing Silver Spring wrong. They need to get a new sample pool, because the universe in which Ronald Reagan is the greatest American - the one that AOL users apparently vote for - is not one in which I'm able to live. Same for W. being ranked above Billy Clint, who should be at the top of the list based on sex appeal alone.
Or there should have been some mass campaign to get lefties to vote, through Kos or MoveOn or something. This should not stand!! By the way my vote is so for MLK.

Turd Blossom

Well of course his lawyer says he didn't do anything wrong, but oh! it looks like the leak in the Valerie Plame case may have been...Karl fucking Rove.
Oh please great spirit, let it be Rove. Please. Please please. Please. Try him for treason. I will do the 'Karl Rove is on trial for treason' happy dance down Broadway naked. And that's a promise.

What can you do?

Move to another country. Housing in Berlin is very cheap right now.

Beyond that, here are some suggestions from the folks at Kos.

Remember that this will be happening quickly. Send Bush a letter now.

Here's the scary thing - the best we have to hope for right now is Alberto 'Torture Boy' Gonzales.

So go, act!

Well, it couldn't last forever

Morning news: Sandra Day O'Conner is resigning. Not Rehnquist (yet). The balance of the court is screwed. Happy 4th of July!