Stupid, lazy, or partisan? You decide:

Ray Edroso of the Village Voice ran down Right-o-sphere commentary on President Obama’s Afghanistan speech, and found us wanting.

Especially me, because I was concerned about the children. Typos are in the original:

Rightbloggers got a head start on attacking the speech, on the grounds that it would preempt a network showing of “A Charlie Brown Chirstmas.” (“Mr. President, don’t be a blockhead,” said the American Spectator; “complaints about American traditions being bumped to give Obama more screen time, to help further stroke his ego and possibly raise his approval ratings, are valid,” said American Pundit; Obama’s War on the Young,” cried TrogloPundit.

The question here is: is Ray unable to perceive humor? Yeah, I know, liberals (he’s liberal, right? I’m pretty sure) have little in the way of humor. They’re like Vulcans without the logic. Plus their Evil Universe alter egos could be dinner guest extras in “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It to Beaver.”

See, my post – and the one at American Spectator – were meant to be funny. Not serious. Dude totally missed it.

But am I mad about that? Hell no. Links is links, and hits is hits (I didn’t actually get any hits from that link, but it’s the thought that counts).

That’s not to say I’m not mad, though, because I am, because he screwed up the hyperlink.

A cadet with combat experience?

I keep seeing this picture around the internet:

That’s a West Point cadet, getting in a little light reading while waiting for President Obama’s speech the other week. It’s all over the place, but I swiped this one from Track-a-‘Crat.

Here’s my question: look at his chest, right side, above the ribbons. That blue and silver pin he’s wearing: is that a Combat Infantryman’s Badge?

The CIB is only awarded to members of infantry and special forces units who actually see combat. So if this guy is, in fact, wearing one, it must mean he served as an enlisted man before going to West Point.

Or maybe it’s not a CIB – maybe West Point has its own stuff they can wear. I suppose I could have googled that, but…nah. I’ll wait and see if any readers know. Comments are open.

Favre sacked three times, moves into tie for second place all-time!

Alternate title: FavreWatch, Week 13

In what turned out to be quite a pleasant thumping, Viqueens QB Brett Favre extended his NFL records in starts, attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns (suck it, Manning!), interceptions, and 3,000-yard seasons in a Sunday night loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

That loss also kept the Green Bay Packers mathematically alive to win the division, but the magic number is 1, 2 (it’ll be 1 if the Packers lose tonight), so don’t go mortgaging your house to bet on that.

But the big news: Favre was the recipient of three sacks, bringing his career total to 494 and tying him with Dave Krieg (of Iola, WI) for second place all-time.

Favre now needs only 22 more sacks to tie him with the all-time leader, John Elway. Twenty-three sacks will give Favre yet another NFL record, and one of which we’ll brag for a long, long time.

Of course, 23 sacks is nearly 6 per game for the rest of the season. Unlikely, but possible.

On a brighter note, Favre needs an average of only one fumble per game to break Warren Moon’s record and become the NFL’s all-time fumbles leader. That’s possible, if unlikely given his unfortunately firm grip on the ball – a grip, I might add, that he didn’t have while he played in Green Bay.tri

Over at Right Wing News today:

• Doesn’t this count as a rush to war?

And:

• Just out of curiosity, how many trial attorneys make that much?

Please don’t feed the trolls.

Welcome to the club, man. Wish we had more like you.

You say it like it’s a bad thing:

A professor who is accusing global warming skeptics of engaging in “tabloid-style character assassination” of scientists, called an American climate skeptic “an assh*le” on the December 4, 2009 live broadcast of BBC’s Newsnight program.

“What an assh*le!” declared Professor Watson at the end of the contentious debate with Climate Depot’s executive editor Marc Morano. A clearly agitated Watson had earlier shouted to Morano “will you shut up.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if anything, we need more assholes* around here.

Previously: Well, sure, some of us are.

Via Memeorandum.

* Sorry, Grandma.

Today at Right Wing News:

• Unemployment falls to 10% – is that really good news?

And:

• Vatican includes Mozart, “Advocata Nostra,” and Tupac Shakur on its MySpace playlist.

In other news, the Vatican has a MySpace playlist.

If you go, remember to click the little thumbs-up icon. And please don’t feed the trolls.

Question of the day: for whom to root?

The SEC Championship Game starts in less than three hours. Undefeated Florida at undefeated Alabama, winner to play in the National Championship.

At the risk of being somehow non-antagonistic to my SEC acquaintances, this is important. If at all possible, a football fan cannot remain on the fence for a game like this. One must pick a side.

So. Let’s decide who we’re rooting for today.

• Alabama’s nickname is The Crimson Tide, which, ever since I read this, I just can’t think about that.

• But Florida’s nickname is the Gators, which at the very least means they’ve got some really nice shoes down there.

Except I thought they didn’t wear shoes, being all the way down south like that. Or maybe that’s the Alabamians who don’t wear shoes. Or Georgians.

• GatorDoug, a Gators fan, has been dissing my Uncle Steve pretty hard lately. But then, Carol, a ‘Bama fan, has been dissing him even harder. So that’s kind of a point for her.

On the other hand, Carol did think that my Uncle Steve, to whom I bloggingly refer as Grandpa Steve, was my brother. Calling the Trog an old man is kind of the opposite of baking the Trog some homemade oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, there is the TrogFather to consider.

• Florida brought us the aftermath of the 2000 election, which, without that, your main subsection of lefties would have had to find something else to go insane over for the following eight years, which, given their propensity to smoke dope and be distracted by small shiny objects, who knows whether we on the right would’ve had all that fun all that time? So point to the Gators.

• Plus, Tim Tebow wore those little pieces of tape under his eyes with “John 3:16” written on them in last year’s championship game. That takes guts.

• But…with one Heisman Trophy (and he’s in the running for a second) and a national championship (potentially a second one of those as well)…well, there seems to be an indirect correlation between success in college and success in the pros. If we want Tebow to succeed in the pros, we have to root against him now. So. Go ‘Bama..

• Plus, “Crimson Tide” was a great – if fanciful – movie. The movie “Gator?” Yeah, there was one. You’d figure it’d be a really stupid horror flick about a rabid alligator attacking a small and isolated Florida village or something, but no: it’s kind of a spy movie with Burt Reynolds.

• Seems like things are adding up for the Tide. And, you know, if Florida wins, GatorDoug is going to be absolutely unbearable.

• But then, if Alabama wins, Stacy McCain is going to be absolutely unbearable. That’s a tough one to get around.

• And GatorDoug seems to have adopted a northern Wisconsin skyline for his website banner recently. That kind of sucking up has always been a key to obtaining the coveted TrogloEndorsement.

• But…Florida wears that silly bright blue color. Blue and orange, no less. Like the Chicago Bears. Like Washington Park High School – my alma mater’s crosstown rivals.

• Plus, Alabama’s mascot is the elephant. You know how I love elephants.

Man, I just don’t know. I’ll just watch and figure out who I’m for during the game.

But I’ll still make a prediction: Green Bay 19, Baltimore 16.

Right Mike?

I’m sure this isn’t why Governor Doyle is going to Copenhagen

Alternative title: now that’s Global Warming!

Innovative hookers, but not the way you might think:

Copenhagen’s city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’.

“Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes,” the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

I wonder how much the postcards will be going for by the time the conference is over? Just as souvenirs, of course.

Via Memeorandum

“You don’t bring me flowers, you don’t sing me love songs, you hardly talk to me anymore, when you come thru the door at the end of the day”

Hey, Glenn, you’re looking kinda down. Yeah, I hear you. Used to be, you’d link him, he’d do cartwheels. Backflips. He couldn’t get to the computer fast enough to link back and brag on the fact that he got another – yes, another – link from the Blogfather Of Them All.

But, boy, he’s been distant lately. Tiger-Woods-on-his-third-mistress distant. There’s no excitement anymore. It’s like he’s just going through the motions, y’know? Like that old spark is just…gone.

You’re linking him, he’s not linking back. Hey, I hear you, Glenn. He doesn’t appreciate you anymore. He’s taking you for granted.

My advice? Move on.

UPDATE - Good thing Stacy’s got Smitty around to do the important work. Still, Smitty linking in the weekly Rule 2 post is kinda like one guy buying an anniversary gift for his best friend’s wife because he knows the friend will forget. Don’t you think?

Hayden Panettiere made a “Got Milk” poster and I wasn’t informed?

That’s going in the sidebar.

Masi Oka also did one. He’s the guy who plays Hiro Nakamura – one of my favorite characters – on “Heroes:”

While I’m at it, I found this in an old file:

That’s Jake Delhomme, Carolina Panthers QB, standing next to Favre. I have no idea what the “tonight” of the caption was. Green Bay did play Carolina in the 1996 NFC Championship game, but Kerry Collins was their QB then. Delhomme came along in 2003.

Well sure it’s a fair question. Or it was, before it was answered umpty-bazillion times.

Governor Sarah Palin failed to denounce Birtherism during a radio interview today (or maybe yesterday). The subject took up about ten seconds of a seventeen-minute segment.

Because she failed to denounce it with the same fervor of Michael Moore avoiding salad* or Andrew Sullivan fleeing from flying insects*, your usual suspects have now labeled her a “birther” – someone who believes President Obama is not a legitimate citizen of the U.S., and therefore is ineligible to be President.

Here’s the itsy bitsy part of the interview in question:

“Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?” she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above).

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?” Humphries persisted.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records — all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.”

Note: the exchange actually starts just before the 8-minute mark, not the 9-minute mark. Video at the link.

First of all, she’s right: Obama’s citizenship status is a fair topic, as long as you’ll accept a good sarcastic eye-roll for your answer.

By the same token, asking Sarah Palin whether Trig really isn’t her child – but is, in fact, her oldest daughter’s child – is also a fair question, as long as you’re willing to accept a swift punch in the mouth as your answer.

Another example: “Hey, Lance, are you going to finish that bacon?” Another perfectly fair and acceptable question, as long as you don’t expect to draw back a full five fingers on that hand.

Having listened to the exchange myself, it’s pretty clear Palin was not – repeat: not – lending any credence to the “birther” “controversy.”

No, that’s not exactly right. She didn’t intend to give it any credence, I think, which puts me in the position of pretending to know what’s in her head. She screwed up. For a few seconds she let herself be drawn by a question instead of taking control of the question (ironic, since it was a friendly interview).

Still, she never said she believed the birther meme. She never said she wanted proof. She said it’s a fair question, just like all the other ridiculous questions national-level candidates get and are expected to answer or face the mighty wrath of people with no hobbies who only want attention.

Her mistake here wasn’t that she signed onto an already-debunked conspiracy theory, because she didn’t. Her mistake was in leaving too much opportunity for (probably intentional) misinterpretation.

Via Memeorandum.

* Cheap shots? Heh. Yeah.

More at:

Legal Insurrection
Riehl World View
American Power
Chris Wysocki

So that’s why the NFL never calls me on Draft Day.

It’s racism!

The Blogprof: Surgeon General calls for more white football players

The new U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday called for stepped-up efforts in increasing the number of white football players. In what was one of her first speeches to a large crowd since she was sworn in Nov. 3, Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. football player who are white is only 30 percent. “There’s something wrong with that,” said Benjamin, speaking at a conference on health disparities at a hotel in downtown Atlanta. Blacks and Hispanics account for roughly 28 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2008 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

You might guess there’s more to this. You might be right. Click here to find out.

Just a couple quotes I think are apropos to the current news environment*:

Stamp’s Law:

“The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the chowty dar (village watchman), who just puts down what he damn pleases.”

The late Michael Crichton, in a 2003 speech entitled “Aliens Cause Global Warming:”

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

* Get it? Environment? I crack myself up.

The ten most-watched TV shows of the decade

The list includes four sitcoms, four reality shows, and two dramas. That must say something meaningful about society and culture, somehow.

Oh, and by “most-watched TV shows,” they mean the individual episodes, not the whole series. The episodes included six finales, one premiere, two “OMG somebody’s gonna DIE!!!” (one of which also ran immediately after the SuperBowl) and one three-way tie.

I’d have correctly guessed exactly one of them. Might have come close otherwise. Except I’d have guessed the Seinfeld finale, too, and that was in the last decade.

List here. Via WeSmirch. http://www.wesmirch.com/091202/p61#a091202p61

I very nearly spat coffee all over my keyboard and monitor at about the 2:10 mark.

UPDATE - the YouTube isn’t currently working. Click here to watch on The Daily Show’s website. Stupid WordPress won’t let me embed it.

END UPDATE.

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, talking about ClimateGate*:

I admit, I find Stewart funnier when he’s laughing at the Left.

* Are we calling it “ClimateGate,” or “ClimaQuiddick?”

I never trusted those Canadians, either.

WASHINGTON — How much does the U.S. government really trust Canada? Maybe less than you think.

They were spying on us! Or, well, no they weren’t, but they might have been!

In sensational warnings that circulated publicly in late 2006 and early 2007, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Service said coins with radio transmitters were found planted on U.S. Army contractors with classified security clearances on at least three occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

In January 2007, the government abruptly reversed itself and said the warnings weren’t true. But the case remained a mystery until months later, when AP learned that the flap had been caused by suspicions over the odd-looking Canadian “poppy” quarter with a bright red flower. The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy – Canada’s flower of war remembrance – inlaid on a maple leaf.

What suspicious contractors believed to be “nanotechnology” on the coins actually was a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red color from rubbing off.

Okay, so they weren’t spying on us. Still:

Your incessant logic does not change the fact that the grass is clearly greener on that side of the fence.

Instapundit writes:

Health care policy is suboptimal, but there is no “crisis.” Talk of a “crisis” is just a PR effort to get us to accept a different set of suboptimal policies that are more to the liking of certain interest groups.

I’ve made a similar argument before, although maybe not so pithily. People go without when the government runs health care, too. Why is that any better than going without under a free-market system?

At least, under a free-market system, you can improve your own position, and decrease the odds that you’ll go without. Government system? Not so much.

Global Warming has taken hold…

…over at Obi’s Sister.

Maybe they could hire some new writers for “Heroes” now.

The National Broadcasting Company done changed hands:

After nearly nine months of negotiations, Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, finally reached an agreement on Thursday to acquire NBC Universal from the General Electric Company.

The deal valued NBC Universal at about $30 billion.

Or was it the “National Broadcasting Corporation?”

Regardless, I’m getting a little perturbed by the circular nature of Heroes’ seasonal plotlines, and I’d like to see something different now, please. Storylines are getting stale. Repetitive. They need a good kick in the pants and that British immortal guy back.

Oh, and: more Hayden Panettiere.

I’m available for consulting. Very low rates. Via Memeorandum.

Global Warming Researchers: the 1970s bikers riding through small-town America of the new millenium

Remember that scene in “Easy Rider,” when Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper pull up to a motel in the driving rain and the manager flips the light over to “No Vacancy” rather than rent a room to such undesirables?

That’s what the future has in store, I think, for Global Warming researchers:

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

“Hi Daddy, I want you to meet my new boyfriend. He’s a climate change researcher! Hey, what’s your shotgun doing out?

Via Memeorandum.