Catch Up Monday

Good thing they’re getting new people involved in the Daily Show already looks like there won’t be many of the ones I’m used to left

Rob Corddry, the brilliantly deranged "senior analyst" and "God Machine" operator, is at the head of the queue, having been cast as the lead of "The Winner," a sitcom pilot for Fox executive produced by "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane.

But there’s more

It amazes me how the gap between reality and make believe is getting narrower and narrower. Guess it’s just the general trend toward truthiness. But for the media to go this far:

The National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing said the NBC network's "Dateline NBC" confirmed it was sending Muslim-looking men to a race, along with a camera crew to film fans' reactions. The NBC crew was "apparently on site in Martinsville, Virginia, walked around and no one bothered them," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Wednesday.
"It is outrageous that a news organization of NBC's stature would stoop to the level of going out to create news instead of reporting news," Poston said.

A news organization of NBC’s stature? You mean, not so outrageous if it’s a less exalted source? Not so sure that distinction really works, it’s kind of like unique, why do people say it’s the most unique? It either is or isn’t…Anyway, read the whole article>

The censure resolution is maybe not dead yet!

Censure might be no more than a slap in the face, but I am guessing that is as far as voters are prepared to go -- if that far. Telling voters that a vote for Democratic congressional candidates is a vote for censure could be the killer app for rebooting Congress.

That’s even from a relatively mainstream source>

Not to mention this cartoon>

IRA__? Here we go again!

Hersh says that President Bush now believes his historic purpose is to stop President Ahmadinejad, whom he is said to regard as a “new Hitler”, acquiring nuclear weapons.
The article suggests that Pentagon plans presented to the White House include the use of a “bunker-buster” tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground sites in Iran because of concerns that conventional strikes would not be “decisive”. Hersh says that some senior military officers are so alarmed about Mr Bush’s willingness to use nuclear weapons that they are ready to resign in protest.
Yesterday the Pentagon attempted to dismiss the report as being filled with “fantastical, wrong and unsubstantiated allegations”. Hersh pointed out that the Pentagon had used similar language initially to describe his revelations about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Will they never learn?>

Feingold seems to have made quite a splash with his press release about gay marriage…

As America begins to think about 2008 and how to steer the nation out of the blight of the Bush years, many will look for genuine alternatives. Should Feingold choose to run for president, he can credibly claim that with his past as prologue, he is looking with clear eyes to the future.

For more, go here>

Here’s an excerpt from an interview>

As you point out, you have been an ally for gays and lesbians for some time now. Oh, yeah, very strong, very consistently, very proud—25 years of consistent record. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of, because to me this is one of the real cutting-edge issues in our society: whether we’re going to be kind and decent to each other and be a community, or whether we’re going to try to divide ourselves. To me this is a real test for our society.

And I love this:

Some GOP critics suggested that Feingold's statement marks him as someone who is "out of touch with mainstream Wisconsin values."
"Clearly Russ Feingold is spending too much time in Hollywood raising money for his presidential campaign and not enough time listening to the people of Wisconsin," retorted state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau. Fitzgerald failed to recognize the irony of his words, since Feingold announced his stance in response to a question from a Wisconsinite at a listening session held in the Wisconsin community of Paddock Lake.
In fact, Feingold is very much in touch with the mainstream values of Wisconsin, a progressive state that more than 20 years ago led the nation in banning discrimination against lesbians and gays.

From an opinion piece>

Now, on to leaking!

Instead, sounding very Lewis Carroll, the White House claims that when the president leaks something secret, it's not secret anymore. It's the Immaculate Declassification: intelligence is declassified by passing it on to a friendly reporter.

The Bushies keep trying to manipulate reality, but reality bites back. That's not only crass politics. It's lethal politics. L'état, c'est mess.

As only Maureen Dowd can express it>

If Bush's word is enough to declassify classified information, why did the White House feel the need to "formally declassify" the material ten days later? Wasn't the deed already done, on Bush's sole verbal authority?

And a
And finally, the answer to one of the big questions, how can they continue to believe, well, anything the administration says?

After two decades of practice, American conservatives now seem to have the art of cognitive dissonance down to a science. They believe in smaller government, even as they make it bigger. They believe that cutting taxes will balance the budget, even as those tax cuts (once again) send the deficit soaring. They think of conservatism as a font of new ideas, even as they keep making the same mistakes pursuing the same old, tired ones

Read on…>

Er, that finally was as in, we’ve waited so long, not as in this is it for today. We haven’t covered food or sports yet!

Saturday night the men beat a very spirited Boston College 2-1 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee to capture the NCAA men's title, making Wisconsin the first team to have both its men's and women's teams capture the national title.

We only saw the last period, and it was a great ending! For details, go here>

And here’s something I never thought I’d see….

Twinkie Sushi©
Clare Crespo of Baton Rouge, Louisiana from The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess

If you can stomach it, there’s more>