Mars Phoenix Lander - Next Mission: Produce Dried Grass

I love it when people misuse the word, literally. It's particularly funny when it results in a patently preposterous statement. Such as this NASA scientist, on the continuing mission of the Mars Phoenix Lander:

"We are literally trying to make hay as the sun shines," Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters.

Yeah, good luck with that. Let me know how it goes.

Criminals for Obama

It's no wonder the democrats want to bestow voting rights upon convicted felons. Here are some dudes who got their mugshots taken wearing Obama attire. Two of the three are in there for misdemeanor prostitution, the other is for drunk driving.



Is it fair to judge a candidate by the makeup of their supporters? Sure, why not?

Mmm...Burger

Here's a picture of my coworker's lunch. Yum!

Yay for Universal Healthcare: Scratched by a Rat = Death

Here's a fun story from Britain's Daily Express reporting on how a woman got scratched by a rat, contracting a disease in the process, resulting in her death six days later.

But here's my favorite part:

Mrs Colburn heard the rat screaming in her back garden in Brighton and immediately went out to try to rescue it. She developed flu-like symptoms and Mr Colburn called their GP.

Two days later he rang the doctor again after her skin turned yellow.

A statement read to the court said: “When the doctor arrived she was cold and clammy and jaundiced. He called 999 immediately.”

So it looks like in England, if you get sick you call your doctor, who presumably says, "Tell me if it gets any better in a couple days." When it doesn't, the doc calls 911 for you so you can be rushed to the hospital, there to die. What a great medical system! Can we have some socialized medicine, too? Please?

Kevin Gilbert Mentioned On Rush Limbaugh

So I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this afternoon. He was reading a blog post by some far-left wacko about how Sarah Palin is the devil, blah blah blah. The writer is Cintra Wilson, who, Limbaugh explained, was the girlfriend of Kevin Gilbert at the time he died. A quick glance at her website gives you an idea of who we're dealing with. But one thing she and I agree on: the genius of Kevin Gilbert:

He was the most talented human being I ever knew. A bloody musical genius. Picked up a cello one day and just started playing it. He was quite famous in some musical circles for writing and performing a lot of deeply personal rock songs with a lot of wordy lyrics and massive integrity. He never had the raging commercial success as a musical genius that he so richly deserved, despite the fact that he'd won a Grammy.

Thanks, Rush, for providing little much-deserved exposure for the dead Kevin Gilbert. And thanks, Cintra, for blathering loudly and crassly enough for Limbaugh to comment on it.

Sample one of Kevin Gilbert's excellent songs below.

Poop! Poop!

In reading a Thomas Book to my three-year-old, I had to pause and chuckle at the fact that even steam engines can't hold it forever.

Lindsay Lohan Helps Sarah Palin by Denouncing Her

If Sarah Palin ever needed an endorsement, she just received it--in the form of condemnation from Lindsay Lohan.

"Is it a sin to be gay? Should it be a sin to be straight? Or to use birth control? Or to have sex before marriage? Or even to have a child out of wedlock? Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe?"

This is rich on so many levels. She has no clue as to whether premarital or homosexual sex is a sin. She can't fathom how someone who understands the most basic moral values isn't necessarily a hater or a narrow-minded reactionist.

Apparently Lindsay's world view revolves around sex and sex-related issues. Personally, I find it hard to fathom how someone can retain their humanity without any solid moral code to rely on.

Anyway, thanks Lindsay. You've probably just helped a few voters cross over to the McCain-Palin side.

'Tis the Season of Hyperbole

Don't you love how during election season the opponent suddenly becomes the most [something something] in the history of the world? For example, Politico reports:

Sen. Barack Obama's national press secretary, Bill Burton, accused Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of "cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history."

Other examples:

"The Bush administration is one of the most corrupt administrations in history."

"McCain, the so-called straight-talker, has run one of the dirtiest and meanest presidential campaigns in history."

"Isn't this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?" asked McCain, when he finally got a turn at the microphone."

"It is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history."

This rampant overuse of hyperbole devalues the effectiveness of the words. Just like drug dependency, it results in a supposed need to increase the rhetoric and hyperbole over time to have a comparable effect. For a copywriter like myself, where space is at a premium, and saying the most with the fewest words is critical, this trend is particularly annoying. Thankfully, this sort of thing peaks only once every four years.

Palin Blew It

Okay, I haven't listened to the entire Sarah Palin interview by ABC's Charles Gibson. But what I heard in the first installment was rather disappointing. Here's a woman who comes out of nowhere, apparently espousing virtues that resonate with me and a whole lot of other people. Then when she sits down to interview, she provides nothing but talking points and soundbites.


I guess what irked me the most was her answer to Gibson's question on climate change:

Regardless, though, of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet – the warming and the cooling trends – regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it...

Might as well say, "I don't understand it. Maybe there's and issue here, maybe not. But we have to do something about it, right?" I'm surprised she didn't throw in a plea to help the children for good measure. I wish politicians would stop kowtowing to environmental political correctness. Just call a spade a spade, or in this case, call man-made climate change a hoax, and say we have to focus instead on adapting to our evolving environment, rather than try to bend the planet to our will.

Then she completely blundered the question on the Bush Doctrine. Okay, so she has some reading up to do. Who wouldn't? But you don't bluff your way through a question you don't understand. You admit you're not familiar with the term, get an explanation and move on.

I'm done ranting now. I just hope she does better in a debate.

UPDATE

Apparently, neither Palin nor Gibson clearly understood exactly what the Bush Doctrine is. Charles Krauthammer, the likely coiner of the phrase back in 2001, says in the Washington Post:

Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.

Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Congressional Republicans Gaining Advantage?

This was supposed to be the election where Republicans are swept under the carpet upon which they've been prostrate for the past two years. But suddenly the 2008 elections – heavily favoring Democrats in terms of open seats and vulnerable precincts – are competitive again. Whether the excitement surrounding the McCain-Palin ticket is translating into Republican voter activism, or the Democrats' vision shows a complete lack of connection to real people dealing with real issues, polls indicate a virtual congressional tie, sure to make Democrats think twice about what they thought was a sure-fire victory in November.

Says Gallup,

Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

If trends hold, it's even possible that Republicans could win back both Houses of Congress. And what would be the reaction of the left? Utter bewilderment. And what they don't understand will definitely continue to hurt them.