He may not be cool, but he’s effective. Watch the video below, the Beast won’t give away the end but he’ll  provide a hint: nice, tight grouping!

Over the past several weeks we’ve been treated to a veritable cornucopia of immoderate rhetoric from the left, mainly aimed at the Tea party. Whichever side of the debt ceiling debate you fall on, it’s clear that as they lost ground in the battle, the left became shriller and shriller. The Tea party, we were told were hostage takers, waging Jihad, terrorists, extremists. The sameness of the rhetoric kinda got funny after a while as headline after headline popped up on RCP.com with robotic predictability. And all of this came months after the right was scourged by liberals and the media (but I repeat myself) for using “extreme” language. Remember that? It was after the Gabby Giffords shooting. Jonah Goldberg puts it far more eloquently than the Beast could: Read the rest of this entry →

The Beast took a little jaunt over to Free Republic and what he saw astonished him. Most of the posts posts could barely garner more than ten or so comments! And this at a prime time of the day. A few years ago any post on the news section would be in double digits in minutes. Any idea what’s driving readers away, or is the Beast just suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s?

The Lightbringer At Work

And in a drippy paean published today urges us to “Stand By (Our) Man”. Here’s the opening spasm:

How Can We Not Love Obama?

Because like it or not, he is all of us
By Stephen Marche

Can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.

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What is it about liberals and wine? First we had Glenn Beck mopping [I]vin ordinaire[/I] off his wife in a public park to the twittered delight of assorted New Yorkers, and now congressman Paul Ryan endures a semi-sloshed lecture from a college Prof outraged over his table’s choice of two bottles of pricey Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru at a swanky restaurant. Setting aside the he-said-she-said elements of said oenological events, they betray a more serious and ominous trend: libs attacking conservatives in public. Not hired operatives or activists – ordinary liberal people.
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This one’s for Dave:

There’s going to be a Three Stooges Movie? That could be either bad or good depending on the cast. One encouraging development, MADtv Alum Will Sasso as Curly.

The Beast never heard of this Will Sasso guy, but he’s a dead ringer for Curly, and a talented comic. Witness his perfect take as Tony Soprano:

“We Ain’t Got No Gabbagool!”

Not bad.

Mitch & Mickey discover the pot of gold.

Looks a bit like a stroke. It’s sad when a Hairy Beast dies.

This week everybody will be Irish, therefore everybody will be drunk and bruised. In honor of St. Paddy and the sons of the Emerald Isle (Boston Chapter), the Dropkick Murphys!

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Amazing video:

From two weekends ago on the Ice:

she looks waaaayy too happy

In the wee hours today the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Assembly passed Governor Walker’s budget cuts bill just before the Dems were able to march out. Caught by suprise, the Dems erupted in rage and rushed the Republicans as they left the chamber, screaming and chanting “Shame!”.

Imagine the consequences if the GOP had behaved that way after the Dems passed Obamacare.

UPDATE: A fuller description of Dem’s idea of civility comes from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” Democrats shouted in the faces of Republicans as the GOP lawmakers quietly filed off the floor and a police officer stood between opposing lawmakers.

“Cowards all! You’re all cowards,” yelled Rep. Brett Hulsey (D-Madison) as another Democrat tried to calm him down.

Most Republicans had no comment on the vote afterward and some were escorted out under police protection. Earlier in the night, Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) said that Democrats had been given more than two full days and nights to make their case – effectively turning the debate into a filibuster – and that Republicans had done nothing wrong.

“It seems clear our side wants to vote and I challenge anyone watching to say we have not held out for an adequate debate,” Suder said.

“The democrats were clearly stalling,” said Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc). “That’s why Assembly rules allow for a vote on final passage. We took that vote and did what the people of this state asked us to do on Nov. 2 – get spending under control.”

“…escorted out under police protection.” This must be some permutation of “civil” the Beast has yet to encounter. As the saying goes, if it weren’t for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all.

The white house is backing off from events in Madison. From the Washington Examiner:

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer is claiming that “This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one,” contradicting the Washington Post’s reporting that the president and his political apparatus has gotten deeply involved in the effort. But Pfeiffer fails to acknowledge that unions, particularly in the public sector, and President Obama’s apparatus are the same thing, having worked to get out the vote for Democrats for years.

The Democrats’ political tin ear, evident for the past two years, is on full display. Maybe they thought the sight of raging public sector employees shirking work to screech for more of Wisconsin voter’s pay would warm Wisconsonian hearts, but it hasn’t. Recent polls show about half the voters stand with Gov. Wilder, and 35% with the Unionistas. That’s a recipe for disaster.  When private employees bargain for higher wages and benefits, they can at least argue they’re after a larger share of the profits their labors create. Public employees can’t say that. When they want more money it doesn’t come off the spread sheet at some billion dollar corporation, it comes directly out of the pockets of fellow workers, most of whom do not share the same level of income the public employees get! And unlike the demonstrators and the Wisconsin Democratic legislators now in hiding at Scottish Hooters in Illinois,  you can be certain that the taxpayers of this state get up every day and go to work.  They have taxes to pay.

Last November the voters turned out the Dems  en masse. Now the Republicans are in power and they’re doing just what they promised to do.  The mood of the nation is on the GOP side of this issue and one has to wonder what advantage the Dems thought they’d get for running counter to the will of the people once again. On the other hand, they’re Dems, so maybe there wasn’t much thought involved.

The Beast spent a truly wild weekend seven days ago, Ice fishing the NH Winnipesaukee Derby. One of his old high school buddies invited him. The Beast had never fished with this crew, so the Beast didn’t know what to expect, but Friday afternoon he bundled his son into the Explorer and we headed out for the lake.

The Beast brought his popup shanty and whatnot, been using it to fish local tidal rivers (saltwater ice – scary) for smelts with seaworms. Sweetwater lakes are fairly foreign to me despite it being much safer than the porous saltwater stuff. Not knowing what to expect, he brought it all.
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Every year a bunch of the Beast’s old High School buddies gather to fish the Winni Ice Derby out of Meredith New Hampshire. Top prize for a tagged Rainbow Trout is a boat, but there are categories for Laker, Cusk and such too. There are daily prizes for tagged and untagged fish as well. This year we managed to place in two: 2nd for Lakers and 10th for untagged rainbow. A taste:

This was our home base – our host’s summer lakefront home. We basically fished in his front yard:

Saturday morning was brutally cold and overcast, we were up at first light setting up traps and tip-ups:

Got the heat going in the shanty:

Craig started setting up for breakfast:

The Beast’s son was not impressed with the ambient temps out there, note the reproachful glare:

While the hardier souls set out the traps:

Breakfast was fried sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes and english muffins. By the time we got back we were ready for something hot in our stomachs. Coffee with Baileys hit the spot too.

Sunup took a bit of the edge off.

The girlfriends showed up after a bit. Women are not allowed to stay over, but they can visit during the day. Strict rule: NO WIVES!

We had a bonfire the night before and there were a few who opted to stay in the bunkhouse a bit longer than others.

Then we waited, eagle-eyed for the first flag (we got a bit pie-eyed after we broke into the Captain Morgans).

We even had a horseshoe pit on the ice, as well as a hockey rink.

And other distractions for the kids, including this novel idea: a shopping cart on skis.

There were Perch aplenty.

And early Cusk

Late morning, our wait was rewarded! The next generation tied into a fine 3.4 pound untagged Rainbow! Here’s the video – warning, f-bomb alert!

This fish did get us on the boards, but only 10th place. But we were happy.

Lunch was handmade venison sausage and pepper subs.

Later afternoon we played liar’s poker and waited. Only perch from then on.

But we had fun anyway

Then it was back to our humble base-camp for a dinner of pasta with red sauce made from venison sausage and ground beef and black bear meat.

Sunday morning some people had to leave early. Those who stayed were rewarded, though. Craig set up a jigging spot and nailed a beautiful Laker.

Before…

After:

That fish got him second place. We took off around three and the Beast had his first shower in two days. Thanks to our host and everybody who worked so hard to make this weekend so memorable! Tight lines, all!

Charles Krauthammer does the close-in knife work with consummate skill. Meanwhile, with the nation in the grip of record cold, the Tautology That Cannot Be Disproved blames guess what?

A close second, AccuWeather’s Joe Bastardi provides context on the ubiquity of Global Warming in an interview with Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends:

You know what this is like with those folks? I don’t mean to demean you, but Dooce, you used to wrestle. It’s like the more your opponent scores, the more points you get. The fact of the matter is these guys are sitting here – is there any answer they don’t own?

Let us journey back to the year 2000. Dr. David Viner of the Climate Research Unit at the now disgraced Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia said within a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event”. It hasn’t. His ‘killer’ statement was, “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is!” They know now:

That's a LOT of Global Warming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s official – we’re screwed!

The Beast is in the “Shitload again” zone, but in case it proceeds to the “WTF!?” range he has bought lots of booze.

Now that Florida Judge Vinson has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional, it’s assumed the case will proceed to the Supreme Court. But that might not happen after all. Why not?

Obama and the Dems may actually go for remediation and take out the individual mandate. It’s assumed by one and all they’ll push this issue straight to the Supreme Court, but that may not happen. Fact is, bringing this to SCOTUS is a big gamble, and it is one they may lose. The Commerce Clause (which was written to prevent states imposing tariffs on other states) has been stretched to the breaking point over the past 80 years, and this may well be the last snap. Any law that depends on redefining an individual choice not to participate in commerce as participation in commerce is by any standards tottery as hell. One might as well define the choice not to fly as flight, hence regulated by the FAA whether you’re on the ground or not.

For decades the Federal Government has justified increased power to regulate just about everything under the Commerce clause. But at least the activities they took control of were actual Commerce. Now they are asking us to allow them to regulate as commerce activities that are the very opposite of commerce – the choice not to participate in commerce at all. This is going to be a hard sell in front of SCOTUS, you can be sure.

Obamacare is the crown jewel of this administration – it’s meant to last long after Obama’s gone. If he loses it he’s seriously up the creek. The Dems may not be willing to chance it and they may actually opt to tinker with the law instead. Remember the first State Of The Union address? Obama, flush with hubris, stood scant feet away from the massed Justices, looked them in the eye, turned up his chin and criticised them in front of the entire nation. Then the Dems leaped to their feet all around them and applauded wildly. Now the entire future of this Administration – including the judgement of history – might turn on a decision by those same people who sat on their hands and steamed under the glare. Funny, huh?

Via The Daily Telegraph:

A “Black Widow” suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year’s Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

A “Black Widow” suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year’s Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year’s Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.

Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.

She was at her Moscow safe house at the time getting ready with two accomplices, both of whom survived and were seen fleeing the scene.

The message came from her cell phone operator wishing her a happy new year! The only question is – will she have a hundred and one virgins waiting for her in heaven and what woman would really want that anyway?

Most men know that they can’t trust their wives to start the gas grill, what kind of moron gives her a cell phone and a bomb?

(insert more jokes here)

What? I can't put this on twitter?

Egypt would be able to seal the nation off from the rest of the world. As it stands right now (2am EST), Egypt has disconnected itself from the Internet. Civil unrest, presumably, continues, but the details will not come from average, everyday Egyptians. Perhaps they will broadcast smoke signals by burning mummies.

(insert more Egypt jokes here)

The one month absence has ended, there is a new HDD tucked in the bowels of the Gateway Notebook the Beast in-advisedly purchased last fall, and recovery disks are on the way. Meanwhile the Beast is running Linux Ubuntu 10.10 for an operating system and it appears to work just fine. Frankly, the fact that the Beast allowed himself to languish without a puter for a month just because he couldn’t figure out that seventy dollars, one download and eight screws would get him a functioning system is a tad embarrassing. But this is also Ice Fishing season and the Beast has directed all spare cash to purchase of bait, tackle, heaters, sleds, licenses and other stuff. A computer is sort of a “ME” thing,  but fishing gear is something the Beast can use with his children. We’ve spent every weekend out on the Lakes and Rivers, fishing and skating and whatnot as opposed to vegetating in front of the TV. But the Internet drought has ended and comments shall follow once more.

And the hard drive fried itself a month later. So now the Beast is deeply engaged with the Gateway reps in Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, and points south (short of Bangladesh, which is a massive drainage basin infested with mangroves and tigers driven mad by kidney salt deposits), so give it time.

In a few weeks the Beast may be back.

Maybe it’s The Bananna Splits. Enjoy.

Warning, bad language ahead. Click on the adorable kitty to view:

Paul’s Cajun Blizzard Hot Wings:

Ingredients:
4lbs Party Wings with tips cut off
3 tbs Creole Seasoning (Zataran’s)
1 cup New England Style Seafood Breading (Tempo)
1 cup Frank’s Hot Sauce
2/3 Cup melted butter
Blue Cheese Dressing to taste
Assorted Rabbit Food (Celery Sticks/etc)

Instructions:
Preheat a deep fryer (canola oil or peanut) to 375 degrees. Less expensive Deep fryers tend to drift, so fry your first wing at target temp and then remove it at six minutes. If it’s mahogany brown, drop the temp -10 to 365 degrees.

Combine the 3 tbs Creole Seasoning with one package of the New England Seafood Breading. Wash and towel-dry the wings (DRY THEM). In a bag combine the flour/breading and creole seasoning. Add dry wings, mix vigorously.

Combine butter and Frank’s Red Hot in a microwave safe bowl. Nuke til hot.

Cook wings in small batches, drain and set in hot sauce. You can keep a lot of wings hot in an oven set to 200 degrees. Serve with Bleu Cheese dressing and/rabbit food.

Eat in batches as the Patriots romp away.

H/T to Breitbart for the video.

Goodbye 111th Congress.

The Dems and the media (but we repeat ourselves) are terribly anxious to begin the big Obama comeback. So anxious, they’ve already started seeing the same green shoots of political renewal they spotted all throughout the past two years in the economic sector. And just as those mythical economic harbingers failed to take and thrive, one suspects the same will hold true for Obama.

Although he won’t be hampered by the corrupt 111th Congress anymore, so that’s a bonus.
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Because what Christmas is complete without a stockingful of snark?

The Beast offers his postmodern take on Christmas Cartoons – Eric Cartman’s “O Holy Night”.

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This is a compilation, 69 seconds long, of every “Walker” offed in season one. It is also emblematic of the problem with the series; too much yak and not enough action. Think about this: an entire six episode Zombie series and they devote a grand total of 69 seconds to killing Zombies? Okay, so they spent season one developing the characters – hopefully the filmmakers will spend season two disassembling them bite by bite.

Fly fishing was awesome this year, lots of big salmon in the spring and fall. But the mercury is plummeting out here in New Hampshire and the lakes and rivers are skimming over nicely. So it’s time to start thinking ICE!

The Beast has buddies who put out shanties on some of the bigger lakes every year. But to fish with them is a bit of an imposition, no matter how welcome they make you feel. Here’s a shot from a few years ago on Lake Winni:
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It’s schadenfreude time! Tonight, The Huffington Post comment section is awash with 2,000 (and growing) yummy, yummy tears. The Moonbats are beside themselves at the news Obama will allow a two year extension of the current tax rates in exchange for GOP support for an additional 13 months unenjoyment extension. A small but tasty sampling of anguish:
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Real newsman really screws up!

Norwegian television show “Gylne Tider,” wields the graveyard shovel and unearths what should have been left to rest ages ago.

Sherilyn Fenn is particularly painful: she was such a prime piece of patootie in her day.
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Don't ask this chick for "a little tongue"!

Yes, the dialogue is cheesy, and yes, the characters spend waaaay too much time sitting around talking about their feelings instead of chopping up Zombies, and yes, the filmmakers drive them to do stupid stuff that nobody in the real world would consider doing in, like, a zillion years*, for dramatic effect. But the fact remains that when this short series ends in a few weeks there will be a big, gaping bloody hole in this Beast’s Sunday night. It’s flawed, but it’s still the best short horror series television’s seen since “The Stand”.

Neck nibbles

*Catalog of Stupidity So Far (SPOILER ALERT):

1. At the start of episode one,  the Sherrif walks out of the hospital barefoot in a button-down-the back-johnny. After negotiating the trashed hallway (which would be hell on his feet) it never occurs to him to go back to his room and put on some damn clothes.
2. With a plethora of abandoned vehicles about he abandons his cruiser when it runs out of gas and opts for the very very minimal security of a horse to get about. Granted, gas pumps don’t work with no power, but a siphon hose and a bit of gravity can cure that problem.
3. Horsie gets chomped in Atlanta and Sheriff hides from zombies in an abandoned Abrams tank. It never occurs to him to jump on the tank’s 50 Cal to grease said  zombies. In the end he abandons the tank, never even trying to start it up. According to military types on other forums the Abrams comes with an operator’s manual in its glove box. And how do unarmed zombies take out a tank in the first place?
4. Cuffed to a piece of threaded rod and awarded a hacksaw, guess what the redneck character chooses to cut?
5. Two chicks sit in a canoe fishing fly rods like bait rods and blathering about “Dry Lures”, which do not exist. Maybe they meant “Dry FLIES” which do exist, but you have to cast them. At least they weren’t holding the fly rods upside down.
6. The survivors set up camp on a mountain with no defenses and no guards. They do string cans on strings around it as a perimeter warning device, but at the end of episode four the Zombies walk right into camp and chomp away with hardly a jingle to alert the under-gunned campers. These must be the only people in the South who can’t lay their hands on a large supply of firearms at a moment’s notice.

Willful suspension of disbelief is an essential element for any kind of storytelling, but it’s especially important for fantasy. Accepting that dead people walk is tough enough without characters doing stupid stuff they’d never attempt in real life. When this happens (and it’s all too common) it usually comes about because the storyteller wants a dramatic moment and he takes the lazy way out, just directing the character to do whatever bone-head maneuver required to bring it about.  This jolts the viewer out of the story and makes it harder to accept the fantastical elements.

At least in “The Walking Dead” these jolts come less frequently than in other horror stories. Season 2 could be better.

Regular visitors to this blog (all seven of them) are undoubtedly aware of the rumors circulating capital hill: the Dems are furious with Obama and they’re worried he’s destroying the party. Monday began with the start of the lame duck Congress, and fresh crop of rumors that all is not well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

One of the consequences that comes with pissing off your own is that they start leaking to the press. This is the same press that acts more like the Palace Guard than the fifth estate, but it’s not 1981 and the days of the big three networks anymore – leakers gots options – lots of em. And what are they leaking?
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Well, the Washington Post puts up a bit of a shocker in the editorial section today, via Instapundit:

To be a great president, Obama should not seek reelection in 2012. “We do not come to this conclusion lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed.”

It’s a rare day indeed when this Beast agrees with the WaPo, but he’s willing to bring the thought a step farther: to be a really awesome President, Obama should resign now!

UPDATE: To be fair (as pointed out by the readers at Free Republic), this is not  theWashington Post’s Editorial opinion, it’s an Op-ed by two Dem pollsters. But WaPo did publish it, which is yet another sign that that behind the scenes, Dems are very unhappy with their Lord and Master.

While we’re at it, there’s more on the Palace revolt in progress, also via Instapundit: Joe Scarboro says top Senate Democrats have told him Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing.

As the Beast noted in a prior post, the cracks are widening and the leaks floweth forth.

Kittery is the southernmost town in Maine. It’s right on the ocean, across the Harbor from the three hundred and eighty eight year old seaport city of Portsmouth, NH.  Portsmouth and Kittery kids have always had a bit of a rivalry going on. Maine Comic Juston McKinney, a Kittery lad, offers his his hilarious perspective on our state. This bit was filmed at The Portsmouth Music Hall, on the good side of the harbor.

H/T NRO’s The Corner:

And this one is even better:

And after only two episodes has already been renewed for a second season! From the site:

AMC announced today the renewal of The Walking Dead for a 13-episode second season. Since debuting Sun., Oct. 31, The Walking Dead has broken ratings records, with the series reaching more Adults 18 to 49 than any other show in the history of cable television.

This is classy stuff, believe it or not. 10 pm Sunday will never be the same.

Watch the pilot episode on your puter here.

Now all we need is the next season of Breaking Bad and the world will be perfect.

You don’t send scores of your faithful blithely off the electoral precipice without consequences.

Last January, in the thick of the Obamacare debate, nervous Blue Dog Democrats met with Obama and communicated their unease. They specifically brought up Clinton’s electoral backlash in 1994, caused – to some degree – by Clinton’s failed effort to do exactly what Obama was having them do now: pass a healthcare plan. According to retiring democratic Rep Marion Berry, as reported in ADG (subscription only, but here’s a good link from Politico to get the general gist), Obama dismissed their concerns, claiming his popularity would provide them adequate political cover. He told told jittery Dems “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.”

Fat load of good it did. One imagines Napoleon said the same to his generals before he invaded Russia. Yes, the Dems passed Obamacare, and yes, the French captured Moscow, but a month later Napoleon marched back out again and ultimately earned himself a long vacation at Elba. Now Obama’s in India and the word around the capital is the Dems sent him there to be rid of him while they assess the wreckage.

From Opinion Maker:

According to sources close to the White House, who put themselves in great danger by even talking to members of the media, the plans to have Obama leave for a visit to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan are an attempt to get Obama out of the country while top Democrats can sort through the political disaster created for the party by Obama’s increasingly detached-from-reality presidency.

Expect the trickle of leaks to go a-gusher in the coming days. Now that Obama has lost his rainmaker mojo and earned much enmity within his own party (not just for political setbacks, but also for his pettiness, arrogance and condescension), insiders have already started scheduling private meetings with journalists who have suddenly started paying attention for the first time in three years. The party is terribly alarmed at the prospect that Obama’s doing serious, long-term damage to the brand. The kind of damage that could take decades to undo. And that’s why the Obami are in India playing Sultan: the Dems are deciding what to do about him.

The Democrats stuck with Clinton in ’94 and they may well decide to stick with Obama too, but judging by the number of rats already swimming away from the sinking ship, the rest could decide to leap over the rail before they all get sucked down together. Clinton didn’t have a rival Hilary equivalent waiting to challenge him – Obama does. And there’s signs that our POTUS is coming a bit unglued. Again from Opinion Maker:

On October 5, Obama was addressing Fortune magazine’s “Most Powerful Women” summit in Washington, DC. During the middle of Obama’s speech, the presidential seal fell off the podium. Publicly, Obama took the incident as a joke, but WMR has learned from White House insiders that Obama went on a tirade after the incident, accusing White House staffers of purposely not anchoring the seal to the podium. The White House supplies all the podiums and seals at all presidential addresses and the seal is usually well-anchored with four screws affixed to the podium. Obama reportedly “freaked out” and accused White House staffers of engaging in a conspiracy against him. The presidential tirade over such a trivial matter was not lost on senior administration officials who have witnessed Obama’s lackadaisical behavior during the consideration of much weightier issues, for example, the war in Afghanistan.

And it gets worse:

Some White House staffers have described a “reign of terror” in the White House over continued leaks and a troika of leadership that is making decisions without any input from the president. The troika reportedly consists of First Lady Michelle Obama, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, and the president’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, who resides in the White House.Not to be deterred, some White House staffers have sought out journalists and have arranged to meet them at nearby Starbuck’s cafes to discretely convey to them inside information about the current disarray within the Obama administration. Some staffers have personally born the brunt of Obama’s temper and witnessed his extreme narcissistic behavior. WMR has also learned from White House sources that Obama is taking prescription anxiety medication.

We are starting to see a portrait of a man who is quite brittle, prone to fits of rage, and disengaged. Up til now all political calculus as to how Democrats should respond to their electoral rout last Tuesday has been based on the assumption that Obama is, at least, right in his mind. That may not be true, and if it isn’t we may be in for a big surprise this winter.

UPDATE (11/13/10): The Cracks Widen.

Obama has to worry about the Republicans, but he left the USA to avoid Democrats.

They are sharpening the long knives.

“Even though it was predicted, it was still a shock to see voters humiliate a brilliant and spellbinding young president, who’d had such a Kennedy-like beginning, while electing a lot of conservative nuts and promoting this central-casting congressman as the face of the future: a Republican who had vowed in a written pledge to restore America to old-fashioned values, returning to a gauzy ‘Leave It to Beaver’ image that never existed even on the set of ‘Leave It to Beaver.’” – Maureen Dowd, stomping the sour grapes with a vengeance, today.

So the Beast was clicking through various stories on Real Clear Politics.com, drinking coffee and gradually returning to full consciousness, when he followed a link to a story at web site for the Las Vegas Sun newspaper. Look what he found (click on the picture to view it in full glory):

This web page for this newspaper is so draped and bedecked with anti Sharon Angle banners, that when you first enter the site you have to look hard for a moment or two to identify the spot on the page where the actual news content begins. This is a news site? It looks more like a popup ad to the kind of web page that installs malware on your computer. And serendipitously, once you sift through the anti Angle stuff, the content you find is an opinion piece titled “Atmospherics are terrible for Reid, but he will hold on.“. Seriously, if Reid does hold on you won’t need to read this piece to see why. All you have to do is look at the website itself. And what does it take to essentially hijack the web site of an entire Newspaper, two days before election day? Reid’s got some serious juice, man.

UPDATE: the main site even has an anti Sharon Angle drop-down. Check out this screen capture:

Taking a break from the election (is it Tuesday, yet?), the Beast took advantage of a rare no-child weekend to zip a half hour north today to Lake Winnipesaukee. The lake itself is closed to fishing but a tributary river that flows into it is open for two more days. It’s a special season, fly fishing only, catch-and-release, barbless hooks. He was only there for an hour but he managed to catch two salmon. The first was a hen, very dark for the breeding season.

The Beast manage to get a nearby fisherman to hold it so he could get this shot (click on the pic to see it full size):

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Ever happy to parrot the latest Democratic Party talking point, Bob Schieffer launched into Karl Rove today about his PAC and its “Anonymous Donors”. Rove then proceeded to carve him into little, sticky pieces.

Click on image to watch at off-site link.

NPR has given the walking papers to frequent lefty FOX News contributor Juan Williams. It’s no secret they’re unhappy that he appears so regularly on the network the left loves to hate, these are the same people who called for Mara Liasson (another NPR Reg) to stop going on FOX, too, but she reused. And why not? One stint on cable news giant FOX probably nets her and Williams tens of thousands more views than a year on NPR. Why would she give up a gigantic TV audience for a couple dozen elderly hippies tuning in on the radio in their aging SAAB?

Apparently Williams made the mistake of agreeing with Bill O’Reilly on the Muslim flap set off by comments made by O’Reilly on a recent appearance on The View (in which two of the menopausal harridans demonstrated the virtues of tolerance and comity by marching out of the studio in a huff). From Power Line:

Big Journalism reports that NPR has fired senior news analyst Juan Williams for thought crime committed on Fox News. Williams concurred with Bill O’Reilly on “the Muslim dilemma” posed by O’Reilly. Williams admitted that, despite his prolific admiration of the civil rights movement, “when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

That’s worth losing your job for? It just goes to show how ideologically rigid the left has become, although they usually excuse their own for this sort of stuff. Usually it’s only right wingers who get attack for sloppy speech. But since NPR, like many organizations run by lefties, probably doesn’t have any conservatives on staff to fire, so they’re now reduced to jettisoning fellow libs who aren’t pure enough. Expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future – when you’ve been pushed back to the Bunker, there’s no room for any but the truest believers.

If FOX News is smart they’ll sign Williams right away, a bitter lefty screwed over by his own makes for great TV. Actually, this is probably a boon for Williams’ career: getting tossed out of a dying ideology just days before it goes flatline could be interpreted by some as very good luck, indeed.

UPDATE: Media Critic and author of “Bias” (which blew the lid off media bias back in 2001), Bernie Goldberg weighs in:

What makes this so crazy — and so sad — is that liberals are the open-minded ones, the ones who cherish the free exchange of ideas, the smart ones. And if you don’t believe me, just ask any liberal, who will be glad to tell you how smart and open-minded he or she is. But these are the kind of people who believe in “free speech” only as long as they agree with you.

Only about 20 percent of Americans identify themselves as liberals. Liberalism was once a great American movement. It led the fight for civil rights, the most important issue, as far as I’m concerned, of the 20th century.

It’s a shame that liberalism is dying in this country. It’s an outright crime that liberals are killing it.

For years Juan Williams has descended into the belly of the Fox-Beast and battled with the right (often outnumbered three to one), defending the left flank. Even if you disagree with him you have to admit he’s gutsy. And how does the left thank him for this service?

Right now, conservatives are defending liberal Juan Williams (and doesn’t that just drip with irony), it will be interesting to see if any libs besides Goldberg (who is a bit of a heretic) come forward for Juan, too. Or maybe this is meant to chill their spines and force them to hunker down and shut up.  This could galvanize a major media revolt in the news biz – if the Beast were a reporter/commentator, he’d be pretty PO’d. Beware the backlash, liberal media – you may have just crossed the line.

…He’d join this guy in: “The Rent Is Too Damn High Party”

The Beast’s fourteen year old son absolutely adores Quentin Tarantino’s “IngloriousBasterds”. Whenever it’s on (and it’s always on) he insists we watch it. Which is fine, the Beast enjoys it too, and there are more than enough filmmaking flourishes packed into the movie to make it worth repeated viewing, if only to discover and appreciate tiny details that were missed in previous watchings. That said, there’s a central element of the film that always bothers the Beast and last night it finally came into focus, when we watched it again for the umpteenth time.

The Germans are charming, sincere, heroic, fully fleshed out-characters. The Basterds are brutal, bloody cartoon figures. The Germans adore their heroes and their artists. The Basterds murder and mutilate their prisoners, dead and alive. Was ist los?

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Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” -Friedrich Neitzsche

If you’re a Democratic candidate right now, you’re haunted by a sense of impending doom. Your numbers are down, the hair on the back of your neck is up, your base is dispirited, the party bosses yanked your ad money lifeblood to pink up Barney Frank’s sinking cheeks and where’s the leader of your party? Where’s the President Of The United States Of America? Where’s your hero, come to save the day?

He’s in somebody’s Midwestern back yard, sans suit, sans tie, head bobbing between the Teleprompters secreted in the Azalea Bed, preaching fire and thunder down upon the newest Demon in the Democratic Necronomicon, the slimiest serpent in the Garden of Eden,  the Hardest Working Hellspawn Horror On This Side Of The Seven Dimensions!

Devils and Demons, Witches And Warlocks, CAP-tains And Ten-ILES!

We give you now the Master of Lies, The Lord Of The Flies, The Spawn Of The Squid With A Thousand Eyes! Hand up your souls to the One Who Dares Not Even Speak His Own Damn Name…

The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce!

Seriously?

Yes, these guys:

Scary, huh?

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Monday, two weeks ago, the Beast toddled out of his trundle bed and cranked up his wheezing 4 year old Acer laptop to read the news and drink coffee before work. Instead of the usual wheezes and creaks, the machine booted smoothly into the BIOS and then went black. Nothing. No checking the disk for bad clusters, no warning screens, no C drive grinding away like a hamster wheel full of gravel. Nada. Nichts.

No C drive at all. His hard drive was now an ex-parrot.

A decade ago, in his behemoth desktop days, the Beast would have known what to do. Take a moment of silence to grieve the loss of his data, then pop over to Best Buy, grab a new hard drive for sixty bucks, install it, reload windows from CD and move on. But this time there was a problem – no copy of windows to load. because nowadays you don’t get Windows, you get a restore disk that doesn’t install windows on a virgin drive. And how much is a standalone copy? Two hundred bucks! So for two hundred and sixty bucks you get a functioning puter with a new hard drive and the same crappy outdated four year old processor. Drop another two hundred, though and you get a whole new system with snappy duo core processor that runs at light speed! And since prices have tumbled in the last half decade, the five hundred dollar laptop you take home will run as good if not better than the three thousand dollar behemoth you bought back then!

Of course, this necessitated a bit of a wait for funds, so the Beast has been gone for a while, in the throes of full white-knuckle internet withdrawal. But the wait is over now, he’s got his works back and he’s posting again. So, apologies to all for the unintentional sidelining, but we’re entering the fourth quarter of what’s turning out to be a winning game for the GOP and it’s time to rock and roll!

The Dems can’t pass a budget this year, they can’t extend the Bush Tax Cuts, they couldn’t pass the National Defense Authorization Act, but they could get Comedian Stephen Colbert to testify before congress.

One has to wonder what they were thinking when they dreamed this stunt up: hire a professional clown to testify before a panel of doomed dems and then what – pray nobody makes the connection? Well, perhaps Chris Matthews and Brian Williams mightn’t, but for the rest of us outside The Tank, the one-liners write themselves.
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And Mike Castle shows exactly why he’s a loser by refusing to endorse her. The GOP insiders are so mad they could spit. Well, here’s a thought: who owns the money the NRSC  is withholding from the Delaware race? The NRSC didn’t earn it – we donated it. Maybe we should send the money we were going to send the NRSC directly to O’Donnel, at least for the next two months! The NRSC need Conservatives a lot more then Conservatives need the NRSC.

The Granite State held out as long as it could; a GOP stronghold in Commie New England for the past 100 years, it went Dem in 2008 and this was taken as a sign that the Dems were going to be  ascendant in the Northeast until Logan’s lifestone went black.

Well, it’s not to be. NH will turn out their Dems this year; they’re polling lower than Larry Flynt at the Lilith Fair. Worse, still, establishment GOP Senate  candidate Kelly Ayotte (who has been all over the radio and TV – such as it is in tiny rural NH) appears to be cratering today in favor of the Tea Party Frenchman (who has had no money for media buys) Ovide Lamontagne.

Ovide who? Yes, exactly! The Beast’s family has lived in NH since 1650 and the Beast has literally never heard of this guy before today! But he’s WINNING and he’s winning BIG! Currently 45% to Ayotte’s 35%. Now, there’s a lot of vote yet to tally, but this is truly amazing.

UPDATE: Maybe there’s a reason the Beast never heard of this guy, the race is now neck-and neck. Lamontagne – 39%, Ayotte – 38%

UPDATE #2 (1:09am): Oops – Ayotte’s taken the lead by 1,100 votes, this is gonna go all night.

“Yeah, I have seen many – The American Color!”

UPDATE: Special BONUS Video! The Boomtown Rats Redux

It’s predictions time, guys and gals. Now that the endgame is on, with the majority of voters just starting to pay attention to election season (after Labor Day), how many seats will the GOP pick up? Here’s the Beast’s picks:

House Of Representatives (39 seats needed to gain the majority): GOP +60
Senate (10 seats to gain the majority): GOP +10
Governorships: GOP +10

Anybody else?

When Republicans lose the the support of the public, it’s a sign the Republicans have failed the American People. When Democrats lose the support of the public, it’s a sign that the American People have failed the Democrats. And we must be punished.

Or at least, lectured. Doing the duty today: Pulitzer prize winning WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson takes us behind the woodshed and wields the rhetorical switch.

According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they’re ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans — for whom, according to those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn’t an “electoral wave,” it’s a temper tantrum.

He’s just so disappointed in us. We have behaved abominably, and we should know better. He gave us every opportunity but now he has no choice but to give us a good, hard talking-to:

In the punditry business, it’s considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Nanny Pelosi and Uncle Obama have worked so hard for us and do we show any gratitude at all? Nope. And worse, we’re starting to  hang out with those bad kids on the other side of town, the ones who experiment with dangerous substances like guns and tax cuts, fight and boast and embarrass us in front of the neighbors:

It’s bad enough that the Democratic Party’s “favorable” rating has fallen to an abysmal 33 percent, according to a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. It’s worse that the Republican Party’s favorability has plunged to just 24 percent. But incredibly, according to Gallup, registered voters say they intend to vote for Republicans over Democrats by an astounding 10-point margin. Respected analysts reckon that the GOP has a chance of gaining between 45 and 60 seats in the House, which would bring Minority Leader John Boehner into the speaker’s office.

Uncle Obama and Nanny Pelosi have gone easy on us up til now – maybe they haven’t explained how hard they work for us as well as they could have, but we should have known better, and we’re expecting way too much out of them.

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they’re running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they’re forced to try to explain that things aren’t quite so simple — that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation’s increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America’s position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don’t want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

Well, don’t expect our new pals to wash and cook and clean for us the way the Dems do. Those losers won’t work their fingers to the bone. Just keep blowing our allowance on fripperies and see what happens:

The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes — not because they’re bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation’s income, and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don’t pay more, there won’t be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.

And when it all comes crashing down (even worse than it is now, presumably – THB), we won’t have Nanny Pelosi and Uncle Obama to kick around anymore.

THERE. Now DON’T we feel ashamed of ourselves?

Via Furry John on Cape Cod: “If it passes East, “dry side,” heavy offshore winds, some trees down. Great surfing. Passes to our West = nightmares with variety. Boats 1500 feet up on the land. Collapsed walls. Trees you’ve known your whole life on their side, roots torn out. Dead people. Either way, <150 miles = instant November.”

And there’s this:

Hurricane Earl and 1938 –YOW!

“The storm, following a low pressure area as the course of least resistance, was unable to swing westward because of a high pressure area which had developed over the Middle Atlantic States – fortunately for that region.

Unfortunately for Long Island and New England, another high pressure area had developed over the Atlantic. Between those two areas was a valley of low pressure. A Valley of Death that was a dagger pointed into the heart of New England. Into that valley or trough went the hurricane, now sweeping along at more than 60 miles per hour.”

NOW LOOK AT THIS. DO YOU SEE THE TWO HIGH PRESSURE ZONES? DO YOU SEE THE LOW BETWEEN THEM? THAT LINE IS THE TROUGH!

Fun, fun, fun!

Whose Nuts Now?

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. – James Lee, EnviroMartyr and Friend to Arboreal Rodents Everywhere

It was inevitable. In this atmosphere of hate and bigotry, when the racism races through the body politic like a bunch of racist racers running a race where they’re winning the race against the good guys who can’t race because they’re not racist, somebody was bound to snap.

Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and who knows – maybe Mike Rowe and Bear Grylls too – all have watered the tree of hate with the blood of bile and now they harvest the the crop of nuts of evil. Can anybody blame activists for losing it? Not this Beast! It’s time to take a stand for free speech and shut these people up once and for all! if not for us, then at least for the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

In which the Beast breaks a cardinal (or at least ordinal) rule of blogging.

Poor taste? Definitely. Racist? Um....

Ibid

If you or anybody else were to write a piece about the Nazis and you chose to call them “evil” (which you would, sooner or later), nobody would expect you to support that contention with a comprehensive list of all the bad stuff the Nazis did. We all (at least, those of us over 25) know the Nazis did bad stuff; lots of us saw “Schindler’s List” (or at least woke up several times and glanced at the screen while it was playing) and “Saving Private Ryan.” Indeed, the words “Nazi” and “Evil” are pretty much synonyms by now. Nazis=Evil.

The tendency to accept certain things as “given” is an indispensable tool in daily life. Imagine if you had to support every utterance with footnotes, sources and attributions; you’d never get laid at all! And while it’s definitely a good thing to “get the hell on with it” when you’re trying to make a point so you don’t waste everybody’s time dithering away at defining terms prefatory to proving that the Yankees Suck, there’s always the chance that some asshat will try to sneak in an opinion as axiomatic that definitely isn’t and needs supporting evidence.

In fact, one could argue that axioms are often created to avoid having to provide proof of an opinion. State your belief as self-evident forcefully and often enough and you have some hope that time and repetition will eventually cause others to believe it as true.

Hence “Tea Party” and “Racism”, or “Ground Zero Mosque Opposition” and “Islamophobia”. In both of these cases, liberals and the mainstream media (but the Beast repeats himself) have peered into the souls of the principals involved and found them rotten with bigotry and rife with animus. And the fact that there is an absolute dearth of real life examples to support their contention that all and sundry are motivated by hate doesn’t slow them down one iota.

And headlines – boy we get headlines. Just today Stanley Crouch of the New York Daily News published a six hundred and fifty four word rage screech entitled “Drowning out the hate hustlers: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck cannot steal America’s soul.” His thesis?

Now that irresponsible opportunists have brought many of the misled to Washington, we can begin to contemplate what makes bigotry so appealing. Surely, being able to exclude is one of the great joys of the species because it can give a grand identity to the average person.

That identity as one of the elect made the red glow in Southern white necks. They felt part of a civilization in which they were looked down upon until they put on their costumes, screamed loudly at mob gatherings and committed acts of violence.

And he’s just warming up! He goes on to condemn the horrid racist bigots for all their horrible racialism and bigotosity, all of which is definitely bad and not good at all in its badness. And who could argue with that? Racism and bigotry are bad and should be condemned.

But shouldn’t it also be proven? If you’re going to tar a person or group with the brush of what amounts to the worst social sin in the modern era, might you not also need to show that they’re guilty? You know, with examples and stuff.

And here’s where our old buddy Axiom comes in. Mr. Crouch doesn’t need to assemble boring lists of hate crimes and speech perpetrated by these people, he’s beyond that. He’s read the minds and hearts of America and he knows the truth. Everybody knows it – expect George Clooney to release the screenplay any day now.

And you can see this most clearly in the title of Crouch’s rant: “…drowning out the hate hustlers”. He and his ilk are hoping to achieve with volume what they can’t with reason. Shout the opponents down, scream racism loud enough and hopefully the other guys (like those 68% of Americans opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque, including 55% of Democrats) will just sit down and shut up. Of course, to build a genuine Axiom you need the majority of the people to believe it at face value, and one suspects that seventy percent of Americans are unlikely to decide they’re bigots and swing over to Mr. Crouch’s side.

Hard on the heels of Sarah Palin’s stellar speech (and we assure the readers that our juxtaposition of the words words “Hard on”, “heels”, and “Sarah Palin” is purely coincidental) at yesterday’s D.C. rally, Feministas Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister have published an Op-ed in today’s New York Times bemoaning the left’s lack of a similar charismatic female leader. It is a stunning admission of political failure, or it would be if they were talking about anything other than Feminism, which hasn’t chalked up a single genuine victory since the 70′s.

Palin is a political Dreadnought – she’s withstood two years of constant assault from the left and yet refuses to sink. Libs have thrown their entire arsenal at her but she continues on, even picking up speed. She’s now on the verge of appropriating one of their most cherished issues – Women’s Rights – and it’s driving them crazy.

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Found this great site via Ed Driscoll. It combines snarky captions with hideous modern architecture – what’s not to love?

A sample or two three:

It was hard to pretend the date was going well after she’d glimpsed the bathroom.

No one could make eye contact after they discovered the contents of the barrel.

Genghis was sorely disappointed to learn that breaking out of
the white acrylic bubble was merely step one in his escape.

Ron Howard’s younger brother plays the Congressman in this very funny short video*.

*Note to our liberal readers: this is comedy, not news!

…show him this ad:

h/t NRO

If the Dems allow it to be built (which seems ever more unlikely, now that they’re in big political trouble over it).

Jim treacher widens the perspective:

Three things I’ve learned about the Ground Zero 9/11 Debris Field Mosque from my moral, ethical, and intellectual betters on the left

1. A mosque isn’t a mosque if it includes a pool and a basketball court.
2. Ground Zero does not extend one single inch past the lip of the crater.
3. Shut up.

Thanks, Michael Calderone!

P.S. Another valuable lesson: It’s not “hallowed ground,” even if Obama said so during his fantastic speech Friday night.

“Shut up, he explained”.  Lotta wisdom there.

You just couldn’t help yourself. You’re the biggest, toughest creature in the swamp. None dare oppose you. You swim through the stagnant water, taking what you want, doing as you will, driving all before you.

And then you catch the scent – something tempting, smelly and rank. It lures you in, you follow the trail. And you find it – dangling temptingly a scant three feet over the water: a big stinky chicken. Swinging at the end of a rope from a stout overhanging limb, lovely reeking bits dripping into the drink below, it mocks you, it beckons. If you don’t grab this big stinky chicken, others will get it instead.
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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, often known as “The Most Overruled Court In The Nation” redeemed itself somewhat today, halting gay marriages in California pending a ruling on the appeal of Judge Walker’s ruling that the Constitutional Amendment barring said marriages (passed by seven million California voters) was unconstitutional.

Walker refused to grant a stay, ruling the Prop 8 proponents had no standing to appeal because the State had recused itself.  This was rather odd because Walker had granted Prop 8 proponents standing to argue the case (rather than grant summary judgment to plaintiffs, which would have meant no trial, hence no finding-of-facts fun), but not to appeal. A different panel will consider the actual appeal, but for now it appears the battle will go on.

Politicians have this thing they call the “Seventy-Thirty Rule”: it stipulates that on any general issue about seventy percent of the people will feel one way and the remaining thirty percent will feel the other way. It’s always best to align yourself with the seventy over the thirty. President Obama has developed the uncanny ability to home in on the thirty camp on virtually every issue and pitch his tent there. He basically lives in Thirty-Percent-Land. The result:

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This is up on Drudge right now; riot police had to come to some place called “East Point”, just outside Atlanta Georgia, according to the AJC:

The massive event sometimes descended into a chaotic mob scene filled with anger and impatience. Some 62 people needed medical attention and 20 of them were transported to a hospital, authorities said. A baby went into a seizure in the heat and was stabilized at a hospital. People were removed on stretchers and when a throng of people who had been waiting hours in a line were told to move to another line, people started pushing, shoving and cursing, witnesses said.

The story came with two pictures from the scene:

And this one:

Now it’s probably because the Beast lives in New Hampshire and doesn’t know anything about the south, but he had to ask this question: “Are there any white people looking for public housing in this town? Any?” One would think there’d be a few, right? The first photo is kind of like a real life version of “Where’s Waldo?”, only it’s “Where’s Whitey?”.

The Beast has managed to find four white guys so far in the pics (but they look like cops or city officials, so maybe they don’t count) – perhaps you can see more?

The Beast posted Moe Lane’s Top 10 Signs Of Doom a while back, and he’s been on the lookout for examples. The most recent Sarah Palin flap has given us a solid #2. To refresh your memory:

2. The Democrats start talking up “scandals” involving Republicans that wouldn’t even get you a verbal reprimand at your job if you did them.

The lefty blogs are foaming over Governor Palin’s encounter with an angry protester. Palin’s faux pas? Palin supposedly rolled her eyes when the protester said she was a teacher.  Yep – eye rolling. From the American Thinker Blog:

Is this April Fool’s day? I couldn’t believe me eyes when I read this headline on Think Progress (“When you Think Progress, think stupidity.”)

Palin laughs and rolls her eyes when demonstrator says she’s a teacher.

You are not misreading. It’s all over the lefty blogs; Sarah Palin rolled her eyes. This transgression occurred – and the video is not very conclusive – as Palin was confronted by a boorish lefist whose claim that she is a “teacher” has yet to be proved. What a monumentally stupid, inane, bogus, irrelevant line of attack. Eyebrow raising is now cause for criticism? What’s next? Shrugging the shoulders? Rubbing the forehead? Putting your hands in your pockets?

Holy mother what idiots.

It’s desperation time, folks. The Dems are flinging every piece of political poo they can find at the wall, praying something, anything, will stick. We’ve been hearing rumors of an August surprise for a while now – who wants to bet something along the lines of Rathergate is in the offing?

From “The Gay Team”, season 3.

Captain “Buck” Enteneille: Say…you’re not Gay are you, Notch?
Notch Johnson: Nope.
Captain “Buck” Enteneille: Good, NEITHER AM I!

Just a while back the Dems were saying Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Kelly Ayotte was going to hurt her in her race for Judd Greg’s seat in the US Senate. Just 18 months ago the pundits told us that traditionally Republican NH was going to turn Dem forever. And this year the Dems would pick up Gregg’s seat.

Not likely, according to Rasmussen…
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"Show him 'The Signs', my children. Show him the pretty, pretty 'Signs'..."

This list comes from Moe lane via Instapundit.  Keep your eyes open and you’ll recognize the signs everywhere:
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It’s confession time; the Beast overuses dashes. Maybe it’s just a function of the way he thinks, but every time there’s a pause in the rhythm of a sentence he’s composing, his treacherous fat fingertips invariably hit the dash key.

The Beast is prone to other writing sins; he loves passive voice. But that’s easy to fix; the sentence goes up in passive, then it gets redone in active. The Beast knows it’s wrong and he knows the solution.  But dashes – what the hell do you do with them?

The epiphany hit this week: the Beast uses dashes because he’s afraid of semicolons! Who isn’t?

So the Beast googled “semicolon” and found this great site by The Oatmeal (click on the link to view):
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Maybe they’ll be an acoustic cut some day; wouldn’t that be neato groovy?

UPDATE: here’s the extended version, which actually feature a super cool piano solo around 1:45 and a great guitar riff at 2:35.
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The story isn’t anyway near as good as the headline, but:

A man faces charges after an unusual incident at a local library. 52-year-old Darrell Bess was taken into custody yesterday, naked, armed with knives and several pounds of stolen cheese.
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It was May 30, 2008, a simpler time. A time when Obama was still the Messiah. A time when eight million Americans got up daily to work at jobs they do not have today. A time when the globe was still warming and the seas still rising. A time for kudoes and accolades, when a bunch of guys on a group blog all entered…

…“The Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Fifth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition: And the Winner Is…

Alas, The Hatemonger’s Quarterly is defunct, but if we all beg hard enough perhaps The Crack Young Staff may come back to share their lovely, lovely hate with us all once again. Meanwhile, do yourself a favor and peruse the archives. The Beast recommends “Complaints Department” for starters.

Always funny, he’s outdone himself this time!

If you’ve been following the pimply adolescent faux conservative WaPo blogger Gerald Weigel story, you must read this.

The Beast has concert tee shirts older than this zitty mooncalf!

Meanwhile, Bretibart offers $100,000 for full JournoList archives. There’s gotta be some juicy left wing media (but the Beast repeats himself) epistemic closure stuff in there judging by the alacrity with which fellow lefty teeny-bop founder Ezra Klein flushed the stash down the crapper.

"It's in the POND! It's going into the POND!"

"Ou est Newicks?"

It took a few years for authorities to admit this, but late summer off the Cape beaches isn’t just for leathery 80 year old Kebbekers in neon speedoes anymore. It’s also Great White Shark season.

Starting around 2006-07, White Shark sightings have become more and more common, beginning in late July and peaking around early September. Last year five whites were tagged over the course of a few days, several in the surf line, just off the beach. Now it appears they’re headed back, according to the Boston Herald.

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