Going beyond merely pathetic

Main Entry: dweeb
Pronunciation: 'dwEb
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Slang: an unattractive, insignificant, or inept person
Example: John Kerry

"Chance to Introduce Bill Had Hillary 'Gulping for Air'"

Senator Hillary Clinton said today that the opportunity to introduce her husband at the Democrat convention in Boston this month "thrills me beyond words."

"When Senator Kerry asked me to be the warm-up act for former President Clinton, I was gulping for air," Mrs. Clinton said. "I started crying and yelling at him: 'Do you really mean it?'"

A Kerry campaign spokesman said Mrs. Clinton is a "logical choice to do the introduction, since she is among the dozen, or so, women who know Mr. Clinton best."

It's ScrappleFace - more by following the link.

Meanwhile at the Captain's Quarters - Kerry: Let The Little Lady Introduce Her Hubby

Well, this certainly will set minds at ease among the Democratic Ladies Auxiliary! It's nice to see that Kerry has found a gender-appropriate role for the current Senator. Obviously, she has no standing on her own to speak at the convention, in Kerry's mind, so it's a darned good thing her husband happens to be an ex-President. Otherwise, she'd have to go back to the Hospitality Committee and help out with the cookie-baking and cake-cutting duties, like all the other wimminfolk.

Lurch fails to understand that he is fooling with a power beyond his control.

It must make Lurch nostalgic

Allah be praised and while you're visiting, check out the new line of t-shirts.

And speaking of class

James Taranto catches a beauty from Mrs. Opie:

Now, ponder this quote from Edwards's wife, in the "60 Minutes" interview with Messrs. and Mmes. Kedwards:

"I just want to say one thing and this is that these two men voted against tax cuts that would have benefited them," adds Elizabeth Edwards.

"Isn't that what we want? A leader who looks at the greater good instead of what simply what benefits the people [like] himself, or the people in his own class for their donors or whatever else you're looking at? These men did what was right for all Americans and it seems to me that's an enormous test of character--whether you're willing to step out and do something against your own self interest."

"People in his own class"? Has anyone in the "real America" ever used language like that?

Thanks Liz, for the lesson in noblesse oblige. It's a wonder you even let peons approach your exalted presence. Of course, the lads aren't quite as unselfish as Liz makes out, but I suppose that with Teresa for cover, she thinks she's free to continue the fat and stupid routine.

More letters to Lurch and Opie

I'm so excited that Lurch and Opie want to hear our stories! They really care!

Hmm, how about some celebrity letters?

You guys have fancy houses on the coast just like me. Don't you hate the riffraff that hangs around the ocean? You'll do something about that, won't you? Anyhow, some ecoweenie in a helicopter actually took pictures of my mansion claiming to be checking for coastal erosion! And when I sued him, the judge found against me and made me pay his legal expenses! The nerve! I hope you'll do something for people of our class.

Drop by any time. We'll do brunch on the veranda.

Kiss, kiss,

Babs

Or how about:

OK goobers! There I was, fat er, slim, dumb and happy. Then I get a few bottles of wine under my belt and start a X-rated rant on BushHitler and the next thing you know I'm out on the street! And it was at a fundraiser for you two twerps, too. You're going to fix that, right?

Yo!

Whoopee Cushion

Who ya gonna call?

If you're a wannabe dictator trying to scam an election and need "outside" observers?

Venezuelan election authorities invited 24 international celebrities, including Barbra Streisand and Nelson Mandela, to observe a recall vote against President Hugo Chavez Aug. 15.

The group of invited observers also includes U.S. actor Danny Glover, Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader, the National Electoral Council said in a statement. None of the invited observers has confirmed their attendance, a council spokeswoman said.

It'll be a reunion of most of the usual suspects. Needless to say, Peanut Brain will be there too.

Where's my beret? I'm feeling artistic!

From New Zealand - Prime Minister Makes An Ass Of Taxpayers:

ACT New Zealand Arts, Culture and Heritage Spokesman Deborah Coddington demanded that Prime Minister Helen Clark explain just why she thinks it's a good idea to spend $500,000 on a port-a-loo that makes donkey noises, and then explodes, in the name of art.

"Thanks to Miss Clark - also the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage - Labour has forked out half a million dollars of taxpayers' money to send this `art' to the Venice Biennale to showcase New Zealand contemporary art," Miss Coddington said.

Around here, we'd call wiring up the portacrapper a practical joke. Who knew we were artistes?

Fun with Lurch's Web Site

Remember the Kerry Sloganator? Well, these aren't as much fun, but still have a rich satisfying quality.

First, the folks at FR are having some laughs with a swell campaign innovation - Lurch and Opie want your story:

Do you have a story John Kerry and John Edwards need to hear?

John Kerry kicks off his front porch tour of America in Lansdowne, Pa. today. From now to Election Day, Kerry and Edwards will visit peoples' homes, sit on their front porches, and talk about why this election is so important to America's families. They will listen to peoples' stories and discuss the values we live by every day: family, responsibility, service, opportunity, inclusion, fairness, and faith.

Hmm, where did I put the barf bag?

While we can't meet with everyone face to face, we want to hear from you. Please share your story and tell us why this election matters to you. We will read every one of your responses, and share the most compelling stories by posting them on JohnKerry.com.

Please take a minute right now to click on the link below and share your story.

http://www.johnkerry.com/onlinehq/mediacorps/yourstory.php

So many possibilities, so little time. How about an oldie but a goodie? (lightly edited):

Hello, my friends, this is Dr. Peter Beter.

Four months ago, I reported the presence of a Soviet nuclear weapon at Seal Harbor, Maine, placed where it could destroy the summer homes of the Rockefeller family. The rulers of the Soviet Union were embarking on an all-out double-cross of their long time allies, the Rockefellers; and for the past four months we have been in the grip of a "Soviet Missile Crisis"--a fact of which most Americans are still unaware. The month before this crisis began I had revealed the rapidly mounting fears of certain Trustees of the key Rockefeller-controlled foundations that such a Soviet double-cross was imminent.

What are you two hairballs planning to do about it?

Your friend,

Peter Beter

I wonder whose address I should give?

Ah well, if that's too esoteric, you can always request a free Kerry bumper sticker for anyone you like. Even Peter Beter.

Her Heinous gets to play Snow White

The pixels in my 3 Dwarves post were barely dry when Lurch offered Hillary the chance to introduce Bubba at the convention. Such a deal! Lurch better keep an eye out for poison apples.

They still have the 3 Dwarves

Hillary's flying monkeys have their panties in a twist because Lurch kept her off the the speaker list for the big Donk hoedown.

As it stands now, Clinton's only scheduled, formal appearance is slated to occur on convention Monday. She was informed last week that it was to be a nonspeaking appearance, standing with the other female, Democratic members of the Senate as Maryland's Barbara Mikulski makes brief remarks.

Bwahaha - just a chorus girl, not a star. No wonder Her Heinous is peeved.

But not to worry, fun lovers! Just look at the line up of opening night speakers. It's Dopey, Sleazy, and Crazy!

John Kerry's campaign says opening night speakers for the Democratic National Convention will include former Presidents Carter and Clinton, and Clinton's former vice president, Al Gore.

Be still my heart! But I do hope that they have Big Weird Al back on his medication. Otherwise he might start chewing on the podium.

The rich aren't like us!

They pay less taxes - even when they're of the party of the "little people". You know - the party that says the rich should be paying a bigger share to help out the proles.

Two cases in point: Lurch and Opie. Or more precisely, since Lurch is just a gigolo: Teresa and Opie.

Donald Luskin takes a look at Teresa’s Taxes and asks

Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small?
...
Such evidence as one is able to assemble from publicly available information raises deeply disturbing questions. The Kerry campaign has disclosed Mrs. Kerry's 2003 income as $5,115,000. Using a conservative estimate of her wealth at $1 billion — at the low end of the Los Angeles Times' estimates — then we can easily see that her investments yielded only a miniscule one half of one percent last year.

In 2003 even Treasury bills yielded twice that much. Dividends on the S&P 500 yielded three times that much. Long-term Treasury bonds yielded eight times that much. If Mrs. Kerry's investment income really was only one half of one percent, then she is perhaps the world's worst investor. Or if her income is in fact greater, and she has found some way to minimize it for tax purposes, then Mrs. Kerry may be the world's greatest cheat.

Let's put this in terms that people of less extreme wealth can relate to. If you had $100,000 invested last year and your investment income was only $500 — the same percentage as Mrs. Kerry's income — then something would be very much out of whack.

More details by following the link, but since Teresa isn't revealing her tax returns, it's all speculation. Hmm, maybe she's hiding most of the dough under the mattress!

And wait a sec, I was too hasty in dismissing Lurch's contribution.

His proposal last March to end tax breaks for U.S. corporations that do business overseas was designed with a loophole that would let the H. J. Heinz Company — the centerpiece of Mrs. Kerry's family fortune — keep its overseas tax breaks, and get a lower domestic tax rate at the same time.

He's not just a pretty face!

Speaking of pretty faces, The Wall Street Journal describes how Opie is also doing his part when it comes to taxes:

Senator Edwards talks about the need to provide health care for all, but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax dodge to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system. While making his fortune as a trial lawyer in 1995, he formed what is known as a "subchapter S" corporation, with himself as the sole shareholder.

Instead of taking his $26.9 million in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate dividends. Since salary is subject to 2.9% Medicare tax but dividends aren't, that meant he shielded more than 90% of his income. That's not necessarily illegal, but dodging such a large chunk of employment tax skates perilously close to the line.

The Internal Revenue Service takes a dim view of such operations and "may collapse the structure entirely and argue the S corporation is not truly a separate entity," in the words of Tax Adviser magazine. Attorney CPA magazine lists it as No. 11 of its "15 best underutilized tax loopholes," but warns that the IRS "has successfully litigated cases against individuals, particularly sole shareholders of personal service S corporations, reclassifying such deemed distributions as wages subject to social security taxes."

As a political matter, the dodge is especially hypocritical because the income limits on which Medicare taxes are paid were lifted by Democrats in 1993 specifically to hit "the rich," as Mr. Edwards likes to call people in his tax bracket. And the supreme irony? Mr. Edwards has claimed that he set up the subchapter S company to protect himself from legal liability. You know it's time for tort reform when even the trial lawyers say they're afraid of getting sued.

Who knew Opie was a comedian too!

It must be great to be retired!

You know, no pesky job and no responsibilities. No clue, either.

Buh Bye!

Indeed. Don't let the garage door hit you on the butt on your way out.

A big hat tip to FR.

Today's Hoot!

Over at American Digest - Confident of Victory Kerry-Edwards Order "New Air Force One for the New America". I like the 1st comment too.

And while you're there, check out The Spin Song of Josh Micah Marshall:

If Marshall had any sense of self or honor, he'd just lie down until these deep incisions healed, but he won't. He'll be back at his stand bobbing like the drinking bird over the glass.

Alas, poor Josh, he really doesn't have any choice but to keep on coredumping the spin into his page. Once you've committed to the big lie, there's no going back, there's only the making of the big lie bigger. If he turned towards writing the truth, he'd not only be out of a job, Joe Conason would dump him.

Aren't ole Josh's 15 minutes up yet?

Do you think I can ward them off with garlic?

If you want to know what a Kerry administration would be like, check out this WaPo story on the Kerry campaign - Kerry's Inner Circle Expands:

The campaign now includes 37 separate domestic policy councils and 27 foreign policy groups, each with scores of members. The justice policy task force alone includes 195 members. The environmental group is roughly the same size, as is the agriculture and rural development council. Kerry counts more than 200 economists as his advisers.

And with so many wingnuts aboard the Kerry crazy train, foolery abounds:

Kerry's expanding universe has opened the campaign to a torrent of suggestions and second-guessing, useful or not. George A. Akerlof, a Nobel prize-winning economist and Kerry adviser, recently became so agitated about what he considered Kerry's muddled campaign message that he crafted an entire speech for him, straying far from his economic expertise to pit what he calls the Democratic Party's moral view of human nature against the sinister forces that Republicans see driving humanity. The campaign politely declined.

"I thought it would be useful to see if I could write a speech," the University of California at Berkeley economist mused. "It was just in me."

Something else is in you too, George! A lot of it.

At the very least, it has become draining for campaign staff members to finance and coordinate all the conference calls and meetings. Sarah Bianchi, Kerry's domestic policy chief, said her justice policy coordinator, Sarah von der Lippe, orchestrates four conference calls a week for her group. One campaign aide, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he feared angering task force members, said even the team names have developed "their own microdynamics." One task force is still arguing whether it should be titled the council on babies, children and youth or just children and youth.

Woohoo! Hot steaming bureaucratic action! More nonsense by following the link as the Donks try to buff up the freak show. But the net is:

It has also opened the campaign to Republican ridicule. Stanzel said the campaign's policy apparatus "demonstrates John Kerry's indecisiveness."

"Why is it that after 20 years in United States Senate, John Kerry needs that many people to tell him what he thinks?" Stanzel said.

Maybe because he spent most of his time on the party circuit?

That makes me feel so much better!

Belmont Club - It's Broke and Ain't Gonna be Fixed

Reuel Marc Gerecht's phenomenal article on the sorry state of US intelligence in the Weekly Standard has one major theme: that the CIA lacks the operational methods to penetrate its targets. He describes the heart of the problem as a reliance on recruited foreign agents of indifferent quality as the metric for promotion within the organization. A kind of bizarre sales target without a point or even a purpose.

Under this system, thousands of agents were recruited abroad neither for their intelligence-reporting potential nor their operational utility. They were put on the books--case officers often referred to the sport as "collecting scalps"--because that is how CIAoperatives earned promotion. With some exceptions--extraordinary handling of foreign agents could win you bonus points--the "head count" was the way to professional success. For most case officers, the Cold War was a backdrop for the constant search for an easy "developmental," somebody who could be quickly turned into a "recruitment" for the annual performance report.

It was busywork, a carnival on the periphery while the inner sanctum of the enemy remained inviolate. Nor is there is any bureaucratic probability that things will change. Those in charge today owe their positions to being agent bean counters par excellence -- salesmen of the month -- and are unlikely to alter the game.

As I've said before, prime evidence of the dysfunction is the fact that the CIA paid money for the services of bloviating crapsack Joe Wilson and his goofball spouse.

That's so sad!

The folks at Slim-Fast took a photo of the raving drunk off the header of their web pages. Stand by for the predictable whines.

Hey, why not?

'Democrats are shaking in their boots' over the thought of former football coach Mike Ditka running for the Senate in Illinois:

Does Iron Mike know what kind of game he could be getting into?

That is more or less the question a top Washington Republican was planning to ask Mike Ditka.

Virginia Sen. George Allen, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and son of a Hall of Fame coach himself, flew into Chicago Tuesday to personally huddle with Ditka, one day after the Bears legend said he was thinking about running for the U.S. Senate.

"Sen. Allen is planning on meeting with Coach Ditka tonight in Chicago to discuss the level of thought that Ditka has put into the race and the implications that that would have on the life that he lives right now," a GOP strategist in Washington said Tuesday.

Which is, of course, the big problem. Can he put up with the annoyances of political life including the dung flies in the media, the goofs who currently run the Illinois Republican party, and the buffoons in the Senate? But it would be a breath of fresh air in the fog bound halls of the Capitol:

The 65-year-old football Hall of Famer told WGN that he was just evaluating the idea, but added, "If you're going to tell me I couldn't be a better senator than Ted Kennedy — I could be."

Indeed he could.

All the usual hijinks

In the UK - Church pleads for Christian themes on Christmas stamps

In Rome, building owners are putting up "restoration" scaffolding around landmarks so they can turn them into giant billboards.

Soon, Rome's beloved Pantheon, the former pagan temple that has survived through the ages in the heart of the city, will become the first Roman antiquity to be covered by ads.

Cellular phone companies have expressed great interest in the prestigious advertising space, according to Interpromos, the agency that has signed a six-figure deal to promote the marketing merits of the 2,000-year-old domed structure.

"It's a very important monument, and it would enhance the glamor of your product to have an advertisement on it," said Interpromos spokesman Carlos Sinopoli.

Offering hope for sedentary seniors, an 81 year old man was arrested for crashing his pickup while doing doughnuts in a school parking lot. Spirituous liquors were involved.

Hey, someone found my old suitcase!

Today's Hoot!

Viking Pundit:

MTV declares Blogs for Bush “great” despite a dearth of discussions on how to “pimp” your ride.

"Cleanup on aisle 7"

The NY Times does some predictable damage control on last Thursday's Lurch and Opie celebrity wankfest. Here's the net: Oh, those wacky celebs!

But the best part is in the little details at the end of the article:

Mr. Sunshine said the performers involved were not the dilettantes some might imagine. "You have entertainers who are serious players who really understand the issues," he said, adding that he believed Mr. Affleck in particular might run for office some day. "Some of the humor may have been a little over the top, but humor is one of the best means of communicating. We are talking about it, aren't we?"

Well, Mr. Sunshine (his real name) does really crack me up - maybe he should run for office?

Mr. Sunshine said that several of his clients, including Mr. Affleck, Mr. DiCaprio and Mr. Mellencamp, were planning to attend the Democratic convention as well, and that Mr. Affleck was planning to join Mr. Kerry on the campaign trail.

At the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, Ms. Goldberg was master of ceremonies at a concert after Mr. Gore's acceptance speech.

Yesterday, Peggy Wilhide, a spokesman for the Democratic Party, said she did not know whether Ms. Goldberg would be in attendance at the convention in Boston this month.

Oh please! Promise her a case of Ripple and tell her to come on down!

Notes in passing

MICHAEL MOORE IS A BIG FAT STUPID WHITE MAN, by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke makes the NY Times best-seller list.

In the UK, they're questioning turnstile jumpers about their immigration status, while in the USA the usual suspects get their knickers in a twist if an illegal alien gets nabbed out of sight of the border. However, the long suffering citizens think it's a pretty good idea. You know, kind of like the law? Speaking of which, check out Lawyer corners Latino market. Of course, as usual with the flying monkeys in the press, subsitute "illegal alien" for "Latino" as an aid to comprehension.

Another for Tim Blair's collection of turkeys from the New York Times:

An article last Sunday about surprises in politics referred incorrectly to the turkey carried by President Bush during his unannounced visit to American troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving. It was real, not fake.

Same for the turkeys at the Times.

It takes a big man to fill these flip flops!

Lurch takes on the burning issues of our time with a promise to lift the ban on immigrants with AIDS. The Freepers did a little research and it turns out Lurch voted for the ban when it was enacted in 1993. Tsk! Naughty Lurch!

There's an amazing number of people with too much spare time

Bush's cat India gets Indians enraged

Thiruvananthapuram, July 2 (IANS) Angry youths in this Kerala capital Friday burnt an effigy of US President George W. Bush, not because they are anti-American but because he has named his cat India.

They would have really been insulted if he had named the kitty, "Butthead".