Lurch VP Shock!

Leonard Albin has a clever plan for the haughty French-looking caged hamster:

Before the presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry arrives in Boston (the presumptive site of the Democratic Convention), he needs to name his running mate. His campaign staff has spent the last few weeks vetting lists of candidates — probing their tax returns, military records, video rentals, and scheduling prostate exams. No one is exempt — not even Hillary. As you'd expect, this tedious and old-fashioned process has so far produced the tired, old, familiar names — the "usual suspects," like Richard Gephardt and John Edwards. But, in my view, John Kerry's best choice for vice president is...

...John Kerry.

Hmm, is that onanism or narcissism?

The main advantage of Kerry serving as his own running mate is that he could run as a centrist and as a liberal at the same time. The presidential candidate Kerry could use the perennial Democratic ploy of moving toward the center, and position himself as a "moderate." That's the Kerry who voted for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the vice-presidential candidate Kerry could lurch left and shore up all his liberal followers. That's the Kerry who voted against the $87 billion in funding for the Iraq war. Likewise, the presidential John Kerry could happily drive an SUV, while the vice-presidential Kerry could make speeches fiercely denying that he owned one — even in the same parking lot. In this way, the Democratic party could cover more bases than a utility infielder. And that's a recipe for victory. Best of all, this ultimate "fusion" ticket would be perfectly balanced, while creating the illusion of Democratic unity, always an elusive goal.
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Historically justifiable or not, the Kerry-Kerry ticket is just the kind of bold and daring move his campaign needs. With one deft stroke, it could change the face of American politics — and without using any Botox, either.

So, while the Republican attack machine (or is it attack dogs?) derides the ticket as "Senator Kerry and his evil twin," it's really a ticket with potential. Say it one time, and let it roll off your tongue: Kerry-Kerry. Catchier than the macarena, as balanced as Pouilly-Fuisse, and as solid as Heinz ketchup.

Wotta plan!

Lurch has that loving feeling!

Teresa insists hubby `likes people'

Trying to erase the image of her husband as aloof, Teresa Heinz Kerry yesterday insisted Sen. John F. Kerry ``likes people'' and went so far as to say he would make a great nursery school teacher.

Don't let us keep him from his destiny, Terry! There's more Teresa blather by following the link, but I especially like:

Addressing terrorism, she said, ``We're not going to fight terrorism with missiles, we're going to fight terrorism with ideas. And I think that John knows that, deep down.''

C'mon folks, point her to the clue phone - someone might be ringing her with an "idea."

But speaking of Teresa, here's some fun. You may have seen the AP report that a group called the Ruckus Society is training protestors for the Republican convention in New York. Popping over to ActivistCash.org we find:

If you’ve heard of Ruckus Society at all, it was probably in relation to the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Americans watched in horror as organized hoodlums ran roughshod over the city’s commercial district, smashing windows, setting fires, overturning vehicles, ransacking a Starbucks coffee shop and a McDonald’s restaurant, and generally putting lives at risk. It’s no coincidence that the Ruckus Society staffers were in the middle of the melee, giving on-the-record quotes to national media figures. Nor was it an accident that Ruckus director John Sellers represented the protesters when the terms of their arrest were being negotiated with Seattle police. The Ruckus Society is generally credited with organizing the whole Seattle spectacle in the first place. When the dust had settled, Sellers smugly told USA Today, “We kicked the WTO’s butt all over the Northwest.”

Note to John, the NYPD is in a different league than the goobers in Seattle. And while you're at ActivistCash, click the "Financials" tab. By far the biggest contributor in recent years is:

Tides Foundation & Tides Center $204,822.00

It's Teresa's favorite charity, the money launderers for wingnut cash! How cool is that? What could better for a politician than a rich wife to finance violent protests at your opponent's convention? I guess Tersea's not just a pretty face!

Break out the party hats! It's time for the Bubba MeFest!

Big media is holding a hoedown for Bubba's book this weekend and we're all invited! I'm afraid that I have a previous commitment, but I'm sure they'll do it up right. I also lack both the time and energy to blog extensively on the reappearance of the usual suspects, crawling out from under their rocks towards the limelight. But one of Bubba's comments in the preliminaries struck my fancy:

"When the Berlin Wall fell, the perpetual right in America, which always needs an enemy, didn't have an enemy anymore. So I had to serve as the next best thing."

Still, Clinton was conciliatory. "I don't think we have to say they're bad people. We have to say we think we're right and they're wrong and here's why. It's a very different argument.

"I never had any money till I left the White House and they were pretty mean to me, and then all of a sudden I became the most important person in the world to them once I got a little money."

Yup, now that Bubba has the big bucks, I don't care that he was an incompetent buffoon! He's the most important person in the world! No more mean comments from moi!

I'm sure the psychiatrists have a name for Bubba's problem. And for all the other problems in the Bubba collection.

WWLD (What Would Lurch Do) ?

Let's say you're running for President. You need to have campaign staffers to work with all possible constituencies. Who would you pick to be your campaign religious advisor, given that you're oh so liberal? Off hand, I'd say some "concerned" padre with a talent for hand wringing, but not so wacky as to scare off the proles. Who did Lurch pick? A beauty named Mara Vanderslice:

Miss Vanderslice, 29, grew up Unitarian in Boulder, Colo., then attended Earlham College, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Ind.

She joined a college socialist group, majored in peace and global studies, and graduated in 1997.

They didn't have a "peace and global studies" major when I was a youth. I'll bet it's really intense!

After interning for a year at Sojourners, a liberal evangelical magazine in the District, she joined the Jubilee USA Network, a D.C.-based group that campaigns for Third World debt relief.

What Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, found especially problematic was Miss Vanderslice's presence at a violent December 2000 rally in Seattle against the International Monetary Fund and a similar protest in September 2002 in the District against the IMF and the World Bank.

In articles on the protests, the Boston Globe identified her as an organizer and the Denver Post quoted her plans to take part in civil disobedience in order to shut down the IMF meeting in the District.

"What you get here is a profile of a woman on the far left and whose commitment to Christian organizations is connected to the most left-wing groups in the United States," Mr. Donohue said.

"This choice either suggests an incredible naivete or a very nonchalant attitude" by the Kerry campaign, he said.

Hey, Lurch was a leader of the VVAW, claimed all American soldiers were war criminals, and personally negotiated with the North Vietnamese. He did his best to prop up the Sandanista goons in Nicaragua and is a reliable pal of leftist thugs everywhere. Mara sounds like Lurch's kind of girl!

Or she would be if Lurch wasn't running for President.

The campaign began to marginalize Miss Vanderslice when the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights mounted a public campaign against her, saying she spoke at a rally co-sponsored by the homosexual group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (Act-Up) and should be "working for Fidel Castro."

Even though she was giving interviews to USA Today earlier this month, Miss Vanderslice would not be talking to the press, said campaign spokeswoman Allison Dobson.

"It is extremely unfortunate and regretful that John Kerry's political opponents would attack a person of faith in this way," Ms. Dobson said.

Allison, maybe Mara leading a chorus of "What a Friend We have in Lenin" would turn it around!

More in the article including Lurch's "informal" religious advisor, wingnut Father Bobby Drinan.

Everybody's doing it!

Newsday Says Its Circulation Was Inflated, as Was Hoy's:

Two newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, Newsday and the Spanish-language daily Hoy, inflated circulation figures by as much as 19 percent for the year ended last September, Newsday announced yesterday. The paper placed its vice president of circulation on administrative leave.
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The Newsday announcement comes less than two weeks after Tribune said it was cutting expenses at many of its 14 daily newspapers - but particularly The Los Angeles Times - because of advertising losses that were centered in Los Angeles. Newsday reported last week that its publisher, Raymond Jansen, was seeking to lay off more than four dozen pressroom employees to meet Tribune's budget mandates, but was being rebuffed by the union that represents them.

Newsday's disclosures also come just two days after Hollinger International reported that one of its daily papers, The Chicago Sun-Times, had been overstating its circulation figures. While the company said the size of the overstatement was unclear, it said such practices had apparently occurred over several years.

Naughty, naughty! Too bad there isn't also a comeuppance for self esteem inflation.

BUBBA BOOK SNEAK SHOCK!

WORLD EXCLUSIVE - must credit Country Store!



Publishing industry insiders reveal that Simon and Schuster have rushed last minute changes to ex-President Bill Clinton's soon-to-be-published biopic, including a title change! This while the public relations juggernaut promoting the book was getting ready to move out, threw plans into disarray. New opening paragraph:

It was a dark and stormy night. But things were real cozy inside cabin 3 behind the Dew Drop Inn where I was counseling a troubled lounge singer, Tammy Sue Bigguns. We had just started an uplifting game of "Hide the Cocktail Wiener," when all of a sudden there was a hellacious pounding on the cabin door. It sure scared the dickens out of Tammy and me! Above the pounding, there was some fearsome screeching and yelling and I made out a raging voice that I recognized, "Bubba, I know you're in there with some no account floozie! Get your fat ass out here this minute! Just wait 'til I get my hands on you!" It was My Wife.

Breaking hard!

Another episode of Snaggletooth and the Mozambique Hottie

Lurch took some time off from his busy schedule to have his teeth fixed:

Despite a temporary loss of wrinkles, Senator John Kerry denied claims earlier this year that he underwent Botox treatments. But there's no denying the aftereffects of a piece of cosmetic work he had done yesterday. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee emerged from a morning of seclusion in Washington with two new pearly-white-capped teeth at a airport rally in Atlantic City. The noticeably improved smile is not only bright, it corrects the angled teeth and one prior miscolored cap.
...
Other than that, the aides insist he had his teeth cleaned but not whitened. Still, the high-wattage smile was apparent as Kerry headed off by helicopter for a fund-raiser at the home of rock star Jon Bon Jovi, himself the veteran of a canine cap job.

The wags at FR suggest that he's spent more time this year on his appearance than appearing in the Senate. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney agrees - he's asked Lurch to resign:

The Romney administration called Tuesday for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to resign while he runs for president, saying he's had an abysmal attendance record since launching his campaign last year and is not adequately representing his constituents.

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, a Republican, said Kerry has missed 64 percent of last year's roll call votes and 87 percent this year, including a vote on banning Internet child pornography.

He also missed a vote on extending unemployment insurance benefits, which was defeated by one vote.

"It's not fair, it's not right and the public is not being well-served," said Healey, who said she was acting on behalf of Gov. Mitt Romney. "I'm calling on John Kerry to resign so that we can fill that office with someone who is 100 percent devoted to the job of representing the people of Massachusetts."

Meanwhile, Lurch's little lady stuns with "I'm one very sexy senior":

Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, touts herself as "sexy" and "cheeky" in an interview being broadcast tonight.
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Her comments were sparked by her husband's description of her as "saucy, sexy, brilliant."

Rich too, eh, Romeo?

Mrs. Kerry has spoken publicly of her fondness for Botox injections to smooth her wrinkles, a revelation that fueled rumors that her husband, 60, had used Botox, too. He denied it.

Mrs. Kerry is worth an estimated $550 million as ketchup heiress via her late first husband, Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.). And she repeats her refusal to release her full tax returns.

Even if she's rich, she ought to ask for her Botox bucks back:



It obviously isn't working too well and then she could afford more websites supporting Hezbollah terrorists.

That's just wrong!

But it has a sort of poetic justice - AMA: Refusing Care To Malpractice Attorneys Unethical.

Reminds me of the good ole days - "If you don't like cops, the next time you're in trouble, call a hippie!".

Today's Hoot!

From Spartacus:

I received an email this morning with a reader's reaction to the news of the latest Al Queda attack against Americans in Saudi Arabia. I found it very helpful:

...

So I'm thinking, oh christ, what is going to happen to this poor guy now... are we going to be treated to another video beheading, or worse?

But then the next paragraph says this:

A purported al-Qaida statement posted on an Islamic Web site late Saturday claimed the terror group had killed one American and kidnapped another in Riyadh. It threatened to treat the captive as U.S. troops treated Iraqi prisoners.

Whew, what a relief!! So they're just going to point at his genitals and laugh, and take some photos of that? Or maybe put a hood on him and make him simulate sex acts? How unbelievably lucky for him.

Want to know how the EU Parliamentary election turned out?

Don't bother checking the Associated Press. From Arthur Chrenkoff - Spinning the Euro-results:

This is how AP sees the new political landscape:

"European voters punished leaders in Britain, Italy and the Netherlands for getting involved in Iraq - but also turned their ire on the war's chief opponents German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac over local issues, projections showed Sunday."

Isn't it nice how the pro-war leaders are punished for their pro-war stance, whereas anti-war leaders are punished over "local issues"? There obviously aren't any local issues in Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, but plenty in Germany and France.

Follow the link for Arthur's election analysis.

Eco Uh Oh Alert!

Chinese gearing up for SUVs:

When Chairman Mao Tse-tung, author of the little "Red Book" of goofy socialist platitudes, was running Communist China, he could look out contentedly on tens of millions of his countrymen clad in identical gray suits, pedaling silently and docilely to work on identical black bicycles.

For utopian socialists, it didn't get any better than that — and it was environmentally friendly. Nobody bothered to ask what the people thought, but we know now. Freed from the restraints of socialism, guess what the Chinese want? They want SUVs. Big, clunky SUVs.

That'll get the ecoweenies' knickers in a twist.

But they better get 'em untwisted fast because they may need to do the Aztec Two Step - Organic Food Has 'Significantly Higher' Contamination, Study Finds:

A new study on food safety reveals that organic produce may contain a significantly higher risk of fecal contamination than conventionally grown produce.

A recent comparative analysis of organic produce versus conventional produce from the University of Minnesota shows that the organically grown produce had 9.7 percent positive samples for the presence of generic E. coli bacteria versus only 1.6 percent for conventional produce on farms in Minnesota.

The study, which was published in May in the Journal of Food Protection, concluded, "the observation that the prevalence of E. coli was significantly higher in organic produce supports the idea that organic produce is more susceptible to fecal contamination."

In addition, the study found the food-borne disease pathogen salmonella only on the organic produce samples.

Bound to happen when you fertilize with manure. But you can just wash it off, right?

The study found organic lettuce had the highest rate of fecal contamination, with a rate of over 22 percent. And Avery says consumers can't assume they can simply "wash off" the fecal matter from the lettuce.

"Past research shows that E. coli 0157 can enter into the lettuce through the roots and be inside the lettuce, meaning you can't wash it off," Avery said.

Stand by for the incoming from the usual suspects. I suspect the poor professor who did the study will regret it.

I'm so excited, I can hardly keep my pants on!

But then neither could he - Clinton's Memoir Ushers In Different Wave of Nostalgia. Be warned, the brown nosing in the article would choke a goat. And speaking of noses, they apparently airbrushed Bubba's proboscis on the book jacket so he looks less like W.C. Fields.

Dang, the Euroweenies are ahead of us!

Irish Vote to Close Citizenship 'Loophole':

The Irish voted "yes" in a referendum on citizenship, final results showed on Sunday, giving the government a green light to crack down on immigrants it says exploit the law to get into the European Union.

Dublin says non-EU nationals come to give birth in Ireland so they can then claim residency as parents of children who automatically become Irish citizens.

In a decision sure to anger campaigners for immigrants' rights, nearly 80 percent of voters in Friday's referendum backed a government proposal to amend the rules on citizenship in the constitution.
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The government said the number of non-nationals born in Irish hospitals has increased nearly six-fold since 1998 and now accounts for 29 percent of total hospital births.

According to one major Dublin maternity clinic, well over 80 percent of women who turned up late or unbooked to gave birth last year were foreigners.
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The result means Ireland, the last country in the EU to offer citizenship automatically to all children born on its soil, is almost certain to withdraw that right later this year.

Meanwhile in the US, the usual suspects are whining about deporting teenage illegal aliens and are trying to exempt illegal alien high school students from English language requirements.

I think this is supposed to a puff piece, but it sounds more like Lurch needs Ritalin

Behind the Scenes, a Restless and Relentless Kerry:

Like a caged hamster, Senator John Kerry is restless on the road. He pokes at the perimeter of the campaign bubble that envelops him, constantly trying to break out for a walk around the block, a restaurant dinner, the latest movie.

Poor baby! Although the hamster analogy is engaging.

Landing one sunny day in St. Louis, Mr. Kerry wandered off the airstrip to stroll through a grass patch, leaving his security detail trying to keep him in sight while scores of staff members, supporters, police officers and journalists waited without explanation for an hour. Another afternoon on another tarmac, he tossed a baseball, then a football, then hopped on a policeman's motorcycle for a spin, all in the space of 30 minutes.
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He is a relentless polisher, going over and over even well-worn sections of his stump speech until moments before delivery.

He is a diligent greeter, never speeding through a hotel kitchen without handshakes. He is chronically and unapologetically late — for campaign events, for meetings, even for church. And on Memorial Day, he showed up a half-hour into an hourlong parade in Portsmouth, Va., his only scheduled stop for the day.
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There is also the John Kerry who is constantly on a cellphone, seeking counsel from a wide circle or conveying concerns to staff members.
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"I've been on planes with four presidential candidates," Mr. Farmer said. Michael S. Dukakis "would always be reading a policy paper," he said, while "Clinton would always be telling stories."

"John Kerry is always on the phone," he said. (The fourth, the former astronaut John Glenn, he added, "was flying the plane.")
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But he is deeply involved in tiny details on policy, and spends hours fiddling with speech drafts. (This is an improvement; before a speech at Georgetown University that helped open his campaign in January 2003, Mr. Kerry was so preoccupied with the speech that he had to trim his fund-raising activities for three days.)

"Polishing and polishing and polishing until he's satisfied," is how one senior campaign official described the process.
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"He's a weird mix of both the very refined taste of elite schools and all that but also eating Hostess cupcakes and watching dumb comedies on TV," observed Andrei Cherny, who spent more than a year as Mr. Kerry's chief speechwriter and now works for the Democratic National Committee.

It's the twinkie defense! There's more, but I'm afraid of a sugar overdose.

Finally! It's naked protest season!

The naked wingnuts were out in force around the world yesterday - 'It's really fun to ride your bike naked,' protest leader says:

Nearly 200 bicyclists in various states of undress -- some of them wearing only paint or a helmet --flashed through Chicago's North Side on Saturday night to protest myriad issues including the war in Iraq.
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Participants hooted and hollered as they rode through nearby streets, most on bikes but others riding scooters, skateboards and a rickshaw.

The ride was part of an international effort, with about 1,200 people expected to participate in 24 cities, 11 of them in the United States.

The event is an expansion of the eight-year-old annual Vancouver ride, which has attracted participants with any number of agendas, including war protesters, nudists and bicycle enthusiasts who jump at any chance to ride with a group, said Sasha Webb, spokeswoman for World Naked Bike Ride-Vancouver.

"It's to bring attention to oil dependency and to take an outright anti-war stance," she said. "It's to draw attention to the fact that the media wants to draw attention to naked people, but the fact that there's an illegal war going on is not important.

"Plus, it's really fun to ride your bike naked."

Don't fall on your kickstand, Sasha!

Anyhow, to answer the really important question, the best photo seems to be from Scotland, but in Seattle, these senior citizens were having way too much fun.