GET OVER YOURSELF

Okay, I can sympathize with this Michael Bates fellow who just received a nasty letter from his local paper in Tulsa telling him to stop quoting their articles. That's bullshit, excerpting articles is protected speech, under the Fair Use doctrine.

However, guys, must we turn every situation like this into another front in the epic battle of "MSM vs."? If I had to guess, some nitwit at the Tulsa World misunderstood the law. People like Bates have two choices if they want to criticize. They can either go the "print media is an old, lumbering dinosaur (aaah!!) that is slow to either recognize new trends, or understand how they fit into the law, copyright or otherwise" route, or they can reveal themselves as having a nasty case of BIC. (Blogger Inferiority Complex) Oh how often they choose the latter!

Yeesh, don't you people have a quickly-retracted off-the-record comment to form lynchmobs about?

WELL THAT WAS EASY!

Here I was, about to write a clever lil' post wondering why Matt Drudge's Mock Outrage Brigade was setting its sights on Chris Rock (host of this year's Academy Awards), when I saw that Jack not only wrote my post for me, but he came up with two, count 'em, two derogatory nicknames for Sean Hannity!

I also agree that a virtual red carpet for Mumia-release advocates ain't the best idea, given that, shit, he did it, and a taped statement many years later doesn't do much to dissuade me from that opinion. However, I would imagine that the presentation of Liberty Bells to foreign dignitaries has more to do with "yay Philadelphia" than with "yay you guys". Do Captain Ed, Michelle Malkin and the rest really believe, for example, that Chairman Mao didn't give any China-centric gifts to Nixon when he visited in '72, or that it would have been inappropriate for him to do so?

So this is hardly a major red carpet we're talking about here. The politicians and activists have a particular factual viewpoint about the case (That I think they're wrong is immaterial). This isn't a Klan delegation or something. Nevertheless, since Malkin posts the Philly mayor's email addy, you know she's thinking scalp. Geez, calm down. Have a Hot Pocket or something.

Uh oh, those damned liberals are coarsening the dialog again...

HOOKER WITH A PENIS

John at AmericaBlog digs disgustingly deep and finds out -- rather graphically, I might add -- that JD Guckert flat-out lied to Wolf Blitzer about his websites when he claimed that they "were never hosted" and that "nothing ever went up on them".

(some images possibly NSFW, especially the ones behind links)

Make sure you read the last section of the piece, before you go around screaming "private life! private life!" Not that those who would scream such things give a shit about private lives anyway. Remember in the aftermath of Richard Clarke's 60 Minutes interview, how certain people whispered about his "lifestyle", and how they even got Wolf Blitzer to say as much on live TV?

(the title of this post, by the way, is a rather righteous Tool song)

CAN'T SOMEONE ELSE DO IT?

President Bush, State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003:

This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations.

Washington Post, today:

For President Bush, the budget sent to Congress last week outlines a painful path to meeting his promise to bring down the federal budget deficit by the time he leaves office in 2009. But for the senators and governors already jockeying to succeed him, the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office.

Congress and the White House have become adept at passing legislation with hidden long-term price tags, but those huge costs began coming into view in Bush's latest spending plan. Even if Bush succeeds in slashing the deficit in half in four years, as he has pledged, his major policy prescriptions would leave his successor with massive financial commitments that begin rising dramatically the year he relinquishes the White House, according to an analysis of new budget figures.

Bush's extensive tax cuts, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit and, if it passes, his plan to redesign Social Security all balloon in cost several years from now. His plan to partially privatize Social Security, for instance, would cost a total of $79.5 billion in the last two budgets that Bush will propose as president and an additional $675 billion in the five years that follow. New Medicare figures likewise show the cost almost twice as high as originally estimated, largely because it mushrooms long after the Bush presidency.

"It's almost like you've got a budget, and you've got a shadow budget coming in behind that's a whole lot more expensive," said Philip G. Joyce, professor of public policy at George Washington University.

By the time the next president comes along, some analysts said, not only will there be little if any flexibility for any new initiatives, but the entire four-year term could be spent figuring out how to accommodate the long-range cost of Bush's policies.

What's that I hear? It's the sound of . . . a problem . . . and it's being passed along!