Murrow Lite

KeithO doing his best and self-admittedly pale E.R. Murrow impression, Rummy standing in for Joe McC:

Crooks and Liars » Keith Olbermann Delivers One Hell Of a Commentary on Rumsfeld

At least someone's saying something.

Fashion Weak

Apparantly we're still free in this country to express our political beliefs on our clothes, but only after a big legal flap:

cbs13.com - Court Sides With Student In Bush T-Shirt Flap

At least that freedom applies at schools, good luck getting said 'offensive' shirt into a Bush rally.

Ted Stevens Pulls Ahead

In the 'worst senator' race:

TPMmuckraker August 30, 2006 03:56 PM

And you've gotta hand it to him, that's a seriously stiff competition.

Sen. Allen Steps (retroactively,) into even deeper macaca.

Not that the guy was ever going to be president anyway:

Political Wire: Allen's Racist Ties Exposed

But maybe this will hurt him enough in VA to give the seat to Webb. That would be a nearly unqualified good for the republic.

The Truth Hurts

Sudan Accuses Pulitzer Winner of Spying
...reads the headline. But then you learn that the guy worked for National Geographic. Not exactly a subversive publication.

Most likely more on this soon.

Politician Gets Subpoena, World Continues Spinning

Well, I suppose Markos put this up because it's good news for Harold Ford and persons hoping for a Dem takeover of the Senate. And good news it is, but let's not burst into gleeful rounds of 'happy days are here again' just yet please, Dems.

There's work to be done all over the rust belt and all over New England and all over the south in both house's races. Our prescription: keep the eyes on the prize and for Gaia's sake don't celebrate until the recounts are over; even then the celebrations should be limited because there will be much work to be done. (The 'prize' here being merely the right to exercise some oversight and restore some accountability, which should be enough to keep the ship of state from running aground.)

Daily Kos: TN-Sen: Corker (R) hit with subpoena

If anyone is keeping tabs, Standing Eight still officially believes that Dems will not take back either house, and that all reports to the contrary are either pie-eyed optimism or Republican efforts to take the wind out of Dem's fundraising sails. However, back in Oct. '05 we put the odds of a one-house takeback at 4 to 1 against, and we would cautiously upgrade that to 2 to 1 against now. Hardly the smart money, but less of a longshot.

SUPER FLASH ALERT BULLETIN!!!!! Cheney a Schmuck

Read all about it:

AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Cheney thinks economy sucks

At least we're all hypocrites together

Why, with polling results like this, do we still regard it as convnetional wisdom that terror in the papers helps W?

CNN.com - Poll: 1 in 4 Americans believe U.S. was safer before 9/11 - Aug 23, 2006

And how could any thinking person want to keep in power the guy for whom terrorism provides the biggest boon? It's so far beyond ludicrous that we need a new word.

So the lesson here seems to be don't be gay in Alabama

Consider it learned.

PageOneQ | Election of Alabama lesbian overturned by committee

Heroes never cut and run

But apparantly they do cut themselves into a picture of people running:

Rep. Schmidt's marathon ad questioned - Yahoo! News

This is the woman, let's remind everyone, who, from the house floor, called Marine vet John Murtha a coward, as per this transcript:

Yesterday I stood at Arlington National Cemetery attending the funeral of a young marine in my district. He believed in what we were doing is the right thing and had the courage to lay his life on the line to do it. A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do. Danny and the rest of America and the world want the assurance from this body - that we will see this through.

And of course as you probably know, Colonel Bupp never said any such thing, Schmidt faked that quote, just liked she faked some degrees on her resume, just like she is undobtedly faking her marathon claims.

Memory Hole Alert!

Sometimes I feel like a stand-up comedian in the Dan Quayle era, in that I don't really have to be a good writer, or have a writerly point when the Headline Says It All:

Evolution Major Vanishes From Approved Federal List - New York Times

And of course, just like at the hot clubs, if you're not on the list, you don't exist.

Score one for creationism.

NYT Hates America

How dare they publish factual information that calls the president's truthiness into question?

Poll Shows a Shift in Opinion on Iraq War - New York Times

Last I heard, Iraq was a central front in the war on terror.

No, I'm sorry, I typed that wrong. It should read: Last I heard, "Iraq" was a "central" "front" in the "war on terror"

Yeah, that feels right.

I'll take "Headlines that the right will intentionally misinterpret" for 400, Alex

"Obama to get HIV test"

Yeah, can't think of any way that could backfire.

Marion the non-librarian

Maybe I'm a pie-eyed optimist, or maybe I put top athletes up on an undeserved pedestal, or have some sort of adulatory blind spot, but I am starting to think that there's a urine testing lab somewhere with their equipment all out of whack, (or a lab employee with a destructive anti-American bias.) Landis, Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin can't really all be cheating at the same time with the same chemical and failing the same test, can they?

M. Jones Failed Drug Test in June

And really if those three are doing it, doesn't that all but entail that, as the saying goes, "everybody does it." And is it not then true that, as Stephen Colbert would say, "if everybody's doing it, then nobody's doing it."

Cease with the cease-fire

Israeli soldier killed in Lebanon raid - Yahoo! News

Speaks for itself

See It Now (TPM)

Freedom is Slavery

Well we know Bush won't be complying with this order, but he won't be able to claim he didn't hear it. (Cause of the wiretaps, get it?)

Judge Orders Halt to Warrantless Surveillance - AOL News

And he can rest reasonably sure that his made to order Supremes will overturn any, and especially this decision against him.

Guess who's back...Back again

Fitzy's back...tell a friend:

Cheney Lawyers Up

(The title and first line here are an Eminem homage/parody/ripoff, if you're over 40 and wondering why we did it that way.)

Must See WebTV

I saw this on Olbermann last night and it made me really wish that I was tech'd up enough to put it on the blog. Fortunatly for you, the good folks at Raw Story had the same idea, 'cause they're awesome.

Check this out and send it to all your friends. Especially the ones who still need convincing that W is a chump.

The Raw Story | Olbermann: 'The Nexus of politics and terror'

Bill Gates Blasts Bush

Sort of, and from out of the country in a foreign newspaper, we notice.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Gates criticizes HIV abstinence policies

But dig this great British lede: "Bill and Melinda Gates have come off the political fence and publicly backed key causes of Aids campaigners, criticizing the abstinence policies beloved of the US government and calling for more rights for women and help for sex workers."

'Beloved of the US gov't'? Does anything fit that description, it's not the most loving entity I've ever run across.

How Lamont Became the Al-Qaeda Candidate

Blasts kill 62 in Shiite area of Baghdad - Yahoo! News

But at least it didn't happen in the middle of a civil war.

See It Now

Which brings to mind the nausea-inducing question: Would you rather be a casualty in a civil war, or a victim of sectarian violence?

What if they threw a cease-fire and nobody ceased?

Basically that snarky title is the only reason we link to this:

Israel Accepts U.N. Deal

But seriously, what is a cease-fire called if both sides disregard it?

Eh, Wittgenstein?

NYT Helps Start Another War

I am always leery of any story about Iran being up to no good in Iraq/Lebanon/Kansas... wherever, because part of me gets worried that the war (sorry, that's not specific enough anymore, our war in Iraq,) is about to expand from a tenuous occupation to a really bad-scene broad regional thing.

But that's the reactive part of me. The thinking part of me, which I believe to be the greater part (by volume?) is frankly more scared of the notion that I am reading propaganda; that I am expected to read and be fearfully titilated by these stories, so that when Cheney wants to invade Iran (next week, month, day before election, doesn't matter,) it can happen with a minimum of public outcry/debate/notice.

So read this with a grain of salt, as the chief source is our man in Baghdad, (and former Unocal exec, keep in mind. All our front guys were at one point or another,) Zalmay Kalilzhad.

U.S. Ambassador Says Iran Is Inciting Attacks - New York Times

But then there's stuff like this, the kind of important reporting they did during the Pentagon Papers era, and recently w/r/t domestic surveillance.

Which begs the question (in that phrase's informal sense,) How many masters can the Times serve while remaining of any quality whatsoever? And do they not owe a greater debt to their reader-masters than their power-broker-masters, or rather hasn't Judy Miller given the Neocons enough free play, and couldn't we just slide back to being the good old gray lady?

Editorial Cartoon, heavy on the editing.

Playing Politics Over There

So we don't have to play it here: When your right-winger friends, and we know you've got a few, start blabbing brainlessly about how yesterday's terror bust is good for Bush/GOP, show them this:

Think Progress » 9/11 Commissioner: Terror Plot Shows Danger of Putting ‘All Our Intelligence and Military Resources in Iraq’

And then tell them that it's okay, we probably won't impeach him, just rake him over the 6 years worth of coals he's avoided until now.

The other shoe drops

In the General Assembly:

France's changes to draft rankle U.S. - Yahoo! News

Looks like it's back to freedom toast at the Capitol.

Thank someone for small miracles

Assuming these are the guys.

2 teens accused in theft of VA computer - Yahoo! News

DeLay'd reaction

Of all of tom DeLay's oversteps, one has finally been put right. And just in time to help the Dems take back the house, (in a parallel universe, maybe. We still put pretty long odds on that, Charlie Cook's pronouncements aside.)

Judges Redo Texas District, and Democrats May Gain - New York Times

So if you're wondering who to donate to in Texas house races, it's whoever's running against Henry Bonilla, (candidate not yet chosen. Ugh, the Dems on top of their business again. Idiots.)

Floyd fills the sample cup

Our journalistic nose thought maybe something was fishy about Landis' stage 17 win after his utter breakdown on stage 16. But we congratulated him on these pages, and while we wish him luck as he fights the suspension and probable loss of title, yet our readers deserve this link as well:

Landis May Lose Title Over Test Result

No excuses (for him or us,) but it's not hard to understand why he doped up that day (if he did.) He's facing hip replacement surgery, which no pro cyclist has ever come back from; this tour is less contested (via operacion puerto,) than any he's ever been in or likely to be in; and he'd lost like 8-and-a-half minutes to the lead the day before.

Interesting tidbit: On the last day of the tour the English broadcasters on OLN relayed the following story: On the night they'd finished stage 16, where Landis had bonked and lost boucoup de time, the team had a meeting and whatever happened at that meeting convinced Landis' teammate Axel Merckx to call his father Eddie Merckx, a 5 time tour winner and one of the greatest cyclists ever, and in this call Axel told father Eddie that Landis would be making a big stab to earn back some of the time the next day (stage 17, which Landis won by enough time to put him back in yellow or just off by a fraction of a minute.)

And Eddie found the story so compelling that he went to a betting house and made a 75 pound bet on Landis to win the stage and the tour overall.

In hindsight it seems unlikely that this was all due to an inspirational speech, and much more likely that Phonak team members knew Landis was going to cheat, and Axel passed that along to his dad.

So does Eddie still win the bet if they take away Landis' yellow jersey, or does he have to give the money back? And if Eddie and Axel were trading on inside dope, (as it were,) could they be on the hook for criminal prosecution?

Perhaps the story will develop over the next few months.

Also notable is the deafening silence from Lance Armstrong on Landis' win and subsequent travails, given that Landis was a teammate of Lance for a few years, and of course Lance's own history with doping allegations.

Blog Hoppin'

Calling all Eighters, check out our new blogject, Best O' The Web, a dumping ground for links we like, and if you contribute (links, not dough,) soon to be a dumping ground for (clean,) links that you like too! It's basically a way for us to keep linking to funny stuff and games and cool photos and films, and let Standing Eight stay true to its new slugline, by focusing more on politics and sports.

So come on, join the Standing Eight free-publishing empire. You know you want to.

A Pat of melted butter

Here's the headline:

Heat makes Pat Robertson a global warming "convert" - Yahoo! News

We did not make our intern read the story, but we suspect that Pat's solution to the global warming problem he (and his God,) just discovered is a few of these cool treats.

All kidding aside, this could be an important development toward getting some action on climate from our head-in-the-sand congress. Unless of course you believe this, from Grist Magazine and WaPo:

Speaking of which, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said recently that if Republicans retain control of Congress in November's election, continued inaction on climate can be expected. Said Blunt, "I think the information is not adequate yet for us to do anything meaningful." Meaningless gestures, though -- we can expect a lot more of those.

Hard not to feel for ol' Roy, because deep down us libs have always known that signing on to Kyoto and/or regulating carbon emissions is such a cold, meaningless act. And that's not how republicans roll. Here's a suggestion for the GOP going into the '06 elections: "Compassionate Countdown to Apocalypse"

Our chief weapon is fear and surprise.

The fine folks at FAIR caught Tommy Boy Friedman in the act. I thought his line was starting to sound a little past its shelf date:

Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines

Given his paper's penchant for accuracy, I'd say he's only got about Six months left at the times.

A Link to a Laff

"The U.S. Air Force guide to spotting a terrorist"