Unless something really juicy happens. Sorry, chumps!

Let’s just take a moment to sum up. The Decider got decidedly crushed in the 2006 elections. Then in a move that was shocking only because it seemed demonstrate a grip on reality, Bush fired Don Rumsfeld. The speculation was he was waiting for the Iraq Study Group to release their findings so he would have the political cover to redeploy troops out of Iraq. And thus, the President’s hold on reality sadly proved fleeting. When the Baker-led panel suggested withdrawal and diplomacy, Bush rejected their recommendations out of hand.
So all this change of course rhetoric coupled with all this get the job done rhetoric leads to what new course in Iraq? If you guess an increase in troop deployment and an escalation in conflict, you’d be correct.

The BBC is reporting what we already know but Bush won’t tell us until January, probably in the State of the Union Address:

While we’ll make plenty of jokes about this situation in the future, we’ll continue not to make jokes after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Whales and dolphins recreationally get their slut on in the wild. Sometimes mistakes happen and the tuna nets get a very special catch: wolphins. They’re like bigger, smarter sea geniuses that fortunately still can’t rise against humans for lack of a thumb.

Almost exactly two years ago, the second wolphin in captivity was born in Sea World Hawaii. Luckily, you don’t need to head to a grimy fish tank park to participate in the commercial exploitation of the rare beasty. The just launched DVD magazine “Wolphin” from the hilarious McSweeney’s comes right to your home.

It actually has nothing to do with aquatic life, and yet, it’s still awesome. “Wolphin” is a regular collection of artsy film shorts revolving around an off-beat aesthetic that includes Turkish sitcoms, 1950s Department of Defense reels and trippy little modern stories.

We all have sympathy for the blind – people who are equally if not more capable than the rest of us who have the misfortune of not having eyesight. As a result, these folks can’t do things the rest of us take for granted, such as the pleasure of a 25 cent peep show just off Times Square, or the joy of firing a series of bullets into a beautiful wild creature just for the fun of it.

As far as the latter goes, Texas lawmaker Edmund Kuempel wants to help. An avid hunter, he has long observed the persecution of the blind and has had enough. His solution? Fucking laser sights, of course.

“I hold the rifle up to my shoulder and my hunting partner stands beside me and directs the hunting scope to the target and says ‘left, right, up and down’ and tells me to squeeze when we are on target,” McGowen said. “Using a laser would assure a more humane shot.”

And that’s really just a preview of what’s in this article. You really should read it. For example, Kuempel explains why politics is on his side:

“Very few legislators want to be on the record either voting against the disabled or voting against hunting in Texas,”

• Judith Regan doesn’t let door hit her on the way out of HarperCollins. Says she’s innocent of wrongdoing in OJ debacle, plans book, tv special. [NYT]
• So does Don “Butcher of Baghdad” Rumsfeld. Says in speech that weakness is ‘provocative.’ Unlike incompetence, which is only highly agitating. [NYT]
• But he was the “best Secretary of Defense this country ever had,” and that’s why he was fired after a crushing electoral loss. [WaPo]
• Florida halts executions after Jeb gets it in his head that it might kind of suck for the person getting killed [NYT]
• Federal Judge rules California’s method of killing people is cruel and unusal on the ground that the person dies at the end. No not really. On some other grounds. [CNN]
• Palestinians edge toward civil conflict. No wait, Palestinians engage in civil conflict. Gunfights between Hamas and Fatah. But don’t they know it’s Christmas time? [NYT]
• Like we said before, Tim Johnson is just fucking fine. [NYT]

Sasha Frere-Jones reviews popular music for the New Yorker. He has a blog that we don’t quite understand but regularly look at and link to. Yesterday, some other person started a similar blog and dedicated it to Sasha. We don’t understand any of this, but we thought it was worth mentioning because they are obviously soul mates.

We’re sorry, because we’re probably going to be making this particular post a lot. Tommy just wrote this on this stupid fucking blog:

Speaker-elect Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi announced today that some of the remaining recommendations of the 9/11 commission report would not be implemented during the 110th Congress. When asked about it, she said, “You can’t do them all.”

This is of no shock to me, but it is a stark departure from the Democrat Party’s promise leading up to the 2006 midterm that the remaining commission recommendations would be implemented.

Tom seems to have forgotten that he’s under indictment for fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. That is the only explanation for what seems to be a nice ride on the moral high-horse.