Lady Gaga is more powerful than Nancy Pelosi, says Forbes.

News/Politics

BP Oil Disaster: Business-hating President Barack Obama really went out of his way to shield British Petroleum.

Ah, the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.  No, not the courtroom of Judge Judy - the United States Senate.  Once a bastion of the elite and much more a body that represented state legislatures than Da Peehpuhl (as we say here in California), then civilized by the 17th Amendment, it is now the Place Where Good Legislation Goes to Die on the Vine.

Flipping the Bird: Maurizio Cattelan let’s the Milan Stock Market know how we feel.

News/Politics

Taliban: Blowing stuff up.

 Mudflats has obtained e-mails revealing Todd Palin's anger at Joe Miller, the Republican Tea Partier nominee for Senate from Alaska. They also have e-mails detailing Miller's inside-the-campaign response:

I just found this in my inbox. This is what we're dealing with. Note the date and the complete misconstruction of what I said.

Holy cow.

I'm not a witch. I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you.

-- Christine O'Donnell, Republican for Senate

I'm not a witch either. Like Christine O'Donnell, I'm you. Indeed, I'm much more you than Ms. O'Donnell. I'm so you that if you weren't you, you would think that I was you. In fact, the only thing holding me back from actually being you is you, if you get my meaning.

Love his music? Love her politics? Then Sarah Bieber may be just for you.

News/Politics

Rogue French: A rogue trader – called in some circles a thief – pays the price with a whopping three years in jail for stealing billions and nearly killing the French economy.

Is it really just over a month until election day? I guess I'd better apply for my absentee ballot. Don't worry. I will. But at the risk of being scolded, I have to admit, I don't care all that much. It's okay to judge me for my apathy. Two years ago, I was Judgey McJudgerson. I couldn't believe why anyone in their right mind would vote for John McCain or choose not to vote at all. Actually, I still can't really believe why someone would make one of those choices, which is why the absentee ballot will be duly completed--albeit without a single ounce of enthusiasm. 

Being the greatest country in the world means occasionally having to say your sorry for infecting the people of another country with wicked sexually transmitted diseases just to see what happens.

From BBC:

US testing that infected hundreds of Guatemalans with gonorrhoea and syphilis more than 60 years ago was a “crime against humanity”, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has said.

PROTIP: If you're going to take someone to task for their supposed bigotry, it's probably best that your whole argument not devolve into a weird tirade about how Jews run everything... including the company that employs you.

Anyway, peace out to Rick Sanchez, whose Twitterfied brand of infotainment was the final nail in the coffin containing my erstwhile relationship with cable news two years ago.  Cancelled my cable and haven't looked back.

Meg Whitman has a maid problem.  It's too early to know all the facts, but what Whitman knew and when she knew it isn't what really matters here.  Even if she didn't know, she would still be guilty of one of the great Republican pastimes - the simultaneous persecution and exploitation of immigrants.

God. Just chill.

News/Politics

Marijuana in Calif.: Arnold Schwarzeneggger decriminalizes an ounce or less.

Bin Laden Speaks:

Al Qaeda leader may be desperate as he makes latest video wearing a meat suit.

Afghanistan: Death.

Funny Guy.

Wednesday, 9/29/2010. According to sources, Amazon.com has begun shipping first copies of Blowing Smoke, the long-awaited political nonfiction book by Michael Wolraich, a.k.a. Genghis. While there are no confirmed cases of customers receiving the book, political analysts predict that it may reach homes and offices across America as early at October 1.

It seems James O’Keefe’s latest attempt at revealing the news deserves it’s own phrase in the lexicon. Perhaps, “dildo journalism?”

From CNN’s Abbie Boudreau:

Lately, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend here at the Web site – fewer and fewer people are coming by. And this trend must come to an end.

Now mind you, this site gets hundreds of thousands of readers per week* but I will accept nothing but blind allegiance and losing any readers wounds me. So let me just release this statement:

It’s Wolfrum Wednesday. What should I wear?

Someone with an assault rifle shot up the University of Texas today. And then he killed himself. I'm pretty nauseated just writing that first sentence, considering UT's history. No one is dead but the gunman, who shot himself.

Much has been written, both here at dagblog.com and elsewhere, about the rift between the so-called progressive left and their interlocutors in the halls of power.  So much so, that the arguments seem fairly ossified at this point.  I don't know that I can change of that, but I do have something for the offering nonetheless.

My profession has a lot of annual rituals, some obvious and some not, and one of them happened the week before last: the annual job list went live (and, in another annual ritual, came precariously close to crashing for the first afternoon).