RIP Molly Ivins

That's sad. She was good.

Sea Venture

(c2e)

Illustration by William Hutchinson from Sea Venture a juvenile novel (what the kids call chapter books today;) by Willoughby Patton (1959 Longmans, Green, and Co.)

The Eyes of the Fleet

(click to embiggun)

Top: Broadside of the 38-gun frigate HMS Shannon.

Bottom: Broadside of the razee frigate HMS Saturn. Originally laid down as a 74-gun third rate ship of the line, in 1813 the Saturn was cut down to a 50-gun razee frigate to deal with the large French and American frigates such as the 44-gun USS Constitution.

Frigates were the smallest ships (three masted square rigged vessels) in the Royal Navy. They were popularly referred to as the "Eyes of the Fleet" for their scouting and reconnaissance capabilities, but were still save, ships of the line, the most powerful batteries afloat. The fledgling United States Navy relied entirely upon frigates and smaller vessels until after the War of 1812 when the USS Independence, 90-guns, was launched late in 1814 as the first US ship of the line.

Daily Drew

From an NBC press release:

NEW YORK January 30, 2007 NBC's "Saturday Night Live" welcomes Drew Barrymore back to the program on February 3 with musical guest Lily Allen and, fresh from his SAG Award victory, Oscar nominee Forest Whitaker with country star Keith Urban on February 10.

SNL's youngest host in its over 30-year history, Drew Barrymore first hosted on November 20, 1982 while starring in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster "E.T." This is her fifth time hosting the program.

That makes Drew the youngest host ever at 7 in 1982 and only the second female to host five times (Candace Bergen is the other). Will we be seeing a Five-Timers Club sketch?

Hey remember her last cameo on SNL?

Thought you might.

Not feeling the Barbaro love

Sorry. Never felt it. Never will. It's was a horse goddamnit. A horse that had a better health care plan than 98% of all Americans. A horse goddamnit -- and as all top thoroughbreds are -- a genetic freak of a horse. So take your mutant money machine to the glue factory and pick up your last check. Just shut up about the goddamned horse.

Cheney is the new Baghdad Bob

Blunderbussing

Remember Baghdad Bob? Remember the unbelievable whoppers he told with a straight face? Remember the time he shot a guy in the face and then had the guy who he shot apologize to him but wouldn't apologize himself? Wait that was Cheney. It's just so hard to tell the difference when Cheney says stuff like "You heard my speech, when Don [Rumsfeld] retired. I think he's done a superb job."

Daily Drew

tags technorati : Drew Barrymore

The More You Know

Did you know that the Hanafi School of Islamic law is considered the most liberal of the four major interpretations of Islamic law?

Another Bush Disaster

No, not the surge, not the handling of Katrina, not ignoring a report that concluded "Bin Laden intends to attack US targets with airplanes", nope, not even the right Bush!

Jeb and his policies destruction of Florida's housing market and school system -- not too mention some good old fashioned slush money laundered through overpaid contracts.

What the "Surge" is really about

A Sully reader nails it:

If we leave before he's (Bush) out of office, the whole of this sorry affair is his. He has no one to blame for his failures. If somebody else comes in and, miracle of miracles, pulls something off, Bush will act as if he loosened the jar that somebody else finally opened. If the next (probably Democratic) administration pulls out, Bush will have succeeded in wiping his sticky booger on them, and his water carriers will take delight in trying to spread the meme that Democrats lost the war.

Leaving this mess for the next administration is Dubya's plan.

New to the Blogroll

Gilbert "The Hibachi" Arenas is the only interesting thing* about the NBA anymore, and he writes his own blog on NBA.com. The NBA has become the sort of dull, soulless, faceless league the NFL is in danger of becoming. The NFL has one advantage over the NBA though. It's core product, the game, is not stagnant and boring to watch. So while I have no love whatsoever for David Stern's dull league, I do like the "bits of flare" that pop-up when a talent and character like Gilbert Arenas shows up. Someone get him and Clinton Portis to do a talkshow together.

*Mark Cuban's ownership of a team excepted.

via Deadspin

tags technorati : Gilbert Arenas NBA deadspin

Daily Drew

Well the Music and Lyrics publicity machine is revved up to 95%. It's nice to see Drew all over the TV (and every other medium). My Google and Yahoo! Alerts for Drew are piling in at over 10 per service per day (lots of redundacy tho...). Anyway here's today's roundup:

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BARRYMORE PENS NEW TUNE FOR JENNY LEWIS

DREW BARRYMORE became so inspired while portraying a songwriter in new romantic comedy MUSIC + LYRICS, she penned a tune for her favourite singer. The actress is hoping to present the song to indie pop singer JENNY LEWIS. The actress says, "I was listening to this album by Jenny Lewis called RABBIT FUR COAT; it was just my favourite album of 2006. "I was obsessed with it and she made me think I could write a song. It's probably really terrible. "I actually know her, so I should show it to her and see what she thinks."

Lewis is also a member of Rilo Kiley and a sometime actress including a role in the great movie Pleasantville.

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Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore to Help Judge Nearly 400 Aspiring Songwriters

Drew and Hugh will be the final judges in something called the "Your Music, Your Lyrics" contest in conjunction with VH1. I'm not exactly sure how "having Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore as judges, makes this user-generated contest a world-class event." as Mark McIntire, Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing, VH1 would have you believe. Still "the lucky winning songwriter will be flown to Los Angeles for the red carpet premiere of "Music and Lyrics" and will also have their song professionally recorded." So I assume that means you would get to meet Drew. Entry is closed all ready btw, so don't bother.

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And finally my favorite story of the day:

Drew Barrymore's Topshop Shopping Spree

Oh, if only we could have been a fly on the clothing racks when one of our favorite stars hit one of our favorite stores. While some celebrities demand that stores be closed just for their private shopping pleasure, Drew Barrymore simply arrived at the flagship Oxford Street Topshop store in London with a small group of pals towards the end of the day on Tuesday.

Ok yeah, pretty boring, but after the nude Irish romp stories I had to post this slightly unflattering picture:

Mostly because it makes think about Drew in her underwear, and I enjoy that.

tags technorati : Drew Barrymore

China Bans Year of the Pig?

Chinese TV Network Bans Pig Ads During Year of Pig Celebrations Due to Muslim Sensitivity

Considering that only Instapundit and the Faux News Channel have picked this up from a WSJ report, I smell bullshit.

Hahaha

Gossip Columnist Reveals All Her Sources On Way To Post

Outgoing Roll Call gossip Mary Ann Akers is off to a great new start as the new WashingtonPost.com gossip. Her farewell to Roll Call e-mail charmingly revealed all of her sources, because she put them in the CC spot instead of the BCC spot. (Note to aspiring gossip columnists: BCC means Blind Carbon Copy, which means everybody can’t see everybody else who gets the e-mail.)

tags technorati : politics WaPo

Look over there.

U.S. launches new airstrike in Somalia

Maybe all the saber rattling directed towards Iran is being done to obfuscate the war that we are all ready starting in Somalia.

Well Bush has never been charged with that

Israeli President Charged With Rape

Say what you want about Dubya's cokin' and boozin', he's never been charged with rape, so he's one up on Israel's President. (Note that the Presidency in Israel is a ceremonial position with little actual power.)

Shocked, SHOCKED, I say

Ivana: Donald Trump-Rosie spat is for publicity

I am shocked. I thought it was all a coincidence that the feud started at the same time as the new season of Trump's show. I am absolutely shocked that Trump and Rosie would make asses out of themselves to get publicity in every tabloid and , trash TV, and "lite-news" show. (I'm looking at you Today Show.)

Daily Drew

From Sunday's upcoming Parade magazine


via (and more Drew pics from Parade at) Peoria Pundit

Lieberman: The New McCarthy

The toxicity of Joe Lieberman's treason accusations

Money quote:

Lieberman, of course, spent several years warning Americans not to criticize their Leader with regard to the War. Just two weeks ago, Lieberman went on Meet the Press and prompted an angry outburst from Chuck Hagel after Lieberman sat there smugly accusing Hagel and anyone else who opposes the Glorious Surge of wanting the U.S. to lose in Iraq. In the same appearance, Lieberman also looked straight into the camera and said that the U.S. was "attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy that we’re fighting in Iraq today" -- a claim so transparently false that even the President long ago abandoned it.

But yesterday, Lieberman reached what might be a new low. During the confirmation hearings of Gen. David Petraeus, Lieberman provoked this truly reprehensible exchange with Gen. Petraeus, as summarized by The Washington Post's Thomas Ricks:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) asked Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus during his confirmation hearing yesterday if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy "would give the enemy some comfort."

Petraeus agreed they would, saying, "That's correct, sir."

Using the terms to" give comfort" and the "enemy" in the same phrase has no conceivable objective other than to invoke accusations of treason. The Constitution's definition of "treason" is exactly that -- giving "Aid and Comfort" to the enemy. For Lieberman to purposely track the Constitution's treason language when describing opponents of the "surge" plan -- and to invite the new Iraq War Commander to agree with his accusation -- reveals so inescapably what Lieberman is. That's just the basest and most despicable smear one can imagine.

As usual Greenwald's analysis is spot on. Read the rest.

Jim Hightower

Flash by Jim Hightower

edit: The flash was autoloading so click the link instead.