There was a weird moment during Bush's press conference, Crooks and Liars posted video of it which made remixing it much easier- thanks C&L!

Here's Gooka-Gucka-Uh-Uh-Eh which, one can only assume, is code for "I'm gonna slash the shit out of your Social Security benefits.":



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After officers of the White House Correspondents' Association provided the Secret Service with names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of those who would attend the VIP reception, an agent called back to ask for racial identities. "It's offensive on the face of it," said Edwin Chen, a Los Angeles Times White House reporter who is secretary of the association and who provided the information. "Why do they need to have race?"

Oh quit yer whining Chen, you stupid mick!

/I suck at racism.

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Dan Froomkin yesterday:

What Real People Would Tell Bush Tonight

This is absolutely fascinating stuff: The Gallup Poll is out with the results of asking 1,003 real people what advice they would give Bush if they had the chance.

If they could, topic one would be the war in Iraq.

Consider this finding: Among Democrats, the top two things they would say to Bush are "get out of Iraq" and "you're doing a bad job." The top two things independents would say are "get out of Iraq" and "leave Social Security alone." The top two things Republicans would say are "you're doing a good job" -- and "get out of Iraq."

Gallup, fantastically, publishes the actual responses , along with the respondents' ages and genders.

A selection:

· "Stop the (swear word) war. Male, age 56"

· "Keep following the Lord. Female, age 23"

· "That he's an idiot because he turned the surplus to the deficit. Female, age 35"

· "Get our troops out of Iraq. Use the money being spent in Iraq and work on the awful problems in this country. Female, age 58"

· "Let's go hunting! Male, age 60"

· "Keep on plucking away and see where it leads. Male, age 85"

· "Lighten up and recognize he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Male, age 75"

· "I'd say that I'm disappointed that he hasn't been indicted for war crimes. Male, age 56"

· "He doing a (swear word) of a good job and keep fighting those democrats. Male, age 78"

· "I'd probably go to jail for the rest of my life. Female, age 77"

***OVERSPUN EXCLUSIVE*** MUST CREDIT OVERSPUN***

Drudge is currently featuring this photo of himself on his site:



Check out the glare- I started thinking- it looks like Drudge took a picture of himself on his TV with his digital camera and posted it. I decided this warranted further investigation because- well, I'm bored. So I unleashed my kung foo and found he's also got the full size uncropped version sitting on his server:


(click for full size version)

So here's the scenario- the last time Drudge was in Washington he went on C-SPAN in the morning, after the show he raced back to his hotel room to catch the repeat and took a digital picture of it when he appeared on screen. Isn't that just about the saddest fucking thing you've ever heard? Almost makes me feel sorry for the poor fella... almost.

Things to notice:

The picture is of a replay of the show- we know this because it says "Today" in the upper right corner instead of "Live"

Shelving! (That's all I can make out in the reflection from the TV)

The harsh angle of the photo- I get the sense that if he'd taken the picture head-on we'd see a naked Matt Drudge with a monstrous erection... but I have no way to prove that.

Here's my copy of the picture in case he takes it down. (Yes, I am stealing Drudge's bandwidth to serve his pictures. Ha.)

Developing HARD...

Update: Thanks to the exif data in Drudge's photo we know that Matt has a Kodak EasyShare CX6230 Zoom. Looks like the camera's internal clock was off though- it claims the photo was snapped at 9:23 PM on 1/23/2003, but Drudge's appearance on C-Span was on 4/30/2004.

Other interesting facts? The flash didn't go off.... Uh... exposure time was 0.034 sec... uh... okay- there are no interesting facts here.

Good night.

Hope it's nothing serious, but maybe he needs to take it easy on all the red faced screaming for a bit...

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(By the way, the article says he "felt faint" - I just thought the above headline was funner.)

Rush Limbaugh's appeal was thrown out today without comment by those crazy America hating Supreme Court judges in Florida.

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Unfortunately we didn't get to hear Rush's reaction to the news today- according to his web site he's having a cochlear implant adjustment made. Rush's implant has helped him overcome his Vicodin-induced hearing loss, but honestly, if you were spewing that shit would you want to have to hear it?

Guess What--It's Tom DeLay's Frisbee Now

Damn it! What did I tell you kids?

Yeah, I'm talking to you, you little hippie freaks. Didn't I tell you to stop messing around on the Capitol lawn? Don't act like you didn't hear me when I stuck my head out the window earlier. I saw you look up. I saw you laughing. Punks! I told you to clear out and take your games somewhere else. Then, not 15 minutes later, this thing sails right through the window and interrupts deliberations of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Oh yeah? Is that so? Well, guess what. It's Tom DeLay's Frisbee now.

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The Agonist has a nice review of the facts of the Larry Franklin/AIPAC spying scandal- Pentagon neoCons are implicated, and it sounds like it's much more than just one guy passing off classified documents to Israel...

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Thanks to Dusty59 in the comments section for pointing me to www.johnsugg.com, a well-written weblog by, you guessed it, John Sugg. Here's a bite from his recent post on Gannon/Guckert:

Still unanswered: Who provided cover for Gannon at the White House? Why isn't the mainstream press trying to unearth Gannon's connections among the Bushites? And, how in the world could the Neo-con Praetorian Guard not have known that Gannon was a ho? Or maybe they did know. Hmm.

Sugg goes on with a great quote from Ed Wasserman, who corrects Gannon/Guckert on his use of the phrase "the liberal elites." It's the liberal elite, damnit, and we like it here.

Link

MP3 player, herbal remedies lead to emergency landing at O'Hare
Tuesday April 26, 2005

CHICAGO (AP) An airline passenger's MP3 player and three vials harmless herbal remedies led to an emergency landing at O'Hare International Airport, the evacuation of 74 passengers and crew and a search Tuesday by the Chicago bomb squad.

The United Airlines flight was headed from New York to San Francisco when a passenger told a flight attendant he saw another passenger with suspicious materials, United spokesman Jeff Green said. The flight crew looked at the materials, and the pilot decided to land at O'Hare, Green said.

The material turned out to be wires, an MP3 player and homeopathic medicines, said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Ann Davis.

I wonder if Annie Jacobsen has anything to do with this?

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Pretty exceptional episode of the Daily Show last night- here's their "Gaywatch" segment- topics include the following:

Spain legalizes gay marriage, Texas gays can't adopt foster children, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips sucks at her job ("Why don't you call them on their bullshit on the air? You're an anchor for fucks sake!") and Microsoft's lame cop-out.

Good God, could the rumors of Gannon/Guckert's extracurriculars at 1600 Pennsylvania be true? The Raw Story raises some interesting questions about the online reporter's remarkable access to the White House:

Here's a moneyshot:

In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.

The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.

Gannon’s ready access to President Bush and his work for a news agency that frequently plagiarized content from other reporters and tailored it to serve a conservative message may raise new questions about the White House’s attempts to seed favorable news coverage. Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to “plant” positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.

Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.

Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.

Link

Okay- we're at a point now where if Tom DeLay's downfall is indeed a vast left-wing conspiracy, lobbyist Jack Abramoff would have to be in on it.

Before, it was my understanding that it was Abramoff's credit card company coming up with endless torrent of incriminating evidence, (goddamn librul credit card companies!) but now... if this happened the way DeLay claims it did, the word "vast" hardly does it justice.

"Omnipotent left-wing conspiracy" doesn't have quite the same ring, but it's more accurate if what Tom DeLay says is true.

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Yahoo News has a new beta version that seems OK enough... just noticed this though:

Scott Ritter, September, 2002:
Iraq is not a threat to us. Bush is lying to the American people to get us into a war.

CIA, April, 2005:
Iraq was not a threat to us. [Note: Anyone who would have blamed Bush has already been fired.]

Me, Now:
You know all those thousands of people killed because of Bush's fake war? Well... shit happens. Truckloads of inconceivably awful shit happens when you have a moron running things.

Are there any pictures of Bush holding hands with other world leaders as is his pattern with Abdullah?

Whatever power the Saudi royal family has over Bush, it allows him to disregard fears of looking all faggy to the red states.

Sorry it's been so quiet around here- I've been sick. Nothing life threatening, but ill enough that I've started three or four posts over the last few days and actually passed out while typing. By the time I wake up the topic is stale and I feel like taking another nap anyway.

FYI- this is what it looks like when one passes out on one's keyboard:

jh hnnjnkmiluu87yh jnj nkmillllllll

So there's that.

Hope to be fully recovered soon, not sure how many posts will make it out of my head until then, but in the meantime here's the first image that comes up when you type in "cute" in Google image search:

Bush's Press Secretary has a tenuous relationship with reality, witness yesterday's press briefing:

Q With regard to the Bolton nomination, I'm trying to get my head around "unsubstantiated allegations." With regard to the allegations of trying to have senior intelligence analysts removed from their portfolios, my understanding is that the allegations were made by those analysts, independent intelligence analysts, were substantiated by their superiors and have been corroborated by others, and even Mr. Bolton himself concurs that something occurred. So I'm not quite sure what "unsubstantiated" means about that one in particular.

MR. McCLELLAN: The accusations that are being made are unsubstantiated.

Well, thanks Scott.

If you presented a photograph of the sky to Scott and told him the sky is blue he'd look you in the eye and tell you it's orange- then he'd spew out a new justification for invading Iraq.

In the last few weeks I've become a Flickr addict... It's a pattern with me- I'll discover something well after everyone's already grown tired of it, realize I cannot live without it, and then obsess on it until I burn out and forget about it.

So any-dang-way- I was flipping around on Flickr tonight and I stumbled onto a familiar name- Evan Bayh- (first term Democratic Senator from Indiana) so I check out his photos and they all look like standard "Hi, I'm Evan Bayh and I'm running for district selectman!" type pictures- but the tags are the thing....

In Flickr you use tags to identify words you want to associate with your pictures- so check out Bayh's tags (in alphabetical order):

2008
america
bayh
democrat
democraticparty
democrats
evan
evanbayh
flag
howarddean
indiana
patriot
president

The first and last tags listed there are the ones that pop out at me. As of this writing every photo is tagged with the word "President" - so... is that an announcement?

Of course, there's no proof Evan Bayh hisown self (or someone on his staff) uploaded and tagged these photos, but honestly, how bored would you have to be to fake something like this?

In closing, I don't know enough about the guy to have an opinion on his run, but this is certainly a new and interesting way to test the waters.

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It's not funny because Lincoln was a Republican. Goddamn bloodthirsty Democrats!!!!1one!

Michelle, if you happen to read this do yourself a favor- go back to using your old photo. I used to think you were cute but incredibly stupid, now I just think you're incredibly stupid.

Matt "I'm not gay! Almost married a girl once!" Drudge:

FLASH: TALKSHOW HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE SCORES WITH BOOK 'LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER', SCANS 15,521 COPIES IN OPENING WEEK, PUBLISHING SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... OVER BOB DOLE 'STORY' AT 10,182, ON HEELS OF MARIA SHRIVER 'ONE MORE THING' WITH 49,827 COPIES, JACK WELCH 36,979 COPIES AND JANE FONDA 25,041 FOR WEEK [56,810 TOTAL SINCE RELEASE, ACCORDING TO BOOKSCAN]...

Wait, wait, wait... so 15,521 copies is now "ON THE HEELS" of 49,827 copies? What the huh wha?

So there's that. Onto another topic- anybody else been getting pummeled with Adware while on Drudge's site? This stuff keeps attempting to install itself whenever I'm there. Luckily my anti-adware software is stopping it, but it's still yet another reason to be dusgusted by Drudge- aiding and abetting these evil bastards.

As for Drudge's new found straightness, I don't think anyone's going to forget Drudge's date with David Brock anytime soon. Just sayin' is all.

Here's Samatha Bee's hard-hitting report on George W. Bush's fake town hall meetings (with Frank Luntz as Yoda):

From the 4/15/05 Jimmy Kimmel show:

She's really one to complain about Photoshopped images when she features this picture of herself (with mutant hand) on her web site:

It's all Jesus and mannish pundits on the cover these days...

There should be no end to the amount of shit the administration takes for this...

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

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This is just incredible... how do they get away with it?

If there's one thing I can't stand it's shitty Photoshopping...



so I decided to fight shitty Photoshopping with shitty Photoshopping!

Here's The Daily Show's coverage of Bolton's confirmation hearing:

Dan Froomkin:

Bush yesterday: "From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence -- by helping the Iraqi people establish a free country that can sustain itself, rule itself, and defend itself," he said.

Bush on March 22, 2003: "And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."

For the record... don't kill anyone, ever. Okay?

Now then-



You gotta wonder what the secret service is thinking here... "How did someone aim a gun at the president and get a picture of it and put it on a stamp on our watch?!?!

So Secret Service agents dispatched to inspect a gallery piece? Was this inanimate object endangering the president in some way?

...ah, screw it, too easy.

When you're trying to prove a point by showing all the red states and your printer has run out of red ink.... just ditch. Ditch!!!

Well, White House Plant Gannon/Guckert couldn't resist... what a spaz.



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Media Matters dissects the Republican smear machine as it relates to the Schaivo memo.

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This time it was David Horowitz getting pied:


I'm gonna take a bold stance here- shouldn't these pies just be whip cream? I mean, fruit pies seem a little dangerous, especially when approaching Kristol velocity.

It was from Mel Martinez's (R- FL) office.

Conservative Web logs have challenged the authenticity of the memo, in some cases likening it to the discredited documents about Bush's National Guard service that CBS News reported last fall.

Heh... suckers.

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I seem to remember Al Franken screaming about this a month ago...

When Limbaugh says something it immediately echoes on Drudge and from there FOX and CNN start pondering Limbaugh's ridiculous talking point without mentioning it's source... why does it take a month for a real story like this to get any coverage?

Bush is saying treasury bonds are fake IOU's that will never be paid back- if that's true our economy will collapse like now.

Also:

Terri Schiavo Dies Of Embarrassment

PINELLAS PARK, FL—Terri Schiavo, the shy woman whose self-image issues put her in a 15-year coma, died of embarrassment Thursday, the eyes of the entire world fixed upon her. "Terri, who had been extremely reserved before her debilitation, found herself trapped at the center of an epic legal battle that became the focus of the nation," said Dr. Kyle Williamson, who treated Schiavo several years ago. "The involvement of President Bush, Congress, and numerous church officials further complicated what might have been a simple right-to-die case, and made Terri's weight issues and family difficulties public knowledge. She finally succumbed to the embarrassment last week, at age 41." Specifics of Schiavo's dying breath and photos of the woman in her self-conscious 20s have been appearing in newspapers worldwide since her death.

Here's some of The Daily Show's Pope coverage including Shep Smith's bad call and Stephen Colbert's commentary:

What a disgusting display on the floor of the Senate today- this is no less than a Senator declaring a jihad against the judiciary.

Judges- get yourselves some security. A U.S. Senator has just declared open season on you and your families.

CIA email ignored in recent Presidential commission coverup report:

"Keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about," the CIA official wrote.

[...]

Yet the new panel conspicuously omitted the "Powers That Be" e-mail that appeared in the Senate report. In fact, commission leaders seemed to not even know of its existence. "What e-mail are you talking about?" Judge Lawrence Silberman, the chairman, testily responded when asked by a NEWSWEEK reporter why it wasn't included in the report. "I'm mystified." Two hours later, after NEWSWEEK supplied the panel with a copy of the e-mail from the Senate report, a commission spokesman explained that the panel was aware of it but chose not to include it because its contents were already known. But its absence from the report raises questions of whether the Silberman panel may have "cherry-picked" evidence to exclude anything politically embarrassing to the "Powers That Be."

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I know this is old news, but I just wanted an excuse to post Shep Smith's mug shot:

No offense to the Catholics out there, but I'm ready to not have the Pope's corpse on my TV while I'm eating dinner.

I saw "Sin City" this weekend and nothing I saw in that movie was more disturbing than seeing the Pope decomposing in front of me while I'm trying to eat a sammich.

One point on the topic of those worrying about the souls of people who liked "Sin City" - if you were for the Iraq war even though a peaceful solution was incredibly close at hand (as it was) you need to rethink your priorities.

1,537 dead Americans and over 100,000 dead Iraqis and you're worried about movie violence?

Fuck you.

I for one don't think this was a very funny April Fools joke, but what do I know...

(From around 1:30 PM Eastern time today)


Update: April 2, 2005- 3:04 PM Eastern:
Well, now he's dead. Drudge still hasn't updated all-Pope-news website.

Update 2: April 3, 2005:
It seems Drudge has transformed his site into a Pope-news-only operation. For a Jewish guy Drudge sure loves the shit out of the Pope.

Well shit.

As Hard Justice pointed out in comments it turns out there already is a Jaleel White shrine... run by Jaleel White.

I'm gonna have to rethink this whole damn thing... Jaleel probably has better information on how his career is going than I do... I wonder if he's heard from the Nobel commitee?

Anyway, here's Jaleel's site.

Thanks to everybody who stuck with us through this crazy, crazy day... and thank you too Hard Justice.... FOR CRUSHING MY DREAMS!!!

Nobel Peace Prize for Acting Nominee Jaleel White is on a quite a roll!

According to my sources it was Jaleel's idea to act all geeky when he was hired to play Urkel!

He is also anti-alcohol and drugs. Because drugs are bad.

His next project has not yet been announced, but we'll keep you posted!

The Future Of OverSpun.com:

I've decided to change the format of the site a bit- instead of focusing on politics I've decided to turn this web site into a shrine to professional actor Jaleel White, best known as the breakout star of "Family Matters" in the role of Steve Urkel.

Mr. White's acting chops were always on display throughout the run of the show, since the mid-90's he has been blackballed in the Hollywood community.

Why? Could it be his controversial views on the Irish? (He fucking HATES the Irish.)

His talent and versatility were constantly on display, whether he was playing suave 007-esque Stefan Urquelle (while putting Sean Connery to shame!), in drag as Myrtle Urkel or pretending he's Asian as Bruce Lee Urkel.



Indeed you did, Steve, you stole our hearts!

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) - Commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan cut short an appearance after an opponent of his conservative views doused him with salad dressing.

``Stop the bigotry!'' the demonstrator shouted as he hurled the liquid Thursday night during the program at Western Michigan University. The incident came just two days after another noted conservative, William Kristol, was struck by a pie during an appearance at a college in Indiana.

Oh- it was just dressing. well, that'll learn me to read the story before writing the headline. Eh... no it won't.

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Update:

thanks HJ!

Another Update:
Wow- I hadn't seen pictures of the Kristol Pie-ing- that was really spectacular... (that's spectacular as in "al-qaeda is planning a spectacular attack" not "Jimmy's pie throwing talent is spectacular")