On the message

So after Bush's disappointing, deer-in-the-headlights, stammering performance in the debate, Republicans, eager to try to paint a good picture of him, keep saying "he stayed on message." So I ask, what would be getting off message? "Terrorism is good"? "Vote for Kerry"?

It's funny 'cos it's true

From The Onion: Documents Reveal Gaps in Bush's Service as President:

WASHINGTON, DC—Freshly unearthed public documents, ranging from newspapers to cabinet-meeting minutes, seem to indicate large gaps in George W. Bush's service as president, a spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens for an Informed Society announced Monday.

"We originally invoked the Freedom Of Information Act to request material relating to Bush's spotty record while in office," CIS director Catherine Rocklin said. "But then we realized that the information was readily available at the corner newsstand, on the Internet, and from our friends and neighbors who pay attention to the news."

According to Rocklin, the most damning documents were generated at roughly one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this week. The document's sources include, but are not limited to, the U.S. newspaper The New York Times, the London-based Economist magazine, and the well-known international business and finance record, The Wall Street Journal.

"Factual data presented in these publications indicates that Bush took little or no action on issues as widely varied as the stalled economy, increasing violence in post-war Iraq, and the lagging public education system," Rocklin said. "The newsprint documents also reveal huge disparities between the ways Bush claimed to have served Medicare patients, and what he actually did."

Read the rest.

I love the Onion.

New GYWO

Check it out!

Be afraid

Last night on the Daily Show, Richard Clarke mentioned that there were military plans to retake Fallujah and other insurgent Iraqi cities, at extreme cost to US Troops, shortly after the election. Is there any other confirmation of this? Because that's some seriously fucked up shit rigt there.

Wow, do all of Richard Perle's predictions turn out this eerily correct?

From August:

A year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.

-Richard Perle - September 22, 2003

At least 20 Iraqis were killed and more than 200 wounded in fresh violence through Baghdad and fears grew for a British hostage whose two US colleagues were savagely beheaded by Islamist captors.

-The Associated Foreign Press - September 22, 2004

Tyranny

What do you call a man who locks up 5000 people for supposed crimes against the state for up to 3 years or more, and is unable to formally convict a single one.

You might call him a despot. Or you might call him John Ashcroft.

This is truly disgusting.

Da Rulez

I'm sick of trolls (possibly just Bill). So if there's inappropriate comments, I'll delete them and ban the sender rather than deal with the idiocy.

Inappropriate comments include:

Needlessly insulting or racist. (ex: troll, pretending to be Jewish, calling Palestineans "devils")

Clearly false identification (a troll calling himself Abe Goldstein wrote how Kerry would surrender immediately in the war on terror, and wrote his homepage as xoverboard.com, we all know who August Pollack is, and that he wouldn't resort to trolling, so screw you)

Pretending to be a librul while saying you believe everything that Ann Coulter says libruls believe (someone said that he hoped Hillary Clinton would become president so she would move the country to socialism. Any socialist who believes that Hillary Clinton is a socialist should get a new dictum, because they have no idea what the fuck Socialism is)

Swearing is fucking great, as long as you're not an asshole.

Longtime and awesome posters (ie my bro, Ross, valentine, Jake Squid) get free passes because they are cool, but I will call them on inappropriate comments (but this blog isn't quite influential enough to have very big discussions, so if any of these guys get the oppurtunity to say anything inappropriate, that will be a proud day from Raznor indeed.)

Ain't it the truth

Outrage and sweet, sweet revenge

Via Ampersand, a woman in Decatur was fired from her factory job for having a John Kerry bumpersticker on her car, and was later given a job working for Kerry's campaign.

The only thing that can make this a better ending is if she successfully sues her former asshole boss

Goodbye, Uppity Negro

Aaron of Uppity-negro.com has passed away.

It's a weird thing. With bloggers, as with anyone, you forget sometimes that they're just human, as mortal and frail as anyone else. I enjoyed Aaron's take on life. He'll be missed.

Happy birthday to me

I'm 23 today.

Praise me. PRAISE ME!

Dick Cheney has no shame - what else is new?

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.

More here. Via Josh Marshall and Atrios who both linked to this before I did. I really have nothing not obvious to say about the above statement, yeah, Cheney is a shameless SOB, but I liked this part:

If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set" that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush's offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists.

Ah, nice, a "pre-9/11 mind-set". Would that be like attacking Iraq on a personal agenda rather than focusing on actual terrorist groups? Does that qualify as a "pre-9/11 mind-set"?

Man, Dick Cheney doesn't care what the fuck he says.

1000 dead

23 already in September.

Remind me of what they were fighting for again.

I hope they give Bush such a haunting.

Andrew Sullivan: Still an asshole

Go read this post by Atrios. Do it now. I have nothing to add that's better than what Atrios wrote on this, so go. Now.

A personal quandary

I find myself in a state where, although for purist reasons I shouldn't really like post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd, I can't get past the fact that The Division Bell is a damn, damn good album.

Just sayin'.

Apparently slander wasn't enough

The Swift Boat Liars are in big trouble now that they've been signing names to their letters without permission.

Do these guys have any credibility left?

Via August.