Snopes.com is guilty of its own crime: glurge


Barbara and David Mikkelson, creators of snopes.com

If you can get past the sixth-grade composition class that precedes every UL description, snopes.com ain't half bad. For the most part.

But occasionally their political bias seeps through, and - like when a toddler plays innocent after stealing away with a cookie - the whole show can be pretty funny to witness.

In the site's "what's new" section, the Mikkelsons have posted yet another letter wherein a GI's inability to distinguish between reality and his own predispositions front as propaganda. In this latest "urban legend," some chaplain complains that news media and politicians "are making it sound like Walter Reed is a terrible place and the staff here has been abusing our brave wounded soldiers."

The problem is, no politician, nor anyone in the mainstream media is saying what this officer claims they're saying. The news organizations breaking, and then covering, the Bldg 18 story have been quite responsible in clarifying the facility in question is actually outside of the WRAMC. And no politician living with 50 miles of DC could get away with such an obvious slipup.

Neither the chaplain nor the Mikkelsons are perceptive enough to have noticed the difference between their own inferences, and others' observations.

It's a lot like the Bernard Goldberg "stuff I remember noticing" brand of objectivity. For me this sort of thing underscores what I already know about the right wing - they're empirically challenged.

No mainstream news outlet has said about the Walter Reed facility what the chaplain has apparently inferred from his observations of the story. But, that doesn't matter to the Mikkelsons. They've found another path for their cookie stealing. By elevating Chaplain Kallerson's letter to "urban legend" status, the dynamic duo at snopes have allowed themselves a pattern of weaselness they probably aren't aware many of us can see right through.

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Welcome to the world of OVERSIGHT, ya dopes.

When it comes to talking points, Karl Rove and company probably learned many moons ago that it's much better to unleash Bush late with honed platitudes, than prematurely with comically mispronounced, seldom understood arguments. At 72+ hours, however, the newfangled tack is doubly delayed.

I suspect Bush isn't in the best of moods these days - no doubt more distracted than usual by those "mean" liberals and their heinous "oversight" monstrosity. There's no real mystery as to why the delay.

But, after seeing the new angle of attack, I have to think even Karl Rove is being ruinously distracted these days. Essentially, the best thing the BFEE could come up with is to say Democrats are being big bad mean partisans. That's it.

Sure, Bush's delivery of the message is more like that of a pissed off yard dog, backed into a corner, than a beaten streetfighter begging for mercy. But the message is inescapable - the DNC is playing politics, and "We ain't a-scared."

In other words, they're guilty as sin.

Obviously the BFEE is growing weak. They are shitting in their pants, and rightly so. They've finally started to get a taste of the shit they fed the Dems in the late '90s over Clinton's perjury, which, to use the neocon lingo of the day, was about "no underlying crime."

• To watch this gaggle of morons self-destruct...
• To witness what good the GOP once stood for being consumed by its own gluttony...
• To see so many on the right disown this administration...

- is it not sweet?

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It's Official - Plame was Undercover

What? The Right Wing Lied to Us?

Plame was not just undercover when Rove et al exposed her - her status was Nonofficial Cover. Basically, this status is the deepest of cover, and gives the CIA a sort of plausible deniability when it comes to acknowledging their spies. For this reason, it is technically true to say "she was not under official cover."

Note that this point is included when the right wing talking machine prevaricates Plame's status. That is, those on the right who understand the truth, and who don't make it a habit to constantly lie (I know, they're fewer and fewer anymore) won't simply say "Plame was not undercover," because that'd be a lie. What they say is, "she was not under official cover."

Again, her status was non-official cover. It's the deepest cover a spy can possess.

Naturally, the right wing idiots will keep making this spin. But, if their audience was too dumb to figure it out in the first place, they'll likely buy into the "everyone but FOX and Limbaugh are left wing liars" bullshit.

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What? Now I've got to add someone else to my Homosexual Mafia page?

In case you haven't heard, a Marine recently lauded by Shemp Hannity, CharlatAnn Coulter, and Billow Really is actually a gay porn star!

This guy kinda looks dirty and gay...

The rapture-ublicans are getting hilariouser and hilariouser by the minute! Sooooo very perceptive these clowns.

I'm telling you - the sooner the left sees how absurd the right wing talk machine is, the sooner they'll stop cowering in fear every time idiots like O'Reilly yell at them.

@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@

Can you imagine Shemp Retarditty talking Sanchez up at the family dinner table the night of his encounter with the Corporal? Picture Shemp's poor family, smiling and nodding at his every platitude, his obtuse string of grade-school descriptions. "Such a great American. He's really smart. And really, really a great man. A handsome man with a really really great future. An absolute hero..."

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

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Whaddya hear? Whaddya Say?


Scooter Libby - who once worked for Marc Rich (go crunch that one into your poli-alliances matrix) - has been found guilty on four of five counts. If I had the time and still put out the occasional Faux News page I'd do the obvious "LIBBY NOT GUILTY on one count" headline. Or maybe, based on the one juror who obviously fucked up when she contacted some right wing media outlet, it'd be "MEDICAL STUDY INDICATES ONE IN TWELVE DC RESIDENTS SUFFER FROM ACUTE" (something anti-raptureublican).

But, with full time school, training for the new job (which will likely put me in Iraq for 12 months soon), and keeping these bombs on the bad guys, I've barely got time to breathe.

Momentary gloating now ends.

The same can't be said for the neocon nerd squad over at Ubersite. Apparently I pissed off the resident UberGOPhers after creating an ode to Michael Weiner's incessant "Homosexual Mafia" references (it is still hilarious every time I hear "Savage" - in all earnestness - use that term), and submitted the new page to the popular site. Shit, I finally find a day to something creative online and the Uberunemployed shit all over it. Then again, as one of them noted, I've only posted on U 6 times (yes, apparently this is a bad thing). But the new page is at least as decent as my Pulp Dicktion page, of which most of them approved (after brilliantly realizing "self-plagiarism" is impossible). Maybe they haven't moved beyond dial-up yet (the page won't look too cool without some bandwidth).

Whatever. I'll be back with my 7th post in another 8 months.

Yes, that is Drea De Matteo on Tony's lap! Holy sheep shit, Fatman! Me sale el corazon! Mama mia. I'd almost leave my wife for you.
Okay, maybe not. But it's fun to think about.

Apparently Adriana La Cerva is back into Carmela and Tony's dream sequences. And rumor is Tony's biting the dust this time around. Yet the show says everyone will be happy with the show's end. So, if both are true, then obviously we can expect more coma/dream sequence allegorical stuff. Only this time Tony takes a heavenly detour around Blundiablo's premises. Which would be fine with me, though I'd have to endure my wife's criticism throughout. She doesn't dig the dream sequences so much; I'm a big fan.

But I don't think Tony Soprano will die. There's another, respectable way out. Not that I know exactly what that is - I'm no writer (obviously). But I think there'll be another way out for Tony and famiglia.

Ah shit - let's give it a shot.

• Tony falls ill. Has to decide whether to set up a passing of the reins (to Chris), which could be construed by Phil and clan as a sign of weakness, or suck it up and press on throughout the chemotherapy or whatever medical shit he has to endure without publicly acknowledging the grimness of his situation.

• AJ is being consumed by the city and the urge to fill his pop's shoes. Not only is he turning into a more hopelessly lost bum case, he's wrecking his father's rep with lame attempts to walk the Soprano walk. AJ is nearly killed.

• Money is found. LOTS of money. Enough to keep Tony and his family happy for decades. This money, of course, was Livia's. Tony's beloved, sweet ma. Ironically, though Janet resurfaces in the hopes of intestacy (and thus a third of the $), Livia actually had a valid will. And her sole heir? Why, Tony.

• Tony passes the torch to Chris, works his magic with the five families, and gets an OK to "retire" (like his Uncle in upstate NY). Takes his family and new fortune to Arizona. Or San Diego.

• Where he sells lawn chairs.

Okay, that sucked. But it's late, and I'm just giddy after acing an exam tonight. Last one this semester is Friday night. Then it's BORRACHO time. :)

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