Team America has some serious potential to be funny.

Andrew Sullivan is one of the most difficult guys out there to pin down politically. Just a few days after all but endorsing Kerry, he's now thrashing him over his speech last night. It looks to me like he simply doesn't like either candidate - which seems to be a very common thing this election cycle.

Lets assume that for a moment - that a significant portion of the electorate doesn't like Bush or Kerry very much, but the events since Nov 2000 are going to drive people to the polls in relatively large numbers. Assuming that, who do those people vote for?

I also noticed that Sullivan shares my view of Teresa.

George Soros hand-maiden Oliver Willis says that Jerry Falwell will provide the opening invocation at the Repub Convention based on a blogger's report of what a preacher heard. I only mention this so that I can follow up on it and see if a correction is issued when it doesn't happen.

But, none will be needed because if Falwell doesn't speak OW can claim that the Repub's backed down under the pressure.

Ooh, an archive of all the ESPN SportsCenter commercials. Great television.

Has anybody seen the commercials for the Bassmaster Classic? Easily the best fishing commercials ever - though thats a pretty low bar.

UPDATE: Woohoo, the Bassmaster commercials are online too.

I talked previously about how Kerry's wife may hurt him when/if she becomes a more prominent part of his campaign, and it may have just come true as she lied to a reporter about comments she just made, then upon finding out who the reporter worked for sought out a 2nd confrontation and told him to 'shove it'.

Not a huge deal, but embarrassing nonetheless. And remember, its rarely the incident that gets you in trouble, its the cover-up.

Of course it is.

That was Daniel Okrent's response to the question of whether the NY Times is a liberal newspaper.

Some people are complaining that Okrent's 'admission' doesn't go far enough and that it skirts some bigger issues. But there's no good way for Okrent to do what the complainers are asking him to do. He can't simply come in and 'blow up' the entire culture and reputation at the Times in one grand column.

My feeling is that Okrent realizes the seriousness of the institutional problems (biases) at the Times, and is doing his best to bring them to light without pointing fingers or laying blame. He also appears to be taking baby steps in the areas of coverage he discusses - perhaps to give those he hasn't specifically addressed the opportunity to make adjustments in their coverage by appying his statements to date to their areas of responsibility.

The Technorati cosmos for this article may end up being fun.

Everything you were afraid to ask about 'Donnie Darko'. I didn't think I was afraid to ask anything, until I actually read the article that is.

The vast majority of "Donnie Darko" takes place in a parallel universe. From the moment the clock in the Darko house strikes midnight, 10 minutes into the film, right up to Donnie's hysterical laughter in bed, the setting of the film is Tangent Middlesex, a parallel dimension, spontaneously created, which exists only during the 28 days that cover the majority of the film's action. The through-line of the film is Donnie Darko's quest to erase the Tangent Universe before it destroys the world.

To understand what actually occurs in "Donnie Darko," it helps to have read "The Philosophy of Time Travel," by Roberta Sparrow. This is difficult in that the book is an imaginary one, written by a fictional character. Luckily, much of the book's text is included on the film's Web site and DVD and is now incorporated into the director's cut.

Not suprisingly, the Sandy Berger story just keeps getting worse for him. The Washington Post (from page A6) and the Ny Daily News both have articles with more troubling accusations that would seem to make his 'sloppy' and 'inadvertant' defenses laughable.

... Berger repeatedly persuaded monitors assigned to watch him review top-secret documents to break the rules and leave him alone ... got the monitors out of the high-security room by telling them he had to make sensitive phone calls ... also took "lots of bathroom breaks" that aroused some suspicion.

...Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

The Wash Post article is also full of denials from Berger thru his attorney's. He disputes that he stuffed docs into his clothing (but from the exact quotes I've seen, its only the socks that are in question - so this could be a screw up by the WP), he disputes the timeline of the investigation, and he disputes the nature of the investigation. Given all those denials/disputes, this story still has a huge amount of potential to get very ugly for Berger

The bad news for Sandy Berger just keeps coming. Its long, but damning.

This could end up being the equivalent of the Trent Lott story - with blogs keeping it alive until the mainstream media has to deal with it seriously. I'll say this for Berger, at least he had the decency to step down from whatever role he had in Kerry's campaign before being publicly forced out - something Lott should have done as well.

Michael Moore misrepresented a newspaper headline (he presented it as news, it was opinion) and changed the date of publication (published Dec 5, his sais Dec 19) on screen during F911.

This raises an obvious question - why did the Republicans wait until now to leak this news? What are they trying to cover up?

Jeez, the NY Times sides with Linda Ronstadt (which is iffy, but understandable), but in the process they misrepresent the Constitution. In an opinion piece talking of the Aladdin's decision to fire her, the Times says:

This behavior assumes that Ms. Ronstadt had no right to express a political opinion from the stage. It implies - for some members of the audience at least - that there is a philosophical contract that says an artist must entertain an audience only in the ways that audience sees fit. It argues, in fact, that an artist like Ms. Ronstadt does not have the same rights as everyone else.

It doesn't assume anything. As either an employee or contractor to the Aladdin, they - not Ronstadt - have the right to determine what kind of speech they allow at their facility.

Secondly, there is a contract between the audience and the artist - its called the ticket. They purchased it with and expectation and promise of a certain kind of entertainment. To get something entirely different (granted, in this case it wasn't entirely different, but generally) does indeed violate that contract.

And lastely, Ronstadt does have the same rights as everyone else, its just that the Times apparently chooses not to understand that nobody has the right to say whatever they want with no consequences when they are doing so under the employ of another person/entity.

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Here's a few of this weeks strangest stories:

A man in a spandex Superman costume attacks motorists.

A man goes streaking covered in nacho cheese.

A domestic disputed breaks out in Flordia during that time a man beats his girlfriend with an alligator.

Pamala Anderson writes a book. Granted, is mostly sex......

UPDATE: The strangest news yet.....Michael Jackson is going to be a father (again) of quadruplets.

Despite the best efforts of some, it looks like the Sandy Berger story is going to have legs. Big, long, hairy legs.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement.

Sloppiness? How can he knowingly stuff these docs into his clothing, and still just call it sloppy? How can the media just gloss that over as if it doesn't mean something. As if it wasn't an admission of guilt.

If it was just the leather portfolio that he had taken, I'd buy the sloppiness argument. But shoving documents into your socks?! Unless he's losing his mental abilities, there's no way that can be construed as 'sloppy'.

He jammed that stuff into his socks for a reason - likely to get past security, thinking they wouldn't pat him down if they did decide to search his bags on the way out.

It is worth noting, that the only place to mention the socks so far is Fox News.

Somehow, I don't think Todd Hamilton winning the British Open is good for golf. It seems like such a waste of a major for the top players when they get beaten by a lower-level pro.

What a week for Whoopi. She bashes the President at a Dem fundraiser. Got fired by Slim Fast. John Kerry called her comments were inappropriate. John Edwards said "They weren't speaking for me, and they weren't speaking for John Kerry." And the big shocker, she's blaming Republicans for it all.

Oh, and she's mis-construing the Constitution.

"America's heart and soul is freedom of expression without fear of reprisal," she said in a statement.

"The fact that I am no longer the spokesman for SlimFast makes me sad, but not as sad as someone trying to punish me for exercising my right as an American to speak my mind."

The "Domestic Diva", Martha Stewart gets jail time. This is the only sentencing that I've ever seen that the commentators discuss what the person is wearing (and hair too), like they're walking down the red carpet. Looks like all the Chefs toting the "Free Martha" signs didn't do any good. Maybe Martha could share a cell with Courtney.

UPDATE: It appears that Martha has also hired a sentencing consultant to help her transition into jail.

The British Open starts today, the leaderboard is here.

Courtney Love has hit bottom, or so it would appear. Nobody is quite sure whats going on with her, but at this point, I'd believe pretty much any story. Drugs, disease, insanity - its all plausible.

Here's another article about her. Check out the 2nd photo with the story also, pure drama.

I wish the media would stop reporting when people are arrested/detained for a legit reason and they also happened to have 'anti-American' materials in their possession. Its such a loaded term, and has no bearing on whether they were legitimately detained/arrested or not.

Yes, I admit it, I am a sewing geek. In my spare time (if I'm not playing poker online), I like to browse pattern companies online catalogs. That's when I came across this (link fixed). I'm sure that it's supposed to be a ghost, but it looks a lot like a KKK uniform to me.

Was there a memo sent out to all the Lefties telling them to round up the troops that have strayed from the Democrats line? Hey you, minority, get back in your assigned political box.

Gay men must support gay marriage.
Blacks who help Republicans are 'phonies'.

If you are a Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird user (and you should be if you aren't already), there was a security patch released on July 8th that you probably ought to apply. The fix itself is here.

Just an update to the whole 'Canada's kids think US is evil' story from a few days ago. For those of you who didn't like the original source - even though they weren't the source, just the reporters - here it is straight from the Canada.com YouthVote site.

Is the UN good for anything except fighting spam? They won't enforce their resolutions, yet another was passed against Israel's security fence today, but we all know it will be ignored. Just like the resolutions against Iraq were.

And apparently, even the IAEA doesn't trust the Security Council to do whats necessary: IAEA wary of taking Iran nuclear issue to security council.

But IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a group of academics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem that he did not think it was a good idea to take Iran to the Security Council.

"You are running the risk that the Security Council might not act and therefore the situation would exacerbate. And you run the risk that Iran might opt out of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and you have another North Korea," ElBaradei said.

So our choices are either (1) do nothing and end up w/ Iran having nukes or (2) take them to the Security Council, have it do nothing, and end up w/ Iran having nukes. Nice plan. At least this guy is being honest.

Well, I'm back from a couple of days in Dallas. Probably nothing new here until this evening though. Feel free to use this as an open thread if you want.

Lots of people are tired of the over-used 'blog verb' fisked, but the term was named after Robert Fisk for a reason:

Robert Fisk exposes Saddam judge's name after the rest of the media had honored the request of the Iraqi Special Tribunal to protect the judge's anonymity. What an asshole.

So 40% of young Canadians think the USA is evil. How lovely. Its good to see that our neighbors to the north have such a solid understanding of history and perspective.

As much as I find the "sport" of competitive eating really disgusting, I am completely fasinated by Takeru Kobayashi - "The Tsunami." Today he ate a record 53 1/2 hotdogs in 12 minutes, an average of 1 hotdog every 13 seconds. UGH. Has anyone seeen this guy too? He's THIN! But lookout folks, he's got competition... Meet Sonya Thomas. She managed to eat 32 Nathan's today - a record breaker for any American.

I wonder how long it would take them to eat Vienna Beef's record breaking weiner?

I sure hope the Bush administration gets behind Hong Kong's independence movement as much as possible. We are a bit limited in that we don't want a serious conflict with the Chinese, but we need to do what we can to help.

Might Bill Cosby be emerging as a new 'black' leader? I'd welcome it, and say that without knowing anything about his politics. He's smart, he's successful, and he's respected by alot of people (black, white, and other) in this country.

A voice such as his, interested in ideas instead of fundraising is a rare thing of late in this country. Everybody on the political/social stage seems to either want to be elected, want to enhance their image, or want to raise money for their organization more than they are interested in actually propelling society to change.

I don't sense any of those negatives in Cosby. More please.

I'm 32 today.

A lawyer has filed heresy charges against John Kerry with the Archdiocese of Boston (see it here).

Mr. Balestrieri said he filed the heresy charge � plus an additional complaint charging "harm" to himself as a result of Mr. Kerry's pronouncements on abortion and related issues � because canon law entitles Catholics to "possession of the faith unharmed."

"By spreading heresy, he is endangering not just mine by every Catholic's possession of the faith," he said.

"I am inviting all baptized Catholics who feel injured by Kerry to join the suit as third parties" by reading the document on the Web site and then sending a certified letter of agreement to the Boston Archdiocese.

"People are saying you can be pro-choice and be a good Christian, that it is not contrary to the faith to support aborted murder," Mr. Balestrieri said. "This is a life-threatening heresy."

This is just way over the top, and I see no good that can come of it - not for Kerry, not for Bush, not for mr. Balestrieri and not for the Church.