Bush’s eulogy for Alberto Gonzales’ career reads like satire:

As Attorney General and before that, as White House counsel, Al Gonzales has played a role in shaping our policies in the war on terror, and has worked tirelessly to make this country safer. The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other important laws bear his imprint.

Things that also include his imprint: stripping Guantanamo detainees of their Geneva Convention rights!

Bush continued:

Under his leadership, the Justice Department has made a priority of protecting children from Internet predators, and made enforcement of civil rights laws a top priority.

But the NYT reported in June [behind their pay wall, but the abstract is free]:

[The] Justice Department has significantly altered government’s civil rights mission by aggressively pursuing religious discrimination cases while reducing its involvement in cases involving race;… agency has transferred or demoted some experienced civil rights litigators while increasing hires from religious-affiliated institutions of Justice Dept hires from selection of law schools.

The best line of Bush’s speech, however, follows the civil rights bit:

He aggressively and successfully pursued public corruption…

The President is right; Mr. Gonzales aggressively pursued corruption and, I believe most would say, was ultimately successful in realizing it to the fullest.

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My favorite Aussie PSA (public service announcements) about driving (”Drink Driving? You Bloody Idiot”) has been replaced.

Only in Australia can you have an old woman making a ‘pencil dick’ hand motion as part of a public awareness campaign on speeding.

Here’s the link (no embedding, sorry).

MSNBC/Newsweek

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Preach it, brother.

Wait. No one knows what the hell you’re talking about. Man, if I were god, I would totally unmake these mouth-breathers out of my image.

Please, none of you breed.

h/t to Pandagon

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I’ve been singing this for about the past two weeks, so everyone should enjoy… I love the Chaser boys nearly as much as Ryan Gosling.

And while I’m loving on the Crazy Warehouse Guy, here he is at church.

Plus, Andrew’s hair actually looks reasonable in both these clips. That’s a real bonus compared to recent weeks; I can’t figure out if it’s a joke or not.

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Why do they always come from Jon Stewart? Today (or yesterday, who the hell knows when it is there), we had “New York’s least conservative mayor, Jewington Analplay,” with accompanying photo.

This is, of course, up there with Jon’s message to Iran the other month:

“Hey Iran, what are you doing? Do you know how hard we’re working over here to keep President Bombsalot from throwing down on you guys?”

But my favorite place to do all my War on Christmas shopping is at ‘Osama’s Homobortion Pot ‘n Commie Jizzporium‘.

It’s your one-stop-shop for everything homobortiony.

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… are AWESOME!

Seriously, what is going on here? (Sorry, my embedding is still broken…)

I like to think of at least two, possibly more, reporters looking over and seeing Cheney. Making the decision to zoom in and then pull back is a conversation I really would have liked to have been a part of.

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I was nearly blown into traffic today by a gust of wind. Millions upon millions are prone to the wrong-headed belief that “the Windy City” moniker comes from Chicago’s wind, but I’m here to tell you that Melbourne has some of the most ferocious wind I’ve every experienced. At one point, I was pedaling, but the headwind was so strong I nearly tipped over from lack of momentum. Can’t wait until winter!

Onto the media stuff. For my Conflict class, we’re looking this week at the ways in which the media frame public dissent and protests. Pretty interesting stuff. A study of a British riot mentioned the famous 1968 Democratic Convention riots, so I decided to have a look at the Tribune archives (thanks library card!).

Common wisdom now relates that Daley and the police wailed upon the hapless protesters, but in 1968 the situation was pretty different. Most references I found - before the system crashed - were about the poor, fatigued police just doing their best. An editorial hilariously sums up the Tribune’s (highly conservative wisdom) after the jump…

(more…)

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So, it seems as though this might be a joke - the most convincing evidence is that there are rosary beads on the website and those aren’t so popular with the Evangelistic crowd. It’s still amazing, though.

I keep thinking about things like the (god help me) Gray’s Anatomy fracas and how much we allow gays to be battered about in the media. For context, one actor on the show has repeatedly called another actor “faggot,” even at the Golden Globes when denying that he ever said it. There are too many clauses in that ridiculous sentence, but it’s kind of a ridiculous story. Isaiah Washington seems unable to keep his mouth shut, despite glares, angry comments, and punches in the face from his fellow cast members. I keep thinking about what would happen if the tables were turned, though. Washington, the offending actor is black; somehow, I think coverage of this story would be pretty different if it had gone down the other way. And I think Knight would be out of a job.

Then again, this video isn’t really about gays at all; it’s really about an intolerant community. I would probably laugh at a send up of white supremacists, too. But I think one could argue (as I will attempt to do inarticulately here in a second) that a parody of the KKK is harder to do because the minority group targeted by the hate group is better respected in the United States. Maybe it’s easier to bash gay-bashers because it’s pretty acceptable in the US to make fun of homosexuality in the first place. So, when someone sings, “God Hates a Fag” it’s more acceptable to laugh than at a video of a klanner singing, “God Hates a Negro.” It’s even hard to type.

So here I am, conflicted between my love of gays and my love of satire with good production values.

Well! I guess this was a fortutious time for Orgin of Love to come up on iTunes. Love for the gays it is.

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I’m about to seriously cross a line, one from which I may never recover.

This article in the NY Times today is about the cutest thing I’ve ever read. And it’s not about puppies, it’s about Dick Durbin, Bill Delahunt, Chuck Schumer, and George Miller all sharing a two-flat in DC. Clearly a puff piece to humanize legislators, it is still incredibly adorable.

Here is an example:

In fact, the roommates have never resorted to violence, at least with one another. (Crickets are another story.) Their weapons are verbal, and often aimed at Mr. Schumer, who admits to a serious dereliction of roommate duties, like grocery shopping. He is also prone to a blatant disregard for conserving a most precious household resource, cereal.

“I love cereal,” Mr. Schumer said, digging into his second bowl of granola, going a long way toward depleting a box that Mr. Miller had just purchased.

The picture of Schumer’s unmade bed is also hilarious.

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Via Chicago Tribune: