the thanksgiving pardoning of turkeys (but not pigs)

i'm sorry, but i can't get behind ham for thanksgiving...
via wonkette.com:
A group of Virginians are claiming that Virginian settlers held the first Thanksgiving in 1619, a full year before the better-know Puritans broke their bread of thanks. Also, there was no turkey served, but there was probably ham. So, a children’s author in Virginia Beach, Lisa Suhay, is trying to get President Bush to pardon a pig in addition to the regular Thanksgiving turkey. The White House is saying no dice (because bacon tastes good and pork chops taste good), but Bush did head down to the less No. part of Va. yesterday to acknowledge that they are saying that their Thanksgiving was first and then came back here for his obligatory photo op with two turkeys. No, he’s not posing with any of the Presidential candidates.

So, this week the President once again pardoned a turkey (no, not scooter libby), which always makes me think of how this barbaric and silly photo op was so wonderfully enacted on The West Wing (as so many things are)...

CJ : I need you to pardon a turkey.

Bartlet : I already pardoned a turkey... aren't I gonna get a reputation for being soft on turkeys?

CJ : They sent me two turkeys. The most photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.

Bartlet : If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.

At least the President did better this year...we all remember how last year, the pardoned turkey proved to, um, choose an interestingly humorous pose during his photo op with the President. *(insert your own gobble gobble joke here)

cause they can only win if they cheat

like we still needed any proof...
dateline: tallahassee
Internal city memos show the issue of Republican "vote caging" efforts in Jacksonville's African-American neighborhoods was discussed in the weeks before the 2004 election, contradicting recent claims by former Duval County Republican leader Mike Hightower - the Bush-Cheney campaign's local chairman at the time.

"Caging" is a longtime voter suppression practice by which political parties collect undeliverable or unreturned mail and use it to develop "challenge lists" on Election Day.

The contradiction comes to light as the U.S. Justice Department continues to consider a June 18 request from two U.S. senators for an investigation into potential illegal voter suppression tactics in Duval County three years ago. A department spokeswoman said last week that the request is still being reviewed.

all this talk of caging makes me think of another person in the news: scooter libby...and a famous passage from his novel, the apprentice:

At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch.

the president may make scooter's crimes vanish, but this book and its crimes are unpardonable.

lying libby drops the quarter mil

how much you wanna bet he tries to deduct this from his taxes? the odds are just as good that he'll become the new justice foxspert.

the commuter-in-chief

wonkette on the libby commutation:
Number of pardons Bush has granted: 113, less than any president in a century.
Number of pardons Bush has denied: More than 1,000.
Number of commutation requests Bush has denied: More than 4,000.
Commuting Cheney’s henchman’s prison sentence right after the bail appeal is denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals: Fuck you, America!

the iphone is a liberal, san francisco values loving threat

ahhh, nice to see the ipod ads reminding us of those days last november) when we thought that nancy pelosi was going to take over the government and get us out of iraq...memories.

this opens the floodgate of "iphone hates america, freedom, god, unborn babies, etc." jokes...or maybe steve jobs just thinks (and rightly so) that you'r rather rub your finger over nancy pelosi than...um (think of republicans in the news...)...alberto gonzalez or scooter libby.

also (comments via wonkette.com):

- If we don't defeat the Macs on the desktop we'll have to fight them in our pants pockets.

- I bet you didn't know that the iPhone, when pressed against a pregnant woman's belly, performs abortions too. Ah, technology today...

- I'm assuming a Conservative Handheld would have a monochromatic screen (since everything is black and white), no networking functions (it's a unilateral gadget, dammit!), garbles all input and output, is slow, and crashes all the time. Ergo, an Apple Newton!

the glass is 80% guilty

steven colbert explains why scooter libby was found guilty, why he will eventually get off, and how one can use jethro tull to get out of jury duty...forget the jury, even i'm a bit confused.