Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
“We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.”
Gail Collins referring to the B.S. from Levi Johnston.
Ms. Collins has several other LOL lines that I started to put here. Just go read the whole thing.
CNN yesterday ended the 20-year career of Octavia Nasr, its Atlanta-based Senior Middle East News Editor, because of a now-deleted tweet she wrote on Sunday upon learning of the death of one of the Shiite world’s most beloved religious figures: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah . . . . One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Right outlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neocon precincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her.
Go read the whole Greenwald essay. It’ll get your blood circulating.
And try and name one mainstream journalist fired for expressing right-wing views.
“According to a new study on your ballooning bottom, Colorado, America’s fittest state, has more adult obesity now (19.1%) than Mississipi, America’s fattest state (33.8%), did in 1991 (15.7%).”
“Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship.”
GULF OF MEXICO . . . – At a time when many thought that news out of the Gulf of Mexico couldn’t get any worse, BP announced today that the oil in the Gulf needs to be changed every six months.
“The oil will need to be changed every six months or every 15,000 lies,” said the BP spokesman. “Whatever comes sooner.”
“Other Americans take pride in the performance of their country’s soccer, although — given America’s huge size and terrible record — this is a bit like taking pride in your college debate team fighting the local elementary school squad to a draw.”
“In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.”
Via Eschaton
“[Pickett’s Charge] was a magnificent mile-wide spectacle, a picture-book view of war that participants on both sides remembered with awe until their dying moment—which for many came within the next hour.”
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom
“illegal, n. A term used by descendents of European immigrants to refer to descendants of Indigenous Americans.”
“When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions.”
“What TSA really needs is a snappy motto. Something along the lines of ‘In Nonsense There Is Strength.'”
He has some interesting suggestions saying, “We’ve had almost a decade to get it right, but still the physical setup of the screening stations is atrocious — a jury-rigged assemblage of noise, clutter and disorganization.”
“[Elena Kagan] seems fully comfortable standing before this committee and suggesting something which no recent nominee has ever dared suggest: Supreme Court justices should be among the nine smartest people in the land, and guess what? I’m one of ’em!”
“The stranger thing about phone sex, though, was that the training program was more rigorous and extensive than any I’d encountered in journalism.”
Maureen Tkacik in a superb essay about life in modern journalism.
“Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn’t mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here’s CBS’s chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that’s killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him.”
“Not counting a goal for fear of dehumanizing a sport with replay is not in the tradition of anything besides the tradition of ignorance.”
The U.S. didn’t get bounced because it lacked skill or heart. The Americans got bounced because they dangerously kept treating their matches like the prosecutors on “Law & Order”: They didn’t pay attention to the first half of the show. And like “Law & Order,” they got cancelled and will be missed.
“The new Porsche Panamera is the best-handling big sedan in the world, which I grant is a little like being the smartest kid on the Arizona State football team or the most chaste governor of South Carolina.”
Dan Neil
First posted here a year ago today.
“Everybody, it seems, is stricken with World Cup fever. Heck, even Gen. Stanley McChrystal got a red card last week.”
Runner-up sports line of the day:
“You don’t want to be a draft pick that should have did something but never did nothing.”
John Wall of the University of Kentucky, drafted as the first overall pick by the Washington Wizards, quoted at Sideline Chatter.
“Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising. My views are critical but that shouldn’t be mistaken for hostile – I’m just not a stenographer. There is a body of work that shows how I view these issues but that was hard-earned through experience, not something I learned going to a cocktail party on fucking K Street. That’s what reporters are supposed to do, report the story.”
“If we go all the way this year, if we win the World Cup, the whole rest of the world has to then refer to the sport as soccer.”
Jon Stewart
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| World Cup 2010: Into Africa – US Beats Algeria | ||||
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“We try not to snark too hard on Bristol Palin. She’s only 19, she’s got a baby, her last name is Palin – isn’t that enough for the kid to deal with?”
“With Petraeus now running the Afghan ‘surge’, we are back to square one: an impossible and contradictory war that requires permanent occupation to work and twelve months to succeed.”
“Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer.”
If Friedman were as progressive as he think he is, he would have said “recruit and train Brazilian children to play soccer.”
“He would hold McClellan’s horse, he’d once said, if a victory could be achieved.”
Doris Kearns Goodwin speaking of another president who had trouble with generals.
“Sometimes, simulation is so transparent that it more resembles vaudeville than world-class soccer.”
From a New York Times article — When a Soccer Star Falls, It May Be an Acting Job
Simulation is the term soccer officials use to describe “the flopping, flailing and falling in soccer” intended “to dupe the referee.”