A Celine Dion Airline Jingle is the perfect theme song for Hilary Clinton.

Now he’s offering four to eight more years of more bullshit:

Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters.

“You know the two parties are still converging — they don’t even debate the military budget anymore,” Nader said in a 30-minute interview. “I really think there needs to be more competition from outside the two parties.”

~~~

Nader would have little or no chance of winning the presidency should he run, but he doesn’t need to win to affect the outcome: Many Democrats still blame Nader for draining enough votes away from Al Gore in Florida in 2000 to elect George W. Bush.

If Nader thinks the difference between “Bush” and any other candidate who, unlike the Decider, is even marginally competent and half-sane, then he is well and truly fucked.

Please. Go. The. Fuck. Away.

Los Angeles Times, Cheney claims a non-executive privilege

He asserts he’s exempt from showing an agency how his office keeps secrets because he’s not fully part of the administration.
For the last four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has made the controversial claim that his office is not fully part of the Bush administration in order to exempt it from a presidential order regulating federal agencies’ handling of classified national security information, officials said Thursday.

Cheney has held that his office is not fully part of the executive branch of government despite the continued objections of the National Archives, which says his office’s failure to demonstrate that it has proper security safeguards in place could jeopardize the government’s top secrets.

~~~

Some legal scholars and government secrecy experts noted the irony in Cheney’s stance that his office is not fully part of the executive branch, given his claims of executive privilege when refusing to provide information requested by Congress.

~~~

Cheney’s position is articulated in the 2004 edition of an annual government directory of senior officials known as the Plum Book:

“The vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch, but is attached by the Constitution to the latter. The vice presidency performs functions in both the legislative branch … and in the executive branch.”

Gordon Silverstein, a constitutional scholar at UC Berkeley, said Cheney’s claims were all the more noteworthy given his repeated assertions of executive privilege, based on his senior position within the Bush administration, as a reason why he has not had to testify before Congress or provide lawmakers with information on such national security issues as torture, interrogation and CIA renditions of terrorists.

“Here’s a guy who raises ‘executive privilege’ to historic levels to exempt himself from all rules and oversight, and now he says he’s not part of the executive branch?” said Silverstein. “Here we have a subordinate part of the executive branch asserting independent constitutional authority even against its own superior. It is flabbergasting.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - - that’s all.”

Correspondence between Humpty and Congress is here.

The BBC version is semi-tongue in cheek.

US crowd beats passenger to death

An angry Texas crowd has beaten and killed a 40-year-old car passenger after a driver injured a young girl near the site of a busy local festival.

Police said the driver of the car had stopped to check on the health of the girl, said to be aged three or four.

But when the passenger got out to see how she was, he was set upon by a group of up to 20 people before being left lying in a car park, police said.

The girl was hit at low speed and was not seriously injured.

The incident happened near Austin, Texas, as crowd of between 2,000-3,000 people gathered for the annual Juneteenth festival, which commemorates the freeing of American slaves.

‘Group mentality’

According to reports, the driver of the car hit the girl at a low speed while moving through a car park, and then stopped so his passenger could check on her condition.

But the angry crowd quickly turned on David Rivas Morales, 40, beating him before leaving him lying on the ground.

He was taken to hospital but pronounced dead soon afterwards. A preliminary autopsy listed “blunt force trauma” as the cause of death, the Associated Press reported.

The driver was able to leave the scene in his car.

“Mr Morales could have been assaulted by two to 20 folks,” said Harold Piatt, from the Austin police department.

“It’s that same crowd mindset of being one face in 1,000. Things get out of hand pretty quickly and people don’t have the good sense to stop.”

I have no idea what this post has to do with the summer solstice, by the way …

I’m not above admitting I’m always a bit curious to see who tops Maxim’s Hot 100 list every year. Even though it’s basically the same list: Angelna, Halle, a bunch of chicks I never heard of from The O.C. and M.T.V. and another bunch Eli Roth will probably cut to pieces in his next gorno flick.

This year’s hottest of the hot Lindsay Lohan left me with mixed feelings.

On one hand, Lindsay Fucking Lohan?

She’s cute, okay, but not exactly the sexiest woman in the world. (Actually, those pictures of her with the knife gave new and sort of creepy-sexy new meaning to the words “Freaky Friday … but that’s a tangent.)

On the other hand, she’s a straight-up ginger, so I considered the choice a step in the right direction in a pigment-progressive sort of way.

…

The list also caught the attention of AfterEllen, the “News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media” website.

The freely admit that Maxim ain’t for lesbians, in fact, they say “it flies in the face of all that we hold dear, especially when it declares Lindsay Lohan the hottest of them all, as it did when it published The Maxim Hot 100 List last month.”

I’m not sure what that means, but they did create their own list.

Again, I must admit to a certain curiosity about which chicks chicks think are hot chicks.

Not sure why.

I just admit to it.

Clearly, what straight men and lesbians find sexy in a woman is a little bit different.

“Hot” for lesbians and bisexual women comes in all ages, sizes, colors and styles, as the diversity of women on our list demonstrates — from Tina Fey (No. 7) and Helen Mirren (No. 31), to Ellen DeGeneres (No. 50), America Ferrera (No. 30) and Queen Latifah (No. 55). There’s even a conservative Republican in the mix (Angie Harmon, No. 82), proving we can still find a women sexy even if we don’t agree with her alternative lifestyle choice.

The list also shows that we like women who like us — slightly over half the women on the AfterEllen.com Hot 100 List have played queer characters at one time or another. Eight of the women (nine, if you count Drew Barrymore) are openly lesbian or bisexual; they’re noted with an asterisk (*) next to their name.

But there is one thing all the women on the list have in common: They’re more than just pretty faces. Many of these women aren’t just women we like, they’re women we want to be like — women we admire as well as desire.

Here’s their Top Five:

1. Leisha Hailey

2. Angelina Jolie

3. Kate Winslet

4. Lena Heady

5. Sara Shahi

HT to Renee Gannon who has her own top five.

Coitus interruptus?
Naked couple who fell from roof to their deaths may have been having sex

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of an office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Clothing was discovered on the roof of the four-story building, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

“It’s too early to rule out anything,” Columbia police Sgt. Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation did not show any sign of foul play.

May?

DL: just ‘cuz I’ve been on vacation doesn’t mean you have to ignore me all the time! What am I, the redheaded stepchild?

Not quite the mile-high club
Posted June 20th, 2007 by Donna Lethal
Categories: what the fuck?, Darwin Award

… or as my friend Eve Golden quipped, “The Sailor Who Fell with Grace from the Roof:”
OR: “Sgt McCants investigates No-Pants Dance gone wrong”

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths. The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday. Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released. “It’s too early to rule out anything,” Columbia police Sgt. Florence McCants said, but McCants said a preliminary investigation didn’t show any sign of foul play.

back to the ranch. hold down the fort, actor.

$1250 on the amex later (with “courtesy discount,” too, natch) i should be smiling … but the 6+ shots of novocaine coupled with “root flushing” and some sort of antibiotic implant in what was believed to have been a root canal ten years ago have prevented me from doing so.

on the bright side, the dentist assured me that no amount of plastic surgery or good skin care can save a caving-in face resulting from bone loss, and that i was indeed doing the right thing. natch, i stopped at city bakery to get my iced chocolate (which i just had now - i refused to humiliate myself any further by spilling it all over my new dress or shoes.) even with the novocaine, brentwood is definitely hell personified.

UPDATE! St. Apollonia, Patron Saint of Dentistry

Apollonia was born in Egypt in the 3rd century, and died in the year 249. She was an elderly deaconess, living in Alexandria, who lived in a refuge for Christians. She was martyred for not renouncing her faith during the reign of Emperor Philip. The account of the life of St. Apollonia was written by St. Dionysius to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch. One night, angry pagans began a riot and violently attacked believers of the faith. Apollonia had all her teeth knocked out after being hit in the face by a Christian persecutor. After she was threatened with fire unless she renounced her faith, Apollonia said a prayer and jumped into the flames voluntarily—which St. Augustine adamantly defended as an act of heroic faith and not suicide, which would be unsaintly. She is considered the patron of dental diseases and is often invoked by those with toothaches. Ancient art depicts her with a golden tooth at the end of her necklace. Also in art, she is seen with a pincers holding a tooth. Parts of her jaw and many of her teeth are presently housed in churches across Europe. Her feast day is February 9th.

Remember: suicide is unsaintly!

. . . a worried nation asks.

He’s been over on Instaputz writing this classic post on Mad Althouse.

My guess is the dumbshit didn’t notice that the scene from the Sopranos episode being parodied featured vagina onion rings.

RM: I’ll be back up to snuff soon. I’ve been busy developing a capacity for Russian vodka, which so far I neither like nor tolerate.

DL: i was wondering, too. around my sixth shot of novocaine today i went, “where is RodMe?”
“which so far I neither like nor tolerate.” I married someone like that once. Stop while you can.

Hey, what are vagina rings? Am I missing out on something?!

Alex: Mad Althouse thought the reference to “onion rings” in the Hillary video was oblique vagina symbolism, instead of a reference to the food featured in the last Sopranos episode being parodied.

You know, just because her own twat is dry, deep-fried, and crusty.