5.23.2009

Conservative radio host waterboarded, says it's "absolutely torture"

(Huff Post)
Erich "Mancow" Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.

Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke," Mancow said. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back... It was instantaneous... and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face... I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "


And Mancow went through the paddy-cake version, unlike Christopher Hitchens from Vanity Fair last year. (story here, video here)

From John Cole:
Not to diminish Mancow’s experience, but if he thought that was torture, think what the real deal must be like. You are snatched out of nowhere, flown across the world, kept awake for days on end in a freezing room with little food, woken every time you fall asleep on your metal bed, thrown against the wall with that lovely procedure known as collaring, slapped, had dogs threatening you, yelled at and beaten, and so on and so forth. That goes on for a couple weeks to soften you up, then you are dragged by multiple burly men and waterboarded repeatedly. You have no dead man’s switch like Hitchens did, you have no “safe” word to stop the process, there are no cameras and friends there to make sure you are alright. These people have been abusing you non-stop for days or weeks, for all you know this is when they finally kill you.

5.22.2009

Jesse Ventura slams Sean Hannity: "He's scared to death of me"

(Huff Post)
Jesse Ventura, the former Minnesota governor and presidential candidate, vows that if he waterboarded Sean Hannity, he'd get the right-wing Fox News host to say that "Barack Obama is the greatest president."

In an interview with Huffington Post, Ventura reiterated his opposition to the use of waterboarding, which he himself experienced as part of his training as a Navy SEAL, and other forms of enhanced interrogation, expressed skepticism about Obama's national security strategy, and revealed his strategy for his appearances on Fox News.

Ventura says that Hannity cut short his interview with him before they had a chance to discuss waterboarding because he's afraid of the former governor and pro wrestler.

"He's scared to death of me," says Ventura. "It was over in a few minutes and that was it."

Ventura offered his own version of Keith Olbermann's vow to give a thousand dollars to charity for every second that Hannity undergoes waterboarding.

"I'll bet [Hannity] a thousand bucks that I can get him to say 'Barack Obama is the greatest president' -- if I get him to say it, he'll give the thousand to charity and if I can't, I'll give the money to charity."

Ventura also says that Bill O'Reilly is afraid to have him on the show. "I always want to go on, I've got something, I'm going to blast him for something. I don't want to reveal what it is so he can't prepare. But he doesn't have the courage to have me on... I saw him once in the lobby at Fox and he tells me he'll have me on and then he never does. Bill Maher is the same way."

Andy Samberg: On A Boat for Memorial Day

This has been out for a while, but with Memorial Day here and the official kickoff of summer, it's time to get on a boat.

5.21.2009

Superman's Anguish

Excepted below is part of a New York Times profile of Philadelphia Eagles lineman Shawn Andrews who missed the 2008 season because of depression and later, injury. It's an insight into what's under the helmet and a reminder that these are men, not gods.

(New York Times)
As reporters gathered earlier this month, Shawn Andrews, a two-time Eagles Pro Bowl offensive lineman who has battled depression, was told that he seemed again to be his familiar cheery self. He did seem playful. He wore a rust-colored cockscomb haircut. And he stood in front of a locker that contained a football-shaped likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants, along with a photograph of his young son, JaShawn.

“There’s some good and bad in there,” Andrews, 26, said of himself. “If you know the song ‘Tears of a Clown,’ that would kind of describe my past a little bit up to now.”

Andrews weighed 230 pounds by age 12 and said he had wrestled with his self-image for years, having been picked on because of his size and because he grew up poor in Camden, Ark.

“A lot of people say football should help you channel your anger and aggression,” Andrews said. “But it’s not as easy as people think it is.”

“It’s hard for a student to learn when you worry about who’s making fun of your clothes and who’s picking on you every single day,” Andrews said.

One day at practice(during college), Andrews said, he burst out crying during stretching exercises and could not move. He left college early, saying he could not bear to see his mother struggle to keep the lights on.

After signing with the Eagles in 2004, he bought his mother a Mercedes-Benz and said he began to spend lavishly on himself, buying a Hummer, expensive jewelry and, later, a Rolls-Royce.

“I bought a whole bunch of things that I thought were going to boost who I really was, make people like me more, try to impress people versus being smart,” Andrews said. “I wasted $300,000 on a car. I was fortunate to get a grasp on myself before it became too late.”

Others began treating him differently, he said. Before his rookie season, he said that one longtime Arkansas friend asked him, “How much are you worth?” Then the friend asked for help in paying child support, rent and a car loan. After he declined, Andrews said, the friend invited him to a deer-hunting camp. Another friend later warned that he was being set up to be shot in what would look like a hunting accident, Andrews said.

As the 2008 season approached, Andrews said he found himself caught in a personal vortex. The birth of his son had brought excitement and some concern.

“I had a new obligation, and I’m going to fulfill it because of my past experience,” Andrews said, a reference to his growing up in a single-parent home.

At the same time, Andrews said his interest in football began to flag.

“I was partying, drinking to try to hide what was really going on,” he said. “Temporarily, it helped me. In the grand scheme, it really didn’t.”

He held out from training camp. The Eagles said they would fine him $15,000 a day. When Moran told him how much money he stood to lose, Andrews said his reaction was, “So what?”

Early last August, as rumors grew about his absence, Andrews told reporters that he was suffering from depression, had sought professional help and was taking medication. He eventually reported to the team, but played in only two games before sustaining a herniated disk in his back, which required surgery.

So far this off-season, (Eagles head coach Andy) Reid said, Andrews is “doing a great job.” Andrews said the move to tackle could rejuvenate his career.

Still, his renewed enthusiasm has been tempered by the fact that he has missed nearly two full seasons to injury.

“All the physical anguish I’ve been through, the thought of not being able to get up and play with my son, that really keeps my mind going every day,” Andrews said.

He sees some of his teammates dropping items and struggling to bend and pick them up.

“I don’t want to live like that,” Andrews said.
Click here for the entire article (registration required)

FINALLY! The trailer for "The Road" is out

The trailer for the movie "The Road", based on the book by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian, All The Pretty Horses) is out. It has a lot to live up to, but Viggo Mortensen is always excellent.

5.20.2009

Jesse Ventura and Sean Hannity go face to face

This is a new line from Hannity: "George Bush inherited the negative impact of 9/11." That's apparently a new counter to the old refrain about how Obama "inherited" all sorts of turd sandwiches from his predecessor.

Hannity attempts a weird a rambling case about the Clinton administration's inattention to terrorists, and just as I am imagining the obvious rebuttal, Ventura calmly enunciates it:
HANNITY: There were a group of radicals that were at war with the United States and we weren't at war with them. We saw the first Trade Center bombing, the Embassy bombings, the USS Cole, and we think radicals that think God is going to reward them in Heaven with virgins. Jesse, how do you stop them.

VENTURA: Well, you pay attention to memos on August 6 that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do.
But the best moment comes toward the end when Hannity basically presents LOVING REAGAN as some sort of personal accomplishment, earned through diligence and sweat, only to have Ventura shoot him a withering "so what?" face.

Top it off with these Ventura nuggets: "Republicans spend like Democrats, except they charge it. Democrats are cash-and-carry."

"Kept us safe. The biggest attack in history on (Bush's) watch. I'll thank him, Mr. Don't Read Memos".

Whoopi and Barbara eviscerate Glenn Beck

Whoopi calls beck on lying about an encounter on the train going to the Correspondents Dinner. Beck is forced to first acknowledge a "mischaracterization", and then it gets worse from there. Whoopi then calls him a "lying sack of dog mess".

Then Barbara goes ape on him for claiming to be a reporter and yet not bothering to check his facts. She tears into him while lecturing him on how to be a proper investigative journalist.

Glenn truly gets his ass handed to him. Six and a half minutes of the best TV EVER!


Then, segment 2 goes well until about 2:45 where Glenn spins an honest Barbara question to make it seem like an attack against him. And then he can't really name his real convictions.

The League of Extraordinarily Stupid Gentlemen

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) has long been one of the most outspoken global warming skeptics in the Congress.

This morning, on C-SPAN, he denounced the pending cap-and-trade legislation by stating that "the stupidest thing that Congress could do this year is pass Waxman-Markey."

Barton, who has resisted proposals to reduce the country's oil dependence, explained that there shouldn't be any concern about carbon-dioxide emissions because CO2 is relatively harmless:
I'm creating it as I talk to you. It's in your Coca-Cola. your Dr. Pepper and your Perrier water. It's necessary for human life. It's odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn't cause cancer, doesn't cause asthma. There's nobody that's ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.


I've run this one before, but as it now seems to be a part of a talking point of extraordinary stupidity, it needs to be seen again...

"Carbon dioxide is basically this. (Exhales.) Look at how much pollution I just put out." — Glenn Beck



What I would like to point out to these dumbasses is that... yes... we do create CO2. Breathing does create it.

NOW.... put a plastic bag over your head and breathe heavily for 3 minutes. See what happens then, dipshits.

Case closed.

5.18.2009

Gallup: GOP losing ground among nearly EVERY demographic

(Huff Post)
The decline and fall of the Republican Party in recent years has been so widespread that the party has lost support among nearly every major demographic subgroup of likely voters across the country, according to a new Gallup poll.

The party lost support among a broad swath of Americans, from conservative to liberal, low-income to high-income, married to unmarried, and elderly to young.

The only subgroup in which the party saw a slight increase in support from 2001 to 2009 was frequent churchgoers.

The biggest declines, of roughly 10 percent, occurred among the college-educated, 18 to 29-year-olds, and Midwestern voters.

The turning point was 2005, after Hurricane Katrina and Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, when the party's support really started to free-fall, according to Gallup: "By the end of 2008, the party had its worst positioning against the Democrats in nearly two decades."

The press, Pelosi and torture

Excellent piece from Bob Cesca:
The most striking aspect of the establishment media coverage (mainly cable news) of the Pelosi situation is that it mirrors the ridiculous coverage we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Rather than examining the very serious facts and fallacies, more attention is being given to sideshow distractions and superficial "did they make their case" banter.

The Republicans dictated the terms of the debate back then, and they appear to be doing so now. But this time, it's clear that both factions -- the establishment media and the Republicans -- are clearly in CYA mode. If the discussion moves to the Torture-for-War nexus, then we have to discuss the run-up to the war which will invariably include talk about how the press failed to expose the problems with the the plans for invasion.

But instead of making up for those pre-war failures, the establishment media is repeating the same behavior.

In particular, it's glaringly awkward to watch MSNBC during the morning and daytime as they attempt to turn this Pelosi-Panetta news into a sequel to their treatment of the Democratic primary campaign. You know, turning a serious debate into a "He Said, She Said" smackdown.

It reeks of desperation -- desperation to avoid the real issue -- and amplifies many of the negative observations we've all made about the awful state of television news reporting.

Adding... Yglesias wrote an excellent piece about how the GOP's Pelosi focus is bound to backfire on them.

Ferrell back on SNL with a new Jeopardy

Instant classic with Tom Hanks and Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery