Bent Corner

Gen. Wesley Clark, working now for the Obama campaign was on CBS’ Face the Nation were he proceeded to demean and disparage Senator John McCain’s military service.  From Politico:

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron,” Clark said.

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

Let’s call it Swift Boating 2.0.  When John Kerry was running for President, the Republicans belittled his service in Vietnam.  I remember even seeing photos of women wearing purple band-aids on their faces at the GOP National Convention.  The message was that Kerry wasn’t a war hero.  He did really deserve any of his military citations including the Silver Star and those Purple Hearts.

It was disgusting then and it disgusting now.  The difference of course is that it’s the Democrats that are now belittling the military service of a Republican. The Swift Boating of 2004 did not actually come from anyone working in the Bush campaign.

Is this what Obama means when he says that he is all about Change™?

Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, Face the Nation, John Kerry, John McCain, Republicans, Silver Star, Swift Boating, Vietnam, Wesley Clark

Gasoline is currently hovering at around $4 a gallon.  I heard a talking-head expert on CNN say that it may climb to $6 a gallon before the end of summer.  Normally I’d say he was just making it up, but he was wearing a tie and a tweed blazer. He obviously looked like he knew what he was talking about.

Why does gas cost so much?  The experts say that it’s because of the price of oil.  The price of a barrel of crude keeps rising to astronomical levels.  Oil futures climbed all they way up to $143 a barrel this past Friday.

One of the things I don’t understand about this whole process is why gasoline fluctuates, but motor oil doesn’t.  Gasoline isn’t the only thing derived from crude oil.  Motor oil comes from crude too.  It costs around $25 bucks to have my car’s oil changed at one of the national chains.  That’s what I was paying ten years ago.  Why has the price of an oil change not risen at the same exponential rate that gasoline has?

With gas at $4 a gallon, why doesn’t it cost $80 for an oil change?  All things being equal, you would think that it would.

Tags: Crude Oil, Gas, Oil

Her husband might be a beady-eyed, Holocaust denying whackjob, but you’ve got to admit that the First Lady of Iran is a real looker.

Obviously she is his trophy wife.

Link

Tags: Holocaust Denier, Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Women Married to Whackjobs

If you attend this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, you will have the opportunity to buy one of these snazzy official Battlestar Galactica toasters. They are being made available from NBC Universal at $75 each. The production run is limited at 1,000.

The term “toaster” is a racial slur used by the Colonists against their hated enemies, the Cylons.

Link

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Cylons, NBC Universal, San Diego Comic-Con, Toaster

Comic book artist Michael Turner has died. He was 37.

Comic Book Resources has a nice article about him and his eight year battle with bone cancer. I think Newsarama has also written about Michael Turner passing, but it’s muddled under articles about Wizard World Chicago and the new Wall*E movie that opened this weekend.

Michael Turner was an extremely talented artist. More importantly, he seemed like a very nice person.

Michael Turner will be missed. This really sucks.

Tags: Cancer, Michael Turner

Proving once again the Hollywood ran out of original ideas a long time ago, USA Today is reporting that Robert Rodriguez will be producing a new Red Sonja movie. Playing the title role will be none other then 34-year old Rose McGowan, star of Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. She’s also the woman Rodriguez left his wife and five children for.

Very classy.

Directing the movie will be longtime Rodriguez associate Douglas Aarniokoski. I wonder if Rodriguez has any worries that Rose McGowan might leave him for Aarniokoski. She seems to have a thing for directors. Maybe she only screws the married directors.

USA Today reports that the movie will be taking it’s cues from both the comic books and the original works of novelist Robert E. Howard, the creator of the original Sonja. Both McGowan and Rodriguez claim to have not seen the 1985 version of Red Sonja staring Brigitte Nielsen.

Tags: Brigitte Nielsen, Douglas Aarniokoski, Red Sonja, Robert E. Howard.Rose McGowan, Robert Rodriguez

I just installed a Firefox extension called ScribeFire. It integrates with Firefox and allows you write a new post to your blog without leaving the website you are currently looking at.

Press the ScribeFire button at the bottom of the browser (or press F8) and a full featured edit pane appears at the bottom of the screen. You can make it bigger or smaller by grabbing and dragging it with your mouse.

I’m using it now to write this post. So far, so good. It looks as though it does everything that could be done normally with WordPress.

It doesn’t only work with WordPress. They have a list of the various blog services or platforms that you can use ScribeFire with. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Tags: Blogging, ScribeFire, WordPress

Steven Hatfill, former Army scientist named “a person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks will receive $5.8 million to settle his lawsuit against the Justice Department. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft wont have to pay a cent of that figure even though he’s the one that made a public spectacle in naming Hatfill.

I miss John Ashcroft. Not only could he sing a pretty tune, he once lost an election for the U.S. Senate against a dead man. How funny is that?

Back in 2001 when the anthrax attacks were going on, Steven Hatfill worked at Fort Detrick in nearby Frederick. I used to work with a guy whose wife worked at Fort Detrick. Though she didn’t personally know Hatfill, she knew who he was. She said that everyone that knew Hatfill immediately suspected him of the attacks. When it comes to knowing how to manufacture weapons grade anthrax, there aren’t that many people with the skill and knowledge required. Not only did Hatfill have both of those things, he was also supposedly really weird. Supposedly he just gave people there the creeps.

And these are people that work around the world’s most dangerous pathogens on a daily basis.

Tags: Anthrax, Fort Detrick, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Steven Hatfill

The United States Supreme Court recently handed down a decision concerning the death penalty. In a 5-4 decision, they ruled that those convicted of child rape cannot receive the death penalty. The five justices said the imposition of the death penalty “for the rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death” is prohibited in the US constitution which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Does anyone really think that it is cruel to execute someone that brutally sodomizes a small child?

Maybe I’m just out of touch with the rest of civilized society, but I don’t have much sympathy for someone that would do something like that.

Personally, I’m against the death penalty. I don’t think it solves anything other then taking vengeance against those that commit crimes. I don’t think the government should be in the vengeance business, especially against its own citizens. With that said, I think that if you are going to have the death penalty, you might as well include those that rape children into the mix.

If one drug dealer kills another drug dealer, he could very well face the death penalty for his crime. Am I supposed to believe that his crime is somehow more heinous then someone who rapes a young child?

I don’t think so.

Tags: Child Rape, Death Penalty, United States Supreme Court

Don Imus is once again in hot water over something he said on his radio show. Last time is was about the hair style of the Rutgers ladies basketball team. This time it was concerning former Tennessee Titans defensive back Pacman Adam Jones.

Maybe the I-Man shouldn’t talk about sports?

He and the rest of the people on his show were discussing Jones and how he has been arrested multiple times for multiple offenses. This is what Imus said:

Imus: “What color is he?”

Warner Wolf: “African-American”

Imus: “There you go. Now we know.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I think any time you begin your statement by asking what color someone is, it cannot be good.

I thought much of the Imus outrage the last go around was overblown.  I thought what he said about the lady basketball players was stupid, but I did not think it was as bad as most people pretended it was.  With that said, I think this statement is worse then what he said about the lady basketball players.  A lot worse.

Don Imus is just a big old racist idiot.  He needs to just go away.

Tags: Adam Jones, Don Imus, Idiots, Pacman Jones, Pretend Cowboys, Racism, Rutgers, Talk Radio