E M P H Y R I O

Remember This Guy?

That sad case of a congressional candidate who faked a car accident and disappearance to salvage his flagging campaign (for which he had mortgaged his house to the hilt, without telling his wife, by the way):

       

A former Democratic congressional candidate was sentenced to 20 days in jail and a year of home confinement for faking an auto accident as a desperate bid to revive his flagging campaign, according to WMUR-TV.

A judge also ordered Gary Dodds to repay various state and local agencies over $20,000 after they spent 27 hours searching for him...

snip

When found, Dodds said he had left the car after the accident, wandered through the snowy woods, crossed a river, and spent the night under leaves, where he was found.

snip

....a county prosecutor presented evidence that Dodds was in fact indoors for at least part of the time he was allegedly wandering the New Hampshire wilderness, and had soaked his feet and legs in water to give credence to his tall tale.

For some reason I'm remided of the Bill Macy character in Fargo.  Desperate and hapless.

Well, at least it didn't turn that bad.  Nobody wound up in a wood-chipper.

No End in Sight

View it for free on Google Video.

Or, if your name is Dick, Don, George or Paul, just wait until you die and see it repeatedly for eternity on the inside of your eyelids.

One hell of a good job, Charles Ferguson.

So That's It

Two posts down I wondered at the coincidence of McCain and Cheney going to Iraq at the same time.  What was up?

Now we know.  It was to make sure everything was in place for the Iraq government offensive against Sadr, and so that McCain was fully briefed on the players so he wouldn't say anything to embarrass himself in the campaign.

That part didn't work, thanks to his Senior Moments confusing Sunni al Qaeda and the Shi'a militias which Iran is actually supporting. 

It's a daring move, risking the quiescence of the truce by breaking it -- I imagine irrevocably.  They must destroy the Sadrists or face protracted civil war, it seems to me.

Question: will the newly-armed (and no longer regularly paid-off) Sunni militias sit this out, or seize the day?

No wonder Petraeus said "whoa, Nelly" to any troop drawdown.

He thinks he's going to need them.  He knew this was in the works.

He also is complicit in the implicate-Iran campaign, as when he declared rockets falling in the Green Zone as coming from Iran.

Could be this offensive is to beat the bushes, so to speak, in the hope an Iranian tiger is flushed.  And to get a causus belli to rain bombs on Iran.

Between this and the economic meltdown, events are moving so quickly it's hard to take any daily event in the Presidential race seriously.  Tuzla!  God Damn America! Tax Returns! The election is going to take place in another world, a star-system away.

If it takes place, my more pessimistic friends would add.

Reject McCain

A new blog collecting oppo research points.  Plenty of "old guy" jokes, too.

Boy, that Vicki Iseman story came and went fast.  And we never heard from her.

Perhaps she's vacationing in Bhutan for the rest of the year.

McCain and Cheney in Baghdad

Josh Marshall notes the snark in this headline about the visit, but the coincidence of the two men being there on the same day makes me wonder what they're doing.

I would imagine it's arranging a Great Positive Development in Iraqi government circles in the weeks before the election in November, to ease the way for McCain's victory.

It's hard to believe they could pull off anything but the most cosmetic farce, but maybe so.

I suspect the meltdown of the financial system will make Iraq progress nugatory, in any event.

Love that word, "nugatory."

Best Ever

Every panel of this episode of This Modern World drips with the finest sarcasm; particularly the bottom row. 

If only Tom Tomorrow wasn't handed such good raw material.

America went broke performing the crime of the century.  Amazing.

Click to enlarge.

Now You Know

...the rest of the story.  Maybe.

I can't decide how I feel about Greg Palast.  His know-it-all jokeyness irks me. 

But he seems to get scoops, the results of real investigation, nobody else gets.

And he makes the case that Spitzer was taken down because he was going to fight Bush and Bernake's trickle-down bailouts of the investment banks. 

I admit I read the web carelessly sometimes, but never once in the scandal coverage did I read the quotes Palast provides, or see the dots connected in this way.

I think I believe it.  And it chills me.

Of All Con Artists

I find the most odious those who target the elderly.

Envious of Romantic Adventure

Atrios once described him as a "mediocre narcissist," and the appellation comes to mind when he says something even dumber than usual. 

And it isn't even a verbal stumble.  It's heartfelt.

Archduke Ferdinand Found Alive

WWI A Mistake

Because some jokes are evergreen.

Today's headline: 

Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida