Picture of the day

Via Animal New York comes this example of a time where maybe Google should have built a couple of better filters into its ad program. Sure the AP video in question is ostensibly about Iran, women, and using the internet for communication, but you weren't supposed to jumble them all up together into a plea for horny guys with an oppression fetish. Sure I've heard of targeted marketing, but I didn't think "men who watch AP news footage of revolutions and are single" was a key demo. Still at least the rioting scenes didn't cause ads for surplus rubble or discounted Korans to come up. Better luck next time.

Let's see the AP sue over this

via Geekologie comes a collection of all the nerd related Obama "hope style" posters that the site obamicon.me has spawned. Youbentmywookie also has an extensive gallery. Not pictured is this one, which is still the best and this one: ...which is also good.

For Charles Babington: how a bill becomes a law

In a bizarre recap of the Obama speech, AP writer Charles Babington took a speech laced with dozens of specific policy proposals and deemed them not specific with his magic AP Stick of Deeming. What he feels is specific is some level of exactness not possible by our elected leaders. Apparently, Chuck wanted Barack Obama to read drafts of legislation that he planned to enter as bills to be voted on by congress.

Barack Obama, whose campaign theme is "change we can believe in," promised Thursday to "spell out exactly what that change would mean."

But instead of dwelling on specifics, he laced the crowning speech of his long campaign with the type of rhetorical flourishes that Republicans mock and the attacks on John McCain that Democrats cheer. The country saw a candidate confident in his existing campaign formula: tie McCain tightly to President Bush, and remind voters why they are unhappy with the incumbent.
...
He said he would "cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families," but did not say how.

Someone who works for the AP and covers politics for a living should understand how a bill becomes a law. Here Charles let me give you the shorthand: Obama writes bill that cuts taxes for 95% of working families, hands it to the House who votes on it, goes to the Senate where they vote on it, if they both pass it Obama can then sign it into law. That's how it works. If that's too complicated, perhaps this will help.

Accidental Truth In Media: Joe Lieberman

Bad Typo: Joe Lieberman a Real #%&*!

One of the most amusing typos of the season turned up for awhile overnight in a major Associated Press dispatch. Some in the liberal blogosphere, who have often criticized Sen. Joe Lieberman -- the Democrat turned Independent who has endorsed John McCain -- found it all too apt.

The typo, in an article on the upcoming vice presidential picks due from McCain and Barack Obama and written by one of the top AP political scribes, Nedra Pickler, was soon corrected but can still be found viewed via Google at numerous news sites early this morning.

After focusing on Obama, the article discusses several possible McCain picks, and relates, "His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent."

It's still up at such sites as the Houston Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Cleveland's Plain Dealer and many more.

I know what you're saying: where's the typo? But some people believe he's something less than a self-obsessive narcissist who conducts foreign policy on the basis of whether it makes himself look bad by admitting massive, massive wrongness. He also seems to want the US to act out Israel's foreign policy over our own and likes to question the patriotism of people who disagree with him, but these are minor quibbles about America's foremost Droopy Dog impersonator. Maybe I should lay off, he was the Dad on ALF after all and I kinda liked that show.

I've heard the definition of a 'gaffe', the only political speech our news media is actually interested in, is when someone says the truth accidentally. So what is it when the AP accidentally prints the truth? Factcidental? A factcident. I like it.

What situation do we have to contrive so that Dick Cheney will be referred to as a shambling, cretinous, amoral homunculus?