Tecs finally looks in his cellar.

...and finds Ashley Greene.

Rot says,"Deport the ones that can't pitch in the majors."

If it is the Perfect Parody, it is Planet Pepe's Daily Kos

As they say in Versailles: Magnifique!

The quote is from Jamison Foser, a Le Pewian if ever stench met cess.
"Media pick up where they left off 8 years ago

To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation's leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.

Whenever reporters think -- or want you to think -- they've uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase "Blagogate" to stick -- the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix "-gate" to the end of a word.

Sanchez's efforts to create a catchphrase aside, the criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich this week isn't the Watergate of the 21st century -- though it shows signs that it may become this decade's Whitewater.

Right about now, you may be scratching your head, trying to remember what, exactly, the Whitewater scandal was. Didn't it have something to do with a bank? Or a land deal? But didn't the Clintons lose money? How did the congressman who shot the pumpkin fit in?

But Whitewater is quite simple, when it is understood as it should be -- as a media scandal, not a presidential scandal. ...

And yet, here we are again, with an incoming Democratic president who hails from a city we are all supposed to believe is the most corrupt place this side of Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. Chicago, we are told, is a den of villainy so irredeemable it defies credulity to suggest anyone could emerge from so much as a long layover at O'Hare without a closet full of skeletons.

This nonsense was well under way during the presidential campaign, during which John McCain suggested a lack of integrity on Obama's part simply because he is from Chicago. You might think that a man who was a participant in one of the most notorious scandals in the history of the U.S. Senate would be laughed at if he tried to claim his opponent lacked integrity simply because of his ZIP code. Instead, the national media laughed along with McCain, endlessly repeating his witty zinger about Chicago.

And so this week, we've heard over and over how politics in Illinois are rotten to the core."

Attn: Intellectual Libertarians

Looks like some good panel topics and featured speakers, the U of Chicago representing. I won't be able to make it, but just thought I'd pass it along to anyone interested. See below. ~mft


Conference Title: SHAPING THE NEW ADMINISTRATION'S COUNTERTERROISM STRATEGY
January 12-13, 2009: 8:00am to 6:15pm
F.A. Hayek Auditorium

Registration fee: $50

With a new administration in the White House, January 2009 will be the starting point for a new approach to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. This conference presents solid, immensely practical analyses of strategic counterterrorism policies based on the lessons and experiences of the past eight years and earlier, and on what proven strategies will yield the most beneficial results for the United States. In addition, the conference focuses on defining realistic objectives and allocating military, federal and state government expenditures according to these goals. To accomplish this, an outstanding group of more than 35 national and global experts has been assembled to share their insights, accomplishments, and strategic recommendations for the coming administration.

FEATURED SPEAKERS INCLUDE

Steve Coll: President and CEO, New America Foundation
Paul Slovic: President, Decision Research
Mia Bloom: Assistant Professor of International Affairs, University of Georgia
Robert Pape: Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
Paul Pillar: Visiting Professor, Georgetown University

PANEL TOPICS

How Overreaction and Misdirection Play into the Terrorism Strategy
Terrorism’s Causes: Grievances, Goals, or Gang Membership
Terrorist Groups: A Status Report
Assessing Terrorists’ Capability to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction
Domestic Security: Risk Management and Cost-Benefit Analysis
Military Force: Proactive Counterterrorism or Provocation?
Responsibility for Protection: Federal, State, Local, Private, and Personal
Communicating about Terrorism and Terrorist Attacks

For more information, please visit www.cato.org/counterterrorism

Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001