Looking ahead

Field notes

A chevalier and "French" wine mogul working in the Communist-occupied sections of Northern Virginia has packed up a passel of Hebrew yard signs to take down to North Carolina in an overt effort to "confuse the crackers" into voting against Liddy. Somehow the mathematics of it escape me, but the spirit is apparently willing.

A Washington filmmaker finds himself in Portland, Oregon, employing various strategies, presumably including shouting down at Shouting Square whatever that's called where the Bible thumpers and alcoholics howl competing philosophies at each other, or something, he wasn't really specific on the details.

A fretful mother stood over her first born to watch her vote. A nervous nation is waiting to see a first-time Oklahoma voter vote. An incensed Maryland voter takes the 100 percent reasonable position that Diebold should be forced to buy back the machines that Maryland is going to get rid of after this election. If McCain't should win Maryland, it could be an indicator the machines are rigged. If he wins Baltimore, it will be Harare in July.

Beagleland has an extensive network of field organizers and agents from Kampala to Nevada, from Missouri to the rest of Missouri, from all hellandgone and back to your place, but many of them are dilatory about turning in their reports and observations.

If the papers and parties would only listen, Omaha could be in Obama's pocket

A notorious Nebraska newspaperman knows the heartbreak of coining a brilliant neologism that neither wins the Washington Post Style INvitational's stoopid contest nor sparks a prairie brushfire that draws the attention of the MSM until one knows the satisfaction of having an actual news anchor use the apt expression you thought up in the shower...

that many Republigasp-leaning female voters have been Palineated and may pull the Dem lever after all.

Next steps

Beagle readers are known world wild for their can do spirit and their ability and willingness to "lick our problem" in the words of one Beagletarian who submits the delightful piece that, sadly, runs afoul of Beagleterrible space requirements....

See it here.

Some recycled footage

Watch this space

Keep posted for our transition to our post-election blogspace.

A commentary on the debate

Except in Vermont and Wisconsin

Swelling numbers of ardent supporters, some of them living

The Beagle calls for a full investigation

Ask Dr. Hin?

Q: How do you think they're gonna try to do it this time? Cross wire the computers in Columbus and Cleveland? Butterfly the ballots in Bangor and Bettendorf? Shred assorted mail-ins in Las Cruces? Don't mail back mail-in requests in D.C.? Bury North Vegas provisionals in the deepest hole in the desert? Hack in all the counters in Montgomery and Bucks counties and scatter their votes from Wilkes-Barre to Uniontown? Freeze lines in Madison? Start fist fights in poll lines in Milwaukee? Turn out the lights in East St. Louis? Temporarily suspend voting rights in Gary? Knock people in line in Lincoln with a balpeen hammer? Declare victory before California, Oregon, and Washington get a chance to vote? I mean, I admit, I'm getting nervous.

A: It may take an overwhelming tide.

Q: Are you smoking that koolaid or drinking it?

A: Leave no doubt.

Yard sign

Who cares what the Brits think, but the Economist weighs in

And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

Another Brit, crankier, snottier, and more self-absorbed than Andrew Sullivan, who will probably find this post googling himself and rear back on the Beagleterribles like a rabid raccoon with the gobsmacked flailing, scratching, and toxic dribbling, writes:

The Joe Plumbers of America certainly will connect the dots [that William Ayres and Charlie Manson will be in Obama's cabinet] and make their voices known at the ballot boxes on November 4.

We’ll hopefully have a new first couple in the White House who are for America -- not a couple who have been pushing to usher in a new era of government-dominated socialism that militates against the values of individual liberty and limited government that America has always held dear.

Just in time for Halloween

submitted by a Dupont Circle policy manufacturer

I wanna be sedated

If that's their daisy ad...

As Sgt Esterhaus says

Reader Feedbag

A Montgomery philomath challenges the veracity of recently published transcripts of Sarah Paling's heartfelt prayers... Scratch that. What we meant to say was a Montgomery philologist is convinced she has determined it was a clumsy forgery because "there is not one 'also' in this entire prayer, so I know Sarah didn't actually say it!"

A Brooklyn therapist asks uncomfortable questions about circulation growth, which we have always faithfully reported according to projected votership in Beaglepolls, and although some early projections may have been inflated, it is clear that Beagleship is upwards in the low two digits, still an asterisk on the tip of a smaller asterisk of the conglomerated global media.

Earlier we meant to report that a Connecticut political kingmaker who knew Nancy Pelosi when she was a gleam in the Mayor of Baltimore's eyes now situated in the People's Republic of Northern Virginia did raise his head to bark, "Go, Beagle, go," but has not had other comments or commentary on the present state of affairs.

Ask Dr. Hin?

Q: Is there a Freudian in the house? I mean, I believe in healthy competition and all, but...Don't you see the potential for conflicting advice and inconclusive results and, potentially, other deleterious effects, including confusion, consternation, cattywampus conclusions, and concatenations of conflict and chaos?

A: You're a wigwam. You're a tipi.

Q: What?

A: You're two tents.

Q: Since the wigwam is more of a wattle and mud construction, I don't think it qualifies as a tent, in the conventional sense.

A: You get the point.

Q: But, I....

A: Bup, bup, bup...genug!

Was it Alexis de Tocqueville who said, 'Git er done'?

Do it yourself debate.

McCain't-Paling on the couch

Your deep-rooted resentment of your Admiralty ancestry has left you brimming with anger at anyone who would try to tell you what to do, regardless of the value of facts, factors, fractals, or other information that might undermine your certainty in a sense of absolutes, which may not be the same determining guidance that motivated you last year, last week, or even ten minutes ago.

Psychobeaglebabblish therapy would begin with a expiatory ritual that could be a "town meeting" of the American people, if you will, in which you begin by apologizing for being such an ass throughout your career, and especially the last few weeks of this campaign.

Dittoheads are obsessed

Conspiracy theory #1: Obama rushed to Hawaii, not to visit his sick grandma, but to destroy all evidence that he wasn't native-born, unlike John McCain't who was born in the good ole U.S. of A. in the great state of Panama Canal Zone.

Conspiracy theory#2: Obama is a socialist and a terrorist, terrorist-socialist, and he and his other terrorist and socialist and socialist-terrorist friends have a secret plan to convert America to a socialist state through state-sponsored terror and taking Rush Limbo off the air.

Conspiracy theory #3: That the skinhead plot to kill Obama was devised to distract the MSM from the smoking gun the right now has that Obama plans to redistribute all the money and guns away from white people and give it to African Americans.

The original Alaskan maverick

He used to be Ted Stevens, irascible King of the Dominion of Federal Pork, but you can call him #11403

For all those who say that Sarah Palin is the most beleaguered woman in American political history...

allow the Beagletarians to introduce you to our friend, Hillary Clinton. One of the most entertaining occupations this election season has been to watch the Pat Bleechanans, Sean Ham-itys, Billy O'Reallys?, and Rash Limbos talking glowingly about how wonderful Hillary Clinton is. Even Ann C(a certain word)lter said she would vote for Hillary over McCain't, but drat it all, she says she's planning to get blotto with all her righteous sistas and go pull the level for Palin with McCain't just going along for the ride. (Note: Annie is really for repealing the 19th Amendment, since too many women vote Democratic).

Flap about her clothes? Hillary's heard it. Questioning her abilities and judgments as a mother? Hillary's had it. Questions about her preparation, abilities, emotional suitability, sanity, allegations about affairs, questions about her sexual orientation, on-going -- multiyear -- investigations into loose ends and dead ends? She's had it.

Sarah -- come back to us after 15 years of dealing with the constant drumbeat of criticism and questioning, and show us the same good grace and good humor that Hillary has shown, and then we'll decide whether you're as tough as you want us to think.

Geaux Obama

From a committed advocate with deep southern roots.

Funny or die

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

By request of a Montgomery County union goon

For those who can't get enough of whomping on Sarah Palin, more funny or die (not so funny)

Michelle Bachman's investigation into who in Congress is pro-American and anti-American quietly gets underway

A forward look

Endorsements

Rolling Stone recommended by an eastern Tennessee Democrat.
New Yorker recommended from outside Tennessee.
Colin Powell on Meet the Press.

Don't misbehave

Ready, fire, aim

What else can she do?

For more on the story

McCain comes with all that experience and says he has a plan

A new plan

It's up to you

More free ads

More ugly food

A scene from simpler times

Federal prosecutors were investigating some bank examiners. Ha ha. Reportedly, the employees embezzled a few million dollars. Ha ha ha. How quaint. We're all getting soaked for trillions, ha ha ha ha. What did they think they were going to buy with their measly haul? A couple of Krugerrands? Ha ha ha ha. A couple of million. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Maybe not weekly

"Liberal" just doesn't carry the same punch

Ramping up the intellectual heft of the debate, Jena Mccain't goes from pillar of decorum to post-apocalyptic horse manure. And look a the picture. He's proud of it.

Erratic publication schedule

Code breaker reveals Arabic version of W's name

/ˈdʒɔɹdʒ ˈwɑkɚ ˈbʊʃ/

An unexpected endorsement

Reader feedbag

An Alabama rights attorney asks with all but silent reproach, "Polygamy?," perhaps suggesting that insensitive, anti-feminist humor is beyond the doggie dish.

A solid mom at 6,000 feet refuses to have her comments on the subject, delivered through gritted teeth, published or referenced.

A friendly Republican suggests that the Beagle has become a teensy cynical and avers that socialism isn't the answer.

An eastern Tennessean recommends a spike in Badweiser consumption, in hopes that Cindy might adopt the United States as her next charity case.

Affirmative action needed for evangelical journalists

"'Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges,' whined Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center for Christian Colleges and Universities."

Too many Adlai Stevenson eggheads in the MSM don't understand the kind of pick it up and fix it spirit of like the Joe Six-Packs who have the simple, straightforward, American solution to every problem -- bang it with a hammer or wrap it up in duct tape...and, if all else fails, blow it up.

"Since the 1980s, when the Christian right emerged as a powerful force in American culture and politics, evangelicals have made significant inroads in law and government. But they haven't been as successful at changing the nation's newsrooms."

Not since the Synods of Antioch have we seen such a smoldering cauldron of Manichean, Arian, and Anomoean heresies.

How to solve the present economic crisis

In the 1970s, reeling from inflation, energy prices, wage droop, and stagflation, Americans quietly solved their economic problems by shoving all their spouses into the workforce -- giving women greater opportunities to experience the joys of being overworked and underappreciated just as men had for years. Today, too few families have an extra spouse to throw into the riveting assembly line or spy on employees at their computer printer company, and so we need a new, bold policy -- one proposed and advocated and modeled by the visionary Brigham Young.

Polygamy!

More spouses means more income for families making it easier for them to make ends meet.

You better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone

McCain't unveils his October surprise economic proposal

And I have a plan to get the American economy moving again.

Ask Dr. Hin?

Q: In these perilous times you sit with some godfersaken Himalayan rock up yer ass and the best you can say is nothing? (lightly red-penciled from original text)

A: Nothing is the place from which we may begin.

Q: Is that all you got?

A: Nothing is our ultimate destination.

Q: Should I risk another 40 percent hit on my 401(k) or take the 33 percent hit of early withdrawal penalty?

A: I don't think you've been listening.

Ad season continues

Isn't the U.S. just like an abused spouse?

Beaten out of wages and benefits, threatened with layoffs, raped of pensions and retirement savings, health care. Night after night, GOSPers come home drunk off spending trillions in borrowed Chinese Walmart dollars, running up the household debt on gambling and giving it all away to their pals, complaining about the unions and the media and the rest of that socialist cabal, and holding forth clamorously about their earnest intentions to some day do some thing about prayer in schools, abortion, vouchers, creation science, yadder yadder before snoozing off in front of the news.

More friends weigh in

Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case. -- Chris Buckley

This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking? -- more Chris Buckley

Transcript tape on fritz again but basically

Anybody watching the debate would ask, 'Why should I vote for John McCain?' (uncomfortable pause) I mean, I could give an answer, but I don't think he did. -- William Kristol (junior)
followed by various Fox commentators saying what they think he should have said for the balance of the hour.

Spin alley

McCain't at debate night

He'll raise your taxes

He'll raise your taxes

A crustacean explanation of the current crisis

When you catch a passel of crabs in, say, the Chesapeake, and you take them to market a dump out your ship load where they are sold by weight allowing for the occasional dead crab in the bunch over gross tonnage per daily exchange rate and that's capitalism at its best in the price and product department.

Down off at the boat barn, the new owner packages up the crabs in convenient bushel-sized baskets for sale to the public. And if, at the pace required by the floor supervisor, one tosses in a dead crab or two, it is still the market standard and acceptable if not abused. And sitting in the back of in the parking lot of a Saturday can stress any healthy crab, so that by the time you get home there may be as many as three -- or for some -- as many as four dead crabs and the customer will still likely go back and get another bushel the next Saturday or so.

But let's say, a bunch of spunky ex-frat boys working summers line the bottom of every bushel with dead crabs, and then then some pinstriped pinheads in $2,500 suits consolidate all the crab baggers and they decide to line the bottom of every bushel with two rows of dead crabs, and then some financial geniuses who've been mainlining the rhetoric of the rabid right and voracious laissez faire types in a desperate GOSPer attempt to consume all of the world's resources comes up with the brilliant idea of filling every bushel half full of dead crabs and selling it as a new improved product...

Then people stop buying crabs and start asking about the price of oysters.

Nail-biter in Malé

With no candidate winning a majority in the first democratic presidential election in the Maldives, the incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Mohamed Nasheed move on to a second-round runoff.

A sort of puzzle

Contrary to reader demand, we commissioned the Beagletorials to employ the 24 words that the Collins English Dictionary is planning to jettison.

The niddering attacks of Sarah Palin and the oppugnant nature of her role as vee pee pit bull clash with her agrestic everymom persona. And yet, she comes skirring with fatidical passion to exuviate fubsy caliginosity and vilipend liberals to an abstergent degree, all the while embrangling the American people with roborant vaticinations, waving nitid periapts and wishing griseous malisons that cannot breach compossibility with an Other. She cannot use her muliebrity and sham mansuetude to mask the olid recrement she hurls. The bankrupt policies of the GOSPers right and hard right have led to an apodectic truth, that millenial ages have their own caducity.

Another item poached from Media Matters

From the October 8, 2008, broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

MICHAEL SAVAGE: So here we are, here we are, here we are, here we are. We're getting ready for the communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm -- I love it. He won't even produce a birth certificate. Don't you love that? Something as basic as Obama's birth certificate now is an issue. I mean, if he's got nothing to hide, show it to me. Doesn't exist. It does not exist, they can't find it in the Hawaii government. It's never been produced.

Here is much more on the non-issue.

Congrats Nobelist Paul Krugman

which caused us to spin down memory lane to the great "debate" between Bilious O'Really? and Dr. Krugman, and later, gloating about his victory, a deluded O'Really? blathers...

"Anyway -- one of the points that [Krugman] was trying to make was that FOX is a right-wing network. You know, he's trying to put us in the right-wing radio category and I ran down -- I said, OK. Let's take it from 6:00 to 11:00. Brit Hume? Leans a little bit right. Shep Smith? No bias at all. Just straight down the middle. O'Reilly? Traditional guy. If you want to put him a little right, go ahead.

Hannity? Right. Rabid right. Colmes? Rabid left. Van Susteren? Left. Add it up.

And then commentators -- right down the middle. And guests -- more liberals than conservatives."

An issues candidate for president

All those in favor of electing Dale Dribble on the Saving Your Sorry Asses ticket, say 'aye.'

On political humor

The whole Beagletorrible board, beagletorporial staff, and even the printer's helpers are agog at the ability of popular satirists and pointed comedy-commentary generators who practice their crafts so ably day after newscycle with a cornucopia of bon mots, beau gestes, and horse dwarves a la carte in the interlectual marketplace.

To some observers, the current political situation is beyond parody -- a senior citizen and his pet bulldog are running as the crankiest ticket in American history on the absurd theme of change which they stole from the other side whom they accuse of a lack of character.

Then there's conservative humor, which can be summarized entirely in repeating the following:

Liberals are dumb, ha ha ha, if you're a liberal, you're dumb, ha ha ha, liberals have dumb ideas, ha ha ha, liberals and their liberal friends are all dumb, ha ha ha.

For those temporarily not worried about the Large Hadron Collider

Cold fusion is the answer? suggests a Dupont Circle policymanufacturer.

Where the right wing gets new charges to throw at Obama

Acorn responsible for all the nation's problems

"Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards." -- Wall Street Journal.

Sean Ham-ity's followers are even calling for America to "hault the election" (sic) because it appears the (pro-Obama) fraud in Ohio may overwhelm the (pro-McCain't) voter intimidation and fixed machines in Ohio.

Note for the record: Enrolling names of people who are not eligible to vote is a mistake. Encouraging people to vote under false names is fraud. In a desperate effort to get people's attention away from the economy, GOSPers and their hacks are charging Democrats with a crime that hasn't been committed yet -- an indication of their tough anti-crime stance.

We bad

When the tide laps at Gulliver's waistline, it usually means the Lilliputians are already 10 feet under. Before yesterday's surge, the Dow had dropped 25% in three months. But that only means it had outperformed nearly every single major foreign stock exchange, including Germany's XETRADAX (down 28%) China's Shanghai exchange (down 30%), Japan's NIKK225 (down 37%), Brazil's BOVESPA (down 41%) and Russia RTSI (down 61%).

You might even call him a maverick

Last month, Palin called her former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan "insubordinate" and accused him of having had a "rogue mentality" while he was part of her administration.

The GOSPers haven't gotten anything right

"For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing..." Bob Herbert, NYTimes, tells all

What we have here is an ability to communicate

If Robert Osborne says it's so, then we'll have to accept the death of Paul Newman, and say that as long as there are movies and people to watch them, there will be a fascination with the man and his work.

You decide

Cheers if you read the whole article...

In the 1620s and 30s, people were purchasing tulip bulbs at higher and higher prices. Such a scheme lasted as long as someone was willing to pay such high prices and take possession of the bulbs. In February 1637, tulip traders could no longer find new buyers willing to pay increasingly inflated prices for their bulbs. The demand for tulips collapsed. Some had contracts to purchase tulips at prices now ten times greater than those on the open market, others owned bulbs now worth a fraction of the price they had paid.

The panicked tulip speculators sought help from the government of the Netherlands, which responded by declaring that anyone who had bought contracts to purchase bulbs in the future could void their contract by payment of a 10-percent fee. Ultimately, judges regarded the debts as contracted through gambling, and thus not enforceable by law.

Kultral Notes

If you are stoopid enough to try to run by a place on the day of the Baltimore Marathon just before you gotta catch a plane, forget about it, especially if you're not sure, and the street you are looking for is something -Mont, and it's actually in the alley, so getting out wouldn't have been any problem except the only way the GPS and signs and experience and inner gyroscope still ended up tangled going either this way or that standing still. So this intrepid reporter gave 20 bucks to a cab driver he let in line and asked him to lead him out to I-95. At first, it looked like a possible waste of money, but none were worried with another car pulled between us. But it was money well spent. This reporter is not accustomed to running red lights, making four-lane Boston turns or intimidating pedestrians, but suddenly there at the gates of Camden Yards was free egress to the highway. The cabbie gets out to ask, "You know how to get to 195?" And we speed along together then this reporter passed by and waved him off. That ten minutes made the difference, but that was not the last miracle. Turning in the rental car with barely an hour, riding on the shuttle to the fourth gate, running up and no one in line (second miracle), and the machine wanted to refuse to let this reporter fly because it was too late to check the bag. The machine instructed this reporter to pick up a dedicated line and read off a number, and have a functionary say, "I hope you don't mind staying another day and paying extra?" Until a fellow human took the bag and issued the ticket. The concourse was steps away and no one was in the security line (third miracle). And the story ends with this reporter walking to the gate and having time for a phone call.

Ask Dr. Hin?

Beagleportorial staff complain they get this ever time

With friends like these....

As president McCain't would be "unpredictable. It'll be a wild ride," says Trent Lott in USA Today.

You decide

Fox eyed view

Still looking

to determine if there is a link between the abrupt shutdown of the Large Hadron Collider and the collapse of the international investment banking system.

An unreader's excellent essay shanghaied

If the conservative politics of George W. Bush are allowed to exist for another four years unchecked, they will become our permanent political culture. That is unacceptable. America is better than the failed politics of elitism, xenophobia, and fear masquerading as security.

I believe that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are the best vehicle to deliver a better America. That is why I am a Democrat. I invite you to read on, and I hope that you are persuaded to join with me in voting for Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008.

-- Chris Kotterman (see full text at Facebook if you are registered or Banned from the Beagle (editerrible space limitations and all)) if you are not.

How to read poll numbers

Everybody knows that a poll conducted by Ivestia, Pravda, CNN or any of those other rabid, liberal, over the tops was going to say that Biden won the debate by 51 or 36. A more scientific poll, the viewers' on-line FOX poll showed Pale-one won by 85 percent or something. Man, the MSM is in the tank so bad. What happened to fair and balanced journalism like we do?

The number of readers and potential readers not voting in the Beagle's latest poll shows an overwhelming lack of interest in what the McCain't crowd has to say. Over the top. Highest ever didn't care, don't know, don't ask. Through the roof.

Dept. of ripoffs and remakes

Stolen and adapted from

One reassuring note

The GOSPers seem to be using GHWBush's successful 1992 strategy of running against the media and pretending to be Harry Truman.

Oh, that wasn't successful? So you say. History is clear that nobody wanted to deal with the deficits and underinvestments and dangerous international situation that existed at the time. GHWBush had already accomplished his fantasies of sitting the the Oval Office and winning a big war.

And so he rode around on a train to show how in touch with regular folks he was (80 percent who'd never ridden on a train -- except at the zoo) and he was 97 percent successful at making people think he was trying to win.

(One other historic note for HAMity, Limbo, C(a certain word)lter, et al., and that is CBS,CNN, NYTimes and other Bugle competitors have never been on the ballot and they won't be on the ballot again this year.)