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The Anglo-Zanzibar War was fought between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted around 40 minutes and is the shortest war in recorded history

The chilling new best seller

Attention Walmart shoppers

Just as sure as the pressure of standing in the cold eight hours might cause a tense assembly to shatter the doors and stample rabid to loot the shelves, hungry for their blue light bargain and double percentages off, grabbing up fistfuls of shoddy Chinese electronics and Indonesian track jackets and then borrowing more money from China to do it, things might be heating up. What are you gonna do when pinstripes from Shanghai take California for collateral?

A broad range of perspectives

For the middle high brows Gorgeous Geo Will explains that the liberal socialists just love to make you want the government want to do something for you so they can get their sticky hands deeper in your pockets.

For the less high browed the NewGingrich says the liberal fascists want to force people to have gay sex and that is not what the Bible intended, nor since we're on the topic the Koran nor Torah. We might draw the line on the Upanishads or something weird, but that's just not what real Americans from real America want.

Mike Hucklebee tells the NewYorker he'd-a mopped the floor if he'd-a got the nomination.

Barack's other book

You can check our figures

Eighty-one posts in October and 33 so far in November equals more than 60 percent less content than last month with fewer cartoons, animations, or observations than previously, the result of preoccupations, paid employment, snow, rain, sleet, and etc., that have kept the appointed beagletorials from their intrepid rounds to underimaginable degrees.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the HOPE that the present has brought us.

for full text

Reader feedbag

An Oklahoma musician says keep the Beagle barking, not recognizing that the editerrible tradition is more of a political vehicle and not big on the policy and having to watch Faux News during the offseason, but ok.

A faithful Pennsylvania reader writes, "Change? Looks like the usual suspects," and some of us are not able to argue while others say it's good we have some depth on the bench, and the most cynical say at least our graybeards ain't on respirators, and still others are still scratching their heads quizzily.

The Beagletolerables believe there is no better time for community conversations about race, class, language, and culture in America than right now. A North Carolina educator has gotten the ball rolling.

Others, from distant points, have been sketchy in their reports, if not their characters.

As Thomas Nast spins...

Join the conversation

The Beagletonian School of Philosophy is definitely porch-oriented, as with the Ionians, theorizing to dizzyingly complex degrees and sipping mint juleps without the crushed ice, crushed mint, or syrup.

The latest koan to get the tattered toga cynics going was this –

If the pain of living in a Socialist Tyranny is so much that RushLimbo goes back on the stuff, does that mean the Democratic party’s lack of values really does undermine the American character?

How to solve the economic and energy crises in one swell foop

Wind is going to be big, super big, in the future international energy economy, nicht wahr?
Investors, distressed that their billions have turned into mere hundreds of millions are looking for a safe place to put their money. They want solid futures, tangibles.

One word: Air.

Right now air is cheap, cheap as hell. Wind? same thing, right now, very cheap, an easy market to get into. But when ExxonMobileShellBPConocoPepBoys grab up all the isobars and millibars, you 'll be paying out the you know what and calling the wind Ma-ri-yi-yi. The Beagleterrible corporate HQ is considering diversifying into wind futures, and assure the readers that there has never been a better time to buy wind. (Serious inquiries only)

(Thanks to an Oklahoma closer for this and other energy alerts)

Don't believe your lying eyes

Michele "Little Tailgunner Joe" Bachman says her call for an investigation into the pro-American and anti-American elements in Congress was just an "urban legend."

She didn't say it, and the Beagletorial staff didn't see her say it about six times.

This is common in GOSPer politics, that somehow the glitter and glam of MSM coverage has distorted the comfortable reality of knowing in that private warm place, you were "cleared of all partisan-motivated charges," as both Sarah Paling and Ted Sleazings claimed.

If Americans paid any attention, they would remember the NewGingrinch banging everything in stockings while castigating the President for moral shortcomings and Tom the Hammer DeLay running the Congress as a strictly pay-to-play system from behind the wide shield of Tom Hastert's ass. Nope, believe they were all cleared of all partisan motivated charges and probably never resigned in disgrace.

And, therefore, they enjoy credibility as respected members of the chattering class and the Congress when they ought to be greeters as Walmart.

(credit a Dupont Circle policy manufacturer who is currently able to boil a kettle of water on her head steaming about the midnight deregulations)

Bush Administration busy giving away the store

In a frantic effort to hobble the Obama Administration (remember George HWB sending troops to Somalia just before WJC took office? "Here ya go...Best of luck and all that."), Christmas is coming a little early for polluters and other foul-smelling pals of the Bushies.

ProPublica has a list if you are interested -- the right to mine uranium smack in the middle of the Grand Canyon (ok, mebbe not quite), the right to report less, the right to self-regulate, the right to do whatever you goddam feel like.

"I got yer change you can believe in right here," Wah? said chirpily. "Now try changing it back...ha hahaha ha."

Just when you thought ad season was over

A first dog story

Sheesh. Just like the Cuban Missile Crisis or something, but they gotta get this hypoallergenic dog, and all over the world there are heavily allergenic dogs who will be barred from the White House, and what's next? You can't play with a heavily allergenic dog in Lafayette Park? and then you're gonna ban them from the District in case your precious daughters gotta walk across the street?

Barack is surely taking Harry S Truman's advice, but Harry didn't know nothing about a hypoallergenic dog.

Which are the better angles of our nature?

On cupcakes and happiness

A bold proclamation

George Wiil, a man who perpetually suffers from too much lemon in his Darjeeling, says now that Barack Obama's election is an abomination to the founding generation who wanted to "prevent the selection of a president from being determined by the 'popular arts' of campaigning, such as rhetoric."

Clearly, the preferable system to Wiil is to have the President selected by the Party graybeards, preferably a scion of a previous President, and then the Electoral College will make sure that the voters don't do something stoopid, and -- if they do -- the Supreme Court is there to carry out the will of the triumphant.

Capitalism vs. socialism

From now until the last dog dies, the wingnut media will be after Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress about their socialistic plans for America. But despite the rhetoric of Adam Smith et al., what kind of capitalism are they afraid of dismantling?

• Borrowing money from China and Saudi Arabia to give out $600 checks so people can buy more stuff from China and Saudi Arabia.
• Giving $700 billion to banks and other investment firms to do with as they like.
  
• Subsiding corporations for their losses; tax breaks so they can keep more of their gains.
• Installing an official state religion (Halliburtonism),

Damn, this socialism you talk about -- investing in people, supporting families, investing in communities -- that sounds terrible. Is the government really gonna take away my bass boat?

Dare to dream

Coincidence or collaboration?

'The goal, said debate-prep coach Michael Sheehan (to Newsweek), was to make McCain look like Mr. Wilson, the cranky next-door neighbor in the comic strip "Dennis the Menace," always yelling at the neighborhood kids."

Faithful readers and astute observers read it here first. The Obama message meisters decided on Mr. Wilson after dial testing the array they found on the Beagle.

An excellent perspective on the present hour

Stringent Beagleterrible standards apply to all submissions and hijacked pieces that come in the form of interesting emails, and neither quality nor family bonds can compel us to overcome our Procrustean space limitations. See here.

Ask Dr. Hin?

Q: Can you believe it?

A: While manifestation is pure illusion, what then is unbelievable?

Q: Really, can you believe it?

A: In the infinite circle of time, any point in the circle is indistinguishable from another.

Q: Are you levitating?

A: Aren't you? I don't think I'm ever gone come down.

AdiosTancredo, Hola Chaffetz

A former civics teacher now working as a paid goon helped to draw attention to an issue of which the Beagletorial staff was previously unaware. Tom Tancredo, of the Know Nothing Party (see Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York), is being replaced, so to speak, with a younger, livelier hotshot from the rocky mountain west (presumably with some support from the appalachian mountain west) who wants to round up all the undocumenteds and put them in tents surrounded by barbed wire (bob wire to you).

He tried to say this was the same as what the Western Governors Association came up with, but Bill Richardson and Janet Napolitano weren't the only ones to take offense. His old boss -- Jon Huntsman Junior -- also said that wasn't what he had in mind. The Deseret News helpfully explained that it wasn't the kind of tents you get at Cabela's, but more sturdy, industrial strength-type institutional tents, apparently suitable for desert living in Utah behind bob wire.

"These tents are being used in Idaho, Florida, Texas, Hawaii and even in Washington County," Jason Chaffetz said (to the Deseret News). "I keep getting tripped up by the word 'tent.' I could do better if I called them eco-friendly, highly portable, innovative structures."

Apparently that clarification was sufficient for him to pick up all the green voters in his district.

The reddest state

The Beagle's friends in Utah must bow to the Beagle's friends in Oklahoma -- the reddest state in 2008 with a whopping 66 percent, and running into the 70s down in Little Dixie (y'know, Hugo, Idabel, Bug Tussle).

That's a change from the state's earlier socialist roots that helped influence the state flag that flew from 1911-24. But that whole ruckus over in old Eurasia in 1917 caused some of the citizens to whup themselves into a frenzy so frothy that they changed the flag to its present Indian shield (honoring the folks the Boomers and Sooners conspired to screw over in every other imaginable way) on a turquoise background (the pantone of which is solemnly specified by statute). But that wasn't enough....

According to Wikipedia, "Oklahoma statute still provides that flying 'any red flag or other emblem or banner, indicating disloyalty to the Government of the United States or a belief in anarchy or other political doctrines or beliefs, whose objects are either the disruption or destruction of organized government, or the defiance of the laws of the United States or of the State of Oklahoma' is a felony with a possible 10 year prison sentence and a $1,000 fine."

So perhaps this provides a partial explanation, in that since the McCain't-Paling ticket tried to make it a referendum on loyalty to the United States, and since any emblem or banner indicating disloyalty (an Obama button or yard sign, for example) could draw a 10-year sentence, then hats off to the brave souls who risked fines or imprisonment and voted for Barack anyway.

They call it the White House, but that's just a temporary condition

Ah, blood to blood
Ah, players to ladies
The last percentage count was eighty
You don't need the bullet when you got the ballot
Are you up for the downstroke, CC?
Chocolate city
Are you with me out there?

And when they come to march on ya
Tell 'em to make sure they got their James Brown pass
And don't be surprised if Barack is in the White House
Reverend Ike, Secretary of the Treasure
Richard Pryor, Minister of Education
Stevie Wonder, Secretary of FINE arts
And Miss Aretha Franklin, the First Lady

Are you out there, CC?
A chocolate city is no dream
It's my piece of the rock and I dig you, CC
God bless Chocolate City and its (gainin' on ya!) vanilla

suburbs

The pro-American parts of America (indicated by various colors)

From a Lincolnian Republican

With malice toward none, with charity for all, ...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1865

You think Barack is young

Wikipedia announced the investiture of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan, whose father abdicated two years ago leaving Jigme the job of transferring his nation from a hereditary monarchy to a democracy. Maybe it'll be good for Barack to have a Bhutanese soul brother facing similar circumstances.

Sarah announces she's going Rogue

Have you seen the way that FOX is carving up their darling, Sarah, like a Thanksgiving turkey?

In the now it can be told dept., various unnamed McCain't weasels reported she didn't know the fundamentals of basic government, she thought Africa was a country, she shocked (male) aides by coming out in a robe (wink) when they were supposed to pick her up, that she's spent way so much more than the $150,000 for clothes, and that just about full time her aides were in tears because of the bitchy way she treated them.

Billy O'Really? jumped to her defense, saying those minor lapses in history, geography, civics, sociology, statecraft, warcraft (not the game), etc. -- could easily be learned, so what is the problem?

We guess is a way of saying, "Haven't ya noticed? We like awr prezdents dummern dirt."

Where we stand

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ended his 1959 speech to the Hawaiian legislature by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it’s an apt description of the idea of America today: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”
via Nicholas Kristoff

Not fair!

Now that we don't have to worry about Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm -- with his economic program of telling everyone to 'stop whining' while we give away the store to those who need it least -- the Beagleterribles cannot help but be struck by the whining of the GOSPers that has been going on for weeks, that Obama should not be president because he's too popular, too many people like him, and his campaign has too much money to spend. Dag. That's just plain undemocratic.

Future elections should build in some kind of parity, so that politicians who are well-liked -- especially if they are Democratic candidates -- should have to give some points to opposing candidates who are not well-liked. That would make democracy fairer, don't you think?

From a real Jacksonian Democrat

Never for a moment believe that the great body of the citizens of any State or States can deliberately intend to do wrong. They may, under the influence of [Rash Limbo, Sean Ham-ity, Billy O'Really?], temporary excitement or misguided opinions, commit mistakes; they may be misled for a time by the suggestions of self-interest; but in a community so enlightened and patriotic as the people of the United States argument will soon make them sensible of their errors, and when convinced they will be ready to repair them.

-- Andrew Jackson

A toast

Beagletarians everywhere should join in lapping up the last drips of sour mash in celebration, and some of the lucky ones are in Grant Park. To a better future.

Actually not officially admitted to the union until 1954 or something

After four years of having bad feelings about the state of Ohio, the Beagletolerables have agreed to reconsider... long about the time Faux News called it for Obama, 9:18 p.m. or so (somewhere in Brazil time).

Canvassing in the pro-America parts of America

from a faithful correspondent and Washington, D.C. kingmaker who is a second or third cousin twice or more removed from the circuit rider in Missouri

Who owns us?

Foreign owners of US Treasury Securities (July 2008)
Nation	billions of dollars	percentage
Japan	593.4	22.17%
Mainland China	518.7	19.38%
United Kingdom	290.8	10.87%
Oil exporters	173.9	6.50%
Brazil	148.4	5.54%
Caribbean banking centers	133.5	4.99%
Luxembourg	75.8	2.83%
Russia	74.1	2.77%
Hong Kong	60.6	2.26%
Switzerland	45.1	1.69%
Republic of China (Taiwan)	42.3	1.58%
Norway	41.8	1.56%
Germany	41.1	1.54%
Mexico	36.0	1.35%
South Korea	35.3	1.32%
Turkey	32.4	1.21%
Thailand	31.8	1.19%
Singapore	31.4	1.17%
Canada	26.6	0.99%
Netherlands	14.9	0.56%
Poland	13.9	0.52%
Egypt	13.4	0.50%
Chile	13.1	0.49%
India	13.0	0.49%
Sweden	12.4	0.46%
Belgium	12.0	0.45%
Ireland	11.2	0.42%
All other	139.5	5.21%
Grand Total	2676.4

Beagletarians await results atop pins and needles