Word Clouds from the Veep debate

I found this on Daily Kos and I found it interesting, so I thought I'd share it with you - word clouds from Thursday night's vice presidential debate. (Click for larger images)

From Senator Biden's remarks:

And the one below is from Gov. Palin...

I'm not so sure that I trust these word clouds, though. For instance, I don't see the word Maverick anywhere, and if she said that one more time on Thursday, I was going to go crazy. And it's too bad the word cloud doesn't reflect *winks* - God only knows she did that enough as well, which was easily the most annoying non-verbal of the night.

Word clouds from Wordle

O'Reilly attacks the Daily Kos... again

Here's another piece of entertaining footage - Bill O'Lielly again going after Markos Moulitsas, the founder of The Daily Kos, an excellent liberal blog that's doing a great deal of important work.

The bottom line here is that O'Reilly can't handle criticism, and when prominent liberal blogs go after him for his lies and distortions, he gets his dander up, labeling them "hate sites." Of course, BOR can never get through a criticism of anything or anyone liberal without a Nazi or KKK reference - in this case likening Moulitsas to David Duke - which is pretty hilarious.

I got a good laugh out of O'Reilly and Mary Katherine Ham coddling each other about how disgusting the pictures are of Iraqi War casualties. Yes, they are disgusting, but it's violence that this administration has caused, period. So, I get a kick out of conservatives expressing horror and disgust whenever a liberal Website has the temerity to publish unpleasant images of the War in Iraq. Too damn bad - this is violence that your president has caused.

And Ham and O'Reilly, as usual, can't get through a criticism about a liberal blog without mentioning the comments section in any Website, either, be it the Daily Kos or The Huffington Post. Too bad O'Reilly allows many hate filled comments on his site, too, as detailed by some great work on the part of Crooks & Liars.

Bill W over at C&L probably makes the best point of all:

Somehow Newsweek shouldn't have hired Kos because of what other people say in the comments or post in their user blogs, but of course [O'Reilly's] okay with [Fox News] hiring Rove who has been involved in scandal after scandal. Who's more like David Duke? Kos, or the guy behind the robocalls [who] said McCain had an illegitimate black child? I'm just sayin'.

Sweet. I couldn't have said it better myself. More on Rove's role at Fox, as well as his status as a McCain consultant, in a bit.

Dodd & O'Lielly battle; Dodd gets the KO

This one got my blood boiling, but not in a bad way. Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democratic candidate for president (who'd not doing so hot in the polls), really takes it to O'Reilly about his laughably absurd jihad against the Website Daily Kos. Watch the hilarity ensue as BOR's crossed eyes nearly go straight as he foams at the mouth in the wake of Dodd's calm, steady barrage. BOR gets even angrier when his usual tactic of shouting someone down falls flat.

Quite frankly, Dodd hits the nail right on the head - it's not the few offensive comments on the site out of tens of thousands that BOR is mad about, it's the site's prevailing political point of view. (This is the same reason O'Lielly hates Media Matters, The Huffington Post, too; they expose him for the serial liar he is, period.)

I've written it before and it bears repeating - if Fox News is so Fair and Balanced, where was Billy's outrage when Rush Limbaugh accused the Clintons of murder on numerous occasions, when Ann Coulter accused 9-11 widows of enjoying their husbands' deaths, or when Dick Cheney and George Bush asserted on an almost daily basis leading up to the '04 election that "if the Democrats win, the terrorists win"? Of course O'Lielly was nowhere to be found, because calling out those agents of hate would have gone against his right-wing agenda. But, I won't let facts get in the way of a good Billy rant. It just occurred to me what BOR really is - the Jerry Springer of political talk shows. Both productions share similar traits: a few million watch, but each show enjoys about the same amount of nano-credibility; all but a few know the shows are staged bullshit to entertain; and even fewer say the words credible and either O'Reilly or Springer in the same sentence.

Hey Bill - aren't there some women you need to sexually harass? Better yet, go home and polish your Peabody Awards you didn't win (yet you publicly claimed you did).

Bill O'Lielly - giving hope to losers & liars everywhere.

BOR bores with more Kos crap

I have to confess, I'm beginning to have a fetish for Bill O'Lielly's fetish about Daily Kos. It's actually getting pretty hilarious. His latest outrage is a picture that appeared on DK. Here it is...

Personally, I laughed for about five minutes when I first saw it. Okay, no one ever accused me of being the most mature person in the world, 24 hours a day, nor to I portray myself to be. But, this picture is using humor to make a serious point, and that point is that Joe Lieberman is a flat-out liar. Where do I get that from?

When Lieberman ran as an Independent in 2006 after he lost the Democratic Connecticut Primary to Ned Lamont, he promised that if elected he would caucus with Democrats that that he would remain a Democrat in spirit. I'm still waiting to see it.

He has continuously supported the Bush administration regarding the War in Iraq since he was elected last year.

BOR calls Lieberman a patriot. Hardly. As far as I'm concerned, Lieberman has just as much blood on his hands as Bush and Cheney.

Oh, and as for BOR whining that DK traffics in hate? Hmm, I wonder if Bill's brain is out to lunch, perhaps sexually harassing someone other than Andrea Mackris so he doesn't get sued. (More on that in a minute.)

But seriously, where was BOR when Rush Limbaugh was accusing the Clintons of murder, or when he called Chelsea Clinton the White House dog? Or when Ann Coulter was on television saying that the 9-11 widows are enjoying their deaths? How about this doozy - when Dick Cheney suggested that people who don't side with the administration on terrorism (Read: Democrats), they are siding with Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or fill in your terrorist here that the administration tries to scare the American public about: _________. Oh, and Cheney has been on Rush Limbaugh's program numerous times, most notably early this year.

I'm not going to make a laundry list here, because why bore you with what's already mostly understood - that BOR merely spits out GOP-authored subjects and ideas.

Even one of the segments on his show is dubbed Talking Points Memo !!

Bottom line, and I've written it so many times it's bordering on trite - if you dare disagree with O'Lielly or Fox News and you call him/the network out on their lies, then you're a hate monger or you're operating a hate site.

Color me happy - O'Lielly thinks I'm a hate monger. Sweet.

Please do me and yourself a favor - visit Daily Kos each and every day. (Click logo above to go right to the home page.) Take a look around. Kick some tires. If you're a Progressive, you're going to like what you read. In addition to that, it's a way to support the Website, which is more than worth supporting. I just signed up for a Daily Kos premium account a few hours ago - it takes about two minutes. I urge you to do the same - it's a way to support the site and keep it going to fight the good fight against blow hards like Bill O'Lielly.

BOR... making s--- up again

Pathological Liar Bill O'Reilly's pathetic jihad against the Website Daily Kos continues. His latest? That the site "advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government." Umm Hmm. I read the site nearly every day, and nowhere, anywhere have I ever read anything even remotely close to that. But hey, why let truth get in the way of a good "story," right? Notice that BOR neglects to give specific examples of how the authors of Daily Kos want to overthrow the government, he just throws it out there.

This is from a well-worn page right out of the Republican playbook:

Throw a lie out there, and the damage will be done. Even though the truth will eventually come out, that won't spread as far and wide as the lie itself.

The list of lies by the right that have been debunked is getting rather lengthy. A fraction of that list...

• The Clintons murdered Vince Foster
• Bill Clinton could have had bin Laden, but turned him down
• Al Gore invented the Internet
• John Kerry didn't deserve his purple hearts
• Sidney Blumenthal abused his wife
• Media Matters is funded by George Soros
• Al Gore's carbon footprint is bigger than Greenland
• Barack HUSSEIN Obama was educated in a madrassa
• Daily Kos authors want to overthrow the government

I can't wait to see what the GOP Network comes up with next.

By the way, BOR actually says this in the clip above, and it bears repeating: "Doing business with people who traffic in hate-filled diatribes is unacceptable."

Jon Stewart must be delighted that BOR has gone to work for Comedy Central.

Oh, and that Pepsi boycott regarding Ludacris? Totally phony, just like his boycott against France and Jet Blue. I just remembered that I have to write Jet Blue to tell them to keep up the good work. Thanks for reminding me, Billy.

BOR's latest phony boycott: JetBlue & DailyKos

Bill O'Lielly, the Misinformation Minister himself, is at it again. Even passive viewers of his nightly show, The O'Reilly Factor, can pretty quickly detect a pattern in his attacks against people, TV personalities, Websites, and just about everything else with a "D" associated with it (or, heaven forbid, the horrific LIBERAL label).

O'Reilly latest target? DailyKos, a very popular liberal Website that dares to take aim against the Bush administration's propaganda, lies, fear mongering and distortions, all of which BOR is a more than willing purveyor of. BOR's beef with the site? Some idiots who posted some disparaging comments about Tony Snow, Dick Cheney and others on the site. What BOR neglects to tell his viewers, many of whom will probably believe just about anything Billy tells them to believe, is that the offensive material he reads on his show are from comments following stories that appeared on DailyKos, not in the stories themselves.

To be fair, yes, the site should be more vigilant about taking hateful, inexcusable comments down. It's news to no one that there are nut jobs of all stripes in the political world, liberals included. Arianna Huffington weathered a similar O'Reilly rant earlier this year when some morons posted hateful things on her site, The Huffington Post.

But, you know what? ANYONE can post a comment on a Website like that after registering, which takes about two minutes, typically with the validation of an e-mail address. To take it a step further, any conservative (or staffer from Billy's office) could go on DailyKos, post something offensive, and VIOLA! - a story to slam another liberal Website.

This is such a non-story. By far the most interesting aspect of this is how BOR will pursue anyone with an agenda of uncovering his well-documented penchant for lying.

But, someone posting something hateful in the comments section of a Website is a far cry from a Website posting commentary that Tony Snow is better off dead or musing at America's bad luck that Dick Cheney wasn't killed in Afghanistan.

If you can manage to get through the entire length of the footage, you'll notice that not ONCE during the entire rant does BOR mention that these offensive opinions were in the Comments of the Website.

Typical. It's not like I'd ever expect the accurate, precise truth from a blowhard like Bill O'Reilly.

The best part? Another phony BOR boycott. The latest company that will feel no effect whatsoever? JetBlue.

O'Lielly is miffed the JetBlue, a fledgling airline, has sponsored a DailyKos event. I'm sure the CEO of JetBlue, David Neeleman, lost loads of sleep this week because of a Bill O'Reilly distortion that any educated person could see through after about five minutes of clicking and researching on DailyKos.

DailyKos is simply the latest Website to be targeted by BOR, who loves to call them "hate sites," because he cries that sites like Media Matters, the Huffington Post and DailyKos have the temerity to call him on his lies.

This story has caused me to do three things:

1. Check JetBlue's prices, and if possible, fly the airline whenever I can,

2. Visit DailyKos every day to increase the site's ad revenue,

3. and start recording The O'Reilly Factor to see who is sponsoring this Republican Party propaganda, and I'll boycott them (and of course, right about it). I'll let you know of my findings.

More McCain, just because it's fun

Turns out what I wrote last night was wrong about Senator Judas John McCain's walk through a Baghdad market.

Last night, I wrote:
It's pretty brave of McCain go to strolling through a downtown Baghdad market with 100 soldiers and three helicopters overhead.

As it turns out, here's the accurate count of McCain's entourage:
100 American soldiers
3 Blackhawk helicopters
2 Apache gunships overhead

Like I wrote last night - the cost of a photo-op sickens me. Today, Daily Kos has a brilliant piece about McCain's "walk" around a Baghdad market. McCain is utterly shameless. Hey, whatever it takes to get your campaign photo-op, eh, J-Boy?

According to Michael Ware, there's no truth to the rumor that he taunted McCain at yesterday's press conference. Ware, a CNN war correspondent who's been in Iraq for years, very publicly beat down McCain on television last week after McCain's faux contention that Baghdad was so much safer.

This morning on CNN, Ware discussed the rumor:



Pretty funny that McCain ended the press conference when Ware tried to ask a question. Maybe McCain was afraid of getting Punk'd again.

I have to add this one - I found it on YouTube just a little bit ago when I was looking for something else. It's Laura Ingraham, the ultra-right wing commentator, speaking about Ware last week...



If Ingraham spent 10 minutes watching Fox News, she'd hear blatant GOP cheerleading lots of straight reporting, and no editorializing. Now that's journalism.