RSS feed wonkiness

Sorry, bear with me. My blog is clearly experiencing technical difficulties again because of the new beta blogger system that Google implemented over at BlogSpot, this time because my template got updated to the new system.

Anyway, I'm not trying to make it do this, and you have my apologies if you read this feed. I'm not sure how to keep this from happening, as I have no control over the feed itself or how some RSS readers choose to syndicate the material I post. At the very most this should only happen one more time, if at all. I'm hoping for zero more times, myself.

Topical mish-mash

According to this poll (PDF file) by FOX News and Opinion Dynamics, 4% of likely voters don't know if they approve of the job George W. Bush is doing. Now, I understand that sometimes it's difficult to make a decision about important things, but that particular fence is pretty thin. How is it supporting 4% of "likely" voters?

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In that same poll, we have an interesting agree/disagree question, phrased thus:

The United States has sacrificed enough for the people of Iraq, and now it is time that they take on most of the burden of security in their country and let U.S. troops start to come home.

Remember that this is a FOX News poll, so you can bet that those words were chosen very carefully. 73% of those polled agreed with the statement. As Ex Cathedra said, "Remember [those words]. You’ll be hearing them a lot very soon."

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And now it's story time. This was taken from alt.politics.homosexuality via FSTDT:

A Day in Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it, too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a workers compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noontime, and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC, because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his
below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he were educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

So when you stick that "LIBERAL" label on me as if it's an insult, I will gladly accept it. I am a liberal, I am a leftist, and I'm proud of it.

Foley is NOT A DEMOCRAT! Sheesh!

I've been reading a number of people's posts at other blogs and forums, and the sites that have a distinctly conservative bent assuming that disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley is a Democrat and simply won't believe anyone that tells them otherwise. I'd really like to know where they got that idea...

...but boy, I really didn't have to look too far. First, shockingly (and awe-ingly?) it was FOX News, specifically the O'Reilly Factor that started it, where they showed two video clips of Foley, both of them containing the same D-FL caption. (Links are all to WMV videos, thanks to The Brad Blog.

When the show re-aired in the late night hours, rather than correcting the "mistake" to R-FL, they simply ran the video without the graphic. They've now said that they don't need to run a correction on air because "everyone knows" Foley is a Republican. Really. Everyone?

Is that why the AP was running their stories on the issue with Foley labelled a Democrat along with, of all people, Dennis Hastert?

Personal responsibility my ass. Liberal media bias my ass.

Those wild 'n crazy Westboro Baptists...

...just won't ever shut the hell up and go away, will they?

I mean, it's bad enough that some whackjob shoots up an Amish schoolhouse, but then you have Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps, both examples of people with less brains than a cucumber, telling them they deserved it:

"Those Amish people, everyone is sitting around talking about those poor little girls — blah, blah, blah — they brought the wrath upon themselves," Phelps-Roper said, adding that the Amish "don't serve God, they serve themselves."

Ridiculous. And the people who cover this sort of nonsense are stuck between a rock and a hard place, really. Do you cover this stuff and, as a result, give these jerks a voice? Or do you ignore it, hoping that it will go away, but at the same time fail to expose these people for what they are?

S. 3930 voting in Pennsylvania

Both Senators Santorum and Specter in Pennsylvania voted to break the Geneva Conventions.

I suppose that about speaks for itself.