So if you think the "n" word in your head, that is okay.  One must not articulate the "n" word.....all the way out.

PART 4--SUMMER ESCAPE TO THE PLANET OF FEAR (permalink): We liberals love to drop our R-bombs--and our X- and N-bombs too. Trembling in the face of a "summer of fear," Matthew Yglesias played the former card in the Washington Post's Outlook section.

Yglesias dropped his X-bombs early and often. As he starts, we'll include the headline that appeared in the hard-copy Post:

YGLESIAS (8/8/10): Welcome to the summer of fear

Politics always seems to get a bit off-kilter when the temperature goes up. But instead of the familiar silly-season stuff of years past--made-up scandals and who-cares gossip--the past two summers have been filled with vitriol. Last year we had town halls gone wild, fueled by the threat of death panels pulling the plug on Grandma. This year, us-vs.-them controversies are proliferating, linked by a surge in xenophobia. This is our summer of fear.

So far, the summer of fear has featured a charge, led by Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and former New York congressman Rick Lazio, to block the construction of the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center (which is to include a mosque) a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, with frightening speed, we've gone from discussing the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to watching congressional Republicans call for hearings to reconsider the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

First, a word of explanation. Yglesias, age 29, is still a young man, with everything to live for. And yet, instead of the usual "silly season," he finds himself confronted this summer with a "summer of fear." And the whole scary thing has just happened so fast! Throughout his piece, he stresses the fact that the "surge in xenophobia" of which he writes has come upon us "with frightening speed." One thinks of the way Camus described the awareness of plague descending upon Oran.

Perhaps we can forgive the frightened young lad for throwing his X-bombs all around, sometime forgetting to "use his words" to describe the actual problem. He complains about the "xenophobia" in paragraphs 1, 3 and 8--and then again as he ends his piece. For the record, this is one of Digby's favorite bombs. She sees the problem everywhere--except in herself--and isn't reluctant to toss such bombs, ignoring collateral damage.

We can perhaps forgive this young writer for one other fault. We can perhaps forgive him for the clownish, persistent way he embellishes the facts of his frightening tale, creating a sad, inane "silly season" of his own.

Does Yglesias embellish his tale about this summer of fear? Only when he types! First example:

Have we really moved "with frightening speed" from "discussing the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform" to our current state of affairs? Only if you're in love with the thrills provided by good horror movies! Readers, when's the last time any serious person thought we were "discussing the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform?" Sadly, it has been years...

SNIP

For the past several decades, there has always some damn-fool provision floating around concerning immigration; for what it's worth, the "birthright citizenship" matter is less patently absurd on the merits than most. But there has been no abrupt slide toward xenophobia, except in the tortured minds of our fear-boys. And good God! The way this pitiful child dissembles about that new "birther" poll! In the recent CNN poll, 71 percent of respondents said that Obama was "definitely born in the United States" or was "probably born in the United States." This is very close to the earlier 77 percent figure, which came from a poll which only let respondents say yes he was, or no he wasn't. By the way, that earlier poll was a Daily Kos poll, and all such results should now be suspect. In another sign of our liberal brilliance, Markos got himself conned by a fraudulent pollster for years, he has now sadly said.

It's sad, and truly remarkable, that the "birther" foolishness exists at all. But it's equally sad when one of our "brightest" young "liberal" writers fakes his data in such stupid ways, struggling to create his own silly season, a frightening "summer of fear."

One last point: Can you see the name of one other xenophobe lurking in that last passage (in original post - too long to post here) by Matthew? "Today, President Obama is overseeing a skyrocketing rate of deportations," he writes, adding Obama's name to those of Jealous and Vilsack in the long list of current xenophobes. No wonder Matthew is so afraid! The xenophobia has spread all around!

The nonsense of this piece is vast, though it does teach us several key lessons:

First, it helps us see how much we liberals like to play with our toys. Just as we love throwing R-bombs around, Yglesias tosses his X-bombs all about, inventing a silly, sweeping tale about some abrupt rise in xenophobia. In these ways, pseudo-liberals deride the American public--and they practice to lose.

Second, we learn an important fact about a large change in the press corps. For most of the past several decades, silly-season nonsense like this only came from the right--after which, the mainstream press corps would fall in line with the tale. In 2001, the silly season revolved around the claim that Gary Condit had killed Chandra Levy. In a truly evil act, pundits invented at least two bits of fake "evidence." Right up through September 11, the whole gang had good solid fun with their evil tale.

This reflected the culture of the Clinton-Gore years, in which ludicrous invented tales were, by law, aimed at Big Democrats. We read ludicrous tales about Big Dem Liars, back in the day when the "liberal world" had run off and hid in the woods. In those days, careerists of Matthew's stripe had two choices in the press corps. They could repeat the claims against Big Dems, or they could just keep their traps shut.

Frank Rich chose the first pathway to citizenship; E. J. Dionne chose the second. Today, silly children get to invent liberal tales. This is a truly major change, a reaction to the disasters of Bush. Pseudo-liberals now get to play, though the game itself stays idiotic.

Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been indicted on a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

Court records show a grand jury in Richland County handed down the indictment Friday for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity. The Democratic nominee was also indicted on a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Fishing in most of the Gulf is now encouraged and those seafood platters are there for the eating: do not be put off by the naysayers who like to point out that fish swim and eat.

There was once a plan, way back in yesterweek, for a bottom kill using one of the two relief wells being drilled to plug the hole, for keeps. But the static kill was unexpectedly  super-successful, with the cement completely sealing the reservoir off with the weight of the barite-drilling mud helping to keep it all down.

This saves some costs in completing the first relief well, and preserves the second relief well for possible conversion to a drilling well, although, be assured, cost cutting is not what BP is about. Safety first.  Admiral- sort- of- in charge, used to be not just a top-, but also, a bottom- kill man. But that was then and this is now.

In a totally  unrelated matter, BP paid a $50.6 million OSHA fine for 270 safety violations that were not fixed as promised  in  the 2005 Texas Refinery explosion settlement, as noted during follow-up inspections in 2009. BP is continuing to contest $30.7 million in proposed penalties for 479 other safety violations at that same refinery.

I deleted all my friends and everyone I know from the contact list and now every time I get one of those emails from Ghana or some other BS I add their email to the contact list.  about 20 times.
and in every contact there is a spot for two email addresses.  so every time these a$$hole spammers do their little trick they are spamming spammers.  

Investigators Question Attendant's Tale

"I think this is moving toward a working theory of it never happened," he said. "There are some people who have said he came on board the aircraft with injuries."

Passengers interviewed by the Journal said Mr. Slater acted strangely during the flight and cursed at one passenger as she exited at Kennedy Airport. Marjorie Briskin, a 53-year-old passenger, said the flight attendant continued to curse at the young woman even as she walked away through the jetway.