Borat strikes again:

No one knows for sure who he was, that Middle Eastern man in an American flag shirt and a cowboy hat who was supposed to sing the national anthem at a rodeo Friday night in the Salem Civic Center.

But he sure shook up this town before leaving in a hurry.

Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was said to be an immigrant touring America. A film crew was with him, doing some sort of documentary. And he wanted to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to show his appreciation, the announcer told the crowd.

Speaking in broken English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd - it was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places - that he supported the war on terrorism.

"I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards," he said, according to Brett Sharp of Star Country WSLC, who was also on stage that night as a media sponsor of the rodeo.

The crowd's reaction was loud enough for John Saunders, the civic center's assistant director, to hear from the front office. "It was a restless kind of booing," Saunders said.

Then the man took off his hat and sang what he said was his native national anthem. He then told the crowd to be seated, put his hat back on, and launched into a butchered version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that ended with the words "your home in the grave," Sharp said.

Hat tip: Atrios.

Another hilarious piece from the Onion!  Anybody else notice we've gotten to the point that parody news seems so much more insightful and useful then what passes for the mainstream media?

Wow, Chris Matthews, shades of 2002-- where the hell did this come from?  Need to go after the liberal New York Democrat so blame Clinton for 9/11 and the first World Trade Center bombing?

I would like to point out to Chris that if Bush isn't at fault for 9/11 but gets kudos that there hasn't been another attack in the last four years, then Bill's off the hook for the first World Trade Center attack: because it happened only one month into his first term.  I'm sure that won't matter much to someone left so unhinged by the former President's political survival during the 90's but how pathetic...

Eric Umansky directs our attention to an LA Times photo of Israeli soldiers standing around a number of dead bodies covered in sheets that they claim are Hezbollah fighters, but for some reason, they've transported them from southern Lebanon to Israel?  Either Umansky's right and these bodies might be used in future exchanges of dead and wounded or we have the equivalent of Iraqi insurgents being put into boxes and sent to Dover Air Force base, and we know that doesn't happen, does it?

OUTRAGE...The Florida Republican Party is trying to tell Katherine Harris, much beloved heroine of the 2000 Florida recount, to end her Senate bid.  Oh, why can't they just give her an up or down vote in the Republican primary, huh? 

Fidel Castro's suddenly ceding power to his brother while apparently undergoing medical treatment should remind us that we, the United States, really need to face the fact that we haven't done enough to be in a position to constructively engage a post-Castro Cuba.  This neglect has been bipartisan and whether tied to appealing to the Cuban immigrant vote or the embarrassment of being unable to eliminate Castro during the Cold War it brings us no closer to promoting a democratic transition in Cuba. 

This CNN piece gives you an idea of where we're at and while its good that the State Department has a group and a point man devoted to democratic transition in Cuba, I may be reading this wrong but essentially we assume that when Castro dies, suddenly Cuba will open up, bygones will be bygones, the Cuban people will be singing our praises and Americans carrying big suitcases with money will start showing up and rebuild everything for only a couple hundred million dollars, or so?  Sounds like the kinda planning that made Iraq such a success.  In fact it reminds me a little of an old interview with Jorge Mas Canosa a few years before he died where it was suggested that once Castro was gone, it was a only a matter of Mas and his Cuban American National Foundation buddies stepping off the boat and taking the reigns of government.  Woof...

Update (8/1/06): Heather Hurlbut over at Democracy Arsenal provides us with a link to the latest report from the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba with some  thoughts on the more dubious aspects of their analysis.  Bottom line: This is the crew that was instrumental not only in toughening sanctions and meaningful diplomatic contact between the two countries but making it harder for Cuban Americans to see and help families still on the island yet they see few obstacles to a new Cuban government quickly seeking U.S. help when Castro's gone.  Your tax dollars at work...

The Family Research Council:

Keep Pornographers Away from Major League Baseball

In an otherwise interesting poll on the GOP's electoral woes, one which showed a 13-point swing for Democrats in the top 50 House races, we find this little gem:

"I believe the tax breaks that Republicans give, even though I didn't benefit much by them, I believe the country did."

That's our problem in a nutshell.

CNN will give just about any ramblin' conservative idiot their own show.  Why Glenn Beck?  I have no clue, but he's so bad that some conservative bloggers question whether or not CNN hired him because they felt his schtick would thoroughly discredit otherwise sound conservative views. 

Update (7/27/06): Sorry, got interrupted there.  Anyway, I just wanted to point out that yet again for conservatives there can only be criticism of the messenger, not the message.  After all, in the example I posted, Beck is running with the "This is World War III" line that supposedly "serious" conservative thinker, Newt Gingrich, introduced only a week or two ago.  The fact he can't lend any serious intellectual coherence to it either is understandable but doesn't say much for the idea in the first place!

Prime Minister Olmert has declared Israel will establish a new "security zone" in south Lebanon, a "one-mile wide security zone."  Now, I could be wrong, and have been many times in the past, but I'm pretty sure that those Hezbollah rockets and mortars hitting northern Israel have a much longer effective range than one mile?

A better headline for this Washington Post piece might be:  "Treasury Department: Mugged by Reality." or maybe "A Tax cut, a Tax deferred?" or how about "Free Rides: What Future Generations Don't Know Might Actually Hurt Them." 

Feel free to add your own....

Far be it for me to say this to the junior Senator from Ohio, but the fact that the world has only gotten more "wacko everywhere" in the short time that John Bolton has been at the U.N. does not speak highly of his abilities or job performance.

Walter Payton would have been 52 years old today, but, alas, only the good die young.

It's popular for sports pundits to periodically proclaim their "greatest of all time" lists.  This endeavor is nothing more than a silly parlor game.  And so it's futile to designate Walter Payton's place among the all time greats in his sport.  Comparing players from disparate eras creates problems that even the greatest mathematicians cannot solve. 

Nevertheless, I can say without reservation that Walter Payton was the greatest running back and most complete football player I've ever seen.  He wasn't blessed with the power of Jim Brown, the speed of Barry Sanders, or the agility of the double murderer O.J. Simpson.  But he excelled at every facet of the game.  And he dominated the most physically demanding of sports for more than a decade, the brunt of his career spent playing for teams that were woefully undermanned.

In rushing the ball, Payton had few peers.  He shattered Jim Brown's NFL record for career rushing yards, and remains in second place all time.  But that was just one aspect of his prowess.  He was the best at catching passes out of the backfield.  He relished - and excelled at - blocking, an almost unprecedented skill for a halfback.  And nobody threw a better option pass.

If the NFL held punt, pass, and kick competitions for its players, Payton would have won every year. 

He missed just one game in his 13 year career, a feat that belied his style of running: He seemed to prefer running over tacklers rather than trying to elude them.  In a game on a rainy field in Tampa Bay, Payton knocked unconscious two Buccaneer defenders on the same play.

Although he never shied away from contact, he played shrewdly and efficiently.  He avoided at all costs being at the bottom of a pileup where dirty play by opponents could lead to injury.  And so rather than playing the game of possum Jim Brown would play after being tackled, Payton would typically bounce up quickly after being taken down by an opponent and return to the huddle.  His high-legged style of running also helped prevent him from buckling his knees when he'd make a cut or pivot, a method which may have spared fellow Chicago great Gale Sayers from an all too brief career.

He grew up in segregated Mississippi and became an icon in the Windy City.  He is sorely missed.    

Imagine if you will a tiny family matter on a not so quiet street.  The teenage kid across the street is bad news.  He hates my neighbor and takes pleasure in petty vandalism and occasionally throwing rocks at his house, sometimes breaking a window.  The boy's family isn't totally stable and  has never effectively dealt with his bad behavior and sometimes the people next door, who also hate my neighbor, egg him on, much to the chagrin of my neighbor.  One night I stood by and watched as  my neighbor decided to burn down the garage of the people across the street to prove a point and get back at the boy.  I was amazed as he smashed the windows of their car for good measure.  Unfortunately, since the garage was attached to the house, the fire ended up killing a number of family members, including their grandmother and youngest child. 

The boy who was at the heart of this whole mess of course escaped serious harm and since my neighbor is an extremely "well-connected" man, what passes for the local police aren't interested in bringing him in.  What's the use in causing more trouble, that kid was bad news, after all?  Most of the people on our side of the street agreed it was a pity that his family's house and car were destroyed and a number of innocent family members had to die in the conflagration, but what are ya gonna do? 

We said they should have known this could happen and done more to rein in their teenage son's reckless behavior, right?  Besides, this isn't the first time those two families went at it over something this dumb.  Oddly enough, the boy's family is pissed off at him but beside itself with rage at my neighbor and the fact that the police won't do anything about the destruction of their home.  I tell them that my neighbor had to do something, even if it was a bit of overkill, and that they should try to make nice and maybe see about sending the boy away so he doesn't antagonize my neighbor anymore, but for some reason they're more concerned about the fact their home is a smoldering pile of rubble and four family members are dead.  Really, what's it take to get through to these people?

I'm inclined to give Bill Buckley the benefit of the doubt when he says the President isn't a true conservative, but anyone who has paid attention to how the arbiters of "true conservatism" define "true conservative" knows that they're a rather fickle lot who hail their charges when they are successful and unceremoniously dump them when they're not.  Rick Perlstein wrote a very timely piece about this phenomenon a few months ago.  He's concluded that it is based on a strong belief in the infallibility of Conservatism to the extent that when real world implementation of conservative principles leads to failure then its not a problem with the ideology but those implementing the ideas.    Remember that when Mr. Buckley and his ilk start calling the President a liberal and insist real conservatism has never been tried.  Trotsky would be proud...