The Political Whore

Scientists have planted electrodes in the head of a monkey that allow it to control a robotic arm with its thoughts. Here’s the video:

Notice how they force the perspective so you can’t tell that the top of the monkey’s head is chopped off or that wires are streaming out of his exposed brain. Have a good weekend everyone.

• The end is nigh?
• Military suicides hit a new record in 2007.
• It’s going to be tough to encourage HARTline ridership if the buses run over any more customers.
• Obama’s releases cocktail-napkin-sized health record. (He’s fine.)
• Frickin’ hurricane season doesn’t event start until Sunday, but we already have the first named storm of 2008.*
• Headline of the week: “Is Grandma drugged up?” (CNN)
• Stonehenge: It’s a cemetery!
• More on that Colorado alien video: It’s the real deal! (Says this guy.)
• Today’s Short List brought to you by Octagon Global Recruiting.

*-As WP pointed out in the comments section, Alma is a Pacific hurricane, and the Pacific hurricane season started on May 15. I’m a dumb ass. Thanks WP.

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Comedic genius Harvey Korman has passed away. Here’s the NYT obit. As the conniving attorney general to Gov. William J. LePetomaine, Korman’s Hedley Lamarr set the standard for political movie villains.

I declare a period of mourning lasting through tomorrow.

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Now here’s a story that can knock Scott McClellan off the front pages and 24-hour “news” (and I use quotes there to connote that they do not, in fact, convey any news) networks: Charlie Crist is straight!

HuffPo reports that political trickster Roger Stone is peddling a Crist sex tape:

How interested is Florida Governor Charlie Crist in being John McCain’s VP runningmate? So much so that veteran GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone — who coordinated a few dirty stunts in support of Crist during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign — is quietly peddling a so-called “Charlie Crist sex tape.” That’s what Stone called it during a telephone conversation. And no, it is not a tape of Crist having sex with a guy. In fact, it isn’t even X-rated. The video was seemingly staged to kill the rumors that Crist is gay. Stone claims the tape — which he discussed recently with Politics1, but didn’t show to us (”I’m saving it for the national shows”) — “shows Charlie fooling around in a hotel elevator with his girlfriend … They’re making out.”

I’ve not seen the tape either, nor do I really wish to. Crist has consistently and in a straightforward manner denied being gay, and yet stories to the contrary have popped up for years. Like this one from the New Times in South Florida earlier this year:

The rumors about Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the Green Iguana just wouldn’t go away.

The story goes that the Florida governor frequented the Green Iguana, a bar in Tampa, back in the early 1990s when he was just starting his political career. He was less careful back then, people say, and during his partying at the Green Iguana, he was openly gay.When I got Rick Calderoni, the bar’s well-known owner, on the phone, I expected him to stonewall me about it.

He didn’t.

Calderoni, who is gay, confirmed that Crist came into his bar quite often and that the two of them became friends.

Getting to the point, I asked him if he knew Crist to be gay.

“Yes,” he answered bluntly. “I just wish he would come out and admit it. That would be a great thing if he did.”

And no less a journalism authority than the CW’s “news” show asked the same question a few years back:

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As we brace for the anticipated disruption of the Republican National Convention by  Dr. Ron Paul’s supporters, he is clearing out the warehouse of some unneeded inventory so that his shock troops will be able to wear as many T-shirts as a Weezer video. From a campaign e-mail today:

End of Primary Season Blowout until June 3rd

Participate in the Ron Paul Store Bomb! Send us your t-shirt size and we’ll send you a collection of Ron Paul campaign merchandise for only $25.00 (including shipping). The collection will consist of a t-shirt and other merchandise such as buttons, stickers, mouse pads, key chains, magnets, hats, wristbands and more!

Place your orders before the last primaries on June 3rd at http://www.ronpaul2008store.com/servlet/StoreFront
Ron Paul 2008 Store

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The Federal Election Commission is out with their April “contributions by date” report. As I’m sure you remember, the day after the Pennsylvania primary the Clinton camp claimed to have raised $10 million dollars in the wake of Hillary’s big win. So, how’d they really do?

April 22, 2008: $226,294.60
April 23, 2008: $1,738,154.61
April 24, 2008: $2,578,730.28

That’s a total of about $4.5 million, which leaves Clinton’s initial claims off by about $5.5 million (and that’s with an extra day). That seems like more than a math error; that seems like they were lying and they knew it.

That the Clintonites would lie isn’t much of a revelation these days. Sadly, the campaign did some other figuring that night, and decided that a lie today would be forgotten tomorrow. The calculation was that no one would care or remember by the time the FEC’s report was released at the end of May. Or if they did, it would be too late, anyway. After all, the voters are just a bunch of ignorant rubes who will believe whatever the Grande Dame tells them to.

Swallow it down Democratic primary voters. Choke on it. And like it, you miserable swine.

(Photo Credit: Professorai)

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Florida Sen. J.D. Alexander, cousin of Katherine Harris and central Florida power broker behind the Heartland Expressway and the planned USF campus in Lakeland and the sweetheart CSX rail deal, might just seek another term in office despite appearing headed for political retirement. This from the Ledger’s political blog:

Florida Sen. J.D. Alexander, still has one four-year term to go before he would be prevented by term limits from running again, but he was tired of all the hours and the need to attend his business.

In fact other potential candidates had been waiting in line to see if he would decide not to run this year.

But Alexander is running again and he quipped at a recent Lakeland Chamber breakfast that it was the Tampa Tribune’s editorial stance that convinced him.

“Actually I wouldn’t be true to my promises to the constituents of my district if I didn’t continue on, but clearly there are some unfounded criticisms of USF Polytechnic that I feel must be addressed,” Alexander said.

Bonus cut: here’s the Trib editorial that so angered J.D. that he decided to stay in public service.

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See Wayne Garcia, Creative Loafing’s Political Whore, any minute now on Studio 10, the morning show on Tampa Bay’s 10/ WTSP TV. He’ll be talking Rays, Republicans and other endangered species with host Holley Sinn.

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Lost finale tonight. Predictions in the comments section.

• The general election begins next Tuesday.
• “Team McCain: Ready for Prime Time?”
• Did the press do anything without Bush’s permission between 2001-2004? Apparently not.
• Still not a recession (until we figure out how the government keeps cooking this number).
• “[Obama] is a rock star. I love what he is saying about education. I think he will win and I am anxious to meet him.” —Rupert Murdoch.
• “Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.”
• A solar-powered iPhone?
• Ready for his/her close-up: E.T.

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I get daily e-mails from something called GOPUSA. Depending on your point of view, GOPUSA is a collection of morons on the lunatic fringe or a brave group of conservatives keeping the liberal media in check. GOPUSA’s mantra is “Bringing the conservative message to America,” which leaves me wondering where they’re importing it from. (I’ve got my cash on outer space.) Today’s nutblast landed in my inbox with the headline, “Rachael Ray, Dunkin’ Donuts And The Keffiyeh Kerfuffle.”

I was intrigued. Was this an announcement for a new breakfast item? A word-association game? A spelling test?

Sadly, no. It seems that Ms. Ray has run afoul of conservatives, including Michelle Malkin, who filed today’s GOPUSA screed. Some quotes:

I’ve been a fan of Dunkin’ Donuts for years. Their Munchkins are heaven. Their coffee is better and cheaper than Starbucks. And the company’s management has taken a brave and lonely stand in support of immigration enforcement — refusing to hire illegal aliens and blowing the whistle on applicants with bogus Social Security numbers.

So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin’ Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company’s ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

Malkin wants you to know that she loves Dunkin Donuts, especially since they’re one of the few employers in the country willing to root out illegals and send them packing. This isn’t all about the donuts, however. This is about Rachel Ray and her choice to wear an “offensive” clothing item in an ad. That item: a “black-and-white keffiyeh.” A what?

(more…)

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You can pretty much close the book on this one, as William March at the Trib is reporting:

A federal judge this morning dismissed a lawsuit by Tampa Democratic Party activists Victor DiMaio and Mike Steinberg challenging the national Democratic Party’s decision to ban Florida’s convention delegation because of the state’s too-early primary.

After hearing about an hour of legal arguments from Steinberg, representing DiMaio, and attorneys for the Democratic National Committee, Judge Richard Lazzara granted a motion by the DNC attorneys for dismissal, declining to hold any further hearing on the facts of the case.

The DNC could decide a convention delegate seating compromise this Saturday as it hears an appeal of its decision stripping Michigan and Florida of its convention votes after both states moved their primaries ahead of an approved date.

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Thanks for the revelatory information.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book reportedly makes the unbelievable claim that the Bush White House relied on lies and propaganda to sell the war in Iraq.

No way.

More specifically, no way McClellan is making this claim almost five years after it became common knowledge. Thank God he told us; now it’s official. (Although not according to the White House and Karl Rove, who are both denying the accusations in the McClellan book.)

Apparently, Bush lied about a lot of things — like golf. (Then again, what golfer hasn’t lied about his game?)

However, we found out about these lies a little late, I guess. It’s too bad we didn’t have this information in 2004. Maybe we could have avoided four more Bush years.

The sad thing is that the Bush administration making things up to justify an unnecessary war is old news. We know and we have all moved on. It has lost its immediacy and we seem to have lost our outrage.

It’s too bad GW didn’t lie about getting a blow job. Maybe then we would have had a chance of getting rid of him.

At this point, I just can’t wait until January 20th, 2009.