Today’s reason: populist pandering.

Instead of discussing issues in a straight-forward fashion the Bushies have been using second-grade level name calling to back up their “arguments”.

In a poorly-produced and imperfect effort to discredit John Kerry’s claims of support, the GOP put together an animation that attempts to ridicule Kerry by calling him an “International Man of Mystery” — using Austin Power’s sound bites to beef it up. It would have had more impact if the reporter who originally misquoted Kerry hadn’t fessed-up to his mistake just a few days before. (Detractors can cut some of Kerry’s un-named supporters slack considering the reputation the Bush adminstration is getting for the way it treats people who disagree with them — see the bonus cartoon below.)

Then the Bushies scramble to rebut former counterterrorism coordinator Dick Clarke’s book about W’s Iraq obsession by using the phrase “Dick Clarke’s American Grandstand” without saying anything more substantial than “nuh-uh!”

It is easy to discard news sites like Information Clearing House as anti-establishment versions of WWN, but it’s important to at least consider the possibilty that stories of attrocities comitted in Afghanistan by U.S. soldiers might be true.

(warning: distrubing descriptions follow)

It sounded to me that Garrison Keillor was looking to join the anti-FCC fray with a rerun this weekend. Playing a re-broadcast from October 20, 2001 with a NFLW segment that was a little racy. For Howard Stern and Daytime Talk TV, it may seem like a tame piece, but when Garrison Keillor starts telling stories about his cousin sitting in his lap in a bathroom stall with his pants and underwear around his ankles (and then he tosses in some scat — and I’m not talking about jazz, here), he’s pushed the envelope for Public Radio.

(p.s. Links may not be 100% accurate since I can’t check Real© content through my work’s firewall.)

I’m not sure what to say about this game. Here are the (actual) instructions:

Nigella Lawson loves nothing more than baking her favourite dish — Thrapstone Pie. She eats so much of it, she can now regurgitate the ingredients in order to make a fresh meal.
However, due to a tragic baking accident, Nigella is now a floating, decapitated head and has no hands with which to cook.
You must help Nigella make her pie, but watch out because Nigella bites! Yes — that crazy bitch loves the taste of fingers even more than baked produce from Thrapstone. Get the ingredients from her mouth into the pie-dish as quickly as possible. Also, Nigellas flowing raven-coloured hair is infested with a rare species of hamster. If they attempt to descend upon the cookery, toss them into her mouth and watch her chomp them up with glee. She also loves her pie salty — if you can make that happen she will reward you…