Oh the exquisitely delicious irony.

On Thursday, Karl Rove gave a speech about politics and the Internet at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, and, as reported by the Washington Times, commented about the frequent incidence of vulgarity at liberal blogs:

Mr. Rove cited the results of a study that found that writers and commenters on liberal blogs such as DailyKos.com cursed far more than writers and commenters on conservative Web sites such as FreeRepublic.com.

"My point is not that liberals swear publicly more often than conservatives. That may be true, but that's not my point," Mr. Rove said. "It is that the netroots often argue from anger rather than reason, and too often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion."

Our friend at Gateway Pundit observed this hysterical albeit predictable Netroots response (vulgarity present after the break, h/t Glenn Reynolds):

The Independent Television Service (ITVS) is a left-wing "independent" film-makers collective funded through our tax dollars (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to be exact). "Independent" isn’t really the right word. These filmmakers may be outside a corporate or studio system, but any glance of the ITVS grants shows there are no conservative filmmakers in America today making anti-Michael Moore films that celebrate capitalism or anti-abortion films or films against illegal immigration with government subsidies provided by ITVS.

ITVS lives up to its leftist values by adding political activism. It has a community-organizing emphasis. It shows its films not just on PBS stations, but also organizes free community showings in theaters. It also has hired organizers to "leverage" its leftist films to "build stronger connections" and spur on a more aggressive fight for "social justice."

A defender of abortion falsely claims in a letter in today's Los Angeles Times (Sat. 11/10/07), "The Bible does mention abortion." The erroneous reader adds that a passage in the Bible, Numbers 5, gives a "a detailed formula designed to end a pregnancy." In fact, the cited passage makes no mention of pregnancy, abortion, or miscarriage whatsoever. The reader's assertions are simply false.

Does the dishonesty at the Los Angeles Times regarding the abortion issue know no bounds? Does anyone at the Times own a Bible? Are there fact checkers at the paper?

On Thursday, NewsBuster Amy Ridenour reported the hysterical protestations of the liberal blog Think Progress concerning conservative websites like ours having the unmitigated audacity to share with readers the global warming skepticism of The Weather Channel founder John Coleman.

Our crime against humanity (emphasis added for your amusement):

The right wing should check Coleman's credentials before touting his "scientific" work. As Coleman admits, his "expertise" is in weather - not climate change science. In fact, he "has been a TV weatherman since he was a freshman in college in 1953."

Oh my goodness. You mean that someone who's been professionally reporting on the weather for over 50 years shouldn't be allowed to comment about the climate, but a political blog that's been in existence for less than three years should?

Adding insult to absurdity, take a look at the bio for the Think Progresser that wrote this ridiculous critique (emphasis again added for your amusement):

Remember those anti-war Iraq movies Hollywood was crowing about this summer? Turns out that crowing was more than a little premature: they've been spectacular bombs at the box office:

The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say. [...]

Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.

"Rendition," a drama starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal about the CIA's policy of outsourcing interrogation of terror suspects, has taken just under 10 million dollars at the box office, a disastrous return.

A fabulous honor has been bestowed upon NewsBusters: It has debuted at 22 in the Top 100 Conservative Political Websites list (h/t NB reader Mark Young).

Just two days ago, Gail Collins christened her column about the Pat Robertson endorsement "Pat Loves Rudy."

As I observed then, "a conservative columnist writing the equivalent might well be condemned for making an unsubtle appeal to homophobia. But Collins will surely get a pass in PC quarters, since it's a well-established fact that liberals are incapable of prejudice."

Then comes today's column -- and I'll be darned if Collins hasn't done it again.

You'd better strap yourself in tightly before proceeding, for the following story and video will likely shock you more than anything you've seen in quite some time.

On Thursday, in the middle of NBC's "Green is Universal" campaign, an ABC affiliate in Tyler, Texas, broadcast a segment during one of its news programs focusing exclusively on positions skeptical of man's role in climate change.

In fact, one of the meteorologists involved actually referred to this whole issue as "the manmade global warming myth."

During the piece, not only did the two anchors express a viewpoint contrary to the current media meme, but also the reporter, Molly Reuter, and the station's three meteorologists, unanimously spoke against the view held by Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his sycophant devotees (video available here):

For Rolling Stone’s 40th anniversary magazine, one of the celebrities interviewed was the atheist, leftist HBO comedian/pundit Bill Maher. Even as Maher has long professed his support for Bill Clinton's sexual freedom (remember this gig as Clinton's talking little Willy?), he still says of Hillary, "F— them and their Clinton baggage...when the Democrats want a sure winner, John Edwards looks like it." Whoever wins for the Democrats, Maher hopes they’re good at lying to the voters:

ROLLING STONE: What’s your best case scenario for the future?

MAHER: First of all, some Democrat better win it in 2008. Then that person should go for broke and say to the people, "Now I have to tell you the truth. I couldn’t do it when I was running, because you are a bunch of babies who can’t take the truth, and you know damn well you wouldn’t have voted for me if I said that. But we’re going to take these painful measures."

The sad part of it is, the money is there to do almost anything we want. It’s not as if you’d have to raise taxes so much. If you took the money being wasted on Iraq, corporate welfare and the drug war, you would have trillions of dollars to work with. That’s the core of it. Whoever is the next president has to get at this corporate state we’ve found ourselves living in.

Those that have wondered how someone like Rosie O'Donnell can be so disturbingly wrong about virtually every important issue of the day got an answer Thursday afternoon: she gets her news from Keith Olbermann.

In fact, not only does Rosie think "Countdown" is actually a news program, she believes it's "the best news show on TV."

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

After all, it's one thing to watch this show for the entertainment value, but quite another to be so intellectually challenged as to be incapable of divining the difference between news and opinion.

Yet, if you fast-forward to minute 2:00 of the following video, you will actually see and hear Rosie make possibly her most addle-minded statement to date:

Not a lot of great looking matchups today, or am I missing something?

Just for fun, and because a friend of mine is a Badger, I think Wisconsin at home can upset the Wolverines. Or am I out of my mind?

Lookout for those Red Raiders upsetting the Horns. Or am I out of my mind?

My Bears are going to make me REALLY angry and actually beat the Trojans leading many Northern Californians like myself to wonder what might have been if we hadn't stumbled against two teams we should have easily beaten.

Finally, the game of the day is Auburn vs. Georgia. Having gone to school for one year in Atlanta, I know what this game means to folks down there. And, for it to happen with both teams playing so well, this one is going to be a thing of beauty.

Any games I'm missing?

For general debate and discussion. Possible talking point: Is Dog The Bounty Hunter being treated fairly by A&E?

Are private telephone conversations -- especially ones with family members -- fair game?

Or, is politically correct going too far when it's enforceable in the privacy of our own homes?

So, Do You Like Bush or Not?

It's getting hard to exaggerate the left-wing rantings of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. This week, he railed against the "criminal conspiracy to cover the ass" of the "fascist" Bush administration. It probably won't be long before he's dropping the F-word on-air. Olbermann also attacked the "nightmare presidency" of the current commander in chief and mocked Bush's "cynical exploitation" of 9/11. It's really a shame this guy won't have Rosie O'Donnell to follow him on MSNBC, huh?

She Likes Me!

Speaking of liberal MSNBC hosts (sorry for being redundant), Chris Matthews on Tuesday took credit for a line that Hillary Clinton recently used about leadership. Last week Mathews offered her some free advice and seemed pleased that she took it. "Well done," he enthused.

Now that Rosie O'Donnell is out of the running as host of a prime time MSNBC show, speculation has started anew about who will be named to host the program. Among the more amusing of these speculations come from Cenk Uygur, host of an Air America morning show. Writing in the Huffington Post on November 7, Uygur scans the field of candidates for the MSNBC slot:

I would love to say that the right person for the job is one of the progressives I know either at Air America or in the liberal blogosphere. And all of these people are incredibly capable and would do a terrific job if given the opportunity (Rachel Maddow, Sam Seder, Thom Hartmann, among many others, come to mind (maybe even a non-hosts like Josh Marshall or Jane Hamsher)).

I'm also tempted to nominate Jack Cafferty as a possibility, even though he is not a progressive, because he has so clearly taken on the Bush administration in a sane and rational way for the last couple of years.

Someone needs to tell me why this news about discretionary income isn't as significant as I believe it is.

But first, three warnings:
1. I'm not about to spend the $250 needed to read the full report from the Conference Board that backs the story (their "about" page is here).
2. I don't feel totally comfortable with how the statistic is measured -- "Households with discretionary income, as defined by the study, are those whose spendable income exceeds that held by households with similar demographic features."
3. I don't feel totally comfortable that the statistic has been measured consistently.

Now with the disclaimers out of the way, here's the stunning news: More Americans have "money to burn," technically known as "discretionary income," than at any time in the past quarter-century, and perhaps in the country's history.

A lot more. A whole lot more.

So many more that I went as far back as I could for comparable stats.

Here is what I found:

I can't believe we all missed this one from November 6th, but The New York Times read the cable TV ratings tea leaves and decided that the left is "riding a ratings wave" to dominate the medium. Using the supposed "ratings wave" that the NYTimes imagines has propelled Keith Olbermann to some sort of success story, they have decided that it's all good on cable for the left. Yet, any look at the real ratings makes it hard to understand the Times' claims unless they have based all their hopes on mere wishful thinking instead of factual proof. Not only did the Times wildly exaggerate Keith Olbermann's success but they went as far as to say that Olbermann was "tantalizingly close" to rival Bill O'Reilly's ratings -- a claim that the Times is off the mark with by nearly 2 million viewers! As it turns out the "ratings wave" the Times is so excited about seems more like a trickle and could hardly be taken as evidence of some sort of major shift in viewer preferences. Obviously the "paper of record" is trying hard to create their own reality here!

In "Cable Channel Nods to Ratings and Leans Left" the Times reported the obvious drift left that MSNBC has been taking, a direction the cable station was poised to drive further off the cliff with the addition of a new Rosie O'Donnell slime fest -- the one that didn't pan out due to Rosie's queering the deal. But, the analysis thoroughly missed the mark and amounted far more to an Olbermann wet dream than reality.

Many times throughout the past few months I have posted/linked current newsworthy stories involving the Religion of Peace. Now before I'm called a bigot, racist and so forth, what I post is easily found throughout the news. I'm simply posting news articles/links to information concerning the overwhelming violence within, yet calling itself the Religion of Peace. I'm sure there are a multitude of stories concerning individuals who have broken the law, maybe even murder. The difference being is the concerted effort on the parts of some to further religious territories and conversions based on a dark age mentality of convert or die. What is surprising is that some individuals seem to be puzzled over the aggression of these "Jihadists". What they are failing to realize is that this is not a mystery of sorts, as noted by Walid Phares, Robert Spencer and Steve Emerson and the countless others over the past five years who have clearly shown that "Jihadist" attacks acted based on their faith. True, there have been individuals of other faiths who have committed atrocities, once again the difference being acting on your faith to further your faith. Any atrocity that ensues deserves the condemning of the faith group from which that individual comes from.

Okay fellow NBers, as you all know, on more than a few occasions around here we have swerved off-topic into the wonderful world of culinary curiosity.

As I am one of those who has been a willing participant (if not an out-right instigator) in this curious phenomenon, and given the fact that the holidays are just around the corner (can you believe it?), I think it is well past time that we who truly enjoy the culinary pleasures of life, be they fried, sautéed, grilled, boiled, steamed, poached, broiled, nuked, or served raw outright, share our preferences in this area.

Please share your favorite recipes, food-related adventures and even your failed experiments (trust me, I have more than a few of those) as many of us are always looking for something new and interesting to try in the kitchen, or in the backyard, or whever else you labor to prepare that perfect dish.

So by all means, belly up to the trough and contribute. Who knows, you may discover something that is truly amazing.

Happy grazing.