Certain members of the British establishment have a beef with the editors of the OED. Sir Digby Jones (not to be confused with Digby the Beneficent) and David Frost (not to be confused with the guy who asked Nixon all those softball questions) are upset because the current edition includes the word "McJob":

Just saw this story on WNBC.

Apparently, a truck carrying a Tomahawk test missile collided with another truck, causing the first to lose its delicate payload:

Every week we are subjected to all kinds of neo-fascist blitherings from the Anne Coulters of the world. Every week the progressive blogosphere does what it can to counter these noxious remarks, thinking that maybe this time we'll finally put these fascist assholes in their proper place, after having exposed them for the lying fucks they are  -- until we start the whole the over again the next week.

Yes, that's right: Bender has finally met his match.

Falafel Bill's reprehensible distortion of the events surrounding the Malmedy massacre apparently has deep roots in the proto-wingnutosphere. Today, the sharp-eyed Tristero over at Hullabaloo sheds some light as to the origin of this revisionist narrative. Turns out that it was none other than Tailgunner Joe McCarthy who first perpetuated this lie back in 1949.

From a negative WSJ review of Anne Coulter's Treason:

Ms. Coulter's work includes an admiring if brief biography of McCarthy's political career. One that for some reason excludes the senator's remarkable efforts on behalf of the members of the SS battle group who executed 86 American POWs in the Ardennes campaign in December 1944; otherwise known as the Malmedy Massacre. In his impassioned efforts on behalf of the accused--one never to be repeated in his investigative career--the senator charged that the U.S. Army had cruelly mistreated the former SS men.

The review is referring to the aftermath of Malmedy, when the Nazi perpetrators of the massacre were allegedly mistreated while in Allied custody in Landsberg Prison. If -- and this is a big "if" -- it turns out that Allied troops mistreated prisoners, then they should have been prosecuted. Period. We should never condone such behavior (it should be noted that the United States Senate conducted an investigation and found no such abuse).

Is any of this beginning to sound familiar? Doesn't it sound an awful lot like what happened at Abu Ghraib? What O'Reilly thought he was drawing attention to was an Allied My Lai massacre, when in fact he was citing what (if it were true) may have instead been a prototype for the horrors of the new American gulag system. Falafel Boy thought he was helping to deflect criticism for Haditha, and instead ended up reinforcing the narrative that American troops have a history of torturing prisoners of war. So, not only is O'Reilly sullying the reputations of these WWII veterans, he's also inadvertently helping reinforce the story of abuse at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and others, something over which the wingnuts have been purple-faced ever since Seymour Hersh broke the story several years ago.

Way to go, Bill! I wish we had ten more just like you.

Note: I have no wish to lend any credence to anything uttered by that human shit-stain, O'Reilly. I merely wish to point out that yet another stone has been added to the mighty edifice of unintentional irony the right has been constructing over the last few years.

Others have done all the hard work on this, so I'll skip the appetizers and go straight to the main course.

The Redstate blogger known as "Augustine" and Ben Domenech are apparently one in the same:

More after the flip . . . .

Okay, I admit to a touch of hyperbole in order to get your attention. However, I came across this very disturbing blog entry on the web site of the stalwart Mr. David Neiwert.

A quick FYI just in from the NYT:

There is a "war on Christmas" taking place. Evil Secular Humanists have spread out across the land to replace "Merry Christmas" with the bland "Happy Holidays;" the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is to be called a "holiday tree;" kresh scenes are out of the question. Next they'll try to kill Santa Clause, I tells ya.

Thank god for the stalwart defenders of Christmas. Lets start with John Gibson. Gibson, you may recall, recently penned this missive:

You be the judge:

Stephen Hadley

Charles Colson

Creepy, ain't it?

But which one is the evil twin?

(I realize this diary is a bit short, but I'm much better at the snarky one-liner than I am at writing formal diary entries, the latter of which requires actual effort on my part.)

I've traveled to the Netherlands several times over the years. My most recent trip was, unfortunately, way back in 1991. One of the most fascinating things about this country -- besides its legendary tolerance, beautiful architecture, art, etc. -- is that it continues to grow. I'm not talking about population, I'm talking about land mass. The Dutch routinely reclaim land from the North Sea. These reclaimed areas are known a polders:

Sorry to interject a sports theme into the diaries, but one of my favorite baseball figures, Gene Mauch, has passed away at the age of seventy-nine.

I'll keep this short and sweet.

If you watch the video of Jean Schmidt's appearance on Hardball last night, you will notice she is wearing two buttons.

Hi guys.

I just joined the GOP.com "European Heritage" team.

Here's the link (it's the last box in the left-hand column of the check boxes).