They’ve faced down humans time and time again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from the Westboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi and…kittens?

Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego’s Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting “WHAT DO WE WANT” “GAY SEX” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT” “NOW!” while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom’s finest stood and delivered.

Welcome back, billmon.

From the comments:

This is definitely by the Kakafukaka circle at Waseda University. They’re a college comedy troupe which seems to enjoy reenacting anime/game/Japanese culture related stuff while wearing little more than underpants. I have no freaking idea as to why. Their site has videos like this involving Mario, Slam Dunk, and DBZ.

Side note: I appear to have fixed that embedding/stylesheet thing. Woo.

The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office.

Meeting in New Orleans, the board of governors for the world’s largest association of legal professionals approved the creation of an all-star legal panel with a number of members from both political parties.

They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars — to evaluate Bush’s assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Bush has appended statements to new laws when he signs them, noting which provisions he believes interfere with his powers.

Among the laws Bush has challenged are the ban on torturing detainees, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and “whistle-blower” protections for federal employees.

The challenges also have included safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research.

Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined.

And when you enter the workforce, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-poorest borders. Now I know you’re all going to say, “Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America.” Yes, but here’s the thing—it’s built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it’s a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spansih, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools.

So we must build walls. A wall obviously across the entire southern border. That’s the answer. That may not be enough—maybe a moat in front of it, or a fire-pit. Maybe a flaming moat, filled with fire-proof crocodiles. And we should probably wall off the northern border as well. Keep those Canadians with their socialized medicine and their skunky beer out. And because immigrants can swim, we’ll probably want to wall off the coasts as well. And while we’re at it, we need to put up a dome, in case they have catapults. And we’ll punch some holes in it so we can breathe. Breathe free. It’s time for illegal immigrants to go—right after they finish building those walls. Yes, yes, I agree with me.

I think 33 percent is a pretty bad number for an incumbent senator to give up to a challenger nobody ever heard of. Certainly, the Lamont team members were staggering around like dazed lottery winners. “Pinch me,” Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan told a comrade. The Lieberman team was acting like they knew it all along. “Can we count or can we count?” Lieberman manager Sean Smith languidly told a reporter. He was unpersuasive. It may have been a number that tumbled out of their worst-case game theory, but it certainly was not a number they wanted.

The real number is lot worse for Lieberman than 33 percent. I don’t know how big the Lamont vote would get if you could tabulate the no-shows and the sleeper cells of delegates who plan to vote differently in the primary, but I do know it’s a bigger number. And the convention is full of party regulars, usually the easiest people to keep in line. Wisdom of the ages would suggest that the “amateur” voters are potentially much more rebellious.

Congrats to Lamont. He still has a primary to win, but with these numbers, it is highly likely that Lieberman is toast. Goodbye, Joe, you sanctimonious, sexist, prick. You will not be missed.

For those that don’t remember that Joe was the first person (not just Democrat) on the Senate floor to call for impeachment, for those that don’t remember Lieberman’s constant attempts to stifle free speech, for those that don’t remember Joe’s vote for cloture on the heinous bankruptcy bill, for those that don’t remember Joe’s vote for cloture with regards to scAlito, how about his support for rapists’ rights?

Lieberman said he believes hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for “principled reasons” shouldn’t be forced to do so. “In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a short ride to get to another hospital,” he said.

Again, congratulations to the Lamont team. Keep on truckin’!

President Bush . . . has a positive job approval in just three of the 50 United States. This according to 50 separate but concurrent statewide public opinion polls conducted by SurveyUSA for its media clients across the country. Only residents of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho view the president favorably.

I’m amazed there are enough morons still around in any state to give him a majority approval anymore. You know, after the massive die-off from eating the bad batch of Goldstein paste.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Update: looks like Jason Leopold is not the most trustworthy of sources, so grains of salt. As it has now been two full business days in the week since this report came out, let’s just say it’s veracity is in doubt. For my part, I think it highly likely that Rove will be indicted in the near future. There are very few other possible explanations for Fitzgerald’s actions.

A blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.

Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees, including celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the president to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “They are re-arranging the deck chairs–on the Hindenburg.”

What, no hahahaha! fun-nee slideshows about looking for WMDs in the White House couch this year?

That Hindenberg line is genius.

The whole event is on C-SPAN, but C&L has just the Colbert part.

C-SPAN on Google video, whole thing.

Prince is purple reigning on the charts.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who launched his career nearly three decades ago, scored his first ever number-one debut, as 3121 rolled up sales of 183,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Behold, the power and the glory of FSM, for his legions of pastafarian followers shall scoop up your album by the truckload. It helps if you’re a fabulous pop song writer and an incredibly talented musician as well, but FSM’s benevolence is apparent – and necessary! – here.

Later on in the article, we are also presented with incontrovertible proof that we are in the decline phase of the empire

thanks to an American Idol guest appearance, Barry Manilow’s The Greatest Songs of the Fifties rocketed 22 spots to number four on 78,000 copies.

They should make a shirt out of my motherfuckin sign, though.

Well, the immigrants and libs heard about it too.

Joining what some are calling the nation’s largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting “Si se puede!” (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

Given our gilded age, I’m sure this will have as much effect as the worldwide demonstrations against the Iraq invasion. Don’t these GOoPers know who provides all the essential services they rely upon? They cook their meals, they drive the ambulances. They connect our calls. They guard us while we sleep. Do not… fuck with them.

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

I’m sure he meant “resigned” resigned. Couldn’t happen to a more worthy individual.

Why pay $16/mo? The daunting part is the setup, but tinkering is in a monkey’s nature, no?

Samsung is first to announce a Flash storage device that aims to completely replace the traditional hard drive in some mass market mobile computers. The 32 GB solid state disk (SSD) drive comes in a 1.8″ form factor and reads data at more than twice the speed of hard drives. Best of all: The SSD is promised to consume 95% less power than a hard drive.

The power consumption part is huge. You know how much longer our laptops can run without having to churn their harddrives? If the SSDs can replace the HDDs, this will be huge. Huge!

Nice. Hat tip to y’all.

All week, USC guard Gabe Pruitt had been instant-messaging a very attractive UCLA gal named Victoria. They exchanged phone numbers and set up a date back in L.A. — or so Pruitt thought. When he went to the free-throw line for the first time, the student section chanted “VIC-TOR-IA, VIC-TOR-IA” and showed him a sign with his own phone number. Pruitt, a 79 percent shooter, suddenly got that deer-in-the-headlights look. He missed both free throws.

Turns out a few Cal students — male, most likely — pulled off the “Victoria” gag. Cal won 71-60. Pruitt — who averages 16.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game — had 12 points, two boards and one dazed facial expression.

In the common parlance of the day, Pruitt got punkd and pWn3d. Booyah.

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, criticized by some evangelicals for comments about Venezuela’s president and Israel’s prime minister, lost a bid for re-election to the National Religious Broadcasters’ board of directors.

The Thermals, a rambunctious rock band from Portland, Ore., were en route between gigs last year when they got a phone call from their label, Sub Pop. Hummer wanted to pay them $50,000 for the right to use their song “It’s Trivia” in a commercial.

Trans Am, an electronic rock band from Washington, spurned $180,000 in ad money from Hummer.

“We thought about it for about 15 seconds, maybe,” lead singer Hutch Harris said.

They said no.

Washington D.C.’s Trans Am were offered $180,000 by Hummer for the song “Total Information Awareness.”

“We figured it was almost like giving music to the Army, or Exxon,” guitarist Philip Manley said.

They said no.

The post-punk band LiLiPUT, who broke up more than 20 years ago, could have pocketed $50,000 for “Heidi’s Head” after making close to nothing during their five-year existence. But they, too, said no.

“At least I can sleep without nightmares,” Marlene Marder reasoned.

I’m sure their managers were livid. Do you know how hard it is to turn down that kind of money when you’re an indie band playing shitty bars in nowhere towns? I admire that kind of commitment to principle.

The safe extraction of 72 potash miners following a serious fire about a kilometre underground at the Mosaic Co. mine at Esterhazy is particularly remarkable for its contrast with fires at two West Virginia coal mines that took 14 lives earlier in January.

Even though there’s a vast difference between the extraction of coal that occurs in an environment of flammable and often toxic gases, and the excavation of benign potash from among the world’s largest deposits in Saskatchewan, the 72 miners owe their unscathed survival to stringent regulations and the mining industry’s commendable safety-first approach in this province.

The moment miner Dennis Lachapelle and a group of co-workers confronted a giant wall of fire as they were travelling in a pickup truck at the end of their shift on Sunday, their comprehensive safety training told them to turn around and head immediately to one of a dozen airtight “refuge stations” situated inside the whopping 20 km by 30 km cavern.

Such refuge stations, most of which double as lunchrooms and are replete with moist clay that miners can use to further seal the doors in case of smoke, have been required since the 1930s in the wake of a fire in Ontario that killed 39 miners. At about 650 square metres, and stocked with water, food — even if it’s the “horriblest little biscuits you would ever eat,” according to one rescued miner — blankets, a phone, and pressurized oxygen independent of the mine’s main ventilation system, the vital role these safe rooms play cannot be overstressed.

Sen. Maria Cantwell
United States Senate

Dear Sen. Cantwell,

Thank you for voting to give me complete ownership of my wife’s uterus. Your vote against the filibuster means a lot me. I’ve been eyeing Ofjoshua’s uterine property for years.

I’d like to return the favor. It’s a shame that your own uterus continues to be unclaimed by any man. We can’t allow that–it’s just too much responsibility. That’s why I’ve decided to ease your burden by laying claim to it myself.

No need to worry about anything. Just give me a call if you want to use your my uterus, and I’ll decide whether to allow it.

Of course, you’ll need to tattoo the words “Property of Gen. JC Christian, patriot” on your abdomen or wherever it is you keep those things. Be sure to leave room for another tattoo in case I decide to sell your my uterus to someone else.

Heterosexually* yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

*I’m not hitting on you. It’s just very important to me that people know that I’m a heterosexual. Cletis is a god damned liar!

Well done, sir. Well done.

Here’s one, on AOL.
1. Grade Bush’s performance A-F
2. Is the country better/same/worse since he came to office?

Over 350,000 votes in, and… the freepers are powerless against the reality based community. Bush is given an F by 45% of the respondents, and it’s 63/29/8 worse/better/same. Still, can’t hurt to throw your hat into the ring.

In conjunction with the Bloggies, this is good evidence that the right wing blogosphere is a steadily diminishing empty vessel. Just a bunch of hate-filled gasbags with no power against we, the People.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of racist, fascist fucktards.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced that she will vote no on cloture regarding the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

“Based on a very long and thoughtful analysis of the record and transcript, which I tried to indicate in my floor statement yesterday, I’ve decided that I will vote no on cloture.”

Now we have to work on Ken Salazar and see if we can flip Olympia Snowe.