A bar in suburban Atlanta is now selling the t-shirt depicting Barack Obama as a monkey. Of course, the bar’s owner swears that he’s not at all racist:

The T-shirts are being peddled by Marietta bar owner Mike Norman at his Mulligan’s Bar and Grill in Cobb County. They show a picture of Curious Georgie peeling a banana, with the words “Obama ‘08″ underneath.

Norman has said he got the T-shirts from someone in Arkansas. He started selling them at his bar — known for the provocative, ultra-conservative political slogans often posted on signs out front — in April but said he has no plans to mass market them. Norman acknowledged the imagery’s Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey.

His defenders are just as resolute. Mulligan’s is a refuge, they say, in an otherwise hypersensitive world. Smoking isn’t only allowed at the bar, it’s expected.

“This place is a diamond in the rough,” said Gene McKinley, a Woodstock engineer among the patrons Tuesday. “People here are genuine and honest. It’s the one place I can go without having to worry if I’m offending someone.”

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Jay Ackroyd points out that Harvard isn’t really an institution of higher learning:

Harvard’s net assets increased about $7 billion in 2007, from about $35 billion to about $42 billion.

Viewed purely in terms of economics, Harvard is really a $40 billion tax-free hedge fund with a very large marketing and PR arm called Harvard University that has the job of raising the investment capital and protecting the fund’s preferential tax treatment.

That $7 billion makes Harvard University the 20th most profitable company in America for 2007, just behind Hewlett-Packard and just ahead of Intel.

Tuition at Harvard is $43,655 per year, but students from families making less than $40,000 pay nothing, and the average student aid package is almost $33,000.

Now that McCain has fired two lobbyists for their ties to the Burmese Junta, he’s in the clear, right? I mean, how many lobbyists with an embarrassing client list could he have hired?

Plenty:

Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes

Black’s firm represented the governor of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. According to a 1985 report, the firm Black, Manafort & Stone earned $950,000 plus expenses for its work to provide “advice and assistance on matters relating to the media, public relations and public affairs interests.”

Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, earning $1 million a year for his efforts.

Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Black’s firm represented Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Babangida, earning at least $1 million for his efforts.

Black’s firm has represented Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich state “best known for the outlandish brutality of its rulers.”

Black represented Angolan rebel and “classical terrorist” Jonas Savimbi, a job that earned him $600,000. “We have to call him Africa’s classical terrorist,” Makau Mutua, a professor of law and Africa specialist told the New York Times. “In the history of the continent, I think he’s unique because of the degree of suffering he caused without showing any remorse.”

In recent years his client list has also included the Iraqi National Congress, Friends of Blackwater, and the China National Off-Shore Oil Corp.

Since 2005, BKSH has received more than $700,000 in fees from foreign entities.

Thomas Loeffler, co-chairman of McCain’s campaign, has represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid the Loeffler Group “a whopping $7.9 million from December 1, 2005, though November 2006 — the largest fee collected from a foreign government by any lobbying firm in 2006,” according to National Journal. The Washington Times reported that “Mr. Loeffler’s firm has received more than $10 million since 2006 from the Saudi Embassy and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Much of this work was centered on gaining admission for the Kingdom to the World Trade Organization.

Since 2005, according to the Washington Times, “the Loeffler Group reported more than $11 million in fees from foreign lobbying clients.”

Peter Madigan, a leading McCain fundraiser, lobbies on behalf of the king of Dubai

Madigan has earned upwards of $800,000 to improve the United Arab Emirates’ reputation in the face of a class action lawsuit over the enslavement of boy camel jockeys.

I should point out that “camel jockeys” refers to the boys’ jobs, not their ethnicity.

There’s a lot of people calling on McCain to fire all of the lobbyists that work for his campaign, but he’s not going to do that. He can’t. He has 112 lobbyists on his national campaign staff. They’re the backbone of his campaign. They’re the engine that drives his fundraising machine. Despite all of his talk about being a maverick, it turns out that McCain is completely dependent on Washington lobbyists.

Hifumi Kubota, 45, was taken for questioning to a police station in the central Japanese city of Nagoya on Saturday after a woman who was living with him told police that he was acting violently.

When officers came to his house, “he poured kerosene over himself in front of police”, a police spokesman said.

Mr Kubota refused to change his kerosene-soaked clothes at the police station and asked to smoke during questioning, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun and other Japanese media.

Despite no-smoking rules in the building, a police official gave him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

If you’re curious as to how this one turns out, read the story here.

Does anyone really believe that Bush quit golf out of respect for the troops? Doesn’t it seem more likely that Karl Rove told him that he was hurting himself politically with displays like the one in this video?

Bush says that he quit golf in 2003, out of respect for the families of soldiers killed in Iraq:

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said in an interview for Internet hub Yahoo! and Politico magazine. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

If Bush is telling the truth about the reason he stopped playing golf, why didn’t he stop when we invaded Afghanistan?

(cross posted at appletree and This Old Brit)

Tony Blair, pretending to give an edgewise crap about his wife’s miscarriage

From the Telegraph:

Cherie Blair discloses today that she “could not believe” news of her miscarriage was released early for political reasons, such was the obsession with media management among the former Prime Minister’s inner circle.

In the latest extracts from her memoirs, Mrs Blair says she spoke to Alistair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s media chief, within hours of the miscarriage in 2002.

Mr Blair and Mr Campbell told her that they would be announcing news of the loss to avert false speculation about an early invasion of Iraq.

Mrs Blair recounts how she visited the hospital and was told: “There is no heart beat, Mrs Blair. I am afraid the baby is dead.”

Mrs Blair telephoned her husband to tell him what had happened. She was then shocked to be called back by both Mr Blair and Mr Campbell saying that the press announcement was to be made for political reasons.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “There was I was bleeding, and they were talking about what was going to be the line to the press. I put down the receiver and lay there staring at the ceiling as pain began to grip.”

(cross posted at appletree and This Old Brit)

82% of Americans say that the country is on the wrong track.

Also, 66% of Americans disapprove of Bush’s job performance, while 69% of Republicans approve of his performance. In other words, Republicans just don’t see things the way most Americans do. It’s going to be very hard for them to claim that the Democrats are out of touch while they advocate the very policies that most Americans reject.

Take the Bush/McCain blind taste test!

Because this story made me smile?

Mom! Not in front of the guys!

Mother’s Day is now well underway (in fact, it’s over already if you live in Asia), so it’s too late to send flowers. You’re just a terrible child.

But I found something that might make you feel a bit better today. It’s a touching message from the folks at Things I Did Last Night.

(cross posted at appletree and This Old Brit)