Wonkette

• JIM WEBB WILL BE VICE PRESIDENT OF NOTHING: Ulster Scot fur-trading frontiersman Sen. Jim Webb has been a frequently mentioned vice presidential possibility for Barack Obama, because he is white and was in the Army for a while. Today, however, he effectively withdrew his name from contention in a statement about how much he luvs the Senate. This means Obama must choose him! [The Page]

Our last, best hope for Washington — that it would be destroyed by the horrible emergence of subterranean monstrosities — came tantalizingly close to reality on Tuesday, when a magnitude 2.0 earthquake shook the D.C. area. What was it, and why is the government claiming and then denying responsibility for the loud booms from Beneath the Earth? MORE »

The U.S. Army is demanding more money RIGHT NOW for their $160-billion dollar World Peace Force Futurization scheme, in which ordinary hero soldiers (at least, the ones who get stop-lossed back to Iraq in the year 2012) will be given powered exoskeletons and magnetorheological fluid suits which turn from liquid to solid, thereby preventing anyone from dying ever again in our awesome war. There will also be 50,000 volt electric guns for when we fight the giant insects on Planet P—and the thrilling if seemingly rickety Non-Line-of-Sight Cannons seen in the video above, which come complete with exciting rock music! Also the Army would apparently like some vehicles that do not blow up all the time. But this can only happen if they get $252 million more dollars RIGHT NOW. If not, then it is curtains for Caspar van Dien and all the other shirtless hotties proudly serving us overseas on this beautiful tax day. [Army Times]

Military officials have contracted out to the Galactic Empire for new blasters, heat-seeking ones that might dig up those sand pirates once and for all. Well, not exactly, but military officials did offer the following yesterday: “An oversized ray gun could be deployed to Iraq early next year.” Gloyvin! Ray guns and the Iraq what with all the lasers…. MORE »

The U.S. Army has been ignoring advice from countless dystopian, CGI-enhanced Hollywood blockbusters and is speedily developing “combat robots,” which are wired to kill brown people on sight and let humans ask questions later. According to Philadelphia’s CBS 3, five thousand mercenary death robots are on the ground in Iraq, “finding booby traps or searching for the enemy.” Rumors are already swirling that when these sexually repressed robots pillage a town, they have their way with the local lady robots in the village cantinas (one of them being Johnny 5’s wife!) Their human controllers are too caught up with the possibilities of metal death machines to care about robotic sexual abuse. According to Jim Braden of the Army’s Joint Robotics Program, “The real trend right now is the infantry and maneuver forces looking at, ‘what can a robot do for me.’”

Oh, I know. A robot can TURN SIDES AND ELIMINATE YOU, MR. ARMY ROBOT CRAFTSMAN! MORE »

Need a job? But can’t stomach indie movie references from old congresswomen? Here’s one you can look into: the US Armed Forces seem to have an urgent need for 67 “Personel Effects Specialists.” This job is also known as “doing something with all these dead soldiers.” So submit your resume today to work with the US Army Casualty and Morturary Affairs Operations Center at the Joint Personal Effect Depot, at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the Happiest Place on Earth^TM! “Former military experience preferred, but NOT required.”

NEW! 67 Temp Positions: Personal Effects Specialist (FT Shifts to Aug. 17) [serco]

It’s almost too depressing to mention again, but let’s recap the Pat Tillman revelations from Army medical examiners and internal Pentagon reports released last week and find out what happens when famous football stars turned Army Heroes become anti-war critics: MORE »

* Jim Jeffords stole Walnuts! maverick thunder in 2001 and never gave it back. [QandO]
* Diane Feinstein: so many fuckups to distance herself from, so little time. [World Net Daily]
* Army happy to accept freshly-inked killers the Marines have rejected. [Vodka Pundit]
* James Inhofe hates U2 as much as you do. [C&L]
* Rudy took down Judy the first night. [Hotline on Call]
* Predictable Iowa voters go for the whitest candidate with a cock. [MoJo]
* New jib-jab cartoon that debuted at last night’s radio/teevee dinner. [jibjab]
* Howard Dean is less of a prick than before. Hazzzzzzzzzzah! [Roll Call]

More than a quarter of members report that they regularly drink “heavily,” drug use is up, there’s been a 20% increase in fat people, and outrageous slapstick football games are happening more frequently than they have in 30 years: the ’70s are back in the Army! MORE »

* Number of hours President Bush spent in Colombia: 7. Number of troops assigned to protect him: 20,000. Impact on drug trade: worthless. [NYT]
* Barack Obama floats like a butterfly, Hillary Clinton is a “b.” [WP]
* Robert Gates makes the big decisions at the Pentagon by asking himself, “what would Donald Rumsfeld do?” Then he does the opposite. [NYT]
* Military decides now is a good time to figure out what to do if the “surge” doesn’t turn Iraq back into the garden of Eden after all. [LAT]
* Nancy Pelosi tries calling Captain Planet, gets Jim Sensenbrenner instead. [WP]
* Fred Thompson hikes his skirt up and sticks his thumb out to catch a ride to the Vice Presidential manse. [WP]
* February 5, 2008: the day the Walnuts Express goes quiet. [NYT]
* Be short. Army short. [USAT]

The secretary of the Army got tossed out just now, for losing the war in Iraq not keeping the hospital clean enough, because that’s apparently what the secretary of the Army is supposed to do for this administration. MORE »

* Army General in charge of Walter Reed is fired for not supporting the troops. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Federal prosecutors fired for not supporting Republicans come back like night-zombies to haunt the Justice Department. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* The second great “political showdown/media circus” of Selma, AL will be this weekend, Revs. Obama and Clinton presiding. [WP]
* Yes, Condoleezza Rice’s new “counselor” is a neo-con. Yes, he also has a mustache. [WP]
* Federal buildings are just like your new condo, have “workout facilities, firing ranges.” [USAT]
* International markets have testicles, and they are still firmly in Alan Greenspan’s kung-fu grip. [NYT]

* Harry Reid tells Tim Johnson to “stay alive, no matter what occurs.” [WP, NYT, WSJ]
* And about 50% of people who Democrats don’t depend on for a tenuous majority in the Senate who also have arteriovenous malformations do make complete recoveries, “more or less.” [WP]
* But even if he’s totally “Schiavo’d,” the Senate has never “forced a member out of office because of a physical or mental inability to serve.” [LAT]
* President Bush couldn’t care less about you, is playing for your grandkids approval ratings — just like Harry Truman did. [WP]
* Condoleezza Rice thinks Iran and Syria’s asking prices for help in Iraq are too high, she’s only willing to offer economic incentives and a player to be named later. [WP]
* To stay “Army Strong,” top General recommends getting “Army Big.” [WP, NYT]
* White House pissed at Sen. Bill Nelson for going to Damascus, “undermining democracy in the region.” Still glad to have him and not Katherine Harris. [NYT]
* Pastry chef blows Laura Bush’s sugar, is hired at White House. [NYT]

Again with the military blocking Wonkette so our fighting forces won’t be exposed to inane exchanges from Late Night Shots. A Wonkette operative at a U.S. Army base in Europe sent us this shocking evidence. We asked the soldier to try some other political sites and report back, but he hasn’t answered because the Army killed him, probably. MORE »