Turkee

If you've taken my not-so-subtle hints to visit Atrios regularly, you may wonder about his strange references to ''turkee.''

It's a crossed-meme joke. Last November, there was a story about a 7-year-old who was disciplined at school for telling other kids that his mother was a lesbian. Atrios followed the story and posted a disconcerting image of the school's ''student behavior contract,'' which says ''what I should have done: cep my mouf shut.''

Meanwhile, a story was breaking about the famous picture of Bush serving Thanksgiving turkey in Iraq being a bit deceptive: it seems that the turkey in question was a display platter, not something served to GIs.

Add to that Atrios' recurring theme in linking to mainstream news articles, pointing out, like many observers, how the mainstream press, and the White House press corps in particular, have been intimidated by the Bush administration. With Karl Rove at the helm, the administration has used a strategy of weeding out reporters who write things critical of the administration by cutting off their access to information.

So Atrios combined all of those themes into a joke. And now ''turkee'' is Atrios' shorthand for ''the good stuff.''