Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Tickle yer ass with a feather, officer?

I was reading this NYT article on "When the Police Go Military" wherein "Occupy" is mentioned a lot.

Yet lately images from Occupy protests streamed on the Internet — often in real time — show just how readily police officers can adopt military-style tactics and equipment, and come off more like soldiers as they face down citizens. Some say this adds up to the emergence of a new, more militaristic breed of civilian police officer. Others disagree.

The cops are probably the ones disagreeing. They lurves them some macho gear to deal with unarmed protesters, the more heavy-handed the better. Nip those kids, nip 'em in the bud! (Visual of Barney Fife in an exoskeleton maintaining law and order in downtown Mayberry.)

It dawned on me some time back that one of these days some police department or other is going to need to be taken down. A campus cop force seems like good place to start, especially after that dick move with pepper spray at UC Davis. They're small and not particularly well trained, sometimes staffed with badge-heavy wannabe badasses who couldn't hack it in a real police department, and could be overpowered by motivated protesters with a little training.

Remember, the idea is to humiliate them, not hurt them. Well, not too badly anyway. They've got a few lumps and bumps and bruises coming.

I've been thinking of ways to best accomplish a cop takedown. First, pick your target. Make sure they deserve it, that they're acting like total dicks. If they're just trying to keep the peace and not using excessive force, go with the flow. Don't fuck with guys who aren't fucking with you.

Next, block access to other law enforcement reinforcements. Bodies, lots and lots of people, as many as you can get. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. It's what we have the most of to counter a few cops with weapons. The whole point is to keep the cops from using the weapons and embarrass the crap out of 'em in the process.

Also to take the establishment's only real power - violence - away. That'll scare the shit out of the front office.

I came up with a three-men-per-cop tactic. Not to exclude the ladies by any means, but it will take strength. It will also take practice. One man dives for the cop's legs and bear hugs 'em. One man grabs each arm and takes him down. The man with the cop's gun hand hangs on tight, the other sits on the sonofabitch. Then use the cop's own handcuffs or those big cable-tie ones you wisely stuck three of in your pocket first. If the cop needs a little extra persuasion at this point to quiet down, so be it. Line 'em all up in a nice neat row for the TV cameras.

Let's say 20 cops, 60 men to do this, all going down with split-second timing. Perfect.

And absolutely unworkable. A platoon of Marines could pull off shit like that because they work at training day in and day out. Civilians who have to go to classes to try and learn something so they can hopefully get a better job than the one they've got to get through school and still try and sleep a coupla hours a night haven't got the time.

The whole point is to immobilize the cops. If they can't move, they can't fuck with you, right? I thought of hosing 'em down with fast-drying concrete or that foam crap they ship Harley-Davidson engines in, but that brain fart passed pretty quickly.

I thought of boleadoras and other variations of ancient hunting weapons. Wow, a coupla those wrapped around a cop and he might as well turn in his time card for the day! Then my research turned up this:

The reason sectional, chained or flexible shafted tools make such excellent weapons is because of the "whip" amplifying effect of the "cords" causing a small hand movement to be translated into a much larger movement and hence bigger momentum. This then translates into either a greater throwing distance and/or bigger impact once the head of the weapon hits the target. You will most likely already know this if you have ever been hit by some fast moving poi.

Had that happen at a luau once. Ouch. No, swinging bits of whatever flying around in a crowd would have unintended consequences, like knocking out everyone but the intended. Why do the cops' work for them? Nope.

What to do, what to do. Came to me almost by mistake while I was culturally expanding my understanding of the performing arts whilst watching this. Research takes me many places.

Boas. Lots and lots of boas. Hundreds, thousands of boas, each in the hands of a scantily clad twisting gyrating nubile young Freedom Fighter! Extra long boas, perhaps modified for the job at hand by the addition of a length of ultra-flexible 7x7 motorcycle throttle wire down the long axis. To the beat of drum circles, the gals close in on the cops, mesmerized by the jungle beat, the bare skin, the bouncing butts 'n boobies! Then the dancers STRIKE! In one swift motion, the boas are whipped around the cops, two, three to a man, strategically placed, arms, legs, a neck or two of the worst offenders, pulled tight and the ends done up with a granny knot.

Deal done. The cops can't move. The TV cameras would have a field day with the brightly colored bits of feathers that took down America's Finest. Those cops would slink off as laughingstocks from the annual cop goat roping or whatever it is they do.

And let that be a lesson to the rest of 'em. Harrumph.

Ah, to dream... That was good shit ya sent me, F-Man...

They're almost gone

The Beeb

The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association said it would disband after this year's landmark commemoration because so few veterans remained.

Those guys made the rest of us who have served since look good. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Probably not the best place to put this next, but...

It was the last assault on US soil until al-Qaeda's attacks of 11 September 2001, another surprise offensive that shocked the US into military action and transformed its strategic outlook.

If Bush had been Preznit on 7 December 1941, he would have declared war on Mexico and told everyone to go shopping. War with Germany would have been out of the question. The Bush Crime Family was making too much money there.

Please text me your naked email URL

If it's Wednesday, it's Morford on a whole bunch of social communication problems that until recently we didn't know we would ever have.

And so I thought, I need to reconnect with her. Need to send her a note. Need to say hi and see what's what and how wildly her world is spinning.

So I reached for the phone to... wait, no, I clicked on the link to... no no, I opened the chat window to... um, text her an email about the Facebook photo I was about to Skype in the... dammit, wait a second.

I was, for a ridiculous and surreal moment, paralyzed. What's the best way to reconnect in this particular context? Which mode has the right tone and feel? Should I send her a text? A funny photo? Facebook message? Skype? How about a more thoughtful, considered email? It's been a few months, after all. Maybe a postcard? An iPhone Postagram of an Instagram of a Hipstamatic snapshot of a letter I wrote on an iPad chat window's notebook app? Who can tell?

Or maybe I should do the least common, most archaic thing of all, something with which the next generation apparently has almost zero skill and hence which might just spell the end of civilization as we know it, and pick up the damn phone?

I've got email, Facebook, Alternate Brain, and a land line and sometimes that's too many. Sometimes there are advantages to being a dinosaur.

Quote of the Day

John Perr:

Florida Governor Rick Scott now slightly more popular than ebola virus.

Heh ...

A good ugly Christmas sweater.

Hitting the 1% ...

I never thought Royal Governor Il Cuomo II had it in him:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders announced on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement to overhaul New York State’s income tax, creating a higher tax bracket for the highest-income residents and reducing the tax rate for millions of middle-class residents.

...


Now, if that kind of thinking would only rub off on Little Napoleon down in NYC, this would start working a little better in this state.

70 years ...



Dad-in-law Fixer signed up the very next day and so did millions of other young men. He was lucky and came home in one piece. Many others didn't. Remember them today.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Just once, oh please...

Senator Kyl (R-Idiotzona) said (you can look it up, this is a quickie) "We'll extend the payroll tax cut if Obama makes the Bush tax cuts permanent".

Just once I'd like to see Barry put on his best, and it's damn good, shit-eatin' grin and reply to him:

"Fat chance, white boy!"

I Call A Barnyard Fulla Shit On B of A

This video is great in one respect and total horseshit in another.

It's great for Pink's Hot Dogs. Pink's is an institution in L.A.. It's world famous. I've been there lotsa times. I think Fixer has even been there. One reason: absolutely great hot dogs. The sidewalk ambience is pretty good too. It's a fun place to go.



Here's the three foot deep swamp of pig shit: Pink's has been where it is, with other locations now, for 70 years. Back in the day, Bank of America was a California-only bank owned by the Giannini family, whose patriarch founded it in San Francisco as the Bank of Italy in 1904. The name was changed in 1922 and again in 1930.

When the banking rules were changed under Reagan is when B of A was able to operate outside California and became the 5th largest criminal enterprise in banking it is today. They're trying to pass it off as though today's version was responsible for Pink's and they're still a small business and family friendly neighborhood bank.

Bullshit. Far from it.

They're doing the exact same thing about an enterprise up in Washington, a grocery store chain started after WWII by a returned Japanese-American concentration camp internee. Whatever in-state bank that made that loan was acquired by B of A after Reagan started us down the yellow brick road to ruin.

B of A is claiming credit for startup loans they didn't even make.

When I researched this, I discovered more B of A ads than you can shake a stick at, all trying to convince us they're a force for good and we should love them for the royal screwing they've been giving us for years.

I gotta go wash B of A chickenshit off.

Pelosi To Take Big Dump On Neut

Following up on Fixer's post. WaPo

Pelosi, in an interview with Talking Points Memo, echoed Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in saying “I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican Party.”

From the TPM interview:

There’s no better illustration of how ecstatic Democrats are about Newt Gingrich leading the GOP primary pack than Nancy Pelosi’s strategic silence.
...

Pelosi didn’t go into detail about Gingrich’s past transgressions, but she tipped her hand. “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Pressed for more detail she wouldn’t go further.

“Not right here,” Pelosi joked. “When the time’s right.”

Which is to say that if Gingrich somehow clinches the nomination, there’s one hell of an oppo dump coming.

Gotta go get a bigger microwave oven...

Here's what's really going to happen:

As much fun as we're having with this, and as much as we'd like to see Neutie have his ass handed to him 75% to 25% in Obama's re-election, Neut is NOT going to be the Repug nominee.

All the brouhaha about the Repug clown car is simply a function of 24/7 cable news air time. The Beltway gasbags gotta fill it with something, no matter how inane/batcrap crazy the candidates. It's great entertainment and means nothing.

It doesn't matter if Neut wins every caucus/primary in the nation. The Repug establishment, i.e. the 'money' end of what's left of the party, KNOWS that Obama is going to be re-elected. They know it. Period.

They know the 'crazy' end of the party, i.e. the Dead End Quarter can't elect anyone in the general, but they think Willard can come closer so it won't appear as such a rout. They know they're going to be left standing in the wreckage of the Repug party, but they want at least some wreckage to stand in. Run Neut, they'll be standing in a smoking hole where their party used to be.

The money boys will see that Willard is the nominee. If they have to flat exclude Neut delegates from their sham convention, so be it. I'd bet a dollar the deal is already done.

All that said, I still wanta see Nancy lift her skirt and drop a giant Frisco Steamer on Neut's face. Heh.

Color me surprised ...

Not:

NEW ORLEANS -- BP has accused Halliburton of destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement slurry that went into drilling the oil well that blew out last year and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

In a court filing, the oil company alleged that Halliburton did inadequate cement work. BP also asked a federal judge to punish the oilfield services company.

...


You mean Halliburton would actually destroy evidence of their criminality? Oh what is the world coming to?

Really?

It's an insidious conspiracy; the brainwashing of our children by ... Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. No, really:

Life’s a happy song, but not when Fox Business is singing along. The network is upset that the new Muppets movie, The Muppets, features an oil tycoon as a villain, with various contributors complaining last week that the film amounts to “indoctrination” of young people into “hating corporate America” that borders on “Communist[ic].” Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center agreed with host Eric Bolling that “liberal Hollywood is using class warfare to brainwash our kids” and the discussion rambled on from there.

...


Me thinks some might be getting a bit paranoid over there on the right.

I can imagine ...

Nancy Pelosi says she's got an encyclopedia worth of dirt on Neuticles and he's worried she might release it all:

Republican presidential candidate hopeful Newt Gingrich sounds a little worried that Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi might follow through with her threat to divulge details of his past transgressions.

...


Nancy, I got like $25 bucks in my wallet. It's all yours if you follow through. Heh ... Get me the popcorn!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Swimming with Jim Crow in Negro Creek

I think I posted on something like this a while back. We have a similarly re-named canyon at the edge of my town, but you can't swim in the two-rut road that goes up it. You can haul some black ass on it on a bike though! Heh.

YubaNet

It's the tale about the laudable efforts of a local property owner -- who happens to be a county employee -- with an offensively named creek on her land to drag Nevada County government kicking and screaming into the 21st century by renaming it on current maps -- like the Assessors parcel maps (APN maps). Emphasis on the word current.

For now, the name Negro Creek will remain on federal maps since it was the federal government that removed the word Nigger on all its maps in 1964 and replaced it with Negro. In 1983 (during the Reagan administration) the Board of Names enacted the following: "The Board will not adopt a name proposal that includes the word "Jap" or the word "Nigger" whether or not it is in current local usage and regardless of by whom proposed." That directive, signed by the Secretary of the Interior, whizzed right by Nevada County.

Not hard to do. Hell, the Twentieth Century never caught on all that big around here either.

Nevada County's conservative Republican majority on the BOS is famous for declaring its disdain for government in general and its preference for local control over state or federal mandates. OK, so how does that work in this case? Let's see...

Yeah, Nigger Creek'd be fine with them.

What the BOS fails to acknowledge is that the word "Negro" – while hardly as odious as the word "nigger" -- is perceived by many people today of all races as offensive, and not just "outmoded" -- to use Supervisor Weston's inane adjective. "Outmoded" is a word more appropriate for describing unfashionable hairdos and clothing styles like mullets and go-go boots, not to describe what an entire generation of the biggest racial minority in the United States chooses to name itself in view of past discrimination. The term "Negro" is "outmoded" today precisely because it is offensive to many since it is reminiscent of the Jim Crow period. And, it is used by racists today as a replacement for the now "outmoded" term "nigger." Bottom line, the word "Negro" is still used today by people who don't have the guts to use the word "nigger." Does anybody remember the song "Barack The Magic Negro" played ad nauseam on the Rush Limbaugh show during the last presidential campaign? Had he used the word "nigger" on the air, he would have lost his job. He was safe using "Negro," but we all heard the dog whistle.

There's more and please read it, but here are my questions:

Is the word "Negro" really offensive, or is it just outmoded, or is it one or the other simply out of political correctness? Or is it just the way it's used to convey positive, neutral, or negative meanings depending on the speaker?

I had occasion the other day to post a song on Facebook by an outstanding Old Time String Band called "The Carolina Chocolate Drops". The album name is "Genuine Negro Jig". I suspect a little tongue-in-cheek poking fun at us white devils, so is it OK for some folks to use the word and some not?

Here's the first Google entry for "Negro". There are 478,999,999 others. So much for research...

Opinions, please.

Decoy

I was reading an article at Truthout about "I Know How to Beat Republicans". Quite a good article, but not really much in there about that. This snippet really caught my eye:

[...] And then there was the Bosnia-Kosovo war. As Bismarck said, the risk of Europe being set aflame occurs when some damn fool starts a war in the Balkans. And then there was the way it was conducted: $200,000 US missiles were decoyed by the Serbs wiring $100 microwave ovens to operate with the door open.

The "lights on in yer head, dipshit" light came on in my head! How simple. If you're trying to get radar-seeking missiles to go off someplace else besides where you are, jam the doorlatch on a microwave oven so the oven thinks the door's closed and the signals can get out and fool the missile into thinking it's going to kamikaze something important!

Brilliant, and it doesn't get much simpler than that. Might be good to know that sometime.

Might be good to know where the electrical outlets are at somebody's house you would like to see the missile land on too.

Neut Thinks You Can Go To Hawaii On Food Stamps (And Other Nonsense)

Addicting Info

As if that isn’t bad enough, Newt has decided that not only is he running for president, he is also laying claim to the crown of the King of Making Shit Up (You didn’t think Karl Rove could hold it forever, did you?)
...

Recent cases in point:
...

–He said of the Occupy movement, that they should “go get a job after you take a bath.” Because as everyone is aware, you can then go jump on the back of the job unicorn who will take you to the land of jobs where the man behind the curtain will open the drapes and expose the place where there aren’t 4 job seekers for every job. I think that place is called China.

–Then he pointed out that poor people have no work ethic and no understanding of what it’s like to have a job unless they are involved in an illegal activity. His solution, is to channel Marie Antoinette, ignore child labor laws, turn them into janitors, and let them clean shitters. Nevermind that by far, most poor folk are of the working variety and often have multiple jobs that may just allow them a hand-to-mouth existence.

“We have people who take their food stamp money and use it to go to Hawaii.”

If the food stamp system bars beneficiaries from buying decorative gourds rather than pumpkins, you can be sure it also bars the purchase of airline tickets. (Our guess: The benefit amount would be less than the tickets anyway.)

Yes, you read that correctly, the Food Stamp Program, disallows the purchase of decorative gourds, but according to Newt, you can just take that card and swipe it at the airport and land in Honolulu later in the day, or conceivably, Mordor.

Which leaves us with this question: ”Why would Gingrich make these claims, and what the hell is he thinking when he does?” Well, Newt is laying a bet that becoming the master of the right-wing dog whistle plays well with a republican primary electorate that has little use for pesky things like facts or evidence. And you know what? He’s probably right. The republican field has only one candidate in it that is neither a clown or certifiable and his name is Jon Huntsman (my em). And the former governor of Utah is polling so low nationally, that he has not even qualified to attend the two upcoming Iowa debates.

On second thought, I’m not that worried at all.

I'm worried. I'm worried Neutie won't get the nomination.

Headline of the Day

After Signaling Support, John Boehner Calls Tax Break For Middle Class ‘Chicken-Shit’

There ya go.

Speaker John Boehner referred to the package he’s putting forward as turning “chicken-sh — into chicken salad,”...

As any mechanic can tell you, this cannot be done, but Boner's idea of chickenshit is anything that doesn't advantage the 1%. Or gives Obama the tiniest victory.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Secret Senate Bill Would Allow Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens Without Charge or Trial
To bring our justice system in line with those of other dictatorships.

It's Legal to Buy a Gun if You're on the Terrorist Watch List
When a terrorist can't buy a gun in America the terrorists will have won.

Christian terrorists only, please.

Ignoring Their Concerns, Republicans Line Up Behind Gingrich
Values voters ignore his three marriages, anti-immigration activists ignore his liberal stance, evangelicals ignore his conversion to Catholicism, fiscal conservatives ignore his profligate personal spending and everyone else ignores his pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

Expert: Mayan Tablets Do Not Predict Apocalypse in 2012
They predict slew of 3-D movies about the Apocalypse, which is worse.

New York City Posts New Pedestrian Warning Signs in Haiku
One reads:
Hey you with the hat
Want to walk across the street
Fuhgeddaboudit

The Clueless ...

Perfesser Krugman explains what it's like to be a Republican this election cycle:

...

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).

And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.

So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless.

...

Heh ...

The top ten reasons why the Black Walnut quit the race:

...

10) Couldn't tolerate the idea of another one-on-debate with Newt Gingrch, especially one moderated by Donald Trump. Even THE Herman Cain has standards, bitches.

9) Campaign was beginning to seriously cut into his texting and phone sex addiction.

8) Soul-searching turned up no results.

...

Take a lesson ...

From the Icelanders:

Iceland's special prosecutor has taken Larus Welding, the former head of the failed Glitnir Bank, into custody, Reuters reports.

Glitnir Bank was the first of the top three Icelandic commercial banks to fail in 2008.

...


This country would be in a better place if we'd have done that two years ago.

Great thanks to Chris in Paris for the link.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Ach du Liebe!

I don't know how many times I've driven through here:

KOBLENZ, Germany — Officials in Germany's western city of Koblenz say some 45,000 residents have to be evacuated as officials try to defuse a World War II era bomb discovered in the Rhine river.

The BBC reported that this is the biggest bomb-related evacuation ever in Germany since the war.

...

Quote of the Day

Fez:

Herman Cain announced he's "suspending" his Presidential Campaign. Much like just under a century ago the Titanic suspended floating.

You are ein idiot!

The Germans have their eyes open when looking at our Republicans:

...

The US Republican race is dominated by ignorance, lies and scandals. The current crop of candidates have shown such a basic lack of knowledge that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein. The Grand Old Party is ruining the entire country's reputation.

...

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they've been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what's still the most powerful job in the world.

...


And people think I'm exaggerating when I come back from Europe and say they think we're a buncha idiots. The really do.

Thanks to our good pal Montag for the link.

Timing is everything ...

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Gonna take a BIG blue pill...

Via email from my friend Bev. I'm glad our electoral process finally has a name thanks to the limpdick Repugs. A result of "dressing right" too long and cutting off the flow of...sanity.

My kinda protest ...

Anti-prostitution rally in the Ukraine ahead of the Euro 2012 football (soccer) championships being held in Ukraine and Poland next year. I'll support whatever these ladies want me to. (Warning: Link goes to my football blog so chase the rugrats and prudes out of the room first)

Santa Ana Winds ...

Yeah, right, it's Gordon after All-You-Can-Eat Burrito Nite:

It was so windy up in Tahoe today, people put their wet suits on and surfed the waves on the lake.

...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Gstaad - 1991

Thanks to mondoBLIND.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Los Angeles. Poised?!

Once again I am proud of the city of my birth! We gave the world lakes pipes and desert sleds, and now something actually important.

War Is A Crime.org

Next week the Los Angeles City Council will vote on a resolution that calls on Congress to amend the Constitution to clearly establish that only living persons -- not corporations -- are endowed with constitutional rights and that money is not the same as free speech. If this resolution is passed, Los Angeles will be the first major city in the U.S. to call for an end to all corporate constitutional rights.
...

Earlier this year voters in Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin overwhelmingly approved ballot measures calling for an end to corporate personhood and the legal status of money as speech by 84% and 78% respectively. In November voters in Boulder, Colorado and Missoula, Montana both passed similar initiatives with 75% support.

“We are experiencing overwhelming support for what may be a historic turning point in restoring a voice to the voters and setting an example for the rest of the country," stated Mary Beth Fielder, Coordinator of Move To Amend LA. "This action would provide the basis for overturning the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.”
...

Move to Amend’s strategy is to pass community resolutions across the nation through city councils and through direct vote by ballot initiative. “Our plan is build a movement that will drive this issue into Congress from the grassroots. The American people are behind us on this and these campaigns help our federal representatives see that we mean business. Our very democracy is at stake,” stated Sopoci-Belknap.

No shit. How about "Occupy SCOTUS"?

We know, Keith, and thank you for saying so...

This is just fun. I wish I had a TV that got KO's channel.

Thanks to MOXNEWSdotCOM.

Afterthought:

In the 3rd segment about "Obama's going to take your guns away and enslave you...right after the election!" it dawned on me that at least the gun nut faction of the Dead End Quarter knows he's going to get re-elected just like we do since he couldn't possibly do that in two months as a lame duck. A sliver of reality shining through the ideological fog of stupid makes 'em double down on the crazy. Heh.

Kabuki ...

Everybody on our side is talking about Frank Luntz being "frightened to death" that the Occupy message is sticking. I'm sure you saw some part of the video from the Republican Governor's Association.

So chief Republican propagandist (and deeply spiritual) Frank Luntz says that he's "frightened to death" of Occupy Wall Street because it is affecting the way people think about capitalism. But he's got some new language to brainwash the people into embracing it again without know what they're embracing.

...


I guess not many watch European football (soccer). I don't doubt, for one minute, the video was supposed to be out there, at Luntz' direction. It's done a lot before matchday, managers dropping hints that one of their star players has an injury and might not play, or giving the opposing team a bit too much credit. It's all about lulling the opponents into a false sense of security.

I don't believe Luntz is worried about anything aside from the fact he's been given a band of idiots as presidential candidates. The only thing he's doing is attempting to throw the Dems off balance. Head games and nothing more.

The stupid ...

It burns:

Oh, that brain trust that is Michele Bachmann has struck again. Not content in staking her intelligence solely on the "scientific fact" of creationism, Professor Bachmann has shown her expertise in foreign policy and 20th century history with yet another gaffe:

...


And speaking of brain trusts, Megan McCain was gushing over Bachmann yesterday on Alex Wagner's show. I think she called Bachmann "the poor man's Sarah Palin*" or some such shit. Just what, exactly, are Megan McCain's qualifications for the pundit circuit aside from coincidence of birth?

*Link thanks to Tengrain.

Um ... no ...

The GOP should just come out and say it; "taxing the rich is verboten, period" because they have no problems taxing the rest of us.

...

What's hard to figure out is what the GOP is thinking here. Wouldn't Republicans in Congress want to cut taxes for everyone? Isn't that what they're always telling us they're for? ...

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Typo of the Day

Popup ad on this video:

Chinese Lady for Dating
10000 Chinese Lay await love, Seek one & Join Now!

Ya can't make this shit up!

Governors petition federal government to reclassify marijuana

Raw Story

Governors Christine Gregoire (D-WA) and Lincoln Chafee (I-RI) announced at a press conference Wednesday that they were jointly filing a federal petition to reclassify marijuana for medical use.
...

“Sadly, patients must find their way along unfamiliar, uncertain paths to get what their doctors tell them would help – medical cannabis to relieve their suffering,” Gregoire said. “People weak and sick with cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases and conditions suddenly feel like — or in fact become – law breakers.”
...

The governor’s rescheduling petition follows a similar petition that was denied by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in July. The DEA claimed that “marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.” The medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) has challenged that claim in court.

The operative phrase is "no accepted medical use in the United States". Accepted medical usage in civilized countries doesn't count, of course. Damn foreigners. And it won't as long as our tax dollars fund The War On Some Drugs and the Prison Industrial Complex. Let's pay through the nose to lock up our fellow citizens for doing something our bluenose Puritan anti-fun retards don't like even if it helps people rather than take a good look at the issue and possibly decrease profit. Not to mention power.

While we're waiting for that to happen, have a drink. There's a lobby for, and a lot of profit in, that as well.

Dual Trigger Double Barrel

I hope they're sittin' in front of a double load of powder and a pound of rock salt and nails.

Thanks to YubaNet.

Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America

Forbes, links and videos.

Since I report on American education, including the intellectual lassitude of American voters, foreign observers routinely ask me: Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

The question naturally begs a larger question: How can a country, with the world’s highest national GDP, and absurdly complex systems regulating everything from credit default swaps to nuclear missile safety, possibly allow onto its national stage men and women of such transparently inferior intellect?

The easy answer is that there has always been a long, pathetic history of anti-intellectual paranoia in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter documented in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). It is like kudzu. You just can’t kill it. No matter how advanced the U.S. becomes in technology, biomedicine, and weaponry, it not only attracts, but promotes, under the rubric of equal opportunity, a confederacy of dunces as Presidential candidates.

"Intellectual" means anybody who doesn't fall for the Repug bullshit.

Ronald Reagan became the first of many morally unambiguous dimwits to warm the cockles of conservative hearts. [...]

Things are now so bad on the dumbass front that, in a poll announced yesterday, Iowans are no longer interested in the current crop of Republican cretins. This includes Texas Governor Rick “Oops” Perry, who, in a colossal boneheaded moment in a live nationally televised debate, could not remember the third federal agency he would cut as president.

And lets not forget the deeply annoying Rick "Sanctum" Santorum, who said publicly that former P.O.W. John McCain “didn’t understand advanced interrogation techniques.” A Republican dumbass hallmark: arrogance wed to ignorance (my em).

As a result of such transparently dumb stooges, Iowa Republicans, and conservatives in general, are actually settling on a bona fide shyster in the Richard Nixon mold: the pudgy, pompous, nastiness known as Newt Gingrich. [...]

Unfortunately, Romney, a Harvard graduate (and not a faux one like G.W. Bush), is just not seen as dumb enough. [...]

Plus he's from the Northeast. Plus he's a Saint. Plus he flip-flops like a champ. Plus plus plus...

Much more, but I think the author needs to come out of his shell and say what he really thinks without pulling his punches. Heh.

Quote of the Day II

Herman Cain may have dropped his pants, but his wife is the one who wears them.

Note to Hermie: When you have the "face to face" with yer ol' lady, hide the fryin' pans and rollin' pins first. Not to mention the Louisville Slugger and the Glock. Heh.

Quote of the Day

The Ol' Perfesser on British austerity:

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It really is just like a medieval doctor bleeding his patient, observing that the patient is getting sicker, not better, and deciding that this calls for even more bleeding.

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Dear John McCain,

Go fuck yourself:

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"Isn't it true that Justice O’Connor was specifically referring to a case of a person who was captured on Long Island?" McCain argued. "Last I checked, Long Island was part — albeit sometimes regrettably — part of the United States of America."

Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY) quickly shot back with a tweet that said, "@SenJohnMcCain – All of America saw how heroic Long Islanders were on 9/11. #LongIsland deserves an apology."

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Um, we gave the nation one of the greatest Presidents and put a man on the Moon.

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Schumer tweeted in response, "NYers can take a joke. But if @SenJohnMcCain wants to mock parts of America, stick to Arizona."

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The day Arizona and John McCain can claim a history of service to this nation that Long Islanders have, then he can wish for our expulsion from the Union. Until then, I suggest he look in the mirror. Seinle old fool.