So much for the 7th Commandment...

South Carolina's good Christian adulterers have spoken.

As he was leaving for Florida, Neutie was heard to say, "So long South Carolina. The money's on the dresser."

And Willard is still going to be the nominee. Wall St. has spoken and the Repug establishment listens.

Maybe the Apocalypse won't be such a bad thing after all...

Better Austin Today benefit, at the Moose Lodge.Austin, Texas.

Eliza Gilkyson ~ When The Great Correction Comes

Thanks to minorw.

The words are a little hard to understand so here are the lyrics:

down on the corner of ruin and grace
I’m growin weary of the human race
hold my lamp up in everyone’s face
lookin for an honest man
everyone tied to the turnin wheel
everyone hidin from the things they feel
well the truth’s so hard it just don’t seem real
the shadow across this land
people round here don’t know what it means
to suffer at the hands of our american dreams
they turn their backs on the grisly scenes
traced to the privileged sons
they got their god they got their guns
got their armies and the chosen ones
but we’ll all be burnin in the same big sun
when the great correction comes
down through the ages lovers of the mystery
been sayin people let your love light shine
poets and sages all throughout history
say the light burns brightest in the darkest times
it’s the bitter end we’ve come down to
the eye of the needle that we gotta get through
but the end could be the start of something new
when the great correction comes
down through the ages….
down to the wire runnin out of time
still got hope in this heart of mine
but the future waits on the horizon line
for our daughters and our sons
I don’t know where this train’s bound
whole lotta people tryin to turn it around
gonna shout til the walls come tumblin down
and the great correction comes
don’t let me down
when the great correction comes

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Technically. Emmylou backs up Patty Griffin on a pretty song she wrote about Jesus' mom.

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Ride 'em, cowboy!

This one's for Fixer. Buncha Noo Yawk gals wanta ride him into the sunset...

Red Molly performing at the Towne Crier Cafe in Pawling, NY

Thanks to mdoe.

"Hypno Toad One - Jesus Zero!"

Recommended but not required prequel, "Jesus Vs. The Hypno Toad".

Thanks to oldfartrants.

The Case Against Liberal Despair

OpVid from The Daily Beast.



Shorter: Quit whining and FIGHT.

How to survive an SF cold snap

If it's Friday it must be two days past Wednesday which means Morford's late and going off on the weather in Frisco.

Here's a fun fact: Every wonderful female I have ever known in San Francisco has complained about the weather like it was a pissy Old Testament God and they were tormented, forlorn Job. Every. Single. One.

It's true. The mercury drops 15 degrees and suddenly their toes turn to ice, they can't feel their faces and their ears fall completely off, and with blue, chattering lips buried beneath nine layers of fleece, they will say this is the absolute coldest they have ever felt in their entire lives, despite the fact it's still 52 degrees out and the sun is blazing and they're standing in line outside Bi-Rite to buy baby panda-flavored ice cream for something like $17 a lick. I love them all.
...

[...] Which is why, male or female, if you're going to live in San Francisco, you need lots and lots of...

Alcohol. What, you think God invented rum and whisky and anejo tequila for the hell of it? For binge-drinking old people and irresponsible frat boys named Greg? I don't think so.

Heh. Get a few shots in Granny and she wants to do stuff the youngsters think they invented! With frat boys...

No foolin'?

Mitt Romney has "street cred"?

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

... Because Newt Gingrich voters are divided between two groups: the Who-Gives-a-Fuck group and the Jesus-Forgave-Him-So-Can-I group. The former group's members are so deluded that they will tell you that the Clinton impeachment was about perjury. The latter group's members are so desperate for a candidate that, as long as he said he believes he's made peace with God, they wouldn't care if Newt had strangled his second wife with his first wife's intestines.

...

In the bubble ...

Kevin Drum:

...

Everybody — yes, everybody — is subject to confirmation bias. We all get the warm fuzzies when someone tells us something we want to hear, and we resist listening to people who tell us things we don't want to hear. But there's still a difference. As Paul says, "Conservatives and liberals are not equally prone to huddle within their self-reinforcing cocoons." Liberals don't immediately dismiss as a conspiracy everything they hear from the news media that doesn't fit their preconceived notions. They might downplay unwelcome news or even ignore it, but they're still willing to listen to it. Increasingly, conservatives simply aren't. They want to believe the world is a certain way, and they're just flatly not willing to countenance anything that might challenge those beliefs. This is not a healthy development for a modern democracy.

What Fox 'News' and conservative talk radio have done to this country will take generations to repair.

Nightmares ...

Benen points out Romney is a walking bad dream:

...

That the reflexive “go back to Russia” attitudes are coming from a far-right politician who amassed a vast fortune after laying off thousands of American workers, wants to give himself another tax cut, owns multiple luxury homes, and stashes cash in the Caymans — all while pursuing an agenda that would make things tougher on American’s working class — makes me feel as if I’m trapped in a Dickensian nightmare.

Last night's Clown Car ...

Charlie Pierce watched it so the rest of us didn't have to:

...

For the first time, Willard Romney looked as though he knows he could lose this thing. He was shaky, and easily shaken, and came damned close to a Rick Perry moment while fumbling for an answer on why he hasn't released his tax returns yet, and got booed for his trouble. He got maneuvered into defending the health-care plan he'd signed in Massachusetts — even, at one point, referring to it as "Romneycare," which I don't believe he's ever done before — and he looked out of practice trying to do it. And, as was the case in 2008, he doesn't seem to have any actual allies to bail him out. (Governor Nikki Haley is his primary surrogate down here, and her favorability ratings, as we reported earlier, are tanking faster than his.) He has a chronic inability to inspire loyalty from anyone outside his immediate family. It's more than a simple lack of empathy; Willard seems to ignite an active dislike. If he's trying to run out the clock on this campaign, he's doing it in what amounts to a One Corner Offense. Genuinely nonplussed by having Republicans cast him as Mr. Potter, Romney's now open to every attack from every direction.

...

Heh ... It looks like it's tightening up again. Gonna have to get more popcorn.

Johnny Otis 1921-2012

I hate when this happens but time grinds everything away. I loved The Johnny Otis Show on L.A. TV when I was a kid.

LATimes

Johnny Otis dies at 90; R&B singer wrote 'Willie and the Hand Jive'

Johnny Otis, (wiki) who is white, grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and had a deep connection to black culture. He discovered Etta James and Little Richard.

He wrote the song that became James' first charting hit — vaulting her to No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1955 — with "The Wallflower," popularly known as "Roll With Me Henry." It was a female-centric response to Ballard's sexually charged hit "Work With Me Annie" that raised eyebrows for its frankness.

Then he came up with a variant on Bo Diddley's signature 1955 hit "Bo Diddley" using the same five-count "shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits!" beat and created a smash of his own in "Willie and the Hand Jive." It's been recorded dozens of times by a wide variety of musicians, most notably by Eric Clapton in 1974.

Otis wrote other R&B hits, including "So Fine," "Double Crossing Blues" and "All Nite Long," and produced early recordings for Little Richard, Big Mama Thornton and Johnny Ace.

"Today's musicians are better technically," Otis said in 1979, "but that's not a virtue in itself. What's important is the emotional impact.... Most rock or disco today doesn't stir up anything in my heart — not the way a Picasso does, not the way the blues or gospel does."

Amen.

There are lots of videos of "Willie and the Hand Jive" but I like the dancing in this one. Shot in New York in '58.

Thanks to TheTomMunday.

So long, Johnny O.

Headline of the Day

Ron Paul hot air balloon cited for ‘improper lane use’

I bet Paul inflated it all by himself! Heh.

How Republicans Killed Their Own Pet Oil Pipeline Project

TPM

They relished the idea of forcing President Obama to take a public stand on the pipeline early in an election year, instead of after the election as he had wanted. And they were eager to force him to choose between supporters in the labor movement, some of whom are pushing for the pipeline, and others in the environmental movement who vehemently oppose it. So they decided to go for it.

At the same time they knew he’d likely have to reject the project, and for them that created a dilemma.

“It’s a question of whether we’d rather have the pipeline or the issue,” said one of the GOP aides. Black or white.

In the end they chose the issue.

Well of course they did. They'd rather have something to use against Obama than do anything useful.

At her own Capitol briefing Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took issue with these claims.

“If the Republicans cared so much about the Keystone pipeline, they would not have narrowed the president’s options by putting it on the time frame they did,” Pelosi said. “They left him very little choice…. This oil was always destined for overseas. It’s just a question of whether it leaves Canada by way of Canada, or it leaves Canada by way of the United States. So without taking a position on the pipeline, I don’t agree to the stipulation that this is oil that’s going to China now instead of the US. It was always going overseas. I don’t know where to, but it wasn’t for domestic consumption. And that’s really an important point because the advertising is quite to the contrary.”

Tar sands oil is junk. They have to add natural gas to it to get it to flow. The idea of burying a coupla-thousand-mile-long piece of steel so they can pump toxic flammable abrasive sandblast media across our nation so they can refine it INTO LIQUID CRUDE OIL so they can sell it on the world market has always seemed stupid and greedy to me. When that shit ground its way through the pipe and/or sprang a leak into the Ogallala Aquifer or anywhere, it'd be Katy-bar-the-door and OUR problem and fuck us, eh?

Putting the pipe in a lined trench, roofed against the weather, with an automatic shutoff every coupla miles and a constant human patrol would be prohibitively expensive. Burying it is quick and dirty and more profit while it lasts.

Note to Canuckistan: Run the goddam pipe due west to British Columbia so it'll be YOUR problem. I bet you're not allowed to do that either.

Update:

Just sayin'...

Word ...

Pic stolen from Stop the Republican Governors FB page.

Quote of the Day

Pam Spaulding on the Facebook, responding to the news that the recount in Iowa makes Santorum the winner over Romney:

Santorum surges all over Mittens in Iowa

Heh ... This is the article she cites.

You know ...

If you're too stupid to remember you have a gun in your bag when boarding a plane (especially after 9/11), maybe you shouldn't be allowed to carry.

A 65-year-old woman was arrested this morning at the Dallas airport after police said she passed through security with a .38-caliber revolver in her purse and boarded a Houston-bound American Airlines flight, according to news reports.

...

NBC 5 has video of the woman being questioned. The station reports that she told police she forgot the gun was in her bag.

...

But in Texas, I would think, this qualifies you to run for governor.

I need a P.O. box ...

In the Caymans or Liechtenstein. Thing is, in order to evade taxes in one of those places, you need more money than I will ever see in a lifetime:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been hesitant to disclose his tax records and personal finances, and now it might be clear why: the former Massachusetts Governor has hidden tens of millions from the U.S. Treasury in secret offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, according to ABC News.

Offshore accounts used as so-called “tax havens” cost the U.S. over $100 billion a year, and are commonly utilized by the wealthiest citizens and corporations as a means of avoiding U.S. taxes on lucrative profits.

...

You know, the Republicans love finding excuses to deny or revoke an American's citizenship if they don't wave the flag properly or worship a god other than the "approved" white christian one. How about we start jerking citizenship from these rich assholes who hide their money offshore instead of making their appropriate contribution to keep this country, their country, running? They pay little enough in taxes as it is, how about, at the very least, we close the loophole that allows them to pull these frauds?

It works ...

The Internet Strike yesterday worked!

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Six U.S. lawmakers dropped their support for Hollywood-backed anti-piracy legislation as Google Inc., Wikipedia and other websites protest the measures.

Co-sponsors who say they can no longer support their own legislation include Senators Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, and Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. Republican Representatives Ben Quayle of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska, and Dennis Ross of Florida also said they would withdraw their backing of the House bill.

...

People have had it with special interests trying to curtail our rights in order for them to make a profit. I'm tired of protecting industries that cling to an outdated business model instead of changing with the times. If you can't adapt, get off the field instead of attempting to change the rules.

Great thanks to DU for the link.

Not news ...

Rick Perry is an idiot:

During Monday night’s debate in South Carolina, Rick Perry argued that Turkey “is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists.” The argument is ridiculous — Turkey is a key democratic U.S. ally and a member of NATO — and led some Turkish journalists to describe the right-wing Texas governor as an “idiot.”

...

Texas continues its tradition of electing stupid governors who want to be President, though I didn't think they'd find one dumber than Bush.

Stop SOPA

We're down for the day in protest.

Learn more.

Great thanks to M. Bouffant for the graphic.

Newt Gingrich's Inner Redneck

A little South Carolina goat action. The visuals are disturbing, hilarious, and oddly heartwarming...

There wasn't a safe goat ass anywhere in eastern South Carolina last night. After the Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, the whooping, hooting, cheering white people, whipped into a frenzied state by the race-baiting rhetoric of Newt Gingrich, headed out to the backyards and barns of the Gamecock state to take out their throbbing desires on goats, fucking the goats from behind, getting ass-reamed by the goats, the women glazed by goat semen, the men plastered with goat shit on their dicks, none of them caring because, with Newt leading them against that uppity nigger, Juan Williams, the evening's surrogate Obama, the South would rise again, so they may as well do what they do best: wallow around naked in a mud pit, coated with goat feces and cum, staring up at the stars, remembering the glory of the evening they had witnessed, the confused goat, feeling both satisfied and violated, heading into a corner to sleep.

...the audience at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center exploded.

Of course they did. There was a group of crackers, having been forced to go through an entire day hearing about how a great black man fought for the rights of black people so that now, not only do you have to share water fountains with 'em, but you can't even call 'em "boy" at work without someone getting all upset, and, besides, what are you gonna do with all these unburned crosses?
...

[...] You can pinpoint the moment that Gingrich saw that he had the audience eating out of his hand like trained pigs lining up at the garbage trough. [...]

That doesn't take much training. Just fill the troughs with anything. Bullshit'll do for those clowns and it's cheap and they love to go face down in it.

More.

Native American Dance Brings Snow to Tahoe

YubaNet

It's working. Yesterday (Sunday), Native American adults and youth held hands with the public in a traditional "Round Dance" asking for spiritual help to bring snow to the Lake Tahoe region.

This morning, for the first time in two months, a dusting of snow appeared at lake level with two inches at 8,200 feet. According to meteorologists, the storm door is set to open Wednesday with a possible 6 feet of snow falling above 8,000 feet by Monday.
...

In a similar situation just over 50 years ago, an absence of January snow in the Sierra posed similar planning concerns for the managers of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games' Nordic events, which were to be held at the same location, Sugar Pine Point State Park. The nervous organizers of those original Olympics brought in Great Basin dancers to encourage snowfall, and history has indeed repeated itself.

Wait'll the fundies hear that the blanketasses have more pull with God than they do. Better, what gods did they pull outta the closet to get some action? Heh.

And plug in them damn drums and get to dancin' harder and faster and keep six feet of that shit outta my driveway!

Seventy Downed Drones Tell Us About the New American Way of War

A Tomgram via Truthout. Ver-r-r-ry interesting.

American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly. What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a ruinous turn. In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was all over.

The Predator, one of the Air Force’s workhorse hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated.

The aerial disasters described draw attention not only to the technical limitations of drone warfare, but to larger conceptual flaws inherent in such operations. Launched and landed by aircrews close to battlefields in places like Afghanistan, the drones are controlled during missions by pilots and sensor operators -- often multiple teams over many hours -- from bases in places like Nevada and North Dakota. They are sometimes also monitored by “screeners” from private security contractors at stateside bases like Hurlburt Field in Florida. (A recent McClatchy report revealed that it takes nearly 170 people to keep a single Predator in the air for 24 hours.)

In addition, drone warfare seems to be creating a sinister system of embedded economic incentives that may lead to increasing casualty figures on the ground. “In some targeting programs, staffers have review quotas -- that is, they must review a certain number of possible targets per given length of time,” The Atlantic’s Joshua Foust recently wrote of the private contractors involved in the process. “Because they are contractors,” he explains, “their continued employment depends on their ability to satisfy the stated performance metrics. So they have a financial incentive to make life-or-death decisions about possible kill targets just to stay employed. This should be an intolerable situation, but because the system lacks transparency or outside review it is almost impossible to monitor or alter.”

Fuckin' mercs again. Grrrrr....

Much, much more.

GOP knows Mitt Romney can’t win

Go read this and watch the video. Check out the backdrop. Heh.

Quote of the Day

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return. - Holy Crap!

I would have said "goes batcrap crazy" rather than "pines" but a glimmer of light shone through for just a second. Or maybe it was a hot flash. He's at that age...

Maybe when he gets the line from the Steve Martin song, "memories of what never was becomes the good old days", he'll understand. Probably not.

A tip o' the Brain to TRMS.

"This is where the left is truly deluded..."

Today's 'must read' by Andrew Sullivan.

You hear it everywhere. Democrats are disappointed in the president. Independents have soured even more. Republicans have worked themselves up into an apocalyptic fervor. And, yes, this is not exactly unusual.

[...] It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply — empirically — wrong.

Here follows what the right-wing gets wrong. They don't read us so fuck that. You do - read on.

But the right isn’t alone in getting Obama wrong. While the left is less unhinged in its critique, it is just as likely to miss the screen for the pixels. [...] Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.

Or take the issue of the banks. Liberals have derided him as a captive of Wall Street, of being railroaded by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner into a too-passive response to the recklessness of the major U.S. banks. But it’s worth recalling that at the start of 2009, any responsible president’s priority would have been stabilization of the financial system, not the exacting of revenge. Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush.

If I sound biased, that’s because I am. Biased toward the actual record, not the spin; biased toward a president who has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure, who has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, and who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. What I see in front of my nose is a president whose character, record, and promise remain as grotesquely underappreciated now as they were absurdly hyped in 2008. And I feel confident that sooner rather than later, the American people will come to see his first term from the same calm, sane perspective. And decide to finish what they started.

Read this. It's a wicked pissah of a defense of Obama and I agree with Andy, er, 99.9%.

Danger lurks for the country again this November. Don't fall for the bullshit, left or right. Don't stay home or vote for some hippie-ass "Peace, Love, and Dope" party that'll never get elected and couldn't do anything if it did.

We're still at war with these right-wing bastards and you better believe they'll turn out, even for Willard, to rid themselves of the Kenyan Muslim socialist. Fuck this one up, you'll be a lot sorrier than if you give Obama his second term.

Cop or Soldier?

Can you tell the difference?

Cop or Soldier? » create e-learning

Click on the graphic to take the quiz. I'll admit I have some experience in having to quickly determine "friend" from "foe". There were two lucky cops and one unfortunate infantryman. Heh ...

Thanks to our pal Comrade Misfit for the link.

What??? Really???

Yes, I am taking this Costa Concordia thing personally. For several reasons (I am a seasoned cruiser of over 30 voyages, I have many friends in the cruise ship industry and I am concerned about their safety and the effect this will have on their income and, lastly, I am a shareholder in Carnival Corporation LLP and, however minutely, it reflects on me) I am quite angry with the Captain especially but also the others in the crew who seemed to have abdicated their responsibilities.

This latest:

00:32am

The port authority asks the captain, Francesco Schettino, how many people are left on board. He says 200-300, therefore claiming unrealistically that 4,000 people were evacuated in only 40 minutes. It quickly becomes clear he has already abandoned ship.

...

00:42am

PA asks how many people still need to be evacuated.

Schettino:"I called and they told me there are about 100 people. I am coordinating the operations. But I can't go back on it. We have abandoned the ship."

PA:"Captain, did you really abandon the ship??"

Schettino:"No, no, I am here, I am coordinating the evacuation."

PA:"Captain, this is an order, now I am in charge. Get back on that ship and coordinate the operations. There are already casualties."

Schettino:"How many?"

PA:"You should tell me that! What do you want to do, go home? Now you get back on that ship and tell us what can be done, how many people are still there and what do they need."

Schettino:"OK, OK, I am going."

(The captain will not get back on the ship)

...

Hanging is too good for this guy. You know why he chose to hazard his ship and put 4000 souls in grave danger? This is why:

...

The captain of the luxury cruise ship that capsized after hitting rocks off Italy had sailed perilously close to the coast to "make a bow" to people on a Tuscan island, according to media reports.

Francesco Schettino made the dangerous maneuver so that the Costa Concordia's head waiter could salute his family on land, according to reports.

...

I think keelhauling would be appropriate.

Cross-posted at Worlds.

Iranian Boats Harass U.S. Ships

Subtitle: "Neocons Get Knickers In A Twist, Call For 'Nuke Tehran!'"

Think Progress

Despite mounting tensions around the strategic oil transit point at the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. ships have in recent weeks rescued the crews of two Iranian ships — one from pirates and the other stranded when it broke down. But Iran doesn’t seem to be in a mood to respond in kind. U.S. military officials told CNN that the day after the crew of the Iranian fishing boat was rescued from a weeks-long pirate takeover, Iranian motorboats harassed two U.S. ships near the Strait. The boats raised alarms by rapidly approaching both the USS New Orleans and U.S. Coast Guard cutter Adak, but no shots were fired in either incident and the Iranian boats broke away. Watch the Iranian boats near the New Orleans here:

The Iranian boats fled at high speed when 800 heavily armed Marines jumped into the water and began chasing them.

I mighta made part of that up...

Seriously, folks, this looks like a day on the lake. I'm sure the orders to the Iranian sailors went something like, "OK, boys, we're messin' with the world press today with a show of force so here's whatcher gonna do - run them things as fast as they'll go right at two of the least heavily armed ships in the American fleet and don't forget to shear off before you wreck or they shoot at you. Just scare the shit outta their pussy warmonger politicians back home. Don't worry about that battalion of Marines lookin' over their sights at you, they're not scared and have good fire discipline anyway. Have fun."

The American kids were probably thinking something like, "Wow, nice boats! I betcha we could pick up girls back home at Lake Suckamadickee with one of those!"

In any case, our guys were ready for 'em:

Sailors and Marines aboard USS New Orleans (LPD 18) stand by to repel boarders, wait for command of "Stand by for a ram!"

Harassment, my ass. All the Iranians did was flip us the bird. Big deal. They'da never got close enough to blow up and do any damage. Cole taught us about that.

Ya wanta see harassment? Here's the original New Orleans after the Japanese "harassed" her off Guadalcanal in 1942:



The Iranians are just wavin' their weenies at the neocons. The neocons'll talk big but they won't wave their weenies back. Nothing to wave.

MLK Dream Update

Thanks to YubaNet.

Conservative leader: Democratic Party is ‘party of the KKK’

The Raw Story

The founder of a movement to increase racial diversity within the Republican Party told a crowd of tea party supporters on Sunday that they weren’t racists because “the Democratic Party is the party of the KKK.”
...

Claver added: “They want to say your are the racist. No. No. If anybody is a racist, it’s [Texas Congresswoman] Shiela Jackson Lee! If anybody is a racist, it’s [Democratic Congressman] John Conyers! If anybody is a racist, it’s [South Carolina Congressman] James Clyburn! If anybody is a racist, it’s Jesse ‘castration’ Jackson! If anybody is a racist, it’s Al ‘shakedown’ Sharpton! They’re the racists! We’re their friends!”

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Jan. 15, 2012.

By all means go watch it.

Shorter: Dem dam Dems done fucked over us darkies wit all dat civil rights an' shit.

Man, dat be one self-hatin' dee-lusional Nee-gro.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

JESUS RETURNS DURING PATRIOTS-BRONCOS PLAYOFF GAME
In the form of a 320-pound nose tackle.

Supreme Court Takes Up Case of Cher Using “F” Word on TV in 2002
As a result it will have to delay decision on new health care law.

Maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread Files for Bankruptcy
Consumer tastes have shifted to less healthy fare.

Romney Team Targeted Supporters by Mining Data on How Much They Spent at Williams-Sonoma
If you bought the fondue set, you got lots of calls.

The fondue set? Really? We've got one of those. Somewhere.

Ha-ha!

Hypocrite bastid:

...

Rep. Kip Smith, the Georgian Republican sponsor of Georgia House Bill 464, which would “require random drug testing” for citizens on public assistance, found himself drunker than Lindsey Lohan (only ugly and with no talent) and apparently was arrested friday morning on a DUI.

...

Word ...

Oh, Canada!

Perhaps someday soon Canada, the land of the laughing beaver, may acquire another symbol of its great culture, a grinning stoner. The current minority party has adopted the position that marijuana should be legalized.

...

Hopefully, that type of thinking will drift southward, like this cold air we've been having lately.

And more Concordia ...

This pic gives more perspective on how close to shore they were. The cruise line is also throwing the Captain under the bus at this point. As I've said in comments on my previous posts, I've been through this area many times and it is impossible not to spot the ship channel, even at night. Civitaveccia (2 hours from Rome) is one of the biggest commercial ports in Europe and the traffic in and out goes on 24/7. Leaving the port, it looks like you're entering a highway, always a line of cruise ships, freighters, and tankers out in the shipping lane. If I were on a cruise ship and saw them approaching this close to land, I would have been running for my life jacket long before they had a chance to hit anything.

And a note, this is not the port of Civitaveccia, this is the port on the island of Giglio, not deep enough to accommodate this class of cruise ship. Assuming, according to some reports, there was an electrical casualty before they ran aground, heading for this port for repairs was out of the question for the same reasons the course he set was. Fortunately for the people on Giglio, he didn't run it aground in the harbor.

Another one ...

Bites the dust:

Can a presidential candidate erase his campaign? And how fast can that happen?

Literally within minutes of the news breaking Sunday night that Jon M. Huntsman Jr. had decided to abandon his White House bid and endorse Mitt Romney, his campaign went into overdrive to begin wiping the record clean.

The record, of course, included months of sometimes tough criticism by Mr. Huntsman that the campaign can’t erase. Just six days ago, Mr. Huntsman assailed Mr. Romney for saying he enjoyed “firing people.”

...

Yeah, he's trying to 'unsay' everything he said for the last few months and convince us how great the Mittster is. Fat chance.

Mad's Limerick-Off

Here's my entry to Mad Kane's weekly Limerick-Off:

A fellow was trying to hide
The comp’nies he caused to have died
But Neutie and Rick
Called him a dick
And showed Willard up to have lied.

I also submitted it on Facebook and sailed it through her dining room window disguised as a paper airplane.

Dual Quote of the Day

Bill Maher via Raw Story:

Santorum thinks about gay sex more than a dildo salesman
...

I think this guy is more backed up than [Interstate] 405.”

Heh. One All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite could cure that! But then there'd be nothing left of him except a puddle of frothy mixture. Win-win! Unless he was sitting on your couch at the time...

More Concordia ...

Following up from yesterday's post:

...

Police say the captain has been arrested on suspicion of multiple manslaughter. He has been taken to a prison, where he is awaiting questioning.

Article and video here.

Update:

It gets worse:

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Authorities said that [Captain] Francesco Schettino, 52, who has worked for the owners of the cruise liner for 11 years, was being investigated for manslaughter and abandoning his ship. Prosecutor Francesco Velusio was quoted as saying that the vessel "was mistakenly close" to the island on a route ordered by Schettino through well-mapped sea lanes.

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Seems he left the ship while there were still passengers and crew aboard. Bastard.

From what I've seen and heard so far, the Captain did everything wrong (including postponing the lifeboat drill until the next morning). What I'd like to know now is why the first officer did not relieve him as soon as he made the course change.

Heh ...

Jimmy Fallon - Tebowie