Maybe tomorrow ...

Mrs. F and I were out Christmas shopping for all the rugrats in the family this morning and we're heading out later for dinner with our cruise pals Annie and Joe (it's Annie's birthday) to plan more piracy and debauchery on our February cruise (they're going with us again). Heh ... Probably see yas tomorrow or some incoherent drunken ranting later when I get home.

For you Saturday evening listening pleasure, an excellent version of one of my favorite Glenn Miller tunes:

Brian Setzer Orchestra - Pennsylvania 6-5000

Get Human

I got this gem from The Daily Beast. Might come in handy.

Nothing makes me angrier or more frustrated than when companies and corporations, especially those in the service sector, make it virtually impossible to reach and talk to a real person on the phone. Well now, there's help. It's a website called Get Human. Go to this site and you'll get the tricks of the trade -- the buttons on your phone to hit to automatically bypass voicemail hell and computer-generated voice prompts to nowhere and go right to a real human being. How cool is that? Whether it's the cable company, the Sears repair folks, or an airline, this is an indispensable website.

Heh ...

Big pussy and racist piece of shit Glenn Beck gets a dose of reality:

... I just want to Frosty™ please, the guy standing next to me, who, by the way, I may point out. Had food in his hair, is a truck driver and he turned around. He looked at me and the recognition was immediate and he said, You racist bigot! And I just said -- I wanted to say, I think you have me mistaken for someone else, but I knew he knew who I was and he just hated me for who I was. You conservatives that have destroyed this country! And the hatred was so deep, it was breath taking. Luckily the swat team was there and I just separated myself from him and he just shouted through other people and there were children in the restaurant and he blamed me for everything, I believe including the Holocaust, and the hatred was palpable. The guy screamed at the restaurant, you better not let me see you in the parking lot because I've got a truck and I'll run your ass over!

...

Poor baby, has to hide behind his security. In my neck o' the woods, you take responsibility for what you say, even if it means standing up to an angry trucker. That's the problem with these conservative assholes. Got a lot to say when they have a couple goons to give 'em cover.

Responsibility and accountability has become a thing of the past. From the pundits, to the corporations, to the White House, it's the same shit. It's the attitude that has CEOs demanding public money when they're not willing to take a pay cut. It's about starting two wars with no clue of how to fight them. It's fomenting hate and division from the pulpit and the studio while side-stepping the pile of shit they've created.

It's time people like Beck, Lintball, and all the others to take responsibility for the mess they've helped make of this country. Whether it's getting your ass handed to you by a pissed-off trucker who's seen his business take a big hit over the past year to having protesters sitting in front of your 'churches' for your sponsorship of a plan to deny a group of Americans their rights.

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris - High Powered Love

Thank you, neddysea.

Show me who you run with ...

And I'll show you who you are. Greenwald:

...

So, to recap the [International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists] award winners: we have a reporter persecuted by the Ugandan Government; another imprisoned by the Castro regime; a journalist-defending lawyer who faced down the intimidation and threats of Robert Mugabe; two journalists who work at great risk of being attacked by the Taliban; and one who was arrested by the U.S. military and then imprisoned for two years without any charges or due process of any kind by the United States Government. As happens so frequently now, that is the company we keep.

...

Makes me so proud to be an American sometimes.

A guy like me ...

They make cynics in Iraq too. Heh ...

...

"Americans won't leave," said Mazin Ali, 30, a coach driver. "They are the decision makers in all Iraq. The decision is theirs."

He and others on 14th Ramadan Street, a commercial strip in Baghdad's Mansour district, see too many signs of a long-term American commitment to believe that the U.S. will withdraw on the timetable in the so-called status of forces agreement.

...

After all these years of being shit upon by U.S. leadership, just as we were, the average guy on the street over there doesn't believe shit until he sees it with his own two eyes.

Like I said yesterday, talk is cheap.

Here comes Santa Paws!

Tomorrow is Santa Paws Pet Photo day to help raise funds for the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe. Here's Mrs. G in between administering doggie baths. I'm in here doing important work like embarrassing the shit outta her so I get to skate. Heh.

How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?

Kickin' off the Brain weekend, Ry Cooder with a treatment of the Blind Alfred Reed tune. Flaco Jiménez on accordion.

From "Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces: Let's Have A Ball", a film by Les Blank taped at The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA on March 25'th 1987.

The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq

A 'must read' by Tom Englehardt. Links at site.

It's the ultimate argument, the final bastion against withdrawal, and over these last years, the Bush administration has made sure it would have plenty of heft. Ironically, its strength lies in the fact that it has nothing to do with the vicissitudes of Iraqi politics, the relative power of Shiites or Sunnis, the influence of Iran, or even the riptides of war. It really doesn't matter what Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or oppositional cleric Muqtada al-Sadr think about it. In fact, it's an argument that has nothing to do with Iraq and everything to do with us, with the American way of war (and life), which makes it almost unassailable.

In a nutshell, the Pentagon's argument couldn't be simpler or more red-bloodedly American: We have too much stuff to leave Iraq any time soon. In war, as in peace, we're trapped by our own profligacy. We are the Neiman Marcus and the Wal-Mart of combat. Where we go, our "stuff" goes with us -- in such prodigious quantities that removing it is going to prove more daunting than invading in the first place. After all, it took less than a year to put in place the 130,000-plus invasion force, and all its equipment and support outfits from bases all around the world, as well as the air power and naval power to match.

Some have estimated, however, that simply getting each of the 14 combat brigades still stationed in Iraq on January 20, 2009, out with all their equipment might take up to 75 days per brigade. (If you do the math, that's 36 months, and even that wouldn't suffice if you wanted to remove everything else we now have in that California-sized country.)

Getting out? Don't dream of it.

[...] As the Pentagon's budget soared, its civilians and the high command went on an imperial spending spree the likes of which may never have been seen on this planet.

For them, Iraq has been war as cornucopia, war as a consumer's paradise. Arguably, on a per-soldier basis, no military has ever occupied a country with a bigger baggage train. On taking Iraq, they promptly began constructing a series of gigantic military bases, American ziggurats meant to outlast them. These were full-scale "American towns," well guarded, 15-20 miles around, with multiple PXes, fitness clubs, brand fast-food outlets, traffic lights, the works. (This, in a country where, for years after the invasion, nothing worked.)

In other words, abroad, we weren't the Spartans, we were the Athenians on steroids. [...]

Now, back in the days when we had less experience fighting losing wars, Americans in retreat simply shoved those extra helicopters off the decks of aircraft carriers in chaos, burned free-floating cash in tin drums, and left tons of expensive equipment and massive bases behind for the enemy to turn into future industrial parks. At the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in April 1975, while everything in sight was being burned or destroyed including precious advanced electronic equipment, money actually rained down from the Embassy incinerator on the roof upon amazed Vietnamese allies huddled below, waiting for a promised airlift to safety that, for most, never came.

Withdrawal then was unsightly, unseemly, and environmentally unsound. But, as we know, the lessons of Vietnam were subsequently learned.

And don't forget the shrink-wrapping of those helicopters -- who knows how many -- for that long, salt-free sea voyage home.

All our shit's worn out from years of operation in sand. Protecting sand-scoured shit from salt air makes no sense at all. "No sense at all" is the Pentagon's main operating principle.

[...] When it comes to withdrawal, the most militarily profligate administration in memory has seemingly ensured that the highest military priority in 2009 will be frugality -- that is, saving all American "stuff" in Iraq.

Irony hardly covers this one. [...]

Every last piece of equipment over there is worn out and tore up from the floor up, or as good as, and will need to be rebuilt anyway, which is more expensive than buying new.

Let's take a lesson from the evacuation of Dunkirk.

First, blow all the stockpiled ordnance in place. I think Fixer would be glad to come help. Heh.

Second, treat the breeches and barrels of every artillery piece larger than an 81mm mortar to some thermite grenades to render them into unusable lumps. Keep the mortars lest the mortarmen have nothing heavy to carry and feel unloved.

Third, fly out everything flyable. For the rest, see "blow in place" and "thermite grenades".

Fourth, use every available vehicle to transport troops. Use the best vehicles to take them to Kuwait for transport home. The balance of vehicles take them to airfields and ports. The last man out of each vehicle will be the driver, who will drain the oil, restart the engine, and board outbound ships or planes.

Call this "Operation We Need All New Shit Anyway". It'll be good for our economy, not to mention a burgeoning Iraqi scrap-metal industry. Win-win!

All non-combatant civilians will have been evacuated first, of course. The mercenaries can find their own goddam way out.

Usefull Somali phrases

Traveling in the Gulf of Aden? From an article in Slate about the most FAQ about pirates, some useful phrases. Here's my favorite:

ha dhaqaaqin hadii kale, ciidamada badda way ku dilayaan

Do not move or the Marines will kill you.

There wasn't one for "Feelin' lucky? Make a run for it." Drat.

The Felimony Tour

Some good news!

EssEffChron

After more than 30 years, those comic poets of dope, Cheech and Chong, have reunited for their Light Up America tour, which arrives this weekend in the Bay Area. We caught up with the pair earlier in the week from a hotel room on the road and started by asking them why they've hit the road again.

Cheech: Actually, this is for his felony and my alimony, so it's the Felimony tour.

Cheech: Stoner culture transcends every group, just like Cheech and Chong. There's no group that doesn't like Cheech and Chong, whether it's young, old, black, white, Chicano, biker, straight, gay, Republican, Democrat. It's like butter. Everybody likes butter.

Chong: It's like pot, too.

Cheech: Yeah.

Chong: 'Cause pot got into all the culture. When I was in jail, I was invited into all the groups - from the white supremacists who liked cowboy music to the rappers and Arabs - every culture, the Hawaiians. Every culture in prison would have me as their guest of honor when they had going-away dinners for people.

Cheech: We're thinking of starting a religion next.

Like, wooooow, man! Duuuude, sign my ass up!

This is why I shop at Lowe's

Oxdown Gazette

This is what Home Depot's founder Bernie Marcus said on a conference call yesterday:

If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.

It's nice to know Home Depot supports the death penalty for not contributing to their favored political causes.

Worthless ...

Thankfully it's almost over. I just wanted to pass along my thanks to the stupid, moronic, imbecilic, dumbass people in America who voted for our Idiot-in-Chief (half of you, you fucking idiots) twice. (I'll give anybody the benefit of the doubt once)

You've helped destroy almost every foundation and principle this once-great nation was built upon. The 'shining beacon of freedom and democracy' has become nothing but a Third World, banana republic, tin horn dictatorship.

Just because you fuckwits had to have a beer with the Chimp, this country is sliding toward the cliff, on the balls of it's ass, holding on for dear life. Your stupidity, as you repeated every stupid line Fox 'News' fed into you tiny pea brains, is vomit-inducing. If this weren't America, I'd let my German hang out. I'd have you all rounded up and sent to reeductation camps, to be reindoctrinated into reality. Those of you beyond hope would be sterilized to ensure they would not pass your fucked-up genetics on to another generation. But I'm not. I'm a proud American.

This nation is a bloody mess, the stains of which cover your hands directly, and all you can do is ... blame Clinton.

Do me a favor, morons. If you voted for Bush twice, tear up your voter registration card. It's obvious you don't understand how the system works, nor America's place in the world, and your involvement is detrimental to its future. You've taken the discourse to the level of an elementary school playground. It is not a game, nor is it a TV show. Stay home, watch reality TV and your favorite preacher man, and stay out of shit you know nothing about.

You've done enough, thank you.

Pic swiped from Michael F.

Quote of the Day

Watertiger:

Everything that is wrong with the Senate can be summed up in the standing ovation that Ted "HULK SMASH!" Stevens, convicted of seven felonies, just received from that august legislative body.

...

When I saw it, I thought I was gonna puke. A 7th degree convicted felon should never have been allowed back in the Seante chamber let alone be given the floor. Our very own House of Lords.

Karma ...

The Rethugs are reaping what they've sown. Unfortunately, he has a good health plan:

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech Thursday night and lost consciousness, a Justice Department official said.

...

Bachelor's Paradise

I was just out walking the pups and this panorama made me go get my camera so I could share. This is a rear view of my neighbor Jim's house. He rents out a coupla bedrooms and he likes peace and quiet, so he rents to middle-aged bachelors. They come and go, but there's always one or two around.

Click to waaaay embiggen

From left to right, notice the woodpile conveniently sited at pants-off-in-any-weather distance from the living room door. Then, two, count 'em two gas grills with sufficient fuel to process the catch of the day from the fishing boat on the far right (next to the spare grill! Yeesh. Wretched excess is barely enough!). Moving on, the roofed-over all-weather stoner couch with beer cooler, and last, the horseshoe pitch. All with a lovely southern exposure.

From the door next to the couch all the way to the left is the garage. Heaven.

The boys in my 'hood know how to live. Especially Jim. He spends his winters in Cali.

By the way, the old Toyota Land Cruiser to the right of the fishing boat belongs to Danny, who went to Cali with Jim last winter and never came back. He's got a pacemaker. I hope it's got a 'fast' switch on it. Heh. If yer in the market for a Jap Jeep with a Chevy small block (Chevota? Toylet?), lemme know.

Arraignment set for Cheney, Gonzales

Raw Story

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

Fixer stated elsewhere that he was going to hold off on his masturbatory giddiness for a bit. I'm going to back-click to Janet's picture and indulge mine right now! Whee!

This gets even better:

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

Man, these South Texicans sure know how to have a good time! Heh.

Teflon Joe!

Some Ideas For Lieberman's "Kick Me Outta The Party, I Freakin' Dare Ya" Campaign

The Georgetown Sleep-Around - Lieberman should begin seducing the wives of his fellow democratic Senators, trying to see how many Senator wives he can bed before the Democrats get angry enough to attempt to pass a resolution chastising Lieberman for being a D-bag. The resolution will fail to pass by eleven votes.

Down The Hatch - Lieberman should start voting with Orrin Hatch 90% of the time. If no one says anything, go for 100%. If no one says anything then, Joe should start concocting conservative positions of his own and convince Orrin Hatch to vote with him.

Hot-Crotching The Filibuster - Anytime one of his fellow Democratic senators gets ready to filibuster a bill, Joe should sneak into the Dem locker room and douse that Senator's jock with Liquid Heat ointment. Then Joe should watch the Filibuster giggling as the Senator tries to keep talking without running off the Senate floor to dip his nuts in a Gatorade jug.

Don't ask how I know this, but gettin' hot-crotched ain't funny. Except to everybody else.

Napolitano may head DHS

I'm down wid dis one!

Yahoo!News

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security’s myriad functions.

In 2005, TIME magazine named her one of America’s five best governors, calling her “A Mountaineer on the Political Rise.”

This ol' mountaineer's got a 'political rise' right now too!

Her official bio says: “Janet Napolitano was sworn in as Arizona’s 21st Governor on January 6, 2003. She is the first woman in the nation’s history to serve as U.S. Attorney, State Attorney General and Governor in immediate succession. Prior her election as Governor of Arizona, Napolitano served one term as Arizona Attorney General and four years as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. Born in New York City and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she is a distinguished alumna of Santa Clara University and the University of Virginia Law School. She has lived in Arizona since 1983, when she moved to Phoenix to practice law.”

They fail to mention that she was elected Governor under Arizona's Clean Elections Act which is a big step forward, IMNSHO, from the normal Dirty Money System.

This is not a done deal, but I'm hopeful. Adios, Skeletor, hello nice western border state governor lady.

Tongue-in-cheek Update:

23/6

...but what do we really know about the woman who may soon be arbitrarily adjusting the color-coded terror threat level? Read on and find out.

Current gig: Governor of Arizona, as if John McCain didn't need to have it rubbed in his face any more than he already has.

Homeland security credentials: Served as Arizona Attorney General, and as governor of a border state, has experience with immigration policy, border security, and talking down rifle-and-beer-cooler-toting Minutemen.

Is she...um...what's the deal with...you know?: Well, she's 50, unmarried, childless, and certainly seems to fit the profile. But she also opposes same-sex marriage and has long been a victim of a whisper campaign about her sexuality. So, the jury's still out, if by "jury," you mean unhinged internet bloggers.

As opposed to us superbly hinged yet unoiled squeaky ones who don't give a rat's ass who she sleeps with as long as she does a good job?

Cornel West on the Election of Barack Obama

Cornel West is one of my favorite people in the whole world. I love to hear him speak. The only problem I have is that he speaks about three times as fast as I listen! If he were a used-car salesman you wouldn't know what make you had just bought for a hundred miles! My great phobia is that someday I will be sitting between him and the equally fast-talking Rachel Maddow when they are discussing something of earth-shaking importance. I calm myself by realizing that if I string together the one word in ten that I catch, it will still make sense...

Print slows him down a little. Here's some excerpts from an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, today's 'recommended read'.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Cornel West, you were a big supporter of Barack Obama, but you also have been giving speeches about holding him to account. What are the issues you are most concerned about right now?

CORNEL WEST: Well, I think, as a deep Democrat, I recognize I have some significant differences with Brother Barack. He’s a liberal. It looked like he wants to govern as a liberal-centrist, given the choices of Emanuel—Rahm Emanuel and others. And one has to be honest and candid in terms of one’s criticism, because in the end, it’s not about Barack Obama, it’s about empowering working people and poor people. It’s about trying to accent the dignity of those Sly Stone called “everyday people.” And when he moves in that direction, it’s good. When he doesn’t move in that direction, we need to criticize him. Same is true in terms of foreign policy: Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. We have to be honest about it.

For me, my criticism of Barack has to do with trying to acknowledge the degree to which, one, thank God we’re at the end of the age of Ronald Reagan, we’re at the end of the era of conservatism, we’re coming to the end of the epoch of the Southern Strategy. For the first time now, we’ve got some democratic possibilities. This has been a political ice age, and the melting is just beginning. And Barack Obama is a symbol, but we’ve got to move from symbol to substance. We’ve got to move from what he represents in a broad sense—and it’s a beautiful thing to have a black man in the White House, we know that, and black slaves and laborers and other white immigrants built the White House. And to have a black family there, significant; black face for the American empire, fine. Can we revitalize democratic possibilities on the ground with Barack in the White House? I think we can. We can put some serious pressure on him, and we can actually continue the democratic awakening among working people and poor people and push Barack in a progressive direction.

AMY GOODMAN: How about your colleague at Princeton University, Paul Krugman?

CORNEL WEST: Oh, Paul Krugman. Oh, my god. Yes, indeed, indeed. Paul is probably even a little bit too progressive and prophetic. He probably needs to stay outside, like myself, and be Socratic and prophetic and just tell the truth to the people in power. But he’s my very dear brother and comrade, and of course I salute his Nobel Prize. It’s rare that you see a progressive economist receiving a Nobel Prize in that way.

I do still support Brother Barack Obama gaining access to the White House, because he was the best that America could do at this particular moment in the midst of imperial occupation in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, financial Katrina, legacy of Katrina in New Orleans, wealth inequality, dilapidated housing in chocolate cities, disgraceful school systems, unacceptable levels of unemployment and underemployment, not enough access to healthcare for fellow citizens across race and region, not enough access to childcare. At this moment, the best America could do was Brother Barack Obama, liberal, centrist.

Will he govern like a progressive Lincoln? Will he triangulate like Clinton? Will he be an experimentalist like FDR? Those are the challenges. I hope he’s a progressive Lincoln. I plan to be—aspire to be the Frederick Douglasses against, to put pressure on him.

Good on ya, Doc. We all have to do that.

Much more to read, but if you want to get the full effect, here's the video in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Treat yourself to this fast-talkin' smart brotha. I put him on in one window and keep on keepin' on in another.