Saturday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

Ths goes out to the guy who crashed in front of Fixer's house last night who was obviously cramming for his finals just previously. Heh. One of my favorite bands as well.

The Derailers ~ Bar Exam

Thanks to seacow797.

Sarah Palin Book Jokes

Just set your drink down and go.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

A good day for America, a horrible day for the new "hate America" crowd

Will Bunch at Attytood on the decision to try the terrorists in New York.

Jim Riches, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, died in the attacks, welcomed the decision.

“Let them come to New York,” said Mr. Riches, a retired deputy chief with New York Fire Department. “Let them get on trial. Let’s do it the right way, for all the world to see what they’re like. Let’s go. It’s been too long. Let’s get some justice.”

Meanwhile, I can't decide whether to laugh or cry at the unvarnished, infantile fear and the abject anti-Americanism that I heard or read today expressed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Hannity-wannabe Mark Simone, Rep. John Boehner, Sen. John Cornyn, Rudy Giuliani and so on. Their rage - why do they hate our freedom? -- was laced with some of the most inane logic or phony rhetoric I've ever heard, that Mohammed will be wearing suits and eating lunch at a fancy New York restaurant during recesses in the trial (he'll probably be shackled), that KSM's lawyers will get the trial delayed endlessly (not mentioning how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney delayed justice in the case for seven years), that the defendant will be found not guilty because of waterboarding (wait, now they're against waterboarding?), that New York City will now be a target for terrorists (not to be flip, but I think they've already thought of that)....

...and, most importantly, that the American legal system and the constitutional rights that so many soldiers fought and died to preserve, is actually -- it can now be revealed after 233 years! -- a joke, a farce, not worth the parchment paper that it's written on. And that deep down they think the country that they profess to love so much in all their best-selling books is so weak that it can't even keep a handful of two-bit extremists safely in custody. Of course, the only thing the Limbaugh-Giuliani-Boehner crowd really revealed today is their own pathetic fear to breathe the air of a free and just country. How sad.

I hark back to Jack Nicholson's line in Easy Rider forty years ago: "They're scared to death of freedom". Worse, they want us to be as well. We're easier to control that way.

For the rest of America and the rest of the world, if they want to see in the coming months how a nation can prosper and defeat terrorism by respecting human rights within a system of real justice, I can only echo the Kennedyesque words of everyday citizen Jim Riches.

Let them come to New York.

New York took the punch and it's karmically appropriate for New York to get to hit back. Rule of law is a mighty fist.

Afterthought:

I useta think Noo Yawkahs was just fast-talkin' city slickers and snooty Easterners. Since I been hooked up with Fixer, I've come to like fast talkin' city slickers and snooty Easterners. Heh.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

The streets are cracked
And there's glass everywhere
And a baby stares out
With motherless eyes
Under long gone beauty
On fields of war
Trapped in lament
To the poets core

Emmylou Harris ~ Where Will I Be (Daniel Lanois)

Thanks to ernst810, Netherlands. Skeeter Davis fans should go see.

Conservatives Are Scared of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; Liberals Are Not

The massively hung-over Rude One:

Why does the notion of putting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial drive them past the edge of insanity and "get the rhino tranq" frothing? Mohammed will more than likely get their beloved death penalty. Erickson seems to think Mohammed might pass classified information on to terrorists. But one of his readers inadvertently hits the nail on the head. In a comment, jdub19 writes, "I see this as another way to bash the Bush years. No OBL and after all the years in custody, KSM will be brought to justice. They have to keep reminding the public of GWB failures."

Ah, dear jdub, there is the problem. It's not that Barack Obama is going to put us in danger. It's that he's showing how justice is supposed to be done. Just doing that simple thing, abiding by the laws of the land, demonstrates the failures of the last administration. The Rude Pundit's said it before and he'll say it again: so much of the anger at Obama is a projection of right wing anger at George W. Bush. Obama has to fail at everything in the right wingers' sad world, just to show that they didn't devote eight years of their pathetic, deluded lives to abetting the destruction of the nation. They are shitting themselves in fear, not just in the intensely unlikely scenario of hot terrorist on terrorist action. They are afraid of what evidence at trial might reveal about how far down the rabbit hole to actual tyranny we fell.

We on the left are not afraid. We have the courage to confront the truth and not hide it away in a cell forever.

Just to reiterate another point: it's not weak to say that our laws are strong enough to take care of terrorists. In fact, believing in our justice system actually makes Barack Obama more patriotic than all waterboard-loving, conservative pricks and cunts who just want Mohammed disappeared. Nidal Hasan killed more people than just about anyone ever at Gitmo, yet no one's saying that he should be detained forever without charge or trial.

I have nothing to add.

Note to RP: Ya hit the nail right on the head, son. If a hangover helps yer insight, I'm in. Name yer brand.

Headline of the Day

Republicans Are Shocked The Public Is Mad At Them For Voting Against Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment

And they wonder why they're in the shitter. Yeesh.

Breaking:

Sitting in bed, watching Olbermann with the Mrs. and we hear a huge crash in front of the house. I thought some genius pulled into my driveway and hit the dumpster there. Fat chance. Some drunken idiot drove square into the light pole in front of my house, then takes off running. This is the scene as of 20 minutes ago.



Twit hit the pole at full speed and spun backwards into my driveway.



I guess Friday the 13th is my lucky day. Idiot missed my car by 10 feet and the electric wires are hanging a foot over the roof.





I gave my statement to the cops (I din't see nuthin', officer; just heard a big fucking bang.). Told the Long Island Power Authority guys that if the wind blows up the block, my power goes out but some genius can take out the pole in front of the house and the shit stays on. Then I told them all that I have to be up at 4 in the morning and I'm going to bed, and if they have to bother me, wait until morning. Wake me up in the middle of the night and I start shooting.

A little excitement for a Friday. Hope that busted up Toyota is outta here by the time I wake up.

Update (Saturday morning):

The LIPA guys were here first thing with a new pole. Poor bastids, working in the wind and rain to get everything squared away. I'm sure the overtime is good though.



Update Zwei (Saturday afternoon):

Well, there was one casualty. The bush on the corner was totaled (too bad it wasn't George W.) and I'll have to cut it up and replace it, but that's a job for spring.

Click pics to make big.

"Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y."

As it should be. We should be the ones to satisfy our vengeance:

WASHINGTON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, the United States attorney general announced Friday.

...

And we will be the ones to exact our pound of flesh. Legally. Under the Rule of Law as the Founders intended.

It's about time.

USA! USA!

Pic stolen from Digby. Click to make big.

Quote of the Day

The National Organization for Women's President Terry O'Neill:

I don't know where the Internal Revenue Service is, but I hope they're paying attention.

Like I've been saying for a long time. It's time to jerk the tax exemptions from religious institutions, starting with the Catholic Church.

Blah...

Today is cancelled due to lack of interest.

Linda Ronstadt
Rockpalast
Stadthalle Offenbach
Offenbach, Germany
November 16, 1976

There's probly some Krauts still tryin' ta pronounce 'Tehachapi' and 'Tucumcari". Heh.

Linda Ronstadt ~ Willin'

Thanks to PretzelFarmer.

Cheerleaders ...

Greenwald takes apart David "Bobo" Brooks (not a really difficult thing to do, but to do it well ...) and the media cheerleaders who just loves them some war:

David Brooks' column today perfectly illustrates what lies at the core of our political discourse: namely, self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions. Brooks claims there is a unique evil that one finds in the "fringes of the Muslim world":

...

There's a unique evil at the fringes of every religion. Some might even say within the leadership of every religion.

...

So here's a person who is constantly advocating and justifying the killing, bombing, and slaughtering of Muslims, including well over 100,000 innocent civilians. And yet today he writes a column saying: Look over there at those radical Muslims; can you believe how degraded and inhumane they are? In fact, he says, "they" -- those Muslims over there -- "don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so." That's from the same person who cheerleads for the endless deaths of Muslims and destruction of the Muslim world while thinking that it makes him strong, resolute, Churchillian, righteous and noble -- exactly that which he accuses "fringe Muslims" of doing. And even as he blames the U.S. for "absolving" radical Muslims for the "evil" of their choices, Brooks will never make the connection between what he does and its results because he believes he is free from accountability and that his righteousness justifies the killings he desires -- again, exactly that which he says today is the hallmark of Islamic monsters ("They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so").

...

I think it's what bothers me most about the wars. Those raving on from the sidelines can casually look at other (different, whether by nationality, race, religion, or color) people, the "they" Greenwald speaks of, as subhuman. The last thing we hear in the corporate media is about the thousands of innocents killed in our quest for oil, or territory, or whatever the motives were at the time.

I don't know how those people can stand to look in the mirror. I guess denial is a powerful drug.

...

If one needs to reduce my point to a single sentence, one can try this: "if you constantly cheer on one war after the next that results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings and the extreme suffering of millions more (as Brooks has done -- beyond Iraq and Afghanistan -- and continues to do), then you can't coherently claim that the targets of your wars have a unique disregard for human life; that they -- but not you -- "don’t see others as fully human"; that they -- but not you -- "cause incredible amounts of suffering"; and that they -- but not you -- "come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so." [all ems in orig]

...

Indeed. A buncha folks in Germany thought that way 70 years ago. Brooks, and the institution he represents, shed their humanity when they denied a significant part of the world's population theirs.

A note: Be sure to check out Gord's posts (here and here) re:"Tattooed Under Fire" about some of the other consequences of the wars these clowns cheered for, and demonized those who didn't. There are more than the deaths of innocents on Brooks' hands.

Figures ...

Via Mr. Philadelphia:

...

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion. [my em]

...

Yeah, just in case some lily-white senator's daughter gets knocked up by the big black offensive lineman on the high school football team. Gotta have a way to deal with that, ya know, there's reelection to think of. The only reason Bristol got to keep the kid is because Levi is white.

Violence is endemic at Fort Hood

This ties in uncomfortably all too well with yesterday's post about Fort Hood. In the show "Tattooed Under Fire" (extended trailer) one of the locals said that Killeen is "like Dodge City when the sun goes down".

New York Times, with video "In War There Are No Unwounded Soldiers". Please read.

Fort Hood is still reeling from last week’s carnage, in which an Army psychiatrist is accused of a massacre that left 13 people dead. But in the town of Killeen and other surrounding communities, the attack, one of the worst mass shootings on a military base in the United States, is also seen by many as another blow in an area that has been beset by crime and violence since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began. Reports of domestic abuse have grown by 75 percent since 2001. At the same time, violent crime in Killeen has risen 22 percent while declining 7 percent in towns of similar size in other parts of the country.

The stresses are seen in other ways, too.

Since 2003, there have been 76 suicides by personnel assigned to Fort Hood, with 10 this year, according to military officials.

In TUF it was brought up that in fifteen months in Iraq, the 4th ID had 50 KIA and double that in drunk driving fatalities in the few months since they returned.

One day, it is a homecoming, with hundreds of families waving flags and homemade signs along T. J. Mills Boulevard leading into the base’s main gate. The next day, crime reports increase, especially cases of domestic violence. “Unfortunately, you see the trend every time there’s a homecoming, when the divisions come home,” said Olga Pena, the paper’s managing editor.

It's just my opinion, but I think they're getting home from the combat zone too quickly. No time to decompress.

Vietnam returnees came home as individuals on government-leased flights. One day, Vietnam, the next, a west coast Air Force base, the next, home with their heads still in the war zone. We've had forty years to see how well that didn't work.

Now they're coming home as units, which I think is good, but they need to stop somewhere for a couple of weeks, maybe in Germany. They need to get some counseling, some rest, some time to realize they're not in the war zone and some time to adjust. Probably wouldn't hurt 'em to get good and beered up in a reasonably controlled environment a coupla times as well.

Beered up. There's one of the biggest cruxes of the biscuit. The only service-acceptable chemical relaxant and self-medication is alcohol, a demon drug in the right, or wrong, circumstances.

In Iraq, alcohol is forbidden to the troops due to the Islamic nature of the joint. The troops had to brew their own hooch if they wanted any. A bucket with a lid, fruit or starch, yeast and sugar, and bingo, pruno like in prison. I wouldn't doubt they could get booze from KBR bootleggers, but I think there was probably a lot less drinking while they were over there.

In my day, we didn't make much money and most of us didn't have cars. Motorcycles were absolutely forbidden at Camp Lejeune after some yo-yo burned a buncha donuts on the CG's lawn with his Honda 90. Heh. We took the bus to town (Jacksonville NC) and got sloshed on three-deuce beer in a two-square-block area of beer bars, got back on the bus, called the 'vomit comet' for the return trip, went home and went to bed in the barracks, since 90+% of us were single, and most of the few married men left their wives at home, at least in the lower ranks. Other than a fistfight once in a while, no harm done. The Marine Corps turned a blind eye to all this because they knew all too well that young men need to let off steam. Constantly.

Nowadays, servicemen make a lot more money and a lot of the unmarried soldiers live off base, unsupervised. For all intents and purposes, they're civilians after working hours. They all have cars and motorcycles and like young men everywhere, they need to constantly let off steam and they go out in the evening and get in trouble. These aren't just any young men. They're warriors in a warrior culture, even off base. Maybe especially off base where the Army can't see them. Wanta cause trouble? Go into some other unit's home bar and holler an insult. Or just hang around and wait for it. Mostly, it's just relatively harmless young man's mischief and the biggest danger is drunk driving, which seems to be a huge problem at Fort Hood.

There's more criminals, hoodlums, and bums in the service these days too, and their mischief can be anything but harmless.

As to the married soldiers, and there are a hundred, a thousand times more of those than years ago, what they don't need is to be instantly plunked down in the midst of all the crapola that developed at home while they were gone. Instant decompression from one war zone, and right in the middle of another one. Welcome home, honey, and you ain't makin' enough money and you stay gone too long and the fuckin' kid's outta diapers and oh yeah I'm six months pregnant.

Add alcohol to that and you've got real trouble.

Booze is legal and it's everywhere. They even sell hard liquor off-sale at Class Six stores right on the base, for taking home to consume in on-base housing. Swell.

I didn't mean to turn this post into a temperance lecture, but I guess I did. Take all the stresses of instant decompression from a war zone, PTSD diagnosed or not, Army chickenshit, domestic problems, the realization that you've just been unnecessarily screwed, blewed, and tattooed by the military-industrial complex and a neocon weakling for fifteen months, maybe four fifteen monthses, in a place you should never have had to go to, that 99% of the American people have no skin in the game and use you for political purposes, that they're going to throw you away after they're done with you and you should just man up and STFU and be grateful they let you go catch lead for the ruling elite who doesn't want anything to do with you that costs money, and add alcohol. Happy landings.

Welcome home boys and girls.

Lou Dobbs resigns

Market Watch

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs announced his resignation from the news network late Wednesday, effective immediately.

Hey Luis, don't let the puerta hitcha in the culo on yer way out.

Dobbs may move to News Corp.'s Fox Business Network.

Heh. That's like the gentle slowing down of an elevator so he won't hit the bottom at high speed.

Adios, pendejo.

Yoo's lawyers warn of flood of political suits

EssEffChron

A ruling that allowed a prisoner to sue former Bush administration attorney John Yoo for devising the legal theories that justified his alleged torture threatens to "open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits" against government officials, Yoo's lawyers say.

Gee, he says that like it's a bad thing.

Bolder by the day: Unapologetic Nazis are coming out of the woodwork

David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars, with links and video:

James Verini at the Daily Beast notices something we've been tracking here at C&L too: Neo-Nazis and far-right extremists are not only recruiting more openly, they're being much more public in their full-on expressions of racism, nativism, and xenophobia. Unlike David Duke, these characters aren't even trying to hide it:
...

The outcries of right-wing tea-partiers, death panellers, birthers, and the like are accompanied by increased activity all along the paranoid fringe.
...

“We believe there is a real resurgence,” adds Lieutenant David Hall, director of the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which tracks antigovernment extremist groups around the Midwest. “The atmosphere is ripe.”

Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?

Ready: National Socialist? I am.

Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?

Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.

*Sniff* Gosh, we all should bow our heads in shame for having referenced National Socialists derogatorily. Lord knows they don't deserve it.

As Verini suggests, much of the naked bigotry these people express is being encouraged by the rise of extremist rhetoric generally, within the supposed conservative mainstream:
...

The Nazi bubbles we're seeing now are bubbling up out of a much bigger cauldron of toxic garbage that is being stirred up by the Right. Look for a lot more bubbles in the coming months.

Pardon me for getting up off the good Progressive peacelovedope shit, but I recommend bullets for popping that kind of bubble. Or baseball bats up close and personal. Start by deflating the teabagger gasbag enablers and work out into the street.

Goldmine Sachs

From Modo:

“Saturday Night Live” was tougher on Goldman Sachs than the government, giving the firm flak about commandeering 200 doses of the swine flu vaccine — the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital got — while so many at-risk Americans wait.

“Can you not read how mad people are at you?” demanded Amy Poehler. “When most people saw the headline ‘Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine’ they were superhappy until they saw the word ‘vaccine.’ ”

Seth Meyers chimed in: “Also, Centers for Disease Control, you sent the vaccine to Wall Street before schools and hospitals? Really!?! Were you worried the swine flu might spread to the Hamptons and St. Barts? These are the least contagious people in the world. They don’t even touch their own car-door handles.”

And as far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.

He got crucified for it too, but it was only a temporary fix. 2000 years later we're still suffering from both bankers and christianity.

Party like it's 2001 ...

Or, Welcome to America:

TAMPA — Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.

That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

...

If he'd seen action, maybe I'd understand ... a bit, but I'd lay down a $5 bill that this guy spends his spare time parked in front of the TV watching Fox 'News' and reading NRA pamphlets.

I thought we got over beating on people who looked different once the craziness after September 11th died down. And you wonder why others in the world (There's something else beside America out there?) think we're grand assholes?

Christ ...

Great thanks to Dr. Attaturk (Podiatrist to the Stars) for the link.