No cabin fever here...

...but it's perfectly OK to go crazy outdoors!

All that's on the news today is the snowstorm back east. With Amtrak and the airports in D.C. shut down, perhaps we'll get a coupla days of good government, i.e. none!

Anyway, some people know how to have fun with winter. More likely they just know how to have fun and screw winter. Check out these Krauts. I suspect the involvement of alcohol...might be a little 'watch this!' thrown in...

Elefantentreffen Arcitc-Nudes (0°C), Mud-Hillclimb & Boxer-Pirouette

Fortsetzung folgt!!!

I can't wait...

53.BVDM Elefantentreffen 2009 (1) in Thurmansbang-Solla / Germany

In for a pfennig, in for a dollar update:

Here's a vid of this year's Elephant Rally, just put on YouTube today. Call it "post-apocalyptic snow camping" or just plain fun. Hey, these are Fixer's people! Hardy, fun-loving, and more than a little crazy! In the good way.

I understand very little of what these folks are saying, but I understand this - motorcyclists are the same the world over. I'd feel right at home there.



See also Teil 1. Shows folks arriving at the campground, with a musical reference to the Donner Party, I think. Heh. I could watch these all day. Oh, it's snowing again. Probly will...

Danke to amandeis, Germany.

"...the Devil's in the backyard fryin' his brain..."

Travis Mayer ~ The Devil Went To Jamaica

Thanks to Edsell2009.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Sheryl Crow & Emmylou Harris ~ Juanita

Thanks to Edsell2009.

Eminently qualified ...

For a job in D.C.

Three Girls and Their Buddy

I watched this show last night. Terrific. Watch it if you get the chance.

Quote of the Day

Will Durst

I think Obama's main obstacle in affecting real change is the culture of DC. To them, erosion is a radical concept.

True enough, but his real obstacle is all of the Repugs and some of the Democrats.

It should be the norm ...

Not the exception.

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

...

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

...

We don't elect these fuckers to a social club and it's sad that all but a handful of Dems are there only to play the game. We need more guys like Franken who realize they aren't there to make friends but to get something done.

At least ...

Somebody is doing something besides patting them on the head. Our next Governor NY's Attorney General crawls up Bank of America's ass:

The New York attorney general yesterday accused Bank of America Corp. and its former chief executive, Kenneth Lewis, of deceiving shareholders and manipulating US officials during the company’s $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch.

...

The civil fraud charges against Lewis, Price, and the company itself concern a series of rapidly unfolding events from September 2008, when the financial industry pitched into crisis, to January 2009, when Bank of America ultimately received $20 billion in government money to cover Merrill’s losses. Bank of America had previously received $25 billion from the government.

...

The only bonuses these clowns should have received are the ones from their prison husbands.

Hey!

The interwebs works again! Couldn't get a page to load last night ... If you sent me an email yesterday, I'll look at it tonight.

Calamari for everybody!

LATimes

Giant Humboldt squid taking Southland anglers by storm

Go see the picture! I've had little bitty squids wrap themselves around my hook, but nothing like this!

Anglers from all over Southern California are crowding area landings for a chance to fish for the giant squid, which are reportedly a lot of fun to catch and put up quite a fight when boated, usually dousing those nearby with gallons of cold seawater and/or ink.

Doused with gallons of squid ink? Well, not my idea of the dream day on the water, but to each their own.

"The fishing was squidtastic!" said Michael Gannon, of San Clemente, who was aboard the Clemente out of Dana Wharf on Sunday. "My arms are about to fall off because the squid are so huge and put up such a fight."

Also called jumbo squid, they were once found primarily off South America and have slowly expanded their territory.

Good thing there's no global warming, huh? In a few years this report might come from the Bering Sea.

In the 'comments' to the article, some folks are saying this happens once in a while and is no big deal, others are saying it forebodes Armaggedon. ¿Quien sabe?

Update:

Go see the video at HuffPo. Ya gotta wait for the awful title-of-this-post-related pun at the end! Heh.

Rest Your Beverages With Confidence, Says Carmaker

TOKYO (The Borowitz Report) – Embattled automaker Toyota today said that despite problems with accelerators and brakes, the cup holders on its most popular car models were "perfectly safe to use."

But Mr. Kyosuke's upbeat comments about Toyota's cup holders were undercut somewhat later in the day by congressional testimony from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"You should only feel safe to use your cup holder if your Toyota is parked in your driveway," Mr. LaHood said. "At 80 miles per hour, the cup holder becomes a rocket launcher."

O'Keefe's race problem

Max Blumenthal has an interesting article on that little wingnut prick and future jailhouse shaggin' piece O'Keefe.

His right-wing admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. [...]

According to One People's Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O'Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism. OPP covered the event at the time, sending a freelance photographer to document the gathering. Jenkins told me the table was filled with tracts from the white supremacist right, including two pseudo-academic publications that have called blacks and Latinos genetically inferior to whites: American Renaissance and the Occidental Quarterly. The leading speaker was Jared Taylor, founder of the white nationalist group American Renaissance. "We can say for certain that James O'Keefe was at the 2006 meeting with Jared Taylor. He has absolutely no way of denying that," Jenkins said. [...]

By O’Keefe’s own account, his racial troubles became acute when he entered the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers University’s dormitory system. In an online diary that has since been scrubbed from the Web (but not before being captured on Daily Kos), he wrote that he was forced to live on an all-black dormitory floor after refusing to live with the gay roommate he was initially assigned. O’Keefe claimed his next roommate was “an Indian midget ... who smelled like shit.” The roommate left, however, and was replaced by “a greek kid.” The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “niggers,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm. [...]

Meanwhile, O’Keefe lost his job at the Leadership Institute in 2008 for a prank call he made to an Ohio-based Planned Parenthood clinic. During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I'm just trying to do my part.”

Let's make the sure that all the brothers and hermanos at whatever hoosegow this little prick ends up in all get a copy of Blumenthal's piece. He might only get 30 days or so, but that oughta be time enough for them to widen his, er, perspective.

Update:

More on this from Max.

Pants On Fire

If you missed this yesterday evening take 11:10 and watch it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The 'R' Word

There certainly seems to be a lot of of people flinging the words 'retard' and 'retarded' at one another and calling for each other to be fired for it.

Political Carnival on the latest case, Perry v Hutchison:

Le mot du jour seems to be making the rounds in the "more politically correct than thou" circles.

Andrew Sullivan on Palin v Rahmbo:

Did she really just call for Rahm Emanuel to be fired because he allegedly used the term "fucking retarded" to refer to fellow Democrats in a private meeting? Last summer? Did she really?

I don't like the term myself. I think it is offensive. I think Rahm Emanuel is offensive. But at least he's real. And he has now apologized. And at least he used the term metaphorically.

On naming her latest baby:

The medical term for Down Syndrome is Trisomy-21 or Trisomy-g. It is often shortened in medical slang to Tri-g.

Now that's retarded.

Since apologies for the use of a very valid and useful word meaning basically 'slow' or 'slow down' but hijacked and co-opted to mean only one thing, sorta like 'gay', seem to be in order, I hereby apologize to the thousands of ignition systems I've set to 'full retard'. I was just trying to get the engines to start easily and idle correctly and in my ignorance had no idea I was insulting them.

As one Political Carnival commenter said,

...this whole pseudo-controversy is retarded.

I would never use the word to refer to people with "moderate cognitive disabilities", but I sure as shit will to describe wingnuts and Repugs in general. Fuckin' retards, the whole backwards lot of 'em. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Yeesh.

Update:

P.M. Carpenter wasn't writing about this subject but he hit its nail right on the head:

Saying the GOP is the party of no is one thing – and technically correct – but more so it’s the party of antediluvian cluelessness

Shorter: Fuckin' retards, the lot of 'em.

Update II:

Think Progress

[...] Claiming Emanuel’s regrettable remarks gave him permission, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh endorsed the language and said the liberal activists truly are “retards”:

Palin has called into Limbaugh’s show at least twice. Will she now call on him to apologize for his slur?

Hell no. IOKIYAR.

Dream on, pal ...

Rules are for the little people:

... And there is only one way to stop it. When the guy at the top takes the fall for it along with those approving the deals, then you would see due diligence. But I am just dreaming again.

Headline of the Day

Maru:

Fairies are coming for my penis

Ignoring Iraq ...

Because if we don't, we'll start asking difficult questions like "when do Bush and Cheney go on trial for war crimes?"

...

Since the galling announcement a year would be lost withdrawing totally—more or less—according to plan the American corporate propaganda has studiously ignored Iraq, that’s very much part of the denial plan, ignoring Iraq won’t make it go away but at least keeps those awful conversations of imprisoning Bush and Cheney out of the news. Right? Anyway, it’s been relative easy because Iraq has been so blessedly quiet, things have gone fairly well to the glacial withdrawal plan, praise baby Jesus.

...

Dangle Dat Junk, Souljah Boy!

The Rude Pundit, obviously a regular reader of the Brain, follows up on Fixer's post:

Underneath the glowing sheen of rationality given to the most despicable of beliefs, there is always irrational fear. Implicit in the language of the men who want to leave in place the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays and lesbians in the military is this fear: "Gay guys might rape my ass." The proper response to that is, "Oh, get over yourself, Mary."

It's as if there's a group of predatory queers out there jonesing for some Marine ass and are willing to sign away a few years of their life to get it. It's as if the notion of openly gay service members (yeah, yeah, ha, ha, "members") will stop all the straight dudes from hanging out nude with other straight dudes, an image that, in any context, is totally gay (as in "homosexual"). Seriously, if you wanna walk around, dangling your junk in front of other guys, there's probably something you need to ask and tell yourself.

Junk-dangling soldiers aside, it's not really as if the straight guys are the models of sexual decorum here. "According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed," says a BBC report from last year, with an estimate that "some 90% of military sexual assaults are never reported." It's pretty damn likely that the vast majority of those assaults were not committed by lesbians.

Tony Perkins, whose Family Research Council (motto: "Why doesn't Jesus stop us from going bankrupt?") has a petition against the repeal of DADT, says, "Forcing soldiers to cohabit with people who view them as sexual objects would inevitably lead to increased sexual tension, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault." Or, in other words, the straight dudes might be treated like they treat women. Or, in other words, please don't rape our asses, Mr. Gay Guy.

Indeed, by the right's own logic, the military should ban heterosexual men.

Ooh! 300 would be required viewing in basic training! Wouldn't wanta over-oil, after all...

Reminds me of the time I asked the First Shirt for a 96 hour liberty - "Harrumph! I wouldn't give youse a 96 if I wuz fuckin' ya."

Guantanamo beats Illinois: Sen. Hatch

The Swamp on comments by Sen. Hatch (R[etard] - Cultah):

All things considered, one senator suggested today, the accused terrorists housed at the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are better off than they might be at a state prison in Illinois that the Obama administration wants to buy for them.

If the terrorists view Guantanamo as a rallying cry for recruitment of new terrorists, he suggested, wait until they see Thomson.

"It's pretty nice compared to Illinois -- the place in Illinois where they want to put them," Hatch said in the committee hearing. "It'd be nice and cold in the winter time and... all I can say is that I imagine there'll be a hue and a cry that we're not fair by bringing them here."

I think Hatch is confusing a prison cage in Cuba with the warm fair breezes and room service at wherever he and Rushole stay in the Dominican Republic.

Prison's prison. It's about the loss of freedom, not the weather.

The arguments for keeping these prisoners out of the U.S. where they might perhaps come under the protection of the Constitution and thus be less of a recruiting tool for al Qaeda are getting feebler and feebler.

US Trade Group Wants Stanky, Formaldehyde-Laced FEMA Trailers Sent To Haiti

"Pimp my FEMA trailer."

Treehugger

FEMA has put the notorious Katrina Trailers, some 100,000 of them, up for auction; and the bidding has apparently driven down prices for the new models. Hence, lobbyists for the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association have suggested sending empty Katrina trailers to Haiti as a 'humanitarian gesture.' [...]

Everybody seems to be against this other than the trailer industry, which is overloaded with the Katrina trailers, and southern white men, but I think it's a fine idea.

I wouldn't live in any new trailer or RV for all the reasons we all know, or come to think of it, a brand new house that hasn't had the windows open for a coupla years, but surely these particular trailers have outgassed by now. What do you think?