Goin' ridin'

Off today to ride the Youth Team Vintage-Beginner portion of the Geritol Trial. Right up my alley - if there was ever a "vintage beginner" powered by Geritol, I'm it! See yas.

Update: 1st (and only) in class. I dare not move up in class. There's already a guy in the Twin Shock Intermediate class. I'da won it anyway. He didn't show up. Heh.



More later.

Sweet Dreams, F-Man

Here's one that's closer to what I actually do on motorcycles. A bad dream
is when I can't find the coin slot to make it go.

Heh ...

Another of my Gordon Trail Riding Nightmares.

Thanks to LMAO for the pic.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

A recent live performance of one of her old favorites.

Emmylou Harris with band performing Luxury Liner at Stockholm Music & Arts Festival on 4th of August 2012.

Thanks to Sektinfo, Sweden.

Heh ...

Pic thanks to Chest Strongwell.

Shopping Day

Off to Carson City, bonus hot weather spa day for the pups, breakfast at our favorite joint, Costco, W**Mart. See yas.

Confess sinner!!!

At least, that's what the Frothy Mixture says if you're a Catholic and participate in Obamacare:

While stumping for Mitt Romney in Ohio Wednesday, former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum repeated allegations of President Obama’s so-called “War on Religion,” claiming that Catholics’ freedom of religion is being compromised by the implementation of Obamacare. According to Santorum, whose campaign emphasized his far-right social values, Catholics are being forced to sin by complying with an Obamacare provision that requires employers to provide contraceptive services free of charge:

...

And I thought we heard the last of him when he lost his primary run. Another boil on the ass of America.

Cockblock the Vote!

On his show Thursday night, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart blasted Republicans in Pennsylvania and Ohio for attempting to suppress votes in the upcoming November elections. Noting that there have been only 10 cases of in-person voter fraud since 2000, Stewart slammed Pennsylvania for enacting a tough new voter ID law. He also blasted overt discrimination in Ohio, where the state secretary eliminated the extended hours for early voting in Democratic districts.

Jon at his best.

Republican Senator Calls Romney a "Stupid Back Stabber"

Kos

Responding to Romney's plan to kill energy production and thousands of jobs in Iowa, long time conservative Senator Chuck Grassley called Romney "stupid" and a "back stabber" at two town hall meetings.
...

In his unabated campaign to piss off every possible voter, Mitt Romney called for the cancellation of tax credits for wind energy, a move that would kill 37,000 good paying jobs nationwide.

In Iowa alone, 7,000 people are employed in the wind energy sector, producing a quarter of the state's electric power.

Kind of amazing to think that, mass-quantity-hot-air blowhard that he is, Willard is against wind power. You'd think he'd be trying for yet another federal subsidy.

Grassley's pretty much your standard Repug asshole, but he got it right this time.

Adelson again?

An odd day for news, to be sure.

Israel sperm banks find quality is plummeting

Ruth Har-Nir, head of Hadassah Sperm Bank in Jerusalem shows off equipment used to find major donor Adelson's shrivelled nutsack.

I mighta made part of that caption up, but the look on her face...

I will never think of the Hadassah ladies the same way ever again...

Excuse me, but I must go. The tank truck of bleach has mercifully just pulled up out in front.

Fire in your pants!*

LATimes

L.A. city leaders weigh strategies for inspecting porn shoots

Depending on the number of film shoots and the frequency of the spot checks, the task could require more than 100 full-time Fire Department employees and cost more than $1.7 million, officials said.

The FIRE DEPARTMENT?!! I know some porn is pretty hot, but...

I will never think of the "jaws of life" or "hook and ladder" the same way ever again, and I shudder at the thought of "fire hose" or, God forbid, "turnout"...

*Title reference is to an old joke - cop stops a gal for speeding, asks her "where's the fire?", answer is "in my pants, officer, and your hose isn't big enough to put it out".

(rimshot)

Heh...

And just so ya know, in the Corps, baloney and other cold cuts are called "horsecock", which along with "horse's ass" and "horseshit" fits neatly into the Vulture/Voucher campaign. The other equine reference and hope I have for them involves a glue factory.

Thanks to Slate.

Daddy Frank On Lyin' Ryan’s Bungled Rollout

Frank Rich. A quick 'recommended read'.

So, Mitt Romney selected Paul Ryan as his VP. The consensus seems to be that this was close to a Hail Mary play, if not quite a Sarah Palin Hail Mary. Do you see it that way?

No. For all clichéd gab about this being a “game-changer,” we already know that it’s not. The polls show at most a mild bounce so far. Many Americans have not a clue as to who Ryan is except as a card-carrying representative of the second most despised brand in America after the local cable company: Congress. His anointment is a dramatic move only in the sense that compared to choosing Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman, anything is a dramatic move. Only in the GOP does the pairing of two wealthy conservative white guys constitute a diversity ticket, presumably because only one of them has openly embraced Ayn Rand. It’s a far cry from choosing an inexperienced woman governor from Alaska as a running mate, and I doubt the Ryan choice was even intended as a game-changer. The real intention was for Romney to nail down the GOP base. It says a lot about the state of his campaign that as late as mid-August it still had not won over large swaths of that 75 percent of the GOP that wanted Anyone but Romney for much of the primary process.

The Times ran a lengthy expose this week about the possibly criminal dealings of Sheldon Adelson's former fixer in China. This isn't the first noise we've heard about bribery allegations involving Adelson's company. Can the Obama campaign hang this on Romney in any way?

Yes. It shows how much power Adelson has over the GOP that Ryan would place near the top of his first week to-do list a dash out to Vegas to kiss Adelson’s ring (presumably a pinky ring)*. Adelson’s gambling empire, Las Vegas Sands, is the subject of two different major federal investigations, one by the Justice Department and another by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is kosher to ask whether Adelson is lavishing as much as (or maybe more than) $100 million on the GOP not just to promote his hawkish views about Israel but also to try to shut down those investigations in a Romney administration. Meanwhile, journalists, and not just at the Times but at ProPublica, Frontline, the Journal, and NBC News, among no doubt others, are continuing to dig into Adelson’s empire. What happens in Vegas — and in the Sands’s Macau outpost as well — will not stay in Vegas between now and Election Day. This could be the sleeper “October Surprise” of the 2012 campaign.

*The ring is probably in a piercing on Adelson's great white ass. It'd be in his foreskin if he had one.

Go read. Comments too.

Add-on:

Thanks to Slate

Headline of the Day

Judge: Former ACORN worker can sue James O’Keefe

Good. I hope that between his legal bills and a judgment this breaks that little punk.

POTUS Brew

The Oval

The Obama administration confirmed today it has added a new facility to the White House: A small beer brewery.

Officials discussed the brewery after President Obama told some Iowa residents that he had some of its product stocked aboard the bus he's using for a three-day tour of the Hawkeye State.

"There is a home brew, if you will, at the White House," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

It's called White House Honey Ale, with both light and dark varieties.

Totally cool!

Yeah ...

Far be it for a conservative to pay royalties:

The Silversun Pickups have asked Mitt Romney's campaign to stop using their song "Panic Switch" at events. The band has issued a cease-and-desist order and released a statement Wednesday, roundly denouncing Romney and his campaign.

"We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign," frontman Brian Aubert wrote. "We're nice, approachable people. We won't bite. Unless you're Mitt Romney!"

...

They think they have a right to everything for free. Bastids.

GOP lawmaker steps down from leadership following tax vote

EssEffChron

It appears that California Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert (Riverside County), is the latest victim of the state GOP’s intransigent position on taxes.

Nestande surprised his colleagues Monday when he voted with Democrats to close a corporate tax loophole in order fund scholarships for middle income college students. On Tuesday, he announced that he was stepping down as Republican caucus chairman, saying he “decided to take the side of my constituents and California businesses” with his vote Monday.
...

There was no immediate reaction from his GOP colleagues, though Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles — who authored and championed AB1500 — praised Nestande.

“Assemblymember Nestande has been a thoughtful and dedicated public servant throughout his tenure in the Assembly, and I deeply respect the fact that his votes reflect his principles. He took a stand on behalf of tax fairness for California’s businesses and for providing critical relief to California’s middle class families, and I believe this kind of leadership should be practiced by every member of every party,” Perez said in a written statement.

Good on Assemblyman Nestande, but he's doing the next right thing after that right thing - when a Repug pol develops a conscience and does something for someone besides his corporate masters, it's time to go. No worries though, I doubt this will be a trend.

Mitt Romney vs. dead potted plant

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on Mitt Revulsion Syndrome (MRS).

It is not very easy to care about Mitt Romney.

It’s a bit of a phenomenon, actually. It has proven almost impossible for most Americans to muster interest in this numbly rich, exceedingly bland caricature of a candidate, a man who is almost completely devoid of deep ideas or astute observation, who stands for nothing and says nothing you can ever remember, whose last ten speeches can be rolled into a fist-sized ball of palliative mush, hurled against a wall and then observed to ooze slowly to the floor, ending in a moist, displeasing plop. Fun!

Hell, it’s easier to care about an oil stain or a rash on your toe than Mitt Romney. Even with the addition of Ayn Rand-loving, anti-choice, fiscal extremist Paul Ryan to the ticket, Romney only looks that much more the unlikable sugar daddy. Ryan does add a disquieting jolt of nasty fanaticism, though. Is it enough?

Here’s the fantastic thing: no one on the Right cares much for Mitt, either. There is no passion to be found anywhere (save for the extremists and Tea Party simpletons who adore Ryan). Even House Republicans are bored to death by him. Heartland Christians really want to care, but Mitt’s creepy Mormonism means they don’t know which way is heaven anymore. Only rich Wall Street barons are happy with Mitt. This is because they built him.

It all bodes very well indeed. When a nation is this apathetic and numb to a particular candidate, when they can’t get away from him fast enough, good things happen for the other side. Even Bush was able to galvanize the uneducated, fundamentalist right. Even McCain could leverage his bogus patriotism and Sarah Palin’s ditzy winking. Romney can’t even galvanize your grandmother in Florida. If anything, she’s furious that Paul Ryan wants to kill Medicare. Or rather, she soon will be, once Obama reminds her, fifty times a day, for the next three months.

So be heartened, liberal America. Milquetoast mannequins who inspire no one – not even their own supporters, not even the Christian right, not even House Republicans – never win major elections. They do make comforting footnotes, though. Do you think I should try some basil plants?

Try a pot plant, Mark. They'll grow anywhere.

So will his 'comments' by morning. There are some doozies already. Heh.

Spice Eyes Ryan

I've been ponderin' if Paul Ryan has "Stepford Eyes" and that's pretty close, but it just dawned on me that I've seen Paul Ryan's eyes before. In Herbert's Dune the Guild Navigators consumed vast quantities of worm shit so they could see into the future. That was fiction and it worked for them. In real life, of course, all the worm shit he could ever possibly hope to consume will not do a damn thing for Ryan but I hope he keeps trying.

Note: I think it's the Koch worms' shit he's using. Accounts for the different eye color from the video. Ryan's are kind of a "See-Into-The-Past-Through-Nothingness Blue".

Thanks to leemailme, Canada.

The Pathetic Glory Of Phony War

Think Progress

NBC’s Stars Earn Stripes, a reality competition show in which “stars” ranging from Todd Palin to Nick Lachey complete challenges theoretically drawn from military missions and raise money for military charities when they win, was always going to attract some raised eyebrows. Whether it was the show’s contribution to the growing Palin family reality empire, the involvement of an apparently severely underly-employed Gen. Wesley Clark, or the late-summer cheesiness of the concept, Stars Earn Stripes is perfectly engineered to win news cycles if not fans. But I don’t think NBC anticipated this latest twist: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a number of other Nobel Laureates have published an open letter to NBC president Bob Greenblatt (who in between this and Sharon Osbourn’s accusations of discrimination is not having a great start to this season) and other executives involved with the show, calling Stars Earn Stripes an ugly glorification of war.

I don’t entirely agree with Tutu and his esteemed company: Stars Earn Stripes doesn’t make it look exciting or fun to fire on live targets, or to expose yourself to real risk. The show is marked by a patent phoniness, whether it’s the cheerful blue and red plastic targets and paint used to mark competitors’ courses, the hay bales that simulate houses, the command center General Clark hosts from that looks like it was sold off the lot of a canceled science fiction show, and the corny, B-movie explosions. This is a rich man’s paintball course, not an effective tool for convincing people to kill in their country’s service. The signatories are right when they say that “Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People - military and civilians - die in ways that are anything but entertaining.” And the show doesn’t actually make entertainment out of those deaths.

I'm not going to watch this show because I think the concept is utterly disgusting. They can hide behind "support the troops" all they want, it's just another phony "reality" show that's relatively cheap to make that glorifies war. Wanta make it more real? Live return fire and real AP explosions. Let's see what a hero Todd Palin is with his arms and legs and face blown off and his guts hanging out and screaming for his mother like a real wounded soldier. Yeah, right. Can't do that because folks would see what war is really like and they might not support endless needless war any more.

Actually, I think me'n Fixer could make this show a lot more interesting. Fixer could channel these clowns in creative ways with carefully placed explosions from IEDs to Claymores to Bouncing Bettys to Schu mines and funnel 'em into a ditch lined with det cord. Nothing new, I saw it in a movie. Then when they're blown into the air we'll see how long I can keep 'em spinning with rifle fire.

To make it even better, scrap the washed-up showbiz and wannabe-hero types and replace them with Repug "heroes" who support war and who never served. That is must-see TV!