Note to Liz (Daddy's fifth deferment): There aren't enough morons who'll fall for your crapspin to save your daddy's evil legacy. I think Stalin's daughter tried it too.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Following Liz Cheney's Logic
Shopping day today. Spa day for the pups and shopping and errands in the big city for us. Big day, so I'll just leave you with Rachel's hilarious sendup of a right wing fearmongering sky-is-falling panic attack.
Note to Liz (Daddy's fifth deferment): There aren't enough morons who'll fall for your crapspin to save your daddy's evil legacy. I think Stalin's daughter tried it too.
Note to Liz (Daddy's fifth deferment): There aren't enough morons who'll fall for your crapspin to save your daddy's evil legacy. I think Stalin's daughter tried it too.
Quote of the Day
Our buddy CAFKIA via email:
"Tea parties are for little girls and their imaginary friends."
Free stuff!
Like the insects they are, the Palins storm the Oscars:
Thank god it's Friday ...
...
"They were like locusts," says one vendor at the suite, regarding Palin and her large group of hangers-on. "She showed up with like 20 people, and they immediately swarmed the place taking everything!"
...
Thank god it's Friday ...
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Is this really satire?
The World's Most Reliable News Source:
Comes awfully close to the truth, as in hits it dead center. Much more.
My Constituents Care Way More About Political Gamesmanship Than Jobs, Health Care, And The Economy
By House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
I assure you, the last thing my voters need is some well intended, do-all-I-possibly-can-to-help-the-little-guy congressman running around Washington, working across the aisle, and fighting tooth and nail for jobs, health care, and financial reform to ensure their tax dollars never end up in the hands of banks capable of holding our entire economy hostage.
No, sir. My constituents deserve better.
They deserve a leader willing to roll up his sleeves and play the types of twisted, greedy political games that, by their very nature, tear apart the fabric of our democracy for the sake of assuring reelection. They deserve someone on their side who will ask the tough questions, such as how will painting Democrats as radical ideologues play in, say, Arkansas? Can we vote "no" on the health care bill and still make it look like we give two craps about the welfare of ordinary Americans? How can we twist positive news about the GDP into a negative for the Obama administration?
The fact is, if I ever worked across the aisle to help thousands of uninsured Ohioans receive health care, I wouldn't be able to look them in the eye. How could I explain to them that I abandoned the idiotic yet politically fruitful claim that Barack Obama is a socialist bent on destroying the American way of life? How could I admit to them that deficit spending is the only way to get us out of an economic crisis perpetuated by my party's disastrous fiscal ideology? How could I tell them I stopped obsessing over scoring petty political points right before the midterm election?
How could I stop being the greedy, myopic scumbag they elected me to be?
But in the end, of course, I can't take full credit for the Republican Party's utterly undeserved yet all-too-depressingly-real resurgence. That would be unfair to my Democratic colleagues, who, in their unwillingness to act like grown adults with any kind of backbone and exercise the largest majority any party has seen in decades, have let us get away with all of it.
Thank you, you cowardly pieces of shit.
Comes awfully close to the truth, as in hits it dead center. Much more.
The truth about your immense weirdness
Who? Me? Mark Morford in a column about the proper way to warm sake and our astonishing array of personal quirks and peccadilloes:
Nah. If God really was a barrel of frisky monkeys, some Repug pol or fundie preacher'da been caught up to his beboops in it by now.
In our fantastic uniqueness, we are unified. In those things we fear make us total freaks, we are the same. Religions and political parties work like demondogs to normalize and codify certain weirdnesses into collections, tribes, cults and voting blocs, in order to get our money and give them power. This is, quite naturally, utter bulls--.
It doesn't take much blasphemy to note how all religions are, across the board, brazen, synthetic freakshows, far stranger and more surreal in their oddball accumulation of fetishes and rituals than anything your average agnostic, atheist or Burning Man devotee could come up with in her happiest LSD-soaked dreamgasm. You ever been to a Catholic mass? A Mormon temple? A mosque? Disneyland on acid, people. And not in the good way.
Perhaps this is exactly what scares the rigid, the fearful, the conservative mindset most of all. If you really acknowledge our collective weirdness, if you look closely at what makes up the haphazard human spectacle, you are left with one overwhelming and totally awesome conclusion: If God really does exist, She is one deviously kinky, delightfully insane barrel of monkeys indeed. Hell, I'll drink to that.
Nah. If God really was a barrel of frisky monkeys, some Repug pol or fundie preacher'da been caught up to his beboops in it by now.
Presidential Reunion
In case you haven't seen this, DO NOT MISS IT! Many more or watch in a larger format at Funny Or Die or MSNBC.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Headline of the Day
Family Values GOPer Was At Gay Club Before Drunk Driving Arrest
Suh-weeeet! It's almost too bad he's termin' out...
Ouchy ...
Being an avid and frequent cruiser, this scenario is always in the back of your mind:
Holland America Line's Prinsendam was hit by a rogue wave some years back (we know crew members who were aboard at the time) and weathered it relatively well:
And while I love going through storms at sea, I won't be sad if I don't experience this.
Two people have been killed and six injured as giant waves slammed into a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, the ship's owners have said.
The 26ft (8m) high rogue waves hit the Cypriot-owned Louis Majesty off the north-east coast of Spain.
A spokesman for owner Louis Cruises said three "abnormally high" waves broke windows in the front of the ship.
...
Holland America Line's Prinsendam was hit by a rogue wave some years back (we know crew members who were aboard at the time) and weathered it relatively well:
In March 2007, Holland America's cruise ship MS Prinsendam was hit by a 21-meter (69 ft) tall rogue wave in the Antarctic segment around the tip of South America.
And while I love going through storms at sea, I won't be sad if I don't experience this.
QED
As Oliver said, it's nothing we didn't know before, but it's nice to see our theories proven:
Keep 'em stupid, scare 'em to death, and then take their money. Who says you can't fool all the people all the time?
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."
...
In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.
The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.
...
Keep 'em stupid, scare 'em to death, and then take their money. Who says you can't fool all the people all the time?
Quote of the Day
Digby on the Bachmann/Grayson debate:
... This will be as if Lincoln had to debate Britney Spears ...
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Dogs Will Eat You Because They Are Dogs
The Rude Pundit
And will disavow any responsibility for their treasonous and lying hyperbole that whipped you into an ignorant frenzy and precipitated your actions and blame Obama and the Democrats. Or anybody other than themselves.
In other words, no matter how much you love or care for your dog or cat, you don't know what it's thinking. You impose your human frame of reference on them, but at the same time, Fido is putting you into his canine one. And you are always just one can of Alpo away from becoming meat.
When the Rude Pundit read this week about the explosion of right wing extremist groups, he thought, "It's sad, really, how quickly an animal will turn when it panics." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, "Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009." This is not to mention the 512 "active" Patriot Groups, which foster antigovernment conspiracy theories and stand around bragging about how armed they are, like the Oath Keepers, which may just be a new peak of sublimated homoeroticism, a kind of gun fetish mixed with cock worship.
See, the reason they and the Tea Party are the dogs is because they have made the leap to wanting to overthrow the government if things don't go their way. They don't want to work within the existing American system. Because if their worst fears come true, and America becomes socialist, it will be because our elected representatives voted for it, not because it was done at the point of a gun. When George W. Bush was wrecking the nation, left wing groups talked in terms of organization for elections or of impeachment. These groups talk in terms of armed resistance. And we're here, in terms of our increasingly unhinged right wing nutzoids, after only a year of the Obama presidency. When people turned to revolutionary or radical acts in the past, it was after years of war or centuries of mistreatment and the failure of any systemic means of solving the problems. In other words, these people in all these extremist groups are greedy, selfish pussies who want what they want now and don't want to do the hard work to get there.
We could say they are delusional. We could say that they are victims of the cruel capitalist system that has only gotten crueler in the three decades. We could say they have been manipulated by a media that feeds off their fear.
Instead, as Mother Jones magazine says, they are flirting with actual, honest-to-god treason. Once you start talking about overthrowing the government through any means but elections, you have ceased to part of the conversation. Actual patriotism is believing that the American form of government can work, even if that is slow and frustrating. If you don't like it, then amend the Constitution to change the way the country works. Elect people who support you. Then, if that doesn't happen, you might want to consider other means. It takes some time, not one year after the black dude was inaugurated.
But, really, motherfuckers? Guns? And those, like Michelle Bachmann and Jim DeMint, who fan their flames are privileged enablers who will run away like panicked kittens as soon as the dogs tear into the body.
And will disavow any responsibility for their treasonous and lying hyperbole that whipped you into an ignorant frenzy and precipitated your actions and blame Obama and the Democrats. Or anybody other than themselves.
'Swift Boat' Funder Gets $51M Judgment Against Him
Ah, Grasshopper, ice-cold karmic revenge is sooooo sweet.
Guardian, links at site.
In entirely unrelated news, in the same column is a link to a story that is sure to make Fixer's head explode...
I suggest duct tape and Shoe Goo to repair it, F-Man. Or pre-wrap yer noggin with the duct tape before ya hit the link. Two layers. If ya really wanta be safe, don't cut out the eye holes. Heh.
Guardian, links at site.
Bob and Jane Cull bought a house in suburban Ft. Worth, Texas in 1996 for about $233,000. It promptly started falling apart on them. They sued the builder. An arbitration ruling went for the Culls in the amount of $800,000.
The builder spent $1 million fighting the $800,000. And yesterday, a lower court in Texas awarded the Culls $51 million.
The builder is Bob Perry, the chief financial backer of the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and of various other right-wing outfits.
In entirely unrelated news, in the same column is a link to a story that is sure to make Fixer's head explode...
I suggest duct tape and Shoe Goo to repair it, F-Man. Or pre-wrap yer noggin with the duct tape before ya hit the link. Two layers. If ya really wanta be safe, don't cut out the eye holes. Heh.
The Difference Between Hollywood and Washington, D.C.
Jane Hamsher, links and many comments.
More.
The real difference, of course, is that the product of Hollywood isn't real and it's over when the credits roll. D.C.'s product is all too real, actually affects people's lives, and is never over.
Everyone knows the joke — “Washington DC is Hollywood for ugly people.” But having done time in both places, I thought I’d offer up my impressions on how the two compare:
HOLLYWOOD: The villain is a guy who pretends to be helping the hero fight for the public good, but is secretly cutting back room deals that sell their interests out in order to enrich the company and increase their own power.
DC: The villain is a guy who pretends to be helping the hero fight for the public good, but is secretly cutting back room deals that sell their interests out in order to enrich the party and increase their own power.
More.
The real difference, of course, is that the product of Hollywood isn't real and it's over when the credits roll. D.C.'s product is all too real, actually affects people's lives, and is never over.
Leave Uly Alone
LATimes
A 'critic of big government' who made it bigger. Sounds about right for the Repug hypocrite who started the country's slide.
I went to school and worked in Sherman Oaks. Good on ya, Brad!
I like $50 bills. I carry them when I travel because they're 2/3 thinner in my wallet than the equivalent in $20s and $10s and easier to change than Benjies. If they put that asshole Reagan's face on them, I will still carry them, and I will wipe my ass with them at the point of purchase so the merchant's cash register will smell like a Repug and remind all of the deep doodoo that sonofabitch got us into.
On the flip side, why not put his face on them? The money ain't worth shit these days anyway. Might as well put his shit face on it. Fuck it, cut to the chase. Reagan started us swirling the drain and Bush damn near finished it, so go all the way and put the Chimp's face on it.
Reporting from Washington - Ronald Reagan is honored by, among other things, an airport, a freeway, an aircraft carrier and -- ironically for a critic of big government -- one of the biggest federal buildings in Washington.
A 'critic of big government' who made it bigger. Sounds about right for the Repug hypocrite who started the country's slide.
Now, some of the late president's admirers are launching a new effort to add another honor: printing his likeness on a $50 bill in place of Ulysses S. Grant's.
But at least one Democrat who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, where the proposal has been sent, isn't ready to jettison Grant for "someone whose policies are still controversial."
"Our currency ought to be something that unites us," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks).
I went to school and worked in Sherman Oaks. Good on ya, Brad!
I like $50 bills. I carry them when I travel because they're 2/3 thinner in my wallet than the equivalent in $20s and $10s and easier to change than Benjies. If they put that asshole Reagan's face on them, I will still carry them, and I will wipe my ass with them at the point of purchase so the merchant's cash register will smell like a Repug and remind all of the deep doodoo that sonofabitch got us into.
On the flip side, why not put his face on them? The money ain't worth shit these days anyway. Might as well put his shit face on it. Fuck it, cut to the chase. Reagan started us swirling the drain and Bush damn near finished it, so go all the way and put the Chimp's face on it.
Ride For The Ta-Ta's
Click to embiggen
Me and Mrs. G are big supporters of anything having to do with breast cancer research and helping women in treatment. Mrs. G's sister is a breast cancer survivor and I just like ta-tas.
I thought the graphic for this upcoming motorcycle run was kinda cute. I saw a poster for it at Mrs. G's oral surgeon's office yesterday while she was having some stitches out. Doctor Rafe's wife Linda is also a breast cancer survivor whose hair is just growing back. Check it out at Ride For The Ta-Ta's. The ride supports Moms on the Run and props to Pinocchio's Bar & Grill for being behind the effort to help local women for ten years.
Just as an aside, the second listing at Google was Reno Harley-Davidson's Twitter page and the third was about Goodrich All Terrain TAs. Kinky. Heh.
Reconciliation = Nuclear Option?
Not so much. Maru:
The End Of The World As We Know It! Unless the Republicans do it. The GOP of the 21st Century, hypocrisy unbound.
...
2010: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-hurrrrr) says that using reconciliation to pass bills “would really be the end of the Senate[*]."
2003: Sen. Alexander uses reconciliation to pass a Bush bill.
2005: Sen. Alexander uses reconciliation.
2005 again: Sen. Alexander uses reconciliation.
2007: Sen. Alexander uses reconciliation.
...
The End Of The World As We Know It! Unless the Republicans do it. The GOP of the 21st Century, hypocrisy unbound.
[*] Not that it would be a bad thing.
Blame ...
Yeah, we all see our tax money wasted, but only conservatives think we should be in jihad against the IRS:
Indeed! There are just as many Christian Mujaheddin as there are Muslim ones willing to go blow themselves (and others) up at the behest of their leaders.
...
But in my wildest resentful nightmares I would never imagine that it's some clerk, some typist, some middle manager, some auditor, event, at the local IRS office would be to blame for my plight, and would go on the attack against a place where those people work. You know, this is what the "leaders" of the teabagger resentment fest don't get. To them, stirring up tax rage is a completely abstract thing they're doing. To the people listening to them, though, it's disturbingly concrete.
Indeed! There are just as many Christian Mujaheddin as there are Muslim ones willing to go blow themselves (and others) up at the behest of their leaders.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Moonbeam's in!
This is good news as far as I'm concerned. Click the link just below and read about him. Moonbeam knows what's going on in California better than anybody and he's a good Librul as well. He's also a Native Californian and not a carpetbagger like Whitman, Poizner, Reagan, and Schwarzenegger. I set store by that.
Of course, so was Nixon...
"Well funded" is an understatement. Whitman will spend $140,000,000 of her own money in this campaign, according to reports.
California needs a megarich Repug CEO as governor like it needs another itchy asshole. We have enough of those already.
Go read what Jon Corzine has to say about this. Basically, you can tell people who work for you what to do. If they don't, not so much.
Later. Gotta get my bumpersticker toot de sweet!
Of course, so was Nixon...
Attorney General Jerry Brown will announce his Democratic candidacy for governor this morning, launching what promises to be a hard-fought battle against a well-funded Republican rival.
"Well funded" is an understatement. Whitman will spend $140,000,000 of her own money in this campaign, according to reports.
Brown, 71, will make the announcement at 11 a.m. on his Web site www.jerrybrown.org and has no planned public events today. He's scheduled to speak to the media Wednesday and Thursday.
Brown will be the sole Democratic candidate for governor. In the general election, he'll likely face either Meg Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of the online auction firm eBay, or Steve Poizner, another wealthy former Silicon Valley CEO who officially filed for governor Monday.
California needs a megarich Repug CEO as governor like it needs another itchy asshole. We have enough of those already.
Go read what Jon Corzine has to say about this. Basically, you can tell people who work for you what to do. If they don't, not so much.
Later. Gotta get my bumpersticker toot de sweet!
Rainbow Stew
Garrison Keillor on unreality:
To be fair, there's a certain unreality on the left as well that's contributing to his drop in numbers: where are the unicorns and free Bubble-Up and rainbow stew they think he promised o those ages and ages ago?
There's no decency to Repugs. Period.
Just as an aside, I like the tow truck reference. I've been on backcountry retrieves with a couple of our local hookers and if any fool ever gave those guys any shit like throwin' frozen mudballs at 'em, they might as well send for their stuff and live right there because every tow truck driver in radio range will know about it in about one minute and will just be too busy to come help.
Unreality remains pretty much the same, and its appeal in politics is as strong as ever. Look at the recent powwow of the conservative choir in Washington. Their goal is to reduce government to where it was in Coolidge's time. They are sticking to this, though their presidents, Reagan and Bush II, only succeeded in enlarging government.
As for their foreign policy, it's the old Flag In Your Face, Nuke The Whales, Talk Loud, Walk Tall, Proud To Be Dumb & Who Gives A Rip Anyway, Republican bravado that's all for domestic consumption and makes perfect sense if you're a shut-in and your TV is locked on Fox News but not if you are ambulatory and able to read English.
Meanwhile, our president, who is more or less forced to live in the real world, has seen his numbers drop alarmingly because unreality is so beautiful to so many people, such as the tea baggers.
To be fair, there's a certain unreality on the left as well that's contributing to his drop in numbers: where are the unicorns and free Bubble-Up and rainbow stew they think he promised o those ages and ages ago?
The conservatives should, in all decency, lie low for a few years. When you've driven the car into the swamp -- up to our eyeballs in debt, fighting two wars in behalf of shaky regimes, trying to keep a lid on Iran, Congress in a frozen stupor -- and then you throw mudballs at the tow-truck driver, you are betting on the electorate having the memory of a guppy.
There's no decency to Repugs. Period.
Just as an aside, I like the tow truck reference. I've been on backcountry retrieves with a couple of our local hookers and if any fool ever gave those guys any shit like throwin' frozen mudballs at 'em, they might as well send for their stuff and live right there because every tow truck driver in radio range will know about it in about one minute and will just be too busy to come help.
State of the Union: A Status Report on the Far Right
A very interesting 'must read' piece at Cognitive Policy Works.
I could quote from this piece 'til the cows come home. Go read.
“There’s another group of people that are actually more interesting right now,” Chip explained. Dr. Robert Altemeyer, who did the original research on right-wing authoritarian followers, found that there’s a second slice of the American populace—about the same size as the first one, or slightly bigger—who are conservative by temperament, but don’t live full-time in that same overwrought, hyper-vigilant, paranoid space that the ultra-right wing authoritarian 10 percent do. This group, Chip said, usually hews closer to the political center-right, keeping themselves at some distance from the really wild-eyed True Believers in the next cohort farther out.
But according to Altemeyer, I pointed out, these people tend to move away from the center and embrace hard-line conservatism if they’re under extreme social or economic stress, right? Exactly right, said Chip. It’s happened several times before in American history. (One example: In Nixonland, Rick Perlstein documented how, back in the mid-1960s, conservative suburban homeowners were driven into the arms of the far right by their fear of neighborhood integration in the wake of fair housing laws. The political careers of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan where launched on the resulting tide of rage). And it’s precisely what’s happening again now.
I could quote from this piece 'til the cows come home. Go read.
The writing ...
On the wall.
I'll give Harold Ford this; he's got someone on his staff who can read it:
There was rejoicing throughout the land.
Harold Ford is welcome to visit my beautiful state any time he wants, but we'll never consider him a New Yorker.
I'll give Harold Ford this; he's got someone on his staff who can read it:
ALBANY - Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. has decided against mounting a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Ford announced his decision Monday in a New York Times Op-Ed piece after spending about two months on a "listening tour" of the state. His move is a relief for Democrats worried a bitter primary would harm the winner and possibly give the seat to Republicans.
...
There was rejoicing throughout the land.
Harold Ford is welcome to visit my beautiful state any time he wants, but we'll never consider him a New Yorker.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Hurt Locker
I seem to be on about movies today. There must be something coming up in Hollywood.
Paul Clarke
I have nothing to add to that other than the biggest Hurt Locker our troops will have to endure is apathy here at home for where they've been and what they've been through in an ignoble cause that was not their fault.
Paul Clarke
Indeed, the Hurt Locker does have a message of the impact on the individuals involved. The movie opens with the quote "war is a drug" from Chris Hedges book War is a Force That Gives US Meaning. Hedges suggests that war seduces societies, a concept echoed in the writings of retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, who fears that America has fallen in love with militarism. And certainly, some members of the team are seduced by war, but the canvas of this film is much broader.
The film depicts the human cost of this conflict. We see the physical cost on the team members, and we see the toll on their families. While Iraq has largely fallen of the front page, the conflict continues and 100,000 US servicemembers remain in country. Because of the nature of our all-volunteer military, most Americans are immune to the war's real impact. In the Vietnam conflict, a whole generation of American males were subject to the draft and more than 8 million men and women served during the Vietnam Era. It was this commonality of experience that made the opposition to the war so powerful.
Of course, now we have a professional fight force and embedded journalists, so we turn away from what the war is doing to us as individuals. While we honor our servicemembers, we rarely have to look at the brutality of multiple deployments, of broken bodies and spirits and families pushed to brink. The Hurt Locker believes it is its mission to take you there. We see something of the Iraqi populace too, and their portrayal is nuanced, for while there are insurgents, the more common sense is that they are victims of the circumstances of war.
We like our heroes to be two-dimensional, and our military members have in recent years been given the same treatment. We salute their service, have a parade and close the door to the details. For five years, news about Iraq occupied our national conscious. But it has faded into the background, prematurely I think. The Hurt Locker returns us to the point where we need to be -- examining the impact upon those we ask to serve.
I have nothing to add to that other than the biggest Hurt Locker our troops will have to endure is apathy here at home for where they've been and what they've been through in an ignoble cause that was not their fault.
Dude...
If you're a fan of my homeboy Jeff Bridges, you'll want to read this.
How could the author, a supposed Big Deal Hollywood Insider, have managed to leave The Last American Hero and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, amongst a gazillion others, off that list? Yeesh.
Bridges captured the transitional spirit of the '70s in films like John Huston's Fat City, the whimsical Rancho Deluxe and Hearts of the West, Stay Hungry and the conspiratorial Winter Kills, with John Huston playing Bridges' big business father in a cautionary tale about the danger of health care conglomerates made three decades ago. In 1980s, Bridges broad range went from dark in Cutter's Way to light in his lovable Starman. Jeff, his brother Beau and Michelle Pfeiffer were intimate, delightful and delicious in The Fabulous Baker Boys.
In the last decade of the 20th century, Bridges contends with Robin Williams' Holy Fool in Terry Gilliam's wild and extraordinary The Fisher King, does some of the best acting of his career in Peter Weir's Fearless and gets a lot of laughs in The Big Lebowski while telling it like it is. In the new millennium he has played a president in The Contender, Kevin Spacey's shrink in K-Pax and Seabiscuit's dedicated owner, who helps the equine hero restore hope to America during the Great Depression. Crazy Heart ties the room together with Jeff's nuanced and powerful performance, which Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan calls "the capstone role of his career." Even if you are turned off by hard-drinking country musicians, don't miss Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, which will fire up your heart and soul.
How could the author, a supposed Big Deal Hollywood Insider, have managed to leave The Last American Hero and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, amongst a gazillion others, off that list? Yeesh.
The Enthusiasm Gap
Robert Reich with a recommended read:
What the Big Business Right has successfully managed to do is to convince a very loud minority of mouth-breathers that regulation of Big Biz's thieving ways is exactly the same as government intrusion into their own bedrooms where Big Biz is busy fucking them like crazed weasels.
Please God, let there be, and how I hate this term, a Silent Majority that will not be swayed by ignorance come election time and put the rapists, pillagers, and plunderers back in power.
The Democrats are weak, but they are our only defense. God help us.
The Democratic base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the base cares about. [...]
These waffles and wiggle rooms have drained the Democratic base of all passion. "Why should I care?" are words I hear over and over again from stalwart Democrats who worked their hearts out in the last election.
The Republican base, meanwhile, is on a rampage. It's more and more energized by its mad-as-hell populists. Tea partiers, libertarians, Birchers, birthers, and Dick Armey astro-turfers are channeling the economic anxieties of millions of Americans against "big government."
Anyone with an ounce of sanity understands government is the only effective countervailing force against the forces that got us into this mess: Against Goldman Sachs and the rest of the big banks that plunged the economy into crisis, got our bailout money, and are now back at their old games, dispensing huge bonuses to themselves. Against WellPoint and the rest of the giant health insurers who are at this moment robbing us of the care we need by raising their rates by double digits. Against giant corporations that are showing big profits by continuing to lay off millions of Americans and cutting the wages of millions of more, by shifting jobs abroad and substituting software. Against big oil and big utilities that are raising prices and rates, and continue to ravage the atmosphere.
If there was ever a time to connect the dots and make the case for government as the singular means of protecting the public from these forces it is now. Yet the White House and the congressional Democrats' ongoing refusal to blame big business and Wall Street has created the biggest irony in modern political history. A growing portion of the public, fed by the right, blames our problems on "big government."
What the Big Business Right has successfully managed to do is to convince a very loud minority of mouth-breathers that regulation of Big Biz's thieving ways is exactly the same as government intrusion into their own bedrooms where Big Biz is busy fucking them like crazed weasels.
Please God, let there be, and how I hate this term, a Silent Majority that will not be swayed by ignorance come election time and put the rapists, pillagers, and plunderers back in power.
The Democrats are weak, but they are our only defense. God help us.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
"20,000 Jersey Shores Under The Sea"?
I fail to see the irony...
Note to Rahmbo: If you'll actually say that, you can stay a while longer.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES BANS PHOTOGRAPHING DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Fears its ideals could fall into wrong hands.
Navy to Put Women in Submarines
And sell it as reality series.
"20,000 Jersey Shores Under The Sea"?
Microsoft, Yahoo Team Up To Fight Google
As predicted in Revelations.
Marijuana Use on the Rise Among Seniors
“It helps me remember where I hid the stash,” explains one.
I fail to see the irony...
MY TURN
Rahm Emanuel
White House Chief of Staff
To pass meaningful healthcare reform it was always assumed bipartisan support would be necessary. And, to that end, we at the White House, along with Democrats in the House and Senate, extended our hands across the aisle to the Republicans to join us in this collaborative effort. Instead, time and time again, we were rebuffed.
As a result, we've decided to stop trying to appease these stubborn, sanctimonious, self-serving schmucks and instead shove whatever fucking bill we want down their scum-sucking throats.
Thank you.
Note to Rahmbo: If you'll actually say that, you can stay a while longer.
Attention spans ...
How many times have I said that Americans have the attention spans of 3 year olds? Digby hit's it on the head:
I know people who look at the Nixon administration with nostalgia. Bush will be a hero in 10 years.
... It's an article of faith among the Villagers that Bush will eventually be vindicated as Truman was ...
I know people who look at the Nixon administration with nostalgia. Bush will be a hero in 10 years.
We don't need ...
No stinking bipartisanship. Greenwald:
One day, the Dems will realize that being afraid the Republicans will call you names is no reason to support bad legislation and water down the good.
One of the strangest prongs of conventional Beltway wisdom is the lament that there is not enough bipartisanship. The opposite is true: many of the most damaging acts inflicted on the country by Washington are enacted on a fully bipartisan basis -- the most destructive political act of this generation, the invasion of Iraq, was fully bipartisan, as were most of the post-9/11 civil liberties abuses and other Bush-era initiatives-- and, at least in certain areas, the harmonious joining together of Republicans and Democrats continues unabated:
...
One day, the Dems will realize that being afraid the Republicans will call you names is no reason to support bad legislation and water down the good.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Olympic Drinking Games: Why Vancouver Gets the Gold
Time via Yahoo!News
Impossible! If true, that's definitely some Gold Medal-worthy moronics!
More.
The city of Vancouver, and the ski village of Whistler, are terrific hosts for these Olympic Games. In Vancouver, the air is clean, the public transit is scarily efficient, and the harbors, with the snow-capped mountains in the backdrop, are picturesque. Whistler, two hours to the north and home of the skiing, sliding, and Nordic events, is a winter wonderland. But let's face it: if public intoxication was an Olympic sport, Vancouver and Whistler would own the podium.
I'm not saying this because of the photographs of a few Canadian women's hockey players sipping champagne (and chugging Molsons) on the ice after winning the gold medal. Those images, however, seem to encapsulate the spirit of the host country. Throughout the Olympics, drunken revelers have overrun the streets of Vancouver. Local hospitals are reporting spikes in emergency room visits for alcohol-related sicknesses and injuries; most of the intoxicated patients are males between the ages of 15 and 24. In Whistler, the partiers have turned what should be a cozy village into rows of frat houses in need of soundproofing.
Yes, the mood is festive. And for the most part, law and order is being maintained. In Whistler, police have said arrests are lower than they would typically be during New Year's Eve or, for that matter, during your average, rambunctious summer weekend. Still, while walking through downtown Vancouver after a long day's work, you can't help but think to yourself: "These must be the drunkest Olympics ever."
Bonnie D. Ford, who is covering the Games for espn.com, has been to every Winter Olympics since 1998 in Nagano. "There's no second place," she said when asked where Vancouver ranks on the booze barometer. (In fairness, you can pretty much strike from this debate Salt Lake City, the abstemious host of the 2002 Olympics.) Her hotel is near Granville Street, close enough to hear the "Can-a-da, Can-a-da" shouts at 3 am. "It's been a two-week tailgate," she said. "I've covered a lot of college football, and this is like the Dante's Inferno version of tailgating."
When I asked one reveler if there's too much public intoxication in Vancouver, he responded: "There should be more." A roofer by day, he told me he had just consumed eight to ten beers - and he looked like it. "The police are too strict," he said. "One of them poured out my beer - and I wasn't even drunk yet." At 2 a.m., Granville Street was still packed, and there were plenty of drunks wandering about. Vancouver appeared to have more morons per square foot than the Jersey Shore house.
Impossible! If true, that's definitely some Gold Medal-worthy moronics!
More.
Good News About The WSJ
Paul Krugman
The NYT is no day at the beach sometimes, but it beats the pants off anything controlled by Murdoch.
Brad DeLong and Felix Salmon both point to evidence that the Murdoch effect is degrading the Journal’s news coverage. Indeed.
Frankly, there was a time when I thought the Journal was better on business/economic news than the Times. But no longer; and it’s not just things like referring to the estate tax as the “death tax” in news stories. Overall, coverage is getting cruder, with more tendency to report opinions as if they were news, and substitute prejudices for real analysis.
And this bad news is good news. There’s a pretty good chance that we will end up with only one great national newspaper. And I know which paper that should be …
Update: I suppose I should explain that a single national paper isn’t what I want — but it’s the way things seem to be going, so it matters who ends up as the last paper standing.
The NYT is no day at the beach sometimes, but it beats the pants off anything controlled by Murdoch.
The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged
Daddy Frank on CPAC, the Teabaggers, and the batcrap crazy far right's exhortations to violence in the wake of the Stack attack. A recommended read, many links.
Much more.
What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee “unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states” (as it did in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.
A co-sponsor of CPAC was the John Birch Society, another far-right organization that has re-emerged after years of hibernation. Its views, which William F. Buckley Jr. decried in the 1960s as an “idiotic” and “irrational” threat to true conservatism, remain unchanged. At the conference’s conclusion, a presidential straw poll was won by Congressman Paul, ending a three-year Romney winning streak. No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paul’s followers as “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.”
Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. Last year Michele Bachmann, the redoubtable Tea Party hero and Minnesota congresswoman, set the pace by announcing that she wanted “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous” to oppose Obama administration climate change initiatives. In Texas, the Tea Party favorite for governor, Debra Medina, is positioning herself to the right of the incumbent, Rick Perry — no mean feat given that Perry has suggested that Texas could secede from the union. A state sovereignty zealot, Medina reminded those at a rally that “the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
In the heyday of 1960s left-wing radicalism, no liberal Democratic politicians in Washington could be found endorsing groups preaching violent revolution. The right has a different history. In the months before McVeigh’s mass murder, Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, then representing Idaho and Texas in Congress, publicly empathized with the conspiracy theories of the far right that fueled his anti-government obsessions.
In his Times article on the Tea Party right, Barstow profiled Pam Stout, a once apolitical Idaho retiree who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with Beck’s 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose. She frets that “another civil war” may be in the offing. “I don’t see us being the ones to start it,” she told Barstow, “but I would give up my life for my country.”
Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.
Much more.
Sunday morning ...
Frogophile music blogging. A beautiful song and a video from my favorite French city next to Paris.
Patrick Fiori and Jacques Venaruso - Marseille
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Momma Love The Short Track
You might think this should be at Fixer & Gordon, but this song is such a hoot I wanted to put it here where sane people might see it.
From the movie On Any Sunday Revisited. A short blurb about the late Mark Brelsford by fimmaker Bruce Brown, then the song.
From the movie On Any Sunday Revisited. A short blurb about the late Mark Brelsford by fimmaker Bruce Brown, then the song.
Thanks to AJ259.
Friday, February 26, 2010
O Canada! and/et La Marseillaise
Fixer put up the Canadian and French National Anthems below. After kidding my Frogophile Friend a little in the comments, and being ein bissell intellectually curious, not being a Repug and all, I went and looked stuff up just for the hell of it.
I know it was written in the wake of the French Revolution, a noble undertaking to be sure, but my God, it sounds like the teabaggers! Oh, if they only knew the French were spoutin' the same stuff they are! Heh. Irony lives!
The difference being that the French actually did something good for themselves and the teabaggers are just mouthin' off about something they know nothing about and are too cowardly and comfortable to actually get off their asses and go do what they say. They're revolting enough as it is.
Now, there are other verses still in use, but as if the verse and refrain above aren't bloody-minded enough, there are several verses that are not used any more. Here's just one:
Big talk from a buncha surrender monkeys! (Boy, am I gonna hear about that comment! Heh.)
Makes 'The Star-Spangled Banner' seem kinda tame, huh?
In fairness, I went and looked up O Canada. There is an official English version:
And an official French version:
There's also an Inuktitut version, Uu Kanata, which I couldn't find a translation of, but which I bet contains the phrase "white devils" in it somewhere. I'll work on it.
It seems there is a cultural divide in The Great White North as if they brought the English Channel with them!
On the basis of these different versions of the anthem, the English Canadians seem to me to be just like Americans, only without the attitude of superiority, more polite, and they get cheaper meds which may explain it.
The French Canadians are ready ta rock 'n roll on anybody's ass that fucks with 'em. Much more romantic, though.
Two kinda interesting factoids:
The religious right would love that in our national anthem, if it wasn't about Catholics. "Batcrap crazy hatin' preachers" might be a little hard to fit in.
Now there ya go!
This was probably the most pointless thing I've donein weeks days before lunch today, just a little Fixer-inspired frivolity, but it was fun.
French National Anthem
La Marseillaise was composed by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792 and was declared the French national anthem in 1795.Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!
Refrain
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
I know it was written in the wake of the French Revolution, a noble undertaking to be sure, but my God, it sounds like the teabaggers! Oh, if they only knew the French were spoutin' the same stuff they are! Heh. Irony lives!
The difference being that the French actually did something good for themselves and the teabaggers are just mouthin' off about something they know nothing about and are too cowardly and comfortable to actually get off their asses and go do what they say. They're revolting enough as it is.
Now, there are other verses still in use, but as if the verse and refrain above aren't bloody-minded enough, there are several verses that are not used any more. Here's just one:
Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! (repeat)
Everyone is a soldier to fight you,
If they fall, our young heros,
France will make more,
Ready to battle you!
Big talk from a buncha surrender monkeys! (Boy, am I gonna hear about that comment! Heh.)
Makes 'The Star-Spangled Banner' seem kinda tame, huh?
In fairness, I went and looked up O Canada. There is an official English version:
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
And an official French version:
O Canada!
Land of our ancestors,
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious
garland of flowers.
As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic
Of the most brilliant exploits.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.
There's also an Inuktitut version, Uu Kanata, which I couldn't find a translation of, but which I bet contains the phrase "white devils" in it somewhere. I'll work on it.
It seems there is a cultural divide in The Great White North as if they brought the English Channel with them!
On the basis of these different versions of the anthem, the English Canadians seem to me to be just like Americans, only without the attitude of superiority, more polite, and they get cheaper meds which may explain it.
The French Canadians are ready ta rock 'n roll on anybody's ass that fucks with 'em. Much more romantic, though.
Two kinda interesting factoids:
Many have noted that the opening theme of "O Canada", composed in c. 1880, bears a great resemblance to the "Marsch der Priester" (March of the Priests), from Die Zauberflöte, composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. [...]
The religious right would love that in our national anthem, if it wasn't about Catholics. "Batcrap crazy hatin' preachers" might be a little hard to fit in.
During the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Stephen Colbert and Michael Bublé performed the lyrics of "O Canada" to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner (the US national anthem.)[
Now there ya go!
This was probably the most pointless thing I've done
A Final Word on the Health Care Summit
Following up on yesterday's post and apparently in between hangovers, The Rude One addresses the burning question of who got over on whom at the health care 'summit'. A good read.
Just an aside from this ol' mountain man: 'Summit' does not necessarily mean the top of a mountain or a pinnacle or a high or lofty place or the place where gods convene and from whence commandments are handed down to us mortals. It's merely the dividing line between drainages, which I think fits yesterday's meeting perfectly.
I'm down wit RP. Not only do I believe it, I hope it's so.
Ya got that one dead nuts, Rude Man. Health care for the citizens means nothing to the soulless Repugs, but profit for their masters sure as shit does.
Plain old fucking to show who's got the power. Love ain't got nothin' to do with it.
"Final word", huh? I don't think so...
Just an aside from this ol' mountain man: 'Summit' does not necessarily mean the top of a mountain or a pinnacle or a high or lofty place or the place where gods convene and from whence commandments are handed down to us mortals. It's merely the dividing line between drainages, which I think fits yesterday's meeting perfectly.
What Obama did yesterday will either go down as the naive last gasps of hope and change on health care reform or as a stroke of genius, providing cover for Democrats and resuscitating an effort that will progress from the degraded baseline of the current bill. With what seems to be honest-to-Christ momentum towards reconciliation, the Rude Pundit believes the latter. He thinks that Barack Obama calmly, gently, even, fucked the Republicans in the ass yesterday, his well-lubed thrusts just enough to make them comfortable until the very end.
I'm down wit RP. Not only do I believe it, I hope it's so.
No, it's not a good bill. But it's a bill that will help many, many people. That's the bottom line. It will make insurance companies richer. It will please lobbyists and donors. But it will also help millions of people. That's the fucking trade-off. And the subconsciously subversive part of it is that, in a few years, it will show how ridiculous it is to not have nationalized health care (which is one reason the Rude Pundit thinks that some Republicans oppose it).
Ya got that one dead nuts, Rude Man. Health care for the citizens means nothing to the soulless Repugs, but profit for their masters sure as shit does.
That was the final, full-shaft fucking. The President called out the Republicans on their greatest hope, that the failure of health care reform will end the Democratic majority in Congress. Obama told them to bring it. And, most frighteningly for them, he fucked them calmly, like he knows he's right.
Of course, nothing is done until Democrats in Congress actually prove they're not willing to be the bitches of the minority. But, at least for that moment, the President showed who could do the fucking, too.
Plain old fucking to show who's got the power. Love ain't got nothin' to do with it.
"Final word", huh? I don't think so...
Agreed ...
Fez on the 'lympics:
You decide.
The Silver:
And the Gold:
I believe it has been established the Canadians have the second best National Anthem (France always wins the Gold this category).
You decide.
The Silver:
And the Gold:
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Live Irish Coffee Blogging the First Hour or So of the Greatest Summit in the History of Anything Vaguely Health Care-Related
The Rude Pundit of course. There's an awful lot of crapola on this thing out there today, but for sheer entertainment value I'll go with RP. The Irish Coffee ain't as quick-acting as his usual straight Old Overshoes paint & liver remover whiskey so it's quite long. Enjoy.
Maybe I was wrong about the Irish Coffee...
Good idea! I propose undercover agents on senate staffs for exactly the same reason.
The Irish Coffee musta finally kicked in.
Also see:
Instead of rigged for him and he still loses. Heh.
You know, you'd think these fuckers were meeting over something more than a few marginal improvements in the savage health care system of America. But Irish coffee, bigoted a name though it may be, is a hell of a drink in the snowy a.m. Let's CSPAN-3 this motherfucker, yo.
9:58: Aw, shit, there comes Obama down the street. Someone cue the Reservoir Dogs music.
10:47: What Obama has done here is fascinating. He's making a public demonstration of the competence and bipartisanship of the Democrats. If Republicans were smart, they'd walk out. They're about to get their asses handed to them. A walk-out would change the story. But, you know, they're Republicans. They're gonna try to bully their way out of this.
10:49: And Reid is kicking all kinds of ass right now.
Maybe I was wrong about the Irish Coffee...
11:07: Coburn wants to ration care by limiting testing. Actually, he's talking competently and reasonably about prevention and nutrition. If he could lift Mitch McConnell's balls and get out from under his taint, Coburn might actually have something to say.
11:11: Ooh, Coburn proposes undercover patients as a solution to fraud. Secret spy shit. It works so well in stopping drug dealing.
Good idea! I propose undercover agents on senate staffs for exactly the same reason.
More tomorrow, maybe later.
The Irish Coffee musta finally kicked in.
Also see:
GOP Crapping Their Pants Over Reconciliation
Jim Demint shit himself so completely that he even splattered his aides when he called reconciliation "tyrannical," which means he thinks that passing a bill by a majority of Senators in, you know, the whole Senate is the equivalent of Pol Pot. He promises to try to gum up the works with endless amendments. DeMint is pretty much the underwear bomber of the Senate, though, so it's to be expected that he'll be a total dickbag.
You know you've got your opponent cornered when he starts saying that the rules of the game are rigged against him.
Instead of rigged for him and he still loses. Heh.
Why Washington Is Tied Up in Knots
A good read is this week's Time magazine cover story on why our alleged government is stuck on stupid.
They've quit trying to hide it. The GOP's foolishness and corruption are blatant and out in the open for all to see. They think all of us are like The Dead End Quarter - too stupid to notice. They're wrong.
Enjoy. I do not necessarily agree with the author's conclusions on what needs to done to knock off the cheap shit, but it's food for thought.
In the 1980s, discrediting government was not the strategy of the congressional GOP, for two reasons. First, the sorting out hadn't fully sorted itself out yet: the Senate alone boasted moderate Republicans from blue states like Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Oregon, where activist government weren't dirty words. These moderates — who met every Wednesday for lunch — chaired powerful committees, served in the party leadership and helped cut big bipartisan deals like the 1986 tax-reform bill, which simplified the tax code, and the 1990 Clean Air Act, which set new limits on pollution. Second, because Republicans occupied the White House, making government look foolish and corrupt risked making the party look foolish and corrupt too.
They've quit trying to hide it. The GOP's foolishness and corruption are blatant and out in the open for all to see. They think all of us are like The Dead End Quarter - too stupid to notice. They're wrong.
All that changed when Bill Clinton took office. With the GOP no longer controlling the White House, a new breed of aggressive Republicans — men like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Trent Lott — hit on a strategy for discrediting Clinton: discredit government. Rhetorically, they derided Washington as ineffective and conflict-ridden, and through their actions they guaranteed it. Their greatest weapon was the filibuster, which forced Democrats to muster 60 votes to get legislation through the Senate. Historically, filibustering had been rare. From the birth of the Republic until the Civil War, the Senate witnessed about one filibuster per decade. As late as the 1960s, Senators filibustered less than 10% of major legislation. But in the '70s, the filibuster rule changed: Senators no longer needed to camp out on the Senate floor all night, reading from Grandma's recipe book. Merely declaring their intention to filibuster derailed any bill that lacked 60 votes.
With these acts of legislative sabotage, Republicans tapped into a deep truth about the American people: they hate political squabbling, and they take out their anger on whoever is in charge. So when the Gingrich Republicans carried out a virtual sit-down strike during Clinton's first two years, the public mood turned nasty. By 1994, trust in government was at an all-time low, which suited the Republicans fine, since their major line of attack against Clinton's health care plan was that it would empower government. Clintoncare collapsed, Democrats lost Congress, and Republicans learned the secrets of vicious-circle politics: When the parties are polarized, it's easy to keep anything from getting done. When nothing gets done, people turn against government. When you're the party out of power and the party that reviles government, you win.
...
All this, it turns out, was a mere warm-up for the Obama years. [...]
Enjoy. I do not necessarily agree with the author's conclusions on what needs to done to knock off the cheap shit, but it's food for thought.
I've been ...
Where Kieth Olbermann was last night. During the course of the past 20 years, my wife and I have had to make those decisions for our mothers, and will have to for her father as well when his time comes. It is not something I wish on anyone.
These people have no soul.
...
And as I left that night the full impact of these last six months washed over me. What I had done, conferring with the resident in ICU, the conversation about my father's panicky, not-in-complete-control-of-his-faculties demand that all treatment stop, about the options and the consequences and the compromise - the sedation -- the help for a brave man who just needed a break... that conversation, that one -- was what these ghouls who are walking into Blair House tomorrow morning decided to call "Death Panels."
Your right to have that conversation with a doctor -- not the government, but a doctor -- and your right to have insurance pay for his expertise on what your options are when Dad says "kill me" or what your options are when Dad is in a coma and can't tell you a damn thing, or what your options are when everybody is healthy and happy and coherent and you're just planning ahead -- your right to have the guidance and the reassurance of a professional who can lay that out for you... that's a quote "death panel."
That, right now, is the legacy of the protests of these sub-humans who get paid by the insurance companies, who say these things for their own political gain... or like that one fiend... for money.
...
These people have no soul.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Acupuncture on Ice
Hey, Olympic Committee, yer missin' a bet for the Winter Games! I mean, ya got this perfectly good speed skating venue just goin' ta waste after the skaters are done, and you'll get a whole new audience! Beer sales'll go through the roof! Band-aids too if one o' these things makes it inta the stands...
More Olympics:
I've actually been watching some of the curling. I don't understand a damn thing the announcers are saying about it, but the Norwegian men's team pants are to die for!
The title of the song is "Hearts On Fire". Must have something to do with the burritos at the concession stand...
A few more days of Olympics and my brain will be returned to me. They promised...
Jsspeedway coureur Johnny Tuinstra in actie. Mylène de la Haye maakte een beeldcompilatie voor www.panorama.nl
Thanks to Mylene2, Netherlands.
More Olympics:
I've actually been watching some of the curling. I don't understand a damn thing the announcers are saying about it, but the Norwegian men's team pants are to die for!
The title of the song is "Hearts On Fire". Must have something to do with the burritos at the concession stand...
HammerFall vs. The Swedish Womens Olympic Curling Team.
Thanks to Inspector71.
A few more days of Olympics and my brain will be returned to me. They promised...
Dear Sarah: Say it is so, run for president
Leonard Pitts in the Miami Herald:
Ya got balls, Lenny. If Plan A prevails, all's right with the world. Plan B? Look out Canuckistan, here we come, eh?
Dear Sarah Palin:
I hear you're pondering a run for the White House in 2012. Last week, you told Fox news it would be ``absurd'' to rule it out.
I'm writing to ask that you rule it in. I very badly want you to run for -- and win -- the Republican nomination for the presidency.
I know you're waiting for the punch line. Maybe you figure I think you'd be a weak candidate who would pave the way for President Obama's easy re-election.
That's not it. No, I want you to run because I believe a Palin candidacy would force upon this country a desperately needed moment of truth. It would require us to finally decide what kind of America we want to be.
Mrs. Palin, you are an avatar of the shameless hypocrisy and cognitive disconnection that have driven our politics for the last decade, a process of stupidification creeping like kudzu over our national life.
No, you represent the latest iteration of an anti-intellectualism that periodically rises in the American character. There is, historically and persistently, a belief in us that y'all just can't trust nobody who acts too smart or talks too good -- in other words, somebody whose "general persona'' indicates they may have once cracked a book or had a thought. Americans tend to believe common sense the exclusive province of humble folks without sheepskins on the wall or big words in their vocabularies.
More to the point, something is wrong when we celebrate mental mediocrity like yours under the misapprehension that competence or, God forbid, intelligence, makes a person one of those "elites" -- that's a curse word now -- lacking authenticity, compassion and common sense.
So no, this is not a clash of ideologies, but a clash between intelligence and its opposite. And I am tired of being asked to pretend stupid is a virtue. That's why I'd welcome the moment of truth your campaign would bring. It would force us to decide once and for all whether we are permanently committed to the path of ignorance, of birthers, truthers and tea party incoherence you represent, or whether we will at last turn back from the cliff toward which we race.
If the latter, wonderful, God bless America. If the former, well, some of us can finally quit hoping the nation will return to its senses and plan accordingly. Either way, we need to know, and your candidacy would tell us. If you love this country, Mrs. Palin, you can do it no greater service.
Run, Sarah, run.
Ya got balls, Lenny. If Plan A prevails, all's right with the world. Plan B? Look out Canuckistan, here we come, eh?
Morford on Woods
I think golf is a silly game. I think golf courses are best suited to throwing feet-up third gear 60 mile an hour powerslides on an open pipe 40 inch Triumph (or BSA if you're so encumbered). Now that gives me goose pimples, but I couldn't give a shit less about Tiger Woods or any other multi-millionaire who made his bucks chasing a ball around like a little kid. He's got problems? Yeah, as soon as he got caught. Fuck him.
Mark Morford puts his 'apology' in perspective:
By all means, wine! And waiter...open a new box. Nothing but the best for this preposterous monkey!
More. You should read.
Mark Morford puts his 'apology' in perspective:
ABC's George Stephanopoulos called Tiger's little speech "one of the most remarkable public apologies ever by a public figure." Clearly, Stephanopolous might be more of a mental fluffball than anyone originally thought. (Gee, ya think? - G)
Dick Cheney slithering forth and apologizing for being a cancerous, warmongering monster whose brutal profiteering and shriveled soul cost thousands of young American lives? The GOP stepping out and admitting they killed health care reform because they really wanted to ding the scary black president, and don't really give a flying crap about your sick and uninsured children? Now those would be remarkable public apologies. A comatose golfer saying he's sorry for nailing some hookers whilst his family rolls around in $500 million worth of Escalades, diamond-crusted teaspoons and Swiss ski chalets? Not a remarkable apology. Clear?
But here's the bigger truth: Tiger wasn't apologizing to actual people, to his wife or kids or even his confused fans. Tiger was apologizing, straight up and to the bone, to capitalism itself. To his own brand. It was a scary attempt to shore up the multimillions in endorsement deals, his future as a billion-dollar icon. Tiger the man was apologizing to Tiger, Inc., mostly for tainting its earnings potential.
Perhaps there's still hope. Perhaps someday, a politician/celeb/icon embroiled in a crazy drug/gay/sex scandal will step up and say, "Hey, my apologies to my loved ones. I was a hypocrite. I lied about some stuff. I was sort of stupid about it. It happens. We all do it. I'm working on it. But you know what? No one died. Everyone will be OK. Life goes on. What's more: No one really cares. Or if you do, you really need to get out more.
"Did you know there are multiple, appalling wars going on right now? Disease and suffering of the highest order? The planet is dying in coughs and spasms? Do you know your kids can't get decent health care? Fish stocks are collapsing? A billion humans live in slums?
"So I slept with a gay hooker and enjoy a line of blow now and then. This really matters? You really care? We are flawed and silly species, each and every one of us. If we don't laugh and dance and face our demons like the grinning, preposterous monkeys we so very much are, we're all dead anyway. Who wants wine?"
By all means, wine! And waiter...open a new box. Nothing but the best for this preposterous monkey!
More. You should read.
Toast ...
He's off his meds:
Looks like some of Teddy's essence rubbed off when he took the old man's seat. His career as a Republican is already circling the bowl. Good on him by the way.
WASHINGTON — For Scott Brown, the tea party appears to be over.
Literally overnight, the fledgling Republican senator who ended Democrats' filibuster-proof majority by winning a special election in Massachusetts has gone from being the darling of America's conservative activists to being their goat.
...
Looks like some of Teddy's essence rubbed off when he took the old man's seat. His career as a Republican is already circling the bowl. Good on him by the way.
Do over!
Maru:
Heh ... Like any good lawyer will tell you, don't ask the question of ya don't know what the answer will be.
Fox Noise prior to CPAC: "This is where the next President will be anointed!"
Fox Noise after Ron Paul wins the CPAC poll: "These things are way unscientific. It's really more about bragging rights, anyway. Somebody freeped the poll. There’s nothing to see here, move along."
...
Heh ... Like any good lawyer will tell you, don't ask the question of ya don't know what the answer will be.
See yas!
According to the Turk, Rahm is toast:
Let's hope we'll see something resembling leadership from the White House in the future.
...
My second thought was, "Wow, what a hatchet job on Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod!" Since Rahm is obviously feeding this to Milbank, that is very revealing. You don't throw these kinds of bombs unless you've already lost. This is an act of desperation. It's bound to make mortal enemies of these people inside Obama's inner circle. You can't really work with these people anymore. That means you're already finished there.
...
Let's hope we'll see something resembling leadership from the White House in the future.
Thanks to ql for the link.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sweet!
A coupla weeks ago I did a post on Aspartame. Here's an article in the EssEffChron on sugar and artificial sweeteners that may answer some questions if you have any.
One of our readers brought up agave syrup, which I hadn't heard of.
Sounds OK to me. They sell it at Costco and it's on our shopping list.
I don't usually do recipes, but as long as we're on sweet food, here's one for a Guadalajaran enchilada dish that's got my mouth watering! Enjoy.
One of our readers brought up agave syrup, which I hadn't heard of.
The sweetener that comes from a Mexican plant - the same one used to produce Tequila - is making quite a stir. Agave syrup or nectar is being used to sweeten teas, energy drinks, protein bars and pastries.
Its calorie and carbohydrate content is similar to that of sugar, but because it's about three times sweeter, you can use less. Unlike sucrose, agave can be up to 90 percent fructose, depending on how it's processed. The higher it is in fructose, the less likely it is to raise blood glucose levels, which is helpful to diabetics.
Oddly, scientists believe that fructose has the lowest glycemic index, a ranking system for carbohydrate foods based on their effects on blood glucose levels, of all sugars. This seems somewhat contradictory given that fructose is so often linked to obesity.
Although agave may seem like a safer choice for diabetics, experts warn to use it with caution. There is not enough scientific evidence yet to recommend it as a dietetic substitute.
While agave is seen by many consumers as a healthful alternative to sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, experts say don't let it fool you - it's sugar, plain and simple.
Its flavor benefits are that it sweetens without changing the flavor of other ingredients. And while it doesn't work with everything, agave is a fine substitute for sweetening tea, cereal and yogurts. Its best use that we know of: replacing the simple syrup in a margarita.
Sounds OK to me. They sell it at Costco and it's on our shopping list.
I don't usually do recipes, but as long as we're on sweet food, here's one for a Guadalajaran enchilada dish that's got my mouth watering! Enjoy.
Nursing Home Bikers
This is a heartwarming story.
NBC Chicago
You be careful, honey. Everybody's got a video camera. Heh.
ABATE is a state-by-state nationwide motorcyclists' rights outfit. Acronym of A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments against mainly custom bikes.
Better late than never. Have fun, ladies and gents. You've earned it.
NBC Chicago
Lydia Scheltes woke up in her bed at Bethesda Retirement Center one morning with pinkish hair, a tattoo on her arm and a hangover. Not a typical morning for the 90-year-old.
“Seniors are more fun than you’ll ever know,” she said.
You be careful, honey. Everybody's got a video camera. Heh.
Scheltes wasn’t alone: Seven ladies and one dude – aged 65 to 97 – all had a similar hazy look in their eyes after they hung out with bikers at the Evil Olive bar in Wicker Park on Feb. 11.
About 100 people showed up to the club, including members of the Latino American Motorcycle Association and Chicago’s Chapter of A.B.A.T.E.
ABATE is a state-by-state nationwide motorcyclists' rights outfit. Acronym of A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments against mainly custom bikes.
“One of our residents, Katie, just turned 97, and she got up with her walker and shook her booty," Kaplan said. "She shook it good."
The one thing the women didn’t get a chance to do was ride on a motorcycle, because it was too cold.
But that’s coming.
Better late than never. Have fun, ladies and gents. You've earned it.
Headline of the Day
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama joins Twitter
Now I've seen everything and there is nothing left to live for. You may shoot me.
Schwarzenegger calls GOP approach to health care ‘bogus’
I never would have thought I'd be saying this, but kudos to Ah-nold simply for telling the truth. Which is not Repug policy.
Raw Story
'Bogus' oughta be the Repugs' middle name.
To what do I ascribe Ah-nold's breaking with the Repugs and telling the truth? Since it's a well-known fact that truth has a liberal bias, the only thing I can think of is sleeping with Maria Shriver. I've heard of gettin' yer brains fucked out, but this may be the very unusual case of gettin' some brains fucked in.
And if anybody could un-shrivel Ah-nold's 'roid raisins and restore some sack, she could! Keep up the good work, Maria!
Raw Story
Breaking with the national Republican Party for the second time this week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) told reporters Monday that GOP attempts to stall health care reform were out of line.
"I think any Republican that says you should start from scratch," with health care, "I think that's bogus talk, and that's partisan talk," the governor told reporters.
'Bogus' oughta be the Repugs' middle name.
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger told ABC's This Week he was proud to accept stimulus dollars for his state and praised the program for creating or saving over 150,000 jobs.
Schwarzenegger also lashed out at GOP politicians who voted against the bill then took credit for benefits provided to their states on Sunday.
"Well, you know, to me I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn't create any new jobs," said Schwarzenegger. "Then, they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say, 'Isn't this great?'"
To what do I ascribe Ah-nold's breaking with the Repugs and telling the truth? Since it's a well-known fact that truth has a liberal bias, the only thing I can think of is sleeping with Maria Shriver. I've heard of gettin' yer brains fucked out, but this may be the very unusual case of gettin' some brains fucked in.
And if anybody could un-shrivel Ah-nold's 'roid raisins and restore some sack, she could! Keep up the good work, Maria!
Bill would ban security contractors from war zones
Raw Story
Notice the unusual use of the word 'mercenaries'. Tell it like it is, sister!
Our military has been allowed, on purpose, to deteriorate in favor of for-profit companies to the point where our troops can't do the basic stuff like feeding themselves, guarding convoys, maintaining their own weapons, and providing security for our diplomats.
This is our tax money paying for this, and it's one tax the Repugs love because it goes to the private sector in pallet-loads for things that the military ought to be doing a lot more economically and with rigid accountability in cases of abuse of the system, unlike paying top dollar for waste, fraud, abuse, and even murder.
This is a bill that I hope passes even while I pretty much know it won't. Hats off to Senators Sanders and Schakowsky for trying.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" on Tuesday. If passed, the act would force the United States to phase out its controversial use of private security contractors in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.
While the bill is likely to meet stiff opposition from the Pentagon and the defense industry, it's certain to be well received among progressives and peace activists, who have watched with alarm as the use of private contractors in war zones has skyrocketed in recent years.
In an interview with Russia Today earlier this month, Schakowsky said that the use of private contractors "masks the scope of our involvement" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"When the President asks for a 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan, we are talking about at least that number of contractors too, which makes the mission much bigger. We don’t even count them when they get killed,” she said.
Schakowsky added: "We have seen these private hired guns, mercenaries if you will, actually in situations that have jeopardized the mission of the United States, have put our own troops at risk, have killed private civilians, really raising the question, can these private companies that don't seem to be part of the chain of command [or] have the same transparency or accountability as our military, can they actually get away with murder? And so far the answer has been yes."
Notice the unusual use of the word 'mercenaries'. Tell it like it is, sister!
Our military has been allowed, on purpose, to deteriorate in favor of for-profit companies to the point where our troops can't do the basic stuff like feeding themselves, guarding convoys, maintaining their own weapons, and providing security for our diplomats.
This is our tax money paying for this, and it's one tax the Repugs love because it goes to the private sector in pallet-loads for things that the military ought to be doing a lot more economically and with rigid accountability in cases of abuse of the system, unlike paying top dollar for waste, fraud, abuse, and even murder.
This is a bill that I hope passes even while I pretty much know it won't. Hats off to Senators Sanders and Schakowsky for trying.
35 years ago ...
Our government poisoned our Vietnam veterans with 'Agent Orange' defoliant. In this war, it's the 'burn pits':
And, like Vietnam, they'll deny any responsibility until most of the guys who suffer from symptoms are dead and then grudgingly give care to the remainder.
they are killing our soldiers....slowly...painfully...horrifically.... it's time we start talking about them. it's time we stop them. it's time we start talking about the toxic hell we are leaving behind for the iraqi people to suffer through, too.
...
And, like Vietnam, they'll deny any responsibility until most of the guys who suffer from symptoms are dead and then grudgingly give care to the remainder.
Monday, February 22, 2010
My Homey, The Jamaica Ski Team
We reported on Boardercross four years ago, here and here, the breakout event of the Torino Winter Games. This year, Skicross was featured as well. These are sideshow events to the major skiing and boarding events, but mucho fun to watch.
NBC pissed me off. They showed the individual qualification runs, the semi-finals, and the final, but not the first heats, so I only got to see Errol once. He came in ninth.
Update: Mrs. G informs me that they showed the heat races during the repeat waaaay late at night.
My hat's off to this kid. Being of Jamaican descent and having dual citizenships, he managed a productive, er, snow job on the Jamaican ski association and got hisself into the Olympics when he never would have otherwise. Here's his site.
This vid will tell you a lot as he introduces himself in an interview and talks about the NBS which provides scholarships for athletes of color. That's Lake Tahoe in the background. Enjoy.
NBC pissed me off. They showed the individual qualification runs, the semi-finals, and the final, but not the first heats, so I only got to see Errol once. He came in ninth.
Update: Mrs. G informs me that they showed the heat races during the repeat waaaay late at night.
My hat's off to this kid. Being of Jamaican descent and having dual citizenships, he managed a productive, er, snow job on the Jamaican ski association and got hisself into the Olympics when he never would have otherwise. Here's his site.
This vid will tell you a lot as he introduces himself in an interview and talks about the NBS which provides scholarships for athletes of color. That's Lake Tahoe in the background. Enjoy.
Thanks to KQSWproductions. They've also got a video of another Olympian Skicrosser, champion skier, and homeboy Daron Rahlves riding motocross. More good stuff too.
Despicable Phony Xtian Repug of the Day
And believe me, there are plenty to choose from.
Think Progress, links at site:
Shorter: No. Even if she wanted to, which she probably doesn't and wouldn't if she did, Ailes wouldn't let her.
Go read the comments about the despicable Repug fuck in VA.
Think Progress, links at site:
On Thursday, Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) spoke at a press conference against state funding for Planned Parenthood. He blasted the organization for supporting a women’s right to choose, saying that God punishes women who have had abortions by giving them disabled children:
...
“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”
Marshall is also fighting against health care reform, saying that “Obamacare” is trying to take “your soul.” Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been pushing back against high-profile figures and entities who have been attacking people with disabilities. Will she speak out against someone in her own party?
Shorter: No. Even if she wanted to, which she probably doesn't and wouldn't if she did, Ailes wouldn't let her.
Go read the comments about the despicable Repug fuck in VA.
Old folks rule, Bunkie Dude!
Pot use among seniors rises
Long a fixture among young people, use of the country's most popular illicit drug is now growing among the AARP set, as the massive generation of baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and '70s grows older.
Observers expect further increases as 78 million boomers born between 1945 and 1964 age. For many boomers, the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago.
Politically, advocates for legalizing marijuana say the number of older users could represent an important shift in their decades-long push to change the laws.
Us Olde Phartes VOTE! We're going to get the chance later this year in California.
I left 'em a comment. 'Gordon' was already taken so I posted as '4Stroke', which I do sometimes. Reference is to motorcycle engines, not sexual endurance. Heh.
I'm 64 and started smoking weed in 1967. Most of my friends used it then and still do, and their kids grew up thinking smoking pot was something 'old people' did. I know people well into their 80s who use it daily.
I've been advocate for the legalization of marijuana for over 40 years and I see the day coming at last. The stuff is lemonade compared to harder drugs like heroin and alcohol, and the removal of the originally racist and later generational sanctions against it has been creeping forward for years. Legalization will turn an entire 'criminal class' into the law-abiding citizens they otherwise have always been, save a lot of money wasted on the failed War On Some Drugs and free up anti-drug resources that could be better used elsewhere, and generate some tax revenue.
Definitely an area where government needs to get out of people's freedom of choice.
Oh, by the way, since I got my iPod, I smoke the devil weed out of my ear trumpet. The smoke gets a good head start, great rush! Old folks rule, you whippersnappers!
So there...
Update:
My comment appears to be gone from the site. Harrumph.
Update II:
The comment is back. Twice. Must be gettin' old...
Quote of the Day
From P.M. Carpenter writing about CPAC (Crazy People Acting Crazy):
Related:
At least the Tin Men won't rust while they're waiting for a brain...
Republicans' worldview, on the other hand, necessarily contains the seeds of our own destruction; one simply cannot achieve progress through regression, any more than we can screw ourselves to virginal innocence, as "conservative" luminaries implore.
Related:
Gingrich and Beck Galvanize Conservatives
At least the Tin Men won't rust while they're waiting for a brain...
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that...
No equipment needed in the Klingon neighborhoods...
Bush Lawyers Showed “Poor Judgment” Writing Torture Memos
Obama lawyers show “poor judgment” letting Bush lawyers off.
POLL
Majority Say Government Broken
Blame officials they voted for again and again.
Hawaii Happiest State, West Virginia Least Happy
After thousands of interviews with coal miners and hula dancers.
Toyota Reveals Fix For Uncontrollable Acceleration Problems
Drivers must say clearly, “Close the electronic acceleration system, Hal.”
I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that...
Two-Thirds of New Yorkers Hear Their Neighbors Having Sex
Most put ear to wall, but use of high-tech equipment gaining in popularity.
No equipment needed in the Klingon neighborhoods...
Thanks a lot ...
Schmuck:
Links aplenty.
...
But knowing all of that, you still chose to crash your airplane into an IRS office building. You chose to go out in a highly newsworthy way, you arrogant little fuck, and in so doing, you will end up triggering even more restrictions on the rest of us who fly. You couldn't go rent a Ryder truck and stuff it full of fertilizer soaked in diesel fuel, for that's been done before. You couldn't just shoot the folks you were angry at; that would rate 30 seconds on the national news, at best. You couldn't just torch the building, that's old news.
...
Links aplenty.
Quote of the Day
General Petraeus:
When it comes down to brass tacks, proficiency matters and that's about it.
...
"I know, I served, in fact, in combat with individuals who were gay and who were lesbian in combat situations. Frankly, you know, over time you said, hey, how's this guy shooting or how is her analysis or what have you?" explained Petraeus.
...
When it comes down to brass tacks, proficiency matters and that's about it.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Peekskill Outrage
Funny how we always have to hear about this kinda shit from foreigners, huh?
Nor by 2010, seems like. Teabaggers have gone by many names.
The outrage that was Peekskill - September 4th 1949.
In 1932 Robeson had stated to the Daily Express in London that the modern white American was amongst the lowest form of civilization in the world. Apparently by 1949 not a lot had improved!
Nor by 2010, seems like. Teabaggers have gone by many names.
Banjostead again, UK. Thanks.
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