...So, let's be clear: for eleven billion dollars more in domestic spending, House Democrats are willing to waste hundreds of billions more on the disastrous war in Iraq. Not to mention, you know- lives. Perhaps it should occur to them that there would be a helluva lot more for domestic spending if we weren't busily bankrupting ourselves in Iraq. Not to mention, you know- lives.
I'm sure it will come as great comfort to our troops, the families and friends of our troops, and the Iraqi people that we'll have more money for domestic spending. Certainly, their lives are worth it. Or something.
...
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Sold out ...
The Dems' new strategy for folding on Iraq:
Take It Easy? How Long?
Fixer's got the right idea today with two excellent R&B numbers. I'll add a couple from one of my favorite genres, but first let's get the political news outta the way:
1. Bush is a lyin' sack o' crap
2. The Repugs are a buncha perverts, criminals, warmongers, and general all-around nogoodniks
Ho-hum, yawn, nothin' new. On to the good shit.
It should come as no surprise that I'm a fan of the Eagles. It was required for California citizenship a few (!!?) years back. Here's "How Long?" from their new album Long Road Out Of Eden, their first in 28 years. This song is nominated for a Grammy and is getting radio airplay. They have a video in rotation on some of the oddball TV programs I watch, but this is a performance at the Country Music Awards:
Frey and Henley can still write 'em and belt 'em out, Walsh can still pick 'em, Schmit's good on bass, and all of 'em make great harmony. 'Nuff said. Olde Fartes (lctp) Rule!
Since I seem to be in Eagles mode, here's a song the title of which is the best advice I can give you, "Take It Easy". Embedded in the tune is the second-best advice I can give you - "watch out for girls in flatbed Fords!". Seems like the guys forgot to color their hair gray for this one...
Later.
Update:
I tried to snag this one by The Derailers for you, but the embedding was disabled. Check it out.
1. Bush is a lyin' sack o' crap
2. The Repugs are a buncha perverts, criminals, warmongers, and general all-around nogoodniks
Ho-hum, yawn, nothin' new. On to the good shit.
It should come as no surprise that I'm a fan of the Eagles. It was required for California citizenship a few (!!?) years back. Here's "How Long?" from their new album Long Road Out Of Eden, their first in 28 years. This song is nominated for a Grammy and is getting radio airplay. They have a video in rotation on some of the oddball TV programs I watch, but this is a performance at the Country Music Awards:
Frey and Henley can still write 'em and belt 'em out, Walsh can still pick 'em, Schmit's good on bass, and all of 'em make great harmony. 'Nuff said. Olde Fartes (lctp) Rule!
Since I seem to be in Eagles mode, here's a song the title of which is the best advice I can give you, "Take It Easy". Embedded in the tune is the second-best advice I can give you - "watch out for girls in flatbed Fords!". Seems like the guys forgot to color their hair gray for this one...
Later.
Update:
I tried to snag this one by The Derailers for you, but the embedding was disabled. Check it out.
Saturday whorage
As usual*, the next chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.
Whore your own in comments.
Whore your own in comments.
*Might not get to it when I'm in Germany but I'll try.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Snow Day
Light blogging today. We got about a foot plus of snow overnight. I've already got about an hour in clearing it enough to get Mrs. G launched to work, and, of all days, I have a routine eye doc appointment in a coupla hours, so I got a whole 'nuther truck to uncover and another path to clear. Hey, some folks pay big money to come play in the snow, but it comes to me!
We really needed snow. There are thousands of ski area employees that until today have had nothing to do except hang out on the street corners wonderin' where they're gonna get rent money. Also, the weeping and wailing of the merchants, who have had no skiers and other winter visitors to fill their coffers, has been keeping me awake nights. And I'm a mile from the nearest one.
Just another day in Paradise.
We really needed snow. There are thousands of ski area employees that until today have had nothing to do except hang out on the street corners wonderin' where they're gonna get rent money. Also, the weeping and wailing of the merchants, who have had no skiers and other winter visitors to fill their coffers, has been keeping me awake nights. And I'm a mile from the nearest one.
Just another day in Paradise.
Give him hell, K.O.
Thanks, Keith. It's way past time to call Bush the lyin' sack o' shit that he's been all the years of his reign.
Pig Out for Chanukah
Liquid Alert!
Boy, I'd like to be there for that!
Thanks to Fixer, I learned a new word for our Italian friends, and now I understand its etymology: Ginzo = Guinea + Bozo.
And by the way, I mean no offense to any ethnic group except Republicans.
This was REALLY not kosher. A grocery store in Manhattan made a food faux pas, advertising hams as "Delicious for Chanukah."
A woman who saw the mistake over the weekend at the Balducci's store on 14th Street took pictures of the signs and posted them on her blog.
Jennifer Barton, director of marketing, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the signs were changed as soon as the error was noted.
She issued an apology on the company Web site, saying the company would be reviewing its employee training.
Boy, I'd like to be there for that!
Thanks to Fixer, I learned a new word for our Italian friends, and now I understand its etymology: Ginzo = Guinea + Bozo.
And by the way, I mean no offense to any ethnic group except Republicans.
OMG!
Late for work but I had to post this. I can't remember the last time I agreed with Andy Sullivan (mostly) so I had to post this:
Off to the shop ...
...
This administration commits war-crimes, hides the evidence from federal law officers and the 9/11 Commission and then destroys the evidence completely. Give that some time to sink in.
Off to the shop ...
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Psychic Dog
Got this by e-mail from my old school pal Barb:
[A South Carolina farm wife called the local phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when her friends called--and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog and/or senile lady. He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire with a steel chain and collar.
2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called.
4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.
5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning. Just Thought you'd like to know.]
[A South Carolina farm wife called the local phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when her friends called--and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog and/or senile lady. He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire with a steel chain and collar.
2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called.
4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.
5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning. Just Thought you'd like to know.]
"...an oddly familiar pattern of deception"
Froomkin
Much, much more. Please go read. Froomkin manages to nicely cram ten pounds of Bush's lies into a five-pound sack.
Check out the cartoon links at the bottom, too.
President Bush changed the way he talked about Iran in August: He stopped making explicit assertions about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
As he did that, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush even went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush's words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It's an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
Blogger Josh Marshall examines Bush's wording at that press conference and notes: "It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of 'preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'
"That's the tell.
"That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist."
Much, much more. Please go read. Froomkin manages to nicely cram ten pounds of Bush's lies into a five-pound sack.
Check out the cartoon links at the bottom, too.
Outrage of the Day
Guardian UK
It seems Immigration can't do anything about the alleged 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country, but their eagle-eyed pencil-pushers seem to have plenty of time to fuck with a serving US Army Sergeant who has served honorably in a war zone over a little glitch in his papers. Ask him to explain? Nooooo - try him with an eye toward deportation. After all, an ARAB with a supposed anomaly in his paperwork FOR 20 YEARS must be a deep-plant terrorist. Also, I wouldn't doubt that a paratrooper might have knowledge of firearms and explosives. Yep, terrorist.
Those fucking morons.
I'll bet this gets ironed out before it goes to trial. The Immigration idiot who came up with this brain fart is picking the flyshit outta the pepper, but it's indicative of an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim mindset that needs to be dealt with. Maybe some national leadership would help. Yeah, like that'll happen any time soon.
Just as an aside, as I was preparing to do this post, I went to get a cup of coffee and I was gone long enough that my 'My Pictures' screensaver came on. When I got back to my set, there was my favorite paratrooper Lurch grinning at me. It was like "Death From Above" gave me a blessing.
Bonus: Check out Sergeant Benkabbou's Unit History.
Arab-American paratrooper faces deportation after Afghan service
A highly decorated Arab-American sergeant in the US army, who is currently serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan, faces deportation on his return to the United States because of an irregularity in his immigration papers.
Benkabbou came to the US from his native Morocco in 1987, and was granted permanent residency four years ago. But when he applied to become a naturalised US citizen in 2005 - by which time he was already serving in the army - immigration officials discovered that he had failed to register his first marriage and alleged that the ceremony had been arranged fraudulently to get him into the country.
The aggressive prosecution of the case has surprised immigration lawyers who point to a directive that advises officials against pressing to deport acting military personnel unless they have been involved in drug trafficking, crimes against children or violence, or unless they pose a danger to the public.
Benkabbou's irregularity over his marriage falls into no such categories.
His lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, Paul Ford, said the only explanation he could find was that his client was a Muslim, "which sets off all the buzzers. There is no question that Arab-Americans are given a totally different treatment."
Ford said that Benkabbou had been accused of being a terrorist by officials from the immigration enforcement agency, ICE. "In court, ICE lawyers called Morocco a terrorist country, which I found astonishing."
It seems Immigration can't do anything about the alleged 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country, but their eagle-eyed pencil-pushers seem to have plenty of time to fuck with a serving US Army Sergeant who has served honorably in a war zone over a little glitch in his papers. Ask him to explain? Nooooo - try him with an eye toward deportation. After all, an ARAB with a supposed anomaly in his paperwork FOR 20 YEARS must be a deep-plant terrorist. Also, I wouldn't doubt that a paratrooper might have knowledge of firearms and explosives. Yep, terrorist.
Those fucking morons.
I'll bet this gets ironed out before it goes to trial. The Immigration idiot who came up with this brain fart is picking the flyshit outta the pepper, but it's indicative of an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim mindset that needs to be dealt with. Maybe some national leadership would help. Yeah, like that'll happen any time soon.
Just as an aside, as I was preparing to do this post, I went to get a cup of coffee and I was gone long enough that my 'My Pictures' screensaver came on. When I got back to my set, there was my favorite paratrooper Lurch grinning at me. It was like "Death From Above" gave me a blessing.
Bonus: Check out Sergeant Benkabbou's Unit History.
Quote of the Day
NZ Herald with one reaction to the NIE:
I'd be a lot more 'relieved' if The Dick's heart would 'mushroom cloud'.
"People are relieved that World War III is on hold," [...]
I'd be a lot more 'relieved' if The Dick's heart would 'mushroom cloud'.
Let Us Spray
Checkpoint Jerusalem
Sissy artists indeed!
Go see this. You'll like it.
A little girl with pigtails in a pink dress has an Israeli soldier standing spread-eagle against a wall as she frisks him for weapons.
Down the street, an Israeli soldier has stopped a donkey and is checking his ID.
Nearby, a large rat holding a slingshot looks as if he is prepared to launch a few stones at Israel's towering concrete wall separating Bethlehem from Israel.
Welcome to Santa's Ghetto, a new artistic/political collaboration led by the celebrated/infamous/mysterious British artist known as Banksy.
This year, Banksy returned with an artistic posse and decided to bring Santa's Ghetto to Bethlehem as a way to highlight the political situation.
"If it's safe enough for a bunch of sissy artists then it's safe enough for anyone," he told The Times of London.
Sissy artists indeed!
Go see this. You'll like it.
Evel Redux
Last Saturday Fixer posted the most viewed bad landing in history, with a little blurb on how Evel Knievel inspired him to do foolish things which, thankfully, Fixer survived. Newsweek expands on that a little, including a video of a jump that actually succeeded, like most of them did.
I'm a little older than that, so I wasn't tempted to do crazy shit like that, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of Evel Knievel.
Evel is now considered the 'father' of extreme sports. One of the big deals these days is the mid-air loop-the-loop on a motorcycle. It takes a pair to do that, sure, but I'd love to see the kids try it on a 650 Triumph or a Harley-Davidson XR750 like Evel jumped. Heh...
Go watch a few minutes of the movie and the poor quality will inspire you to go rent it.
If you're a man of a certain age, then you spent a lot of Sunday afternoons building ramps and wearing capes and trying to be the first on the block to jump over your labrador retriever. Or maybe you spent some time in an emergency room because your banana seat bike--the one with the sparkly flag seat--almost made it from the roof of the garage to the cow pond. When it was all over and the stitches were in place and the arms set, your mom had one man to blame: Robert Craig Knievel, Jr., aka, "Evel Knievel," every 12-year-old boy's man crush, circa 1974.
I'm a little older than that, so I wasn't tempted to do crazy shit like that, but I sure enjoyed the shit out of Evel Knievel.
Evel is now considered the 'father' of extreme sports. One of the big deals these days is the mid-air loop-the-loop on a motorcycle. It takes a pair to do that, sure, but I'd love to see the kids try it on a 650 Triumph or a Harley-Davidson XR750 like Evel jumped. Heh...
Go watch a few minutes of the movie and the poor quality will inspire you to go rent it.
Yeah, why? - Fixer edition
Digby asks:
Digby documents yet another Rethug going to jail for molesting little kids. I tell ya, over the last few years I've lost count of how many of these guys have been busted. Hell, even the term "wide-stance" has made it into the blogger lexicon. WTF? Crooks, racists, and pedophiles; your Republican Party for the 21st Century. Why we haven't deemed the whole damn party a criminal organization by now is beyond me. The Mafia is jealous.
***
And just an unrelated note: My blogging will be iffy from now until next week, I think. We're leaving for Germany next Friday and we're scrambling to tie up a buncha loose ends before we go. I'm almost certain I'll have a connection to the intarweb tubes over there (or I'll steal my nephew's computer) so I should be in contact when I get there. And if you all think I'm fucked up, wait until you meet my family. Heh ...
...
Perhaps we need to start asking ourselves not only why so many conservative Republicans are perverts and hypocrites, but why they are so drawn to politics as a profession? I had always thought that a good number of the pedophiles who joined the priesthood did because they knew it was safe. Who would ever suspect the moralistic and sexually conservative church? Is it possible that perverts and hypocrites are joining Republican politics for the same reason?
Digby documents yet another Rethug going to jail for molesting little kids. I tell ya, over the last few years I've lost count of how many of these guys have been busted. Hell, even the term "wide-stance" has made it into the blogger lexicon. WTF? Crooks, racists, and pedophiles; your Republican Party for the 21st Century. Why we haven't deemed the whole damn party a criminal organization by now is beyond me. The Mafia is jealous.
And just an unrelated note: My blogging will be iffy from now until next week, I think. We're leaving for Germany next Friday and we're scrambling to tie up a buncha loose ends before we go. I'm almost certain I'll have a connection to the intarweb tubes over there (or I'll steal my nephew's computer) so I should be in contact when I get there. And if you all think I'm fucked up, wait until you meet my family. Heh ...
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Quote of the Day
From a piece at Media Matters on the whining, moaning, bitching, complaining, snivelling, and blaming what passes for 'media' of wingnut bloggers about the presidential 'debates':
Yeah, the wingnut pansies would get rid of it if they could. News flash: Try as they might, they're not going to pull it off. Period.
These GOP bloggers are so afraid of democracy that they spend their days and nights blaming the press for allowing it to take place.
Yeah, the wingnut pansies would get rid of it if they could. News flash: Try as they might, they're not going to pull it off. Period.
Insanity Defense
Folks, between the NIE deal and Rove's outrageous lies, this shit is just too easy. I'm having a great week and I hope you are too. I never thought it would be this much fun watching the whole Repug/neocon/war an' fearmongerin'/lyin' sack o' crap regime come apart at the seams! Heh.
Wasn't there a New York Mafioso a few years ago who went around drooling and babbling so the law would think he was crazy and not fuck with him? It didn't work for him and it ain't gonna work for Turdblossom either.
Nice rendering of his Jag, though.
Go ahead and click. Even if he throws that coat open, it won't be any bigger!
Wasn't there a New York Mafioso a few years ago who went around drooling and babbling so the law would think he was crazy and not fuck with him? It didn't work for him and it ain't gonna work for Turdblossom either.
Nice rendering of his Jag, though.
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