Signs of the times

Me 'n Mrs. G just wrapped up what little Christmas shopping that we do, and while we were out I saw some fun stuff I thought I'd share.

At Joby's Music, which also does a fair imitation of a head shop in this day and age, where we got a record and some peace sign earrings for Mrs. G:

"Marilize Legauana"

On some holiday napkins at the best one-stop shopping spot in our little town, distinguished by the smell of fryin' plastic, this ditty which sums up the spirit of the season quite well, I think:

"On Dasher
On Dancer
On Master and Visa"

And at the candy store where we got a white chocolate truffle each to celebrate being over and done with the commercial end of Xmas for another year:

"'Stressed' spelled backwards is 'Desserts'"

Later.

Fredo no longer 'Lawyer of the Year'

Raw Story

On Friday, Editor and Publisher of the American Bar Association Journal Edward Adams released a statement saying that fallen Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, previously named "Lawyer of the Year," will now be known as "Newsmaker of the Year."

"We appreciate the feedback we've received," says Adams, "and we're acting on it."

Heh. That's a nice way of saying "we got our ass handed to us over it".

A more apt award for Gonzales might be "Un-Indicted Co-Conspirator of the Year".

" 'Special Comments' became necessary..."

In case you missed it, Go check out Keith Olbermann on Bill Moyers' show last Friday night.

Moyers was interested in Olbermann’s “Special Comments,” which the MSNBC Countdown host says “became necessary” after former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld equated war opponents with Nazi appeasers.

“I [read] this ridiculous remark and I waited to see somebody respond to it,” he said. “And no one did. I’m thinking, well, you know, somebody with a platform ought to be talking about this. Somebody with a– with an avenue to respond should be– oh, yeah, I have a platform.”

As much as I enjoyed that show, i don't think these gentlemen should appear together very often. One well-placed round could wipe out the two most honest journalists in America, and we can't afford to take that chance.

Latter-Day Republicans vs. the Church of Oprah

Daddy Frank sounds off on Romney's cult, "The O Show", and the hugely undersung matter of race in the coming election. A 'recommended read'.

THIS campaign season has been in desperate need of its own reincarnation of Howard Beale from “Network”: a TV talking head who would get mad as hell and not take it anymore. Last weekend that prayer was answered when Lawrence O’Donnell, an excitable Democratic analyst, seized a YouTube moment (go see O'Donnell go off on the Mormon cult! - G) while appearing on one of the Beltway’s more repellent Sunday bloviathons, “The McLaughlin Group.”

I love 'The McLaughlin Group'! I call 'em 'The Shouters'. Usually it's Eleanor Clift (be still, my heart!) as the Voice of Sanity against the Forces of Darkness Buchanan and Blankley, moderated, if that's the right word, by curmudgeonly ex-priest McLaughlin. I've been missing it lately since both the PBS stations I get are kinda in a perma pledge drive and shine on this little show in favor of old rerun music from my youth. But I digress...

Pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on “Faith in America,” Mr. O’Donnell branded the speech “the worst” of his lifetime. Then he went on a rampage about Mr. Romney’s Mormon religion, shouting (among other things) that until 1978 it was “an officially racist faith.”

That claim just happens to be true. [...]

The answer is simple. Mr. Romney didn’t fight his church’s institutionalized apartheid, whatever his private misgivings, because that’s his character. Though he is trying to sell himself as a leader, he is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.

On to The big O:

But Washington is nothing if not consistent in misreading this election. Even as pundits overstated the significance of “Faith in America,” so they misunderstood and trivialized the other faith-based political show unfolding this holiday season, “Oprahpalooza.” And with the same faulty logic.

“Church free” is the key. This country has had its fill of often hypocritical family-values politicians dictating what is and is not acceptable religious and moral practice. Instead of handing down tablets of what constitutes faith in America, Romney-style, the Oprah-Obama movement practices an American form of ecumenicalism. It preaches a bit of heaven on earth in the form of a unified, live-and-let-live democracy that is greater than the sum of its countless disparate denominations. The pitch — or, to those who are not fans, the shtick — may be corny. “The audacity of hope” is corny too. But corn is preferable to holier-than-thou, and not just in Iowa.

No shit.

For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.

My goodness! That was damn near an endorsement!

As much as I like Bill Richardson, it doesn't look like he's getting much traction. He might be better doing something else anyway. or veep.

I'm startin' to lean toward Edwards. Hillary wants business as usual with Big Corpora, Obama wants to chat pleasantly with them as if that'll work to change the role of Big Money in our country, but so far only Edwards wants to take them on for the evil they are and do by standing in the way of progress for Americans on a wide range of profit-generating issues.

Edwards is a lot nicer about it than I am. When I'm Benign Emperor Of All That's Good, I'd start with an air strike on K Street, followed by an infantry assault and a roundup of lobbyists, CEOs, etc., who would be treated to an unusual (for them) and well-deserved expenditure of taxpayers' money - plane rides to exotic places followed by motivational chats of my own devising which would be fully legal under present administration guidelines.

And God would be on my side, of course...

Election 08: An Unwelcome Endorsement

Got this via e-mail from our pal Lurch:

Finally ...

Here and unpacked. Going to bed now and I'm not waking up until morning to try and sleep off this jetlag. More from me tomorrow. My outstanding nephew set up a wireless connection in the house so blogging will be regular. Yay!!!

DO IT!

Join Congressman Wexler's call for Cheney impeachment hearings

Comic books have come a long way since $crooge McDuck...

Shooting War: The New Graphic Novel (trailer) from SMITHmag on Vimeo.

"...nut cases , religious fanatics, and other extremists..."

The Existentialist Cowboy

None of the GOP presidential hopefuls are supported above a level of about 23 percent according to polls released by New York Times and CBS News. Mitt Romney's dilemma typifies the party's dilemma. Romney, a Mormon, must get the religious extremist vote to get the nomination. If he gets it, he risks losing the White House. The GOP is now paying for having made a Faustian pact with religious right and other extremists.

Having accused the GOP of mass insanity on numerous occasions, I would venture that the GOP is down to its base of some 23 percent: nut cases, religious fanatics, and other right wing extremists, a GOP base that is 180 degrees out of phase with the rest of the populuation, the principles of our founding, common sense, decency. The fanatics represent the party's hard core which finds in George Bush's failures, his only successes. I am increasingly confident that sane folk will call them what they truly are. Abysmal, miserable failures.

The GOP will lose against any Democratic candidate because it is unprepared to condemn what Bush has done to the nation. No GOP candidate is prepared to tell the truth: George W. Bush is a traitor to the US and its Constitution. Nevertheless, this miserable excuse for a party should pay the price for having supported the overthrow of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our every international obligation since George Washington.

There ought to be a price to be paid for having been criminal, stupid, and arrogant! Fuck the GOP!

You can say that again!

OK.

Fuck the GOP.

"Waiter, I'd like to change my order!"

Leah Garchik is a columnist for the EssEffChron. She usually has a little 'Public Eavesdropping' blurb like this in her column.

"No, Kevin. ... It's Tandoori game hen, not Tandoori gay men."

Gent overheard at Ajanta Indian restaurant in Berkeley by Drew Kemp

I just thought that was cute.

Substantially Inconveniencing the U.S. Government?

Happening over in Portland (Oregon) . . . while protesting some time ago at a military recruiter office, this unlikely small group of protesters left their hand prints, red hand prints on the outside window (tempera paint). The case was tried in Multnomah County court.

Four grandmothers and a grandfather handcuffed by police and jailed for leaving red hand prints on the window of a military recruiting center have been acquitted of criminal mischief charges. A Multnomah County jury deliberated for just 30 minutes Thursday after a two-day trial before acquitting the four grandmothers and one grandfather of criminal mischief with the intent to substantially inconvenience the U.S. government.

The defendants, all in their 60s and 70s, are part of a local protest movement called the Seriously Pissed Off Grannies.

A couple of observations:

1 .) What a fucking idiot of a a prosecutor this ' Deputy District Attorney Seth Steward' is for attempting to paint these 'Seriously Pissed Off Grannies' as analogous with suicide bombers.

2.) Which may very be why some of the jurors reportedly thought the trial and all was "waste of time & public resources" taking 30 minutes to come up with the verdict - 28 of those 30 minutes spent discussing the asinineness of the prosecutor.

Early whorage ...

Since I'll be on an autobahn somewhere between Frankfurt and the French border tomorrow morning, I figured I'd post my weekly chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta at The Practical Press today.

And I just wanted to add this I saw while cruising Blogtopia (y!sctp!) earlier. For all you folks who think Huckabee has the market cornered on 'moral values'.

"If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne Dumond would've been in prison, and Carol Sue would've been with us this year for Christmas."

There is not one moral bone in Huckabee's body.

Achtung!

We're leaving for Germany tomorrow so I got a buncha shit to do between now and then. Hopefully, I'll be posting when I get over there and you'll meet my crazy family. As always, Gord's got the keys until I get back. Don't give the old man any shit. Heh ...

So what?

Senate Judiciary approves contempt resolutions against Rove, Bolten

Swell. Now what? Those fuckers'll just shine it on like they do everything involving sanity or rule of law.

Note to Senate Judiciary Committee: You want these assholes to respect what you say? Bench warrants, U.S. Marshals, handcuffs, orange clothes. And don't forget the TV cameras.

The very first rock 'n roll song

See if you notice any phallic symbols...

Also, give thanks that women don't have to put on that many layers of clothing anymore and we don't have to talk them out of them in the back seat of an old Olds...

Update:

A comment from this Ike and Tina Turner video:

RIP Ike, and as for Anna Mae, you betta sing these songs the way I tell you to sing 'em, you betta sing this shit like yo' mothafuckin' LIFE depended on it...

Kucinich protests exclusion from Des Moines debate

USA Today

Kucinich's campaign said today he has been excluded because "his Iowa field director operates from a home office rather than a rented storefront." The campaign quoted newspaper editor Carolyn Washburn as saying, "It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa."

'Home offices' are absolutely legitimate. I think the real reason the Register is excluding Denny is a TV time thing.

The campaign also notes that Kucinich is the top-ranked candidate in online polls conducted by Democracy For America and Progressive Democrats of America and both groups plan to advertise for him.

What do you think? Should Kucinich get an invitation? Should Mike Gravel get an invitation? Was it right to include Keyes in today's debate? We welcome your (polite, civil and thoughtful) comments.

Hell yes, Kucinich and Gravel should be invited! They're not going to win anything - they're too liberal and too smart and too honest - but they add a little common sense to the main panderpalooza of 30-second sound bites that are being called 'debates'.

Keyes? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sure, the more of those Repug clowns on stage, the better. I get this visual of all the candidates arriving together and climbing out of a Yugo. Mr. Keyes exits last and leaves his chauffeur's cap on the seat...

New Bush Coins

Gott mit Uns

Dr.J on Romney's "freedom is religion" mis-speech:

I have been a skier for close to 50 years. For the first 30 of those I skied in the Northeast, where I live. For the last 20 or so, I have been lucky enough to be able to ski in the Colorado Rockies, mainly at Breckenridge. I am occasionally asked if I have ever skied in Utah (which does have excellent skiing, so I am told). "No," I reply, hoping to be jocular, "I don't ski in theocracies." Well, now I know that I wasn't being funny.

The true intent of Romney's speech was not to deal with religious freedom, which in the American tradition is as much about the freedom from religion as about freedom of religion. For Romney, it is now quite clear, what he oddly calls "freedom" requires religious belief, that in his terms in turn requires belief in something he calls "God." He also makes it quite clear that if you don't believe in a Goddist form of "religion" as he defines it (no Buddhists allowed, apparently), you are not entitled to freedom.

This philosophy is the essence of theocracy: the melding of government and religion. It happens that it has always turned out that theocracy means government under a particular religion, with the formulation of that government's rules determined by what that particular religion says they should be. Contemporary examples are Islamic theocratic states such as (oh my, talk about irony) Iran and Saudi Arabia, with no "freedom" in the traditional American sense. Although this statement of Romney's surprises some, we should not be surprised. The most important thing about him, the element of him that in my view totally disqualifies him to be President of the United States, is that he grew up in a theocracy and obviously thinks that form of government and governing is the most natural thing in the world. Unusually for this classic flip-flopper on so many issues, on this one he is being entirely consistent. So why the spelling of his nickname above with only one "T?" Why on the belt buckle of every Nazi Wehrmacht soldier was the slogan: "Gott mit Uns."

The United States is not a theocracy, and it had better not become one as long as I am capable of pulling a trigger. If the Saints and the fundies want a religious war, they just need to keep going the way they're going.

How Crazy Christian Do You Want Your Candidate, Republicans?:

The Rude Pundit

You look into former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's eyes and those fuckers are spinning. Fast. Exactly how insane Huckabee may be has been the subject of discussion before, most notably in Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article on the Republican candidate and through his isolate-the-AIDS-plague-victims remarks and his "I ain't a primate" talk, but there's levels of bugfuckery in Huckabee that are so damn scary that Jesus must be wanting to make a special appearance just to say, "Whoa, whoa, don't let this nutsy fucker represent for me."

Here's a few insane tidbits:

No shit!

But here's some bottom line shit: Mike Huckabee was a low rent televangelist in Arkansas during the Reagan/Bush I era. You think in Texarkana in 1989 that the Southern Baptists would embrace anything less than a completely nutzoid preacherman? Motherfucker used to do tent revivals, was the President of the Arkansas Baptist Convention, and no less than one of the chiefest deranged Christians, Rick Scarborough, says, "I suggest that God may be sending us a lifeline. Who better to lead a nation nearing moral collapse and perhaps World War III than a president who is also a pastor with 10 years of senior executive experience as a governor?" And that should give us all the night sweats and explosive shits. When we finally see or read Huckabee's sermons from those early years, it's gonna be some hellfire and damnation.

Hell, though, Republicans, go ahead and nominate an apocalyptic sounding prick, one who believes we are in World War III, who is supported by Mr. Left Behind himself, who says of our current conflicts, "This is not like most wars and battles, which are fought over property or prosperity or personalities or even politics. At the heart of this is religion. But a perversion of religion. Islamic fascism is real, and the jihadists that have declared a war against us must be understood in the theological context in which this war is being waged." Religious war, man. Enjoy it all the way through the American Rapture.

I have nothing to add to this. Well, one thing - we may find out yet what "batshit crazy" really means if the Repugs are nuts enough to nominate this clown, let alone 'elect' him, and it will not be funny.

Hell just froze over

The Boston Globe

Gonzales named lawyer of the year by American Bar Association

"Think about Time magazine's Person of the Year," Adams said in an interview. "In years past they've named people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin. So we're not suggesting by these awards that these are the best lawyers in any sense of the word. We are saying they are the most newsworthy -- and perhaps also the best."

Other high-profile lawyers that were nominated for the distinction included Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House who quit in April amid the political firestorm; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the leaked identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson; and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the top prosecutor in Chicago who won the case against Libby.

Fixer's right. There is no more irony. Yeesh.