Don'tcha just wish ...

O'Reilly would have grabbed someone (an ex-Marine for instance) who'da just turned and put him on his ass? Woulda loved to see Billo do a Britney Spears impression and have to be taken out on a stretcher. Both of 'em should share a padded room.

OK

The other way around is OK too.

Saturday whorage

Back on schedule, another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

If ya got anything, leave a link in comments.

GFY*, RIAA

A follow-up to my previous post:



*Go Fuck Yourselves. We're tired of you trying to fuck us.

Car runs on compressed air

Raw Story, with video.

BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

This is the second time in two days that Tata Motors has come to my attention. The first is here. There's something goin' on with that outfit, and it may be good...at the very least, when you toodle off in this little jet, you can wave at your friends and say "Tata, Ducks".

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

I think we can get the price of a fill-up even lower than that if we can harness the waste of good air between the ears of wingnut pundits and politicians, just gotta filter out the poisonous contaminants. Might run the heater as well.

I see no reason this won't work. I've got a toolbox full of air-powered tools that work just fine. There's nothing electrical to burn out, no sparks or volatile fuel to catch fire, no carbon and other by-products of combustion to foul the air or contaminate the motor oil, and the exhaust is just air.

There's no single, all-purpose answer to oil dependence, climate change, and greenhouse gas emissions, but the air-powered car sounds like it could be a good part of the solution.

What really has to happen is awareness and a change of habit, mindset, and lifestyle for all of us. For instance, in my case, to offset the devastating whirring of an air-powered device I think I'll hook up a real-time fast-reaction digital loop of an open pipe 40-inch Triumph to the accelerator (air pedal?)...the neighbors'll love it!

And when folks ask "Whatcha drivin'?", you can say "Blow job. Tata..."

"I reached my personal vomit point ..."

David Sirota with today's 'must read' on the Iowa caucuses and beyond:

Putting aside my nausea, let me just say that no matter who wins, it is absolutely great that economic populism has taken center stage so far in the presidential contest. Thanks to candidates like John Edwards and Mike Huckabee ignoring the Punditburo's attacks and trumpeting the populist line, Wall Street-backed candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had to resort to posing as populists as well - and that's a good thing. The more candidates channeling the public's righteous anger at corporate greed and economic inequality, the better.

We are at a historic moment right now - and I say that not in the way the Monday Night Football-mimicking political media bills every single election as "the most important election in our lifetime." I say it because I believe America is, for the first time in many generations, starting to think in terms of economic class. Put another way, the battle between Democrats and Republicans is being superseded by the battle between The Money Party and The People Party. How this new class awareness manifests itself in one election cycle is far less important than the fact that awareness is rising at all.

This, beyond everything else, is the storyline that will never be written by the Beltway media - because class awareness among the masses is something that threatens the powers that be. The system in Washington is set up to crush class awareness and solidarity among the masses - to break us up along racial, ethnic, geographic and religious lines so that we do not unify in support of an economic agenda based on fairness and equality. This Washington system exists, ironically, to preserve a well-coordinated class war being waged by an economic class very aware of itself - a class war by the wealthy against the rest of us. This may sound like hyperbole, but polls show most Americans know this is the undeniable truth. And no matter whether your personal preference wins or loses tonight in Iowa, We The People have already won, because class awareness and class-based politics is on the rise.

Perhaps the first step in getting the politico-corporate foot off our necks.

Politician, actor, whatever - no good at any of 'em

Tony Peyser

Fred Thompson did better than expected in Iowa but may have a tough time resuming his acting career. It's rumored that he recently auditioned for a TV role and didn't even get a call-back as the guy who gets murdered before the opening "Law and Order" credits.

I hope Thompson doesn't become a waiter in between acting gigs. Folks would lose their appetites. All over the tablecloth.

"...this effete, cowardly warmonger..."

A post by Walter C. Uhler and his letter to The Gray Lady on its stupefying decision to hire the neocon Kristol:

The final straw for me, however, was the December 30, 2007 decision by the Times to hire William Kristol (editor of the Weekly Standard) as a columnist. Although the Times calls Kristol a conservative, he is, in fact, a notorious neoconservative - a member of a political cult that many traditional conservatives disavow. Readers who noticed this Orwellian elision by the Times might also recall that in January 1998, Kristol (and Robert Kagan) wrote an Op Ed titled, "Bombing Iraq isn't Enough," which the Times was reckless enough to publish.

Reckless? Yes, because, as Robert Parry has observed: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006] Simply recall that, under international law, the unprovoked invasion of another sovereign state is considered the most egregious of war crimes.

Having cancelled my subscription, I then sent the following email to the Times' Executive Editor and the VP for Circulation:

"I canceled my subscription to the New York Times -- with prejudice -- a few minutes ago. I've terminated my decades-long subscription because somebody at the Times made the immoral decision to hire William Kristol -- as close to a war criminal as a so-called "journalist" can become. You see, I can have nothing further to do with such a morally tainted newspaper. It's a matter of principle.

You might use this moment to reflect on how the reporting by Judith Miller (AKA stenography for Perle and Chalabi) and your editorial decision to delay reporting on Bush's illegal wiretaps contributed to America's poor moral standing around the world. Now, with the hiring of effete coward and warmonger Kristol, who (possessing any morals at all) can consider the Times to be anything but a whore?

I will use my website to inform my thousands of readers about your immoral decision and I will exhort them to cancel their subscriptions as well.

Sincerely,
Walter C. Uhler

And we will similarly report it to our dozens of valued readers, Walt.

After all, simply consider that, ten years after the end of World War II, the editor of Das Schwarze Korps, Nazi SS leader Gunter d'Alquen, was fined 60,000 Deutsch Marks, "deprived of all civic rights for three years and debarred from drawing an allowance or pension from public funds. He was found guilty of having played an important role in the Third Reich, of war propaganda, inciting against the churches, the Jews and foreign countries, and incitement to murder." [Wikipedia, see also Saul Friedlander, Nazi German and the Jews, Volume I, pp. 311-313]

Think about it: If you do something similarly egregious in Bush's Amerika, you get your own column at the New York Times.

I think the "newspaper of record" is fast on it its way to becoming most useful as "newspaper of puppy training". No harm in that until the pup learns to read.

The flip side, of course, is Paul Krugman and "Pops" Rich, both of whom I admire, and MoDo, for whom 'admire' is not exactly the right word. Heh. I wonder if any of them will comment on Kristol's hire.

Why?oming caucuses

Yahoo!News

Don't forget Wyoming. It's been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday's Iowa caucuses and next week's New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

If the upswing of participants in the Iowa caucus is any indication, Wyoming may need to use a four-door pickup to accomodate them all!

All for a buck ...

Ol' Montag snagged this:

...

Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of politically delicate technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.

But today the administration is facing questions from weapons experts about whether some equipment — newly authorized for export to Chinese companies deemed trustworthy by Washington — could instead end up helping China modernize its military. Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria.

...

Neither the Bush administration nor the Republican Party give a shit about your safety or 'American interests'. The only thing they think about is making money at our expense. It's time to cull the herd on K Street by about three quarters.

Time to do a lotta shit. Hopefully, one of these twits running will, but I think their hands are too far in the till already. I wish I could support one of them but I can only see the Dems as the lesser of two evils. So long as the big money is part of the system, the public's interest is the first to get sold out.

Iowa ...

Thank god it's over. Sorry to see Chris Dodd go, but he's being realistic. Glad to see Joe Biden go. Can't wait to see the Rethugs start dropping off. One good sign:

Hillary came in 3rd, but she still got almost twice as many votes as Huckabee

Let's hope that trend holds up in the general election. Regardless of who the Dem is, I hope they win it going away instead of winning with a 'Bush mandate'.

Huckabee: Typical Union-Busting Repug

Click to embiggen

From Ornery Bastard:

Before former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee appeared yesterday on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, officials from the Writers Guild of America contacted his staff to “clear up any ‘confusion’” by making “it crystal clear that he was indeed crossing a picket line.” The Machinists (IAM) union, which has endorsed Huckabee, also implored him not to cross the picket line, saying “he risks losing the support his jobs and economic policies have won for him among trade unionists.”
My bold.
Article from Think Progress

That does it for me.
Mr. Huckabee has crossed a line that can't be uncrossed.

I would like for everyone that reads this to spread this message;
Mike Huckabee is a Scab.
Scabs do not belong in the Whitehouse.

Why, Nucks, how can you say such a thing about a candidate who has been personally chosen by Gawd?

Did we expect anything else from a Repug? They would much rather outlaw unions. Then they wouldn't have to outsource the good jobs. They could pay third-world wages right here at home and really clean up without all the trouble.

Why the Blogosphere Went for Edwards

A pretty fair summation of Edwards' rise by BooMan:

I'm sitting here listening to a speech Barack Obama made yesterday in Coralville, Iowa. He's saying all the right things. Here's an example (paraphrased): 'If you have been steeped in the common wisdom of Washington DC that says it is a good idea to invade Iraq, you can't be the best person going forward to question and change our foreign policy.' And that is exactly right. That explains so clearly what it means to have been in the fight on the side of the blogosphere versus what it means to have been on the sidelines within the consultancies of the Capitol. But Obama hasn't really embraced us. He's gone his own way. And that explains why, in the end, the blogosphere broke heavily for John Edwards.

No, I don't mean people turned their back on Obama because he didn't pay the proper respect to the blogosphere. That isn't what happened. Obama didn't embrace our way of doing things. Worse, he began to use rhetoric we had spent energy to debunk. He went even further. He tossed aside one of our central insights...an insight won through hard experience: we cannot compromise with the Republican Party...we must smash them (my em).

Perhaps because his wife is such an avid reader of blogs, Edwards' campaign tapped right into our zeitgeist. He came out with our insight front and center. You want Edwards' message? Here it is: 'Fuck David Broder, fuck Joe Klein, fuck Chris Matthews, fuck FOX News, fuck Tim Russert, fuck Mitch McConnell, fuck Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Defense. We don't need them. They won't negotiate in good faith. They're stacking the deck against us. And we can beat them by telling the truth and getting organized.' That's Edwards' message, and that is the message we have internalized both through our successes and our failures.

What's funny is that Obama is saying many of the same things, in his own way. The policy differences between Edwards and Obama are minimal. But Obama's tone deaf to the blogosphere. And, as a result, the blogosphere didn't trust him.

In any case, this is the best I can do to express why the blogosphere went for Edwards. None of the candidates were going far enough on policy, but at least Edwards was representing our fighting natures. And that, in the end, was decisive.

Pretty close, I think.

Groaner of the day

Tony Peyser

A Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest has been charged with lying about mob ties to a casino owner. It's a done deal that a mobster's testimony in the trial will at some point include this line: "Forgive me, father, for I have skimmed."

Grooooan...

Points ...

Edwards scored a few:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months.

...

Be nice to hear some of the others say that. I know Richardson has said something similar but it'd be nice if we hear it from Hillary and Obama. Or at least something so unequivocal.

This is what chaps me about those two. I don't like wishy-washy. Have they ever been pinned down on anything? Take a position and stand on it. If facts change, causing you to rethink it, say so and move on. I'd respect them more. Being able to change one's mind in light of new information is a sign of wisdom, not weakness. It's what so pisses me off about the Dems.

The moron we have now never changed his mind about anything and look where that got us.

Quote of the Day

Our pal Lambert:

When I want Republicans involved in making policy...

I’ll vote Republican.

...

Consequences ...

Not only are the people who made bad financial choices being affected by the 'subprime' mess (it's much bigger than that and threatens to get bigger), their pets are paying the price too. From our pal ThePoliticalCat:

...

They stuck by you through thick and thin for as long as you let them. Don't just leave them to die, people. The least you can do is pass them on to people who care.

...

Good links at the page to organizations where you can get (and give) help in placing your pet if you can't afford them any longer. Just because you can't keep them doesn't mean you have to be inhuman to them too. You wouldn't abandon your kids, would ya?

Culling the herd ...

It's the only thing I hope for from Iowa today. Hopefully, some of the candidates will see the light and pack it up. With all these candidates, it's like Dancing with the Stars without the talent.

Quote of the Day

Keith Olbermann, just now:

"We'll take a look at the field of Republican candidates in Iowa next. Don't wear your good shoes."

Heh. No, er, sh..

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

Un-fucking-believable:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

Blow it out yer ass, RIAA. I buy my music. I have never, ever downloaded any music illegally, and I have made maybe three CDs to give to friends who wouldn't have bought those albums anyway. You charge me $13-18 dollars for a product that cost you maybe a buck to produce, and then you try to screw everybody, from me to the artists, and then you whine because you're not wringing every last cent out of everybody involved?

Once your CD, legally purchased, is my property, I can do whatever the hell I want with it. I use my computer as another record player and I put the albums in my media player because it's easier than going to my record rack. If I make a CD to give to a friend once in a while, particularly theme mixes that are unavailable anywhere else, just suck it.

Note to RIAA: Man up and fuck off. I bought your goddam records. If you ain't gettin' as rich as you think you oughta be, that's just tough shit.