More tips ...

Mrs. F and I are beginning to plan our vacations for 2009 and we're taking you through the process of cruise planning over at our travel blog.

Late for work ... I hate Mondays.

And while we're talking about elitists ...

John McCain is no regular guy:

...

The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?

...

Yeah, he's in touch with 'small town folks'.

Thanks to Dr. Attaturk for the link.

.A question ...

If what Barack said about small town folks is so wrong, why do the Republican candidates pander to the NRA and the churches for endorsements?

Just askin'

And just a question for you 'small town folks', being I'm an 'elitist' from NYC and I just don't get it.

After voting 'guns 'n god' over the last 8 years, what did it get ya? Maybe you should rethink just what's important to ya, because if you keep it up you'll get more of the same. If you're bitter now, wait until McCain gets done screwing you.

Friend of the Devil

I'm kinda on a roll with Jerry Garcia this weekend. Why mess with success? This is one of my favorites. Here's the info:

Solo Acoustic
Random pics and Acid art.

"Jerry at the Jail" John Kahn on Bass
Oregon State Prison; Salem, Oregon
5-5-1982

Re 'Acid Art': I think that's the guy who did the montage. Watch fast, like ya got a 'motor wind' on yer brain. Heh.

The Great Lapel Pin Flap

Click to inflate

Who's Readin' What

Cape Cod Today has a rundown of who reads which newspapers. Kinda Eas' Coas' -centric, and I get the feeling that on Cape Cod they think the United States is about a hundred miles wide...

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country which is now being run by readers of Rev. Moon's Washington Times.

3. The Washington Times is read by Moonies, neocons, oligarchs, Third World dictators, president George W. Bush and the entire staff of the Bush White House.

10. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated and the editorials are written by a religious-right ultra conservative. The newspaper already has girlie pictures on Page 6.

11. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores and Lottery results.

17. The Cape Cod Voice is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it, but if so, they oppose all that the rest of you stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

Oh, ever so much more! Enjoy.

Nothing lasts forever ...

One of my favorite rock ballads:

Guns n' Roses - November Rain

Quote of the Day

Brad:

... Call me a liberal elitist if you must, but the fact that corporate fat cats get to pass themselves off in the press as blue-collar salt-of-the-Earthers just goes to show how fucked up this country really is ...

Patriotism ...

It's not about wrapping yourself in a flag and agreeing with everything the government does. Our brother Bulldog:

...

So am I a patriot? After all is said and done, all my internal arguments for and against, I believe I am. I am doing my part, however small it is, to defend my country even now. I feel it is my obligation to speak out against actions taken by our government to subvert the will of the people and destroy the Constitution. This is an obligation I take very seriously. So ask yourself the same question: Are you a Patriot?

When I took my oath to defend my country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I also took an oath to protect the Constitution, not the President of the United States. When the President sees the Constitution as "just another piece of paper", he receives no defense from me. That document is what separates us from monarchies and dictatorships. If our leaders don't take it seriously, they are not fit to lead.

Heh ...

Even the Nazi bastid won't meet with the Chimp.

Touch Of Grey

This is dedicated to Bush and Cheney. I'll be "Grateful" when they're "Dead".

War Crimes Investigation Ahead?

Let's hope. From the NYT:

Reacting to an ABC News report that “Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft” “discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency,” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder says, “it remains one of those hidden secrets in Washington that a Democratic Justice Department is going to be very interested in figuring out whether there’s a case to be made that senior Bush Administration officials were guilty of war crimes.”

“Stories like these from ABC News,” Ambinder predicts, “will be as relevant a year from now as they are right now, perhaps even more so.”

Not only will it still be relevant, it will be easier to do once these war criminals are out from behind Bush's skirt AKA the now spurious and then non-existent claim of 'executive privilege'. It ain't called 'the long arm of the law' for nothing.

Some say the Dems won't pursue it out of fear of being seen to politicize the issue for their own partisan agenda. Turnabout is fair play, and we're talkin' about making an example out of WAR CRIMINALS to prevent them from being perpetrated in our name ever again.

I'm down wit' a little plain ol' payback as well, but that's just me.

Progressive Media's Next Mainstream Star

Good article about Rachel Maddow's well deserved rising popularity at AlterNet.

This quick-witted woman has shattered another glass ceiling and is taking her rightful place in the traditional boys' club of big-time politics.

[...] With her own rising radio show on Air America, coupled with regular appearances on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann program, where she is often, oddly and excellently paired with Patrick Buchanan, this self-described "35-year-old, liberal, lesbian girl-who-looks-like-a-man" is on the brink of becoming progressive media's next mainstream breakout star. One significant measure of Maddow's new-found favor: the decision by MSNBC, effective next week, to hire her as a regular panelist on its newest nightly campaign program Race for the White House -- and to allow Air America to simulcast the 6 p.m. nightly program as the first hour of its own nightly Rachel Maddow show.

I'm a huge fan of this gal. She deserves whatever she can get, and we'll all be the better for it. Enjoy.

Lyin' can be good ...

Jonny Lang - Lie to Me

Another reason ...

We're gonna be in Iraq a while longer:

...

According to the most recent reports of their personal finances, 151 current members of Congress had between $78.7 million and $195.5 million invested in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. In all, these companies received more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the budget watchdog group OMB Watch.

In 2004, the first full year after the Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers—both hawks and doves—had between $74.9 million and $161.3 million invested in companies under contract with the Department of Defense. [my em]

...

And you wonder why Congress has been toothless, even with a Dem majority. Be nice if our representatives put our interest before theirs for once.

Great thanks to Avedon for the link.

Saturday whorage

Back in the swing of things. Another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

Also, the crazy Jarhead (and our dear friend) Deuddersun has put a blog together of which I am proud to be a member of. The American Patriot Institute (see left sidebar) now has a home and all of the member veterans are contributors. Give 'em a look.

And cruise tips from Mrs. F over at our travel blog.

Anything you think we should know about? Leave your links in 'comments'.

See what I missed ...

Going into the military instead of college (not that it was my choice, heh ...):

PAHRUMP, Nev. - Nicki Amouri hands her camera to a friend, throws her arm over another and smiles wide as she leans in for a shot with the monument her class came to visit. It's a typical field trip memento — except that Amouri is in a brothel. The monument is a fluffy, queen-sized bed in a Western-themed party room reserved for VIPs and big spenders.

Amouri was one of a dozen Randolph College students who toured the Chicken Ranch, a legal bordello in the desert 60 miles outside Las Vegas. Thursday's class trip, which included seminars from the working girls, capped a course on American consumption and "the ideas that consume us."

...

Gotta love that higher education though the Air Force had a similar 'program'.

Quote of the Day - Zwei

From Raw Story via Capt. Fogg:

... "With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House," ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said ...

Listen, twits ...

Creature points up something that's been making me want to pull what little hair I have left right out:

I don't have a lot of time to flesh this thought out, but the other day I was sitting around a table with important folks at my job and John McCain came up. Much to my dismay the consensus was that, at a minimum, John McCain was a "principled" man (the same couldn't be said about Hillary, and they were unsure about Obama).

I wanted to scream, but the setting didn't allow. I did manage to mention McCain's free media pass and how he's been wrong about almost everything.

...

I too don't get how supposedly intelligent people still buy into the McCain myth. Didn't you idiots learn from that moron we have there now? Do you want more of this know-nothing, do-nothing horseshit? Come on, folks, get a grip. This also goes for Hil and Barack supporters who vow not to vote for the other. I'm gonna come and slap each and every one of you who votes for McCain instead of the Dem. Twits.

Protesting an O'Reilly Emmy

Boston's wingnuts are out of their fuckin' minds. Oh, sorry, that goes without saying.

TVNewser

Bill O'Reilly is set to receive a local Emmy award in Boston next month. But he won't, if a former fellow tabloid talker gets his way. According to the Boston Herald, Barry Nolan says O'Reilly is "a mental case," and doesn't deserve the award.

No shit. What he deserves is a ball gag and duct tape.

And it gets better. Nolan claims he will still attend the May 10 ceremony and, since his wife is out of town, he's invited Keith Olbermann as his date.

This oughta be good! Heh.