Have a fun summer...

Gas prices of Death (Valley)

Yikes.

Submitter Kristin sends us this crazy photo taken at a Death Valley gas station. Sends an involuntary shudder down your spine, no? "Mark Pozorski shot this pic two weeks ago in Death Valley; his record gas purchase. Most Motorcycles require Premium. It went up to $5.90/gal. last week," Kristin explains.

Click to inflate

Of course, you can always go to the cheaper station down the street. About 150 miles down the street.

Death Valley is an awfully long way from anywhere and delivery costs are very high, not to mention that in DV they gotcha where they wantcha, but it's a portent of things to come. Along with maybe the $10 burrito at the Food Mart. Thanks, George.

Just as an afterthought, old motorcycles require Premium. Most modern ones require 97 octane barbecue starter like everything else. Their owners don't understand technical shit like 'burn rate' and only want to buy the 'best' for their baby. That used to be OK, but at these prices just buy the cheapest grade of gas the engine won't 'ping' on.

Please note: The above advice only applies if you are not required by religious and/or party affiliation to throw your money at the oil companies.

Quote of the Day

SPR: McCain’s ‘Compelling Logic’ For Not Talking to Our Enemies:

"I really don't have to; their paid lobbyists already work for my campaign."

Good point...

Bill Richardson nails McSame

Mark Halperin

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson released the followings statements expressing their opposition to the Bush-McCain Cuba policy outlined today:

You can go read Dodd. Here's part what mi gente Richardson had to say:

“John McCain doesn’t understand as well as Senator Obama and I do how the Castro regime works. John McCain — like George Bush — is afraid to talk to bad guys. He feels safer pretending to talk tough by hiding from them. Unfortunately ordinary people will pay for his lack of diplomatic skill. [...]

Have paid and will continue to pay if there is a Bush III.

Why the fuck are we so afraid of Cuba? Jeezus, if it were a real threat we could sink it! Oh, I remember - the Repugs make up stories and tell us who to be afraid of so we'll vote for them so they can protect us from boogeymen who don't exist.

I think what Repugs are really afraid of is pissin' off the expat Cuban voting bloc in Florida. They've counted on the 'fraidy cats and crazies for years. One less bunch of crazies could hurt them at the polls.

I want normal relations with Cuba. It's way past time, and I still want a '59 El Camino.

MSM Drops Ball on Iran Again

Cmdr. Huber

The story that most likely would have knocked the bottom out of the Bush administration’s case for war with Iran occurred over a week ago, and the mainstream media hasn’t reported it.

While flipping through channels on the evening of May 12, I accidentally heard Keith Olberman referencing a story from the LA Times that told how the U.S. military was all ready to show the American press enclave in Iraq the big cache of Iranian arms that Iraqi security forces had captured from Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army during the recent fighting in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Karbala.

The arms, in theory, would have proven once and for all the administration’s assertions that Iran is arming Sadr’s Shiite militiamen. There was just one glitch; when U.S. inspectors went in to inspect the captured arms, they said that none of the weapons or ammunition could be reliably traced to Iran.

Olberman ended the segment with “You do realize they are making this up about Iran?” Yes, I do, Keith, I thought. I realized it two years and change ago.

“Top Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus had plotted a sequence of events that would build domestic U.S. political support for a possible strike against Iran,” Porter wrote. [...]

[...] You can bet your sweet bipi that if American inspectors had found so much as a slingshot with Farsi markings on it, you would have heard more about it overnight than you’ve heard about Britney Spears in the last six months.

I don’t know if everyone in the mainstream media is in the tank for Bush now or if they all just suck or what, but something smells to high heaven like a big honking pile of fresh laid, pure unadulterated monkey business.

Oh Jeff, how quaint! The MSM is thinking ahead. Being in the tank for Bush is soooo 2008. They're in the tank for McSame now.

Neocon monkey business continues to be steaming fresh, and not pure at all.

Voter fraud ...

We've touched on the SCOTUS ruling on the Indiana voter ID law here but PhysioProf goes more in depth:

...

Who are the people who are going to prevented from voting because they do not possess a valid government-issued photo ID? The poor, the homebound elderly, the homeless, and racial minorities. The Republican Party does not want these citizens of the United States to be able to vote because they will not be voting for the disgusting neo-feudal fucking demons that the Republican Party drags out of the shitstreams of its morally heinous conservative sewer to put up for election every year. [em in orig]

...

Goin' to work ...

Stop, yer killin' me ...

Who knew the House Minority Leader was a comedian? John Boner Boehner:

Washington - Washington is broken. You need look no further than $4 per gallon for gas to see how political gamesmanship in Washington is impacting your life. Two years ago, congressional Democrats promised "change" but what we’ve seen instead is business-as-usual.

...

Translation: We've fucked up everything, but the Dem majority in Congress can't fix it because we've obstructed them at every turn, so you might as well vote for us because shit won't change regardless of who's in power.

...

House Republicans have already offered legislation to provide for environmentally-safe energy exploration here at home, reduce the tax burden of middle-class families and stop the public funding of lawmakers’ pet projects. We will continue to offer the American people the kind of changes they want. We are offering real solutions – not slogans – for the challenges our families face every day. Together, we can deliver the change American families deserve.

...

Ha-ha-ha-ha, stop, yer killin' me ...

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

Joke Line grows a nut ...

And he actually calls McSame out for the bullshit he makes up:

Yesterday, Time's Joe Klein noted that he could find no evidence that Sen. Barack Obama had ever specifically said he would negotiate with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

...

KLEIN: The Supreme, you know, according to most diplomatic experts, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the guy who's in charge of Iranian foreign policy and also in charge of the nuclear program, but you never mention him. Do you, you know, um, why do you always keep talking about Ahmadinejad since he doesn't have power in that, in that realm?

MCCAIN: Oh I thin-Again, I respectfully disagree. When he's the person that comes to the United Nations and declares his country's policy is the extermination of the state of Israel, quote, in his words, wipe them off of the map, then I know that he is speaking for the Iranian government and articulating their policy and he was elected and is running for reelection as the leader of that country. Yes sir, go ahead.

...

Shows you the depth of McCain's foreign policy acumen when he doesn't get how the Iranian government is organized. It's especially telling since he also doesn't understand the differences between the Shi'ia and Sunni sects of Islam, or spouts crap about the Iranians (Shi'ia) supporting al-Qaeda (Sunni). I'm sure they're all just 'sandniggers' to him.

For those who wouldn't vote for Hillary or Barack for whatever reason and would rather vote for McCain I ask you this. Why would you want a President who doesn't have a clue about the people he'll be sending your children to kill?

Prayers ...

As most regulars here know, I'm a godless heathen infidel bastid, but that still doesn't keep me from hoping for some sort of divine intervention on behalf of Ted Kennedy. As someone whose family has been touched by cancer many times, I've seen people I love be devastated by the disease and also seen recoveries that are close to miraculous. I guess I'm asking for a miracle.

Take care of yourself, Ted.

How to do it ...

There has to be some intangible, some formula the Rethugs use to assure their great 'successes'. Well the oracle has been found:

republican problem solving handbook

when confronted with a 'problem' choose several activities from the list below:

Great thanks to bluegal for the link.

Hallowed Ground

I See Hawks In L.A. has a new album out today. Click and listen to some full-length samples. Good California Country. $13.50 + $1.50 shipping is a bargain, or iDownload.

Song of the Day

Springsteen - Chimes of Freedom



Click here for lyrics (Dylan)

JG.

Free tattoo!

If you are in the Philly area and have some blank skin left, here's the deal of the year!

"On a hill far away..."*

AJC.com

Columbus — Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Everhart was praising McCain for never denouncing the United States while he was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

McCain? Jesus on the cross?

After ten minutes of rolling on the floor laughing his ass off, taking some oxygen, wiping his tears, mopping his coffee out of the keyboard, and picking up everything he knocked over whilst falling out of his chair, your intrepid correspondent continues...

Well...lemme see now. Other than inviting the moneychangers into the temple, reserving the loaves and fishes for those who can afford them, changing beer into water instead of wine (have you ever drank Budweiser?), and a few hundred other things he's done just the opposite of WWJD, I got absolutely no problem with it.

Let's fast forward this deal. How about we have McCain's Good Friday this coming Friday? And since some of us have a mild sense of history, let's keep an eye on his tomb for a few days this time lest some prankster make off with his corpse when no one's looking. We've got 2000 years of seeing how well that went the last time.

Oh, and as far as McCain 'never denouncing the United States' whilst in the Hanoi Hilton, close but no cigar, lady. See also "Hanoi John: Manchurian Candidate?".

*Old Marine joke:

"On a hill far away
Stands an old rugged cross..."

"Charlie Battery, fire mission, over..."

A Twofer To Gladden The Heart

Click to embiggen

Gee, just like the dollar...

Think Progress, with video and comments:

Reacting to this morning’s story in the Jerusalem Post claiming that Bush will attack Iran before the end of his term, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters that the article “is not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

In taking on NBC News yesterday and the Jerusalem Post today, Henry said, “There’s a broader fight going on — which is the White House against the media.”

Slug it out, boys. We're watching. I want the media to win this fight, but I want 'em to get good and bloody in the process. They damn sure got it comin'.

More McCain Foreign Policy Expertise

Think Progress with video and links:

Yesterday, the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) often incorrectly portrays Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as if Ahmadinejad has a significant role in formulating Iranian foreign policy. He doesn’t. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iran’s National Security Council set Iran’s foreign policy.

Yesterday, Time’s Joe Klein pressed McCain on the issue, but McCain refused to concede he was wrong, saying he disagreed that Khamenei runs Iranian policy behind the scenes. McCain added that because the “average American” thinks Ahmadinejad is Iran’s leader, that’s good enough for him:

But as the National Security Network’s Ilan Goldenberg notes, “if the ‘average American’ thinks that Ahmadinejad is the ultimate leader of Iran” it would be McCain’s job as president “to dissuade them of this notion - not reinforce it.”

True, but McCain is still only the candidate, and his job right now is to get elected. He knows damn good and well that an accurately, truthfully informed electorate is not in his or his party's best interests. Spin, lies, and disinformation to keep their sheeple in the dark and in fear are their only chance of success. Besides, it's Repug policy.

It's easy for McCain to appear sincere about all this - well, about every Bush/Repug talking point - because he doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground about very much other than how to marry well anyway.

McBush would rather have a showdown with Iran than a sitdown, I think because they've seen too many old cowboy movies, and are in love with the image of themselves as Matt Dillon standin' out in the street with their fingers poised over their pistol butts. Talkin's fer pussies, Slade, slap leather. They don't give a shit how many people die or how much it costs. Or how fundamentally wrong they are. Diplomacy implies weakness to them. I guess the corollary to that is that arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, and bullying imply strength.

My fervent desire is that Bush, Cheney, McCain, the neocons, et al, get to ride off into the sunset draped over their saddles.

More on Bush's Nazi past

A good article by Robert Parry on Bush's Nazi-enabling forebears.

Bush might have noted that his family's wealth, which fueled his own political rise, was partly derived from Nazi collaboration and possibly from slave labor provided by Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

Indeed, the quick dissipation of the Nazi financial scandal was only a portent of the Bush family's future. Unlike politicians of lower classes, the Bushes seemed to travel in a bubble impervious to accusations of impropriety, since the Eastern Establishment doesn't like to think badly of its own.

To this day - as President Bush showed by mocking the long-forgotten Sen. Borah and then wielding the Nazi "appeasement" club against Barack Obama and other Democrats - the assumption remains that the bubble will continue to protect the Bush family name.

'Bubbles' have had a history of popping lately. I hope this one does, but it probably won't.

Update:

View co-host brings up Prescott Bush's Nazi ties

Not, perhaps, the venue I would have hoped for, but it's a start. Go and scroll down and watch the blond wingnut bimbo get, and please pardon me for this, my darling amplitudinous View ladies, steamrolled by the other panel members.

One more ...

Before I split. Via Avedon, what if Barack or Hillary's pastor would have said shit like this?

Low class and detestable ...

Ol' Barack on GMA:

Sen. Barack Obama ripped into a Republican ad today that targets comments made by his wife, Michelle, and called the GOP tactic "low class" and "detestable."

...

Indeed, though in the article, it seems they left out the part -- I watched the interview -- where Obama said the Republicans just "make stuff up".

...

Obama praised his wife's patriotism and said that for Republicans "to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her I think is just low class ... and especially for people who purport to be promoters of family values, who claim that they are protectors of the values and ideals and the decency of the American people to start attacking my wife in a political campaign I think is detestable."

...

A chicken hiding under a desk and the words "low class and detestable" should be the coat of arms for the Republican Party. I hope Barack realizes, now that it seems he'll be the nominee, that the lowlife attacks are only going to get worse.

Off to work ...

Police states ...

As I've been saying for a while, I still don't believe Bush & Co. will go quietly in January. These people are too used to power and have committed too many crimes to just walk away and let the chips fall where they may. Digby is thinking along the same lines:

...

I don't know about you, but I sort of go with the assumption that there will be another terrorist attack on US soil at some point. I don't know if it will be Islamic or homegrown. (After all we've had big attacks from both in the last 15 years.) The difference now is that we have a big new police apparatus built up during the Bush years and an entire propaganda machine organized around the idea that the boogeyman is trying to kill us all in our beds. It's not a stretch to think that under pressure, any government could, (*ahem*) overreach just a tad and decide that certain political undesirables need to be dealt with. If they've built the capability, there is every chance they will use it. It's how these things work.

...

And Jersey Cynic alerts us that China, America's biggest supplier of crap, has a model ready for export and capitalism-friendly:

...

Remember how we've always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American "homeland security" technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you.