Things that make me sick ...

One of the worst is watching this idiot placing the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Pic stolen from C & L.

And Bob Geiger says it just about right:

Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed

Yes, that's a harsh headline for this piece.

But I'll ask you to forgive me because, as a Veteran, there isn't a day on the calendar that causes my hatred -- and I do indeed mean hatred -- of George W. Bush to bubble over the top more than Memorial Day.

...

The Chickenhawk-in Chief says a lot of things that make this Vet's blood boil but stuff like saying that he prays "...that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made" is almost vomit inducing.

...

Makes me wanna puke too, pal.

Cross-posted at API.

I'm Ba-ack...

Click to make it HUGE!

I'm back, but I'm beat, even after a night's sleep. The above photo shows conditions on the traditional first weekend of summer. We got rained, sleeted, snowed, and hailed on for the first 200 miles of our 1000-mile trip and the last 200 miles. I could hear God laughing, "New motorbike, huh? Let's break 'er in right!"

Maybe posting today, maybe not. See ya soon.

Not to put too fine a point on it ...

The Normandy American Cemetery - Normandy, France

But Memorial Day is not a 'happy' holiday.

Memorial Day is a time to reflect on the people who sacrificed their lives so you can live the life you do in this country.

Especially this year, the 6th since the War in Iraq began, when over 4000 of our service people have died, not to protect this nation or our way of life but in an illegal, unjustified provocation. 4000 dead for nothing. 4000 lives wasted.

I'll have a 'happy' Memorial Day when Bush, Cheney, and their minions are in a dock in The Hague.

Cross-posted at API.

Obama, Osama ...

Kill 'em all.



I wonder what would happen if someone like Donna Brazile or Rachel Maddow said this about McSame?

Trotta: …and now we have what some are reading—as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama , umm, ah… Obama, well both if we could ... haha ...

Probably would be shipped off to Gitmo so quick her head would spin.

Quote of the Day

From Blue Girl over at "Watching Those We Chose":

"So take the long weekend to lick your wounds, and when Tuesday rolls around, start with mending fences. It is time to get over yourself. It isn't about you, or me, or even the candidates. It is about electing a Democrat and saving the Supreme Court."

It cannot be stressed enough how important this election is for the Democrats to win because of the Supreme Court. It and the process will be out of reach, possibly forever, if the Republicans retain control. The country is, in effect, in the grip of a criminal syndicate, it is time to take it back and to see that it stays taken back.

JG.

Hillary's "Assassination" Comments

I've been alternately outraged and stunned by the utter senselessness of and utter lack of sensitivity shown by Hillary's comments last Friday. I wanted to write something about it, but (as is not at all unusual) could not find the means to express myself. Then I read this post, "Palpitations...And No Pride To Speak Of" by Lower Manhattanite over at Group News Blog and knew that he had encapsulated my feelings pretty precisely. This is a must read.

Hillary was waiting for the big mistake that would end the game. She got it.

JG.

"Another senseless tragedy"

Our pal pygalgia:

It started out a fairly typical local crime story. There was a car-jacking at the Grand Canyon. Later it was learned that this was on the heels of an apparent failed suicide attempt by driving into the Canyon. Two days and a cross state police chase later two men were dead.

...

One of them was a four-tour Iraq vet. His widow:

...

"All this violent behavior, him killing his brother, that was not my husband. If the PTSD would have been handled in a correct manner, none of this would have happened," she said in a telephone interview from Stafford, Va.

...

War on the cheap, like everything else Bush has done. And McCain wants another hundred years of this?

I can't wait ...

If (when) Barry gets the nod, I can't wait for the debates between him and McSame:

If John McCain goes ballistic every time he's mildly criticized by Barack Obama, this is going to be a much more interesting campaign than I thought ...

You betcha. I'm buying stock in Orville Redenbacher's.

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

Bush's gallantry is to give [Sgt. Benjamin] Sebban's mom a hug. It's kind of like a boa constrictor thanking a rabbit after devouring her children.

Not this veteran's issues ...

McBush doesn't want to talk about his non-vote on the GI Bill he tried to undermine.

"I believe that I have earned the right to speak out on veterans’ issues," McCain said. "As a matter of fact I received the highest award from literally every veteran’s organization in America. I don’t know if the American people will judge Senator Obama as to whether he has military experience or not, but I think they may judge him as to whether he has experience and knowledge to make the judgment necessary to care for the veterans."

Listen, you old fool. I'd walk into Hell and back with Barry or Hil long before I'd consider going around the block with your senile, deluded ass.

And something completely different ...

Felix Mendelssohn - Piano Trio in D Minor

This was performed by three very talented young people from the Junior Chamber Music Series.

"I pray for revolution ..."

4 Non Blondes - What's Up!

Headin' out...

No blogging for a coupla days. Me'n Mrs. G are making a whirlwind trip to L.A. to pick up my new motorbike. There today, home tomorrow. A real highway thrash, but we get to visit a little with a coupla old friends.

Everybody have a nice weekend, and please take a moment to remember what Memorial Day is all about. Later.

Saturday whorage

Another chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

Whore your own links in comments.

Dead Kennedys singer responds to Savage: How the hell does he get away with stuff like this?

Here's a little more in the vein of Fixer's post on the same subject.

Think Progress, lotsa comments.

Earlier this week, after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was diagnosed with a brain tumor, right-wing talker Michael Savage offensively mocked Kennedy’s condition by playing the Dead Kennedys song “California Über Alles” and reading aloud its lyrics on his radio show. In an expletive-laden interview with the Boston Phoenix, Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra responded to Savage’s use of his song, saying he took the “song way the hell out of context and did it deliberately.” From the interview:

But the bigger issue is Savage himself and how the hell he gets away with stuff like saying this, and saying that people with AIDS should be put in concentration camps. And then when people protest at the station, he calls on his own listeners to come down and beat them up.

Good for you, Jello Man.

It makes me want to go to a protest at his station. No class fuckin' Weiner can call anybody he wants to. We'll see who gets beat up.

Dear Haloscan ...

WTF??? Over ...

Yeah ...

What Jello said:

...

But like it or not, [conservative talk show host Michael] Savage is the third-most popular radio-talk show host in this country behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Nobody from the other side is represented or promoted well enough by the big right-wing-owned radio networks to compete. That's one of the ways they mindfuck the country into being so dumb they vote for people like George Bush, Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The real issue here is why aren't the big candidates calling for media reform? Once upon a time there was a law on the books called the Fairness Doctrine, and it said that if somebody like Savage or Limbaugh or that skull woman Ann Coulter said something completely fucked up and dishonest on the air, somebody else was allowed to come on the air and reply to them without being told to shut up every 15 seconds by a power clown like Bill O'Reilly. That law was on the books for 50 years but was allowed to expire in the late '80s when a Democratic-controlled congress failed to override President Reagan's veto of the law.

...

Everclear to Gitmo

I never heard of 'em, but when I read the headline, I thought we were sending Gitmo some white lightning to put in the punch bowl. I was down wit dat. If I were stationed there, I'd want the strongest booze I could get aholt of! Then when I found out they're a band I wondered what the hell they did. Lefty lyrics? Go read if yer interested.

"[...} I’ve got a song I’m thinking about playing there for the first time, called “Jesus Was a Democrat.”
...

"[...] There’s a line in it that goes, “Jesus would be locked up in Guantanamo Bay if he were alive today.” I consider myself Christian but not in any traditional sense. I was brought up in a serious evangelical home, and always had problems with Christianity, like there was something great there, but that I wasn’t seeing it. I see why most people, especially young people, are afraid of Christians. There’s a line in the song that says, “I wonder if Jesus is as afraid of Christians as I am?” They’re scary!"

Yep, some of 'em.

Mythmaking for the next war

Chicago Tribune

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had some 45,000 nuclear warheads. At the moment, Iran has none. But when Barack Obama said the obvious—that Iran does not pose the sort of threat the Soviet Union did— John McCain reacted as though his rival had offered to trade Ft. Knox for a sack of magic beans.

Even if the Iranians would like to destroy Israel, they face a powerful disincentive: the prospect of radioactive incineration. The Tehran government has been intimidated by less. Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg writes in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy magazine: "Iran agreed to a cease-fire in the war with Iraq once Iraqi missiles began falling on Tehran. The ayatollahs were willing to sacrifice soldiers—but not to pay a higher price." Even fanatics have their limits.

Nor would Iran be so irrational as to give nukes to a terrorist group. That would be the worst of both worlds—giving up control of those weapons, while inviting annihilation the moment they are put to use.

But there is no reasoning with McCain and his allies, who yearn for the simple clarity of the Cold War. If we don't have an enemy on the mammoth scale of the Soviet Union, they will take a pint-sized one, inflate it beyond recognition and pretend that military confrontation is the only way to deal with it.

That was how we got into the war in Iraq and how, under a McCain presidency, we are liable to end up in a war in Iran. If he's looking for reckless judgment, he should look in the mirror.

There's that 'judgment' word again. Nothing much to add, just go read the rest.

Another neocon bunch bites the dust

Fixer posted about PNAC goin' tits up in the tall weeds. Policy Forum has joined them.

Another hard-line neo-conservative group — and one that received a nearly $80,000 grant from the Pentagon just last September — may also have died. In fact, its effective demise may actually have preceded the the grant’s approval by the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Eric Edelman.

Yeah, don't tell 'em yer dead until they cough up the taxpayers' money. Typical Repug shit. WTF are we doing giving our money to those bastards anyway? Oh, I forgot - the Pentagon's propaganda effort AKA the Ministry of Truth is 'government' funded.