It's all right to torture but ...

Kinky sex is just like terrorism:

On Friday in Tampa, Florida, Paul F. Little was sentenced by a federal judge to 3 years and 10 months in a federal prison after being convicted of the grave and terrible crime of distributing pornography "over the Internet and through the mail" -- films featuring only consenting adults and distributed only to those consenting adults who chose to purchase them. Even though he lived and worked in California, the Bush DOJ dragged him to Tampa, Florida in order to try him under Tampa's "community standards," on the theory that his website used servers physically based in Central Florida and some of the films were sent to Tampa customers who purchased them.

...

Yeah, 'American values'. Let's waste more money prosecuting S & M freaks. We perscute porn producers and pot smokers, but the White House can shred the Constitution and commit war crimes and what do we get? Crickets ...

Failure ...

Pic stolen from our friend PC.

Moar at the link ...

Off to work (Christ, I been running around for a half hour already, trying to find all my shit I take to the shop with me - LED flashlight, Mechanix gloves, road call jacket, etc). Hadn't planned on having to use 'em again this quickly. So much for planning.

Saturday Sunday whorage

Spending every spare minute on the house and shit's moving along.

The next chapter of Birthright is up at The Practical Press.

And for your listening pleasure:

Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage

I believe ...

In the stupidity of the American voter:

...

That the Right believes in the fundamental stupidity of the American voter while simultaneously pretending to revere and speak for them them is reflected in their belief that they can successfully blame the financial crisis and the country's woes generally on Democrats, who -- while hardly covering themselves with glory -- haven't had any meaningful power in this country for as long as one can remember. Ponder how stupid you must think Americans are to believe that you can blame the financial crisis on the 2004 statements of House Democrats about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when that was a time when the GOP controlled all branches of the Government and nothing could have been more inconsequential than what Barney Frank or Maxine Waters, languishing in the minority in Tom DeLay's tyrannical House, said or did about anything.

...

Sorry, Glenn, but these idiots elected the Chimp twice. They are stupid. Thankfully, after 8 years, shit's starting to sink in. It took a $700 bln hammer to do it but hey, whatever works ...

I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

In my never-ending quest to bring you only the finest in music and history, here's one that combines 'em. A little historical perspective: this was before Vietnam was in the public consciousness, white kids discovered weed, color TV, the 'Summer of Love' and hippies, and titty bars. Go-Go dancing was hot stuff in those days. Ask yer Grandma, who is probably blushing furiously at the memory. This was in between the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and the sister dancing on the left and the mixed crowd was pretty cutting edge. It was prior to The Age Of Aquarius and social consciousness. Kids were just starting to think for themselves in matters other than music and dress instead of going along with their elders.

I missed it all. In '65 I wore my hair very short, dressed like all the other guys, didn't watch much TV, and the only go-go dancers, or girls of any kind for that matter, were in the bars in Jacksonville NC and didn't mix with the scum of the earth like me, as Marines were seen by the townies. I had some catchin' up to do after I got out. Heh.

This song is dedicated to George W. Bush, who missed it all as well and hasn't caught up yet and never will.

The Byrds 1.0

Wheels

Good song, excellent slide show. Look for a graphic representation of the McCain campaign/Repuglican't party at about 2:23. Heh.

Dedicated to all our moto bros out there.

The Flying Burrito Bros.

Thanks to harpohat.

Update:

If you like The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Bros., go see this interesting video about Sneaky Pete Kleinow.

Quote of the Day

"I want my house back, I want my America back, and I want my country back."

— Bruce Springsteen





JG.

Conflicts of interest ...

Running around with his hair on fire now, seems his only motivation was to save his pals from ruin. Just like Bush energy policy, Bush monetary policy was enforced by an insider.

Back in 2000, when Hank Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs, he testified in front of the Security and Exchange Commission. Among other things, he lobbied the SEC to enact a "change to self-regulation" for Wall Street. He also urged them to change the "net capital rule" which governed the amount of leverage investment banks could use. The net capital rule was indeed changed in 2004, and is now blamed for the investment banks' collapse. [my ems]

...

And people are surprised when McLame loads his campaign staff up with lobbyists? It's the 'Republican Way'; let people with a vested interest make the rules. As long as corporations are given a superior voice over the constituency in policy making we'll keep having fiascoes like the Wall St. meltdown and the Enron mess in California.

It amazes me, after all we know, that 30% of our population still support this gang of thieves and 40-odd percent are in the tank for McCain.

Great thanks to Cernig for the link.

Goin' out ...

We're heading out to meet our cruise pals Annie and Joe for dinner to plan our next act of piracy. See yas later ...

'Saturday whorage' tomorrow.

Saturday Crazy Cross-Dressin' Redneck Music Blogging

A little dated, but funny!

Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley - "Where's The Dress?"

Palin's Heavy Flow Day

Kos

Click to upbiggen, you betcha!

UPDATE: Recent studies, conducted via my inbox over the past twenty-four hours, have concluded that many of you pine to own an amusing piece of merchandise featuring the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart.

Pine no more!

Quote of the Day

Gordon:

...

We don't need four more years of a loser tryin' to prove he's got a bigger dick than his daddy.

...

Ya can't make this shit up...

McClatchy

Sen. John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser cites a steamy romance 50 years ago with a Brazilian babe among the things that illustrate McCain's decades-long interest in Latin America.

He's got an 'interest' in things Latin American all right. In mojar el churro en panocha Latina. Nothin' wrong with that of course, but since he probably can't do it any more, now he'll just do it figuratively to them and us.

By the way, I found a really good dictionary of Spanish slang. Be muy careful how you use it!

Just a hockey mom ...

My mom was a hockey mom, by the way, schlepping me to every rink from Long Island to Boston to Albany and back at insane hours and going back to work part time to help pay for my sport (hockey wasn't cheap - compared to Little League - in the 60s and 70s) and she did it for 10 years. Sarah Palin couldn't hold a candle to my mom (OR nurse, degree from the Orthopedic Clinic in Heidelberg), in intelligence, in toughness, and in character. Calling Sarah Palin a hockey mom is an insult to hockey moms everywhere.

That said, Jill has a post up describing her feelings (as a woman) toward VP Barbie:

...

But when a Sarah Palin gets up on national television in a $2500 designer jacket and perfect makeup and tries to pass herself off as being no different from the zaftig mother of four who works at a nursing home during the day and then at the neighborhood Burger King three nights a week, women don't identify. On the contrary, they remember back to high school, and the Sarah Palins who made their lives miserable back then.

...

What's missing from this election? Molly Ivins

No shit.

Anne Lamott

It breaks a girl's heart to know that Molly Ivins does not get to have a go at the Republican slate this year. I can see that big, rosy, sunflower face watching this all with astonishment and roaring with laughter. Ivins -- the legendary buckaroo populist, journalist, freelance hell-raiser and freedom fighter -- would be pounding her fists on the arms of her easy chair, stomping her feet as if listening to live bluegrass.

She would have had such a ball with Sarah Palin -- the trooper scandal, her love of moose (between buns), the flamboyantly botched television interviews, the bravery of people who hunt wolves for sport, from the air. Even though Molly was a Texan -- who would have been on guard for the sneering tone of liberal criticism toward anyone with a gun or a double-wide -- she still would have obliterated Palin as a faux populist wingnut with a tanning bed instead of a heart. She would have made great hay with the capacity of certain politicians to reinvent themselves in entirely new realities, as newfound populist Brotherman McCain has done, and his desperate, icky laugh of contempt might have raised some worries for her.

Molly'da been great this time around, as she always was. I miss her terribly too.

Make-Believe Maverick, Bottom Gun, Booze and Pork*

*In another context 'Booze and Pork' sounds kinda fun!

A 10-page article at Rolling Stone.

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

Well, Pickles is a Methodist. That's pretty mild mainstream Protestantism. I got no problem with them. I don't know about Cindy, but I'm sure McCain goes to church wherever his money mama wants him to go.

We don't need four more years of a loser tryin' to prove he's got a bigger dick than his daddy.

Update after I read the whole article:

1. He's way too unstable to have his hand on The Button, and
2. With his temperament, and more to the point, his fat mouth, he'd have lasted about ten minutes around any of the guys I've hung out with in fifty years as a motorcyclist.

Mo' money ...

While you were giving money to Wall St, other folks are waiting to line their pockets too:

Last week, a key Congressman predicted that the mega-expensive Wall Street bailout would naturally force the government to cut back defense spending.

Well, not if the Pentagon has anything to do with it.

The Defense Department "wants an increase of $57 billion in fiscal 2010, about 13.5 percent more than this year's budget of $514.3 billion," according to Bloomberg News.

...

Gotta have all that good stuff. I wonder how much it would cost to build a 'Bin Laden Finder'. Shit, we've spent billions on other crap and we still can't get him. Get DARPA on it, that'll suck up a billion or two, easy.

And while the Pentagon has its hand in your pocket, Detroit does too:

...

The easy one was the Federal government’s painless and generous approval of $25 billion in bailout loans to the auto industry at below-market prices. The $25 billion bailout loan to the automakers was signed by President Bush yesterday, and would allow the car producers to borrow money at about half the going market rate. (Nice terms if you can get them). The government already approved the $25 billion of loans to help the auto makers and their suppliers build more fuel-efficient vehicles in 2007 as part of an energy bill. The automakers — Chrysler, Ford Motor and General Motors — will not have to repay the loans for five years.

...

You know, I'm getting quite pissed that we're giving our money to people who've proven they can't mange it, or those who waste it on toys, or those who make antithetical business decisions, yet if I ran my personal finances like they do, I'd be seeing the repo man taking my cars away, the lights, water, and cable going off, and the county sheriff putting a foreclosure notice on my door.

Where's my bailout, motherfuckers?

History repeating ...

2 September 1945



12 September 2001

A note, Bush is not MacArthur.

Gram & Emmylou

Gram Parsons interview on how he met Emmylou Harris.

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - That's All It Took

Check out many of their duets at YouKnowWhere.

A very good source for records by Gram, The International Submarine Band, Byrds, Flying Burrito Bros., Clarence White, and many others is Sierra Records in Southern California.

Gram came to an untimely end. What happened next was a big deal in SoCal in '73 and a rock 'n roll legend. Hie thyself to thy local movie rental joint and rent Grand Theft Parsons. If they don't have it, and they probably won't, Big A does.

Endorsements ...

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? ...

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign ... John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

...

The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama. [my ems]

Read it all at The New Yorker.

Link stolen from Maru.