Quote of the Day

Larisa:

... A leader does not rape a nation for a score. John McCain is not a leader. He is an opportunist, at best ...

Downhill run ...

A week left until Election Day; wait for it:

Be prepared for the final onslaught of the really stupid, when the media feels the need to balance reality with whatever horseshit the McCain/Drudge are spewing that day.

...

Gonna come in like high tide in the Bay of Fundy.

Am I the only one ...

Whose sphincter tightens at the sound of Heather Wilson's voice? God what an annoying person. It seems Wolfie always likes to toss her and Debbie Wasserman - Schulz in the ring and let them snipe at each other. I heard this yesterday when I was up on a ladder and I thought I was gonna fall off.

She just had to go there. During an exchange on Late Edition Oct. 26, 2008, Heather Wilson could just not resist taking a cheap shot at Biden for his hair transplants and compares the money spent by the RNC on Palin's clothing to what Obama spends on his ties as well.

...

Now, I'm a tie guy (as you all know), and I own hundreds (literally) and, have yet to spend $1500 for all of 'em. For $150,000, I could buy WildTies.com's (I'm a customer) entire line.

The Rethugs got nuthin'.

Stevens found guilty on all seven counts

Yay!!

It is the highest-profile felony conviction in a sweeping four-year federal investigation into corruption in Alaska politics, and an almost unprecedented conviction by a jury of a sitting U.S. senator.

Now, voters will decide whether Stevens, who has represented the state in the U.S. Senate since 1968 and before that helped usher in statehood for Alaska, should continue to serve as their senator. For the first time in his career, Stevens faces a competitive re-election fight, against Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

Stevens, who was indicted in late July, sought an early trial date, gambling he would face voters as an innocent man. Even without the conviction, though, to re-elect Stevens, voters would have to overlook four weeks of testimony that exposed some of the senator’s innermost financial and personal secrets to the world.

The guilty verdict will complicate not only his re-election bid but also the remainder of his term in the Senate. His colleagues have the option — never actually exercised — of voting to expel him before his term ends in January. Four U.S. senators have been convicted of crimes, historians note, but not one has ever received a presidential pardon.

Convicted on seven felony counts and still running for his office. The old crook's got a pair o' brass ones, I'll say that for him.

Microsoft Ad Campaign Crashing Nation's Televisions

This one's for all you Appleheads out there. The rest of us are already familiar with the phenomena. From America's Finest News Source:

The new ad campaign, which features footage of everyday Americans using PCs, was launched as an upgrade to the poorly performing Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates commercials, which suffered unspecified failures in two-thirds of U.S. households. Microsoft pulled the defective ads in mid-September, but the move came too late, as countless televisions had already been infected with viruses and spyware.

So far over a half million television users have complained about the new ads. Some, such as Louisville, KY native Andrew Ryland, said they were instructed by tech support to press and hold the power, mute, and number seven buttons on their remotes in an attempt to shut down their television sets.

When that failed, many television owners said they were left with no other option but to manually restart their devices.

"I tried to push the power button, but nothing happened," said Andover, CT resident David Lax, who claimed that his television has never had any compatibility issues with commercials in the past. "Luckily I called my buddy Todd, who's pretty good with televisions, and he told me that you just have to unplug it and plug it back in."

[...] A press release issued by the software giant also advised televisions users to avoid quickly switching back and forth between programs to prevent any future crashes.

"Our engineers have repeatedly tested this commercial to work out all the bugs, and we proudly stand behind this advertisement," Machen said. "We've heard numerous complaints about a virus, so we urge all users to remember that there are untrustworthy cable channels out there that they should never visit."

Chicago resident Rick Yoder, 33, said he brought the 36-inch Sony Trinitron he purchased in 1999 into a licensed Microsoft dealer and paid well over $1,000 to add a graphic accelerator card and new motherboard that his television lacked.

Recent frustrations with Microsoft have not been limited to its television ads, however. Earlier this week, a billboard promoting the company's latest Windows platform angered hundreds in Detroit when it fell onto three cars, instantly killing all passengers.

More. I'm glad Microsoft doesn't make motorcycles!

Hubris a cover for insecurity

Good op-ed by Gregory Rodriguez:

Americans like a little cockiness. We implicitly know that you've got to act like a winner to be a winner; you've got to fake it to make it. In our market-driven worldview, we tend to think that we're all pretty much worth what we say we're worth. Anyone who's ever been on a date or worked in retail knows that a little bravado can go a long way. I'm not talking about tacky post-touchdown victory dances, but more on the level of self-assured pride and confidence. Think Gary Cooper.

But we also know that excessive bragging can simply be a cover for deeper insecurities. How many times have you chalked up a colleague's arrogance to feelings of inferiority? We have names for people with too much pride: snobbish, pompous, stuck-up. And though it's their superiority that annoys us, we often suspect that these very people are overcompensating for their internal doubts and sense of inadequacy.

Right now we're assaulted with charges and countercharges about a certain kind of pride -- the red, white and blue nationalistic variety. Who and where are the most patriotic Americans, and how can you tell? To answer the question, it should help you to know that the categories of authentic and hubristic pride apply to groups as well as individuals.

Last Thursday at the annual meeting of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in Sacramento, UC Davis psychologist Cynthia Pickett presented findings from a series of studies that couldn't have been released at a more appropriate moment. Not surprisingly, she and her co-investigators found that displays of hubristic group pride "might actually be a sign of group insecurity as opposed to a sign of strength."

Clearly, these studies shed some light on all the loose-lipped campaign rhetoric about who and what parts of the country are more patriotic than the rest. They suggest that not all pride is good, and they raise the question of whether hubristic pride is actually counterproductive. After all, if flag-waving braggadocio is no more than a mask for deep doubts about the viability of your "side," it just makes sense to put down Old Glory and stop shouting. That's the only way you're going to be able to engage in the hard work, sacrifice and practice you need for authentic achievement and authentic pride.

May the real patriots win.

Amen. Trouble is, the Repugs ain't interested in 'authentic achievement and authentic pride'. They're perfectly content to just graze on the radical right-wing horseshit they've been fed. Their favorite snack is about to be yanked away from 'em and they're pissed that their 'side' ain't gonna be in charge any longer. They're desperate and showing it.

It's going to make some of them lose what little grip they have and become dangerous too. Keep a tire thumper close at hand.

Tony Hillerman 1925-2008

This one saddens me no end. I've read almost everything he wrote and am a huge fan. Please go read about him.

LATimes

PHOENIX — Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes -- Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee -- died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, introduced in "The Blessing Way" in 1970, was an experienced police officer who understood, but did not share, his people's traditional belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in "People of Darkness" in 1978, was a younger officer studying to become a "hathaali" -- Navajo for "shaman."

Together, they struggled daily to bridge the cultural divide between the dominant Anglo society and the impoverished people who call themselves the Dineh.

Occasionally, he was accused of exploiting his knowledge of Navajo culture for personal gain, but in 1987, the Navajo Tribal Council honored him with its Special Friend of the Dineh award. He took greater pride in that, he often said, than in the many awards bestowed by his peers, including the Golden Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, which elected him its president.

Hollywood was less kind to Hillerman. Its adaptation of his 1981 novel, "Dark Wind," with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Ward regrettably cast as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, was a bomb.

Heh. No shit! You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get it on VHS! I think they had to re-import it so I could have one. I still liked it. PBS did movies of some of his other books with Wes Studi and Adam Beach. I have those too.

In 1943, he interrupted his education at the University of Oklahoma to join the Army. He lugged his mortar ashore at D-Day with the 103rd Infantry Division and was severely wounded in battle at Alsace, France. He returned from Europe a genuine war hero with a Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, temporary blindness and two shattered legs that never stopped causing him pain.

Hillerman was still teaching when he wrote his first novel, "Blessing Way." A story that always made him chuckle: His first agent advised him that if he wanted to get published, he would have to "get rid of that Indian stuff."

I think that agent is now 'advising' people to "super-size it" out a drive-thru window somewhere!

Walk in beauty, Tony. That's a Navajo expression you taught me.

Update:

More.

Rove And Kristol Fault Disloyal, Ill-Serving Campaign Staff For McCain’s Struggles

It's just getting too wonderful for words!

Think Progress

Today on Fox News Sunday, “master strategist” Karl Rove joined the finger-pointing, blaming the McCain staff for being “undisciplined” and expressing insufficient “loyalty” for McCain:

Gee, Karl, that's your old crowd, ain't it? I guess they lost direction without your masterful, manly hand on the stick like it was on Bush's stick.

Later in the show, right-wing columnist Bill Kristol blamed McCain staffers for “ill-serving” Palin by mishandling the story about spending $150,000 on new designer clothes for her. “The staff has not served her well by hiding her and not having confidence,” he said. Watch both clips here:

Hint: Prior to watching this crap if you must, I suggest you proceed to a safe area and puke in a controlled situation so as not to fuse your keyboard into a toxic, un-recyclable lump.

It makes sense that Kristol is trying to direct blame onto staffers and away from Palin: after all, McCain insiders have credited Kristol with convincing them to go with Palin to begin with. The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said Kristol was “the most ardent promoter” of Palin, repeatedly talking up her electoral prowess on Fox News and urging McCain to choose her for vice president.

Some recent polls have shown her selection to be a bigger drag on McCain’s campaign than Bush.

Wait a minute here - Palin. Drag. Hmmmmm...

Someone grab her crotch and see if she's still pre-op. Come to think of it, before you wash your hands, check Turdblossom and Krystall for the same thing.

Hitchens: McCain is borderline senile

Greatscat! with Noball video actually worth watching.

Christopher Hitchens tells Tweety that its become 'morally and intellectually impossible to vote Republican.' He goes on to blast the 'nutbag' in Pennsylvania, and says McCain is 'borderline senile.'

Even as smarmy as Hitchens is, sometimes he's right.

U.S. threatens to halt services to Iraq without troop accord

McClatchy

BAGHDAD _ The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq’s economy, educational sector and other areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, the country’s Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn’t know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

I probably shoulda put this in "Oh, the irony...". Since the U.N. lunch room pass that allows US troops to be in Iraq expires on December 31st, Bush is actually threatening to OBEY THE LAW!!!

Note to Iraq: Call his bluff. We'll say 'Ooops' and bring our troops home.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Bush to Host Emergency International Summit After Election
Could be final chance for world leaders to ridicule him behind his back.

Report: RNC Spent $150,000 On Palin's Wardrobe
$1.50 on vetting.

Fed to Provide $540 Billion to Money Market Mutual Funds
Includes cost of disguises, getaway cars.

Study: Our Kids Less Likely to Graduate or Earn as Much as We Did
Their kids less likely to walk upright, use tools.

Study: Inequality in Some Major U.S. Cities Rivals Cities in Africa
Why travel overseas when you can observe the vast gap between rich and poor right here, in the good ol' USA?

Many more.

Not "no" ...

But "fuck no"!

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, has asked the Treasury Department for financial aid to help complete a merger with Cerberus Capital Management LP's Chrysler LLC, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

...

$10 bln worth at last count.

Didn't we just hand the U.S. majors $25 bln last month so they "could modernize in order to be competitive"? Fuck them. Sorry you decent, hard working folks who work for GM, I feel for you, but enough is enough. GM and the other major U.S. auto houses have made one bad business decision after another since 1978 and I'm tired of bailing them out.

The reason they can't compete is because they refused to learn from the Japanese and Europeans, even when the writing's been on the wall for the last 25 years, longer for the more perceptive.

Fuck them. Let 'em drown.

Off to work on their crap ...

Cross-posted at F & G.

Short and sweet ...

Because I overslept, but Comrade Misfit hits it right on the head:

Things probably are not going too well in your national campaign when your hometown newspaper endorses the other guy.

...

Heh ...

Sent to me via email from Grandpa Eddie:

Click to engorge

Weekend whorage

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

Sorry I ain't been around much this weekend but I been working my ass off on the house.

And for your listening pleasure, I do something a bit out of character. People who know me know I love most kinds of music, save opera and country music (and I can only take Broadway show tunes in very small doses) ... in general.

To me, opera sounds like somebody doing something bad to a cat, and country music sounds like somebody doing something bad to a sheep. That said, I enjoy a lot of the country selections Gord posts and there are a few operatic pieces I like. This one, for instance. The Habanera aria from Bizet's Carmen. It still sounds like someone doing something bad to a cat, but something about it grabs me.

Angela Gheorghiu - Habanera

And as a complete counterpoint, one of my favorite artists, genres, and tunes.

Bob Marley and the Wailers - Buffalo Soldier

Sunday Crazy Limey Hillbilly Music and Line Dance Blogging

I proudly present what's billed as No. 17 of the Ultimate 100 Really Bad Songs. It ain't that bad. What do Limey music critics know about American music anyway?

There's a little story goin' on too. There's an amplitudinous young beauty in blue denim who is most definitely at this shindig to have a good time. Watch at about 1:56 when the guy with short red hair realizes he's in deep trouble! Maybe in for the time of his life too! Heh.

The Woolpackers* - Hillbilly Rock, Hillbilly Roll

*Please let that mean something in England other than what first crossed my mind...

Gumbo Granny Blogs From the Bayou

This is heartwarming. We need a little of that. It's a quick read and you'll like it.

HuffPo

A blog called "the wounded bird," which originates from a town a half hour away from my "headquarters," here on the delta was a source for the link. How good could it possibly get? OfftheBus's gift from the Muse! Cajuns for Obama! Obama Zydeco! A gumbo Granny, bloggin' from the bayou, was a writer's dream come true, and she was a short drive away. Oui, On Peut!

Dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, as well as a developing realization that the mainstream media was not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, combined with the discovery of the infant blogosphere, changed her life.

"The last eight years, I have wanted France to buy Louisiana back," Mimi says, and you get the feeling she is not joking.

Oooh! Euros...

"Now for a little soul-baring. I am a wreck, and I will be a wreck until the election is over."

No shit, lady!

Then, watch out President Obama. Mimi made up her mind that you are a smart man and will take care of Louisiana, and she will most likely hold you to it.

Enjoy.

The (non-union) elephant in the room

Joe The Unlicensed Plumber – Meet Chris The Union Carpenter

[...] I'm trying to show Joe the Plumber that it's not as glamorous as it looks. So go ahead Joe, buy that company. Run a legitimate business. Put in the hours to make it work. Build yourself up to make that $250-300,00.00. Believe me, if I get to $300k, I'll pay the 4-5% extra taxes and never blink.

Can ya put lipstick on a varnished moose turd?

Go read this one. Pants, meet ankles.

I'm an Alaskan -- born in an igloo, enjoy whale muktuk, all that -- and in case you aren't sick of our state by now, I'll start off with an apology for one of our residents: Sarah Palin.

We Alaskans are not generally so magazine-pretty like her, nor are we so confrontational and vapid. Most of us don't have those peachy cheeks -- we have sunburn, windburn and frostbite. Our fingernails are dirty from actually gutting moose, not yakking about it. Our hands are chapped from picking thousands of salmon out of nets, not holding one up for the camera.

Out beyond my window, the slush ice is thickening. In the west lie the Bering Straits. Yes, Vladimir Putin and Moscow are over there somewhere -- a little closer than London. Plenty of us reside hundreds of miles closer to Russia than Palin ever did down in the big-cities of Wasilla or Juneau. In the past 40 years, Russians have motored across a handful of times, Russian Eskimos, in homemade boats. One that I know stayed and married. She's an Eskimo dancer and ivory carver, very capable and beautiful, in a real way. And, I guess like the rest of us now, an overnight foreign policy expert.

By now the world knows our Gov. Palin is an expert at swishing around in color-coordinated this and that, with her makeup, fake Minnesota accent, and her mooseburger and mean-spirited commentary. We can only hope people realize she's a pretty unreal Alaskan, one who is simply skimming the gravy off our hard-earned Alaskan mystique to mix with her varnished nonsense.

(And yes, some Alaskans do sell varnished moose turds, also.)

From up here in the Arctic -- not left or right but north of the campaign trail -- the reality is clear and cold: When John McCain chose Sarah Palin, he wrote America out of his will. It's time for us to write him out of our future.

I would not presume to add to so beautiful a thing as that.

Pops on Race

I wanta be just like our Daddy Frank when I grow up! A 'must read'. Links at site.

There are at least two larger national lessons to be learned from what is likely to be the last gasp of Allen-McCain-Palin politics in 2008. The first, and easy one, is that Republican leaders have no idea what “real America” is. In the eight years since the first Bush-Cheney convention pledged inclusiveness and showcased Colin Powell as its opening-night speaker, the G.O.P. has terminally alienated black Americans (Powell himself now included), immigrant Americans (including the Hispanics who once gave Bush-Cheney as much as 44 percent of their votes) and the extended families of gay Americans (Palin has now revived a constitutional crusade against same-sex marriage). Subtract all those players from the actual America, and you don’t have enough of a bench to field a junior varsity volleyball team, let alone a serious campaign for the Electoral College.

But the other, less noticed lesson of the year has to do with the white people the McCain campaign has been pandering to. As we saw first in the Democratic primary results and see now in the widespread revulsion at the McCain-Palin tactics, white Americans are not remotely the bigots the G.O.P. would have us believe. Just because a campaign trades in racism doesn’t mean that the country is racist. It’s past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America’s defense.

Yeah, my reaction to that was "Huh!!?" too. Wait for it...

The McCain campaign is so dumb that it bought into the press’s confirmation of its own prejudices. Even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.2 million in Pennsylvania (more than double the 2004 gap), even though Obama leads by double digits in almost every recent Pennsylvania poll and even though no national Republican ticket has won there since 1988, McCain started pouring his dwindling resources into the state this month. When the Democratic Representative John Murtha described his own western Pennsylvania district as a “racist area,” McCain feigned outrage and put down even more chips on the race card, calling the region the “most patriotic, most God-loving” part of America.

Well, there are racists in western Pennsylvania, as there are in most pockets of our country. But despite the months-long drumbeat of punditry to the contrary, there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election. In the latest New York Times/CBS News and Pew national polls, Obama is now pulling even with McCain among white men, a feat accomplished by no Democratic presidential candidate in three decades, Bill Clinton included. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds age doing more damage to McCain than race to Obama.

Nor is America’s remaining racism all that it once was, or that the McCain camp has been hoping for it to be. There are even “racists for Obama,” as Politico labels the phenomenon: White Americans whose distrust of black people in general crumbles when they actually get to know specific black people (my em), including a presidential candidate who extends a genuine helping hand in a time of national crisis.

I think my emphasized phrase there is the crux of the biscuit. I'm sure that an awful lot of white people have never met a black person socially. The military is a good ice-breaker - all races are thrown together willy-nilly and the chickenshit is spread (like mayonnaise) on all fairly equally - but the splibs and the chucks tend to socialize by race. (That's the way it was in my day anyway. Maybe it has changed.) The saving grace is that sometimes their lives depend on trusting one another. The 'content of a man's character' is the important thing: will he be there when you need him?

I have formed a theory from my own experience and I hope none of you ever get to formulate it yourselves: one of the very few places that black and white can speak openly and honestly in this country is in rehab. I did mine through the VA, so everyone was a Veteran and we had that in common going in. The other thing in common was some kind of addiction and we were all there to kick. Just about the first thing you learn in treatment is that you absolutely, positively, have to be honest with yourself and admit that you have a problem before you stand any chance to kick it. You also have to be honest with yourself in order to be honest with others. Black, white, green, whatever, the spirit of being open and honest pervades the atmosphere towards a common goal of getting clean & sober and getting your life back.

Honesty builds respect. Color, or to be more politically correct, 'cultural diversity', is no bar to this. Having gone this far, I may as well prance all the way out to the end of the limb - a good way to tell when mutual respect has been achieved is when normally wary people can kid each other about race, even try to top each other, and laugh about it. Hint: be careful. Hard won respect can be undone very quickly.

Once you get to know someone and see him as an individual, he is no longer part of a stereotype and the stereotype can go ahead and crumble to dust. No stereotype is valid anyway. Well, except the ones about Repugs.

The corollary, and it should come as no surprise, is that assholes come in all shades too. The trick is to realize that he's an asshole and not a _________(fill in favorite demeaning racial epithet) because of it.

The original “racist for Obama,” after all, was none other than Obama’s own white, Kansas-raised grandmother, the gravely ill Madelyn Dunham, whom he visited in Hawaii on Friday. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote of how shaken he was when he learned of her overwhelming fear of black men on the street. But he weighed that reality against his unshakeable love for her and hers for him, and he got past it.

When Obama cited her in his speech on race last spring, the right immediately accused him of “throwing his grandmother under the bus.” But Obama’s critics were merely projecting their own racial hang-ups. He still loves his grandmother. He was merely speaking candidly and generously — like an adult — about the strange, complex and ever-changing racial dynamics of America. He hit a chord because many of us have had white relatives of our own like his, and we, too, see them in full and often love them anyway.

Such human nuances are lost on conservative warriors of the Allen-McCain-Palin ilk. They see all Americans as only white or black, as either us or them. The dirty little secret of such divisive politicians has always been that their rage toward the Others is exceeded only by their cynical conviction that Real Americans are a benighted bunch of easily manipulated bigots. This seems to be the election year when voters in most of our myriad Americas are figuring that out.

Mr. Rich referred to something like 'pockets of racism'. The Republican Party is probably the largest one remaining, and hopefully the last.