Worthless ...

Thankfully it's almost over. I just wanted to pass along my thanks to the stupid, moronic, imbecilic, dumbass people in America who voted for our Idiot-in-Chief (half of you, you fucking idiots) twice. (I'll give anybody the benefit of the doubt once)

You've helped destroy almost every foundation and principle this once-great nation was built upon. The 'shining beacon of freedom and democracy' has become nothing but a Third World, banana republic, tin horn dictatorship.

Just because you fuckwits had to have a beer with the Chimp, this country is sliding toward the cliff, on the balls of it's ass, holding on for dear life. Your stupidity, as you repeated every stupid line Fox 'News' fed into you tiny pea brains, is vomit-inducing. If this weren't America, I'd let my German hang out. I'd have you all rounded up and sent to reeductation camps, to be reindoctrinated into reality. Those of you beyond hope would be sterilized to ensure they would not pass your fucked-up genetics on to another generation. But I'm not. I'm a proud American.

This nation is a bloody mess, the stains of which cover your hands directly, and all you can do is ... blame Clinton.

Do me a favor, morons. If you voted for Bush twice, tear up your voter registration card. It's obvious you don't understand how the system works, nor America's place in the world, and your involvement is detrimental to its future. You've taken the discourse to the level of an elementary school playground. It is not a game, nor is it a TV show. Stay home, watch reality TV and your favorite preacher man, and stay out of shit you know nothing about.

You've done enough, thank you.

Pic swiped from Michael F.

Quote of the Day

Watertiger:

Everything that is wrong with the Senate can be summed up in the standing ovation that Ted "HULK SMASH!" Stevens, convicted of seven felonies, just received from that august legislative body.

...

When I saw it, I thought I was gonna puke. A 7th degree convicted felon should never have been allowed back in the Seante chamber let alone be given the floor. Our very own House of Lords.

Karma ...

The Rethugs are reaping what they've sown. Unfortunately, he has a good health plan:

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech Thursday night and lost consciousness, a Justice Department official said.

...

Bachelor's Paradise

I was just out walking the pups and this panorama made me go get my camera so I could share. This is a rear view of my neighbor Jim's house. He rents out a coupla bedrooms and he likes peace and quiet, so he rents to middle-aged bachelors. They come and go, but there's always one or two around.

Click to waaaay embiggen

From left to right, notice the woodpile conveniently sited at pants-off-in-any-weather distance from the living room door. Then, two, count 'em two gas grills with sufficient fuel to process the catch of the day from the fishing boat on the far right (next to the spare grill! Yeesh. Wretched excess is barely enough!). Moving on, the roofed-over all-weather stoner couch with beer cooler, and last, the horseshoe pitch. All with a lovely southern exposure.

From the door next to the couch all the way to the left is the garage. Heaven.

The boys in my 'hood know how to live. Especially Jim. He spends his winters in Cali.

By the way, the old Toyota Land Cruiser to the right of the fishing boat belongs to Danny, who went to Cali with Jim last winter and never came back. He's got a pacemaker. I hope it's got a 'fast' switch on it. Heh. If yer in the market for a Jap Jeep with a Chevy small block (Chevota? Toylet?), lemme know.

Arraignment set for Cheney, Gonzales

Raw Story

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

Fixer stated elsewhere that he was going to hold off on his masturbatory giddiness for a bit. I'm going to back-click to Janet's picture and indulge mine right now! Whee!

This gets even better:

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

Man, these South Texicans sure know how to have a good time! Heh.

Teflon Joe!

Some Ideas For Lieberman's "Kick Me Outta The Party, I Freakin' Dare Ya" Campaign

The Georgetown Sleep-Around - Lieberman should begin seducing the wives of his fellow democratic Senators, trying to see how many Senator wives he can bed before the Democrats get angry enough to attempt to pass a resolution chastising Lieberman for being a D-bag. The resolution will fail to pass by eleven votes.

Down The Hatch - Lieberman should start voting with Orrin Hatch 90% of the time. If no one says anything, go for 100%. If no one says anything then, Joe should start concocting conservative positions of his own and convince Orrin Hatch to vote with him.

Hot-Crotching The Filibuster - Anytime one of his fellow Democratic senators gets ready to filibuster a bill, Joe should sneak into the Dem locker room and douse that Senator's jock with Liquid Heat ointment. Then Joe should watch the Filibuster giggling as the Senator tries to keep talking without running off the Senate floor to dip his nuts in a Gatorade jug.

Don't ask how I know this, but gettin' hot-crotched ain't funny. Except to everybody else.

Napolitano may head DHS

I'm down wid dis one!

Yahoo!News

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security’s myriad functions.

In 2005, TIME magazine named her one of America’s five best governors, calling her “A Mountaineer on the Political Rise.”

This ol' mountaineer's got a 'political rise' right now too!

Her official bio says: “Janet Napolitano was sworn in as Arizona’s 21st Governor on January 6, 2003. She is the first woman in the nation’s history to serve as U.S. Attorney, State Attorney General and Governor in immediate succession. Prior her election as Governor of Arizona, Napolitano served one term as Arizona Attorney General and four years as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. Born in New York City and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she is a distinguished alumna of Santa Clara University and the University of Virginia Law School. She has lived in Arizona since 1983, when she moved to Phoenix to practice law.”

They fail to mention that she was elected Governor under Arizona's Clean Elections Act which is a big step forward, IMNSHO, from the normal Dirty Money System.

This is not a done deal, but I'm hopeful. Adios, Skeletor, hello nice western border state governor lady.

Tongue-in-cheek Update:

23/6

...but what do we really know about the woman who may soon be arbitrarily adjusting the color-coded terror threat level? Read on and find out.

Current gig: Governor of Arizona, as if John McCain didn't need to have it rubbed in his face any more than he already has.

Homeland security credentials: Served as Arizona Attorney General, and as governor of a border state, has experience with immigration policy, border security, and talking down rifle-and-beer-cooler-toting Minutemen.

Is she...um...what's the deal with...you know?: Well, she's 50, unmarried, childless, and certainly seems to fit the profile. But she also opposes same-sex marriage and has long been a victim of a whisper campaign about her sexuality. So, the jury's still out, if by "jury," you mean unhinged internet bloggers.

As opposed to us superbly hinged yet unoiled squeaky ones who don't give a rat's ass who she sleeps with as long as she does a good job?

Cornel West on the Election of Barack Obama

Cornel West is one of my favorite people in the whole world. I love to hear him speak. The only problem I have is that he speaks about three times as fast as I listen! If he were a used-car salesman you wouldn't know what make you had just bought for a hundred miles! My great phobia is that someday I will be sitting between him and the equally fast-talking Rachel Maddow when they are discussing something of earth-shaking importance. I calm myself by realizing that if I string together the one word in ten that I catch, it will still make sense...

Print slows him down a little. Here's some excerpts from an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, today's 'recommended read'.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Cornel West, you were a big supporter of Barack Obama, but you also have been giving speeches about holding him to account. What are the issues you are most concerned about right now?

CORNEL WEST: Well, I think, as a deep Democrat, I recognize I have some significant differences with Brother Barack. He’s a liberal. It looked like he wants to govern as a liberal-centrist, given the choices of Emanuel—Rahm Emanuel and others. And one has to be honest and candid in terms of one’s criticism, because in the end, it’s not about Barack Obama, it’s about empowering working people and poor people. It’s about trying to accent the dignity of those Sly Stone called “everyday people.” And when he moves in that direction, it’s good. When he doesn’t move in that direction, we need to criticize him. Same is true in terms of foreign policy: Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. We have to be honest about it.

For me, my criticism of Barack has to do with trying to acknowledge the degree to which, one, thank God we’re at the end of the age of Ronald Reagan, we’re at the end of the era of conservatism, we’re coming to the end of the epoch of the Southern Strategy. For the first time now, we’ve got some democratic possibilities. This has been a political ice age, and the melting is just beginning. And Barack Obama is a symbol, but we’ve got to move from symbol to substance. We’ve got to move from what he represents in a broad sense—and it’s a beautiful thing to have a black man in the White House, we know that, and black slaves and laborers and other white immigrants built the White House. And to have a black family there, significant; black face for the American empire, fine. Can we revitalize democratic possibilities on the ground with Barack in the White House? I think we can. We can put some serious pressure on him, and we can actually continue the democratic awakening among working people and poor people and push Barack in a progressive direction.

AMY GOODMAN: How about your colleague at Princeton University, Paul Krugman?

CORNEL WEST: Oh, Paul Krugman. Oh, my god. Yes, indeed, indeed. Paul is probably even a little bit too progressive and prophetic. He probably needs to stay outside, like myself, and be Socratic and prophetic and just tell the truth to the people in power. But he’s my very dear brother and comrade, and of course I salute his Nobel Prize. It’s rare that you see a progressive economist receiving a Nobel Prize in that way.

I do still support Brother Barack Obama gaining access to the White House, because he was the best that America could do at this particular moment in the midst of imperial occupation in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, financial Katrina, legacy of Katrina in New Orleans, wealth inequality, dilapidated housing in chocolate cities, disgraceful school systems, unacceptable levels of unemployment and underemployment, not enough access to healthcare for fellow citizens across race and region, not enough access to childcare. At this moment, the best America could do was Brother Barack Obama, liberal, centrist.

Will he govern like a progressive Lincoln? Will he triangulate like Clinton? Will he be an experimentalist like FDR? Those are the challenges. I hope he’s a progressive Lincoln. I plan to be—aspire to be the Frederick Douglasses against, to put pressure on him.

Good on ya, Doc. We all have to do that.

Much more to read, but if you want to get the full effect, here's the video in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Treat yourself to this fast-talkin' smart brotha. I put him on in one window and keep on keepin' on in another.

Quote of the Day dos

P.M. Carpenter

It's astonishing, but at the rate things are going, the medieval Church's acceptance of the sun's solar-system centrality may someday seem like a snap decision compared to the agonized knuckledragging of the modern Republican Party.

Drag away, boys, the longer the better.

Quote of the Day

Michael:

At long last, the presidential election is over.

Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, and Amen!

Questions ...

Billy asks them:

What if electoral campaigns would require the candidates to take an IQ test?

Ha ... Ha-ha ... ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!1!!1!

The U.S. Capitol would be an empty fucking building. Off to work ...

Not to pee ...

On anyone's sunshine a couple weeks after "America's Best Election" (serious, no cynicism there), but I can't get with all the happy.

Yes, I'm happy Obama won.

Yes, I'm proud to be part of, and witness to, one of the greatest milestones in American history. A black President has been too long in coming and a woman's time is long past due.

Yes, I'm thrilled Bush is starting to reap some of what he's sown.

And yes, I am absolutely aroused and engorged listening to the Republicans whine every afternoon on Wolfie while I'm playing Bob Vila.

That said, ain't shit been fixed yet. Ain't shit gonna get fixed until 21 January 2009 and after. I'll withold my masturbatory giddiness until then. I can't get excited over every appointment, over every speculation over what the agenda will be with this guy at HHS or this girl at State.

Let me see these people work as a team, under what seems to be good leadership so far (Barry's demeanor impresses me, reminds me of an old CO I had and respected greatly), as opposed to a buncha self-serving egomaniacs. We all know, with the crew assembled so far, either eventuality is possible.

After 8 years of nothing but disappointment, I refuse to let myself get all excited at "what might be". Been down that road too many times with this bunch and the Dems never fail to under achieve. When I see positive results, then you'll see me dancing in the streets, naked, with nothing more than a necktie, a cigar, and a tall glass of water.

Talk is cheap.

"With the Marines at Tarawa"

Four years ago I posted on the Battle of Tarawa. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I can bring you an Oscar-winning documentary now that I couldn't then.

Tarawa, or Betio Island, was assaulted on November 20th, 1943 by the 2nd Marine Division. The Japanese defended Tarawa with approximately 3,000 men of the 7th Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force, "Japanese Imperial Marines," and 1,000 Korean laborers. By the end of the battle 990 U.S. Marines were listed as killed-in-action. Out of the entire Japanese garrison 1 officer and 16 Japanese enlisted men survived. The American public was outraged; by the 3,286 casualties, inflicted on the Marines, for an island 1 square mile in size.

Marine cameraman took amazing combat footage of the 3 day battle. It was up to that time a shocking account of combat in the Pacific. So shocking was the footage, that many top military figures opposed releasing the film: "With the Marines at Tarawa." President Roosevelt overruled all opposition and the film was released for general circulation.

"With the Marines at Tarawa" won an Academy award for: Best Short Documentary in 1945

Note: If you put your cursor on the print, not the video, press 'Ctrl', and roll your mouse wheel, the video will get bigger along with the print. At least it does on my set.

Part 1

Part 2

Observations ...

Over the last few days, Gord and I have become obsessed with hunting pirates. Think we were born a century and a half too late?

Quote of the Day - Zwei

The Rude One:

...

Here's a warning to the Democrats in Congress: you better fucking deliver on some shit. Or, unlike the bitches of the Christian right who just take it, we will make you pay. One of the lessons of this past election is that we've learned how to field and support candidates.

...

How they killed the Russians ...

It's amazing the deja vu going on here for me. A little over 25 years ago, we were involved in supplying money and arms through Pakistan to the 'freedom fighters' in Afghanistan. They used the same tactics against Russian convoys as they're using against us:

TORKHAM, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 -- A rise in Taliban attacks along the length of a vital NATO supply route that runs through this border town in the shadow of the Khyber Pass has U.S. officials seeking alternatives, including the prospect of beginning deliveries by a tortuous overland journey from Europe.

Supplying troops in landlocked Afghanistan has long been the Achilles' heel of foreign armies here, most recently the Soviets, whose forces were nearly crippled by Islamist insurgent attacks on vulnerable supply lines. [my em]

...

You can have as many 'boots on the ground' as you want. If you can't rearm, refuel, and replenish them, they ain't worth shit.

...

About 75 percent of NATO and U.S. supplies bound for Afghanistan -- including gas, food and military equipment -- are transported over land through Pakistan. The journey begins in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi and continues north through Pakistan's volatile North-West Frontier Province and tribal areas before supplies arrive at the Afghan border. The convoys then press forward along mountain hairpin turns through areas of Afghanistan that are known as havens for insurgents.

Drivers at this busy border crossing say death threats from the Taliban arrive almost daily. Sometimes they come in the form of a letter taped to the windshield of a truck late at night. Occasionally, a dispatcher receives an early-morning phone call before a convoy sets off from Pakistan. More often, the threats are delivered at the end of a gun barrel.

...

The growing danger has forced the Pentagon to seek far longer, but possibly safer, alternate routes through Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, according to Defense Department documents. A notice to potential contractors by the U.S. Transportation Command in September said that "strikes, border delays, accidents and pilferage" in Pakistan and the risk of "attacks and armed hijackings" in Afghanistan posed "a significant risk" to supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan.

...

The Taliban (al-Qaeda) are making it difficult to resupply our guys, costing us more in lives and money. Eventually, it will be cost-prohibitive to remain. As I've said many times, just because people read history doesn't mean they learn from it. It is why we continue to make the mistakes of the past. Ask the British. Ask the Russians.

Thanks to b @ MoA for the link.

Auto Execs’ Private Jet Travel Like Guy At ‘The Soup Kitchen In High Hat And Tuxedo’

Think Progress, with video, links, and comments.

Today, the CEOs of the Detroit Big Three returned to Capitol Hill to ask for $25 billion in loans. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner insisted, “We’re all slashing back” on non-essential expenses, promising, “We’re going to be dramatically leaner.” The other executives echoed Wagoner’s pledge to be “leaner” in the future.

However, as ABC news reported last night, all three executives flew private jets to Washington, DC, for yesterday’s and today’s hearings:

Minutes after Wagoner claimed to be “slashing back” on expenses, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) evoked their private jet travel, calling it a “delicious irony.” Ackerman said the CEOs’ profligacy made Congress “a little bit suspicious” of their austerity pledges:

There’s a delicious irony of seeing private luxury jets flying into DC, and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands, saying that they’re going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. Kind makes you a little bit suspicious as to whether or not…we’ve seen the future. There’s a message there. Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled to get here? It would have at least sent the message that you do get it.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked if any of the executives planned to sell their private jets; none raised his hand. Sherman was exasperated: “I don’t know how I go back to my constituents and say, ‘The auto industry has changed,’ if they own private jets which are not only expensive to own but expensive to operate and expensive to fly here rather than to have flown commercial.”

That's the way those dinosaurs think: we want billions of taxpayer money but we're special and refuse to give up anything in return, let alone change our way of thinking that has made us all rich, impoverished our companies, and threatened the livelihoods of millions of peasants.

GM needs to be dealt with in a way that puts the writing on the wall for the other two of the Big Three: Fire all these clowns, make 'em stop thinking they're too big to let fail, let 'em go Chapter 11 bankruptcy, loan 'em some money due to the credit crunch so they can restructure and demand it be repaid, make 'em get lean and mean and go green, and get on with it, smaller and wiser.

I'm pro-union, but I haven't bought a new UAW-made car in many years. I've never made more than $10 an hour in my life. Why should I buy a car made by folks who earn three times that when I can get a better vehicle that's made in the U.S. by reasonably well-paid non-union American workers a lot cheaper?

I'm sorry about the effect all this is going to have on UAW members but that's the way it's going to have to be. The old days are gone for management and worker alike.

Since health care costs are part of the old auto industry's non-competitiveness, it deserves a word: Medicare in the short term, single payer universal health care in the long term.

If you would like to read a prescient old book about the American automobile industry's downfall, find a copy of Whatever Happened To The British Motorcycle Industry?. Shorter: complacency, short-sightedness, and greed.

Marijuana: Safest 'Drug' On The Planet?

Truthout

Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans Than Illegal Drugs

A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121, methamphetamines for 25 and marijuana for zero (my em), for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast, 2,328 people were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin, and 743 were killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants Valium and Xanax.

Alcohol directly caused 466 deaths, but was found in the bodies of 4,179 cadavers in all.

While the number of dead bodies containing heroin jumped 14 percent from the prior year, to a total of 110, the number of deaths influenced by the painkiller oxycodone increased by 36 percent, to a total of 1,253.

Many experts attribute the trend to the increasing popularity among doctors of prescribing painkillers, combined with a leap in direct-to-consumer marketing by drug companies. For example, promotional spending on Oxycontin increased threefold between 1996 and 2001, to $30 million per year.

The article is all about prescription drugs that people can use recreationally or become addicted to. I actually wonder more about the drugs that are advertised on TV every day that are for other kinds of ailments and aren't used recreationally. The ads tell you how wonderful the dope is for one-third of the ad, then the other two-thirds describes the side effects, often including the word 'death'. Some of those side effects seem worse than the original ailment and would require medication themselves!

I think the government, and this or any Repug administration in particular, thinks it's OK to kill yourself with drugs if they are manufactured by and bought from their contributors. Grow 'em yourself or get 'em outside Big Pharma's profit chain, you're a criminal and deserve to go to jail.

Indian warship sinks pirate ship

The Indian Navy, obviously regular readers of the Brain, fearing that me 'n Fixer might actually show up out there in the IO and destabilize the entire region, took some good action.

AFP

An Indian warship destroyed a pirate "mother vessel" in the Gulf of Aden, the navy said Wednesday, as bandits demanded a ransom for a Saudi super-tanker seized in the most daring sea raid yet.

"The INS Tabar closed in on the mother vessel and asked her to stop for investigation," the New Delhi navy spokesman said.

"But on repeated calls, the vessel's threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship if it approached," he added.

An exchange of fire ensued, causing explosions and the Indian navy ship then used heavy guns. "From what we see in photographs the pirate vessel is completely destroyed," a senior officer said on condition he not be named.

It was the first time a mother ship had been destroyed, in the most significant blow to pirates to date.

Go see this Tabar site. She's a beautiful, modern, armed-to-the-teeth Russian-built frigate. I got no idea what kind of ship the pirates were using to haul their assault boats, but I think they must have been chewing waaaay too much khat if they thought they could take her on! I can just imagine a grinning Indian skipper when threatened: "Oh yes, blow us up, very nice! Watch this, pirates, please...". Heh.

Tabar has been busy. Last week she prevented two hijackings.

Zeenews on 11-11:

INS Tabar intervened to thwart two near-simultaneous attacks by pirates on an Indian cargo vessel MV Jag Arnav and a Saudi flag carrier MV NCC Thihama within 25 nautical miles of each other this morning.

Good on yer, Mates!

Seems kinda odd to me that with half the mighty U.S. Navy in the region that it falls to one Indian man o' war to do all the work. I guess all our smaller warships are for is to protect our aircraft carriers from the Iranian submarine.

Gee, F-Man, if you an' me had one of those Talwar-class jobs we could sweep the seas clean from Chennai to Mombasa. I bet we could pick up girls with it too...

Texas grand jury indicts Cheney, Gonzales

Reuters

A grand jury in South Texas indicted U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday for "organized criminal activity" related to alleged abuse of inmates in private prisons.

The indictment cites a "money trail" of Cheney's ownership in prison-related enterprises including the Vanguard Group, which owns an interest in private prisons in south Texas.

Former attorney general Gonzales used his position to "stop the investigations as to the wrong doings" into assaults in county prisons, the indictment said.

I have no doubt that the indictment will be dismissed at the next level in the system, but it's a step in the right direction and hopefully a harbinger of things to come.