Lone Star Blues

Every time I get pissed off at some Texas asshole like Governor Goodhair or Karl Rove or Tom DeLay or George Dubya and want the whole goddam shithole to float out to sea and go fuck with Venezuela or someplace, eventually I remember that there are things about Texas I like. I must be getting soft in my old age, but I think we have to keep the place. Sigh. Below are a coupla examples. For every ten, or fifty, or a hundred thousand like the assholes mentioned above, if we're lucky we'll get a couple like these who shine like pearls in a mountain of rotten oysters.

Nanci Griffith (Seguin TX) ~ Simple Life

Recorded at Celtic Connections 2009 Glasgow, Scotland. featuring - Jerry Douglas - dobro Aly Bain -fiddle Todd Parks -bass

Thanks to tomtscotland.

Tish Hinojosa (San Antonio) ~ By The Rio Grande

Thanks to BONAMANTE13 who is even older than I am!

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

The truth is out! Fixer really goes on those cruises to listen to country music where none of his friends can see him...

Here's the next one.

Buddy Miller and Emmylou Harris perform on the Lido Deck of the Carnival Victory as we sail away from Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Thanks to willalda.

Payback's a m*****f*****!

MySANews

AUSTIN — If they liked him any more, maybe they’d take away his parking space, too.

The Texas House Friday voted to drain most of GOP Gov. Rick Perry’s office budget and instead spend the money on community mental health crisis services and veterans’ services.

The move, which came during House debate on a $178.4 billion proposal for the two-year period starting Sept. 1, immediately drew a reference to Perry’s recent comments about Texas’ ability to secede from the union. The comments have drawn national attention and some lawmakers’ ire.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha....oh my sides hurt!

Saturday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

This'un goes out to all y'all WATB wingtard losers. And the horse ya rode in on...

Travis Tritt ~ Here's A Quarter Call Someone Who Cares

Thanks to SoundOnVision.

Now ya tell him! Heh.

HuffPo

McCain Campaign Manager: Religion Could Kill The GOP

"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," Schmidt declared. "And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party."

Go tell the Iraqis that, Sparky.

The remarks came in a passionate, roughly 20-minute speech before the Log Cabin Republican's national convention, in which Schmidt laid out the case for a far more open party -- one which did not consider gay marriage to be a "litmus test" issue. And while he made it a purpose not to offend social conservatives -- they "remain an indispensable part of the Republican coalition," he said -- Schmidt did not hide his concerns that religion had become the predominant thread of the GOP.

I know a right-winger gay Marine knife and gun enthusiast who says the Log Cabin Republicans are a buncha faggots. Heh.

Looking beyond the issue of marriage, Schmidt's diagnosis of the GOP's ills was fairly ominous. "Our coalition," he declared, "is shrinking and losing ground to segments of the population that is growing, whether it is with suburban voters, working class, college educated voters, Hispanics, or left handed Albanian psychics, the percentage voting republican has declined precipitously."

Wow. You lose the left handed Albanian psychic vote, you lose! Oh, that's right, you lost!

Y'all have fun there, secesh...

Gleeped from YubaNet.

Auto Company Repair for Dummies

Swiped from Slate.

The cartoon isn't all that great, but I spotted something that maybe even the cartoonist didn't unless he's really subversive.

The car has been raised on a motorcycle lift*. I think trying to balance a car, or metaphorically a car company, like that is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

*I refer specifically to the Martin Motorcycle Lift. I googled it up, and the first reference I came to was at Fixer & Gordon in a post I wrote. Sometimes I think the world has done gone on without me...

Sluts & Salvation

That got yer attention, huh? Mark Morford tries to fit oddball news articles into the scheme of things.

Skimming the ocean of news effluvia, trying to make sense of the beauty and the pain, the sacred and the profane, whipsawing between the agony and the ecstasy like a bipolar ferret in God's own meth lab of love.

Trying to work out where the following stories fit in the Grand Continuum. Can you help?

SWF Seeks Love, Redemption, Jell-O Shots

In our perverse, celeb-crazed culture, there's really only one surefire way to redeem your reputation as a young, alcoholic, borderline insane, wannabe Jew/lesbian tabloid queen who trashed her once-promising film career in favor of hopping in and out of rehab until about 2017, at which point she will marry Stephen Baldwin and devote her life to a very creepy version of Jesus that you should never, ever pray to.

In related news, Pope Benedict XIV recently celebrated his 82nd birthday by releasing a new children's book. Contrary to rumors, "Gary, the Scary Gay Pagan Condom" will not be a pop-up book.

Search: Erotic Lesbian Fine Art Jesus Butt Photography

Morford's in Frisco. Oughta be easy...

On Obama:

Upshot: Total frothing extremist gibberish. Secession! Guns! Teabagging! Tears! Fascism! Limbaugh! The right-wing punditry frying itself to a panicky crisp like a giant KFC Family Bucket of frustration! Absolute genius, Mr. President.

In related news: porn, masturbation, iPods, beer, TV, CollegeHumor.com, US Weekly, comic books and general overall slacking report being "totally relieved" to be off the hook for a change. "Hell yeah, it's all Facebook's fault!" exclaimed Ohio State sophomore Dave "The Rave" Filbert's giant skull-shaped bong.

Much more. Enjoy.

Quote of the Day dos

From Think Progress, with video:

Maersk crew member on how they gained control over the pirates: ‘We’re union members.’

A truly wonderful statement on many levels! It's exactly why our domestic pirates are against EFCA.

Quote of the Day

Jill:

If you needed any further proof that southern conservatives have been waiting 140 years to refight the Civil War, the sudden resurgence of secession talk ever since a black man was elected president ought to seal the deal.

...

Please, Mr. Obama ...

"I was just following orders" did not save the Nazis from the gallows and it shouldn't save these clowns. Not prosecuting is a mistake. Listen to Keith, please:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

...

Indeed we must, Mr. President. And the forces of which you speak are the ones lingering — with pervasive stench — from the previous administration. Far more than a criminal stench, Sir. An immoral one. One we cannot let be re-created.

...

Transcript below the fold.

Nerd Test

Grandpa Eddie's ruinin' me!

The Tea Parties: So That Happened:

The Rude Pundit on the tea parties. Strangely bereft of sexual content, there's a little, but still not much for him. I wonder if he's sick, or maybe the thought of gettin' teabagged by Repugs has just put him off his feed...

Yesterday, thousands of poor and middle-class people were manipulated into helping rich people keep more of their money. It's sort of like going to a Yankees game, but without the souvenirs.

What is stunning is that yesterday's Tea Party protests were based on a demonstrable, factual lie. It wasn't about interpreting something or opinions. No, what people were protesting was actually a falsehood. They were played for suckers while they thought they were saving democracy. It was a bait and switch, man, a con game that was more dishonest than sidewalk three-card monte.

The whole day was filled with Fox-fanned falsehoods, starting with the whole acronym the protests adopted after "teabag" became the subject of mucho deserved mocking. "Taxed Enough Already" presupposes that taxes will be raised. And it seems that the tea partyers simply think that Barack Obama is lying to them when he says that the taxes for the vast, vast majority of Americans are lower under his plan. (On his radio show, Alan Colmes was screaming at callers who kept insisting that Obama was raising taxes for everyone.) The protests were against some fantasy administration, a sandwich of fascism on a socialism bun covered in a secret sauce of tyranny. It's like prayer: you can't really prove that it matters, but, hey, someone told you it was a good idea to do it, so down on your knees you go.

But it's not just the concept of being "taxed enough" that was a chimera. The Fox "news" hosts built the day around a fantasy America, as if we were all in a 1950s elementary school history class being force-fed the long-disproved myths of the nation.

How goddamned simple-minded this whole tea party thing was. How divorced from reality. What a waste of time, of energy, of paper and ink. All it succeeded in doing was propping up some egos, giving understandably frustrated people a place to misdirect their anger, and allowing there to be an hour of TV that featured Ted Nugent, Penn Jillette, and Janine Turner, like Hell's Tonight Show.

There's more.

Bounce, Honey, Bounce!

Well, our snow is meltin' off pretty good, but it's mud season. Some rare footage of me'n Mrs. G on our way to town. Hey, Fixer, ya think Nunzio's got axles fer these?

Thanks to johnnytenjobs.

How Not To Lose In Afghanistan

Today's 'must read' in Time:

Blindfolded and handcuffed, the man crouched on the ground, surrounded by Afghan soldiers and their U.S. Marine mentors. He had been found with insurgent propaganda and a Taliban flag and had a bruise on his shoulder — the kind the Afghan soldiers recognized from their days of carrying AK-47s while fighting Soviet forces more than 20 years ago. He said he was an illiterate shepherd, but he had a notebook full of writing. He claimed never to have visited Pakistan, but his mobile phone was filled with Pakistani numbers. Most likely, he was an insurgent. But the U.S. service members let him go. "You can't prosecute a guy for having a bruise," explains Howell. "We have to abide by rule of law." The village elders like to joke that the Americans may be infidels, but at least they are honest infidels. If a cow gets caught in a mortar attack, the soldiers pay for it. The hope, says Howell, is that such examples of transparency will eventually be emulated by local leaders. "The locals are justifiably frustrated with the corruption in their government. That has got to change."

Long before the U.S. arrived in Afghanistan, the Korengal was relatively rich. It wasn't farming that sustained the area's residents; the rocky hillsides grow few crops. But a lucrative trade in the region's cedar forests funded satellite-TV dishes and fancy four-wheel-drive trucks. Local lore holds that the fight with the Americans began in earnest when the U.S., acting on a tip from a rival tribe, dropped a bomb on the lumber mill of a local chief, killing some of his relatives and leading to a campaign of vengeance.

That's one reason failure in Afghanistan is not an option. An Afghan businessman adds another. He lived through the resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, only to see the U.S. abandon Afghanistan when they left. Another betrayal, he thinks, could produce the same blowback that helped lead to 9/11. "If Afghanistan is sold out again," he says, "you would be basically giving 60% of the nation into the hands of the people who want to destroy the West. And I can tell you that these young Afghans are ingenious, they are creative and they know how to use computers. I can guarantee you that they will find infiltration routes into the U.S. and Europe within four years. There won't be another chance for the West to get it right."

Also an excellent photo gallery of our troopers in the Korengal Valley.

We could have done a lot better in Afghanistan if Bush had wanted to, but he needed al Qaeda and the Taliban to further his agenda and left our guys and diplomacy to wither on the vine for eight years in favor of his criminal war in Iraq. I still want us to. We have a lot of catching up to do, and of course Pakistan is now fully involved and complicates the whole deal no end.

Damn Bush's eyes for this.

Adios Texas: don’t let the door hit you on the way out

Steve at The Last Chance Democracy Cafe, obviously a regular reader of the Brain, follows up on Fixer's post:

Texas Governor Rick Perry (nicknamed Governor Goodhair by the late, great and much missed Molly Ivins) has apparently suggested that Texas might just decide to secede from the union. It seems that Perry, who faces a strong primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and is thus trying to snuggle up to the extreme right wing nutcase caucus (a/k/a the Republican base), is fed up — FED UP, I SAY! — with Washington placing conditions on the money it sends to the states, and he’s not going to take it anymore!

Just as an aside, I think Ms. Hutchison would be a big improvement for Texas if she beats Kinky Friedman fer guv, but of course I wonder what they'll send to replace her in the Senate.

The response to this suggestion from the left, so far, has actually been somewhat favorable. Both Michael Tomasky and Matt Yglesias seem inclined to let Texas go if it wants. As both note, the departure of the Lone Star State from the union would move the political balance in the United States decidedly to the left.

Besides, one can hardly help but be intrigued by any suggestion that would result in both Karl Rove and George W. Bush having to get a visa in order to enter the country. If Homeland Security does even a half-assed job, we should never have to see either one of them here again.

On a serious note: one has to wonder just how low the Republican Party will have to fall before some semblance of sanity returns. Because the really sad thing here, of course, isn’t that the governor of one of America’s truly great states (its contemporary politics notwithstanding) is willing to engage in this sort of insanity, but the fact that doing so, for a Republican, is now good politics.

Sad, indeed.

Not sad to me! Invigorating! The desperation of Repugs everywhere has filled my soul with delight! After eight years of rule by junta Tejano muy malo I got it comin'!

On the flip side, I am a little concerned that there may be bad results as they flip out of their little pea brains in ones and twos and bunches. They don't seem to understand that 'you lost' means 'you lost' and like the spoiled, rotten little brats they are, they may, in fact are, acting out in unacceptable ways. Tantrums are one thing, shootin' the joint up's another.

Texass secedes? In our dreams.

Tea Part-ay Recap

This is for those folks who go to bed early.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tempest in a Tea Party
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Update:

From "the two most dangerous women on our side". I'm proud to say these gals beat the livin' shit outta them wingtard skanks!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Update zwei:

Jason Linkins at Huffpo on the wingtards whinin' about the double entendre of "teabagging". Many more links:

One of the things that emerged in the run-up to the Tax Day Teabaggings is that the Tea Party participants helpfully opened the door to allowing everyone to think about their movement in terms of a sex act, common to prisons, which in turn gave rise to some wonderfully detailed bawdy talk and punny double entendres on the teevees. And this was a great, good thing, indeed! And yet, surprisingly, not everyone has managed to find the joy in this! Take the Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter, who has a big old sad about it:

"I'm not offended by it. I expect it. They have responded to popular sentiment across the country by acting like kids on a playground," said RedState's Erik Erikson, who just days ago was earnestly speculating that Levi Johnston and his sister were in an incestuous relationship. As in, STRAIGHT UP BONIN' AND TATTOOIN' ONE ANOTHER, WITH SEX.

Anyway, my great big heart is moved with pity for all of you who cannot enjoy these racy jokings, which, unless you actually enjoy parsing the prion-addled political mind of this movement -- is the only pleasurable product these tea parties have offered anyone.

Also, if you aren't a fan of things like the Maddow/Cox back-and-forth, be warned: you REALLY won't appreciate this article in Detour Magazine, entitled, "Protest Taxes By Stuffing Your Balls Into Sam Wurzelbacher's Mouth."

Ewwwwwww!

Just as an aside, on the same page as the above was this link. For us dirty old men only. Yum.

I don't know ...

But I figure that if I'd have stood outside the White House (and the Chimp still lived there) yelling "Death to the President" yesterday, I'd already be on my way to Gitmo in an orange jumpsuit with a Koran shoved up my ass.

Blogger was dicked this morning, more when I get home from work.

Happiness is ...

Seeing Texas in your rear view mirror.

[Sorry, I plugged in the wrong link last night. Fixed now.]

R.I.M. Job

Shoot The Messenger is a really cool site. Here they are on "Don't ask, don't tell". Liquid alert! More where this came from.