Oh yeah ...

It's Satan's work:

...

Some say people in Utah are vieweing porn more than any other state in the country after a study earlier this year by a Harvard economics professor. Professor Benjamin Edelman tracked subscriptions to online porn sites. He discovered that Utah is number one in the nation in online porn.

...

That's what I love about religions in general. They always have someone handy to blame (Satan) for their 'sins'. If they do something 'wrong', they were under the power of the Devil. Sorry, but "the Devil made me do it" don't fly here. Try taking responsibility for yourselves before you yell and scream about others' moral fiber.

Link thanks to Oliver Willis.

Uppity peasants ...

Nicole goes back and forth with a producer on Little George's Hair; probably to no avail, but at least she wasn't ignored ... at first.

...

Are you surprised that he had no response to that? Nah, me neither. I don't know if it impacted him at all, but I'm hoping that from now on he has a small voice inside his head reminding him that some of his viewers actually think critically and realize how badly he's--and all the rest of the bobblehead media--doing his job.

Honors ...

To most, it's only a hat. To me, it's an honor to receive ...

Sunday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

This 'un goes out ta Fixer's liver. Heh.

Watch the fiddle player. She's a hoot!

Callahan Dylan & The American Pie Band ~ Dooley

Thanks to tommyomiller, Indiana.

Update:

Here's an older version by the original group:

The Dillards (as The Darlings) ~ Dooley

Thanks to AMSOMmp, Mayberry.

Just as an historical note, I smoked a joint with Doug Dillard once, who is one of the best 5-string banjo players in the world. It was the highlight of my showbiz career, overshadowing even my role in The Thing With Two Heads.

Mr. Dillard is a U.S. Navy veteran who spent his hitch flying backwards while staring at the sky as the rear gunner on a TBF Avenger. Some banjo players are born crazy, some are made crazy, but the best ones are both!

The kids ain't 'just saying no' in Texas

Suzanne Ehlers at Common Dreams. Links at site.

When I graduated from high school in San Antonio, Texas, I can remember at least two dozen girls (out of a class of 600) pregnant or already with babies. It may seem astonishing now, but it was fairly normal in 1991: so normal, in fact, that our high school had responded with an academic track geared toward expectant and young mothers.

Based on this history, I wasn't totally shocked to learn that President Bush's abstinence-only program led to a 57 percent rise in student pregnancy in the Lone Star state.

What was truly shocking were the recent headlines that some Texas schools are abandoning abstinence-only education! No kidding, guys, what tipped you off that it wasn't working?

Abstinence-only programs were big in Texas. The state received more program funding than any other state in the nation. But the biggest experiment of this idea demonstrated the biggest failures. Classic Texas.

Maybe they could cut down on the teenage pregnancies by teaching the kids to do it like Texas politicians do it to Texans. The 'back door' route, so to speak.

Grayson exposed them

Folks are having a lot of fun customizing this clip. I put it up at Fixer & Gordon with captions about Hitler's choice of motorcycles. Heh. It's gone now due to the copyright holders being a teensy bit pissed off, so watch this now because it probably won't be around long.

We hate Hitler and Nazis of course, but they come in handy sometimes to illustrate a point.

Thanks to skitzostudios, Oregon.

Monkees ...

I've been spending the early morning organizing the 1000-plus pictures I took while we were gone and I came across this one of a baby Barbary Ape on Gibraltar.

Click to make even cuter.

And then this popped into my head.

The Monkees - I'm A Believer

Update:

What the hell, a little more cuteness couldn't hurt. Heh ...

Regarding Polanski and the Rule of Law

A snippet from El Rude-o:

What's fucking funny is that all of these people who write the lie about how squishy liberals want to set Polanski free get into a righteous froth when liberals say that people who committed torture during interrogations should be investigated and brought to justice. This is not some vague analogy. See, some of us believe in principles, not just politics. One of those is that criminals should pay for their crimes, no matter if they're famous movie directors, CIA agents, or Vice Presidents. We can argue about what the punishment should be. But no one should be excused from answering to the law. It's the right that's always too ready to excuse criminals when it suits their ideological purposes.

Please go read the rest.

"California Snow"

Tom Russell is one of the best Texas singer/songwriters (even though he's from L.A. like me) going. He was on Letterman last night singing a song from his new album and I made it a point to catch it. It was very good, symbolic, eclectic, mysterious, a little dark as is his wont, so I thought I'd check and see what was new from him on YouTube and ran across this one.

He's singing about a mountain range 500 miles south of here, but we've got the extra blanket on, been runnin' the heater the last few nights, and the snow level was 4500' last night, considerably lower down the hill than we are. It didn't snow, but we were thinkin' about it.

Tom Russell ~ California Snow

Thanks to AMSDconcerts.

Update:

While I was watchin' this again after I posted it, it ran long enough that my "My Pictures" screensaver came on. Out of hundreds of pictures, the one that came up was of my driveway with about three feet of snow in it. Is someone out there tryin' ta tell me something? Heh.

Update 2:

Here is Tom Russell performing two songs from Blood and Candle Smoke and discussing the concept behind the album.

The Wizard of Beck

On the theory that even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes, that pusillanimous puke David Brooks speaks some sense for once. Unless he's sandbagging us.

So what is the theme of our history lesson? It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.

Over the years, I have asked many politicians what happens when Limbaugh and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not move. There is no effect on the favorability rating or the re-election prospects. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he’s not.

So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Man, they sure fall LOUD!

Marching Backwards: The Spectacle of Fear

Truthout

It may be 2009 but the rhetoric is strictly 1950 when a man held up a sheet of paper and declared, "I have here in my hand a list of names ..."

Glenn Beck is not original, nor was Joe McCarthy. [...]

Each time the "red scare" gets trotted out, new laws are passed that ever so gently and ever so patriotically encroach on the integrity of freedom and individual liberties of our citizens. They bear great names like the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Espionage Act, loyalty oaths and investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Patriot Act. Each labels "the enemies of the state" and warns that our government, our very way of life, is in jeopardy of utter collapse unless we act immediately and act strongly against the influences of liberalism corrupting the very fabric of American life. The Constitution is hanging by a thread.

Fear is the root of hate and bigotry and racism. It drives the mob to build internment camps and free speech zones and segregated facilities. It sets fire to books and thoughts and people who would challenge the darkness. It seeks to paralyze the vision seeker and the dreamer. Fear is the flame that ignites war and genocide and collateral damage. But most of all - fear is the tool of demagogues and tyrants who offer themselves up as our red white and blue champions with the promise of salvation for one easy payment of obedient servitude. Fear is never free.

The GOP is nothing more than the recycled fearmongering of a hundred years ago. [...]

During the coal strikes of 1902, mine owner George Baer, when urged to make concessions to the labor unions, wrote, "the rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for - not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country."

Those are familiar words with a familiar sentiment. Is 1902 the same as 2009? The GOP and Glenn Beck and talk radio would have you think so.

Where Franklin Roosevelt took America into his confidence and told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself, the GOP whispers in the dark, "Be very afraid."

Where JFK inspired us to ask what we could do for America, the GOP warns us that government must be feared.

Where Edward R. Murrow exhorted us to not walk in fear of one another, the GOP promotes suspicion.

Where Dr. King gave us a dream of diversity, the GOP rips us apart with fear of equal belonging.

Everything old is new again.

The GOP clutches fear in its tiny fists because it is all it has. It is the touchstone. It is not even original. Darkness never is.

So, Democrats, tell me again - what exactly are you afraid of?

Start with their shadows and work outwards.

Go Ahead And Die

We mighta posted this a coupla years ago. If so, here it is again. Even more apropos now.

Austin Lounge Lizards ~ Go Ahead And Die! (Pirates Of The Health Care-ibean)

Thanks to lastangelman.

Biting us...Part deux

Following up on Fixer's post:

Bush Administration’s Tourist Visa Policy May Have Cost America The 2016 Olympics

Shorter:

U.S.: Damn furriners. Hoops. Jump. Pay.

Rest of the world: Blow it out yer ass, Yanks. We'll go where we're wanted.

Thanks again, Georgie.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris ~ Never Be Anyone Else But You

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Biting us ...

Right in the ass.

As most of you know, the Mrs. and I go to Europe every year and, having just gotten back, this post from Digby is timely. Most of the passengers aboard Queen Mary 2 are European. Naturally, in the evenings after dinner, many folks get together in one of the bars on the ship and talk inevitably goes to politics and international relations. I was sitting with a Brit, an Aussie, a Welshman, and a German one night last week while the Mrs. was at the Blackjack tables and they all told me the same thing over pints of Spitfire.

Paraphrasing: "We love going to America (and Americans) but it's just too big a pain in the ass anymore."

They cite the visa rules and security protocols enacted after September 11th and would rather go to South America or Southeast Asia to spend their money than deal with U.S. Immigration and Customs. If anyone wonders about the "stunning defeat" we suffered yesterday regarding Chicago's Olympic bid, you can bet those rules have a lot to do with it.

There are a lot of American communities who survive on the tourist dollars Europeans and others bring into this country and as long as we make it so difficult to visit, those bucks will go somewhere else on an increasingly more frequent basis. It's time we realize that treating others like pariahs will not make us safer, just poorer.

If Glenn Beck needs help to cry ...

He doesn't have to go to such lengths. I'd be willing to give him a hand ... across the face.

The Roman Polanski Case in a Nutshell

1. Roman Polanski fed alcohol to a 13-year-old girl
2. Roman Polanski fed a quaalude to a 13-year-old girl
3. Roman Polanski proceeded to penetrate that same child vaginally and anally.
4. Roman Polanski was arrested.
5. Roman Polanski signed a plea agreement admitting sex with that same 13-year-old girl.
6. Roman Polanski fled the U. S. to avoid sentencing based on that plea.
7. Roman Polanski has been arrested 30 years later and awaits extradition to the U.S. to face those charges.

Why is there any discussion about whether Polanski should face justice for this? What is so confusing about this to otherwise intelligent people?

There is no question that he should face the rape charges. There is no question that his plea deal should be worth less than the 30 year old paper it is written on. There is no question that he should also face charges of flight to avoid prosecution. It is up to the justice system and, ideally, a jury to decide the price he must pay for those crimes.

JG.

Cross-posted from here

"...energizing, like the second shot of cheap tequila"

The Rude One on our new hero Alan Grayson who is finally calling bullshit on the Repugs in public and I hope he keeps it up. A good read, with links. First and last paragraphs:

It's too soon to tell, but there's a good chance that Representative Alan Grayson, he of the "Die Quickly" Republican health care plan, will end up fucking your shit up. Too rich to be bought off, Grayson's been fucking with the powerful for a few years now. As an attorney, he represented whistleblowers, going after the hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud committed by contractors and others in Iraq. He told CNN in April 2006, "The development fund of Iraq was looted by war profiteers and war whores." Check out the huge ass article on him in Vanity Fair from 2007 (and check out that goatee). He went after Halliburton and KBR; he fucked with Dick Cheney. You think a man whose name is a homophone with "boner" is gonna trouble him?

It was truly something beautiful because Grayson walked into Wolf Blitzer's house, drank his whiskey, and took a giant shit on CNN's floor. The pundits from Carville to Castellanos to Borger didn't know what the fuck to do with this guy who wasn't going to play by the usual rules of suck up and pander and call for bipartisanship like other Democrats. The closest they've gotten is the occasional Barney Frank appearance, but Grayson is something different, a Democrat who not only has his own balls, but is ripping the nuts off others. "They've been dragging their feet. These -- these are foot dragging, knuckle dragging Neanderthals who think they can dictate policy to America by being stubborn. And I think it's -- the time is over. We had an election. That's it. Now we have to move ahead in just the way the president wants us to," Grayson said, and, oh, the sputtering that happened.

James Carville asked Grayson at the end if he was ready for how his life was going to change. What ought to be happening is that Democrats should be using Grayson as their point person, sending him out to take a wrecking ball to the stick houses of arguments Republicans keep constructing. Republicans have never known how to deal with it when someone fights back with the same brutality they use. Grayson just pointed out that motherfuckers fuck their mothers. It's that simple.

Yes, what Grayson said was Repug-like hyperbole. Yes, 'holocaust' was a poor choice of words. Yes, he's using the Repugs own style to deal with them. And, yes, it works.

'Bout fuckin' time.

Mission Accomplished For Conservatives Who Rooted Against America

Think Progress, with video, links.

Although the United States sent a high-powered delegation to make a last-ditch effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled out the Windy City today. Of the final four cities — which also included Madrid, Toyko, and Rio — Chicago received the fewest votes. [...]

Always looking for a way to bring down Obama, conservatives not only criticized the President’s 15-hour trip, but also spent this week denegrating Chicago, downplaying the Olympics, and rooting against America. The criticisms have included mocking “fat people” in Chicago, gushing that Rio is just plain “awesome,” and saying that Chicago is too violent and doesn’t deserve the event.
...

So how will all these conservatives who have been rooting against the United States react now that their rhetoric has become reality? On Twitter, former Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel cautioned Republicans against gloating: “Note to GOP officials/consultants – resist the temptation to pile on about Chicago losing the Olympic bid just because Obama made the pitch.” His message didn’t reach RedState’s Erick Erickson, who immediately wrote:

Hahahahaha. I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone. I thought if we whored ourselves out to our enemies, great things would happen. Apparently not.

Bringing the Olympics wasn’t about cronyism. Besides U.S. pride, it was about an event that could have generated $22.5 billion in economic activity and the equivalent of 315,000 new full-time jobs in America.

More wingtard assholery to bring down Obama. I can almost see the bastards' point if he was trying to get the Olympics for those liberal hotbeds Noo Yawk or Smell. A., but Chicago?

I think all these anti-O 'tards should go to Chicago immediately and brag about dissin' that fair city to save the country from socialism. Heh.

Well, Rio got the nod.

Don't get me wrong. I like Chicago. My mother, of Polish descent, was from Chicago. I had a girlfriend there once, also of Polish descent with an Irish name to boot*. Nice people, good food, although the same can be said of any big city of diversity. They've even got a U-Boat in one of the museums. I haven't been there since Hurricane Richard was mayor, but I have great memories of that toddlin' town.

*Best of both worlds - she was built like a brick shithouse and could drink like a fish. There is something to be said for the 'melting pot' concept of America.

That said, if I had the choice of going to Chicago or Rio de Janeiro to spend a little time and a lotta money, I think I'd head south too like the IOC people chose, and for about the same reasons:

Senior Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper surmised that Asian voters may have banded together for Tokyo in the first round, at Chicago’s expense.

“I’m shocked,” Gosper said. “The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote.”

Heh. That sneaky little stupid bloc of Asians know what's up: Sun, sand, blue water, beaches, and most of all, tall, brownskinned, big titted beauties. I can't say I blame 'em.

The wingtards are claiming credit for something they had nothing to do with. As usual. And they rooted against America in order not to do it. Great patriots to a man, unless their anti-American regressive agenda calls for something much less.

Montana attorney general probing 'American Police Force' deal

Following up on Wednesday's post:

Raw Story

Montana's attorney general launched an investigation Thursday into a California company that wants to take over an empty jail in the rural city of Hardin, following revelations that the company's lead figure is a convicted felon with a history of fraud.

Citing "significant concerns" about the city's dealings with American Police Force, Attorney General Steve Bullock asked Hardin economic development officials to produce by Oct. 12 all documents related to their dealings with the company.

His office made a similar demand of American Police Force, including information that would back up Hilton's claims of multiple defense contracts with the U.S government and other agencies.

The launch of the investigation came as some Hardin officials began backing away from American Police Force. The city's Two Rivers Authority reached a 10-year deal on the jail with the company last month.

But that was never ratified by US Bank, the trustee on the construction bonds used to pay for the 464-bed facility.

Attorney Becky Convery, who helped negotiate the deal, said Hilton overstepped his bounds when he showed up in Hardin last week with three Mercedes SUVs marked with fictitious "Hardin Police Department" logos.

Wow! Three M-B krautcans! Good score, Hardin! Ya oughta be able to hire a constable with the proceeds from two and let him drive the third!

He pledged to donate the SUVs to the city and also offered to provide law enforcement for Hardin for $250,000 a year. That prospect has stirred suspicion among critics that rural Hardin, population 3,500, could be transformed into a privately run police state.

I've got a sneakin' hunch that those rural Montanans ain't about to let that happen. They're probably better armed than the phony Podunk P.D. and have more attitude about 'government interference' than you can shake a stick at.

Hardin just wants a deal to fill their new $20-something million dollar jail with Gitmo detainees. The guys who got the town into this boondoggle in the first place are probably tired of hearing how they fucked up and were a pretty easy mark for a city slicker with a good story.

Most who knew him described Hilton alternately as an art dealer, cook, restaurant owner, land developer, loan broker and car salesman.

Add 'con man' to that, although it may be redundant. Best of luck, Hardin.

I just gotta put this comment from Wednesday's post in here:

Obama should use the Hardin prison for the Gitmo crowd and send a note to Max Baucus saying "Thanks for all your help on healthcare, Love Barack"

montag

Brilliant!