It's always the grunts ...

Who get it. Not excusing anyone's behavior but we saw this with Abu Ghraib. A buncha sergeants, corporals, and privates got busted (plus a Reserve general) and the authors of the policy walked. Same thing is happening here. Mostly low-level operators (one station chief) are now effectively under 'house arrest' here in the States yet once again, Bush, Cheney, and the rest of those who ordered these missions are free to live their lives.

You never quite know where Italy is going next. The down side to these convictions is that it's falling on some but not all of those involved in the disgraceful "extraordinary rendition" policy. What about those who gave the orders at the top? Why should the Bush administration get a free pass on this?

...

They should all be indicted and, hopefully, convicted but if the big shots are always gonna skate, you're in denial if you think justice is being done. There are always those in the lower echelons who will follow whatever orders are given them. It's the people at the top who know that and exploit it and they are the real criminals.

You want a tip?

Okay, don't bet on the ponies. That said, Señor Amato has a few good ones for Dems who are worried about going the way of Corzine.

...

1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary "bipartisanship", you will lose votes.

2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.

...

Look at 'bipartisanship' like dating. There might be somebody you really want, but if they don't want you, nothing you can do will win them over. Move on. If you keep trying ... well, most jurisdictions have laws against stalking.

Are ovaries a pre-existing condition?

Doc Gurley, EssEffChron

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill preventing insurance companies from charging women, for the same coverage, up to 39% more - purely for being women. Was this a common sense move? After all, isn't it true that having a va-jay-jay is a pre-existing condition worthy of financial penileties?

To get a sense of just how (choose one) bizarre/misogynistic/laughable/perverse/flaky/itchy this insurance cost-gouging is for women, try using the same pseudo-logic with any other demographic subgroup. Justifying the act requires the kind of slippery argument that makes a contortionist look like the Tin Man (and similarly heartless). Don't believe me? Try these similar bits of profiteering contortion on for size: a) all men between the ages of 18-50 should be charged twice as much as anyone else for coverage, every month, due to disproportionately higher rates of societal violence and trauma, b) all African Americans should be charged three times as much - not for the pigment of their skin, no - but because, hey, we all know they get worse diseases at younger ages, right? or c) old people, well, don't even get me started with old people - when it comes to that group, we're talking a cash-sucking vortex that no surcharge can possibly offset. Death panels, anyone? In other words, pick your racial/ethnic/age or gender bias of choice and you could stick it to any subgroup of people.

I still don't like Ah-nold very much, but kudos to him on this one.

Got a thingie on your doohickey? Or are you pondering how to tell your doctor he's a jerk? Send your burning healthcare questions to Doc Gurley by emailing docgurleyatgmaildotcom. Doc Gurley cannot answer every question, and she cannot practice medicine through a keyboard (not even with her stethoscope pressed firmly against the monitor) but be assured - your questions will be kept strictly confidential and identifying traits are changed.

L.A.'s Medical Marijuana Theater

Things are a little loose in Shakytown according to Steve Lopez. Heh.

In the meantime, let's get back to that doctor in Glendale. You may remember that he was the one who told me that, as a gynecologist, he didn't know a thing about bad backs. But within 10 minutes, he had written me a recommendation for an herbal remedy to ease my pain.

Reminds me of an old joke:

Little girl to pharmacist: "Hey mister, do you fit diaphragms?"

Pharmacist, somewhat taken aback by that question from one so young: "Why, yes..."

Little girl: "Wash yer hands and gimme an ice cream cone."

Bada bing! But I digress...

That meant I could go to any dispensary for my medicine, simple as that. But in Los Angeles, you can get light-headed trying to decide where to go.

There's the Unique Vapor Lounge in Tujunga, Green Easy in Mid-City, Westside Medical on Wilshire, and on and on. Some places have free delivery. Some are open all night. The buds go by names like Trainwreck, Purple Voodoo, Mango Og and Purple LA Confidential.

Don't like to smoke? No problem. You can get your medicine in brownies, crackers and even tortilla chips.

First stop: Hollyweed. The name got me.
...

I knocked on the locked door of Hollyweed and a no-nonsense voice instructed me to slide my driver's license and marijuana recommendation through the mail slot. It was kind of creepy. Would I ever see my license again? Was a DEA agent inside making a copy? I was getting paranoid and I hadn't even had a puff.

A few minutes later, a guard opened sesame. Inside, a 20-year-old, dreadlocked gent named Charlie greeted me. He wore a T-shirt that said "Marijuana Cures Racism," and he had me sign forms spelling out the terms of my acceptance into a nonprofit collective run by members for the benefit of patients. Membership does have its rewards.

Then he unlocked another door and took me into a small room with jars of buds on display, just like in a candy shop. Charlie recommended a strain called Indica, which he called a good muscle relaxant for back pain. I opted for something called Chunky Munky and found myself craving the ice cream without even lighting up. He weighed a gram and put it into a prescription bottle, like it was Vicodin, and I handed him a $20 "donation."

Was this really happening?

Hadn't lit up yet, huh?

Please read the rest.

Update:

Planning a career change?



Update II:

Go see Lopez' gynecologist. Heh.

Shit What We Learned From Last Night

El Rude-o

Forget what the assholes on TV are saying about the various elections and initiatives from last night. Who gives a shit what Michael Steele is crowing about? (Transcendent? Really?) Here's all ye know and all ye need to know about yesterday:

1. In a nation of fat fucks, don't make fun of the morbidly obese candidate for being a fat fuck.
...

[...] Hey, Jonny Fitness, shut the fuck up, pass the gravy, and tell us about your plans on turnpike tolls.

Besides, look at Christie. That lardy fucker ain't surviving a term without a massive coronary.

4. The Tea Party movement is a fraud.

One essential takeaway from the evening was that Glenn Beck can go fuck the horse he rode in on. First of all, his creepy-ass candidate with the wannabe child molester stare, Doug Hoffman, lost to Democrat Bill Owens in the 23rd District of New York, where Hoffman oddly did not live and knew nothing about. It was a fine way of expressing the universal sentiment, "Fucking go away, Sarah Palin, and take Dick Armey with you."

Fat chance.

Democrats should realize at this point that they have nothing to fear from the teabaggers. But they won't.

True. Sigh.

5. But it's still mostly okay to hate gay people.
...

There's only one way this goes: finally, a Supreme Court case is gonna have to decide the issue. This bullshit piecemeal approach is wrong-headed and degrading. Gay citizens in the United States are begging straight citizens to be kind enough to grant them the same rights. Put "female" or "black" in there, and we wouldn't even be having a discussion.

Actually, when it comes to "female", we are, and have been for 37 years. Laws are one thing, attitudes are another.

Are we done until 2010 now?

Ha! RP made a funny! Hell no. Dammit.

Jobs to die for

He forgot to mention the free plane ride to the free funeral.

A tip o' the Brain to YubaNet.

CA-10, the Forgotten Election

I'm sure we're all glad that the RWNJ Carpetteabagger lost in NY-23, but there was another congressional election as well in CA-10. From yesterday's Firedoglake, links at site:

The AP’s Liz “Donuts” Sidoti has a conventional wisdom article out today about the 2009 Election, and not until paragraph six, as an afterthought, is one of the bigger races mentioned:

Elsewhere, California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is expected to maintain the Democratic Party’s hold on the open 10th Congressional District seat near San Francisco, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to cruise to a third term. Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh also will elect mayors, while voters in Maine and Washington weigh in on same-sex unions and voters in Ohio decide whether to allow casinos.

"Elsewhere, California". Been there. It's right next to "Pavement Ends". Heh.

Democratic seat, “near San Francisco,” no big deal. A Democrat replaces a Democrat in Congress. Ho-hum.

Except the difference between the departed Ellen Tauscher and the incoming John Garamendi is numerous. Tauscher led the pro-business New Democrats; Garamendi, the state’s Lieutenant Governor, is one of California’s leading progressives and a longtime single-payer advocate. Tauscher ran away from progressive values; Garamendi charges toward them. Tauscher and her allies were fond of explaining that CA-10 was a moderate district and only moderates could win there; Garamendi ran as himself and will win today. In fact, because of the prominence of vote-by-mail in California, he probably already has.

Robert Cruickshank explains this as succinctly as possible:

CA-10 becomes a left-wing district. John Garamendi, one of the most progressive California politicians we have and a true leader on a broad range of issues, is going to get elected to Congress today. While the right thinks they have an upset potential here, it’s simply not going to happen. Garamendi has a great GOTV operation and widespread support in the district. And whereas the right will spin whatever Harmer’s vote total turns out to be as some sort of victory, the real story here is that CA-10, which as recently as 1996 was a red district, has now become a solidly progressive district. We always said the 10th could do better than Ellen Tauscher. Today John Garamendi is going to prove it.

It doesn’t fit with the storyline that the media has decided for this election. But John Garamendi moves the ideological bar in Congress as much as any election this year, and will provide a strong voice on health care, clean energy and financial regulation. Here’s an interview I conducted with him for Calitics during the primary election.

Garamendi is OK, and he won.

Two for two. Not bad.

Before you die ...

In a runaway Toyota, SHUT. THE. FUCKING. CAR. OFF!

...

The 2009 Lexus ES 350 shot through suburban San Diego like a runaway missile, weaving at 120 miles an hour through rush hour freeway traffic as flames flashed from under the car.

At the wheel, veteran California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor desperately tried to control the 272-horsepower engine that was roaring at full throttle as his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law were gripped by fear.

...

That's all. Turn the fucking key and the engine stops, and you coast to the side safely. WTF? Is this so hard?

Cross-posted at F & G.

It's good to see ...

Our pal Nucks is feeling better:

...

You have got to be fucking kidding me, these cunt warts are still trying to mold the discourse and Legislation in this country of over THREE HUNDRED MILLION INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS?!!
Less than ONE HUNDRED,recalcitrant, hissy fit throwing, corporate cock sucking whores are stalling every piece of legislation, every judicial nomination, will not agree that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies in this country are a fucking monopoly and that just being a douchebag is not enough for a public rebuke?
LESS THAN ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE are completely stopping the business of the people of America out of spite.

Think about THAT shit for a minute. [ems and everything else in original]

...

Heh ... I'm going to work.

Dear New Jersey,

Didn't realize you missed George Bush so much. Good luck with that.

Regards,

Fixer

Quote of the Day

Ol' Fez:

...

This desperate attempt to call anybody that doesn't look like, oh, Darren Rovell (or Lou Dobbs, or Glenn Beck) "un-American" is the most disgusting meme the right-wing has come up with yet.

...

Heh ...

Indeed.

PSA*

The Rude Pundit doesn't have comments on his blog, but he sure as shit does on his Facebook page. Go make friends! You don't have to be particularly polite. Heh.

*Positively Snarky Advice

Money-Saving Tip

Today is me 'n Mrs. G's 36th wedding anniversary. Here's the tip:

Instead of buying each other cards, we went to the greeting card display at Safeway and each picked out cards for the other, presented them, read them, thanked each other appropriately, and put them back.

Saved eight bucks to go spend on dinner at Village Pizzeria, which is a nicer restaurant than it sounds.

Gotta keep our priorities straight, after all.

Headline of the Day

‘Victim in fatal car accident tragically not Glenn Beck’

Just as an aside, I got to thinkin' how much I'd like to slap the dogshit outta Miss Becky because he's such an embarrassment on so many levels to this country and his alleged gender, but then I realized just how wrong that would be.

I would have had to do it before his transgender procedures were completed, and it's way too late for that.

How the GOP is killing America

The post title might be considered part of an ongoing series. In this one, The Existentialist Cowboy goes off like one of Fixer's party favors on the right wing shills who are fearmongering and demagoguing about how them Meskins are comin' ta murder us in our beds as just part of the larger picture about trying to distract us from what's really going on.

The piddly amounts of drugs sold across the border are a strawman --peanuts compared to the heist of US wealth pulled off by just one percent of the US population!

The GOP is either nuts or crooked or both! I often wonder what the US might have been if right wing psychopaths had not demagogued every war or every so-called 'crisis' and in ways that enriched only their 'base'! The end result is that just one percent of the entire population owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! Anyone not of that ruling elite still supporting the elitist GOP and complicit DINOs is nuts! And I have no sympathy for you!

And if Mexican drugs are sold in the US --what of it? Isn't that just good ol' laissez-faire, right wing, GOP 'free enterprise'. How long would that evil drug trade last if 'yankees' were not lined up to buy? And what percentage of the GOP is 'hooked' on cocaine? How long would the border traffic last if 'white shirted', clean shaven GOP faithful were not lined up to buy?

Let's talk about the stupid people who have taken over the US and the shill media which kisses up to them. Let's review the implications of a recent article in the Texas Observer.

On March 25, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° rolled into El Paso to report on Mexican drug-cartel violence. Cooper was one more in a recent wave of national news heavy hitters to parachute in, scare the pants off millions of viewers, then jet off to the next headline destination.
...

By God, they’re coming to your neighborhood! Looking at another live feed from El Paso, listening to the breathless reports of violence and “expert” analysis about “spillover,” viewers could only assume that the city in which Cooper stood was under imminent assault.

That’s the reality these days for El Pasoans. Or rather, it’s the twisted perception created by border-warrior politicians and national news media, and foisted on Juarez’s relatively peaceful sister city. For El Pasoans and residents of nearby border towns, it might all be a mere oddity—maybe even worth a chuckle—if it didn’t mean the construction of 18-foot border walls, blustery talk about National Guard troop surges, and new resources for the disastrous war on drugs. While “troop surge,” “border wall,” and “drug war” might sound irresistibly sexy to politicians and pundits, it’s border residents who have to live with the fences and tanks and consequences.

Enough is enough!

A good start will consist of shutting up the right wing media. Turn off CNN, Fox and the bullshit peddlers all over the tube! Secondly, the people of the US must effect the complete and utter repudiation of right wing practices which have, in fact, enriched just one percent of the entire population as some 95 percent of the rest of us have gotten poorer, impoverished utterly.

Secondly, the GOP must be held to account for war policies that have, in fact, bankrupted the US.

Much, much more. I love this picture and hope the late Señor Bedoya is enjoying yet another parody of his classic line:


I wish I knew how to say "Fuckin' A!" in Spanish!

In the beginning...

I was reading the review and ad for R. Crumb's latest work of graphic fiction and thought the last paragraph might be apropos in light of Fixer's post:

But, as every student of the Bible knows, there’s no such thing as a reading without interpretation. A big challenge from the start: how should God be depicted? In an interview with Time, Crumb explains that he considered rendering God as a light emerging from a cloud, or coyly recontextualizing him as a black woman, but in the end settled on a more pedestrian bearded and robed figure that he says resembles his father: “if you actually read the Old Testament,” he told Time, “he’s just an old, cranky Jewish patriarch.”

The oldtimers who invented the God we're kinda stuck with had to go with what they know which wasn't much.

From Crumb's wiki on his new book:

It contains all 50 chapters of Genesis and comes with a warning on its cover: "Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors."

When it comes to creation legends, I would recommend adult supervision for adults as well lest they take that shit literally and think it's really so.

As creation stories go, I'm kinda partial to the Navajo one. Very colorful and doesn't try to make you feel guilty for things that never happened.

Hmmmm. Musta been a cranky old Jewish mother influence on Genesis too...

We're alone ...

One of the reasons I can't get behind religion. This is an image of the Milky Way galaxy, the place where we live. Along with the Solar System (our sun and the planets that orbit it), there are a few hundred million others in this picture. In the known universe, there are several hundred million galaxies like the Milky Way (each containing hundreds of millions more stars (presumably some with planets orbiting them).



So tell me, in all this vastness (that God supposedly created, by the way), why we are so arrogant to believe we are the only ones out here? That God created us and no one else?

You must be kidding me.

Off to vote for my local criminals ...

Pic from here. Link thanks to Maru.

The End of Prohibition

Slate

Why gay marriage, getting high, and going to Cuba will soon be legal.

The trifecta! I can spot a '59 El Camino a mile away, high or not, and if me'n Fixer go to Cuba together, who's ta say we're not on our honeymoon?

Murphys

If yer one o' them wino-philes, here's some more California wine country you've never heard of. We have a lot of those.