Thank god I'm married ...

Because I might have run into this woman and actually asked her to the dinner she describes. I probably would have got up and left after the aperitif though.

Quote of the Day: Hell Freezes Over Edition

Maru (of course):

Seeing his home-state poll numbers sink like Lindsey Graham on a Cub Scout, the principled and courageous Joe Lieberman turns around and defends President Obama.

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Heh ...

If you thought Fox "News" was bad ...

It's about to get much, much worse:

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It finally happened. The wedding that has been long awaited. Sarah Palin, the former [governor] of Alaska has signed on as a contributor to the Fox News Channel.

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Silliest 'Quote of the Day' Yet and then some...

Chris Buckley on "Is anybody really in charge of Homeland Security?"

Perhaps we need a security czar. What about Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Don't get me wrong - I like ol' Dog. He's made a pretty good career out of going out with his extremely intimidatingly equipped and quite large family and a camera crew and rounding up bail skips, mostly dopers, who didn't show up for their court dates. Not exactly al Qaeda, but Buckley might have a good point: ya gotta find 'em before ya can cuff 'em an' stuff 'em. Dog's pretty good at that. Usually whoever co-signed for the bail and got left on the hook for the balance gives 'em right up.

If al Qaeda's mom put up her house for collateral and they left her in the lurch, Dog could could find their ass with one phone call to her. Heh.

I used to do that kind of work for a friend of mine who was a bail bondsman ("Dennis'll cut ya loose before they cook your goose!"). I just watched his ex-UDT six, not that he would have needed much help. Pretty ho-hum stuff compared to the TV version. Dennis handed me a snub nose .38 once before we confronted a skip in his own kitchen. I stuck it in my hip pocket and forgot about it while he talked the guy into showing up for his next court date. I remembered I had it when I sat back down in his car. Got paid, too. Yawn.

I used to work ticket security at concerts for the same guy. I have actually seen Deadheads avoid having to buy a ticket (they're famous for that) by floating down the Truckee River to listen to a band, get out of the water and walk back upstream and get back in and float down again all afternoon. I got $20, admission for Mrs. G, and a chicken dinner for both of us for this. Pretty laid back gigs. Had ta bust up a fight once in a while but that was about it.

I've also worked Mexican wedding receptions, and a lovely Quinceañera (if you get the chance, go see one of these! Beautiful.) as the Gringo With A Badge required for them to use the park, all by myself at an event with 200 people and as many bottles of Presidente and never had a problem. Here's how it usually went: if someone was causing a problem, usually just too much booze, the host would come get me and take me to the miscreant, whereupon I would tell him the host had asked him to leave. Invariably, the person would apologize for his behavior and leave as requested. Got fed good and paid good.

Contrast that with working a beer-fueled rodeo dance with a coupla hundred cowboys, ten absolutely unarmed security people in teams of two, with county sheriff's deputies present just in case, and we were busy all evening! That was mostly breakin' up fights. Here's how ya do it: two of us would just wade in between 'em, one goes left, the other goes right, and give each combatant a good shove on the chest. It surprises the shit out of 'em and separates 'em and that's usually the end of it, but ya gotta be ready in case it isn't. Knocked a guy right out of his shoes once. Heh.

I'll take the Mexicans any time.

Since I have successfully broken up fights between drunk cowboys and never got hurt, I too probably possess the requirements to be Chief of Homeland Security by Buckley's lights. No thanks.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you.

It's Monday and I'm bored. Can ya tell?

Update:

Since we're talkin' Homeland Security today, I watched the first episode of Border Wars on NatGeoTV last night. It'll be on Mondays at 9. Pretty good show if you like that sort of thing.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

France Bans Psychological Abuse
Except in restaurants.

Mind-Reading Systems Could Change Air Security
Not to mention poker, dating.

Scientists Turn Rattan Wood Into Bone Nearly Identical To Human Tissue
Granny's old rocking chair could soon be granny.

New Smart Bra Expands When Body Temperature Rises
Hers, not yours.

Glenn Beck Honored
Topped every year-end “Worst” list.

Why ...

They "hate us for our freedom". Greenwald says what our elected leaders don't:

...

The evidence of what motivates Terrorism when directed at the U.S. is so overwhelming and undeniable that it takes an extreme propagandist to pretend it doesn't exist. What is Brennan so afraid of? It's true that religious fanaticism is a part of their collective motivation, but why can't he just say what's so obviously true: "they claim that the U.S. is interfering in, occupying and bringing violence to their part of the world, they cite things like civilian deaths and our support for Israel and Guantanamo and torture, and claim that their terrorism is in retaliation"? Indeed, Brennan's boss, the President, has often claimed that things like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib help Al Qaeda recruitment (and it seems clear it was part of Abdulmutallab's hatred for the U.S.), so clearly U.S. actions are part of the motivation. Yet Brennan is afraid to acknowledge that not just past actions, but current ones, fuel the desire to target the U.S. for attacks. Speaking of fear of acknowledging reality, note how Charles Krauthammer in yesterday's column -- when mocking Obama's (obviously correct) view that Guantanamo helps fuel Al Qaeda recruitment -- describes the first two grievances cited in Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa against the U.S. (troops in Saudi Arabia and death to extremely high numbers of Iraqi children through sanctions) while completely omitting the third (U.S. support for Israel).

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Heh ...

Stolen from our pal Montag.

Hypocrites ...

British conservatives are just as bad as their American counterparts.

Just because you convene ...

A 'Kangaroo Court' doesn't mean you'll get a conviction:

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The Bush administration -- in which Liz Cheney's papa held a fairly high position, you might recall -- prosecuted, after 9-11, 828 people on terrorism charges in civilian courts. At the time of publication of this excellent report from the Center on Law and Security, NYU School of Law last year, trials were still pending against 235 of those folks. That leaves 593 resolved indictments, of which 523 were convicted of some crime, for a conviction rate of 88%.

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All the tough talk was just that, bullshit:

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With regard to military tribunals, the Bush administration inaugurated 20 such cases. So far just three convictions have been won. The highest-profile is the conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver. The Hamdan legal saga, rehearsed here, doesn't exactly suggest that military tribunals provide swifter and surer and tougher justice. In the end, he was convicted all right, but sentenced -- not by a bunch of New York City Democrats, but by a military jury! -- to five and half years.

Then, the tribunal judge, a US Navy captain, gave Hamdan credit for time served, which was five years. So he served six months after conviction. Today he's back in -- guess where? -- Yemen.

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Wasn't that the reason we sent these guys to Gitmo in the first place? So they wouldn't "return to the battlefield"? I wonder how long it will take this guy to show up on a plane with a bomb up his ass ...

Great thanks to Attaturk for the link.

Negro, please!

Rude Pundit is trying to figure out what was wrong with what Harry Reid said about Obama (other than using the word "Negro," but old people will do that). It seems like he was stating the obvious about racism in America, and that freaks us the fuck out.

I'm 64, so I guess I fit in the 'old' category. I remember when 'Negro' was the only completely publicly acceptable word for black people. 'Colored' was socially acceptable among whites in daily conversation. It degenerated from there. I had a boss once who used the term 'our ebony-hued brethren' in a spirit of irony. The use of 'black' came in the late '60s pretty much at the request of our ebony-hued brethren, and 'African-American' and the less cumbersome and my choice, 'Afro-American' came a little later. 'Brother' ( and 'Sister') came a lot later.

When I was in the service (1963-66), 'Negro' was too formal and 'colored' was considered pejorative, so we used the term 'splib' for black Marines. Staff NCOs and above sometimes used 'dark green Marine', but most of us thought that was as phony as a $3 bill. I have no idea of the origin of 'splib', but I have been told it's an acronym for something and would love to know what it's an acronym for.

The splibs called the white Marines 'chuck', from 'Mr. Charles', the archetypical term for slave owners of yore. Neither blacks nor whites took any offense at these words and they were helpful descriptors since we all dressed alike.

A typical usage might be:

"I'm lookin' fer Corporal Washington."

" Tall splib over there talkin' ta them two chuck dudes."

I wish we had functionally neutral terms like that now.

'Negro' is now considered by some to be an ethnic or racial slur. Not by me. I see it as archaic, but I see nothing wrong with it, though I don't use it much anymore. It is nice to be considered historic and archaic, I guess, you fuckin' whippersnappers...

There's no need to go into the truly hateful words used by both blacks and whites and every other skin color to put each other down. We all know and don't use quite a few of them, and there is nothing to be gained by it.

At this point, I must disclose that since Obama has become President and convinced all the ignorant throwback wingnut white racists that the country is on a steepening slide to socialist/fascist/Nazi/communist/mixed race godless fuckery, that I have used the word 'nigger' to make that very point. I've been called on it too, by people who didn't get my meaning.

I find myself agreeing with George Will (gasp!) on This Week With George Stephanopoulos' Hair this morning who asked the burning question, "What did Reid say that was false?"

Obama is light skinned, and whether that means something less threatening than 'African-so-black-it's-almost-blue' to many whites who don't know any better or not, or he's not black enough like some blacks may think who don't know any better or not, it's a simple statement of fact.

He doesn't have a 'Negro dialect' unless he wants to. He also doesn't have a Hawaiian dialect unless he wants to. He can slip into a light version of either of 'em pretty easily, and I like to listen to him when he does. It sure doesn't make him sound stupid like when Bush would slip into his phony Texican to sound more like Ignorant Joe Six-Pack.

I will not dignify the bullshit comparison of Reid's statement to the statement by Lott that, thank you Jesus, sent him packing other than to say that Lott's statement was demonstrably both racist and wrong. Reid's was not.

Dr. King was absolutely right when he said he longed for a time when men will be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. That day is coming, but as long as there is political advantage to be gained by the exploitation of race in this country, and as long as people teach their children to hate and look down on others on the basis of race, religion, color, or creed, that day will come more slowly than it should. It's been that way since the dawn of time and will probably continue 'til the planet is stardust again, but as individuals we do not have to participate in madness.

Headline of the Day

Calif. judge orders police to return 60 pounds of marijuana

Way ta go, yer honor dude!

Just kill 'em ...

And you don't have to send them back. We're worried about Gitmo and secret prisons? We're doing the same things to illegals detained here waiting for deportation:

Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died.

But behind the scenes, it is now clear, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.

...

Who cares? They ain't real 'Murikans.

Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East L.A.

So there I was, just kinda blissfully cruisin' YouTube, which is kinda famous for serendipitously jerkin' me this way and that. I watched the video below and it took me to East L.A. and Whittier Boulevard and Lowriders (¡Que chachabingos!) and Hoppers and all in all fun to watch and flat killed an hour and I'll be back later, ese...

The California Council for the Humanities is an independent nonprofit organization and state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We support and create programs that bring Californians together around their history and culture. Since 2001 the Council has been engaged in a statewide initiative, California Stories, designed to tell the larger story of California. The latest campaign under California Stories, called How I See It, is giving young people opportunities to share — in their own words and through a variety of media — what their lives are like, what they care about, and what it's like to grow up in today's California.

No thank you very much. Been there, done that. I'm glad I grew up in the California I grew up in. It's long gone.

This 90-minute documentary tells the story of Chicano rock n roll and how it defined and continues to define the Latino community in East Los Angeles.

Thanks to CaCouncilHumanities.

Underwear Bomber Jokes

Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog

"Even if the bomb works, there's going to be 72 very disappointed virgins." --Jon Stewart on the Underwear Bomber

Many more. This one's for Fixer and Jersey Guy:

"I guess you heard about that kid that tried to blow up the plane on Christmas Day with a bomb he had hidden in his underwear. Before he could get the bomb lit, some hero passengers grabbed him. They dragged him into first class. See, I had no idea that's how you got upgraded on Delta. I thought it was a point system." --Jay Leno

Anybody got a match?

[A big welcome to all of Skippy's readers. - F]

Thanks to IWR.

Obama Does What Bush and Cheney Would Not

Shorter: acted like a grown-up and a leader.

The Rude Pundit, links at site:

Let's give some credit here amid our constant dismay on the left with the President: Yesterday, Barack Obama did something quite extraordinary in these weaselly times when he stood up and took blame for the fuck-ups that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to publicly turn his balls into boiled jizz bags. The President actually looked like a pissed-off boss when he spoke, like a man who understood what might have happened had Abdulmutallab decided to try to blow up the toilet instead of the flotation device under his ass. As Joan Walsh in Salon says, you can't imagine George W. Bush ever treating the American public with such honesty; you can't imagine him thinking he could trust Americans to reveal what went wrong on 9/11. Barack Obama was more of a real man, a real leader, yesterday than the faux macho George W. Bush was in his entire presidency.

Obama's speech was fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which was his saying that "the buck stops with me." There was a subtle thread throughout of a repudiation of the way the Bush administration treated terrorism. "We are at war," he asserted, but then in a fuck-you to those who wanted him to say the word "war," he added, "We are at war with al-Qaeda." That's an easily apprehended specificity, a group (however diffuse and ill-defined it may be), and not a vague notion like a "war on terror" or, as Bush said, a "war with extremists." What Obama could have said that he did not is, "Man, Bush left me with a shitty, hole-filled security infrastructure that's built with Tinker Toys and tape." Instead, he said what's fucked and what he's gonna do.

Most bracingly, Obama told Dick Cheney, "Go fuck yourself," by saying, "Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am President, we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children." In other words, don't go bugnuts just because one dude on one plane lit a fire.

Bonus: under no circumstances should you click this at work.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Not much video, so just close your eyes and dig it.

Jann Browne & Emmylou Harris ~ Mexican Wind

Thanks to reddirtgirl55, UK.

What happens ...

When Jesus freaks are put in their place:

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Portugal's Parliament voted to approve same-sex marriage today.

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Quote of the Day

Maru:

"I wish you Negroes would quit being so sensitive," says idiot.

It's too good ...

We have our own Manchurian Candidate and we didn't even know it. We just loved him for the comedy.