Headline of the Day - No Happy Ending

Palin’s ‘Hand Job’ Worst in History

Quote of the Day

The Rude One via Gordon's post yesterday:

It's a sad fact of America in the 21st-century that shallowness is a quality and depth makes you an out-of-touch elitist.

Here's the problem ...

With getting any kind of major reform through:

...

This bears out the pervasive "conservative" American ethos of "I've got mine, so screw you," so the problem is much bigger than health care reform. The idea that anyone could fall victim to negative circumstance or make a bad decision or just find themselves on the losing side of something is attributed to their own bad character --- or, perversely, to the government which has taken from you, the deserving citizen, and given it to someone else, thus unfairly placing you at a disadvantage. It's old style Calvinism mixed with adolescent Randism and it's a very serious problem for people who believe that social stability and economic justice are important.

Because, after 30 years of "greed is good", it's automatic by now.

We see crib notes ...

And a junior high school kid cheating on an exam. The teabaggers see this.

Obama Outsmarts the Terrorists. And the Repugs.

A good read by Peter Beinart.

President Obama isn't nearly as scared of the terrorists as Bush was — and that’s precisely why al Qaeda is falling apart.

Which brings us to Barack Obama’s “war on terror.” Conservatives keep saying that Obama doesn’t really believe we’re at war; that he sees terrorists as mere criminals, not the epic evil-doers that they really are. But here’s the irony: It’s precisely because he doesn’t see the terrorist threat as quite so epic that al Qaeda is falling apart.

To understand why, it helps to understand that al Qaeda is one of the weakest enemies America has ever faced. In their day, the Nazis and communists each ran a great power. (In the case of the communists, two). What’s more, during the Depression, vast numbers of people across the globe—including some of the most famous intellectuals in the United States and Europe—believed the fascists and communists could build societies that were more prosperous and dynamic than their democratic competitors. Barely anyone has ever believed that about al Qaeda. Not only have the jihadists never controlled a powerful country, but no one really believes that if they did it would be anything other than a basket case. To millions of people, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia once offered compelling visions of modernity; Taliban Afghanistan never did.

The dirty little secret of the “war on terror” is that America is winning. We began winning during George W. Bush’s second term, when al Qaeda’s violence began corroding its support among Muslims, and we’re doing even better under Barack Obama, because the U.S. now presents a less menacing face. The best chance al Qaeda has is another American overreaction of the kind the GOP demands: reckless military attacks by the United States or Israel, mass profiling of Muslims, a return to torture. Perhaps Obama’s Republican critics do take the terrorist threat more seriously than he does. I’d rather take it less seriously, and win.

Another dirty little not-so-secret is that the Repugs are al Qaeda's biggest ally. The Repugs' war is against Obama and by extension, reality, and the worst thing that could possibly happen is for him to wage a successful intelligence and law-enforcement campaign against terrorists under the rule of law.

Heave a ho

Some advice for the Prez from Will Durst:

I'm only guessing, but a major problem with being president has to be people around you being more likely to stick their face in a cast iron oscillating fan than tell you the truth. Let's say you slip and fall and rip a hole in your pants down to your ankle while spilling hot coffee on a little blind girl in a wheelchair in front of a nationally televised audience. The worst you could expect to hear from a staffer is "Well, that could have gone better."

First thing. Don't worry so much about the Republicans. They're going to do what they're going to do. You don't even enter into the equation. [...]

It's your so-called friends you need to watch out for. The ones who smile and nod and laugh at your jokes to cover the slip of a shiv between your third and fourth ribs on the left side. Trust me, with friends like these, you don't need Richard Shelby. Unfortunately, most of your buddies are Democrats. Which is a lot like saying most of a general's fighting force is terra cotta. The difference being terra cotta soldiers don't cut and run so fast they leave little puffs of cartoon smoke.

The second thing is, you need to develop an "or else." Work with you, or what? Or Joe Biden sits next to you in the Congressional dining room and cuts your meat every day for a week? Lyndon Johnson plucked at the horsehair holding up the sword of Damocles for his "or else." Walk the line or find yourself whisked back to your home district as a clerk in Park and Rec's lost and found. His idea of compromise was letting you use his pen to sign your vow of allegiance.

Finally, your people have lost all sense of urgency. You got to fire somebody. You know -- ax. Can. Dump. Sack. Pink slip. Terminate with extreme prejudice. Discharge. Unassign. 86. Downsize. Furlough. Ease out. Make redundant. Perform a bum's rush. Give the boot. Hand someone their marching orders. Assist in an accelerated career-development shift. Impose a synergy-related headcount restructuring. Heave a ho.

Go see who he thinks Barry should fire to make a statement. Heh.

Men Without Pants

EssEffChron

Super Bowl advertisements were a little bit bolder, a lot weirder and definitely featured more pantsless men than previous years. Pantsless men in the workplace. Pantsless men striding purposefully down fields of gold. Pantsless men facing sumo wrestlers.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Or their lack of taste and couth.

You can watch all the ads without having to watch millionaires beat the crap out of each other to gain control of a pig bladder here.

Sarah Palin Is a Fucking Retard

The Rude Pundit on Palin and the appalling fact that anybody takes her seriously. I'm callin' it a 'must read'.

[...] It's a sad fact of America in the 21st-century that shallowness is a quality and depth makes you an out-of-touch elitist.

The Rude Pundit watched Palin's speech Saturday night at the Tea Party Convention at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. He saw all of it, her hair fixed perfectly to look like she had just finished fucking Andrew Breitbart (who introduced her), her practiced folksy nasality that has become a parody of a parody, her ludicrous call to revolution, which apparently means slightly lower taxes on small businesses and war with Iran. Somewhere in heaven, James Madison said, "Tell you what, bitch, you risk getting executed by the British for a cut in the marginal tax rate on your fishing boats and we'll talk."

Her speech was nonsense, a bowl of bullshit and lies that she digested and vomited out into the hungry mouths of the hatchlings in attendance, who gobbled it down like they had never tasted something so sweet. [...]

She's fucking retarded. As in stupid. As in she shouldn't be trusted to hand out carts at a Wal-Mart. That's this elitist's opinion. What backs him up? Two quotes:

Go.

"...we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland."

Paul Krugman

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.

Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.

Shudder! That's bad!

And with the national G.O.P. having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.

After the dissolution of Poland, a Polish officer serving under Napoleon penned a song that eventually — after the country’s post-World War I resurrection — became the country’s national anthem. It begins, “Poland is not yet lost.”

Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.

Please read the rest.

Headline of the Day

Christians claim hate crimes law an effort to ‘eradicate’ their beliefs

Gee, they say that like it's a bad thing...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Top Generals: Drop “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”
Replace it with: “You Are! Who Knew?”

Study: Drivers Who Text 6 Times More Likely to Crash
But friends can participate in final thoughts: “OMG, crsh!!!”

We-are-so-screwed dept.:

Poll: Fox Most Trusted Name in News
Glenn Beck most trusted man in America.

Quote of the Day

Fez:

Avoid the *face-palm* Sarah you'll smear your forehead.

Heh ...

I'm waiting ...

For the Republicans to say that thanks to their (and G.W. Bush's) "policies" toward New Orleans after Katrina, New Orleans won the Super Bowl. Laugh if you want, I wouldn't put it past 'em.

Palin's Tea Party Crib Notes

Following up on Fixer's post, there's no longer any doubt about it.

Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet

Daddy Frank on Mullen, Gates, and Powell, er, coming out against DADT. Links at site:

A funny thing happened after Adm. Mike Mullen called for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military: A curious silence befell much of the right. If this were a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be the case of the attack dogs that did not bark.

[...] Recalcitrant Congressional Republicans will have to explain why their perennial knee-jerk deference to “whatever the commanders want” extends to Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal on troop surges but not to Mullen, who outranks them, on civil rights.

The right would much rather the military would wage misbegotten wars abroad and STFU on civil rights and equality.

The more bigotry pushed out of the closet for all voters to see, the more likely it is that Americans will be moved to grant overdue full citizenship to gay Americans. It won’t happen overnight, any more than full civil rights for African-Americans immediately followed Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces. But there can be no doubt that Mike Mullen’s powerful act of conscience last week, just as we marked the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter sit-in, pushed history forward. The revealing silence that followed from so many of the usual suspects was pretty golden too.

Fuckin' A, Pops! The more 'golden silence' out of the homophobic wingnuts, the better.

Uh ... George Washington!

Only in Republican World ...

Losses ...

We're losing one of our smartest, most eloquent voices. D-cap packs it in.

You know, Pat ...

I'll stop being condescending to teabaggers, birthers, and wingnuts when they stop being gullible idiots and ripe for the picking by every snake oil salesman and con man who tells them what they want to hear. Fucking ignorant cowardly lemmings, all of 'em. If that makes me an elitist then so be it.

No cabin fever here...

...but it's perfectly OK to go crazy outdoors!

All that's on the news today is the snowstorm back east. With Amtrak and the airports in D.C. shut down, perhaps we'll get a coupla days of good government, i.e. none!

Anyway, some people know how to have fun with winter. More likely they just know how to have fun and screw winter. Check out these Krauts. I suspect the involvement of alcohol...might be a little 'watch this!' thrown in...

Elefantentreffen Arcitc-Nudes (0°C), Mud-Hillclimb & Boxer-Pirouette

Fortsetzung folgt!!!

I can't wait...

53.BVDM Elefantentreffen 2009 (1) in Thurmansbang-Solla / Germany

In for a pfennig, in for a dollar update:

Here's a vid of this year's Elephant Rally, just put on YouTube today. Call it "post-apocalyptic snow camping" or just plain fun. Hey, these are Fixer's people! Hardy, fun-loving, and more than a little crazy! In the good way.

I understand very little of what these folks are saying, but I understand this - motorcyclists are the same the world over. I'd feel right at home there.



See also Teil 1. Shows folks arriving at the campground, with a musical reference to the Donner Party, I think. Heh. I could watch these all day. Oh, it's snowing again. Probly will...

Danke to amandeis, Germany.

"...the Devil's in the backyard fryin' his brain..."

Travis Mayer ~ The Devil Went To Jamaica

Thanks to Edsell2009.