"Entitlements" ...

"Incentives" when it comes to the rich; "handouts" when it comes to anyone else:

Corporate socialism is alive and well. Isn't it interesting to see the Republicans do their best to provide a very small safety net to help average Americans who are unemployed yet so willingly go along with massive handouts to Big Oil? Politicians are always so quick to pull out the rug on those most in need yet the richest of the rich are always being supported with handouts that dwarf the social safety net. How does this possibly pass the smell test? Big Oil is the most profitable industry on the planet yet they still need help? Let them make their own money on their own dime instead of freeloading from everyone else.

...

The only thing that isn't "socialized" are the profits. We all pony up for the losses.

If the Dems were smart ...

I could believe he's a 'Manchurian' plant of some type or another but we'll just chalk it up to them being lucky:

...

But leaving aside Steele's utterly blatant lies, having the head of the Republican Party say that the war in Afghanistan is a failure and that it should never have been fought in the first place is undoubtedly news to the rest of his party.

...

God what an idiot. Mikey Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. It'll be a shame to lose him but I think the Republicans are gonna find a way to get him out soon.

Thanks to our pal Creature for the link.

Experts ...

Susie pegs McCain:

On This Week with Jake Tapper, John McCain explains how important it is not to have deadlines for leaving Afghanistan. I've often thought that his alleged "expertise" on war, which seems to be grounded only in his personal experience as a prisoner of war, is sort of akin to pronouncing someone who was hit by a car as an expert on automotive engineering. But maybe that's just me!

...

Maybe he slept in a Holiday Inn ...

A good 4th of July to all

I hope everybody has a good time on our country's birthday, and I repeat Will Durst's comment from my post of a coupla days ago:

Aahh. The 4th of July. Let's drink a lot of beer and handle explosives. The day many nicknames like "Lefty" and "Patch" are christened.

I know none of our readers are that stupid, but listen for the ambulances. Heh.

We're going back up to the trial at Donner Ski Ranch to spectate. I will have a recount of my adventures as a competitor (Ha!) yesterday up at Fixer & Gordon in a day or so, to include some of the most embarrassing video of me you are ever likely to see. I am rethinking the wisdom of showing Mrs. G how to work the camera. Can't shove toothpaste back into the tube, I guess.

The day went very well, considering how it went. Let's just say for now that what didn't kill me can only make me stronger, if not much smarter. I hope you are all having as much fun as we are on this weekend.

Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010

Here's a little of Daddy Frank's column about the 4th of July in the context of of the Civil Rights Act of July 4, 1964.

Even before last week’s ceremonial hazing of Kagan, the G.O.P.’s only national black political figure, Michael Steele, attacked her for writing approvingly of a speech Marshall had given calling the original text of the Constitution “defective” — a restrained adjective, actually, for a document that countenanced slavery. On the first day of the Kagan hearings, Marshall received many more mentions (35) than even that other Republican archenemy, President Obama, in the accounting of Talking Points Memo. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said they weren’t sure they could have voted to confirm Marshall to the court. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a state that suffered years of economic boycotts because of its opposition to the King holiday, faulted Marshall’s jurisprudence for advancing “the agenda of certain classes of litigants” (wonder who?) and for being out of the “mainstream.”

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” wrote our current Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, in a smug majority opinion nibbling away at Brown v. Board of Education in 2007. His conservative self-righteousness, a product of his time, is as delusional as L.B.J.’s liberal faith in the efficacy of a federal “Community Relations Service” was in 1964. On this Fourth, as on the 233 that preceded it, America is still very much a work in progress.

Sometimes I wonder if "progress" is the right word.

Please read the rest.

Happy 4th!

Be safe (already had some idiot here blow his arm off) and enjoy the day!

This is also our 6th Birthday here at the Brain and we've put up over 15,000 posts in that time (#15,000). If that proves anything, it's that me and the old man are stubborn. Heh ...

Thanks to all the readers, commenters, and contributors for making it interesting. If you would have asked me, 6 years ago, if I'd still be blogging, I would have given you and unequivocal "no". I'd hoped we'd have gotten most of the bad shit fixed by now, but when I started here, I didn't think George Bush would 'win' a second term. I figured people would have come to their senses after 4 years of that idiot. If there were any lessons for me in the last 6 years, the one that stands out is that I've come to realize just how ignorant and stupid most Americans really are.

Gone ridin'...

Trials riding is a Euro-based sport like soccer, except I get to be the ball. There are all kinds of videos showing feats of derring-do, but here's one of a beginner like me at the venue I'm going to. If I do anywhere near as well as this guy I'll be thrilled.

I'm (a beginner) participating in a AHRMA Vintage trial at Donner Ski Ranch on a modern GasGas bike.

Thanks to mikenao.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

This beautiful number live at ACL 1982

Emmylou Harris ~ Millworker

Thanks to peters332, Netherlands.

Light blogging, things to do

I've got things to do today. My street bike backfired and blew the carburetor clean off. Heh. Gotta get that fixed so I can run nickel-and-dime errands without firin' up a Big American V8.

Then I gotta put the final touches on my Sherco so I can ride the Donner Classic Trial tomorrow. My friend Steve said I should practice by riding figure 8s in my driveway. I told him I practiced something that might be more useful - grabbin' a big handful of throttle and jumping off!

I dug out my riding gear yesterday. Hadn't seen some of it in years. Tried on my riding jersey. I got it on, but this is the first time it ever hummed. Musta shrunk. Today I have a very pretty new blue one from my local 'sickle emporium.

I'll leave ya with this:

Jimmy Buffet was supposed to give a free concert at his sister's restaurant to get some economic relief to hotels and restaurants on the Redneck Riviera. It worked, but the concert was rescheduled 'til 7/11 because of Hurricane Alex. Jimmy showed up anyway.

This is from MeyerVacationRentals in Gulf Shores, Alabama. They have lots of these and other oil spill vids as well. This is a pleasant video and shows there are more attractions on the Gulf Coast than tar balls. I think the lady with the long lens could hold me down pretty good in a big blow...

Also see Jimmy's interview with Anderson Cooper on his reaction to the oil spill.

What a surprise when we showed up for dinner at Lulu's last night! I will have the fish tacos with a side of Jimmy Buffett please. Jameson ordered a shrimp quesadilla with a side of Lucy Buffett, a necklace, a shirt and hair wrap :) Jimmy arrived by boat and played for almost three hours. Sorry if the camera was bumpy - I tried not to dance but it proved too difficult at times. And I apologize for being a back up singer - could not resist. Jameson and I had a blast! Come to the Coast for his next show on July 11th.

Quotes of the Day

Will Durst

Aahh. The 4th of July. Let's drink a lot of beer and handle explosives. The day many nicknames like "Lefty" and "Patch" are christened.

Looks like we will no longer be able to use one of the best oxymorons ever: Larry King Live. But Fox News still works.

Unseemly ...

I don't follow basketball. I follow football (European) and baseball (Mets, I'll root for the Yanks if they're in the Series) and I keep an eye on the Jets and the Giants of the New York Football (American) variety. The most I do with basketball is see the highlowlights on the morning news of whatever way the Knicks or the Nets discovered to embarrass themselves the night before.

That said, I know far too much about Lebron James.

As an outsider, the countdown to Lebron's free agency, and then watching the lineup of millionaires and their minions come and go, kissing his ass personally for him to come and play in their city, is ridiculous and unseemly. Mayor Bloomberg humiliated himself, though he didn't go all the way (amazingly) and proclaim he was just the right height to fellate Lebron without kneeling down and also had a flat head where Lebron could park his drink during the festivities.

We have a nation that's falling apart, pollution poisoning the Gulf, our money being wasted on endless wars, and the big story is how much money a pro sports team can throw at Lebron. Maybe, if times were good, it wouldn't irk me so badly, but at a time when the vultures in Washington are denying people unemployment benefits in the worst recession since the Great Depression, when peoples' livelihoods are being destroyed by the thousands, when our Treasury is constantly being looted by millionaires and billionaires, it pisses me off.

Corporations can own and sponsor sports teams and lavish their stars with huge salaries and bonuses, but heaven forbid they pay their workers a living wage or give them benefits. Heaven forbid they treat the people who keep them in business like human beings.

Long term ...

Republicans don't know the meaning, unless it helps them in the short term, politically.

But here is the thing: There are a whole gamut of long-term problems facing both this country, if not humanity in general, and for the vast majority of them, the Republicans/conservatives don't give a shit. Let's run down a short list:

...

But only when they spy a chance to dismantle the social safety net which keeps old people from starving to death or dying quickly of preventable illnesses, do Republicans rouse themselves to bleat about the future.

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And people continue to vote for 'em. We'll probly have a Rethuglican Congress by the end of the year.

With July 4th comin' up...

...me 'n Mrs. G have decided to do our grocery shopping this morning instead of on Saturday as usual. This place is a zoo on the 4th, and the supermarkets will look like the locusts have hit them by tomorrow afternoon. I'll just leave ya with this and see yas later:

Sam Seder: Pointing out Bullshit so you don't step in it.

Thanks to SamSeder.

There's also a video called "How did Elena Kagan get so hot?". Musta been the General Tso's Chicken on Christmas. Heh.

Quote of the Day

The last line from a good post by The Rude One on Obama's Wisconsin speech:

It's always nice to see someone rip the corpse of Ronald Reagan out of the earth and smack it around in front of an audience.

Yes it is.

Headline of the Day

It's official!

Presidential scholars: Bush is the worst president of the modern era, bottom five of all time.

Shit, I coulda told 'em that. I guess that makes me a presidential scholar.

Hurricane?

In the Gulf of Mexico? Nah, never happen.

"...do not eat the fuzzy part of the cheese"

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

It's a bit like NASA poking at the dangerous magnificence of black holes, those swirling deep space phenomena that entice and enthrall us almost as much as they scare us silly. Sure, we can get reasonably close, we can take astounding photos, we can make all sorts of educated guesses as to what might be happening in there. We can even send in a few probes, feelers, satellites, take some measurements and gather a few samples to send back to the lab.

But holy hell on a tip of a vibrator, you don't actually go in there. That's where worlds collide, universes expand, meanings come undone, gods laugh, demons play poker with angels, and fire turns into spun glass in the shape of a Sylvia Plath poem. You think you got a pill for that? The hell you do.

If ya wanta know what he's talking about, you'll have to go see.

Tie a yellow ribbon 'round yer nine-year woody

Tina Dupuy

Edith Shain was 91 years old when she died peacefully last week in her home in Los Angeles. You knew her as the woman in the iconic black and white photo of a jubilant soldier kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day. The snapshot tells an American tale of a war ending and an entire generation of people coupling up - creating the suburbs, a solid middle-class and a stupendous baby boom.

What strikes me about the photo is that they really knew how to end wars back then. For example: they used to end wars...back then. There was a global conflict followed by a resolution. Beginning. Middle. End. Done. Birthrate skyrockets.

Now we have two never-ending wars and Cialis commercials on an eternal loop. How far we've come.

No wonder Repugs think the way they do - their two wars have given them an erection that has lasted nine years and there's no blood to their atrophied brains.

About five years into the conflict yellow ribbon car magnets became a big trend. During that time I was traveling all over the country, and in every pocket of the U.S. were cars, trucks and SUVs with magnets showing support for what had become not one, but two wars. Yellow ribbons were ubiquitous. And then gradually the magnets starting disappearing until they were gone. Individually - one by one – in private, with no fanfare and no media coverage - Americans removed their patriotic yellow ribbon magnets from their vehicles. You don't see them anymore. Apparently something as temporary as a magnet shaped like a ribbon is not the proper symbol for the war we are actually waging.

Actually, Americans didn't remove their ribbon magnets. Car washes did. They just didn't replace them. Same thing.

Headline of the Day

Conyers throws in with Grayson, co-sponsors ‘War is Making You Poor Act’

Eisenhower on the Opportunity Cost of Defense Spending

Harper's reminds us:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?

–Dwight David Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953.

War is the quick road to profit and every dime of it comes out of our pockets. Any money going into our pockets does not go into theirs and is to be avoided.