The Right-Wing Judy Garland

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It may not be as controversial as the building of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, but if history tells us anything about the Religious Right’s relationship with The Gay, there should be a hot time, not only on the evening of September 25, when GOProud, the organization that claims to be “the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies,” hosts HOMOCON 2010, but during the lead-up to the event as well. GOProud’s special guest will be … let the trumpets ring out … Ms. Ann Coulter.

“The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left,” said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud.

“I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’ – Ann Coulter.”

I'm speechless...

My first thoughts are a) these guys have kicked 'crazy' and 'self hatred' and 'delusional' up a notch, and b) Coulter is having trouble finding gigs, which is a good thing.

Much more.

The Baltic ...

Our first stop in the Baltic, Talinn, Estonia. Medieval Europe at its best.

Daughter's off ta college and I'm gonna go pee in the woods...

This is just kind of a heartwarming column by Chris Erskine on his daughter going back to college after the summer break.

I mean, who needs that kind of noise? Her time home this summer has been a thunderstorm of slamming doors and thumpy footsteps across oak floors. She closes the refrigerator, ka-BOOM. She closes the garage door, ka-BOOM. When late to stuff, as she inevitably is, her steps ka-BOOM-ka-BOOM-ka-BOOM across the living room and all the way to the car.

It's kind of like when Elvis used to ride horses through Graceland, except louder. Yesterday, our house surrendered. And the foundation wiggled a half-inch deeper into the earth.

Attention, world: Geeks are all the rage. Lord help hunks like me and you.

Sigh...

"I have to pee," he says with a shrug, then leaves the house like he's just won a Corvette.

This used to distress his mother, this out-of-doors habit. Shamefully old school, she was of the opinion that human beings should use bathrooms whenever possible. Then she had two sons and realized that urinating outside was one of the great joys of boyhood — especially between the ages of 4 and 74. No one really understands men, especially women.

So true. Sometimes I eschew the porcelain convenience and save it up 'til I walk the dogs and can mark my spot in the woods.

Peeing outdoors illustrates the difference between men and women as well as anything: Men face out of the wind. Women face into it. If that ain't 180° out, I don't know what is.

There's more, but I'll just leave ya with this teaser:

Speaking of which, we had this discussion the other day at breakfast, two other husbands and I sitting at a fast-food stand along the boulevard as summer whizzed by.

One of the dads proposed: "Could you ever be totally honest with your wife?" at which point...

We The Bigoted People

Thanks to YubaNet.

The "Ground Zero Mosque" and Victim Worship

The Rude One

Here's one of the stupidest things said so far about the whole big ball of stupid that is the "controversy" over the Muslim community center being built two blocks from the sight of the former World Trade Center: "Everything Bloomberg and Barack Obama say about this sounds right. But if the only constituency that matters here - the ones left behind by the victims of Sept. 11 - think they're wrong, they are." That bit of solipsism masked as empathy is from New York Daily News writer Mike Lupica.

Enough. Truly, enough. This is written with utter sympathy for people who lost loved ones or were hurt or made ill by the attack on 9/11. But it is with complete disdain and a "fuck you" to those who exploit their pain in order to spread hatred (and that includes some of the victims themselves). There is something appalling and sick about watching preening bags of fuck prance around on Fox "news" and use dead people as shields so they can say bad things about Democrats, liberals, and/or Muslims.

And, by the way, have you ever spent time in the blocks around Ground Zero? It ain't some pristine site of our American revirgination. It's a filthy downtown of a city, like every filthy city downtown. The streets are dirty; there's homeless people all around; there's discount stores, fast food joints, and other crap places in between the decent buildings and public art. Some of the people from outside the city who want to talk about "honoring the dead" or some such shit probably buy the crap Twin Tower souvenirs from the Middle Easterners selling them at grubby tables across the street, between Ground Zero and the Trinity Church, or they get street meat from Halal carts. Fuck, before the 9/11 attacks, it was a fucking wasteland at night and on the weekends down there. The Cordoba House? That's on a block that no one walks down unless they're specifically looking for a place there, not because it's dangerous, but because it's just another goddamned city block with nothing special about it.

So, really, truly, take your sudden belief in the glowing sanctity of the ground that holds the construction site of an office building that will be filled with Wall Streeters dicking over Middle America and shove it up your opportunistic and hateful asses.

There's been a lot of "they've got the right to build the mosque there, but they shouldn't" going around. I heard one guy on TV, I don't know who, compare it to civil rights thus: "you can sit anywhere on the bus you want, just not in the front".

Naming Climate Change Disasters After the Deniers

Peter H. Gleick

So, I have a new proposal. Henceforth, just as we give names to hurricanes, I propose we name climate disasters after those who deny the reality of climate change in the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence. After all, why use generic names and tarnish all future Andrews, Betsys, Charleys, and Katrinas when we can remind ourselves that without these individuals' stubborn opposition in the face of all evidence, we and our children could have lived in a world where these events were far less prevalent. And just for fun, I have some modest examples here:

There are several, but this one cracks me up:

The Inhofe Lake Mead Bathtub Ring: Water levels in Lake Mead on the Colorado River have dropped to levels not seen since the reservoir was first filled in the 1930s, threatening water supplies throughout the southwest, and exposing whitened rock rings around the lake's edge. Over the last decade, the Southwest has suffered the sharpest temperature increase in North America, rapidly diminishing snowpack, loss of vegetation, expansion of forest pests, and rampant wildfires.

I think Inhofe (R - Oil) should more appropriately have had the Gulf oil volcano named after him, but this is still a good idea.

By the way, I've seen the Lake Mead Bathtub Ring. It's as ugly as the inside of the deniers' minds. It's also a portent of bad things to come.

It's a trick question, right?

Robert Creamer

What's the difference between mainstream Republican leaders and the Tea Party extremists that have been winning Republican primaries across the country?

Reminds me of this:

Q: What's the difference between pygmies and a women's track team?
A: One's a buncha cunning runts and the other's a buncha running....

Sorry. I guess that doesn't fit very well since Repugs and teabaggers are both, but I can't control what pops into my mind.

The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most to their corporate backers and playing instead to the fears and anxieties of their rank and file voters.

Nor, of course, did Bush campaign on the pledge that he would take the long-term surplus in the federal budget he inherited from Clinton and turn it into more debt, during his term, than all of the presidents before him in American history put together.

This year, the Republican establishment is not worried about the primary victories of Tea Party candidates because they will advocate "far out" extremists policies. Most of the Republican Party leadership agrees with those policies. The problem is that these candidates don't seem to have enough sense -- or political experience -- to know that they're not supposed to go around talking about those policies before they're elected.

Good long article, but this sums it up:

[...] Tea Party extremists who haven't learned yet to moderate their language - and earnest true believers like Paul Ryan who think they can convince America that what's bad for them is good for them - have complicated the Republican problem. [...]

The Repugs have been successful in lying and fearmongering to Americans to get them to vote against their own best interests for years decades. The real question now that the economy has people paying more attention and might actually listen to the Repug spew is:

Will it work this time?

{Crickets}

Quote of the Day

Howard Fineman in a Newsweek article about Repug fearmongering for the upcoming election. This is good on more than one level:

Given where Republicans — and come November, maybe the country — are headed, I wanted to interview a well-known Republican of color. Rep. John Boehner was out of town, so I called former representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma. [...]

Heh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Polls Bad News For Obama, Congress, Both Parties
Good news for one-worlders, anarchists, end-timers.

Congressman: Terrorists Having Babies Here, Training Them Overseas
Then returning to run for congress.

Schism in Conservative Ranks
Anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-union, anti-big government wing splits from anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-gay, anti-Semite wing.

United they stand, divided they fall. Things are so shitty, that qualifies as good news. Yeesh.

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal

Following up on Fixer's post, just below and at Worlds, the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal is a very interesting and scenic waterway.

Brought to you by the UCA, here's a choice of videos on how the canal works and the Kiel Canal in 9 minutes. Be sure to duck for the bridges!

Anchors aweigh ...

Made the ship yesterday afternoon and pulled out of Amsterdam right on schedule. We're in the Kiel Canal now, heading for the Baltic.

The egg settin' horse and...

I've posted about Utah Phillips before. He's gone now, but he's still one of the best storytellers goin'. This story is on his CD The Moscow Hold which I highly recommend to anyone who likes to hear funny stories.

His performance at the Strawberry Music Festival Spring 2007, Camp Mather, Yosemite.

Thanks to VeniceArtists.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt ~ Raise The Dead

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Goodbye, Amsterdam ...

Gotta catch a ship. Some stuff from our last day in Amsterdam.

Cal Thomas Says the Terrorists Are Right

El Rude-o

That headline is not hyperbole. Entirely straight right-wing nutzoid Cal Thomas, who is entirely straight despite always looking like he's contemplating balls dangling in front of his face, said so in his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the incoherent yawps of a man so sexually repressed that he'd make John Calvin say, 'Dude, you need to get laid'"). The entirely straight Thomas writes, regarding the Proposition 8 decision in California, "A nation that loses its moral sense is a nation without any sense at all. Muslim fanatics who wish to destroy us are correct in their diagnosis of our moral rot: loss of a fear of God, immodesty, especially among women, materialism and much more."

You got that? The Muslim terrorists are right. Even though he follows it up with "their solution -- Sharia law -- is wrong," he adds, "they are not wrong about what ails us."

And the entirely straight Thomas doesn't even condemn the tactics of "Muslim fanatics." No, just that they prefer nutzoid Islam to nutzoid Christianity. Thomas says of the post-1950s "destruction" of America through "tolerance," "None of this should surprise anyone who takes the time to read and understand what happens to people and nations that disregard God." See? Entirely straight Cal Thomas is very different from Muslim extremists because...ummm...

I'm sure 'tolerance' is the problem. Yeesh. Right-wing religious nutzoids are right-wing religious nutzoids. Period.

Let's send ours to fight theirs. In Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the middle of the Gobi, anywhere the noise wouldn't keep us awake, and let 'em have at it. They'd be out of our hair for a while and hopefully not many would return.

Spaceballs = No Balls

David Sirota

Call me an '80s junkie, but when I saw the results of this week's closely watched Colorado election, I immediately thought of "Spaceballs." In that Mel Brooks masterpiece, a Darth Vader spoof named Dark Helmet says "evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Make it "dumb and broke," and you have a powerful explanation for incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's narrow primary victory over former state legislator Andrew Romanoff.

For those who care about a progressive economic agenda and about injecting democracy into the Democratic Party, this is encouraging when put next to the similarly impressive results of White House-thwarting Democratic primary challengers in Pennsylvania and Arkansas. And that trend explains the increasingly fierce pushback from Washington.

Yes, this is why Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, so vociferously berated the progressive movement on the eve of Colorado's primary, and why DNC powerbrokers moved so forcefully against Romanoff. He was the latest candidate to represent what those elites know to be an ascendant national progressive uprising inside the Democratic Party – one that keenly understands money's corrosive effects on public policy and that, therefore, rejects the Beltway's corporatist model.

Seeing that this uprising threatens their power and their D.C. worldview, these elites are desperate to preserve Dark Helmet's principle – so desperate, in fact, they have resorted to employing Obama's presidential campaign infrastructure to prop up more conservative candidates against progressive challengers in intra-party battles.

This unholy alliance managed to hold off the onslaught this time. But make no mistake – Colorado is yet more evidence that the days of "Spaceballs" defining the Democratic Party are ending.

The right has gone farther to the right and so has the left as if it were the right thing to do. It's not. I hope Sirota's right but I'm not holding my breath.

"Spaceballs" refers to the "space" where the Dems' "balls" oughta be.

In The Matter Of Robert L. Gibbs

Paul Krugman. Short, sweet, and to the point.

There he goes again. What gets me is how unprofessional the whole thing is.

Look, if you’re a public figure of any kind, you’re going to face a lot of criticism. Much of it will seem unfair to you; some of the unfair criticism will come from people you expected to take your side; you’ll be angry, you’ll feel that people are putting their egos or their personal aggrandizement above the cause.

Welcome to reality. It’s my reality — and I’m just a professor/columnist. Someone actually in the White House has to be prepared for much more of this kind of thing — and if you don’t have a thick enough skin to take it, find another form of employment.

I’m not saying to turn the other cheek and always say something polite as a general principle; by all means lash out at your critics, if you have something to gain by doing so. Rudeness at the proper moment can serve a purpose — as I hope I’ve demonstrated over the years. But if you vent for the sake of venting; if you alienate people you’re going to need; then you’re just being stupid.

And that, I’m afraid, is what’s going on here. Rachel Maddow isn’t going to go away, or turn all meek, because the White House Press Secretary implicitly denounced her. Even more to the point, liberal critics have an audience because they’re reflecting real concerns of real people. Those concerns need addressing, if necessary in the form of explanations of why their expectations can’t be met. Denouncing the people giving voice to those real concerns as the “professional left” is both unfair and, as I’ve said, stupid.

And both the president and, more important, the country deserve better.

Over 200 comments. I won't go quite as far as No. 5 because the wingnuts are the greatest danger to this country in our history and I'm not going to sit out any elections ever, but this is what could happen:

I can only speak for myself, I'm not going to vote for Obama or the Democratic party any more. They give a harsher lashing to the left than the right. The people on the left have a desire to improve things and the people on the right only want to win. If the president doesn't denounce these comments and get his act together very soon, he's lost a strong supporter. This is not an overreaction. He just doesn't get it and doesn't deserve reelection. I'd rather see Palin destroy the Republican party for good as president than watch Obama prop it up with his naiveté.

Obama's not going to lose those who know over Gibbs' comment, but he needs to not lose those who aren't as committed to truth, decency, and reality. He might not have turned out the way we wanted, but he's what we've got.

I've been insulted before. I'll get over this one too. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Repug rule can and will and must be prevented from doing so.

Voting for Democrats may have devolved into simply being the lesser of two evils, but that's the system we're stuck with.

Update:

One of the commenters has linked us to "The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity".

Go read this. Fits the right to a T.

Canals and jetlag ...

Got to bed early Wednesday night but not before cruising the canals of Amsterdam.

Update:

Since I had some time this afternoon (tough day of shopping with the Mrs.), I figured I'd put a post up of yesterday's adventures.

I'm taking today off

The wingnuts are going more batcrap crazy by the day. The White House is too afraid to take on our enemies so they're making their (former) friends into straw men and calling us names. Yada yada. Nothing new. I'm dead from it. Fuck it for today.

Dam straight!

We're here and I got wifi in the hotel room! Yay!