Labor Day Music Blogging ...

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Feel Like A Number

Fuck off ...

Why do these fucking southern Jesus freaks have to bring their traveling circuses to NYC?

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Florida televangelist Bill Keller began the first service of his new 9/11 Christian church at ground zero on Sunday.

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"If they want to go there [the 'Ground Zero' Mosque] and preach the lies of Islam, I can come and preach the truth of the bible," Keller said.

Keller spoke before roughly three dozen supporters, with support of varying degrees.

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Like the Muslims at the Mosque, this guy has every right to preach and build his own church. Unlike the Muslims at the Mosque, this clown is nothing more than a demagogue.

It gives me faith in my fellow NYers that there are a million people who live within walking distance from this guy's 'church' and only 36 of them showed up.

Fuck off and go home, asshole.

Quote of the Day

Ol' Fez:

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Ooh, Lindsey Graham too! So not just Herpes, but a nasty case of Chlamydia as well.

Shopping ...

My British buddy Dave calls me a "sloppy dick" because I get all romantic with the Mrs.; I get that way about the dog(s) too. We went shopping today and bought new harnesses, bowls, and a 2-by leash. Did I mention I got two doggie coats from Queen Mary 2 (Like this one.)?

Sloppy dick indeed!

Another Choo-Choo pic. Heh ...

Why Glenn Beck Ought to Be Repeatedly Cock-Punched (National Archives Edition):

Other than just on general principles?

The Rude Pundit

You see that? That's the first page of George Washington's Inaugural Address. It's got eight pages. Fox "news" host and Jim-Jones-without-the-guts Glenn Beck did not hold a single page of it. He didn't even hold the clear box that it's preserved in. Why? Because it's George Washington's Inaugural Address, fucker, and no one gets to touch it because it will fucking fall apart and then America will be destroyed by angry Revolutionary War zombies. Such is its power. The only upside is that they would eat Beck first and we'd at least get to see that on YouTube.

In his new self-serving piece of worm shit website, The Blaze, a Beck ball-washer named Scott Baker writes, in a pretty much incomprehensible article, that he was there with Beck: "Did I 'hold' it? That depends on what the definition of 'hold' is. Perhaps I 'hold' it closer in my heart for having gazed upon it? Perhaps I 'hold' it in greater esteem for having pondered the care and craftsmanship of the author." Umm, Scotty, if you say, "I held my balls," that means you were cupping your sack. If you say, "I held my balls in my heart," that means you spend too much time jerking off. But, oh-ho, oh-ho, how libtarded we are, caring that "words" actually "mean" "things."

However, Beck didn't just mention the holding in passing. The Rude Pundit watched the entire day of Beckturbation. Beck made a big deal about it. He put out his hands, as if they were sanctified by their contact with the holy papers of our past. He used the image to separate himself from the unworthy masses (who couldn't call a member of Congress for a private trip to the Archives). He was transforming himself into an apostle of a white American Christianity. The proximity to the relics made him holy. Is that too far? Is that hyperbole? Then you weren't paying attention.

Beck's followers won't care, you know. They'll just dismiss it as shitting on their parade. Why should a man like Beck be held to the truth? The truth is just so many chains to the earth. The faith shall set you free. And sometimes faith requires a leap over the dissonance of facts.

Sometimes, shit. Always, to the pseudochristers.

Freedom’s Just Another Word*

*From Me and Bobby McGee. The rest of that sentence is the operative part.

Daddy Frank on Obama's tepid speech on Bush's War:

What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose “end” he was marking. [...]
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Yet most everyone, regardless of age or calling or politics, is at war — not with terrorists, but with depression, with their consciences and with one another.

I hope anyone who supported that criminal war and now realizes how wrong it was never again has a good night's sleep.

Americans are less forgiving. In recent polls, 60 percent of those surveyed thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, 70 percent thought it wasn’t worth American lives, and only a quarter believed it made us safer from terrorism. This sour judgment is entirely reality-based. The war failed in all its stated missions except the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

For this sad record, more than 4,400 Americans and some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate) paid with their lives. Some 32,000 Americans were wounded, and at least two million Iraqis, representing much of the nation’s most valuable human capital, went into exile. The war’s official cost to U.S. taxpayers is now at $750 billion.

That's the official cost. The people in the know who claimed the real cost will be $3 trillion are now saying they low-balled it. I have no cites for this. When it all gets added up in a coupla generations, they probably did.

Bacevich also wrote that “common decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment.” Americans’ common future demands it too. The war’s corrosive effect on the home front is no less egregious than its undermining of our image and national security interests abroad. As the Pentagon rebrands Operation Iraqi Freedom as Operation New Dawn — a “name suggesting a skin cream or dishwashing liquid,” Bacevich aptly writes — the whitewashing of our recent history is well under way. The price will be to keep repeating it.

Don't worry, we will. One of the things this country is not at all good at is taking long hard looks at ourselves. When stuff starts showing through the new coat of whitewash, we just slap on another coat. When that one inevitably fails, we just don't look at it.

And yet here we are, slouching toward yet another 9/11 anniversary, still waiting for a correction, with even our president, an eloquent Iraq war opponent, slipping into denial. Of all the pro forma passages in Obama’s speech, perhaps the most jarring was his entreaty that Iraq’s leaders “move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative and accountable.” He might as well have been talking about the poisonous political deadlock in Washington. At that moment, there was no escaping the tragic fact that instead of bringing American-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, the costly war we fought there has, if anything, brought the bitter taste of Iraq’s dysfunction to America.

Swell. Thanks again, Georgie.

Much more. Pops lets it fly.

Hey ...

They're building a new Ferrari/Maserati dealership on Long Island:

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Right. This recession has hit everyone hard and you can't raise taxes during a recession. Of course, some people aren't actually in a recession:

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Heaven forbid the rich might have to pay another percent or two.

Saturday Homemade Political Humor & Totally Unrelated Video Blogging

This is a good funny story that makes an excellent point. I put it to this video because dogs and snow and snow machines came up in the Brain yesterday and today and I have a warped sense of connection. Enjoy.

Utah Phillips tells a story about Will Rogers and Standard Oil from his wonderful storytelling CD "The Moscow Hold".

Headline of the Day

Jan Brewer Blames ‘Brain Freeze’ On Her Own Beheading

Heh. Reminds me of 'Nixon Under Glass' on Futurama.

Hatred and Stupidity, Lumps and Bumps and Bruises

I just love this by William Rivers Pitt!

So, yeah, not much to hang your hat on there. In the absence of anything substantive to give the American people, the right has gone home to their mothership: sowing discord, fear and hatred to distract people from the fact that, while Republicans are good at campaigning, they are walking cancer cells to the body politic if and when they actually win.

There's a joint in West Haven, Connecticut, called the Fire and Ice Hookah Lounge. By all reports (Click it! - G), it's a nifty little place; the theme is Middle Eastern, the hookah smoke is tasty, and the belly dancers are something to see indeed. Last Thursday, a fellow named Kevin Morris, also of West Haven, came ditty-bopping into Fire and Ice and staked his claim to first-ballot entry into the Dumbass Hall of Fame.

Mr. Morris, it seems, decided that any place with hookahs and belly dancers must be a festering nest of Muslims, and decided to give the patrons what-for. According to news reports, he barged through the door and started screaming racist and anti-Muslim epithets at everyone there. The crowd didn't really react until Morris tried to throttle the bartender...at which point, the patrons rose up righteous and basically beat the ever-loving Jesus out of him. Morris' mug shot looks like his face went through a wheat thresher, and as of now, he remains in police custody.

Hatred and stupidity, folks. When they ride in the same applecart, things can get truly dangerous. But sometimes, and only rarely, things can also get truly funny.

Thank you, Mr. Morris.

Indeed! That story was good for the soul and it should only happen more often. My sides, they hurt...

Now it's official ...

As you know, we had to say goodbye to our beautiful Shayna not long before we left for Europe.

Just before we got on the ship, I sent my pal Kathy from the Australian Cattle Dog Club of America an email letting her know about Shayna and asking if she knew any reputable breeders who were expecting a litter around the end of the year or spring next year (a little background, Kathy is the premier breeder of champion Cattle Dogs in the U.S. [Katwala Australian Cattle Dogs] and has her finger on the pulse). She wrote back immediately that one of hers just had a litter in July. The opportunity to get one of her pups was a pleasantly surprising twist of fate.

I asked if she had a blue girl and she replied that the puppies were all red (more background, Cattle Dogs generally come in two colors, blue and red). Okay, can't fool with Mother Nature, so I wrote back asking if she had two sisters in the litter (when Shayna was alive, we always said it would have been nice for Shayna to have someone to play with so getting two together was in the back of our minds).

Kathy then replied that she had an adolescent blue girl from a February 2009 litter whose purchase deal fell through. She was a half-sister to this current crop of puppies (same dad) and was great with the little ones. I couldn't say no.

So ... On Saturday, September 18th, we'll drive to Erie, Pennsylvania to meet Kathy and her husband to pick up Choo-Choo:

Katwala's Pardon Me Boys - "Choo-Choo"(r) with anonymous puppy.

And one of the female pups on this page.

I just received an email from Kathy yesterday confirming the date and we're ecstatic. The house has been too quiet. We are also a little nervous. One Cattle Dog pup can be a Tasmanian Devil, two will most likely make our lives ... interesting to say the least. Heh ...

And just a note: I never thought I'd have a dog with the name of "Choo-Choo". I won't change it, but I will "New York-ize" it to "Da Chooch". The name we chose for the pup is "Ziva".

And another note: We did cosider a rescue or two, but after 12 years with Shayna and all her health problems (Cattle Dogs are prone to hip, eye, and other congenital problems and rescues generally aren't tested for them), we wanted sound dogs. The only way to assure that was to buy from a reputable breeder. While I wouldn't trade the time and expense for anything, the sleepless nights, administering medications several times a day, and the emotional drain were wearying. It'll be tiring enough chasing after two young ones without the added dimension.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Classic Emmylou.

From 1980 German TV

Emmylou Harris ~ To Daddy

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Home ...

Just finishing up the unpacking, then calling the pizza guy to deliver. I'll be back later ...

Update:

Pics you'll never see in a cruise line commercial. Heh ...

On Moosebreath

We gotta go out and do our shopping for the weekend before the locusts descend on our grocery store, so I'll leave you with a recommendation to read the big story about Moosebreath in Vanity Fair.

The woman is a vengeful, petty, self-centered, hot tempered unhappy shrew, but whether she's blowing hot or cold, one thing is for certain - she blows. This quote sums it up pretty good:

[...] “You’re just putting on a show. You’re so fake,” one of the children said when Palin made a point of praying in front of other people. “This is not who you are. Why are you pretending to be something you’re not?”

Money and power, child, money and power. She's gotta get it before her fake little world collapses around her and her gullible public. Soon, let us pray.

Update:

We got to the market at 11:30. Waaaay too late. They're already here.

I scored a free snowmobile yesterday that had been abandoned at a house a coupla doors down that's in foreclosure. The Realtor-In-Charge was happy that I would get it outta there. All I know so far is that it's a Yamaha Phazer, probably of 1984-'89 vintage, worth maybe $300, started easy and ran well enough to get it the few hundred feet to home. Must investigate my new toy further, so see yas later.

Headline of the Day

Major human trafficker is huge GOP donor who fought illegal immigration

Why doesn't this surprise me...?

In Case You Missed It

Raw Story

Countdown: Olbermann, Scahill thank Bush for the ‘success’ of the Iraq war

Yes, thanks a great steaming pile, Georgie. You want 'credit' for the worst foreign policy blunder in American history and its attendant war crimes? It's all yours. Asshole.

'They' say that it really isn't healthy to keep things bottled up inside. On Wed. evening's MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the liberal host and his guest, The Nation's Jeremy Scahill went the healthy route and let it rip.

"These people have a Ph.D in lying and a master's degree in manipulating intelligence," Scahill says of the neocons, "And it is, it's really sobering to see this kind of brash historical revisionism happening in real time. The idea that these people want to post some kind of false flag of victory on the corpses of all who have died in Iraq because of their decisions. These people destabilized Iraq, they destabilized the Middle East, with their neo-con vision of redrawing maps, and they didn't even succeed in their own stated mission. This is a special kind of pathological sickness that these individuals are plagued with."

Thanks to PoliticsNewsNews.

The Cry for Democratic Moral Leadership and Effective Communication

If you don't read anything else today, read these:

George Lakoff at Truthout:

If you have not read Drew Westin's outstanding piece "What Created the Populist Explosion and How Democrats Can Avoid the Shrapnel in November" on The Huffington Post, AlterNet, and other venues, read it immediately. Westin states as eloquently and forcefully as anyone what he, I, and other progressives have been saying from the beginning of the Obama administration. I agree fully with everything he says. But ...

Westin's piece is incomplete in crucial ways. His piece can be read as saying that this election is about kitchen table economics (right) and only kitchen table economics (wrong).

This election is about more than just jobs and mortgages and adequate health care. All politics is moral. All political leaders say to do what they propose because it is right. No political leaders say to do what they say because it is wrong. Morality is behind everything in politics - and progressives and conservatives have different moral systems.

In the conservative moral system, the highest value is preserving and extending the moral system itself. That is why they keep saying no to Obama's proposals, even voting against their own ideas when Obama accepts them. To give Obama any victory at all would be a blow to their moral system. Their moral system requires non-cooperation. That is a major thing the Obama administration has not understood.

I won't go too deep into Repug "morals" except to say they're mean-spirited racist throwback bastards who lie and fearmonger. The end justifies the means, no matter what. All they want at the top is power and obeisance from the bottom. 'Top' and 'bottom' are carefully chosen words.

From the link:

Following the conventional wisdom, Democrats return to their all-too-familiar defensive crouch, and conclude that when in trouble, tack right. [...]
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The White House starts adopting failed conservative policies and talking points that leave the public utterly confused about where the president, and by extension, his party, stands on the central issues of the day. [...]
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The underlying psychological assumption of these moves is that if you mix policies from the right and left in equal parts, you win the center. In fact, no one has ever won the center that way. It appears weak, opportunistic, and incoherent to the average swing voter, which is particularly problematic at a time when people in the center desperately want to know that their leaders have a vision and a coherent plan for what to do (which is why both FDR and Ronald Reagan were so effective in moving voters in the center). It doesn't win any votes on the right. But it does have one predictable effect: It sucks the motivation out of your base, who feel demoralized and betrayed (if they're part of the "professional left") or less likely to vote (if they're average voters who don't follow politics carefully but just don't feel very enthusiastic anymore, even if they don't really know why).

Much, much more in both pieces.

VI

Six years at this pop stand. Holy crap.

Glenn Beck's liberation theology obsession

Tim Rutten in the LATimes. Sub-head:

The Fox News personality is strangely bent on linking the president -- and race -- to liberation theology, evidence to the contrary be damned.

Op-ed follows, and its last line:

Perhaps Beck should go back to peddling misinformation about the Founding Fathers, who have been dead too long to complain.

They're spinning in their graves too fast to comment as well. Heh.

Sharron Angle’s Plan For Education: Eliminate All Of It

Think Progress

Speaking at a forum for the right-wing Steamboat Institute last week, Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle effectively declared that public schools should cease to exist. [...]

Oh, indeed! Church- and home-schooled kids without even the minimal secular education they now receive will be much more ignorant and thus better indoctrinated right-wing apparatchiks.

Kudos, Harry! Planting her was your best idea ever!

Funny story: I watch Reno TV for a half hour on weeknights because I like to watch Jeopardy! There are NO commercials these days besides Reid and Angle. I take that back - there's usually one for a muffler shop or a personal injury shyster, but the campaign ads predominate.

Here's the funny part: one ad goes through all of Angle's negatives - well, as many as they can squeeze into one ad - and the voice-over ends with "Sharron Angle - wrong for Nevada" and out and immediately, not a split second later, into the next ad beginning "I'm Sharron Angle and I approve this message".

Heh. They knocked off running those two ads in that order after a coupla times, but just for a minute there it sounded like Angle was admitting she's a Reid plant.