Top 25 Dick Cheney Facts

Give Us This Day Our Daily Dread

• Dick Cheney does not sign contracts with the Devil- He makes the Devil offers he can’t refuse.

• Dick Cheney’s burps smell like Iraqi infants.

• Dick Cheney doesn’t have a defibrillator but a Halliburton pump station.

• People actually go fuck themselves if Dick Cheney tells them to.

• Dick Cheney’s new house is in the center of Mordor.

• Eve sprang from Adam’s rib but Liz Cheney had sprung from Dick Cheney’s bile duct.

• Dick Cheney once made General Pinochet stand in a corner for an hour for not killing enough liberals in Chile.

The only ones ...

In the house who are happy about the blizzard and it ain't any of the humans. I got Chooch and Ziva out as soon as the wind died down a bit.

Click to make big.

World's Weirdest Gift Shop?

I'm feeling like death warmed over today so maybe going shopping will cheer me up!

NYTimes

Body bags go for $20. Yellow crime scene tape is $6. Toe tags are normally $5, but they were sold out this month. The merchandise comes in a white plastic shopping bag that says “Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.”

Tucked in the corner of a squat brick building that houses a huge depository of the dead is the strangest of gift shops. For years, the county coroner has run the shop, aptly named Skeletons in the Closet, selling knickknacks playing off the rather morbid humor that the department’s business arouses in many people.

But it turns out that the shop’s slogan — “We’re dying for your business!” — is all too accurate. The shop was once supposed to make enough money to pay for an anti-drunken-driving course for teenagers that includes a visit to the morgue.

A visit to the morgue has been a post-drunken-driving stop for far too many as well.

Officer Alvarado, who was there with his girlfriend, said he frequently wore his favorite purchase — a barbecue apron emblazoned “L.A. County Coroner Has ♥” in the center and two pockets labeled “spare ribs” and “spare hands.”

Ms. Pereyda said that much of the merchandise in the store had been the same for years, leaving many regular customers eager for more. So she is brainstorming new ideas and is particularly excited about a shipment of water bottles that is supposed to arrive next month.

The containers will be labeled “bodily fluids.”

I'm sure we all like the autopsies on NCIS and various CSIs, but for the real deal, watch North Mission Road. The DVD makes a great gift too!

Comedy Isn't Always Funny

The Rude Pundit on Jon Stewart helping get the Zadroga Bill passed and the overreaction to by the mighty Gray Lady:

Don't be stupid and don't act coy, New York Times. Of course, the 9/11 first responders health care bill passed because Jon Stewart made it his cause on The Daily Show. It was an epic assist to New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillenbrand (who get the points because they were in position to actually, you know, vote on the bill).

It was the logical end for a year when Stewart and The Daily Show have used comedy to call for rationality, as in its Rally to Restore Sanity. For what could be more irrational than the Senate Republicans filibustering the Zadroga bill? And what could be more ridiculous than a news media more enamored of Sarah Palin's latest jackassery than with the Congress failing in what should have been a no-brainer? How do you satirize that? It's a living, breathing satire in itself. So Stewart zagged when everyone expected him to zig. He took advantage of the closing window of the lame duck Congress as surely as did the voracious tax-slashing Republicans, as surely as Harry Reid did. Good on him.

But the other message not to be lost here is that this is what journalism is supposed to do. On a basic level, it's supposed to hold the powerful to account. It's what Wikileaks is doing. It's the difference between the evening programming of Fox "news" and MSNBC: the former justifies the ways of the mighty for the masses, the latter says that the mighty need to justify themselves.

The New York Times asks whether this puts Stewart in the same league as Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite. That's insane. Murrow fucked up the anti-American madness of a nutzoid Senator. Cronkite helped fuck up public opinion on a fucked-up war. These were great, nation-changing causes. Stewart said that firefighters, cops, and EMTs ought to have their medical bills paid for. If that's what passes for a crusade these days, then we are lost, lost, lost indeed.

We are lost, lost, lost indeed.

The next "Big Thing" ...

Seems the Republicans now want to force the states into bankruptcy. Why? To break the municipal employees' unions, of course. Seder's in for Keith this week:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

REMINDER
The season to be jolly has ended.

I gotcher ho-ho-ho hangin'. Good fucking riddance.

New Census Data Good News for GOP
Abstinence-only programs boosting population in red states.

Pat Robertson Calls for Decriminalization of Marijuana
After being caught with half an ounce.

Heh. In my dreams!

To protect CEO, Bank of America Buys
BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com
Still available:
BrianMoynihanBlowsSucksBarfsandPukes.com,
BrianTMoynihanBlowsSucksBarfsandPukes.com.

Fried Fish May Explain Stroke Belt in Southern States
Also contributing: black man in White House.

Hey, whatever works.

Thanks, Gordon ...

For being so kind and sending your weather to us while you were off on the coast. 2 1/2 feet from 3 pm yesterday and it's still snowing with 60 mph winds. I been up for an hour, digging us out through the back door so we could walk the dogs. They, on the other hand, love this shit.

Authorities responded to scores of traffic accidents Sunday on treacherously icy roads and highways, and emergency management officials said conditions would not improve much until later Monday.

By 5 p.m. Sunday, there were at least 58 minor crashes on the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway in Suffolk and 20 calls for disabled motorists, said Michael Sharkey, a spokesman for the Suffolk sheriff's office.

...

In Nassau, police and county officials could not estimate the number of crashes, but said they were busy responding to them.

Though snow was expected to stop falling by 5 a.m., officials said travel would still be difficult because winds of 35 to 50 mph would be whipping snowdrifts back onto the roads.

...

Don't let 'em DREAM

More from the LATimes. Hey, I'm in Southern California and the Fuerza is strong here. So strong that I just had a chorizo burrito for breakfast. I will share with Mrs. G's family later. Heh.

Some readers celebrate demise of the DREAM Act

They say illegal immigrants are here to game the system and are a drag on the U.S. economy, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

A few called for Luis Perez, the subject of one of my recent columns, to be immediately deported. Perez, 29, managed to graduate from college and UCLA School of Law despite being an undocumented resident of Los Angeles since his Mexican parents brought him here as an 8-year-old.

That's mighty white of 'them' to want to throw away a smart, hard working kid whose parents came from the wrong side of the border to get a better life. And actually got it for their kid.

So we'll continue to live in this state of collective hypocrisy — lining up for tacos made by people we suspect don't belong here, but enjoying the cheap meal just the same.

The crux of the biscuit. Much more.

What a gay Marine taught me

A good read in the LATimes:

The tough, utterly selfless NCO embodied what every service needs in its ranks. But he left to be able to live openly. In losing many of its gays, the U.S. military lost preparedness, a retired lieutenant colonel says.

So back to my friend, the now-retired Marine sergeant major and distinguished combat veteran. Do I like the idea of openly serving gays? No. Do I recognize that my military needs to look like my country? Yes. So to my fellow vets, if there is no room in the military for him, is there room for any of us?

Seeing the light reluctantly is seeing the light.

Flying reindeer, huh?

Go read the story of Santa and the psychedelic mushrooms. Heh.

Christmas Emmylou Blogging

Merry Christmas, Mele Kelikimaka, Feliz Navidad, and Tits Up in the Tall Yule to all our readers. Thank you.

Emmylou Harris & The McGarrigle Sisters ~ O Little Town Of Bethlehem

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Friday Monster Blogging

The girls wish you a Merry Christmas too (that's because they got their own special Christmas dinner this evening):

Click to make bigger

The Humbug Express

Paul Krugman

Hey, has anyone noticed that “A Christmas Carol” is a dangerous leftist tract?

I mean, consider the scene, early in the book, where Ebenezer Scrooge rightly refuses to contribute to a poverty relief fund. “I’m opposed to giving people money for doing nothing,” he declares. Oh, wait. That wasn’t Scrooge. That was Newt Gingrich — last week. What Scrooge actually says is, “Are there no prisons?” But it’s pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, instead of praising Scrooge for his principled stand against the welfare state, Charles Dickens makes him out to be some kind of bad guy. How leftist is that?

As you can see, the fundamental issues of public policy haven’t changed since Victorian times. Still, some things are different. In particular, the production of humbug — which was still a somewhat amateurish craft when Dickens wrote — has now become a systematic, even industrial, process.

Call it The Mighty Wurlitzer, FOXProp, the RS3M*, Talking Points, or any name you choose, it's lying writ large and loud and constant until it is believed and therefore the Truth.

*Repuglican Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine.

Best wishes ...

I've got a ton of shit to do to get ready for tomorrow and I might not get back here today, so I'd like to wish the staff here, all our bloggy pals, our readers, and commenters a very Merry Christmas.

Do me a favor and be careful out there if you're gonna be driving this holiday. Keep your eyes open (and your head out of your ass [i.e. phone, GPS, video, beating the kids, etc]) on the road and make sure you got somebody sober to get you home (or you have a place to stay where you're partying) if you indulge in a bit too much "cheer". Your family doesn't need to associate the holiday with your funeral or incarceration.

All the best to you and yours!

The Christmas Tree inside Galleries Lafayette, Paris. Click to make it grow.

I thought ...

Everybody wanted us to bomb Iran?

Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found.

At the behest of a host of companies — from Kraft Food and Pepsi to some of the nation’s largest banks — a little-known office of the Treasury Department has granted nearly 10,000 licenses for deals involving countries that have been cast into economic purgatory, beyond the reach of American business.

...

It's all good when there's a buck to be made.

Thanks to Fez for the link.

Quote of the Day

Avedon:

...

For 98% of the country, "uncertainty" about jobs, a roof over their heads, food on the table and a future doesn't matter, but when it comes to rich people, well, God forbid they should have to be uncertain of whether they will be listed in the Fortune 500 next year.

...

Headin' Out

Headin' for the coast today. See yas.

Nautical No-No

Drunk Passenger Drops Anchor on Moving Cruise Ship

I think perhaps he will not be invited back...

Happy Holidays Veterans

Sen. John McCain blocks suicide prevention

Talk to somebody ...

Having dealt with PTSD (it got to the point where I was homeless, me and my dog living out of a van for about half a year), I know what it means to have no hope, especially this time of year. There are a lot of people for whom this season is the worst of the year, especially with the lousy economy, those with depression or just have been dealt a bad hand in the last few years.

Last week, a guy I know couldn't take the pressures and committed suicide. We weren't best friends, wouldn't even call us friends, but he was a customer when I worked for Harry, he worked for the City, and we'd tip a couple together and shoot the shit for a few hours when we'd run into each other in the pub. I've known the man for 20 years and he was a nice guy, happy-go-lucky, and the last person I'd think would opt for a "permanent solution". He was 50 years old, with a lot of living left to do.

My point is this, especially this time of year. If you feel that life is so bad that you want to check out, talk to someone. Tell somebody, a friend, family member, acquaintance, what you're feeling. Had this guy talked to me (I can relate), I would have tried to get him some professional help and maybe me and my other buddies wouldn't be mourning him now.

Listen to me. Suicide is a selfish act. You might not feel whatever pain you have anymore, not hear the voices in your head, or not have to worry about money, but there are a whole host of people you leave behind, devastated and confused. It's hard to reconcile for the family, wondering what they could have done different to prevent the tragic outcome, wondering if something they did pushed you to it. No one you leave behind gets over it.

This guy wasn't the first I've known to kill himself, probably won't be the last. I'd just like to say that no matter how hard life gets (and I been on the bottom), things do get better. The life I have now wasn't handed to me. It took a lot of hard work and a great woman who understood my problem and helped me work through it. I'm glad.

Please, in this season especially, if you feel life isn't worth living, talk to someone before you decide to end it. Regardless of how things look now, there is a beautiful world out there, full of life and joy. You can find it if you try.

Update:

From my buddy W.K in comments:

... And the corollary, if someone asks to talk to you, take the time and LISTEN!