Quote of the Day

From an article in the LATimes about the Marines and their families at Camp Pendleton bracing for the gummint shutdown and possible lack of pay for a while. It's a serious thing for them and nothing to joke about, but this cracked me up:

"If they're not going to pay the military, to turn their back on the guys defending this country, then they're going have trouble" recruiting, a sergeant's wife fumed. "I'll personally tell the C.O. that he can…."

Her rant was cut short when her husband told her to "be quiet. Right now."

Heh. I bet the Times cleaned that one up a little for publication!

The original comment was probably something like:

"Jesus fucking Christ woman! Shut the fuck up right fucking now! You bitch about my E-5 pay all the goddam time, ya wanna see how much I get without these three measly stripes?!"

My sides hurt...

Headline of the Day

Archeologists unearth first-ever ‘gay caveman’ skeleton

An immaculately kept and remarkably tasteful yet colorfully decorated cave, no doubt...

Why Republicans Persist in Demanding the Elimination of 700,000 Jobs

Robert Creamer, who is Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's husband, the lucky dog! I know a little about Polish girls from Chicago - hotter'n a habanero pierogi! But I digress. A 'recommended read'.

Why do Republicans persist in demanding that we eliminate 700,000 jobs? It has to do with the influence of four major groups:

1). The CEO/Wall Street Class.
...

2). The second influential group pushing for policies that would eliminate 700,000 jobs are the intellectuals and academics who work for the first group. And I do mean "work for."
...

3). Many in the third group actually understand the budget-slashing proposals being made by Republicans in the house would cut massive numbers of jobs. This group is the Republican political class
...

4). Of course the final - and most visible -- group clamoring for draconian cuts that would cost 700,000 American their jobs is the Tea Party
...

Many of these extremist Members of Congress actually believe that the voters sent them to Washington to "shrink government." Of course the Tea Party - and its corporate sponsors -- did exactly that.

But this gang has a real problem.

When you were a kid at a Fourth of July celebration, remember how fascinated you were by sparklers? They erupt in a bright flash of sparkles and light up everything around - for about 3 minutes. Then, as they begin to burn down, they fizzle out and then suddenly, everything is dark.

In your hand where once was a bright shiny sparkler, you are holding a dark, blackened, slightly-twisted six-inch strand of wire.

Well, that's what's happening to the Tea Party. To put it bluntly: the Party's over.

We need to make it clear that the budget debate is about choices - moral choices about what is important, who should pay and who should sacrifice. The question is simple: Do Americans want to cut education and all the rest in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations? America's answer to that question in poll after poll is a resounding no. Americans want to invest in their future, not cater to the short-term greed of our home-grown class of economic royals whose answer to the pain of middle class people is the modern-day equivalent of "let them eat cake."

The Republicans thought that the budget debate would give them the high political ground. That's why they were willing to go so far out on an extremist precipice. Now the political ground is beginning to crumble - and it's a long way down.

I want to wave to them like they're a wide-eyed Wile E. Coyote, though not near as cute, until I see the cloud of dust at the bottom.

Scandal in Fitzwalkerstan

Truthout

Scott Walker's Attorney Says Justice David Prosser Is Vital to Anti-Worker Agenda

I find it not the least bit surprising that a county clerk, a former accomplice employee of Walker and Prosser, found 14,000 'misplaced' ballots with exactly enough winning votes for Prosser to avoid a recount.

You can't beat a Repug/'Bagger by 200 votes. You just can't. They just pulled 7000 "votes" outta their ass. They have a well-oiled election-theft machine*, but I think this election surprised 'em and for this particular clerk with a history of dereliction and partisan malfeasance to come up with it sounds like a Hail Mary pass straight from Desperation Row.

*Some folks think they stole as many as 2,000,000 votes from Obama, but he won by too many votes for them to steal enough of them to throw the election into Scalia's hands for the winning vote.

Let's hope this helps and sends a few of 'em to jail:

Federal probe, full recount required in high court race

We will see. Sigh. Repug crimes never fucking end.

Update:

The Political Carnival

As a key sign of just how much Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser’s corporate supporters are willing to spend to keep him on the bench, Prosser’s campaign just announced its hire of one of the most high-profile election lawyers in the country — Bush v. Gore recount attorney Ben Ginsberg.

...

Here we go again.

All I have to say about this for the moment is that you can't set an ambush in the same place twice. Unless you wanta be flanked and die.

It may take 27 years to undo the damage Beck caused in 27 months

Will Bunch on the start of Miss Becky's slide to oblivion:

But I think that progressives might want to hold off on that victory lap -- unless it's to get in better shape for the long battle ahead.

Because the truth is that Beck's ouster isn't really the end of the nightmare, but just the beginning of the end. Over the last 27 months, Beck -- and let's be clear that he had a lot of help from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity and Rand Paul and all the folks in the Tea Party Movement -- managed to do incalculable harm to the American body politic, that Beck was exactly like Tom and Daisy Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby" who "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.."

You'll probably hear a lot about how Beck coarsened the political debate and how his words may have incited violence, but I think the wreckage is a lot more substantive, to actual policies that affect Americans every day. You see, there was a reason that Beck was so fond of a political theory called the Overton Window-- so enamored, in fact, that he made it the title of his (officially) fictional "thriller" novel last summer. The Overton Window is a notion that you can radically move the parameters of political debate by pushing talk to the outer limits, so that ideas that were once deemed as extreme suddenly appeared to be normal.

You could go on and on -- the talk-radio jihad against big government that has put gutless Democrats so on the defensive that they no longer fight to protect vital programs but only over whether to agree to "steep" spending cuts or "draconian" ones, or the fear-mongering on terrorism and Gitmo that made quivering congressmen afraid to house terror suspects in our maximum security prisons. Don't think that Beck's nightly burst of insanity didn't have a lot to do with these things, because they did.

Don't believe me? Then ask a fellow in South Carolina named Bob Inglis who was a Republican congressman until he told his constituents to "turn off Glenn Beck," and lost a primary to an upstart who got 71 percent of the vote. Why do you think the Republicans in Washington remain in lock step, even as 90 percent of what they stay in lock step for is bat-guano crazy.

The solutions to these problems are out there, but they are stymied by a two-year explosion of madness, the right-wing backlash, which I reported on my book that is called "The Backlash," and it was Glenn Beck that lit the fuse. Yes, his reign on the Fox News Channel may last little more than 27 months. But it may take the rest of us 27 years -- or more -- to undo all of the damage.

The motto of the Bush and Beck and Teabagger years as the short strokes of three decades of the Reagan Delusion is, "Act in haste, repent at leisure".

There was nothing hasty about the Repug conspiracy of course. It was well thought out since about Nixon's day, but its fruition occurred during the eight years under their trained chimp. If they'da got one who could throw feces correctly we'd be in even more trouble than we are.

Given that our wrongest and most obtuse and loudest Dead Enders are so slow to learn and can't recognise truth or even reality when it hits 'em in the face like a dead carp, I think Bunch is wildly optimistic that the cumulative damage these wingnut bastards like Beck and Bush have done will be anywhere near corrected in only 27 years.

Ludicrous and Cruel

Here's the last ¶ of a column by Paul Krugman on Lyin' Ryan's anti-New Deal right wing 'budget' proposal:

So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isn’t a good-faith effort to put America’s fiscal house in order; it’s voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large helping of mean-spiritedness.

Typical Repug bullshit.

The "worst of the worst" ...

More exactly:

"Teabaggers are the worst of the worst. Self-centered, greedy assholes bent on destroying every decent hard fought civil right we have. To Hell with the lot of them."

That's our pal David Aquarius in comments here.

Thing is, they don't even bother to hide it anymore. Mr. Amato has a video up of one of them with Mrs. Greenspan:

Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express was on with Andrea Mitchell and acted like a spoiled child who was going to hold her breath and turn blue until she gets the $100 billion cuts in the budget for 2011, even though four months have already passed and Obama has agreed with Boehner's original asking price of a little over $30 billion in tax cuts. Many of the Kremer Tea Party crowd showed up on TV today and demanded they get their cake, eat it and then cry for some donuts immediately if Democrats and Republicans do not do what they want.

...

All the teabaggers are is a buncha gullible teenagers being used by adults to further a corporate agenda.

Run what ya brung

"Fixer's People" are amazing sometimes!

EssEffChron

Horse dreams dashed, German teen turns to cow Luna

This is a heartwarming story. Go read.

Shave an' a haircut, two bits and not worth a plugged nickel

Ever had yer hair cut by a freshman at the Barber College? A cheap amateur butcher job. Samey-same with Ryan's dreamworks budget. You'll never get a date looking like that. Heh.

Click to embiggen so you can read it better

From YubaNet.

Pence Lets The The Truth Slip

The 'baggers sometimes have a little trouble keeping their lies straight. Also, 'truth as gaffe' occasionally slips out even on FOXProp. Condolences to those who have to watch this shit to let the rest of us know.

Via Think Progress:

Thanks to ThinkProgress2.

Since that vid talks about the troops, let's talk about not paying them should there be a Repug gummint shutdown.

Again, Think Progress:

One painful consequence of a possible looming government shutdown is that U.S. troops, many of whom are currently stationed and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, will not get paid. “You could have forces deployed in the field, with their families back home, and no one’s getting paid. And that could be an issue,” one defense department official said.

Could be an issue? Let me say something about that - our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines mostly don't give a shit about being in harm's way. You can fuck with their chow, fuck with their sleep, send them to shitholes the devil shudders at the prospect of being in, and they will do their duty, give it their all.

Fuck with their pay and they're liable to go on strike. Remember, these days we have a married military. The troops have wives and kids and live off base and have bills to pay. As Gates says, they live from paycheck to paycheck, and fuckin' with their families won't fly.

In my day (read "Once Upon A Time..."), about 99% of us were single and lived in the barracks. In my meteoric rise from a lower-than-whale-shit Private making $73 a month to my lofty final princely sum as an E-4-over-two of $212.50 a month, I never once didn't get paid. We got a place to live, our chow, we could wash our own clothes if we had to and find a free haircut that would satisfy regs if not style, and you'd be surprised how many guys can shave with a worn-out blade (to Marines, pain is weakness leaving the body). All our pay really did for us was let us buy smokes and beer and an occasional civilian cheeseburger and unnecessary luxuries such as shaving cream and starched utilities. The powers-that-be made damn sure we got it. I've stood in line for an hour aboard a ship in the middle of the Nowhere Ocean to get my pittance in cash even though we were six weeks and thousands of miles from anywhere but the ship's store to spend it. You couldn't get into the ship's store for two days after payday but that's another story. You could get in any of a hundred card or dice games of your choice. Heh.

Point is, money wasn't all that important to us other than we had it coming and had better get it, and the Brass made sure we did.

The goddam 'baggers want this government shut down and the hell with supporting the troops. Just collateral damage in their pathetic ideological wet dream.

"a wishlist of every conservative wet dream"

El Rude-o on Ryan's "budget" proposal:

[...] Because you know what would have happened if the situation was reversed.

If a Democrat had proposed a budget that radically cut the military, raised the top tax rate by nearly a third, ended all the wars, created a national health care system through a new payroll tax (thus relieving businesses of a huge financial burden), expanded EPA and food safety enforcement, and jacked up discretionary spending on education, scientific research, and more, and still yielded trillions of dollars in long-term savings, and then explained the document by saying, "This isn't a budget. This is a cause," do you think that that Democrat would have been hailed as "courageous" by any Republicans? Do you think that anyone in the media would have taken the thing seriously? Don't be fucking stupid. What would have happened is that most Democrats would have run away like beaten bitches afraid of Rush Limbaugh's switch, Republicans would have called it "un-American" and "the mostest radicalest budget that anyone has ever put out in the history of forever" and taken the word "cause" to mean "Marxist rape of your children," and Fox "news" would have gone to TardCon 5 in demonizing everything: "Do you want the government telling you what diseases you can have? Do you want Barack Obama to decide how much shit should be on your chicken?"

Paul Ryan's budget is not a serious document. It is, instead, a few pages of dried ejaculate on paper. It is a wishlist out of every conservative wet dream, and, as such, it is ballsy just how brazen it is. If nothing else, you can't say in the future that Republicans didn't warn us. Ryan's plan, his "Road Map," sets the bar so low that it pretty much guarantees that Democrats will be negotiating away many of the programs they worked on for decades and then declare victory because they didn't give in to everything Republicans wanted.

The fuckers swung for the fence all right. Let's hope it's a called strike.

Getting stoned ...

Firstly, I feel a lot better than I thought I would. I guess I'm still in half-decent shape. Heh ...

The real bitch about these "dry" (no mortar) stone constructions is getting the first course level. The entire job took me about 8 1/2 hours (stopping only for 3 smoke breaks), but laying the first course took about 5 of them.

I got my tools together first. Sharp spade, ruler, square, 4' level and a little rake.



The biggest bitch was breaking down the pallet and sorting the stones according to size and shape. This should be done before laying the first stone. They vary in size from approx 3' square down to stuff as small as a computer mouse.

I started by laying out the stones for the first course in approximate position. I laid the longest, straightest edge of each stone toward the outside, measuring out from my line to keep them fairly straight. That's the big rule here. The first course has to be level.



The trick is to start at the lowest side. Since the backyard is pitched to the west, I started on the west side. Once I got the first stone leveled, I moved on to the next, leveling each one to the preceding stone.



Notice I started a few feet off the corner. In my initial sorting, I picked out 4 corner pieces that were big enough to take up the whole corner, giving a good base as opposed to several small stones to make the corner.



Now, in the pic above, you see the west and south sides of the garden. Thanks to the difference in pitch, I had to go pretty deep by the time I got to the southeast corner (the first course is essentially buried). So what I did was start the first course on the east side at the same depth as the second course on the south. Observe:



This is the same corner with the east side leveled.



Then it's just a matter of stacking stones where they fit without wobbling. Also, the "seams" of the upper course shouldn't line up with those of the lower course.



And then, after a couple hours of stacking and moving stones around, it comes together.





I still have to pick up some topsoil to fill in the bed up to the top of the wall, but I sure as hell ain't swinging 500lbs of soil this morning. Maybe tomorrow. Heh ...

As always, click on the pics to make bigger. If you have any questions, leave 'em in comments.

Note to John Gall: I have no idea what kind of rock this is (I'll ask Sam the next time I'm at the nursery) but if I had to guess, I'd figure either a shale or slate of the kind you see in eastern Pennsylvania, very stratified.

That's the problem ...

The mind still feels 25. Got my stone work done but I'd be surprised if I can stand up straight in the morning. I'm shot, the Mrs. just cracked a beer for me, and the dogs are rushing me along for bratwurst. I'll document the adventure in the morning. Heh ...

Miss Becky Outed!

Nah, nothin' as juicy as my title suggests. Dammit. Heh.

Think Progress

Why Beck Is Out At Fox: Poor Ratings And Paranoid Rants

I would say more the former and less the latter. Murdoch and Ailes like ads, which Becky has cost them many of, and it's only their poor beknighted ignoramus viewers that lurves them some paranoid rants.

Liquid alert!

Last month, Fox News officials told the New York Times anonymously that they were “contemplating life without Mr. Beck.” The Times also reported that “[m]any on the news side of Fox have wondered whether his chronic outrageousness — he suggested that the president has ‘a deep-seated hatred for white people’— have made it difficult for Fox to hang onto its credibility as a news network.”

Glad I warned ya, huh? Difficult for Fox to hang onto its credibility as a news network? Bwahahahahahahaha! What credibility? Dude, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Becky deserves to be relegated to the AM radio in some old Studebaker pickup out in goat country. I don't think the goats will be any more retarded by him. Or the goatherd who probably doesn't understand English very well anyway.

Prost to that!

EssEffChron

It's become fashionable in American beer-geek circles to talk about the dire state of beer in Germany. The story is usually based on this fact: Germans are drinking less beer, about 101 liters per capita last year, down from more than 130 liters in the mid-1990s.

The story usually then leaps to questionable assumptions about why this is happening. Chief among these: German beers have become boring because the big six Bavarian beer producers make exactly the same beers. A conclusion is arrived at: What Germany really needs to regain its former glory is some gosh-darn, rootin' tootin' American innovation - namely in the form of American-style craft brews.

Call me an unrepentant Europhile, but I get a little uneasy when I hear Americans talk about how our innovations can save the world's oldest beer culture. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Coors' "cold-activated can" also a so-called American "innovation"? And let's be clear about beer consumption: The United States consumes a little over 80 liters per capita. Even with the decline, Germans are still drinking significantly more beer than we do. Until I walk into the average bar and see everyone drinking barleywine or barrel-aged sour beers rather than Bud Light or PBR, I suggest we should be a little more humble when it comes to commenting on other established beer cultures.

Heh. People who drink Goat Piss shouldn't throw (kidney?) stones!

Enjoy.

If The First Amendment Had To Be Ratified Today…

This is all too true. Tina Dupuy:

Republicans will tell you they’re the sole Constitutional purists in the country; they worship the document more/better than you do. But imagine if the First Amendment had to be voted on today. It would need two-thirds majority in both Houses just to be proposed.

Consider it: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

First, it’s way too progressive for today’s rabid rightwing. And if the Republicans saw this Amendment as a win for Obama – it would have to be stopped by any means necessary.

All the President would have to do is say he thinks it’s important for Americans to have freedom of speech, religion, the press and assembly.

Then the Tea nee Republican Party would call them “Obama Freedoms.”

Right-wing blogs next would tap, “What do Hitler, Machiavelli, Darwin, Che Guevara and the New Black Panther Party all have in common? They all love Obama Freedoms.”

“Obama Freedoms will indoctrinate our children to be secular Islamists who want taxpayers to pay for gay marriage abortions at Ground Zero,” Newt Gingrich would say in some Vaseline-lensed ominous music-packed video he’d hawk on his website.

There's more. This is the upshot:

The First Amendment – arguably the foundation of our democracy – if brought up today would die in committee.

Yes, our time is just that stupid.

Yes, our time is just that stupid.

Frances Fox Piven: Still Tougher Than Glenn Beck

The American Prospect

The legendary anti-poverty activist, who is leading a nationwide teach-in on the corporate-fueled austerity movement with Cornel West today, talks about the current political moment -- and what can be done to reclaim government for the people.

Cornel West is one of my favorites, a liberal's liberal, and one fast-talkin' smart brotha!

Here's a couple of the questions asked of Professor Piven:

The old canard is that the Republicans are the party of the wealthy, while Democrats speak for the poor, working class, and middle class. So why does this situation appear to be as bad under Obama as under the Bush administration?
...

The Democrats' attitude toward their voters appears to be, "We're the best you've got. What are you going to do, vote Republican?" How do progressives manage to actually push the Democrats left?

You can go read her answers.

From wipin' yer ass to $4 gas to the 'bagger House

AlterNet

You knew they were big. You knew they were evil. From the union-busting actions of their minions in Wisconsin and Ohio to their war on health-care reform, to their assault on the environment and their attacks on the science of climatology, Charles and David Koch have earned their place as the focus of progressives' scrutiny in the age of the Tea Party -- the destructive and regressive movement they bankroll. But a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund shows that, as bad as you thought the Kochs were, they're actually worse. And their reach into virtually every aspect of political, economic and physical life on the planet is probably greater than you thought possible.

Go.

The great Barack Obama conundrum

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford, who does his whole column in one* timely 'must read' paragraph.

*The printable version breaks down into normal ¶.

...turns out he's not been nearly fine enough. Just the opposite, in fact. To the sneering disappointment of the puritanical left, Obama has turned out to be pretty much exactly what he said he'd be during his '08 campaign: flawed, exceedingly moderate, a resolute compromiser, overly pragmatic when he should've been a badass, temperate when he should've been white hot and furious, offering concessions when he should be bringing the hammer down. In short, Obama has failed. He has not at all been the delicious chocolatey superjesus of radical sociopolitical transformation most on the hard left hoped, prayed and sacrificed precious Prius bumper ad space he would be. Hence, the conundrum.
...

Let us now check the liberal Whine-O'-Meter.

That's easy - the needle is wrapped around the 'max' pin about three times.

The solution to this conundrum is actually very easy. If you're unsure of Obama because he's been less the demigod superhero studbunny you hoped for, well, you have but to merely glance at the competition. Across the board and down the line, the GOP contenders for 2012 so far are laughingstocks and charlatans, complete caricatures of actual humans with brains. The Palins and the Bachmans, the Huckabees and the Newts, the Trumps and the Romneys -- it's all birthers and paranoids, adulterous slugs and ditzball sociopaths, fringers and terrified Mormons, a bloody madhouse clown car of cutesy whiffleball glop. I can hardly wait for the debates.
...

So count your presidential blessings, libs, for while they may be tattered and rashy and often pinch and ride up, they are, on the whole, still plentiful and hugely impressive and just shockingly better than any alternative you can name, much less vote for. And you know it.

Mr. Morford could have been channelling me. That's exactly how I feel.

How it works ...

From our pal Michael:

...

It's their vicious circle, you see:

-- People are ignorant.
-- Republicans make more people ignorant and people more ignorant.
-- More people vote Republican.
-- More Republicans make more people even more ignorant.
-- Etc., etc., etc.

...

In a nutshell, yes.