There are 3 ...

Sensible Republicans in Iowa:

...the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow reportedly received three write-in votes.

Or a drunk liberal who voted "early and often".

Heh ...

Disclaimer on one of Tengrain's photoshopped pics:

Don't blame me for impotence and painful rectal itch after viewing.

Do you ...

Believe in miracles?

As expected, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, has announced that he is running for president. And we already know what his campaign will be about: faith in miracles.

...

What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is “Well, duh.” The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs — which is, whatever Mr. Perry may say, what Perrynomics amounts to in practice — involves a fallacy of composition: every state can’t lure jobs away from every other state.

In fact, at a national level lower wages would almost certainly lead to fewer jobs — because they would leave working Americans even less able to cope with the overhang of debt left behind by the housing bubble, an overhang that is at the heart of our economic problem.

...

While I was up at the shop last week, one of Harry's customers was bitching about how NY sucks (taxes too high, housing too expensive), that he should move to Texas because there's a lot of work and he could buy a house for $50K. I asked him if he was willing to work for $4/hour (or whatever minimum wage passes for down there) and he said "hell no". I asked him if he can do without healthcare for his 2 kids and again the answer was "hell no". So I asked why he wanted to move there and he said "because I heard it was so good". I asked him if he watched Fox 'News'. Guess what the answer was.

And just a little note, for those people who could be lured somewhere by "a low cost of living": Low living costs also mean lower wages and less services. Yeah, you can buy a cheap house in Texas for half of what you can on Long Island but you can be assured your take home pay will be a third of what it is here. I don't see how that makes it any easier to survive.

Not only ...

Are they hypocrites, they're cheap hypocrites.

...

An Indiana state Representative, who recently voted for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, has been accused of using Craigslist to offer an 18-year old male $80 for "a couple hours of your time tonight" plus a tip "for a really good time."

...

Wouldn't get my dried up 50 year old ass for $80, let alone when I was 18. I got a "tip" for ya too: Don't bet on the horses.

Like Montag said:

...

But this saggy old closet queen is not all bad, he did vote against gay marriage. No doubt so it wouldn't ruin his marriage.

I know it shouldn't after all these years, but it still boggles the mind sometimes when I think about what hateful bastards Republicans have to be to get anywhere in their party.

Glug, glug ...

Ain't no such thing as "climate change", right?

Record rains here yesterday, almost 11" in 24 hours at Chez Fixer, and for the first time in a long time, I worried about flooding. One of the great things about living on Long Island is, to quote Danny DeVito in Twins, "[We're] the crap?" that was once the top layer of Quebec, Canada before the last ice age (one of my reasons for saying we should secede from the US and join Canada). We're on a glorified sand bar here (120 miles long by 15 miles wide) and usually, even in hurricanes, the water just soaks into the ground (after 2" of topsoil and 6" of red clay, there's nothing but sand). The only flooding we used to get here was in shore communities, not from rainfall but from tidal surges.

Not yesterday.

FREEPORT, N.Y. (WABC) -- It will be a sleepless night for families whose homes were flooded by Sunday's soaking rain.

At one point, the water was so high, people were using rowboats to get down the street.

...

I had 3" of standing water in the yard (the dogs were not pleased) yesterday and all the electronics were acting stupid (we still have above-ground electric, cable, and phone lines), let alone the lights flickering regularly.

It seems, over the past couple years, that we've had arctic winters and tropical summers. It's gotten so people around here just expect the worst when inclement weather is forecast (when people around here keep sandbags in storage, "just in case" you know something fucked up is happening). They saying another few inches today. Thank god it ain't snow.

And Al Gore is fat.

Rick Perry's Ruthless Drive to Win

Fellow Texassican Paul Begala nails Goodhair's hide to the barn door:

I first met Rick Perry in 1985. He was a Democratic freshman state rep, straight off the ranch in Haskell, Texas. He wore his jeans so tight, and, umm, adjusted himself so often that my fellow young legislative aides and I used to call him Crotch. Even among state representatives, even among Texas Aggies (graduates of this cute remedial school we have in Texas), Perry stood out for his modest intellectual gifts. Hell, he got a C in animal breeding. I have goats who got an A in that subject. But lack of brains has never been a hindrance in politics.

Mitt Romney should be shaking in his Guccis.

Rick Perry threw his hair in the ring on Saturday. [...] He can rally the base as well as Michele Bachmann, and he will say or do anything—annnnnnnyyyyyyything—to win. And in today’s Republican Party, if you want to be the nominee you have to be willing to do some really crazy s--t.

Snippetry:

Like the defendant in a Stalinist show trial, Mitt has renounced everything about his prior life:
...

When you’re more open to secession than Jefferson Davis was a century and a half ago, well, you've gone pretty far.
...

Perry will claim that Texas leads the nation in jobs created. As a joke currently circulating in the Lone Star State puts it, “Sure, Perry has created thousands of jobs. I'm working three of them.”
...

Perry has flaws, huge flaws. Not the least of which is that he presided over the execution of one of his constituents, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was probably innocent. But I’m not sure that's a liability in today's Tea Party–obsessed GOP. There’s a legend in Lone Star politics that one of Perry’s Republican rivals in Texas tested the Willingham issue in a focus group. One Republican man, the story goes, squinted and said, “Well, I like that. Takes a lot of balls to execute an innocent man.”

That last line speaks volumes about what we're up against.

Update:

Tea-Paw's out, Perry's in. Apparently in the can of worms called the Repug primary, when one slithers in at the bottom, one's gotta squirt out at the top.

Good work, Brotha!

BAYVIEW, ID-A self-proclaimed skinhead was knocked unconscious by a black man after threatening to stab him last weekend in Bayview, Idaho, officials said Friday.

From Jesus’ socialism to capitalistic Christianity

This is as good an explanation of christowhacko teavangelical hypocrisy as I've seen.

Gregory Paul

Here is what is peculiar. Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of - and many of whose followers are -- the most hard-line anti-Christian atheist/s you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism!

Jesus is no free marketeer. Improving one’s earthly financial circumstances is not nearly as critical as preparing for the end times that will arrive at any minute. He does offer substantial encouragement for the poor, and warns the wealthy that they are in grave danger of blowing their prospects of reaching paradise, as per the metaphor of a rich person entering heaven being as difficult as a camel passing through the eye of the needle (a narrow passageway designed to hinder intruders). This caution makes sense: sociological research is confirming that the more securely prosperous individuals and societies are, the more likely they are to lose the faith. A basic point of core Christian doctrine is that the wealthy have no more access to heaven than anyone else (and in fact may have less), offering hope to the impoverished rejected by cults that court the elites. This remains true in Catholicism, in which being poor does not constitute evidence of a personal deficiency, and church authorities decry the excesses of unrestrained capital at the expense of social justice.

A corollary to doing right for those in need might be that Jesus likes poor people because they're more likely to believe in his pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by-when-you-die horseshit, being desperate in this earthly plane and all.

[...] This works because, as surveys show, most Christians don’t actually read the bulk of the Bible, and people are mentally skilled at dismissing the awkward passages they do come across. [...]

And the rest of 'em don't read it because they're too stupid to pour piss out of a boot if the directions were printed on the heel. Like the Constitution, the Bible must say what the people they listen to say it says.

Go read.

Choctaw Bingo

I heard this song for the first time yesterday in the truck while I was running errands. It's about crystal meth up on the Okie-Texie line. Listen close for the lyrics. It's worth it.

http://musicfog.com James McMurtry performs on the Music Fog stage at Threadgill's south. SXSW 2009.

Thanks to MusicFog.

"Corporations are my friend, people..."*

*From a 'comment' on this TPM post.

TPM

Well, that was quick. Several hours after Mitt Romney told an Iowa heckler that "corporations are people, my friend" the DNC is up with a video lampooning the quote. Featuring the smooth sounds of Barbara Streisand's "People," no less.

Note to Willard: Ya stepped on yer dick but good this time, numbnuts. Wishing you continued success at waffle-stompin' yer unit.

The good MIC comes through

I posted on the "youth bike ban" some time back when it went down and no I'm not going to go look for it. Basically it was that dirt bikes, ATVs, etc. couldn't be sold to kids because of extremely small amounts of lead alloyed into some parts such as clutch and brake levers, batteries, etc.. The kids woulda had to eat a lot of clutch levers to get lead poisoning. Batteries, not so many, but they don't eat many after the first one. They taste terrible. It got fixed. Amazing.

Basically, the new law just gives the CPSC the flexibility to use common sense in interpreting laws so oddball shit doesn't fall into unforeseen cracks like this did.

I got this via an email from my trials club, thus the reference to trials bikes. Full text below, original here.

[Hugely important to off-roading in general, and those wanting a buy a trials bike for their kids, specifically. Now it's legal...

Obama Signs CPSIA Amendment into Law Ending Ban on Youth OHVs

Youth ATVs and Dirtbikes are Categorically Excluded from Lead Content Limits

IRVINE, Calif., August 12, 2011 – President Obama signed H.R. 2715 into law today, just days after it passed the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives nearly unanimously, putting an end to an unintentional ban on youth ATVs and off-highway motorcycles that has lasted for morethan two years. The new law amends the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) to categorically exclude youth ATVs and dirtbikes from the lead content provisions.

"For more than two years, the powersports industry and its riders have urged Congress to categorically exclude youth dirtbikes and ATVs from the CPSIA's lead content provisions," said Larry Little, chairman of the Motorcycle Industry Council Board of Directors. "We are gratified that our community's passion and perseverance have paid off and the ban on youth model OHVs is finally over. MIC’s Member Companies worked hard on this issue, as well as many MIC staff members, and we are especially grateful to Paul Vitrano, Kathy Van Kleeck, Duane Taylor and the MIC Government Relations Office."

Since CPSIA took effect, the Motorcycle Industry Council has been working to end the ban by providing written comment and congressional testimony, and by leading a large grass-roots effort consisting of phone calls, letters and emails that cumulatively reached well over a million.

"On behalf of riders everywhere, we thank the Congress and the President for their action on H.R. 2715 to reverse the unintended ban on youth ATVs and motorcycles," said Paul Vitrano, general counsel of the MIC. "In particular, MIC and its members thank Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) for sponsoring the bill and Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) for leading the Congressional effort to enact the categorical exclusion.”

The Motorcycle Industry Council exists to preserve, protect and promote motorcycling through government relations, communications and media relations, statistics and research, aftermarket programs, development of data communications standards, and activities surrounding technical and regulatory issues. As a not-for-profit, national industry association, the MIC seeks to support motorcyclists by representing manufacturers and distributors of motorcycles, scooters, motorcycle/ATV/ROV parts and accessories, and members of allied trades such as insurance, finance and investment companies, media companies and consultants
.
The MIC is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with a government relations office in metropolitan Washington, D.C. First called the MIC in 1970, the organization has been in operation since 1914. Visit the MIC at www.mic.org.]

Thanks to Congress and President Obama for correcting this and allowing kids access to new bikes again. IMNSHO dirt bike riding is the best sport in the world for da youts of America. That may have had less impact on Congress than the fact that it's a $Billion industry. Mox nix. They did the right thing for once.

Quote of the Day

Dr. Krugman:

... When you’re bleeding profusely from an open wound, you want a doctor who binds that wound up, not a doctor who lectures you on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle as you get older ...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Two pretty songs and some chitchat.

Emmylou Harris - Johnny Carson Tonight Show

Thanks to billwitt2010.

Yglesias Award Nominee

Andy Sullivan

"Michele Bachmann's first answer, Mark Halperin, was "I wish the federal government had defaulted." Had defaulted, a week after Americans had lost--some of them perhaps lost half of their pensions. Lost half of their 401(k)s, when trillions of dollars went down the drain [pounds the table] with Americans suffering, she said that and got applause, and if anybody thinks that guys like my dad are going to be voting that way when this rolls out of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, in the early stages, and really gets going, they are out of their mind and they are too stupid not only to prognosticate, they are too stupid to run Slurpee machines in Des Moines. I'll let you go now. I got it off my chest.

Michele Bachmann is a joke. She is a joke. And now I will pass it on to you. Her answer is a joke, her candidacy is a joke, and anybody that sits here and says she has any chance of winning anything is out of their mind. Take your straw poll, take your caucus, but Iowa, if you let her win, you prove your irrelevance once again," - Joe Scarborough (Hit the link just for grins - G).

If Bachmann is a joke, what does that make Palin?

The punch line.

Headline of the Day

Why No Democrat Will Challenge Obama

Many reasons, but cut to the chase:

[...] The voices of protest bump up against the stubborn reality of divided government. It’s possible, but not probable, that Democrats will get the 24 seats they need to regain control of the House, but there’s a stronger possibility the Republicans will take the Senate; they only need four seats. “If they have the presidency, then the Tea Party is running the country," says Schneider, and Democrats "can’t take any chance that will happen."

There you have it.

Fried butter on a stick

Un-fucking-believable.

In preparation for a day of Sarah-chasing at the fair -- which we predict will result in, oh, nothing of actual news value -- we offer you this a whiff of the Iowa State Fair. The new Heartland delicacy this Fried butter on a stick.

Here's what it looks like. We chased it with a Snickers bar on a stick.

Video. Wouldn't play. I don't blame it.

After I ordered, they asked if I wanted anything else. "How about a paramedic?" I snarked. ...and then a very worried looking woman stepped to the window. "Is everything OK?" she asked. "I'm a paramedic."

A kindly paramedic who sells fried butter on a stick. Only at The Iowa State Fair.

Fixer made reference earlier today to the kinda stuff him and me like to eat - pizza, Meskin, French - all rich and tasty as hell and loaded with stuff from inside a cow, but I think I can speak for him when I say that there comes a time to draw the line. Butter goes on stuff. It isn't stuff. Whaddya put on butter? Batter, then dip it in boiling fat, I guess. Eating a stick of butter, even, or especially, disguised by deep-frying is just plain gross on sooooooooo many levels. Yechhh.

I wish the Iowa Teavangelicals all the luck out there in the Heart Attack Belt. I hope you all connect with your death wish soon. I hope you can squeeze through them Pearly Gates.

All that said, Mrs. G said she'd try the deep-fried cheesecake. Lives on the edge, she does!

A Brief Observation on Last Night's Republican Fisticuffs (in Haiku Form)

By The Rude Poet:

Bachmann roughly fucked
Pawlenty with a large red,
white, and blue spiked cross.

(One other note: when Ron Paul is the sanest man in the room, you've got a hell of a lot of problems in your choice of candidates, GOP.)
...

(One other other note: Mitt Romney is scary.)

Yeah, ol' "Soylent Green Corporations are people!" Romney is that.

Update:

You can go see the "highlights" of the Repug talking points turkey slap here if you must. Video too.

A comment:

You mean this wasn't "American Idiot: The Musical"?

Bachmann's Auschwitz Warning

Raw Story

In a strange revelation Thursday, Mother Jones magazine unearthed a mostly forgotten 2002 movie that stars none other than Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann during her days as an education activist, warning Americans about a coming second Holocaust brought on by the U.S. public education system.
...

The film, called Guinea Pig Kids II according to the report, was made in conjunction with a conservative group called the Maple River Education Coalition. Consisting mainly of two presentations -- one by Chapman and one by Bachmann -- building upon conspiracies that sound like Glenn Beck's worst nightmares.

He goes on to assert that school-to-work programs, which help students identify core skills needed to get jobs in their chosen fields, are an echo of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's concentration camps. Later the film shows an image of a deserted, foggy area bearing the words "Work Makes Free!," a rough translation of the phrase that hung in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

This is what our country has devolved to, that batcrap crazy right wingers like this can run for President and be taken seriously.

With the stuff me and Gordon eat ...

This comes as welcome news:

...

"In essence, we have built a replacement sphincter that we hope can one day benefit human patients," said Khalil Bitar, a professor at the institute. Bitar performed the work while on the University of Michigan faculty.

...

After a hard night of pizza and beer, or a night with the chef's tasting menu and drinks at my pal Guy's French restaurant, I have begged for something like this the next morning. Heh ...

Seriously, I applaud any medical advance that can help people live more normal lives. Good on 'em.

Great thanks to Susie for the link.

The narrative ...

If the Dems, like the conservatives, would harp on shit the other side does, maybe the narrative that the Republicans are just a buncha obstructionist assholes might stick:

And it's not just judges. The GOP is filibustering left and right on administration appointees across the baord. But again, the Democrats and the White House should be railing about this. We shouldn't have to rely on Ari Melber and MSNBC. All these issues are related. If we kept talking about the GOP filibuster of appointees we'd also have more fodder to go after the GOP filibuster of the debt ceiling increase, of health care reform, of DADT (that we finally surmounted after losing two initial votes). Everything is related to everything else. If you let the GOP slide on one thing, it helps them get you on dozens of other issues.

...

This should be Obama's job, with the bully pulpit that he has, but he's abdicated that responsibility. If he'd come out loudly on this in the beginning, maybe more Dems would have followed suit. Just another missed opportunity.