Hey ...

What's that big yellow thing in the sky?

Would you pay ...

Almost a hunnert bucks to go to this thing and come home with physical evidence that you actually did go?

Nostalgia act Snowbilly Sarah and The Grifters will be teaming up with The Man Too Crazy For Fox for a Very Special One Time Performance That You Can Tell You Grandchildren About Right Before They Place A Pillow Gently But Firmly Over Your Face. Called Defending The Republic, and sponsored by St. Louis radio station NewsTalk 97.1 as well as Hansen’s Tree Service (I shit you not), this is an event you won’t want to miss if only for the chance at a $77 commemorative t-shirt:

...

They couldn't pay me to go, even if they throw in a free t-shirt.

Twice as stupid ...

As the last Texan in the White House, but with the same people making his lips move. Digby:

... The experts that [Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry] has reached out to include former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, former NSC strategy guru William Luti, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy, former Pentagon official Charles "Cully" Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe Daniel Fata, former Pentagon China official Dan Blumenthal, the Heritage Foundation's Asia expert Peter Brookes, and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad.

Politico reported that Donald Rumsfeld helped Perry set up the initial meeting with Feith, Luti, McCarthy, and Fata (Stimson was invited but couldn't attend), but there have been several more since then and the Perry team is continuing to fly in experts to meet with the governor in Texas.

...

Do we really need a dumber version of George W. Bush (along with his cast of war criminals) in the White House?

Seriously?

Really? After the Bachmann pics? Seriously?

Thank you; thank you very much ...

A bond trader thanks the Tea Party for making him money:

As a long-time bond bull, my gratitude to the know-nothings in the Tea Party is profound.

So what if they played a major role in taking a thousand points off the stock market in the wake of the U.S. debt downgrade?

My bonds have rallied !!

...

How stupid and reckless is the Tea Party? In addition to shrugging off a default threat – or perhaps welcoming one – they believe austerity is the correct medicine for a weak economy!! Where did they study economics, in a cornfield outhouse??

It defies belief that Tea Party members actually think spending cuts will create jobs. No – spending cuts will eliminate jobs. The Know-Nothings don’t understand that, but hey — it’s good for my bonds !! [em in orig]

...

Always knew somebody would make money off it. I always wonder if the average Teabagger even understands what they've enabled to be done to this country. I wonder if any of them get how they've been duped and used as willing idiots to make the "elites" - who they say they despise so much - richer. I wonder if these self-proclaimed "patriots" (you'll see them at the link) realize what treasonous bastards they've become.

Great thanks to Mr. Aravosis for the link.

Michele Bachmann is worried about the Renaissance

From the Entertainment section of the LATimes:

It's the Renaissance, stupid.

The economy is not what ails us today. No, what ails Americans is what Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and their artistic spawn have wrought in the culture, starting 500 years ago. The Renaissance has dragged us all down.

Tea party queen and Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is convinced that America is sinking into tyranny. Why? In a remarkable profile of the candidate appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of the New Yorker magazine, the artistic flowering of the Italian Renaissance takes a beating for having done away with the god-fearing Dark Ages.

Bachmann "belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians," [...]

No shit. Perhaps we should elect her just to see how far back it's possible to regress.

California Democratic Party May Dump Its Progressive Caucus for Proposing a Primary Challenge to Obama

War Is A Crime.org, formerly AfterDowningStreet.

Go read the resolution.

PS: You can help primary Obama here: http://stophoping.org

Any bets an Obama primary challenge will happen?

Suck, Marcus, blow's just an expression...

The Rude Pundit follows up on Fixer's post:

Here's some things the Rude Pundit believes Minnesota's non-quitter was thinking as she went down on some carny dong:

1. "Oh, God, it's been so long."
2. "This tastes better than Sean Hannity."
3. "Wait, you mean it's just a hot dog?"
4. "I can take a bigger one than Rick Perry."
5. "This won't look bad at all."

Of course, if there's tube meat available, Bachmann's not-at-all-gay, anti-gay, gay-curing husband Marcus will be close by. He got a corn dog facial, too, with the congresswoman making him take it, take it all. Look at him:

You look at him...

Obviously he was thinking:

1. "Pray it away, pray it away, pray it away..."
2. "Well, if I just put the tip in, it won't look like I like it."
3. "Is it okay if I touch it, just a little, with my fingers gently caressing the smooth shaft before it hits my tongue and fills my mouth, oh, god, oh, Jesus, this feels amazing...no, no, stop it, bad thoughts. I'll have to whip myself later."
4. "Maybe if I show that I think it's yucky, people will stop talking."
5. "Oh, Michele, it's just...you."

My comment on Fixer's post was that the symbolism of this might have gone right over their heads since their house is probably not a blow job-rich environment. I'll amend that to say "not when Michelle's home". Heh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

POLLS
70% Don't Trust Government
Prefer to build their own highways, bridges.

Bipartisan Supercommittee Gets to Work
First task: decide between tag team format or cage match.

I'll go for the cage match in Speedos. They're not going to do anything anyway so it might as well be creepily entertaining.

Texas Plant to Turn Sewage into Drinking Water
Most agree: a good thing, for somebody else.

All they have to do is reverse the flow. They've been turning drinking water into sewage for years.

Real Madrid Signs 7-Year-Old Soccer Prodigy
To one-year contract.

Pro sports'd have to find two child prodigies for NASCAR - one to sit on phone books and steer and one to work the pedals.

"C'mon, this is too easy."

Seriously.

With allies like these ...

Who needs enemies?

...

Members of the Chinese military were allowed to survey the wreckage of the hi-tech helicopter and take samples of its "stealth" skin, which allowed it to enter Pakistan undetected by radar, the Financial Times reported, quoting US sources.

...

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.