Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Apr 5, 2013
Live at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta, GA, 4/4/2013

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell ~ Invitation To The Blues

Thanks to ra33ra33.

Break the kids in early...

...in the school-to-prison pipeline. The Prison-industrial Complex needs a compliant taxpayer-funded labor force to keep the overhead down and enhance the bottom line.

Click to embighouse

Thanks to YubaNet.

Nuke Nuke Mickey Lover

Well, this oughta piss the kid off! Heh.

Anonymous hackers take control of North Korean propaganda accounts

Click to empiggen

"Zone Of Impunity"

HuffPo:

Secret Files Expose Offshore's Global Impact

Dozens of journalists sifted through millions of leaked records and thousands of names to produce ICIJ’s investigation into offshore secrecy
...

A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.
...

Mobsters and Oligarchs
...

Politically connected wealth

Promises like those have been met with skepticism, given the role played by key G8 members — the U.S., the U.K. and Russia — as sources and destinations of dirty money. Despite the new efforts, offshore remains a “zone of impunity” for anyone determined to commit financial crimes, said Jack Blum, a former U.S. Senate investigator who is now a lawyer specializing in money laundering and tax fraud cases.

“Periodically, the stench gets so bad somebody has to get out there and clap the lid on the garbage can and sit on it for a while,” Blum said. “There’s been some progress, but there’s a bloody long way to go.”

NAMES, dude, we want NAMES.

Update:

Leak of Identities & Emails of Rich Hiding *$32 Trillion* Offshore

Some names, but not nearly enough.

Be careful what you wish for

Colorado gun group leader: ‘There’s a time to hunt deer’ and a ‘time to hunt Democrats’

You better stick to deer, asshole. You're going to get more than you bargained for. Not all us Dems are peacelovedope hippies who won't shoot first. I've been shot at. Have you?

"Vote Sanford, South Carolina," By The People Of Other Awful States

Mr. Bilbeau of Goblinbooks is a wicked, wicked man. Heh.

Hey. It's Florida, Jersey, and a couple of the other guys. We're calling in a favor. We need you to elect Mark Sanford and give him a wide margin. We want a breather. No more bad press for awhile. We're tired of being known as the bad parts of the country. It's your turn, okay?

Florida is sick of everyone talking about how people are eating each other's faces off and voting Rubio. Texas wants to tone down the coverage about how you can bring a gun into a delivery room. And New Jersey just wants no one to mention it in any way. You guys are as terrible as we are. It's time people appreciated that. Vote Sanford. It's the right thing to do.

If you elect Mark Sanford, it will confirm every stereotype of asinine, hypocritical social conservatives who don't even know the Bible they like to beat other people up with.
...

We all have our rednecks lopping their limbs off in powerboat accidents and going to CPAC. But you guys started the Civil War, for chrissakes. Seriously. Why the hell does no one ever call you on that? You owe us.
...

Pick up that slack, South Carolina. The ignorant, heavily-armed people of this great land are counting on you. Be the jackasses we know you can be.

Heh.

Headline and Quote of the Day

Reaping What You Sow: Are White Supremacists Preparing to Fight a new Civil War?

The US Republican Party ignores any white hate group threat since these groups are largely anti-Obama and vote Republican.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and racists are the scum of the earth and should be shot on sight. Possibly a less-than-liberal viewpoint, but it's mine.

Related:

All charges dropped against 2 members of white supremacy group

Some others were convicted.

The convictions so far are: Christopher Brooks, 28, sentenced to three years in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; Luke Leger, 32, and Kent McLellan, 22,both sentenced to four years of probation for pleading no contest to participating in paramilitary training.

All had been accused of training with AK-47s and other weapons to kill Jews, immigrants and minorities during a two-year undercover investigation of paramilitary activities in Holopaw, a remote area in eastern Osceola County.
...

In a similar case in 2007, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office intelligence unit duped a leader of the Aryan Nations hate group into allowing undercover deputies to form a motorcycle club known as the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division.

I bet their annual picnic was a hoot. Heh. Oy.

I have a sneakin' hunch we're going to see a lot more of this update:

Report connects Tea Party leaders with white supremacist groups

For some reason, this does not surprise me.

Why you probably suck at sex

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about ... teehee!


Go read. This one only needs one quote:

After all, when all you’re fed is junk food and Red Bull, who will teach you about duck confit and single malt? When all you have is a blunt sexual hammer, everyone just gets nailed.

Old Stoners Rule!

I love it when then the mysteries and wonders of the universe are reduced to one old stoner doing arts and crafts! And He created me in his own image!

Click to embiggen.

Thanks to the LATimes

Not much going on today so I'll just leave this so the spammers can earn their money.

The Coming GOP-Evangelical Divorce

Michael Tomasky

What are evangelical conservatives going to do? I ask the question not with any sympathy, but with a mountain of schadenfreudian glee—I am profoundly reassured about my country’s direction every time I hear Tony Perkins bemoan it. But however it’s asked, it’s a question that’s growing more and more urgent. Mike Huckabee says that if the GOP embraces same-sex marriage, “evangelicals will take a walk.” Others pooh-pooh this on the usual grounds that they’ve got nowhere else to go. But they do: back to private life. And it’s my bet that in, say, eight or 12 years’ time, that’s where a lot of evangelicals will be. Having gotten into politics to rescue America from the sinners and fornicators, I reckon a critical mass will decide by 2024 that it was fun while it lasted, but that the fight is hopeless.
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Then what for the Christian right? They got into politics in the 1970s. Remember, Jerry Falwell himself, in a 1965 sermon called “Ministers and Marches,” denounced mixing religion and politics. But then came late-’60s tumult, Roe v. Wade, and kindred signs of the devil’s grip (preceded by the Supreme Court’s decision to take God out of the classroom). Religious conservatives got into politics to undo those things. And here we are, 50 years later, and it’s only gotten worse as far as they’re concerned. By 2024, if my forecasts are correct, things will get only worse still.

Well, how much patience can a movement have? By 2024, evangelicals will have been up to their armpits in politics for half a century. With what to show for it? A country where (I’m betting) abortion is still legal, and now Adam and Steve are saying vows. And their vehicle for their agenda, the Republican Party, will be walking away from them to a place where they smell more votes (and money).

The money boys, aka the "Repug establishment", have been working the Bible thumpers like a red-headed stepchild for their votes for forty years and not given them a damn thing they wanted. I'll be glad to see a really bitter divorce of a marriage made in hell.

Make up your own "Defense Of Marriage" jokes. Heh.

Guns for Gays

The Rude Pundit

Here's what has to happen: we gotta get gays and lesbians by the thousands...no, no, by the tens of thousands to buy guns. No, wait, even better. Someone call George Soros for some major scratch. We gotta start a program to arm Ls and Gs and Bs and Ts and even Qs with the baddest ass guns currently legal, motherfuckin' AR-15s and fuckin' .50 caliber rifles, toss in some pistols like Glocks and Magnum revolvers. And get 'em all concealed carry and whatever other licenses they need. Then, once all the gays got themselves armed, they need to start showing up with their guns, all tricked out in the most over-the-top outfits that play right into what ostensible straights fear most about the LGBT community, crazy stereotypes, like cross-dressed feather queens and tight-pants and cropped shirts on skinny boys and the bull-dykiest-lookin' lesbians that you can imagine. Send 'em out with their guns to shooting ranges, to gun shows, to pro-gun marches, every fuckin' place that NRA gun nuts and militias and white supremacists and worse show up.

A queer army, man, of locked and loaded leather studs and lipsticked femmes. And it's not just a show, motherfuckers, although what a goddamn show it'll be.

I like it! And the guns will be fabulous!

This ain't some April Fool's Day joke. It's time to go all Black Panther on their asses. We can have a fabulous group of armed drag queens show up with their AKs strapped to the back of their sequined dresses and promenade around downtown because it's their constitutional fuckin' right. We can have a troop of muscle bears and suit-wearing butches show up at Tea Party events locked and loaded, wonderin' why "freedom" doesn't have anything to do with who you love. And, just to be helpful, we'll need to have a security team of trans gun owners to guard schools, all wearing school uniforms, of course, of course.

Yeah, some of the gun-noids will be fine with it, happy that more people are armed for the coming black helicopter zombie nightmare. But you can bet there's gonna be a whole lot of 'em that start reconsidering this whole "no compromise" position on gun "rights."

Yep. It'll scare the shit outta the lily white gun nuts when The Other, Any Other, show they have rights too.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Growing Fleet of New Warships Under Command of Various Chinese Gov’t Agencies Harrassing Neighbors in Disputed Waters
After Chinese Navy, second-most powerful regional force is now Beijing's sanitation department.

GOP Balks at Official Path to Citizenship
Prefers free market solutions such as forgery, bribery, identity theft.

French Province Using Drones to Deliver Newspapers
Featuring computer-generated content and printed by automated presses, it's delivered right to the door of its humanoid readers.

The kid who used to deliver it on his bicycle is now operating the paper drone from his mom's basement and becoming obese. The progress of man.

FAA Predicts 10,000 Drones In Skies by 2020
Majority will be operated by 14-year-old boys.

Watch out for falling newspapers.

Bad News: Deaths Tied to Painkillers Rising in U.S.
Good news: you won’t feel a thing.

It's a blessing...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Nov 26, 2012
Kentucky Educational Television's "The Lonesome Pine Specials"; recorded at the Kentucky Center for the Arts; producer Richard Van Kleeck; director Clark Santee; copyright 1992, KET

Sam Bush - mandolin, fiddle
John Randal Stewart - guitar
Al Perkins - dobro, banjo, guitar
Mark Winchester - bass
Larry Atamanuik - drums

Emmylou Harris & Nash Ramblers ~ Walls of Time

Thanks to foxfireman188.

The kid needs a 'time out'

North Korea puts rockets on standby to 'mercilessly strike' the U.S.

The proper response:

Thanks to YubaNet.

Truncated transcript from today’s SCOTUS argument

This is funny. Just go read it. COURTNEY MILAN'S TUMBLR.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. Today, we—

ROBERTS: In keeping with the practices of this Court, we don’t allow anyone to complete a full sentence before interrupting them. Tell us why the people who hired you should even be allowed to bring a case.

COOPER: Because California said so.
...

BREYER: I’m going to ask you an extremely long question riddled with nonspecific nouns, and you’re going to have to guess what I mean by it.

COOPER: I’m pretty sure the answer is no? But let’s stop talking about whether I should be allowed to talk, and get on to what I’m going to be talking about. Which is: nostalgia. Nostalgia for the good old days of traditional, bedrock values. Man, back in 1971, this Court said there was no federal question as to same-sex marriage. Those were the fucking days.
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Ted Olson’s turn.

OLSON: We all know that if you don’t decide on behalf of respondents, you’ll be heralded as bigots for generations to come, so—

ROBERTS: Before we get to the question of our bigotry, can we talk about standing?

OLSON: Yeah, they have none.
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SCALIA: I’m going to ask you a ridiculous question: When did it become unconstitutional to discriminate against gays and lesbians?

OLSON: It would be bad form at this juncture to say, “Fuck you, Scalia, you just want to grandstand,” so I’m just going to say it’s a nonsensical question.
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VERRILLI: Look, we’re trying to find narrow grounds for you to affirm under, if that’s what you’re looking for. Narrow grounds. Affirm. Maybe even 6-3?

JUSTICES, COLLECTIVELY: Yeah, none of us are buying it. It’s probably the only thing that the nine of us agree on.
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SOTOMAYOR: Okay, but lemme explain how the Supreme Court works. We’re actually terrified of screwing up. That’s why we mainly take cases where there’s a circuit split—because then there’s a lot of arguments on both sides. We’re all kind of freaked out here, because no matter what we decide, someone will be out for our blood. We avoided doing the right thing on racial segregation as a court for 50 years. Why not do this here?

Go.

The Red Tape Diaries

This is as good an explanation of the VA backlog as I've seen.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Your evolution is totally gay

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on the evolution of support for equal rights of marriage, whether real or politically motivated.

Out of the cheap woodwork they come, these swiftly “evolving” politicians, racing as fast as they can to get with the foregone program and support gay marriage ASAP because they see the writing on the Supreme Court wall, which is the same as the writing on the bathroom wall, which is the same as what appears in every poll and survey and sample across the civilized, intelligent, non-Republican world.

And that writing says one thing: Idiots and fools, cretins and political roadkill are ye who do not get over your uptight sexual fears and ignorance of God, pronto.

The hottest story of all right now? Aside from the “leery,” “reluctant,” dully conservative Supreme Court whimpering toward a half-baked, non-sweeping decision on Prop 8 and DOMA that no one will really like? Speed.

Which is to say, everyone’s amazed at the breathtaking, almost impossible-to-believe quickness at which the gay marriage issue has “evolved,” not just for politicos desperate for the love of younger voters who don’t give a damn for the ludicrous “culture wars” of their elders, but for the entire culture, how quickly gay marriage has skyrocketed to a majority of public support in a short handful of years, so fast that no one can really answer why.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth aside, perhaps it's because folks simply aren't as mean as they were, or better informed that civil rights for one are civil rights for all or they mean nothing.

From the Atlantic link above:

The consensus from Court watchers Tuesday seems to be that the Court is itching for a way to avoid a sweeping ruling on same-sex marriage. I can buy that. Such a ruling would be terribly disappointing to same-sex marriage advocates (and probably not beloved by same-sex marriage foes, either). But in this seminal case, to paraphrase a former government official, you go to court with the justices you have. And the justices America has right now seem ready to wait a while longer to recognize marriage equality. Charles Cooper, the lawyer without any facts to back up his argument, may end up winning in the end.

Young Mark winds it up:

Of course, this is not news. The fact that so many politicians are jumping on a fast-moving, sexually charged bandwagon when it’s the easy and opportunistic thing to do is only evidence that they’re politicians, doing what politicians do. Which is, making everyone gag at their hollow and pseudo-spiritual “awakenings,” right on cue.
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Speed bumps will persist, the Supreme Court may or may not have the balls to declare as valid what everyone already knows is imminent, hateful states and staunch conservatives will go to their graves waving their sad flags of religious ignorance and fear, same as it ever was.

But gay marriage is essentially done. Liberals won. Your kids have already moved on, long ago. And of course, they also de facto/by and large support gun bans, women’s rights, environmental action, et al. And would you look at that? They didn’t even have to “evolve” to do it. Go figure.

I did a lot of their "evolving" for them on a number of subjects over the years. Damn kids come to the right answer without even having to work for it. Heh.

The stupid, it burns...

Raw Story

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee sprung to action and demanded answers after confusing a mop sink recently installed in the state Capitol for a Muslim foot-washing sink.

Members of the state House and Senate contacted state Senate Clerk Russell Humphrey to ask if the floor-level sink had been installed outside the House chamber men’s restroom to accommodate Muslims’ ritual of washing their feet before prayer, according to The Associated Press (Nice photo of the sink - G).
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Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley assured the lawmakers in an email that “the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use.”

“It is, in layman’s terms, a mop sink,” Ridley said.
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“Tennessee, like the federal government, has a compelling state interest to protect our citizens from jihad terrorism,” Matheny said at the time.

That measure would have criminalized Muslim foot-washing rituals and dietary restrictions.

I will assume the legislation would have criminalized Jesus washing his disciples' feet as well. They could clean swabs in it while they're waiting for his return. Idiots.

Then again, maybe there aren't any real followers of Christ's teachings around there.

Republicans Struggle to Recover From TeaPartyitis

Will Durst on the GOP "autopsy".

The study was commissioned by members of the party's hierarchy and given the official title- Growth and Opportunity Project. A GOP for the GOP. Although Grossly Obvious Poppycock fits as well. Claiming party purity trumps electoral victory, there is already heavy pushback from the right. "What good is it to win earthly spoils when you lose your immortal soul and your breath still smells like embalming fluid?"

What this really calls for is an independent perspective. You want an autopsy, we'll give you an autopsy.

"Summary Report of Autopsy concerning the corpse of the 2012 Republican campaign. External Examination. Close inspection of the body, an old white billionaire, reveals a serrated knife approximately 9 inches long with the initials, Grover Norquist, engraved on the handle, protruding from under the right side between the 4th & 5th ribs.

Gunshot residue found covering the right hand in excess of ½ inch depth, which considering the holes in the right temple exhibiting upward trajectories, is consistent with what can only be described as a series of self- inflicted gunshot wounds. DNA tests reveal skin samples found under the broken nails of both hands are indicative of numerous encounters between the victim and an unknown woman or perhaps group of women.

The nose is missing which corresponds to the victim's recent recurring publicized bout of TeaPartyitis, a disease which causes the sufferer to cut off his nose to spite his face. In the rectum, what appears to be a wooden stick 6 inches long and ¾ inch in diameter, has been lodged for quite some time causing a critical backup of feces.

Pending toxicology results from the lab, internal examination reveals organs in a state consistent with the victim's age, with two conspicuous anomalies. A steady diet of bunk and bamboozle has dulled the senses creating a milky film that covers the retinas. Most exceptional was the astonishing discovery of the total absence of a heart.

It is the opinion of this office the cause of death was this myocardial void along with the aforementioned complications from various acute traumas. In other words, the victim was probably dead for a long time, just didn't know it."

If they'da had a nose they coulda smelled it.

Everyone Knows A Gay Person. Everyone Knows A Conservative

Goblinbooks. Caution: scary picture!

We're in the middle of a stunning upsurge of support for gay people and an equally stunning collapse of support for conservatives. And I believe the reasons are the same: More and more people actually know them.
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[...] And we, the public, also know, through personal experience, that Roberts himself was recommended to the bench by a halfwit who thought Jesus Christ actually told him to launch a preemptive war on Iraq.

Yes, yes we know that.

With increased openness, you can encounter gay people or conservatives anywhere. You might meet a coworker's partner at a company lunch, say, or have a longtime friend post a picture of an aborted fetus on your Facebook page. Maybe an older relative finally has the courage to express himself - and he either tells you he's going to start dating, or he sends you a racist email about the president.

However these things happen, millions of people across the country are getting more accurate images of both groups. They understand a gay person is a well-adjusted man or woman who happens to be attracted to people of the same gender. And they understand a conservative is someone who doesn't believe in climate change, and maybe not even evolution, and enjoys hoarding weapons and highlighting the scariest parts of Atlas Shrugged.

The way forward, in both cases, is clear. Gay people should be proud of who they are. They should feel free to talk honestly, even bluntly. Conservatives should really, really do the opposite. They need to pull the plug on CPAC and encourage Michele Bachmann to build that compound she's probably sketched out. They need to fight those feelings they have about contraceptives and the gold standard. They're not right. They're not natural.

They need to find a deep, dark closet and just cram themselves in there. For good.

I long for the day when a "brave conservative" is one who dares to come out as such instead of one who wants to send other people's kids to die in unnecessary criminal wars.