Be careful what you wish for...

While I was lookin' up the link to my reunion photo for the post below, I ran across this Quote of the Day from May 30, 2007:

PNAC got its new Pearl Harbor. What we need now is a new Boston Tea Party.

Oy.

Wild Women Of Song

I had never heard of Pamela Rose or any of these gal songwriters of the Jazz Age until I read this article. I liked what I read so I went looking and found this vid.

"Pamela Rose takes jazz to historic heights with her show Wild Women of Song. And I mean that literally. Like some sort of younger and way more glam Doris Kearns Goodwin, she introduces nearly every one of her chosen female-written tunes with fact-filled vignettes about the composers, bringing her heroines to poignant, funny life with her stories of travail and triumph. (We knew Ms. Rose could sing, but she also tells a mean tale.) Then the prefaced melody begins, the band starts to swing, and you feel the tides of time sweeping along. It goes beyond a jazz show. It's a swinging honors course in womankind." - BRUCE KELLEY, EDITOR, SAN FRANCISCO MAGAZINE

WHAT? More glam than Doris Kearns Goodwin? No way...

On a personal note, Ms. Rose does a little of Peggy Lee's "Fever". I rode the school bus for years with Peggy Lee's daughter (photo, seated center). Didn't see her for 45 years until my H.S. reunion in '07 and now we keep in touch on Facebook.

Pamela Rose - Wild Women of Song: Great Gal Composers of the Jazz Era

Thanks to DealMattersENT.

TSA in Philly Must Stand for Truly Stupid Assholes

Dave Lindorff at The Smirking Chimp. Last ¶:

So there you have it. Cut your hair in Philadelphia and to the alert agents of the TSA and the equally alert Philadelphia Police you are a potentially radicalized terrorist. (Geez, and I already went through that garbage back in the '60s, when my long hair used to routinely get me harassed by police. So I guess it's "long hair and beard = Commie" and "short hair and beard = Jihadi"). Carry language flash cards, or perhaps a book with an incendiary title, and you're a potential terrorist. Get the wrong TSA agent, and you may even end up having some terribly incriminating substance planted in your bag. And try to prove misbehavior or worse by the TSA and they'll casually destroy the evidence.

I'm really glad I hardly ever have to fly, and I feel for those of you who do.

Poison alert! A rose by any other name...

...won't kill ya near as dead as this shit will. See 'safety controversy'. If you drink diet sodas or use 'Equal' (the blue packets at restaurants), read this. Via BuzzFlash.

Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener

In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world's most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called "AminoSweet" (my em).

Emphasis added so you'll know what to look for in the 'ingredients' panel.

I use Splenda which, though it has chlorine in it, has not had the kind of controversy about it that aspartame has. It has had some, a good deal of which I suspect is from other artificial sweetener manufacturers and the sugar lobby.

None of this shit is very good for you, but we like sweet.

Saturday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

Funny! Unless you're in it. I am soooooo glad that not everybody carried around a camera during my drinkin' days like they do now.

And yes, I will admit to actually liking this song.

Zac Brown Band ~ Sic 'Em On A Chicken

Thanks to CheetoVonDeez.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Blue Cross Arena Rochester N.Y. 12-20-2003

Emmylou Harris and Dave Matthews ~ Oh Sister

Thanks to arthurfromholland, Netherlands.

Now I know where I'm gonna go...

Politics seems to be the same every day lately. The Repugs lie and obstruct, the Dems apologize for telling at least some of the truth and cave. Hope-y change-y? Nah. Suck-y fuck-y.

So I got ta contemplating the bigger things in life. Where am I gonna go when de volcano blow?

Broadcast on Friday, May 8, 1981 on ABC's comedy show Fridays, Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band perform "Volcano" ... introduced by Nat E. Dred ... ya, ya ya!

Thanks to earthweek.

Then I chanced across this article in The Daily Beast:

How Rich People Smoke Pot

I'm not rich by American standards, but I'm probably richer than 90% of the people on the planet, so I shoehorned myself into 'rich' just for the moment, and now I know where I'm gonna go when de Volcano blow:

Out for munchies of course!

Dog The Bounty Hunter believes in Hawaii Health Care

In case you missed it.

Republicans want Hawaiians to know that their 40 years of government-run health care will not work. (07:11)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Apparent Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Hit him ...

Where it hurts. In the wallet:

...

Glenn Beck’s show in the United Kingdom has not run any commercials during the past three days (Tues-Thurs). Glenn Beck’s show in the UK used to run commercials. The shows that come on before and after Glenn Beck still run commercials. But, for the past three days, Mr. Beck hasn’t had any sponsors in the U.K. During the commercial break, instead of running ads, they cut away to Sky News updates or the weather. Perhaps they’re having trouble finding sponsors willing to subsidize Glenn Beck’s misinformation, vitriol, sexism and race-baiting?

...

As I've said many times before, most on the American Left would be considered conservatives in Europe. American conservatives are looked at as barking loonies my most folks across the pond.

Great thanks to Mr. Aravosis for the link.

Sorry ...

I wasn't around today but I was shoveling ... everything. First, had to dig out my car and driveway and then, after an extraordinary long commute, I had to dig out the shop. And then half my customers showed up with a foot and a half of snow on the tops of their cars (lotta yelling at people; "what am I, your personal fucking snow boy?") I have seriously had it with snow. Don't know how you do it, Gordon.

Update:

Oh yeah, I forgot, I had to shovel out a place for Shayna to do her business in the back yard, because the snow's taller than she is, so her gold-plated plated butt doesn't get froze. Heh ...

Oy...

LATimes

Reporting from Jerusalem - The camera zooms in on the face of an actor portraying a captive Israeli soldier as he reads a prepared statement.

"My captors are treating me well," says the anxious young man, who is meant to remind viewers of Gilad Shalit, a soldier held by Islamist militants for more than three years. "They are letting me drink and giving me food." A rifle barrel slowly peeks into the picture frame, and he quickly adds, "Kosher food."

The camera pans back to reveal that the kidnappers are not Palestinian terrorists, but Orthodox Jewish settlers, who are holding the soldier until the government allows them to continue building homes in the West Bank.

Irreverent and fearless, "Eretz Nehederet," Hebrew for "It's a Wonderful Country," is a "Saturday Night Live"-style satire that takes on everything from politics to pop culture, forcing Israelis to look in the mirror and laugh, but also to think.

If the extremists of Israeli society are losing their cool over something, it's a sign we're doing our job well. It's not surprising that extreme right-wing circles are outraged by this freedom of expression. This is what makes them extremists. And we are supposed to do our part [to] preserve this freedom.

More. You'll read, you'll enjoy...

Headline of the Day

Missouri Lawmaker’s Argument Against Repealing DADT: It Would Be A ‘Cultural Affront’ To The Terrorists

Un-fucking-believable. This may be the thinnest, most ridiculous argument yet. These morons must get into politics because they get tired of saying "want fries with that?". Yeesh.

Note to Obama: Recess Appoint All of Them

The Rude One

At some point, Barack Obama has to, in a very public way, reassert his dominance in the political debate. He's got to do something that has an impact, something unilateral, something that doesn't involve talking about an issue or having a meeting that's open to the public or inviting anyone anywhere for a long walk. It's gotta be something that he can say to Congress, "See? Look at that. All that shit you wouldn't do? It's done. I did it by myself, assholes."

Right now, Republicans in the Senate (and Republicans in general) are relishing the role of agenda serial killer. It's like Obama's plans and policies are tied to a chair and Mitch McConnell's dancing around like Mr. Blonde with a razor. And when he slices an ear off or cuts a jugular, the rest of the GOP dance in the warm, sticky spray. Put the bodies in the garage freezer, motherfuckers, so we can cook 'em up later.

Fuck it. Recess appointments are there. Ronald Reagan made 243 of 'em. And, remember, if Reagan did it, it automatically covers your ass because he was so fucking awesome when he wasn't soiling his diaper. Eisenhower did it with three Supreme Court Justices. Republicans aren't even really officially filibustering some nominees. They're using this bullshit "hold" that's a little like allowing each passenger on an airplane the power to determine when they land. At some point, the damn thing's gonna run out of gas.

So Obama should make a show of his strength, say, "Fuck you" to the Senate Republicans, and recess appoint every outstanding nominee awaiting confirmation. Not just a few. All of them. Dozens of people to fill positions that'll make the government work better. Take confirmation off the table as a negotiating tool. It's not like Richard Shelby's all of a sudden gonna start not filibustering legislation. And, by the way, the recess appointment is in the Constitution, Article II, Section 2. The hold is just a Senate practice to fuck with unanimous consent to proceed.

Obama has begged the GOP again and again to work with him. He started his term with a sign of good faith, by incorporating Republican ideas into the stimulus. That's the way it's supposed to work: the Democrats own game. If Republicans want to play, they have to play on the Democrats' board. But Republicans want to pull those razors again and force Democrats to hand over the game. Obama can use the recess appointment to show that the President has some power of his own to fuck with his opponents.

I couldn't agree more.

Update:

RP and me ain't the only ones:

Think Progress

Calling the holds “unfair,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor last night to give a withering attack of Republican obstructionism and urge Obama to recess appoint “all” of his blocked nominees:

Maybe that empty space in his pants is starting to fill up a little.

Teabaggers upset Marvel Comics turned them into ’supervillians’

And rightly so. There's nothing 'super' about 'em.

Raw Story

It seems there's a new third rail in American politics -- don't mess with the Tea Partiers -- and Marvel Comics has inadvertently grabbed it with both hands. And even though members of the Tea Party movement have extracted a half-hearted apology and a promised retraction from Marvel, their anger has barely abated.

In a recent issue of Captain America, the long-time superhero and his African-American partner The Falcon travel to Idaho to investigate a white supremacist militia group, the Watchdogs, who are long-time villains in the Marvel Universe. On the way, they pass an anti-tax rally where the protesters are holding up signs bearing familiar Tea Party slogans, such as "Stop the Socialists!" and "Tea Bag the Libs Before They Tea Bag You."

This implied mockery of the Tea Partiers quickly aroused a firestorm of indignation on conservative blogs and message boards, made even worse by the implied association between the protesters and the local racist militia.

One particularly angry blogger, Warner Todd Huston, wrote, "So, there you have it, America. Tea Party protesters just 'hate the government,' they are racists, they are all white folks, they are angry, and they associate with secretive white supremacist groups that want to over throw the U.S. government."

That just about covers it. And your point is...?

The real bone of contention in this controversy, however, may be not whether Marvel consciously intended to link the Tea Parties to extreme right-wing radicals but whether such an association has any validity. In the current issue of Newsweek, for example, conservative Jonathan Kay describes (Don't miss! - G) his attendance at the recent Tea Party Convention and concludes that "the tea-party movement is dominated by conspiracist kooks."

"Within a few hours in Nashville," Kay writes, "I could tell that what I was hearing wasn't just random rhetorical mortar fire being launched at Obama and his political allies: the salvos followed the established script of New World Order conspiracy theories, which have suffused the dubious right-wing fringes of American politics since the days of the John Birch Society."

Heh. The resurgent* Birchers and the teabaggers are no doubt going to be accusing each other of being too far to the left.

*I thought they were safely dead and gone. Looks like they've clawed their way out of the grave. Probly smell bad too. Maybe they'll be in the comic book Tales From The Crypt?

From Bob Dylan's "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues":

Now we all agree with Hitlers' views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.

The details and right-wing fringewads have changed a little, but they are still enemies of America. The song is as timely now as it was back then. Here's the rest of it:

Thanks to tomjunowak.

Eric Holder and the battle over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

An excellent and informative article in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer.

[...] An informed source said of the situation, “We were buried in an avalanche of shit.”

Now that Bloomberg, Kelly, and Schumer have withdrawn their support, the Justice Department is in retreat, and Holder is scrambling to find a venue for “the trial of the century.” Kate Martin, the Center for National Security Studies director, warns, “We can’t have a situation where political pressure forces the federal government to forgo criminal prosecution. That would mean the system is fundamentally broken.” Bill Martel, of Tufts, said, “When public fear coalesces, it generates forces that are almost uncontrollable by the political leadership."

To which I would add that the forces which generate public fear for political purposes are uncontrollable as well, at least by democratic and legal methods, and shame on them and the sheep that fall for the spew.

[...] David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, said, “They can’t say military commissions are less legitimate, because they’re still using them. But if they tried K.S.M. in a military commission they’d lose any chance of having a conviction seen as legitimate by the rest of the world.”

The article will be of particular interest to those critical of Rahm Emanuel.

Quote of the Day

From "The Wasilla Wonder Wows Tea Baggers with Lies and Deception" by Andy Ostroy:

...haven't these poor people yet realized they've named themselves after a nadsack on the chin?

Racial Discrimination - The Reality Show

From Brown Man Thinking Hard, links at site.

Perspective is one of the items that is missing from the national conversation on race. It is the lack of interest in fully appreciating the African American point of view when it comes to racial issues that has so many Americans clamoring for a "post-racial America", where they can conveniently ignore or sidestep many of the truths that Americas history of discrimination contains.

Let's meet at Java Juggs for a sexpresso!

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

Free indecent grope click here!

I can't improve on that. Just go...

For Conservatives, Everything Old Is New Again

El Rude-o in a post about one conservative's reaction to a gay & lesbian lit course at Texas A&M:

Every day, though, we're reminded that conservatives so idealize the past that they probably wish they could Superman the earth backwards and make the bathrooms re-segregated and the women re-tied to the domestic sphere. Of course, their taxes would be a hell of a lot higher, but, you know, that clouds the picture. Even the recent past is part of this strange, myopic vision of white utopia. For why else would Republicans right now be talking about privatizing Social Security? Or cutting taxes further? If the plunge in the stock market and the ratcheting up of the debt under George W. Bush didn't put those notions to sleep like the incontinent dogs they were, then nothing will. Christ, someone's even put up a billboard in Minnesota of the smiling bastard ex-president with the line "Miss Me Yet?" on it. That ain't nostalgia. It's psychosis.

Conservatives don't have much use for history because, time and again, it proves them wrong.

There's a great line in the song "Daddy Played The Banjo" on Steve Martin's "The Crow" CD:

With memories of what never was, become the good old days.

You don't know Ronnie ...

Like I know Ronnie. Christ:

If you ever needed evidence that right-wingers have no boundaries -- in terms logic, ethics, or basic decency -- that they will not trample all over in the defense of conservative "values" and leaders, check out Pam "Atlas Wanks Shrugs" Geller earlier this week on the Joy Behar show (along with Stephanie Miller), trying to tell Ron Reagan Jr. that his father would have been a big fan of Sarah Palin:

...