Number of the Day - 114,697

The number of votes that Sarah Palin received in the 2006 Gubernatorial election in Alaska. Only 238,307 votes were cast in the entire election.

Source: Wikipedia.

JG.

Just had to share...

Mrs. G just came in and told me she was so sick of hearing about Sarah Palin juggling the breast pump and the Blackberry that she switched to QVC and that's why she has a new necklace! Heh.

McWoW

This is dedicated to John McCain on the occasion of his latest fuckup. Pick any of 'em, doesn't matter, may they continue in an unbroken stream like the piss he wishes he could take. Most fittingly set to 'World of Warcraft'. The avatar kinda looks and acts like him too...

Desert Rose Band - One Step Forward And Two Steps Back

Thanks to robbwow.

The good ol' boys on Sarah Barracuda

All you guys are makin' it damn easy for me today. Remember - God made jer eyes to plagiarize. Heh.

Stole this one from brother d. He's always got the good shit.



More Red State Updates. They're a hoot!

Republicans

Gleefully gleeped from our pals MandT at Adgita Diaries! Good work you guys!

Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt (Trio) - Memories of You

From A Distance Revisited

I posted this by Bette Midler earlier in the year. This version by Nanci Griffith appeared on YouTube just today.

McCain text messages about veep pick

Hoffmania

Click to embiggen

Yeah!

I'm on vacation!

The Rolling Stones - Undercover of the Night

Happy Friday!

Quote of the Day Zwei

Watertiger:

Me and Grandpa are gonna run for office!

Update:

Pic stolen from Fez-head.

Update Zwei:

Seems now I'm a sexist misogynist for posting the above pic. First time for everything and with the life I've lived, those times are few and far between. I can live with that, what with the number of women over the years who've asked "do you have a brother?". No apologies here.

SOS!* McCain’s POW Card Waterloo

Crooks and Liars, with video. Absolutely pathetic. McCain has turned himself into a laughingstock with his inappropriate references to the POW deal as an excuse for everything.

Since it’s no longer taboo to point out John McCain’s ridiculous and offensive attempts to use of his experience as a POW as if it’s somehow an excuse for everything from his extramarital affairs to his rule-breaking to his having more pieces of real estate than he can keep track of, and so on, we would be remiss if we didn’t point this one out too.

When CNN’s Walter Isaacson confronted John McCain about his professed love of the band of ABBA, which of course was a lame attempt to cater to “disaffected Hillary supporters” as his blogger Michael Goldfarb made clear, McCain (you guessed it) whipped out the trusty ol’ POW card to explain:

“What were you thinking?,” Isaacson asked him, looking incredulous.

“If there is anything I am lacking in, I’ve got to tell you, it is taste in music and art and other great things in life,” McCain joked. “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.”

But, as Spencer Ackerman was quick to point out:

What? McCain was shot down in 1967. ABBA began making music in 1972. Don’t try this sh** on me, McCain! Your POW experience has nothing to do with your Partridgey musical taste.

Cue the mockery**… Nicole thinks maybe we should just put out a distress signal for McSame instead

Nah, fuck it. Let him shoot himself down again while he's in the air over the shark.

*SOS - every serviceman's favorite breakfast dish, creamed beef(?) on toast AKA 'Shit On a Shingle'. Yum!

**At first glance I thought it said 'cue the monkey'. It still fits.

Quote of the Day

I actually heard this one. C & L:

Olbermann on Scarborough’s BS: “Jesus, Joe. Why don’t you get a shovel?”

A steam shovel or backhoe might be called for.

An open mic caught Keith Olbermann last night telling Joe Scarborough to get a shovel and dig himself out of the horse crap he was dropping all over the airwaves about how confident the McCain campaign must feel right now. And thus a classic moment in live political news coverage was born.

More! More!

Have much trouble gettin' a campfire permit for that cake, Johnny boy?

BuzzFlash

Today, August 29, is John McCain's 72nd birthday. In the spirit of the week, we respect John McCain as a person, but don't think he should be president of the United States.

To show that there aren't any hard feelings, here are 72 candles:

iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii iiiiii

Just remember, if John McCain wins in November, he will be the oldest first-time president in the history of the United States.

Before there was television, air conditioning in automobiles, World War II, contact lenses, McDonald's, the Interstate Highway System, the space program, Astroturf, videotapes, and satellites, there was John McCain.

Those things will still be here when he's long gone too.

I differ from that in that I have very little respect for him after 1973 when he was released from prison where he served a sentence commensurate with his startling lack of judgment that got his ass blown out of the sky. Didja hear he was a POW? I have several hard feelings about the sonofabitch as well, particulary in the area of his ideology and his lip service to Veterans v. voting against deserved benefits for them all the time.

All that notwithstanding, here's a little song for ya on your birthday, Johnny boy:

David Grisman - Old And In The Way

McCain picks Palin for Veep

Huh? Well, he was pretty funny on Monty Python's Flying Circus and he's well-travelled...

Oh, sorry, wrong Palin. Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Huh?

This has had one desired effect so far - it stomped all over Obama's speech for the moment. The gasbags are all atwitter. All their veep predictions were wrong, as usual.

What is the old fool thinking? Well, that's pretty much what the gasbags are all atwitter about. Fuck if I know. Here's how BuzzFlash puts it:

McCain picks Female Alaska governor as running mate in attempt to pick up the Pro-Life/NRA/PUMA/Pro-Anwar Drilling Vote. Hmmm, that's some crossover vote.

Then there's Alaska's all-important 3 electoral votes.

Maybe he's just up to his old trick of throwing over older models for younger ones...

Here's a NYTimes article.

Similarly, several of Mr. McCain’s outside advisers reacted with bewilderment that Ms. Palin was the choice, and one said that it would undercut one of Mr. McCain’s central criticisms of Senator Obama — that he is too inexperienced to be commander in chief.

“While it’s a dramatic and interesting choice, it would make the argument he’s making difficult to make,” said the adviser, who is close to the campaign.

There is one teeny-weeny investigation of her going on, but it seems like it's mostly local sour grapes and, by Repug standards, pretty small potatoes.

I've seen shows about Governor Palin, and my opinion is that she's not too bad for a Repug.

I'm quite sure there'll be more on all this later. Quite sure. Heh.

Rumor has it that Romney, Ridge, and Pawlenty are breathing sighs of relief that their political careers are not going to go down the shitter by being on the losing ticket with that senile old fool.

McCain allegedly said he was "thinking out of the box" when he selected her. What the rest of us better think about is what kind of president Ms. Palin will be when he's "in the box". Besides the yummy visual of Hillary's knickers in such a twist her head explodes should such a thing come to pass, of course.

My first thought is she'd be better than him.

No way, no how, no McCain.

Update:

More on the 'why':

Time

John McCain needs to persuade swing voters that he's willing to take on the Republican establishment. He needs to persuade conservatives that he isn't squishy about social issues. And he needs to close the gender gap. When you think about it, the real surprise about Sarah Palin's selection a his running mate is that it's such a surprise.

Still, it's a long leap from the Wasilla city council to the White House, and the top consideration for any candidate for the number-two job is readiness for the number-one job, an issue that may weigh more on voters' minds when the potential number one is 72 years old.

Her profile as a good government crusader may not be such an easy sell, either. She was endorsed in an ad by Senator Ted Stevens, who is now under indictment, and she faces an investigation into the firing of her public safety commissioner; there have been allegations that she sacked him because he refused to fire a state trooper who's involved in a custody battle with her sister.

Palin certainly does have an unconventional profile for a national politician. She won Miss Wasilla in 1984 and competed in the Miss Alaska contest. She's worked as a TV sports announcer. Her husband, Todd Palin, is part native Eskimo and a champion snowmobiler; he's known in Alaska as the First Dude.

Known as 'First Dude', huh? Unless she gets to keep her job after McCain loses, (Clouseau voice) not any more...

Versailles on the Potomac ...

Or, The Wisdom of the Pundits. Batocchio over at Digby's has an excellent post up about the conventional 'wisdom' employed by the Beltway Gasbags:

...

Cokie's world, the Beltway Village, Versailles on the Potomac, can't be fully understood in "reality-based" terms, or notions of what constitutes good journalism. Those are valid forms of criticism, but they don't get to the heart of what ails these supposedly smart and often highly-educated people. Wisdom sadly doesn't always accompany knowledge, but the problem is more one of social customs. It's sometimes really amazing to see, but for many Village pundits, what's right, and sometimes truth itself, is entirely socially determined. They're a pretty anti-empirical, unreflective lot. They often possess a blithe authoritarianism, or at least an obsession with prestige. Social norms can be very good– but the Beltway conventional "wisdom" can be awfully dumb.

...

It's like that in my business too, and you can fall into a 'bubble-type' mentality if you're not careful, when all you're exposed to are those of your own ilk. Thing is, mechanics being slow to accept change and progress don't affect the lives of 300 million people.

***

That said, today is my last day of work before beginning my semi, temporary, retirement and we're leaving for Amsterdam on Monday. Lotta loose ends to clean up so you probably won't see much of me this weekend. Those who have posting privileges here, feel free to have a blast while I'm gone. The rest of you don't break Gordon's balls too bad. Heh ...

The Mrs. and I, as always, will be taking you on vacation with us. Pics and stories will be posted at our travel blog Worlds, probably starting on Tuesday or Wednesday. Our itinerary is here and we'll be meeting Prinsendam on Thursday in Amsterdam after 3 days exploring the city. Should be fun.

And a note to our European blogging friends. If you'll be in the Amsterdam area at the beginning of next week, feel free to contact us and we'll get together for coffee, drinks, or a trip to the coffeeshop. We'll be at the Prins Hendrik Hotel until Thursday morning.

See yas later ...

Obama's Speech

"This cut the crap moment is not the stuff of fiction!" - Keith Olbermann's first sentence after the speech.

The kid nailed it! I ain't never heard that good a speech in my not inconsiderably long life and it came at a damn good time. I feel better after listening to our next President than I have in a long goddam time and that's worth something.

Here's the song they played while the applause was still going on. There are times when only a country song will do.

Brooks & Dunn - Only In America

Pick him, Johnny boy! No balls if ya don't!

Click to magnify their wrinkles

Politico

Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact John McCain to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.

“Rove called Lieberman,” recounted a second source. “Lieberman told him he would not make that call.”

Rove did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is also chafing some Lieberman allies and others wary of the selection of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Rove is pushing Romney so aggressively some folks are beginning to wonder what's going on,” grumbled one veteran Republican strategist.

Lieberman has his advocates, especially among those who believe McCain needs to make a transformative pick to help disassociate himself from Bush and the GOP, but most establishment Republicans believe tapping the Connecticut senator would blow up next week’s Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., and create major problems for McCain and the conservative base of the party this fall.

A source close to Lieberman said: "If it's Lieberman, none of us know about it" — meaning staff, aides and friends. The source said Lieberman is currently on vacation on Long Island, N.Y.

Lawn Guyland, huh? Lucky you, F-Man!

C'mon Johnny, pick the old Likudnik former Dem. You owe your buddies in the media big time for lookin' the other way at all your gaffes and fuckups and everything else. They didn't get the big blow-up they wanted at the Dem convention. Give 'em one in St. Paul.

It'll be Christmas in September for an awful lot of us as well.

Quote of the Day dos

Cursor

...one line about Republicans was struck from the speech given by Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "They're asking for another four years - in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20."(my em)

More Repug Racism

Raw Story

Click to embiggen

A McCain ad aired on Fox News channel with the words "HANG" in the background along with a photograph of Barack Obama has sparked outrage after being noticed by a reporter at a local Fox television affiliate.

The words "HIGHER TAXES" are transposed on an image of Obama standing in front of a crowd. The background is blurred at the edges so that the words from Obama's signature theme -- change -- has been cut down to the word "HANG." The shot appears for about a second. You can watch the ad in its entirety below.

"Is this a coincidence?" one diarist wrote. "People spend hours and hours editing political ads, I really don't see how this could go unnoticed by the editors. Maybe they saw it and thought it wasn't noticeable or maybe they thought it wasn't important."

My bet is that the editors knew exactly what they were ordered to do and hoped that the message would be subliminal enough that no one would notice, but they left it in for just long enough to register on the conscious mind by mistake and got caught at it, ironically by a local FauxNews reporter. Denials all 'round, of course.

McSextuple Whammy

And from Democrats.com:

But McCain's age is no joke. He will turn 72 on Friday and would be halfway to 73 if elected and sworn in on January 20. That would make him the oldest first-term President ever, two years older than Ronald Reagan. He has survived four skin cancers (melanomas), including one in 2000 that was classified as Stage IIa.

McCain is two years older than his father was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at 70. He is 11 years older than his grandfather was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 61.

The United States cannot afford the risk that McCain would die suddenly in the middle of an international crisis.

Actually, depending on who's his veep, it might not be a bad thing...

Nor can we afford the risk of dementia. 22% of Americans over 70 are affected by mild cognitive impairment, while 13% of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer's. Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 83, but early signs were evident during his first term. Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher developed dementia at age 75.

Prescriptions can also adversely affect mental function. McCain takes Simvastatin, an arthritis drug that can cause memory loss. McCain also takes Ambien to sleep, which can cause amnesia and "fugue states" like the one that caused Rep. Patrick Kennedy's late-night car crash. If the phone rang at 3 a.m., would McCain even wake up?

McCain's medical records are not available to physicians. He did not "release" them for the campaign; he only allowed hand-picked reporters to examine them quickly without making copies. And there were no results of an Alzheimer's test, because McCain has never had one - even though he has 6 of the 10 warning signs, including his inability to remember facts like the number of homes he owns or the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

John McCain owes America a thorough test for Alzheimer's and cognitive impairment long before Election Day.

He doesn't dare. Maybe he already had one and doesn't dare release the results.

Hmmmmm, let's see - PTSD, 6 out of 10 warning signs of senile dementia, prescription dope with odd mental side effects, past and probable future cancer, a family history of fatal heart attacks at ages younger than he is now, and a hot temper combined with poor judgment.

There's six chances that MCain would be either a less-than-one-term president or that he would be at the helm for a full-bore reef run for our country and the world. And not remember it the next day.

It only takes ONE of those. It's not the odds, which seem pretty good, that one or more may happen, it's the stakes.

No way, no how, no McCain.

A coupla DNC quotes

About.com

"If he's the answer, then the question must be ridiculous." --New York Gov. David Patterson, on John McCain

"To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let's compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding me, folks? Talk about being for it before you're against it! Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself." –Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

"Look, I owe the American people an apology. If I had beaten the old man you’d of never heard of the kid and you wouldn’t be in this mess. So it's all my fault and I feel that very, very strongly." --Michael Dukakis

I don't hold it against ya, Mike, but it's a good point.

Quote of the Day

Dr. Attaturk:

One of the most significant events in American History just happened ... And I'm damn proud to be an American and a Democrat and to have lived to see this day.

Indeed! Off to work ...

Don't wanna run with the bulls ...

But I want to go to Spain for this. We'll miss it by a couple weeks this year. Next time we go to Europe, I'm gonna schedule it to be there.

Excellent choice ...

Seemed so apropos last night:

O'Jays - Love Train

Whenever I need to read a good rant ...

I head over to PhysioProf's place. Our pal never disappoints:

...

Yeah, well fuck you asshole! The sick-fuck deranged right-wing shitbags that control the republican party have spent the last 40 years feeding on hate and doing everything they can to fucking destroy everything in the world that normal non-deranged people care about. As far as I’m concerned, these fucknozzles can suck my fucking dick. I have about as much interest in reaching out to these depraved fuckwastrels as I do cutting off my balls with a rusty fishknife. Fuck these motherfuckers.

In this political climate, I'm not one for bipartisanship either. The Rethugs should get a few years of pain before their positions are even considered.

"New York abstains ... courteously."*

Not this time. It was the best political theater I've seen in years. New Mexico yields to Illinois. Illinois yields to New York. Hillary Clinton unanimously pledges New York's delegates to Barack and moves to suspend the roll call. Outstanding!

Thanks to Oliver Willis for the vid.

*Quote from Lewis Morris, chair of the New York delegation to the Continental Congress, from the musical 1776

Tonight's DNC Speechifyin'

The Big Dog:

Damn, he's good! He didn't miss a lick, made some beautiful points very simply, sound bite stuff. Excellent. I coulda listened to him all night and thank God I didn't have to!

More later, after Joey.

Later:

Biden:

He did OK. Not the compelling speaker that Clinton is, but very few people are. He went after McCain's record, and even Cheney a little bit. Good.

I was really afraid I was gonna get to listen to him all night! But I din't.

One More:

Kerry:

If he'da given a speech four years ago anything remotely resembling the one he gave tonight, this convention would be about re-electing him.

Maybe some details and standout points tomorrow when I can snag 'em to be sure they're correct. G'night.

Quote of the Day Drei

Athenae:

The AP interviews a bunch of people who don't know shit, News At Eleven ...

And put me in the 'rude asshole' category.

Heh ...

Pic stolen from our pal Montag.

Found at Avedon's ...

On McCain's mindset:

...

MoDo asks "Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it?" The answer would appear to be "probably", and it may well be because his stint as a POW from late '67 to early '73 meant he wasn't around to appreciate the full context of those lessons when they were being taught. His 'Vietnam experience', brutal though it was, was contextually an entirely different experience than that of those who saw - even if only on TV - the assassinations, the marches, the riots, My Lai, the Pentagon Papers, the government killing its own citizens at Kent State and Jackson State, and - night after night, just in time for dinner - young Americans on TV fighting and dying in a war that no longer made any sense.

He didn't see what the Vietnam war was doing to the country and came home to a place far different than it was while he was imprisoned. It seems that, to him, Vietnam was just mismanaged, not a bad idea to begin with ...

'Splains why he's so gung-ho for Iraq. Clueless old bastid.

Rolling with the punches

Speaking as a former POW Native Californian, I just love this by Garrison Keillor:

California is another country. You wake up in the morning and New York is already on its first coffee, and the first scandal has broken in Washington, one more Republican crony caught with his hand in the honey pot. It all feels very far away.

You wake up, your laptop is full of e-mails but you're in California so you don't have to reply to them. Your e-mailers imagine that you are busy attending some sort of Mayan fertility ceremony on a beach, bare-chested men whanging on little drums (California Repugs drum on their little whangs. G), dinging bells, naked children strewing blossoms in the surf, a priestess in a white caftan playing a Peruvian flute. Stereotypes live forever: Minnesota is cold, California is ditzy. Whereas the California I know is a land of gorgeously normal people, serious, reverent, clean, agile men and women, athletic nerds who love to surf and hike and shoot hoops and also read Frederick Buechner, listen to Bach. I grew up thinking you had to choose between smart and sexy; in California they think you can have it all.

And your point is...?

He moves on:

In this country, the attacks by terrorists opened the doors to the darkness of Dick Cheney and furtive vicious men just like him who unleashed an assault on constitutional law, hoping to turn a traumatic occasion -- the twin towers burning, smoke billowing over Manhattan -- into a permanent Republican majority. As so often happens, vicious men were in the saddle for a time while decent men blithered and dithered. But the ignominious fall of Mr. Giuliani was evidence that Americans have gotten over it. You can't wave the bloody shirt anymore and expect people to fall into line.

And that's a problem for John McCain. A great candidate for hustling neocons and owners of five or more homes, he is dead wrong about Iraq, dead wrong about the economy, and he was born 20 years too soon. But Republicans feel sorry for how he was savaged eight years ago and so they will prop the old man up, retrain him as best they can, keep him on message, stuff a rag in him when he starts kidding around.

America has paid a terrible price for one family's decision to take a boy out of the public schools of Midland, Texas, and send him off to Chutney or Amway or whatever his prep school was called, and then to Yale, where he picked up a permanent grudge against people who were smarter than he. A Yalie who learned to pass for redneck, a Methodist who learned to pass for evangelical, he was cut out for politics, but what a lousy administrator and what a dull, uninspiring leader. Fewer people want more bushiness than want to see the return of infantile paralysis. And the truth is marching on.

Please read the rest.

Medical use now, legal later, if greed doesn't screw it up

Matier & Ross, EssEffChron

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has ordered a crackdown on medical pot clubs that are selling the drug for big profits.

"The voters wanted medical marijuana dispensaries to be used for seriously ill patients and their caregivers - not as million-dollar businesses," Brown said.

This week, Brown issued an 11-page directive laying out guidelines that medical marijuana cooperatives must follow to comply with Prop. 215.

Among them: Sell only to legitimate patients. Operate as nonprofits. Buy pot only from fellow cooperative members at prices that cover cost, as opposed to professional growers out for big bucks.

Some medical marijuana dispensers, concerned that thuggish dope dealers are giving their business a bad name, welcomed Brown's guidelines - and the state crackdown.

"It's something many activists have been looking for since the medical marijuana law passed," said Kevin Reed of the Green Cross marijuana collective in San Francisco.

The ganja should be legal. Period. Compared to real dope like meth and heroin, it's lemonade. Marijuana is the major target of The War On Some Drugs because it's easy and politically expedient. Right now, weed has its foot in the door, but greed could screw it all up. I think its a sin for regular ol' dealers to try and masquerade as medical dispensers.

You folks who like pot for its non-medicinal (that's arguable - pot use may all be medicinal) uses, just keep gettin' it the way you always have and let the medicinal dispensers keep paving the way for reefer's eventual legitimization.

Don't fuck it up for everybody else.

FREE! Obama-Biden stickers

At MoveOn. I kicked 'em down $3 for five.

Jumping Jack Rachel Maddow

If ya sometimes get the idea that I'm just a tad bit obsessed with the finest woman, maybe person, yet in political broadcasting, well, you're right.

AlterNet

An exuberant Maddow called for a stronger progressive media to counter the right-wing propaganda machine.

Fuckin' A! Rachel and Keith are a better-late-than-never addition to Bill Moyers, who has been crying out in the wilderness for years, but there's plenty of room - and need - for a lot more.

Update:

Really good article at The New York Observer:

Keith Olbermann took photos as the massive, tricked-out partymobile swallowed the MSNBC political panel whole: Michelle Bernard and Eugene Robinson, Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow.

The inside of the stretch Escalade had the pundits in stitches. There were Champagne glasses, leather seats, tinted windows, disco lights, and outrageously cheesy, curvy everything. “It’s like Battlestar Galactica in here,” said Ms. Maddow. “This is how MSNBC rolls out.”

“I think it was such a smart choice,” said Ms. Maddow. “McCain sends his apparatchiks as his envoy to Georgia, undercutting our own government. In the meantime, Mikheil Saakashvili calls and asks for Biden, before he’s even the VP.”

“My agenda for the next two weeks is to enjoy being at the conventions—like, ‘Oh, that’s Joe Biden outside the window! Woo-hoo!’” said Ms. Maddow. “I’ve never covered a convention before. I’m trying to keep it together and stay relaxed.”

As if on cue, Tammy Haddad, the ubiquitous whirlwind of a TV producer, burst through the hotel’s front door, said hello, hello, hello, and announced that she had major news about the hotel. “They got us in here with the white supremacists,” said Ms. Haddad.

For the next five minutes, she regaled the MSNBC pundits with a story, which would appear on the Newsweek Web site later that night, about the F.B.I. arresting several hotel guests for gun and methamphetamine possession. The men, with apparent ties to white supremacist groups, had maybe come to town to try and assassinate Senator Obama. During the arrest, one of the jittery dudes had jumped out of a window on the sixth floor!

“Know how you can tell a crime isn’t going to be successful?” Ms. Maddow asked her new friends. “Crystal meth.”

Heh. I've watched guys try to fix their motorcycles behind that shit. They get it all apart and run out of crank. That's the end of that until they recop. Disclaimer: I've done that too, but I had to complete the repairs since it was my job.

The party petered out because there wasn’t anything to drink. At midnight, Ms. Maddow headed off to bed.

Much more. Enjoy.

On to BushMcCainville the Twin Cities!

B&C

Click to up-oligarch

"Men are too emotional to vote"

From a short history of Women's Suffrage:

Opposed by a well-organized and well-funded anti-suffrage movement which argued that most women really didn't want the vote, and they were probably not qualified to exercise it anyway, women also used humor as a tactic. In 1915, writer Alice Duer Miller wrote,

Why We Don't Want Men to Vote

o Because man's place is in the army.

o Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

o Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

o Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms, and drums.

o Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government.

Thank God Cheney and Bush, among others like Bolton and Kristol, are past menopause! One heavy flow day and the world would be a cinder!

Quote of the Day Zwei

Fasten yer seatbelts. There's liable to be a lot of these in the next coupla days.

From Bob Casey's speech at the DNC:

John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick.

I get this visual of Pancho going "Oh, Cisco!", only in this case maybe more like drooling it.


Does anybody besides me notice Loco's resemblance to Cindy McCain?

Quote of the Day

From Denny Kucinich's speech at the DNC:

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold.

Not only have they already taken all the 'gold', they've done their best to take yer grandma's fillings and the loose change from under the sofa cushions.

What Liss said ...

Fuck you (in the ass, dry, with a large, blunt object), Karl Rove.

The one Rethug ...

With any principles at all:

...

[Sen. Chuck] Hagel, who has split with the Republican Party over the Iraq war, will spend Aug. 27 through Sept. 3 on an official tour of Central and South America. He will not be at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn, when Sen. John McCain formally accepts the party's nomination to be president on Sept. 4.

...

Great thanks to Skippy for the link.

Question for Hillary

I just watched yer speech, hon, and ya knocked it outta the park, but didja hafta wear goddam JAILHOUSE ORANGE!!? Some of us are a little sensitive about that...

Afterthought:

Any bets on how long before the "No Way, No How, No McCain" bumperstickers are available? Not long is my guess.

And as you vote ...

This November, remember this:

Image stolen from UL.

Joke of the Day

An old Sailor and an old Marine were sitting at the VFW arguing about who'd had the tougher career.

"I did 30 years in the Corps," the Marine declared proudly, "and fought in three of my country's wars. Fresh out of boot camp I hit the beach at Okinawa, clawed my way up the blood-soaked sand, and eventually took out an entire enemy machine gun nest with a single grenade. "As a sergeant, I fought in Korea alongside General MacArthur. We pushed back the enemy inch by bloody inch all the way up to the Chinese border, always under a barrage of artillery and small arms fire. "Finally, as a gunny sergeant, I did three consecutive combat tours in Vietnam. We humped through the mud and razor grass for 14 hours a day, plagued by rain and mosquitoes, ducking under sniper fire all day and mortar fire all night. In a firefight, we'd fire until our arms ached and our guns were empty, then we'd charge the enemy with bayonets!"

"Ah," said the Sailor with a dismissive wave of his hand, "lucky B*st*rd, all shore duty, huh?"

From Sgt. Grit.

If I weren't married ...

Barry would better watch out cause my old white ass would be sure as hell chasing Michelle around. She's one hell of a woman. I got one like that myself. This is what I mean about the whole package; looks, intelligence, confidence. Good on ya, brother:



Update:

The Rude One puts a point on it:

...

But let's be clear here: the purpose of the speech was to say, "Don't fear the black people." And it was directed at Idiot America, that demographic comprised of rednecks, racists, and/or retards who still think that blacks want to rape their white women while shooting them or stabbing them or beating them to death with a comically large bone, all the while receiving welfare checks and getting hired ahead of them. Really, she was addressing the teetering RRRs, the one who have an inkling that maybe those rich conservative whites who purport to share their "values" don't actually give a fuck about them. The rest of the RRRs, they're too fucking stupid to even come up with a decent assassination plot.

...

McCain didn’t know what kind of car he drove

This goes back a year, but it is once again timely.

In our News interview, he was asked what kind of car he drove. As with Politico’s question about home ownership, he didn’t know and had to ask a nearby aide. “A Cadillac CTS,” she told him. But then the senator was quick to point out that he had bought his daughter a Prius — the prefect (sic) halo symbol for his green pretensions.

Some of the comments:

McCain drives?

Holeeee crap!
He probably drives like Novak too.

One of the reasons the 'elite' have chauffeurs is that runnin' over those pesky peasants when they get in the way is considered bad form by some.

Is there anything this wrinkled old d0uchebag actually does know ?

Sure there is.

He knows how to use his father’s credentials to get him into the naval academy, where he graduated 5th from the bottom of the class.

He knows how to crash jets and get shot down over Vietnam.

He knows how to dump crippled wives and marry elitist trophies, then ride their filthy rich coattails the rest of his life.

He knows how to flip-flop and pander.

He knows how to relinquish any honor or credibility he may have had as a ‘maverick’ by hiring former lobbyists, people he made a career on railing against, to run his campaign.

A POW is some unfortunate guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A hero is the right guy (or gal) in the right place at the right time.

And this jewel if it's true:

Barack Obama picked the Chrysler 300C sedan…

Smart guy!

Zappa said it best:

I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

Much, much more. Go have some fun.

Steve Martin’s ‘Tribute’ to McCain: King Glut

Click to McGlutton

King Glut (King Glut)
Now when he was a young man,
He never thought he’d see
A black man blocking him, from the Presi-den-cy

(King Glut) How’d you get your money?
(Lucky Glut) Was it your blond honey?
Lives in Arizona,
Lost his maverick persona (King Glut).

Drillin’ in your backyard (Oil Glut)
Playin’ the race card (Right-wing Glut)
Even Bush thinks he’s a retard (Iraqi Glut)

Now, when I’m rich,
Now don’t think I’m a nut,
Just want some fancy houses,
Like those owned by King Glut (King Glut)

He really is a Dummy,
Older than a mummy,
Lives in Arizona, lost his maverick persona,
Can’t use a cell phone-a, his TWELVE Condos are a boner,
King Glut!

Thanks, Don.

Quote of the Day

Oliver Willis:

... can someone tell me the last time James Carville did something that worked politically in America that didn’t have the name Bill Clinton attached to it?

...

Carville is as useless as the rest of the Dem 'strategists'. None of them could strategize their way out of a paper bag. Carville is the worst because he sleeps with the enemy.

Update:

Honorable mention to the Roo:

...

but we posit that any "trouble" among hillary supporters is, at the very least, being exaggerated, and probably is made up of whole cloth.

...

Inspiring ...

Teddy!

McCain's cheat sheet ...

UL haz it.

Update:

Bonus quote from the WTF crew:

... 'I wasn't an elitist when I was eating rats in a Cong hellhole, you cunts!' ...

Ah, yes ...

I've been trying to put this into words but the Rude One does it for me:

...

But, see, the Rude Pundit doesn't believe that things are really as divided as we're often told. Sure, Hillary Clinton and her advisers are gonna still be smarting. They're fuckin' human beings. Right now, though, we're into convention season. There's little narrative tension at all. Tonight, for instance, other than whether or not Ted Kennedy will show, there's nothing happening we need to give a shit about. So, with about nine thousand hours of coverage to fill, you need a story. Thus fanning the fading embers of Obama rage among Clinton's everyday diehards is all the news networks and political reporters have got. And you can bet that they're huffing and puffing on that little flame like a fat manwhore on buck-a-blow night.

In her public appearances and pronouncements, Hillary Clinton has been downright classy. She's going to do what the Rude Pundit hoped she'd do in her Wednesday speech and formally release her delegates to vote for Obama. At this point, to turn away from the Democratic nominee because of hurt feelings is to be a fool and a victim, not just to the media whores, but also to manipulation by the Republicans. [my ems]

...

Obama/Biden '08. That's the bottom line.

One-Trick Elephants

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Economy Rebounds on Sudden Spike in Existing Home Sales
Mostly by the McCains.

Cheech and Chong Reunite
Neither remembers working with the other.

Study: Fat and Fit Better Than Skinny and Unfit
You’re half way there.

Snowboarding Still #1 in Outdoor Injuries
Kinky sex still #1 in indoor injuries.

As soon as I recover from my injuries I'm gonna try the other one...

Accentuate the Negative

Paul Krugman

In an ideal world, politicians would be judged by their actions, not by their wealth or lack thereof. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born to wealth, but that didn’t stop him from doing more for working Americans than any president before or since. Conversely, Joseph Biden’s hardscrabble life story, though inspiring, didn’t stop him from supporting the odious 2005 bankruptcy bill.

But in the world we actually live in, pro-corporate, inequality-increasing Republicans argue that you should vote for them because they’re regular guys you’d like to have a beer with, while Democrats who want to raise taxes on top earners, expand health care and raise the minimum wage are snooty elitists.

The squealing from the usual suspects demonstrates how much the Obama counterattack has the G.O.P. worried. Back in 2004 Fox News described John Kerry as “one of the haves” with a “billionaire wife”; now it asks whether raising the issue of Mr. McCain’s houses is “bashing the American dream.”

The central fact of this year’s election is that voters are fed up with Republican rule. The only way Mr. McCain can win the presidential race is if it becomes a contest of personalities rather than parties — and if his campaign can instill in voters the perception that Mr. Obama is a suspicious character while Mr. McCain is a fine, upstanding gentleman.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, doesn’t need to convince voters either that he’s the awesomest candidate ever or that Mr. McCain is a villain. All it has to do is tarnish Mr. McCain’s image enough so that voters see this as a race between a Democrat and a Republican. And that’s a race the Democrat will easily win.

Please read the rest of his column.

Light blogging 'til later. It's over the mountains and through the woods to Costco we must go today. Having Mrs. G home all the time raises all kinds of new shopping opportunities...

Um, no ...

Seems the US carmakers want a buncha guaranteed loans to upgrade their assembly lines and develop new cars more compatible with the 21st Century (as opposed to F-150s, Denalis, and V-10 Rams).

WASHINGTON - Automakers plan to urge Congress to support funding up to $50 billion in low-interest loans over three years to help them modernize their assembly plants and develop next-generation fuel-efficient vehicles.

Industry officials said the loans, which are twice the amount authorized in last year's energy bill, are a top priority when Congress returns next month because of the declining fortunes of Detroit's automakers and tightening credit markets.

...

Dear GM, Ford, and Chrysler,

FUCK YOU!

I was alive and aware in '73 (the first gas crisis). The writing was on the wall then. I was driving in '78 (the next gas crisis) and your response was to foist hastily thrown together, supposedly fuel efficient vehicles, that were nothing but rolling pieces of shit (Chevette, Citation, Omni, Pinto). You idiots didn't give a shit when the Japanese started putting their minds to the problem 35 years ago. Instead of seriously looking at alternative fuel vehicles (and hi-mileage gas vehicles), you continued to put out V-8s and V-10s and your vehicles got bigger.

And now, because of your shortsightedness and greed, you want taxpayer money to make you competitive now that the Japs have handed you your collective ass? Fuck you. You should get nothing and hopefully you'll all go under to be replaced by a less myopic bunch (what should have happened to the major US airlines after 9/11 too, by the way).

And a big "fuck you" to all the other US industries (mortgage bankers come to mind) who've reaped big profits on the US taxpayer over the years and now, thanks to their bad business decisions, expect us to now keep them afloat.

Let me ask you mofos something. When did you ever give us a break? During recessions and tough times, when did any of you corporate sonsabitches ever say "hey, times are tough, maybe we should give the public a break now and create goodwill for the future"? I'll bet my house (singular) you never did. When did you ever willingly take less profit to ease the burden on the consumer until the prevailing economy turned around? Never. We need what you got (hello, oil companies; don't laugh, your time will come too) and you milk every bit of profit from us for it, good times or bad.

So I say "fuck you" to the corporate assholes who think the US taxpayer is their personal mint, just handing over money, maximizing your profits and minimizing your losses. The day one of you stands up and accepts responsibility for your idiotic business plans (get rid of golden parachutes for executives and bring CEO pay more in line with the rank and file), you can all just go shit in your collective hats.

No more government bailouts, period.

Regards,

Fixer

PS: Now I have to go work on your pieces of shit.

Cross-posted at F & G.

Surfin' the Tubes ...

Heh ...

Pic stolen from our pal Creature. Click to endumben.

Please Help Me I'm Falling

Patty Loveless (wiki) does an old Hank Locklin favorite for her new CD. This is dedicated to all us old farts who remember country music.

Heckuva writeup too.

...the pure, lonesome tenor from the Appalachian siren of modern country,'''

[...] Hailed by People magazine as"equal parts Linda Ronstadt and Patsy Cline" when her two-million-selling Only What I Feel was released, Loveless has always believed in honoring her upbringing. Born in rural eastern Kentucky to a coal mining father who loved bluegrass, Patty followed her roots all the way to the Opry stage after first catching the ear of Porter Wagoner when she was only 13. She released her self-titled debut in 1987 and has never looked back.

Thanks to TheGigante for letting us grab this one pre-release instead of disabling the embed like the big record companies do. Smart.

Last Call for Change We Can Believe In

Daddy Frank on the O-Man and McThrowback.

What we have learned this summer is this: McCain’s trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.

What should Obama do now? As premature panic floods through certain liberal precincts, there’s no shortage of advice: more meat to his economic plan, more passion in his stump delivery, less defensiveness in response to attacks and, as is now happening, sharper darts at a McCain lifestyle so extravagant that we are only beginning to learn where all the beer bullion is buried.

Most Americans, unlike the press, are not obsessed by race. (Those whites who are obsessed by race will not vote for Obama no matter what he or anyone else has to say about it.) And most Americans have turned their backs on the Iraq war, no matter how much McCain keeps bellowing about “victory.”
...

As Gen. David Petraeus returns home, McCain increasingly resembles those mad Japanese soldiers who remained at war on remote Pacific islands years after Hiroshima. (My em. "What you mean we rost!?" Heh.)

[...] McCain is not nearly as popular among Americans, it turns out, as he is among his journalistic camp followers. Should voters actually get to know him, he has nowhere to go but down.

It is, after all, not mere happenstance that so many conservative pundits — Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Ramesh Ponnuru — have, to McCain’s irritation, proposed that he “patriotically” declare in advance that he will selflessly serve only a single term. Whatever their lofty stated reasons for promoting this stunt, their underlying message is clear: They recognize in their heart of hearts that the shelf life of McCain’s experience has already reached its expiration date.

Is a man who is just discovering the Internet qualified to lead a restoration of America’s economic and educational infrastructures? Is the leader of a virtually all-white political party America’s best salesman and moral avatar in the age of globalization? Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?

R.I.P., “Change We Can Believe In.” The fierce urgency of the 21st century demands Change Before It’s Too Late.

No shit. Ya make me proud as usual, Pop.

Sunday morning Mozart ...

Alexander Timofeev conducting:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni Overture

Ladeez and Gentlemen! We got us a winner!!

Nothin' much to add to that.

JG.

Women Be Wise

For your Sunday morning, here's some not-so-serious blues...I'm gonna get called a smartass for that one. If I'm lucky, that's all I'll get called!

Bonnie Raitt

Thanks, Winkiened,