Jerusalem

Here's an ol' gal I've been a fan of for almost (sob...) fifty years. She's been consistent in her outlook all this time too.

This is the second one today in Italian. Don't ask me why.

Milano 2008

Joan esegue la nota canzone di Steve Earle. Teatro Smeraldo, 11 ottobre 2008

Some of the Lyrics

I woke up this mornin' and none of the news was good
And death machines were rumblin' 'cross the ground where Jesus stood
And the man on my TV told me that it had always been that way
And there was nothin' anyone could do or say

But I believe there'll come a day when the lion and the lamb
Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem

Not to be a smartass, but they could do that now. What matters is will they both get up. Not yet.

And there'll be no barricades then
There'll be no wire or walls
And we can wash all this blood from our hands
And all this hatred from our souls

It's a nice thought.

Joan Baez

Like fingernails on a blackboard ...

Nancy Pfotenhauer. Ick ...

Quote of the Day

Digby:

One of the most sickening things we have had to endure during this election season has been the sight of Wolf Blitzer sitting across a desk from Glenn Beck and "interviewing" him as if he weren't a cretinous, mouth-breathing, talk radio hack. So, it's good news that Beck is leaving for the far more lucrative wingnut welfare ghetto at Fox, where he belongs.

...

Amen and hallelujah! God what an asshole.

Lynn Drury

Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes. I was watching Emmylou videos and found The Tipsy Chicks in 'Related Videos' covering one of her songs. That led me to Lynn Drury, whom I hadn't heard of. I watched several of her vids and chose this one because I thought y'all might like it and, well, because I like sweaty girls. As in 'Don't sweat the petty stuff. Pet the sweaty stuff.'

Here's all ya need to know about her:

San Vito di Cadore Blues Festival

Cantautrice residente a New Orleans, Lynn Drury possiede uno stile e una tonalità vocale sensuale e potente che è stata accostata ad artisti quali Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt, Rickie Lee Jones, Janis Joplin, e anche Norah Jones. Questa ragazza originaria del Mississippi si è affermata sulla scena musicale di New Orleans ed oltre, unendo le sonorità funky tipiche della città con le proprie radici rurali creando uno stile personale che esce da ogni facile classificazione. Lynn ha suonato al New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, al French Quarter Festival e attraverso tutto il sud degli Stati Uniti.

Her guitar picker is Roberto Luti. Enjoy.



Thanks to BonanzaJellybn.

"We're votin' for the nigger"

Sulekha.com

Here is an interesting piece on the voting preferences of western Pennsylvanians who local Congressman John Murtha described matter-of-factly as racist. An excerpt:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can't win those voters? John Murtha's "racist" western Pennsylvania district, where this story takes place, is some of the roughest turf in the nation. But Barack Obama is on the ground and making inroads due to unusually strong organizing leadership.

Voters who still call black people niggers are unlikely to be abashed about stating their true voting preferences, so perhaps this Bradley effect people talk about is not as widespread as I fear it is.

Makes ya wanta laugh and cry at the same time, but I guess they can say what they want as long as they vote for him.

I have my own theory about the 'Bradley effect' that I haven't heard anywhere else. Here it is:

California is split into two culturally distinct regions, Northern California and Southern California. I was born and raised in the latter and now live in the former, about half my life spent in each. To a greater or lesser degree, the folks in NorCal are somewhat snobbish towards SoCal and look down their noses at it as being nekulturny. The fact that there is very little basis in fact for this is immaterial.

I think maybe there's a parallel between New York City and Upstate New York that's similar. I also think NY and CA have more in common than either would like to admit re the cultural divide between the fast talkin' city slickers and the dumbass country fucks. I've been both, so I ain't takin' sides! But I digress.

The folks in SoCal couldn't care less, are maybe not even aware of the Northerners' attitude. They think Frisco is, like, way cool. I think that pisses the NorCalians off even more.

Tom Bradley was a SoCal man, and I think he got beat out of the governorship by a negative reaction from NorCal voters as much as, maybe more than, by his skin color, as in, "Us superior beings up here ain't votin' fer no cultural barbarian from down there, nosiree! Won't do at all, ain't happenin'."

Yes, there are racists in California, just like everywhere. And just like everywhere, most of 'em are white. We are also a Pacific Rim melting pot, many skin shades, many languages (many delicious foods too!). I think you can take your driver's license exam in Tagalog if you need to, as well as many other languages. Watch a Chinaman, say, interact with a Sikh, say, after a fenderbender sometime, ostensibly in English. Heh. I'll take a large popcorn, please!

Just my take. Please comment.

Bush's library

Click to increase toxicity

Kos

We would love to give proper attribution for this sneak preview of the Bush Library, but it arrived, like so many others circulating by e-mail, absent of any clue as to authorship. Our thanks to the unknown originator, and special thanks to Betty Layport Feher for the glorious idea we’ve rendered above -- of housing the Bush Library in a FEMA trailer.

The Library will include:

Go see.

Geiger's 'toons

Videos too! Go see!

Repug voter registration fraud

With all the Repug BS about ACORN, here's a little real voter registration fraud. LATimes.

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

It is a bait-and-switch scheme familiar to election experts. The firm hired by the California Republican Party -- a small company called Young Political Majors, or YPM, which operates in several states -- has been accused of using the tactic across the country.

In Massachusetts, former YPM worker Angela McElroy testified at a legislative hearing in 2004that she had tricked voters into signing a ballot measure to ban gay marriage. She said she told voters they were signing in favor of a measure to allow alcoholic drinks to be sold in supermarkets.

I threw that paragraph in just because I was in a liquor store in Massachusetts once. I thought it was a supermarket. The place was effin' huge! We have nothing in California that compares. But we can get booze in our markets.

Local prosecutors are investigating the complaints, but where's the FBI in all this? Oh, that's right, they work for the Repugs. Too busy 'investigating' pretty much spurious allegations against the Democrats.

IOKIYAR.

McCarthy much?

Insane twit Michelle Bachmann thinks members of Congress should have the degree of their Americanism investigated. Haven't we been down this road? What's next; a call for Prohibition?

Great thanks to Watertiger for the vid.

Update:

Montag:

Sometimes Republicans are our best friends

And don't take my word for it, following the appearance of noted Republican scum puppy Michelle Bachmann on Hardball, her opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg received $438,346.57 in donations (probably higher now).

...

Keep talking, honey.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, & Sheryl Crow - Evangeline

"Liberals haven't had so much fun in decades"

Rosa Brooks with today's recommended read.

Maybe most fun of all, we're getting to watch a steady procession of rats leaving the sinking GOP ship.

She rattles off a list of the usual suspects.

For liberals initially alarmed by McCain's brief post-convention poll bounce, this was fun. And as conservative disdain spread to the whole GOP ticket, the fun got even funner.

But enjoyable as it's been to watch conservatives flee from the GOP, something about all this leaves me feeling a little down. Because as the more respectable, literate conservatives distance themselves from the GOP, increasingly, the only ones left on the right are paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts. Bitter? You betcha! Twisted too! (my em)

Even for a liberal, it's painful to watch. Once, the GOP proudly claimed to be the "party of ideas." They weren't generally good ideas, it's true -- but they were ideas eloquently defended by men and women who believed it was their duty to study history, philosophy, science, economics and international relations and to do the intellectual heavy lifting needed to try to persuade smart people with different views to come around to their way of thinking. That was the GOP nurtured by conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley. Buckley was many things liberals didn't admire, but he wasn't ignorant, savage or stupid by choice.

But today, as the last few sober grown-ups leave the party, the visible face of the GOP increasingly looks like that of the people who shout "kill him!" when Obama's name comes up, who speak of black men they don't like as "uppity" or as "boys," who think you can't trust a Muslim or an Arab, who think talking about "Barack Hussein Osama" is witty and (I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin and John McCain) who claim Obama "pals around with terrorists."

This isn't really that funny anymore.

Watching it happen isn't really funny, well, OK, sometimes it is, but it's fun and we've got it coming after however many years of Repug mis-rule.

What's painful and disturbing is the low caliber of those the Repugs have left. With any luck they'll crawl back under their rocks 'til I'm past caring.

GOP acuses ACORN of stealing their ideas

CLG

WASHINGTON -- (PTSD News) -- The Republican party has launched a major attack against ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, charging them with trying to steal the election for Barack Obama. “Their conduct is outrageous,” said Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign, “we have worked so hard to steal this election fair and square that to have this group of pipsqueak upstarts trying to steal it back is beyond the pale.”

Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said, “if I lose this election, it will be because ACORN stole the election for that one.”

“The most amazing aspect about ACORN is all the press this is generating,” said Miriam Montana of the media watchdog group, Sterling Consulting. “There has not been one provable case of an actual fraudulent vote caused by ACORN," Montana said, "yet there was practically no press when there was credible evidence that the last two presidential elections were stolen by the Republicans with voter caging, black box voting irregularities and other voter suppression tactics that stole millions of votes. "I guess these days it is OK if you steal big,” Montana continued. "Just look at the financial crisis and the bank bailout. If you steal a loaf of bread and get caught, you go to jail. If you steal the bakery, you get more dough.”

When asked about the voter fraud charges against ACORN, Karl Rove said, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Satire, yes, but exactly the reason we need an overwhelming voter turnout to give Obama a big enough margin of victory that they can't steal it. Stealing 1% of the votes was easy when a 1% margin was all they were trying for and all that mattered. Stealing 6%, maybe even 3%, is beyond their abilities, even as considerable in that regard as they are .

40 Years Ago Today: Why the Smith and Carlos Legacy Lingers

Racism is, sadly, alive and well in this country, and has even raised its ugly head in the Brain today, let alone at McKlan moron rallies. Read this by Dave Zirin.

It lasted for only as long as it took to play the National Anthem, and yet it's lasted for four decades. The image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, their black-gloved fists raised to the heavens on October 16th, 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics, has somehow grown in power over the last 40 years. Unlike other iconography from the 1960s – Woodstock, Abbie Hoffman, Dick Nixon – the moment isn't musty. It has retains its ability to pack a punch. Go up to Harlem and street merchants still sell t-shirts of the medal stand moment on the corner stands. [...]

There are several reasons I believe this moment has retained its power. The most obvious is that people love a good redemption song. Smith and Carlos were standing up against racism in both sport and society. They wanted South Africa and Rhodesia banned from the games for their apartheid politics. They wanted more black coaches. They wanted International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage held accountable for his open and virulent racism. They wanted Muhammad Ali – "the warrior saint of the black athlete's revolt" – to have his title restored. And they were reviled for taking their stand and using the Olympic podium to do it. But these "radical" demands have since been proven prescient and Smith and Carlos have made the journey over four decades from receiving countless death threats and being athletic pariahs to having statues unveiled in their honor. Quite an adventure: one that says more about our collective journey than theirs.

But there are other less backward-looking reason the black gloves have retained their power: Smith and Carlos sacrificed privilege and glory for a larger purpose. They left fame and money on the table because of a higher calling. As John Carlos said to me, "A lot of the athletes thought that winning medals would supercede or protect them from racism. But even if you won the medal it ain't going to save your momma. It ain't going to save your sister or children. It might give you 15 minutes of fame, but what about the rest of your life?"

This resonates because we still live in a world where racism is still very real. If hurricane Katrina taught us nothing else, it's that for every Barack Obama and Condi Rice, there remain countless communities where poverty and institutional racism create graveyards of agony.

Much more.

I could swear I heard somebody say the other day that 1968 doesn't matter any more. Well, it does to those of us who remember it.

Here's the dirty little secret about racism that nobody talks about: it will flourish until people stop teaching their children to hate.

The Great Republican Crack-up of 2008

Brent Budowsky

I am pretty partial to Hemingway, but this campaign is very F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is the great Republican crack-up of 2008, and in this drama, the great truth is this: McCain is Boris Karloff, from the horror movies of old, Obama is Tony Bennett, the wonderful crooner of smooth, with one of the great presidential temperaments of our times. This election will be won by a man of great presidential temperament, against a man of great and uncontrollable temper he cannot even attempt to hide.

It is the great Republican crack-up of 2008. Republican economics brings the nation to the brink. Republican fearmongering erodes the very confidence essential to the markets while turning off whole swaths of independent voters. A Republican president, whom McCain supported 90 percent of the time, disappears during an economic crisis, sneaking into fundraisers through the back door to hide his support of his anointed heir from voters who demand powerful change.

While McCain looks like Boris Karloff in the movies, dishing sludge in all directions, we now see endangered Republicans trying to distance from the disaster, even saying friendly words about Obama while the sludge dump continues from the top of the ticket, and the ridiculously unqualified power abuser from Alaska, having finally ended her lie to nowhere about the Bridge to Nowhere, continues to inflame the angry rightist base of the Republican Party that is so radically out of touch with the heart and soul of Middle America.

McCain even uses the debate to attack and demean the concerns of women for their very health on the matter of abortion. What kind of angry, out-of-touch, strange kind of attack is this? Trivializing, demeaning, ridiculing and insulting women concerned about their health on the most important decision of their lives?

It is conservative Chris Buckley who gets to the heart of the matter: Obama has a truly presidential temperament, while McCain has a truly extreme temper, and after eight years of Bush, the nation prefers the smooth and urbane crooner who talks of serious things in serious ways, to the angry face that is all that remains of Republican rule in a nation that yearns to turn the page and leave this past behind.

Please read the rest. It is music to the ears.

Leave us not forget, however, this thing ain't over yet. Complacency kills.

Nine perfect ways to prepare for the End of Bush

Mark Morford

It is the thing That Can Barely Be Named, the Great Unspoken, the impossible truth that feels too good to be true and hence few dare actually mention it aloud lest it somehow vanish and time reverses itself and the devil snorts and chuckles and reveals his grand, horrible joke, and suddenly it's 2001 all over again. Please, no screaming.

Can you sense it? Do you feel the deep tingle? Because amid the fiscal meltdown and Obama's stunning poll numbers and the stress of the election, this staggering fact: George W. Bush is nearly done. He will soon be gone forever, America's most spectacularly incompetent footnote, the oily residue left on the pavement after his administration's giant Hummer of ineptitude is finally hauled to the crusher.

It is, to put it mildly, a bizarre feeling. Surreal. Disorienting. After all, the nightmare has lasted so long. This wound has been raw and open for years.

So then, I have made a quick inventory, a short preparatory checklist of things you can do, right now, to get ready for the magnificent shift, the massive exhale of thanksitude. Because no matter how bleak and tense it all seems right now, just remember: He can never be president again. God, my fingertips quiver just writing that.

1) Make new travel plans. Yes, the dollar has been gutted. Yes, a small espresso and a day-old sourdough baguette on the rue du Cherche-Midi will cost you 97 dollars. But if you can afford it, now is the time to plan a new European jaunt.

Why? Easy: No more foreigners scowling at you. No more shameful hiding of your nationality. No more telling that hot barista you're from Canada and instead confessing, with even a tiny hint of Obama-infused national pride, "I'm American," and then not apologizing and feeling that sickly sense of mortification. Incredible.

5) Get ready to pray. To Shiva, to Shakti, to Astarte and Allah and Buddha and Jesus and the Great Mother and whatever divine energy you like that the Dems don't completely botch it, get just as power-drunk and monomaniacal as their GOP counterparts, and squander what's shaping up to be an astonishing opportunity to reshape the American experiment.

Fact: the neocons and the evangelicals had a stranglehold on the U.S. government for six solid years, and they very nearly destroyed the country. The good news is, there is nowhere for the Dems to go but up. They can't possibly do worse. The bad news is, even with a brilliant, steady, unflappable President Obama at the helm, they could sure as hell try.

6) God is dead. Or rather, the Repub's particularly cruel version, a gloomy, tyrannical, guilt-slingin' God from Colorado Springs who loved war and smacked up women's rights and pretended to tolerate gay people even while hating "what they do," a God who snorted the Republican agenda like it was cheap meth in a Denver motel room, has proven to be a complete failure, an abomination of divine connection. Translation: God is not what they say, and She never was.

I have no suggestion here. Please feel free to invent your own.

8) Gratitude. Cultivate it. Celebrate it. You survived. Check that: You survived, barely. To be sure, the accident was awful. The crash was bloody and hellish, far worse than anyone expected. Tens of thousands dead. Hotbeds of terrorism now even hotter. Fewer jobs, more homelessness, more fear, prisons overflowing, banks failing.

So then. Is it not time to feel thankful? That you're still here? That we made it all the way to rock bottom, and we're still breathing? How about that you're still reading these words, right now, and I'm still here to write them, and we still have this connection, this tenuous lifeline of thought and discourse and humor, even as the imps of dread and conservative numbness tried for years to block it, derail it, shut it all down?

9) See them there, receding, sliding back into the Void with a wail and a whimper. Prepare, at long last, to wave goodbye.

More, and since the title of his column is "Sodomy and Gratitude", I'll leave you, dear reader, to find out for yourself. Heh.

Since I'm not exactly the sensitive, caring type that Mr. Morford is, my idea of 'waving goodbye' to Bush would be to do so in a spirit of vengeful justice just as his feet disappear through the trapdoor on a short final trip to Hell.

It's personal ...

So last night, we got a very special troll here at the Brain. An idiot who knows me personally. Or should I say, a coward who knows me personally.

Now, I give a shit what people say about me and lord knows, people have said shit about me here. That's fine, but I do take exception with posting my friend's address here while calling Gordon out.

Gordan/moron/ meet me at [address removed - F] ASK FIXER HE KNOWS WHERE IT IS!ANYTIME IS FINE!!!

My old boss Harry does not need the hassle and whatever you have to say about me, clown, does not involve Harry. If I let Harry know about it, he'll hand you your ass.

Being that you know me, how come you've never said anything to my face? Now that you ran your mouth, how come you didn't stop where I work now (you can see it from Harry's) and repeat your bullshit in person? You are a coward, worse because you involved someone who has no reason to be. It's horseshit.

In your comments you impugn my integrity as well:

You should burn in hell for turning on the friends that helped and paid you way to where you are now,half breed!

Let me just say that no one pays my way for anything. Anything Harry gave me in compensation was well earned (and an aside, what I made at Harry's wouldn't allow me to live). Anything I have I bought myself.

Secondly, I don't turn on my friends, otherwise I would have left Harry's a year ago, when our lives got really hectic. I would have told Nunzio thanks but no thanks when he called me a couple weeks ago. Harry is a stand up guy who would have told me (to my face) if he felt I was screwing him in some way. You know nothing.

You know me well enough to call me 'half-breed' and worse.

you are a ni----- and we know it and where you are,and will take you when we want know how does it feel 666 you are mine

Is that supposed to be an insult? Is that supposed to humiliate me in front of my readers? It certainly doesn't scare me. I've been called worse by better.

Yes, I am of mixed race. My father was a British subject of Jamaican ancestry, and it is irrelevant. Look at me. I'm a white guy. I have never had the 'black experience', never been judged for my skin color before I opened my mouth and I am singularly unqualified to speak on that subject. True, I've never mentioned it before here because it is irrelevant.

I'm proud of my heitage and do not deny it. My grandfather was the law magistrate for St. Catherine's Parish and I am the great grandnephew of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. My grandmother's name was Alice Barrett. I am also descended from the first Earl of Knutson, but all that is irrelevant as well.

So, fool, instead of subjecting my readers to your insane drivel, why don't you stop up at Nunzio's on Monday and we'll straghten this all out, man to coward? Or maybe I should stop by your house? When you're sleeping at 2 in the morning? Sit next to you on your bed? Should I wake you up before I cut your balls off (if someone hasn't done it already) or should I surprise you?

You see, dumbass that you are, all visits here are recorded, along with the GPS coordinates of where you posted from (along with a lot of other information). I know who you are. I know where you live. And when you least expect it, I'm gonna come down on your ass. How smart do you feel now, dickhead? See me Monday or you'll never have another good night's sleep again.

Todd Palin's Past Political Associations A Likely Security Clearance Disqualifier

Frank Naif

Although Sarah Palin smack talks Barack Obama for "palling around with terrorists," it turns out that the Palin family has its own history of palling around with Alaska's own unique brand of America-haters. Palin's husband Todd was once an actual member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). Palin herself was not a member of AIP -- but many AIP luminaries claim her as a kindred spirit and "one of their own."

Which gets us back to Todd Palin. From the security officer's perspective, Todd Palin the hypothetical applicant should be truthful and disclose his former association with AIP on the SF 86 in Section 29, Association Record. And because AIP has been associated with the Revolutionary Government of Iran, he probably should also disclose his AIP membership on Section 20, Foreign Activities.

How would government security officials who administer the security clearance process view the facts of Todd Palin's association with AIP? The answer is not clear cut, but his involvement in a secessionist party with foreign and violent connections would inject serious doubts about his security suitability. At best, the AIP association would raise questions that might be resolved favorably with further investigative work. However, many security officials would likely view the AIP association negatively -- especially the Iranian connection -- and deny Todd Palin a clearance.

So the Palin family is associated with a political party hostile to America in word and deed. That's a matter of record that has real impact on established norms in the national security community. According to the laws and processes that help protect national security, actually joining a fringe, gun-toting, anti-government party indicates a potential risk of disloyalty, or worse.

So, let me see if I get this - we got a potential veep who is the most likely one to ascend to the presidency in our lifetime who may not be qualified from a security clearance standpoint to know what's going on? That about it?

An airhead in charge who's not allowed to know what's going on. Except for a few details, it sounds like the preznit we got now. More of the same.

Bwahahahaha!

Update:

David Neiwert weighs in on this as well:

But "guilt by association," by definition, involves an entirely irrelevant association (which describes the William Ayers "connection" to a T). Palin's associations with the "Patriot" right, however, are entirely relevant, because they reflect directly on her conduct as a public official and her judgment. They also, I should add, reflect on a deeper level the kind of right-wing populism she's been indulging in recent weeks.

Recession ...

Not all of us are hurting ...

Thank you, Mr. Bush.

Class warfare ...

Maybe it is time for torches and pitchforks:

Whenever anyone points out that what the Republicans are doing is hurting the non-rich classes, they accuse us of class warfare. And it would be, if we were storming their castles with torches and pitchforks. But that usually only happens after the rich have so successfully won their own side of the class war that the peasants feel they have no other choice than to take back what's been stolen from them. Rich conservatives have been waging vicious and devastating class warfare against Americans for 30 years, and it's long past time they were called on it.

...

They've taken a lot from us over the past decade.

Blow his doors off, Daddy!

Much better making your daughter squeal with delight in bumper cars with silly fun driving than driving the country off a cliff from the Oval Office like Bush or McCain.

Click to embiggen

The Obamas are a very nice looking all-American family. Go see the rest of the slide show.

Choice?

"A girl was raped and got pregnant. Sarah Palin believes that the Government should force her to carry the pregnancy to term and make that choice."





JG.

Tesla Motors hits the brakes

We've done several posts on Tesla over at Fixer & Gordon, but this one belongs here, dammit.

LATimes

The country's leading electric car maker delays its next model, replaces its CEO and will lay off workers.

The credit crisis has hit the country's leading electric car maker.

Citing "extraordinary times," Tesla Motors, maker of the battery-powered, $109,000 Roadster, said Wednesday that difficult market conditions were forcing it to delay production of its next-generation vehicle, close two offices, lay off an unspecified number of employees and replace its chief executive.

Tesla has been held up as a leading light in the clean technology start-up world, with its product (the Roadster) appearing on dozens of magazine covers and its chairman, Musk, appearing on "60 Minutes" less than two weeks ago. As a start-up, however, Tesla is particularly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of increasingly tight credit markets.

Tesla is the largest and best-funded electric car start-up, but is hardly alone. There are at least a dozen other firms working on such vehicles.

Last month, Irvine-based Fisker Automotive, which is developing a plug-in hybrid sedan, successfully completed a $65-million round of funding. And in July, Carlsbad's Aptera Motors, maker of a $30,000 three-wheel electric car, said it had raised $24 million from investors including Google Inc.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played a key role in recruiting the Model S project to the state -- it had been planned for New Mexico -- was unsure of Tesla's future.

"We can't predict the fate of any one company," said Camille Anderson. "But clean technology in California is here to stay."

Well, thanks, George, for the delay in new technology and manufacturing techniques that might have made available an affordable Tesla or other make. Your energy and fiscal mis-policies have collided in a big way. Thanks go also to Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan.

Bush: Run in circles! Scream and shout!

Swallow your food and set your drink down. Really.

President Bush addresses the nation shortly before shaving his head and soaking the Oval Office in his own urine.

From a publication named after many plants in the genus Allium:

In a nationally televised address to the American people Wednesday night, President Bush called upon every man, woman, and child to spiral uncontrollably downward into complete and utter panic.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush assured citizens that in these times of great uncertainty, the best and only course of action is to come under the throes of a sudden, overwhelming fear marked by hysterical or irrational behavior.

During the address, Bush laid out a historic five-point plan for panic that he hopes will help the American people fall apart as quickly as possible. The plan—which many are calling Bush's most well-thought-out proposal to date—calls for citizens to abandon their daily routines entirely, and engage in a weeklong period of bloodcurdling screaming, arm flailing, dry heaving, and gnawing on one's fingers while rocking back and forth in alternating bouts of maniacal laughter and gentle sobbing.

Under the new bill, Americans are also advised to withdraw all their money from U.S. banks and the stock market, place it in a Maxwell House coffee tin, and bury it in a safe place in their backyard. In addition, Bush has urged the legalization of Americans trampling one another in a mad rush to compete for the nation's dwindling resources, and proposed allocating $3 billion toward a program that would give every citizen a gun and a bottle of 140-proof whiskey.

The final part of the plan calls for the immediate release of all convicted felons and death-row inmates from the nation's prisons.

Bush told Americans that if at any point they catch themselves feeling even slightly at ease, they should remind themselves that, in the end, everything is going to be completely fucked.

Much more. Enjoy.

Palin As President

Go see this. Click on different things and watch what happens. Pretty clever.

A delightful side effect of Krugman's Nobel

Bloomberg

President George W. Bush, whose approval ratings are at historic lows as the U.S. veers toward a recession or worse, got yet another thumb in the eye when one of his most vociferous critics was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

Krugman, 55, doesn't mince words. He has accused Bush of leading the country into "strategic disaster and moral squalor", and his columns and Times blog entries carry headlines with such blunt entreaties as "Please Go Away".

On Feb. 11, 2005, he referred to Bush as "someone who takes food from the mouth of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends". On Jan. 22, 2007, Bush, with his plan to use tax credits to buy health insurance, is "not even trying to hide his fundamental indifference to the plight of the less- fortunate", Krugman wrote.

Krugman is a fierce critic of Bush's foreign policy and was an early opponent of the war in Iraq. Of the president's case for removing Saddam Hussein, Krugman wrote on Feb. 11, 2003, "Mr. Bush's America does not look like a regime whose promises you can trust".

"People claim to be shocked by the Bush administration's general incompetence," Krugman wrote on Oct. 8 last year. "But disinterest in good government has long been a principle of modern conservatism."

Liquid alert!

Krugman's award could bring Bush face-to-face with his antagonist. The president typically invites Nobel Prize winners to the White House in November or December.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment on the award.

No shit! Ha!

Note to Mr. Krugman: The next time you have the unpleasant fortune to appear on TV with Bill O'Rally, take me with you. When he gets all in yer face and threatening with you like he did the last time you rightly called him a liar, it would be my distinct pleasure to slap the dog shit out of him for you.

Holy right-on-the-McMoney, Batman!

I gleeped this pre-debate video of last night's actual debate from Marc Ambinder.



On a a sorta unrelated level, I knew Burt Ward, who played Robin the Boy Wonder, when I was a kid. His real name is Sparky Gervis.

It may indeed be over

Market Watch

DUBLIN, Ireland, October 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Following the concluding presidential debate in New York last night Ireland's largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, has decided to pay out on Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States of America.

This unprecedented move comes almost three weeks ahead of Election Day on November 4th and sees the bookie paying out in excess of EUR1,000,000 [$1,360,000] to Obama backers. Prior to Paddy Power paying out, Obama was practically unbackable at odds of 1-9 to be the next American President (meaning a bet of EUR90 was required to make EUR10 profit)

Paddy Power said "We declare this race well and truly over and congratulate all those who backed Obama, your winnings await you. Although the Senator seemed a little off sorts in last nights final debate we believe he has done more than enough to get him across the line on November 4th. The overall betting trends has shown one way traffic for Obama since the start of the summer and punters seemed to have called it 100% correct. It reminds me of the patriotic words of action star Wesley Snipes in the movie Passenger 57......Always Bet on Black!"

If an Irish bookie is paying off before the horses cross the finish line, it means all the other horses died on the racetrack!

Also, and in between the lines, I'm sure these turf accountants, who may know a thing or two about fixing horse races, think Obama will win by a large enough margin that the Repugs can't steal the election this time.

In keeping with the theme of this post, however, and out of caution, let's not count our ponies 'til they hatch.

Quote of the Day dos

P.M. Carpenter on last night's debate:

Senator McCain, if you wanted to run against Franklin D. Roosevelt, you should have run three score and 16 years ago, when you were still in your prime.

Quote of the Day

"It's over. Obama won."

—  Tucker Carlson writing at The Daily Beast

As if we didn't know it ...

The order came from the top:

The Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods against al Qaeda suspects in a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

...

Repeated requests by the CIA chief for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the agency that the administration might later distance itself from decisions about the handling of captured al Qaeda leaders, the Post said, citing former intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The officials told the newspaper Tenet first pressed the White House for written approval in June 2003 during a meeting with members of the National Security Council.

A few days later, Tenet received a brief memo conveying the administration's approval for the CIA's interrogation methods, the officials were cited as saying.

...

The only place Bush and Cheney should be going on 21 January 2009 is to The Hague.

Link thanks to Dr. Attaturk.

There's no debate ...

Americans like Obama:

The snap polls are coming in for Barack Obama in much the same numbers that they did in the first two debates. CNN has it 58-31 for Obama. CBS' poll is similar ...

...

People know one thing that can't be dislodged from their minds - Republican governance has been a total failure. A 90-minute debate isn't going to change any of that.

...

Even the most obtuse among us get it now.

Die already ...

Vice President Cheney's heart was successfully restored to its normal rhythm today after doctors administered an electric shock to the organ, officials said this afternoon.

...

Motherfucker keeps hanging on.

Oopsie!

Uh ... um ... we made a mistake. The Boston Glob:

BACK IN December, when we endorsed John McCain in the Republican presidential primaries, we wrote that he would conduct a campaign of "substance, not demagoguery." We didn't count on the other John McCain - the one who showed up for the general election. Whether in thrall to his handlers or his own ambition, McCain has abandoned respectful discussion of differences for a trough of pandering and invective.

...

McCain's alarming choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate came only after more moderate and experienced candidates whom McCain preferred were rejected by his operatives. The choice of Palin - whom we would find unqualified even if she didn't hold such extreme policy views - was a cynical ploy aimed at exciting ideological conservatives and luring disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton. McCain likes to complain that Democrat Barack Obama has never taken on his party leaders, but McCain can't even control his hired staff. [my em]

...

Just so everybody's clear. What you're seeing now is the real McCain.

Great thanks to Maru for the link.

Hofstra?

Jeezus. Why do ya have to fuck up our traffic? My luck, dad-in-law Fixer's gonna need something (he lives not far from the university) and I'm gonna have to negotiate my way through that shit. Probly gonna make it to COPS. Heh ...

Pic stolen from Blondie.

Update:

The Rude One gives Obama advice again:

...

"You know why you're done? Because everyone's fucking tired of the Vietnam War. Not only that, but the Vietnam War doesn't fucking matter anymore to most of the people in the country. It's passed its political expiration date, motherfucker, and that means your story doesn't matter. And Ayers doesn't matter. None of the same fuckin' arguments hold water. We got our own goddamned war and our own goddamned ripped-up and shattered vets filling the VA hospitals. It means you're not as fuckin' special as you once were, Maverick Man. So shove your bullshit about Ayers up your ass. Forty years ago might not seem like that long to you, but to most people, it's a fuckin' lifetime. [my em]


...

Indeed. Time to put yesterday away and worry about tomorrow.

"Suspend your campaign until you get control of it."

K.O. chews McKlan's ass but good.

QE2 bids farewell to America this week

Possibly of interest to some, and you know who you are...

LATimes

After leaving New York for the last time, the Queen Elizabeth 2, the world's best-known passenger ship, will eventually head to Dubai to become a floating hotel and museum.

A pipe and drum corps, flotilla of pleasure craft and other fanfare in New York will give Cunard Line's QE2 a nostalgic send-off for her 806th and final transatlantic crossing on Thursday (Oct. 16). Accompanying the ship on her six-night voyage to Southampton, England, will be her glamorous younger sister, 4-year-old Queen Mary 2.

For details on the QE2's New York farewell, visit the "Royal Rendezvous" page of Cunard's website.

Bon Voyage to a beautiful, classy old lady.

Finding the upside

Mark Morford (I swear, at first glance I thought the title was "More booze and coke". Oh hell yeah! Heh.). Many links.

What's the matter, patriot? Don't enjoy seeing your stock portfolio slashed in half for greed-obsessed reasons beyond your control? None too pleased with how much of your 401(k) account has burned to a crisp, like John McCain's ethical boundaries? Home worth a fraction of what you paid and the neighbors have all moved away as squads of homeless people now squat in the 350K tract-McMansion next door, staring a mite too hungrily at your dog?

Housewives! Have you taken to the online message boards recently, posting bleak, depressing notes of fear and uncertainty after your husband lost his job of 20 years and the kids are asking uncomfortable questions? Or maybe you're one of the super-wealthy, quaking in your Upper East Side Gucci riding boots over the collapse of your family fortune and self-esteem and who, pray who, will polish the fleet of Aston Martins?

Do you know this feeling? The sense that the bumbling, squinty-faced dude in the White House is about to step down, and this wrecked economy, this decimated nation, this toxic sickness will be his final parting gift, like some sort of nasty STD he and his cronies passed on to you, while you didn't even realize you were getting royally screwed?

(Side note to China: Those secret plans to invade America? Now is the time. We're totally helpless. You own most of our debt anyway. Can you bring extra iPods and some decent dim sum? Thank you.)

As for Republicans, well, they have good reason to smile, too, even if it's one of those creepy sidelong sneers akin to Dick Cheney eating a live cobra.

I'd pay good money to see that rasslin' match! And pity the cobra if it won and had to eat Cheney. Yuck.

Much more. Enjoy.

And just as an aside, speaking of Cheney - a word of praise and encouragement for a-fib. I hope it jolts that motherfucker right out of his socks and straight to Hell. That would really be an upside.

Roasting Krugman

Paul Krugman's colleagues are having a ball raking him over the coals - in the good way - so far - in response to his Nobel Prize. I'm enjoying it too.

From Mr. Krugman's own blog:

The truth comes out

Andy Borowitz knows!

From Borowitz:

Krugman Could Turn into Massive Douchebag, Colleagues Fear

At one point, one of his fellow economists asked him a question about credit default swaps, to which Mr. Krugman reportedly snapped, "Credit default swaps can suck my ass -- I'm Paul Fucking Krugman!"

Mr. Krugman could not be reached for comment and instead referred all questions to his publicist, Sherri Hefstein, whom he hired minutes after winning the Nobel.

According to Ms. Hefstein, Mr. Krugman plans to spend the next few months "building his brand" and will be adapting his book, International Economics: Theory and Policy, into a feature film to star George Clooney.

MoDo gets in on the act:

I'm not sending Paul Krugman Champagne.

He won the Nobel prize in economics this week, and while I’m sure that’s delightful for him, it has raised the bar to an impossible height for his fellow columnists at The Times. We used to strive for Pulitzers,or simply regional awards, or even just try to top each other on the paper’s most e-mailed list.

Now we’re supposed to compete for Nobels?

It’s a total disaster. Any minute, Krugman might swagger into the office wearing that big old 24-karat-gold-plated medal around his neck like a World Wrestling championship belt, talking about how beautiful Sweden is.

So I must aim higher. Much higher.

A Nobel in economics is out. I didn’t take economics in college because all the classes started at 8 a.m. Physics, chemistry and medicine are out. Literature? They’ve given up giving it to Americans. So it’s going to have to be the Nobel Peace Prize.

Go see how much 'higher' she aimed. She ain't gonna win no Nobel for it, but she did win a prize: Gordon's Combination Shoveling Shit Against The Tide And Why Bother Award. Heh.

McCain's unraveling began with Palin

Bob Shrum

As he lurches toward November, McCain’s Palin experience is the political equivalent of a lost college weekend—that wacky, self-indulgent party where you tied one on and spent the night with the wrong date. It’s fun for a moment. But then comes morning and a hangover and—oh no—the wrong person is still there.

You wake up with her head on your arm and chew your arm off to get away so you won't wake her.

Oh noes!!!!!!1

Angry black people!!!! Digby notices the Rethug blowhards aren't even trying to hide it anymore:

...

Wow. I've written quite a bit about the particular form of American racism that manifests itself in fear of the black mob but I haven't seen it expressed quite so starkly though in a couple of decades.

...

Running late; had to kick the Mrs. out at the airport. Don't worry, I slowed down to 20 mph before I made her jump. Heh ...

Off to work ...

Pallin' around ...

McCain does it:

A lobbyist for Saddam Hussein is the head of McCain’s "transition" team.

Mideast anti-Americanism doesn't apply to Harley-Davidsons

This video shows Mideast HOG (Harley Owners Group) members expounding on their choice of sled. One wonders if halal dietary restrictions ever come into play if you eat the thing in a crash...

Accompanying article at the LATimes

"My mind just clears," says Rakan Talal, a 26-year-old from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, who was among a small but fervent crew of hog fanatics converging on Lebanon the first weekend of October for the country's first Harley-Davidson tour. "I don't think about anything. Just the road and feeling the wind. Riding on two wheels is something else. Riding a bike makes it all feel better."

Yes it does. Some things are universal.

I have maintained for 30 years that if everybody rode motorcycles, there wouldn't be any more wars. Here's my Cold War scenario, which could be updated for any clime and place:

A US Army rider in Germany, eastbound, is broke down by the side of the road. While he's on his knees investigating the problem he glances a hundred yards up the road and sees a Russian rider, westbound, also broke down by the side of the road, also on his knees investigating his problem. In a moment frozen in time, the Russian is looking back at him.

Both soldiers have the same thought: well, I ain't gettin' anywhere with this broke down piece o' shit anyway. Might as well try something else.

Both men lock and load, get to their feet, and approach one another warily, weapons at the ready just in case. The American G.I. breaks the ice:

"Hey, Ivan, ya got a 530 master link? Fuckin' chain broke."

"Da. Iss your lucky day, Tovarisch. Trade you for a set of points. The People's Points are donkey waste. I think a set from one of your Tschevies will fit."

"Yeah, a Chevy six. Same kind this sled takes. Got 'em."

The deal is done. The soldiers team up and help each other make repairs. Along the way, bottles of vodka and bourbon are broken out and shared. Talk turns to thoughts of home, girls, good food, and how totally fucked the whole idea of war is.

After a longer time than necessary, the soldiers regrettably part and go their separate ways, now brothers of the road instead of enemies. Like they should be.

Ah, to dream...

"Nailin' Palin" due soon. Can I pre-order?

I will just throw this line from Raw Story out there:

Publisher Larry Flynt has announced that Hustler is releasing a porn film featuring a Sarah Palin lookalike and a tank full of stranded Russian soldiers.

The line "Ah, my little bublichki" popped into my head. Don't ask me why...

Many of our other favorite characters are parodied in the movie as well. Normally I wouldn't direct you to a Fixed News video, but don't miss the one at the link.

Update:

Stole this from The Exile. The devil made me do it...

Quote of the Day

Reggie at TVNewsLies on the bigoted hateful ignorance of McCain-Palin supporters at recent McKlan rallies:

But then again I remember that they hate us for our freedoms.

Teh stupid ...

It burns:

Stolen from Dr. Fez-head. Click pic to turn this guy into a bigger moron.

Indeed!

As Digby says, the banking mess and health care go hand-in-hand:

I was skeptical that health care would actually be tackled in a Democratic first term without a recession driving it and now, for obvious reasons, I think it may actually happen. Polls are showing that the economy and health care are the two top issues in the election.

The fact is that they are intertwined. The American system of employer based health care is falling apart. Big companies are being squeezed by retiree health benefits and small businesses are drowning in health care costs. And needless to say, being unemployed means saying goodbye to your health insurance (or COBRA costs that are obscene.) Add that to the huge number of underinsured and uninsured and you have the makings of a full fledged emergency. [my em]

...

Most certainly.

Big Healthcare and Big Pharma have been allowed to run as wild as the mortgage industry and it's time for them to be reined in as well. Health care shouldn't be an employer-based system. It should be a single-payer (government) affair, government keeping costs low by negotiating volume pricing with Pharma (as Canada and most European nations do). The day health care became a 'for-profit' industry (thank you President Reagan) foreshadowed whis crisis. It serves no one's interest when it costs $500 - $1000 just to walk into an emergency room (a lot of homes that are in foreclosure are there as a result of a health care issue that swamped the owners' finances). It serves no one's interest when people go bankrupt because of a health care issue.

It is time to do away with private health insurance and impose stricter regulation on the health care industry as a whole. The American middle class (and that includes small business) will never be able to regain its footing unless health care is addressed in the same breath as the financial crisis.

How cool ...

Is that? North Dakota is a "statistical tossup".

... This is yet another reliably Republican state that McCain can't lock down ...

Quote of the Day

The one and only Nucks:

According to the NYT, Bush has decided to drop North Korea off the Axis of Evil list.
I propose that President Obama replace it with the Republican Party immediately.

...

Amen, pal.

Just...Yeesh

Raw Story

If your fender says Change, don't park here.

A parking lot owner in Gibsonville, NC, decided supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are no longer welcome to use his property, WFMY's Julia Bagg reported.

Lot owner Tim Henderson posted two identical signs that warned: 'no parking' for Obama supporters or people with Obama bumper stickers."

"I don't expect to go after anybody with a baseball bat," Henderson said. "I would grin at them and laugh and ask them if they could read English."

I, cur (pronounced 'sir'), would grin and ask if you can speak English with a fat lip and no teeth. What a fuckin' asshole.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Paulson Optimistic Economy Will Turn Around
Cites encouraging e-mail from Nigeria.

Americans Looking for New Start
Pile possessions on car roofs, head for California.

Oh fucking swell...

Record 90% Believe Country on Wrong Track
But only 40% intend to vote.

McCain Reveals Plan to Save Economy
Revive poll tax.

Watermelon Found to Have Viagra-Like Effects
Ask your doctor if watermelon is right for you.

Is it available in suppository form?

Much more. Enjoy.

Congrats!

NYTimes

STOCKHOLM, Oct 13 (Reuters) - American economist Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel prize for economics for bringing together analysis of trade patterns and where economic activity takes place, the prize committee said on Monday.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prestigious 10 million crown ($1.4 million) prize recognised Krugman's formulation of a new theory to answer questions driving world-wide urbanisation.

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," the committee said in its statement.

Yeah, what they said.

Congratulations, Mr. Krugman. For what it's worth, you also get my portion of the Alternate Brain Not-So-Nobel Prize for explaining that economics shit in terms I can almost understand.

Repugs in trouble

P.M. Carpenter

Republicans Have Bigger Problems than John McCain's Dying Campaign

Indeed! And thanks to them, so do the rest of us.

I'm a watchful admirer of journalistic understatements, and this weekend brought us these: "Republican leaders said Saturday that they were worried Mr. McCain was heading for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and … they were concerned that he and his advisers seemed to be adrift."

And that, my friends, was the equivalent of White Star Line saying on April 15, 1912, that one of their ships seemed to be in a spot of trouble.

I love cruise ship references! It's all Fixer's fault...

"Yet, as we know, Republicans are as addicted to Rovian junk as much as their supply-side product. Like most degenerate addicts, however, they believe a sudden, cold-turkey withdrawal from both self-destructive habits could prove fatal. The opposite, of course, is true -- in fact it's their only hope of survival. Whether they wise up and sober up is the only suspense left."

The choice Mr. Carpenter leaves out is one that us ex-drunks know about: they could just die and save us the fucking drama.

Channel Changer

From The American Prospect via Avedon.

For years, liberals thought they could catch up in media by playing by conservatives' rules. Rachel Maddow's success proves it's better to just change the game.

Maddow is not a Tim Russert or a Chris Matthews--an ostensibly nonpartisan interviewer who badgers politicians and policy-makers about contradictions in their records. Nor is she a Rush Limbaugh or a Glenn Beck--an attack dog who deals in calculated anger, bluster, and outrage. She's no mild-mannered liberal like Alan Colmes or a veteran observer like Wolf Blitzer or David Gregory. Maddow has broken the broadcasting mold. She has succeeded as an avowed liberal on television precisely because she is not a liberal version of conservatives like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Unlike so many progressive media figures who sought to replicate the on-air habits of the aggressive shock jocks of the right, she stumbled upon a workable style for the left. She is liberal without apology or embarrassment, bases her authority on a deep comprehension of policy rather than the culture warrior's claim to authenticity, and does it all with a light, even slightly mocking, touch. She proves that liberals can attract viewers on television when they actually act like, well, liberals.

If I liked Rachel any more than I do, there'd be a restraining order against me.

Much more. Also a bit on our loudmouth Mom, Randi Rhodes. Enjoy.

Payment is due ...

Via Avedon, Robert Parry with an informative article on our excesses over the last 30 years and how the bill has finally come due:

After a 28-year binge of drunken optimism and blind nationalism – often punctuated by chants of "USA, USA!" and "We’re No. 1!" – Americans are waking up with a painful hangover, facing a grim "morning in America," not the happy vision that Ronald Reagan famously sold them on.

As the United States begins to assess how the nation got into its trillion-dollar bailout mess, a true understanding must go back three decades or so when Reagan deployed his well-honed communications skills and the Republican Right mastered the dark arts of propaganda to get the American people to shed the annoying strictures of rationality.

...

As President, Reagan attacked the federal regulatory system and cut taxes so recklessly that his budget director, David Stockman, foresaw red ink "as far as the eye can see." Reagan also justified fattening the Pentagon’s budget by citing dire warnings that the Soviet Union was on the rise (despite CIA analysis at the time that it was in sharp decline).

To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward anyone who challenged the era’s feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or – in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s memorable attack line – they would "blame America first."

...

Ain't it the truth. And don't forget "tax and spend Democrats"; that was the one I heard a lot at the time. Thing is, when you realize why the Dems had to raise taxes (to pay for all the spending the previous Rethugs did), you realize how well the Rethugs did propaganda and controlled the media environment.

...

Significantly, too, Reagan credentialed a new generation of neocon intellectuals, who pioneered a concept called "perception management," the shaping of how Americans saw, understood – and were frightened by – threats from abroad.

Many honest reporters saw their careers damaged when they resisted the lies and distortions of the Reagan administration. Likewise, U.S. intelligence analysts were purged when they refused to bend to the propaganda demands from above. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]

...

The Republican version of 'fiscal conservatism' is: Don't Tax The Rich, Spend All You Can, Pass The Payments To The Next Generation.

Ladies and Gentlemen (and the rest of you too), true fiscal conservatism is very simple: Don't Spend What You Don't Have.

And an addendum for the next time credit becomes free again: A little rule I have that's served me well over the years. Use the equity in your home to increase the value of your home and nothing else. Do not, I repeat, do not use equity in your home to buy cars, go on vacation, buy gifts, have cosmetic surgery, or anything else that loses its value immediately after you buy it.

A corollary to that is: Do not take more than a third to half the equity out of your home. Home vaules (contrary to what we've seen over the past few years) do not always go up.

Off to Little Italy work ...

99 bottles of beer ...

Comrade E.B. Misfit:

... As of 1Pm Eastern Time, he [the Chimp] has 99 days left in his misbegotten presidency ...

Still seems too long ...

Sunday Zydeco Blogging

These guys are terrific!

Jeffrey Broussard and D'Jalma Garnier lead The Creole Cowboys in Boozoo Chavez's classic 'Dog Hill'. Live at the Louisiana Musician's Hurricane Relief Benefit Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet November 13, 2005

Thanks to PHubb.

Quote of the Day

Gail Collins:

... It’s only in retrospect that we can see that the keep-off-the-grass period was the McCain campaign’s golden era ...

Link thanks to Mr. Aravosis.

Gordon & Fixer work on a boat!

With subtitles!

Odo-may eaks-spay

MoDo has regressed to her Catholic school days. Us Cat'licks who took years of Latin may have a leg up on understanding her, but if you are not so, er, blessed, just read it real fast and you'll get the drift kinda subliminally.

Tamen Sara et Ioannes bury Obama, not praise him. Maverici, ut capiunt auxilium de friga-domina, hench-femina, Cynthia McCaina Birrabaronessa, (quae culpat Obamam periculandi suum filum in Babylonia), brazen-iter distractant mentes populares de minimissimis IV 0 I K.ibus, deminutione “Motorum Omnium,” et Depressione Magna II.0. Omnes de Georgio Busio Secundo colossale goofballo. “V” (because there’s no W. in Latin) etiam duxit per disastrum ad gymnasium.

More. Enjoy.

Weekend whorage

The next chapter of Birthright is up at The Practical Press, work is moving along on the house and I discuss the planning stages of a project.

And, for your Sunday morning listening:

Bond - Shine