Liberal groups, such as MoveOn and SEIU, and liberal bloggers (such as Jane Hamsher and our own Joe Sudbay) have been pressuring Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu to support the public option in health care reform (i.e., some kind of public health insurance plan). Landrieu has been adamantly opposed to anything resembling a public option. So groups like MoveOn have been running ads against her.
Well, our president will have none of that, He want us all to stop trying to get Landrieu to support a public option. Specifically, he wants them to stop running this ad.
Yes, let's not pressure bad Democrats to support keep provisions of the most importance piece of legislation of Obama's presidency, let alone the next decade.
...
Look, Barry, if you don't want a public option, don't even bother. Without the public option, it Ain't. Fucking. Reform.
Me 'n Fixer finally get to crawl out from under them humvees and get to town!
Watch the gal Fixer's dancin' with from about 1:39. She musta known he was comin' and had a coupla extra joints installed! I make my entrance at about 2:05...
You can hear some NPR folks read the Declaration Of Independence here. The text is there as well.
My favorite parts in the birth certificate of our nation:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, ...
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ...
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
North Korea has test fired seven missiles off its eastern coast, according to South Korea.
Yo, NK - fire a few off yer west coast and see what happens! Heh.
The move is likely to be seen as another act of defiance against the US - coming as it does on Independence Day.
I think what we need, since it's Independence Day, is a little time-on-target exercise. Every U.S. base and sub that's got missiles should fire 'em so they explode above North Korea at the same time high enough that they can be seen from Tokyo to Beijing. The warheads should be loaded with fireworks that spell out, in Korean and English:
Yep, Gord and I (and the rest of the bloggers who've graced our page) have been 'giving our opinions' on ... well ... everything for 5 years.
I am appreciative of all the readers and commenters who've come through this place over the past half-decade. You've made this so much more than the anger management class it started out as, a way to 'rage against the machine', and I thank you for your input, feedback, and friendship.
As I've said many times, without you guys, the Brain would be nothing more than graffiti - a couple old guys writing on the wall.
I've posted this song before and I like it so I'm doing it again. The song is about spousal abuse, but it hits on other levels as well. Check out some of the lyrics;
"Let the weak be strong"
Ya listenin', Dems?
"Let the Right be wrong"
Ain't they always?
"Let the guilty pay"
Bush/neocon/Repug reference. Fuckin' A.
"It's Independence Day"
Best one in years, too. Have a good one. My unsolicited, free advice on this day is translated from the Chinese - "Light fuse. Retire quickly."
And yes, Hannity plays this song. Click on the 'before' link above and read what the gal who wrote the song and I have to say about that. Also, click on the video after it starts and read the first few comments.
A U.S. Marine from 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, RCT 2nd Battalion 8th Marines Echo Co. runs to a new position on July 3, 2009 in Main Poshteh, Afghanistan. The Marines are part of Operation Khanjar which was launched to take areas in the Southern Helmand Province that Taliban fighters are using as a supply route and to help the local Afghan population prepare for the upcoming presidential elections. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
If I saw this, er, presidential election worker approaching my front door, I think I'd
a) Give up
b) Identify myself as a former member of 3rd Battalion 8th Marines and hope nobody in 3rd Battalion ever fucked this guy over, and
c) State loudly and clearly, "Your man's got my vote. Which one o' them sonsabitches is he?"
Another good article by Robert Parry. Not too long and a 'recommended read', just to keep fresh in our minds the biggest crime of the 21st century so far which is still going on and will haunt our country for generations to come. Thanks, George.
President Barack Obama and Iraqi leaders may try to sugarcoat the bitter pill for the United States by talking up the achievements of the six-year occupation, but the public celebrations by Iraqis marking the American pullout from Iraq’s cities tell the painful story of a U.S. strategic failure.
The big news organizations also didn’t want to admit their own complicity in this crime since almost everyone in American journalism, who wanted to keep a comfortable seat at the Establishment’s table, either endorsed the enterprise or kept quiet.
So even today – more than five months after Bush left office – it’s still much easier to dismiss what happened as “unnecessary,” to cite the pre-war “intelligence failures,” and to criticize Bush primarily for his tactical misjudgments in planning an effective occupation -- not committing enough troops and not having a detailed enough post-invasion plan.
Accusing him of criminality is much trickier. After all, in the view of the mainstream news media, war crimes are something that “rogue states” commit, petty tyrants from Rwanda or Yugoslavia who can then be dragged off to The Hague and put on trial.
Such humiliations are not for the former “Leader of the Free World” and his subordinates (nor for an ex-British prime minister). [...]
At this point, chances of any serious accountability look slim to none. Though a vocal supporter of international law, President Obama has made it clear that he won’t tolerate any serious investigation of the Bush administration’s crimes. Obama says he wants “to look forward, not backward.”
As part of that ducking of the past, Obama also can be expected to avoid describing the war as a failure. That would only provoke Republicans and right-wing pundits to accuse him of defeatism and “apologizing for America.”
Instead, to protect the withdrawal’s political flanks, Obama will pretend that the sacrifice of American troops achieved great things in Iraq.
The irony was that Bush’s desire to use the SOFA to cement a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq had the opposite result.
Given broad Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation, Iraqi political factions decided to position themselves as defenders of the nation’s sovereignty, not as American puppets.
The likely outcome in Iraq now appears to be the departure of U.S. forces with Washington left with little to show for its investment in blood and treasure. As the Washington Post reported on June 30, “there is little talk among U.S. commanders and diplomats of engineering a victory in the 2½ years they expect to remain here.”
For the United States, memories of its military intervention in a country halfway around the world may fade gradually into history, swallowed by the shifting sands of the ancient land of Mesopotamia, another chapter of failed imperial overreach in that region, a long and bloody saga dating back to Biblical times.
Despite the terrible price in lives, money and prestige, little may remain of Bush’s macho adventure besides the eventual recognition of a painful strategic defeat for the United States.
It's what happens when you let a moral weakling get put in charge by neocon/corporate criminals. We haven't yet begun to see the damage Bush let them cause. Nor are any of us alive today likely to see the end of it.
The FBI has released reports on 20 interviews and five conversations conducted with Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein before he was put to death, but none of the disclosed Q and A deals with the role of the Reagan administration in delivering key components for Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s.
The gaps in the FBI reports also underscore the historical travesty that resulted from the Bush administration’s handling of Saddam Hussein after his capture on Dec. 13, 2003, near Tikrit, eight months after the U.S.-led invasion toppled his government.
Instead of being turned over to the international criminal court at The Hague, where he could have been thoroughly interrogated, Hussein was kept under tight U.S. control until he was handed over to his Iraqi enemies on Dec. 30, 2006, for a chaotic hanging.
While President George W. Bush and many of his supporters were thrilled with the execution – what the New York Times called Bush’s “triumphal bookend” to the Iraq invasion – the hanging was not just rough justice meted out to a harsh dictator. It also snuffed out a dangerous witness who could have implicated senior Republicans, including Bush’s father.
Important chapters of history died with Hussein on the gallows. Hussein was a unique witness with the broadest knowledge about who arranged and sold the precursor components for his unconventional weapons that were used to kill Iranian troops and Iraqi civilians.
In death, Hussein couldn’t disclose what George W. Bush’s first Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during that famous hand-shake meeting in 1983, nor whether he got an alleged message from Vice President George H.W. Bush in the mid-1980s about how best to deploy Iraq’s air force against Iran, nor if then-deputy CIA director Robert Gates was running interference for Iraq’s military supply line in the 1980s.
It was the elder George Bush, as Vice President, who allegedly oversaw the covert U.S. operation to assist Hussein’s war machine during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War; Rumsfeld, as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, held private chats with the Iraqi dictator about his war needs; and Gates, as a senior CIA official, reportedly rebuffed Israeli protests about U.S. tolerance for third-country military shipments to Iraq, including precursor chemicals.
All those important Republicans and more could breathe a little easier after the hangman’s noose choked the life out of Hussein. (Gates remains in government as President Barack Obama's defense secretary.)
Behold, the ongoing, increasingly startling research: homosexual and bisexual behavior, it turns out, is rampant in the animal kingdom. And by rampant, I mean proving to be damn near universal, commonplace across all species everywhere, existing for myriad reasons ranging from pure survival and procreative influence, right on over to pure pleasure, co-parenting, giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm, even love, and a few dozen other potential explanations science hasn't quite figured out yet. Imagine.
Are you thinking, why sure, everyone knows about those sex-crazed dolphins and those superslut bonobo monkeys and the few other godless creatures like them, the sea turtles and the weird sheep and such, creatures who obviously haven't read Leviticus. But that's about it, right? Most animals are devoutly hetero and straight and damn happy about it, right?
Wrong.
"Giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm". Get that visual outta yer head. Heh.
If our spineless Dems actually grow a ball now that they have the 'Magic 60'. Mr. Aravosis (in toto):
Well, this should be interesting. We've been hearing for years that the only thing stopping the Democratic party from asserting itself, from following through on its promises, was the lack of that all-mighty 60-vote majority in the Senate. And now they have it. So, Senator Reid, and President Obama, bring it on.
This article in the EssEffChron about one California county sums up Repug - and some Democratic - hypocrisy beautifully:
Sprawling across the northeastern corner of California, this huge, thickly forested county with more cows than people epitomizes the Western frontier - and what seems to be a two-faced political ideology.
Modoc has the highest Republican registration of any county in California, it unfailingly elects anti-tax Republicans to office, and the vote here against last month's ballot measure that would have raised a variety of taxes was one of the most lopsided in the state. And yet, per capita, Modoc County gets more state taxpayer dollars than all but one of California's 58 counties.
The prevailing attitude among the right-wing ranchers and modern hippies who define Modoc County is of fierce self-reliance - but more people here than just about anywhere else depend on welfare checks of some kind to get by.
So with state Republicans blocking new taxes and insisting on deep cuts in taxpayer-funded services, does that make this most solid of GOP bases politically conflicted? Or, worse, just plain ignorant?
Yes.
Shorter: Government should stay the fuck out of our lives. Except for sending us other people's money.
I've just finished reading "It Came From Wasilla" by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair. Here's the last paragraph of a very good and worth reading six-page article:
On a rare fine day in Juneau, not long ago, Palin was seen sitting in the sunshine in the broad plaza near the state capitol, alone with her thoughts and some reading material for more than an hour and a half. Down the hillside below her, the big cruise liners that ply Alaska’s Inside Passage in the summer months were beginning to call in the port. Only two years have elapsed since William Kristol and his colleagues disembarked from one of them and hearkened to her siren call. Sarah Palin might well have been wondering whether her own ship is going out, or just coming in.
I took two things away from the article:
First, I'm almost grateful to the far right whackos for getting her onto the McCain ticket. That act, perhaps more than any other single thing, absolutely, positively ensured that Obama would be elected President, and
Second, that Fixer gets advance copies of V.F. and/or has mad sardonic skillz of prophecy!
It was a simple matter for me to dive in with a paintbrush and change SS McCain to SS Moosebreath on her stern. Hmmmmmm. Perhaps I could have chosen better wording than 'dive in' and 'her stern' in the same sentence whilst referring to Palin. Nah, it's OK. She has people to do that.
Update:
In related news, the V.F. article has touched off yet more feuding deep within the diseased bowels of the Repugs. Good.
Here's a teaser. Swallow first. Heh.
“I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”
Loyalists to Palin, including Kristol, were outraged at Purdum’s piece, believing it to be another example of what they see as elite media contempt for the Wasilla native.
And yer point is...?
Total soap opera shit. Go see. Have some fun.
Update II:
You can get to the V.F. article all on one page from The Political Carnival, whose post title is:
Cue the shrieks-- It Came from Wasilla: Miss Personality...Disorder
And from a comment:
[...] Before, during, or after 2012 she's gonna make Blagojevich look like a paragon of mental health and reason.
Xerox has named Ursula Burns as its new chief executive officer, making her the first African American woman to run a Fortune 500 company.
Burns will take over on July 1, 2009, replacing Anne Mulcahy.
The 50-year-old new boss worked her way up the corporate ladder from a summer internship in 1980 to the CEO position. She has also been a member of the board of directors since 2007.
Invent a time machine and go back to June 2005. Make bets with people that in four years’ time we’ll have a black Democratic president with the middle name “Hussein.” Then up the ante by predicting that the Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate. Then top if off by betting that one of those seats will belong to Al Franken.
I mean, four years ago, I would have been too ashamed to post such a prediction anywhere, even if I were anonymously trolling over at Red State. Times do indeed change.
Last year, Oklahoma state legislator Sally Kern (R) drew well-deserved criticism for an outlandish rant against the gay community, in which she compared homosexuality to “toe cancer” and said “it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” “Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country,” said Kern.
Kern is now pushing a “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” that blames America’s “economic woes” on “abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse ,and many other forms of debauchery”:
WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and
WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery;
Our 'economic woes' were caused by the other end of the Repuglican't party, but it will never do to place the blame where it properly resides or people like this would never get elected or re-elected. The money comes from big biz, the votes come from small minds.
Only one of the bidders for the eight contracts to run oil and gas fields in Iraq has accepted oil ministry terms.
Six oil fields and two gas fields were available in a televised auction that was the first big oil tender in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.
BP and China's CNPC agreed to run the 17 billion barrel Rumaila field after Exxon Mobil turned it down.
Well of course Exxon Mobil turned it down. BP and CNPC are only going to get $2 per barrel and Bush told ExMo they were going to get it all after he killed 4000+ soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to steal it for them. Who knew the Iraqis would figure out it was theirs? .
I've eaten at Taco Bell, but a) it bears no relation to Mexican or food whatsoever and b) the can of war surplus life raft rations that I've had in the garage for forty years is probably more nutritious and better tasting.
Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group yesterday discussing Sanford. Heard it with my own ears, paraphrased it in between them:
"Hockey players began using protective cups in the 1870s but didn't start wearing helmets until the 1970s. That should show where men's priorities lie!"
Some of you youngsters might not remember Gale Storm, but I sure as shit do. We got our first TV set in about 1953. In those days Los Angeles only had seven stations and if it was snowing on Mt. Wilson, it was snowing on the TV too. There weren't many viewing choices, but My Little Margie was a good one and we watched it each week without fail.
I don't watch sitcoms much any more because most of 'em are not-very-funny crap, but those were simpler times, gentle innocent humor that wasn't all put-downs like it is now. Stuff that wouldn't cut it today was terrific back then.
Gale Storm, who shot to the top on television as the vivacious star of two popular 1950s situation comedies, "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna," has died. She was 87.
A summer replacement for "I Love Lucy," "My Little Margie" ran from 1952 to 1955, with Storm starring as the plucky young Margie Albright and Charles Farrell as her widower father, Vern. Although critics generally panned "My Little Margie" as a lightweight farce, the public fell in love with the mischievous Margie. A 1953 poll of the most popular TV stars listed Storm at No. 2, behind TV comedy queen Lucille Ball.
After "My Little Margie" ended, Storm starred in "The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna," in which she played social director Susanna Pomeroy aboard the luxury liner the SS Ocean Queen*. The situation comedy, featuring Zasu Pitts as the ship's flighty beautician Elvira "Nugey" Nugent and Roy Roberts as Capt. Huxley, ran from 1956 to 1960.
*Homeported at Fire Island, perhaps? The reference would never have crossed anybody's mind back then. ZaSu Pitts was funnier'n shit. My folks remembered her from silent movies.
I didn't know about this but I can relate:
In 1980, she returned to the limelight as the commercial spokeswoman for Raleigh Hills Hospital, the now-defunct alcohol treatment chain where she had been treated for a serious bout with alcoholism.
I beat alcohol when I was in my fifties as well. Good for you, lady.
Her obit has a pretty good account of her life. Please go read about her.
The title of this post is from a 'comment' at Think Progress, links, videos, comments, the works. Hit 'em all! I'm callin' Maximum Liquid Alert! Put your drink in the next room!
Fox Nation Pushes ‘Satire’ Site’s Article About Ridge Attacking Limbaugh As Fact-Based Truth
On his radio show, Limbaugh responded to Ridge, saying, “I must have missed something, because I remember that Colin Powell endorsed the Democrat, Barack Obama, at a strategic point in the campaign in 2008.” The blog, Elective Decisions, which features “the satire of Chris Davis,” then wrote up a post saying that Ridge responded to Rush by challenging him to a fight:
So this morning, Ridge went back on Washington Journal, responding to Limbaugh’s rhetoric. “I’m so sick of Rush Limbaugh. He’s the reason we lose elections. He needs to get the hell out of the Republican Party. As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t a Republican anymore. The man’s running. The man’s hiding. He’s too scared to face me!”
Ridge continued his rant, threatening Limbaugh. “Meanwhile, he sits there in his ‘Southern Command Post,’ and destroys the Republican Party! I’d like to just have three rounds in a boxing ring with that guy so I could shut him up! I’m caling (sic) you out, Limbaugh. Let’s see if you have a big enough set of marbles to back up your crap!”
Though the “Elective Decisions” blog is clearly marked as “satire,” the Fox Nation linked to the post and promoted it as if it were based on reported facts: ...
This isn’t the first time Fox News has promoted a parody as truth. In 2007, the network aired at least eight segments on a purported “news” story that was actually a parody article written by a publication similar to The Onion.
None of this is surprising given that there's no distinction drawn at F**Noise between fact and fiction, but Jesus Christ, Ridge, three rounds? There's a little old lady who takes ten minutes to walk her Chihuahua past my house every day using two canes and a walker that could take that fat pile of crap in one!
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—The Air Force successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile Monday from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.
I think the operative word that makes what used to be a common event newsworthy is 'successfully'.
My in-house missile launch expert is Mrs. G, who grew up fifteen miles north of Vandenberg. She says the Minuteman launches were boring because they were too fast. It took a little while for the shock wave to get to her house and by the time the windows rattled signifying a launch and she'd rush to the window to watch, they were gone.
The Titans were a lot slower and she had time to watch the rocket exhaust going up with a flame at the top.
The best ones of all could be seen from Los Angeles to Frisco and perhaps even farther away. Those were the night launches that went awry. The contrail, lit up brilliantly in shades of green by high altitude sunlight, would make patterns in the sky ranging from a series of 'Z's to a macramé-looking bunch of loop-the-loops.
The best part of all was when the operators blew it up. For just an instant, you coulda read a book by the light all along the West Coast, and then the glowing and contrails of all the pieces would blossom out and up and down like the 4th of July. All this light would hang up there for quite a while, broadening out until it dispersed. Wow, like, totally bitchin' light show, dude! The entertainment was a great use of taxpayers' money.
Afterthought:
I wonder if I posted this as some kind of subconscious reaction to this morning's aftermath of the events of yesterday? Maybe something having to do with a stream of fire shootin' out my...
NYC Drivers Voted Angriest, Most Aggressive Celebrate victory by roughing up police, burning taxicabs.
Rep. Bachmann: Census Could Be Used to Put People in Internment Camps Her thesis: census takers hired by ACORN identify God-fearing patriots, report them to liberal authorities who arrest them or have them thrown in a wood-chipper or, in her case, examined by a team of psychiatrists.
Book: Great Works of Literature Reduced to Tweets Cliffs Notes reduced to three syllables.
American troops begin leaving Iraqi cities for the oil fields the more rural areas, turning over security duties to the Iraqi Army and police tomorrow. Now that we've fucked their country to Hell liberated the Iraqis from a tyrant, after 6 years of crusade and occupation regime change and winning hearts and minds, what do you think is gonna happen?
Is it gonna be an all-out civil war between sectarian interests or will the Iraqis step up and keep the militias in line? Or maybe a little of both? What do you think we have to look forward to from here out?
MEXICO CITY — The Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by the army on Sunday after pressing ahead with plans for a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election, in the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war.
We're going today to the Truckee Chili Cook-off which is being held at Truckee River Regional Park three blocks from my house. I have no idea what to expect since it's the first time this has been done, but I've been to chili cookoffs before and they're fun. You get to sample different kinds of chili which can be a little risky vis-a-vis highly incendiary gut bomb fare, but they're usually pretty good.
One of the highlights will be the presence of the Railroad Regulators 601, a local western re-enactment group composed of many of our leading citizens.
Now, with more than 30 members, the regulators put on such events as Railroad Days and Windows on History, to entertain and educate locals about the rich history of this little mountain town. Apparently, Truckee wasn’t as sleepy in the 1800s as many believe it to be.
Even their name, the Regulators 601, is historic, borrowed from other groups that lived in Truckee near the end of the 19th century.
These groups' main tools were tar, feathers, and nooses. Called by some these days 'supplements to law enforcement', they were vigilantes who would often settle personal scores with their quasi-official status along with legit public safety incidents.
To keep in line with the times, Deveney says its important for this "bunch of old guys playing cowboys" to have their own corruptible politician at hand, namely Susman. "He can’t be bought, but he can be rented damn cheaply," Deveney jokes.
Well, that's some historical accuracy that persists today! Mr. Susman is a real nice guy and a former Mayor of our town. Go read about these folks at the link.
One of my oldest friends in town, Dennis Cook, is one of the ramrods of the Regulators. A Vietnam Navy UDT Vet who still has to kill you after he tells you where all he went from Vietnam, and bail bondsman. I've worked for him on occasion going after bail skips. Pretty boring, not at all like 'Dog the Bounty Hunter', although when Dennis hands you a snubnose .38 and tells you to watch his back, it gets real interesting real quick!
The Regulators go to all our local events, and put on a good, fun show. The best one I saw was when they were staging a ten-participant shootout and one of 'em didn't quite get his old-fashioned .45 hogleg out of the holster before it went off and got himself right in the foot with a blank! Extremely entertaining! We're talkin' dumbass country fuck type fun here, folks!
I'll either find ya a video of these gents in action or maybe I'll take one myself. See yas later.
Update:
We're back. The event was a lot of fun. We were there for about an hour and a half, and in that time there was a band doing '60s tunes and an a cappella men's chorale in proper western dress.
Did I mention there was chili tasting? Admission was free, but tasting cost ten bucks. Well worth every penny, and the money went to the local Rotary Club.
There were 16 different chili cooks there. The basic load-out was a 4oz. cup from each one, but you could have all you wanted. You do the math, I'm afraid to. It's doable, but the jury's still out on the wisdom of it. I'll let ya know. Realistically, I scarfed down somewhere around a quart of some really good chili, from hot sauce with hamburger in it to granola bar tofu chili with added soybeans and lime, and everything in between, most of it recognizable as chili. It was all good.
I hope the term 'cook-off' isn't prescient. If a coupla o' them 16 chilis get ta arguin' in my innards, a 'cook off' is not out of the question. So far, so good...
Most of the cooks were locals, such as the local firefighters, the aforementioned TDPUD, and some restaurants. There was "Old Fart's (sic) Makin' Chili" and one eerily titled "A Journey's End". Go see. Cynthia had never considered the dark irony of naming a chili that until I brought it up. Cracked her up. Heh.
My favorite display was "Gilmore's Garage Chili". Click the pic and blow it up. Note the display of air fresheners, jumper cables, fan belts, and funnels, all essential accoutrements for serious chili eaters.
I sorta missed the very beginning of the Railroad Regulators act with the camera. These were the only ones who showed up. Two of the old farts pushed each other around and insulted each other quite comedically and brandished foot-long Arkansas toothpicks at each other. And then the sheriff stepped in and...
The Great Truckee Chili Cook-off Shootout
Just as an aside, the early '50s Chevy pickup was for sale, asking price $22,000. That's an awful lot for one of those. Mrs. G's niece just picked up a '50 one of those, one owner with an actual 100,000 miles on it for $8000 (deductible as business expense, her husband owns a supermarket), and I thought that was a lot. When I think of the ones I've bought for $250, got runnin', and sold for $500 and thought I was gettin' over...
We had a great time. This was the '1st Annual' one of these deals, and we'll be there at the second and beyond. There's always stuff like this goin' on in small towns and all ya have to do is get off yer ass and go to have some fun.
Having been on the PTSD rollercoaster for 5 years of my life, I can spot the signs. It's time to get Michael Ware out of Iraq and find him some help. I love the guy and the job he's done over there, but for the last few months it's been obvious (to me anyway) he's losing his grip. I'd hate to see such a capable, talented journalist (there are so few of them as it is) completely come apart at the seams.
Scientology is illegal in Germany; thought of at the same level as Nazism. Via Digby, a 3-part report on the inner workings of the cult. Should be illegal here too.
I realize your average, run-of-the-mill, man-on-the-street wingnut is generally a moron (the smart ones don't believe their own bullshit and are just in it for the money) but this hate letter to Kos seems too dumb.
dear socialist fuckstick,
i am well awear of the fact that liberals are immune to logic and reason, but allow me to try to prove to you that you are communist scum thrugh something called the scientific method:
1 a) FACT: you suck obamas cock every chance youget. you defend everythign he does and says and you are nothing more than an apologist. this makes you complicit in obamas actions.
1 b) FACT: obama is a well known socialist. this is evident his policies and his love of SELFDESCRIBED COMMUNISTS LIKE BILL AYERS!!!! so dont thinkthat he can hide his true nature for much longer. he will eventully be exposed and impeached. SOCIALISM CANNOT WORK OR RUSSIA WOULD STILL EXIST AND THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE LOST THE COLD WAR TO REAGAN!!! retard.
1 c) you are thusly a pro forma socialist; whether you like it or not. logic dictates this.
(2) FACT: you, sir, are a illegal immigrant. i dont give two shits whether you are an american citizen or not: you came here on taxpayer expense and you continue to drain our limited resources. you should be ashamed and go back to guatemala or whatever fucking middleeastern asshole you came from and try to sell yor leftwing bullshit there.
(3) FACT: you are also OBJECTIVELY ANTIAMERICAN!!!!!!!! dont even try to deny this for there is ample prof: in 2004 you openly supported the murder of four brave american soldiers in falluja. you tryed to weasel out of your responsiblity, but you cant hide the fact that you hate america and american soldiers and you love al queda and other muslim terrorists who have killed THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS!!!! and will never stop unless they are killed. and whose going to kill them? you? LOL you dont even own a gun because you leftofascists want to repel the second amendent.
(4) FACT: it is clear that you are a socialist illegal immigrant america hater. there is prima facies proof as above. and if logic and science says you are scum then you are scum (remember global warming? no proof, just science and that makes it true for you liberals) no matter what you think. however, i dont think you are a homo, just a homo enabler.
this doesnt mean that we cant have common ground. if you stop publishing antiamerican communist screeds, then i will stop hating you. fair?
sincerely yours
glenn
Do you believe it's real or a lefty doing a parody? Vote.
This is my favorite line: "remember global warming? no proof, just science and that makes it true for you liberals". Heh ...
This is my second: "... OR RUSSIA WOULD STILL EXIST AND THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE LOST THE COLD WAR ..." I don't know about Russia being gone. I'll let you all know when I get to St. Petersburg next year.
