Saturday Crazy Canuckistanian Redneck Music Blogging

Follow Me Down, the first music video from Ladies Of The Canyon's album "Haunted Woman," set for release on June 1. For more on Ladies Of The Canyon, visit www.ladiesofthecanyon.com

"We have power. You don't. "

Gene Robinson on "papers, please":

At least we don't have to pretend anymore. Arizona's passing of that mean-spirited immigration law wasn't about high-minded principle or the need to maintain public order. Apparently, it was all about putting Latinos in their place.

It's hard to reach any other conclusion given the state's latest swipe at Latinos. On Tuesday, Gov. Jan Brewer signed a measure making it illegal for any course in the public schools to "advocate ethnic solidarity." Arizona's top education official, Tom Horne, fought for the new law as a weapon against a program in Tucson that teaches Mexican American students about their history and culture.

Horne claims the Tucson classes teach "ethnic chauvinism." He has complained that young Mexican Americans are falsely being led to believe that they belong to an oppressed minority. The way to dispel that notion, it seems, is to pass oppressive new legislation aimed squarely at Mexican Americans. That'll teach the kids a lesson, all right: We have power. You don't.

The new education law is gratuitous and absurd. Arizona can't be picked up and moved to the Midwest; it's next to Mexico. There have always been families and traditions that straddle the two societies, and there always will be. Mexican Americans are inevitably going to feel proud of who they are and where they came from -- even if acknowledging and encouraging such pride in the classroom are against the law.

You know kids. They'll just learn it in the street.

Hey, that's where we learned all the good stuff anyway.

Quote of the Day

On corporate personhood:

If BP were a person it would be a career criminal, a pathological liar and an international serial killer with a rap sheet several times the size of the Chicago Yellow Pages.

Headline of the Day

If you're not pissed off yet today, go read this one:

Republicans search schoolroom, remove pro-labor teaching materials

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Great line:

You looked for trouble and you found it son,
Straight down the barrel of a lawman's gun...

From Dutch TV 1978

Emmylou Harris & The Hot Band ~ Ain't Living Long Like This

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

And people ask ...

How Hitler could have come to power:

Recent polls are showing that Arizona's police-state immigration law is broadly popular with the public -- and boy, are they all over THAT story at Fox News.

Here are the ugly results:

...

Back then it was the Jews, gays, gypsies, and crazy people who were demonized. Today it's the gays and the Latin (and non-white) immigrants. Arizona is just the start. I can't believe, a year and a half after Bush/Cheney are just a bad memory, we're still sinking lower.

Godzilla does not like it when you shit in his bed

The Rude One on the only hero we need:

Sarah Palin could try to explain to Godzilla that more offshore drilling is needed in order to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Godzilla would have dropped a motherfucking bus on her before she got to "baby."

Oh, Godzilla, where are you when we need you? You could chow down on Rush Limbaugh and BP CEO Tony Hayward. You could head over to the Capital and fry Lisa Murkowski for blocking a bill to raise the cap on oil company liabilities. You could just wreck the offices of the Minerals Management Service, the federal office that somehow was allowed to function without managing minerals, which, one would think, would be first on their list of services they're supposed to provide. Go ahead, Godzilla. The scientists and researchers they consult would cheer you on, since their warnings were ignored or changed by whoremongering industry suck-ups working there.

And then, once you've fucked up the lives of every worthless stooge involved, Godzilla, once you've destroyed BP refineries and made a real dent in their bottom line, then you can return to the ocean, swim down to the bottom, and wrestle with that gushing pipe. Fuck, it's no more of a fantasy than any other method that's being tried to stop it.

Your Stimulus Dollars At Work

This has nothing to do with anything other than it's my old stompin' ground. Nice header photo of the last strip joint on the route. Been there, hope it ain't got the same gals...

Pensito Review

The Sunset Strip Is Being Resurfaced for the First Time in 75 Years

My first thought when I saw that, and it popped up out of a mighty deep recess in my mind, was, "Well, it hasn't needed it. It was made out of concrete."

The Strip has not been resurfaced in all these years primarily because it hasn’t needed it. The original concrete surface had held up well, mostly because the ground below it is never subjected to freezing. [...]

Damn, I'm good!

Back in the '60s, the Strip was the place to go cruisin' on weekend nights. Once each way was enough for me usually and then on to somewhere else, but it was fun. The Strip runs along the side of a hill, so a quick dive to the south into the heart of WeHo or a couple mile run to the north to the Valley, a coupla blasts on the throttle and you were back to sanity. Relative sanity, it's L.A. after all.

There was bumper to bumper traffic, lotsa people and cars and bikes, the new phenomenon of long hair and hippies and gals with no bras, an emerging music scene, plenty to see. Almost never stopped there because there was no place to park. That changed when the first topless club appeared - I found parking! Heh.

I got my first street bike in the late '60s and that made it a lot easier. I got cut off by a car once and, quick thinker that I am in matters of survival, took a handy driveway and rode about a block on a pretty crowded sidewalk. Folks just grinned and waved. My pal Barbara Anne was on the back seat stoned outta her gourd and didn't even notice.

Memories.

Pretty good post. Go read. This is a political blog, so here's some politics:

Not everyone is happy about these long overdue improvements, of course. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who is facing reelection and running scared that he’ll be targeted by tea baggers who hate any government spending that doesn’t suit their own selfish needs — not to mention the fact that he’s facing voters for the first time since it was revealed that he has had a predilection for prostitutes — called the project funding “wasteful pork barrel spending.” The Senate Republican leadership put the project on its hit list, sneering at it as “a free million-dollar nose job from Uncle Sam.”

For the record, the congressman who represents the Strip is Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The senators are both Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Diaper Boy v Hammerin' Hank. No contest.

"I'll play this hole with a mini-wood"

From, of all places, the New York Post:

When President Obama was asked if he would play a round of golf with his talk-radio nemesis Rush Limbaugh, the response, relayed by a top Democrat, was: "Limbaugh can play with himself."

Oh, he does. Every time he hears a fat boy fart his right hand automatically curls up.

Is Pickles Going To Hell?

Friday Morford.

And over here we've got what we can only hope will be the final nationwide appearance of any kind whatsoever of one dangerously prim, heavily shellacked Laura Bush, trotting herself out like some sort of equestrian trophy on Larry King Live to shill for her new book, "Shut Up and Sit Quietly, You're Just a Woman" -er, "Spoken from the Heart."

But just so we're clear on some details, oh sweet, pitiable Laura: You had, back in 2000, two young, party-riffic twentysomething daughters, you were, for better or worse, the default role model for women everywhere, you were the emblem for female freedom and feminine empowerment to a hundred nations, and you... did whatnow? Lied outright? Lived in quiet denial? Slaughtered your own core beliefs? Kept your second-class Southern wife mouth shut tight and sat by quietly while the men did the "real" thinking? You sacrificed your own daughters to the sweaty altar of Karl Rove and the fundamentalist anti-choicers? I see.

Oh sweet Laura, it is very likely you are going to hell.

Look, I don't care if Dick Cheney threatened you with razor wire and concrete pumps. I don't care if Karl Rove said he'd suffocate you with his giant clammy hog thighs if you dared to speak up. You did a violent disservice, even outright harm, to women the world over, for nearly a decade. You helped allow virulent homophobia to rage in the nation and in your own husband's tiny soul, when you were in an insanely unique, privileged position to a stand, even a modest one, and help defy a deep hatred and ignorance in this country.

[...] But they say, Laura, that behind every great man is a great woman. George Bush was a small-minded, incompetent puppet. Shall we guess what that makes you?

[...] Laura Bush was a role model for terrified Southern housewives stuck with idiot-boy husbands, sad, lost women who, in Laura's case anyway, could have made a real difference, could have been downright historic, had she the slightest bit of nerve and soulful integrity.

I would say that Laura's been in her own private Hell since she came to and realized what she had married, compounded by the fact that he quit drinking and didn't die like he was supposed to and leave her a rich widow and then went on to destroy the world as we know it.

Note to Pickles: Drugs and alcohol will dull the pain, my dear. But you already knew that.

Quote of the Day

From a Tomgram on the teabaggery afoot in the land:

Americans, it’s been said, learn geography when they go to war. Now, it seems, many get their history when they go to a Tea Party rally or tune in to Glenn Beck.

Good article. Shorter: Yes, it is all about race.

I've had it too ...

JP has some good reasons to emigrate.

...

Yet even as we drown in goods and are bombarded by services ranging from mortgage refinancing for homes we no longer own to lengthening our penises, we still produce less and less because all the jobs have been outsourced overseas. Despite supporting two losing and unwinnable wars, we have never had to sacrifice one teaspoon of sugar, candy bar or pair of nylons, have never once orchestrated one rubber, paper or scrap iron drive to support these war efforts. Almost 6000 families notwithstanding, We the People have sacrificed... nothing.

Well, I'm not OK with this. And while my emigration from this country will not change anything and few will care and none will remember, I think it's only important to enumerate my reasons for doing this if given the first available opportunity.

Our bought-and sold government is corrupt to the core, our sociopathic corporations are corrupt, our so-called culture is corrupted and talent, virtue and righteousness are punchlines.

...

This isn't the nation I put my ass on the line for.

I hope dad-in-law lives a long time but when he's gone there will be nothing holding us here. We'll be moving within a year after that. This country is so dysfunctional that any real change in my lifetime has become a pipe dream. I don't want to live out whatever "Golden Years" I have left in a place where people like Sarah Palin are taken seriously and corporations make government policy; where the rich use the U.S. Treasury like an ATM.

After 8 years of Bush, I really thought the American people had their eyes opened. I thought they saw what bad government could do and would want to bring about change. Sadly, a good portion have learned nothing. Enough still vote against their own interests and blindly support politicians and policy designed to strip them of their rights and money. They don't want single payer health care when they can't get any or are going bankrupt because they got sick? They don't want financial reform when the big banks have swindled the American people for trillions? They support wars that are lost and should never have been fought in the first place while our children die needlessly? They support offshore oil drilling, and reject "green energy" in general, while our environment is being polluted at a ghastly rate?

We used to be the best and brightest in the world. What the fuck happened?

So I'll be leaving soon enough, hopefully before shit gets really bad. I'm tired of waiting for the American people to do the right thing because it'll never happen. If Bush the Stupid didn't scare them into action, nothing will. If you would have asked me 25 years ago, if I'd consider living in another country, I'd have laughed at you. Today, I'd laugh if you asked me if I were staying around any longer than I have to.

Government Oversight Is for Pussies

El Rude-o:

Everything you need to know to understand just how ridiculous our American approach to the interaction between government and industry has become is contained in this exchange: It's from the Coast Guard's hearing on the oil spill that was held on Tuesday. The USCG's Captain Hung Nguyen asked about the blowout preventer that was supposed to, you know, prevent the blowout, "It's my understanding that it's designed to industry standard and it's manufactured by the industry, installed by the industry, with no government witnessing or oversight of the construction or installation. Is that correct?"

To which Michael Saucier of the disgraced Minerals Management Service responded, "That is correct."

You got that? The very thing that's supposed to prevent, say, a massive, environment-despoiling, economy-wrecking incident was not subject to any government oversight. If you think that's okay, then you better be on the payroll of BP or else you're just a fucking fool, the kind of person who really ought to have their citizenship taken away and be sent to live on an island run by investment bankers, lobbyists, and free market whores. Oh, wait. That'd be America.

Saucier explained to Nguyen that his agency doesn't certify blowout preventers, but it will send out letters, "notices to lessees," if MMS has some problem it would like a driller to address. The driller usually responds with "Yeah, hey, and while you're down there, don't neglect the balls."

More.

Republican Congressional Candidate Proposes "Hunting Liberals"

The Progressive Professor

A Republican candidate for a Congressional seat in the San Francisco Bay area of California has published a statement on his website promoting an "open season" on "hunting liberals" between now and Election Day, November 2!

This man is named Brad Goehring, of all names! LOL The similarity to Nazi leader Herman Goering is stark! :)

He said on his Facebook site that his purpose was to "thin the herd" of liberals and he had no limit on taking them out, which sounds like a veiled threat to promote assassination of liberal candidates and office holders!

Not 'veiled' at all. Threatening us godless commie fucks is how these ying-yangs pander to the Dead End Quarter, the 20 or so % who can't elect them anyway. CA-11 is a swing district, but I don't think this kind of rhetoric will fly there.

The one thing that MUST be done is that the GOP repudiate this man, and knock him off the ballot as an unacceptable representative of their party! If they do not, it means they are endorsing him!

Fat fuckin' chance. Get outta the classroom once in a while, Prof. The Repugs love this kinda shit. It appeals to the lowest among us, aka their 'base'. They're all flaps and no throttle. Well, they 'flap' their lips a lot and spew a lotta gas, but to no forward progress.

Note to Herr Goehring: Bring it. Some of us godless commie fuck good American Libruls are tired of your RWNJ shit and welcome the chance to shoot back. Or first. We'll see whose herd gets thinned. Put your money where your big fat loud mouth is. Yeah, like that'll happen. Given the military records of most Repugs, one round over their heads and they'd shit themselves out of existence. Hey, whatever works...

Repugs are too hard to clean and too dirty to eat, but we can send their corpses to China for fertilizer. On crops for domestic use only, of course.

I could probably use a requal with the Big Iron anyway. It's been a while. I hope I can keep my old badge. I'd hate to have to wear crossed Mattels...

NeoNazi/AZ GOP connection exposed

Nothing new about that, but this is from an interesting source from either New Jersey or Brazil, I can't tell which.

Moses Apsan, Esq. at Jornal.US:

Evidence that Arizona's new anti-immigrant law was was written and introduced to Arizona congress by Neo Nazi supporters has come to light. Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, who submitted the bill has, for many years, been associated with local Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. Look at his background.

His backgound ensues along with those of others.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League have connected these groups with racists, white supremacists, and political extremists.

The Tanton message is blatantly clear - no more immigrants in the U.S. and those that are here should leave.

These are the background players in Arizona's new anti-immigrant laws.

Notice how the words "undocumented" or "illegal" are left off from in front of "immigrants"?

Big corporations writing our laws is bad enough. Now we've got white supremacists and Nazis doing it. And governors signing them. And teabaggers applauding bigger government as long as it's directed at convenient minorities and not at themselves.

This shit's gotta stop.

Alert Border Guard Saves U.S.!

The headline at BuzzFlash for this one asks the question, "Is America going through a psychotic episode?". Seems that way.

CBC News

A young woman from Gatineau, Que., says she was strip-searched and stranded in Windsor, Ont., in the middle of the night by U.S. border officials.

Vroemen, who studies theatre at Concordia University, set off from Montreal on May 5 on a Greyhound bus. She had found the volunteer job in California through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and planned to spend a month helping run art workshops at the farm. She thought she would explore the U.S. by bus on the way there.

Just as an aside, I rode the Dog from Los Angeles to Phoenix a few years ago. Great opportunity to learn foreign languages.

The bus arrived at the Windsor-Detroit border at 2 a.m., and Vroemen was interviewed about her plans by a U.S. border guard.

"He was trying to make it seem like … because I was getting room and board, that was considered being paid," said Vroemen, who had previously volunteered through WWOOF in Europe. "He told me that I was taking jobs from American citizens because I was going to help out on this community workshop."

Note to the border guard: As I drive the length of California, I pass many, many farm workers out in the fields picking lettuce and celery and stuff. There ain't a Canuck among 'em. You're doing a great job of protecting the U.S. and this time you've outdone yourself by protecting us from a Canadian college kid who was going to wreak havoc on our economy by volunteering at an artsy-fartsy hippie organic farm for room and board on her summer break. Bravo!

I think you deserve a promotion. I think you need to be promoted to our southern border and work your magic there and give more Americans the opportunity to do the stoop labor they're clamoring for. Of course, the northern border will be left undefended and the next time I drive down California all the farm workers might be Canadian. It's a chance I'm willing to take.

Asshole.

To Miss Vroemen: On behalf of whatever sane Americans remain, I apologize.

Headline of the Day

Bankers jailed, sued as Iceland seeks culprits for crisis

Quote of the Day

Ahnold:

...

"I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend," he said. "But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me."

...

East Arizona ...

A.k.a. Jackson, NY. We have a town called Jackson? Who knew, but it seems a buncha idiots live there.

Under the microscope ...

Seems some more white collar crooks are being scrutinized:

morgan stanley is now being investigated for "criminal" behaviour ...

In my book, if corporations are people, then corporations (meaning their boards of directors) can go to jail too, just like regular folks.

An aside: There are a few oil industry executives I can think of who should be wearing orange jumpsuits too. The Senate Sergeant at Arms should've taken them into custody as they tried to leave the hearing room the other day. If the NYPD arrested 3 guys and they came out with a bullshit story and finger-pointing that these execs did, all of 'em would be in a cell on Rikers lickety split.

Dear Mr. President ...

Since you're gonna be here in NYC today, I suggest the plans you have to meet with our "first responders" might not be a good idea ... especially since you just cut tens of millions of dollars from the security funds the federal government gives to the city. This is New York, after all, and we tend to speak our minds and many of us are pissed. You will hear about it, and probably in front of a camera.

...

The Department of Homeland Security is slashing funding for New York City area mass transit security and port security by 25 percent.

Word of the decision sparked outrage among New York lawmakers.

...

I'm not one of those hide-under-the-bed folks but Jesus, do we have to take another hit before the White House gets its priorities straight? New York is the target, the face of America, and it makes no sense to outfit small town police and fire departments like military units while cutting funding to the place where actual attacks have taken place. Good luck with your photo ops today, Mr. Obama.

HANG UP AND DRIVE, ASSHOLE!

Steve Lopez on one of my twelve or so pet peeves on the road:

If you happen to be one of the countless numbskulls out there who text while driving and talk on cellphones without hands-free devices, too distracted to know red from green or fast from slow, I've got news for you, Cookie.

LAPD traffic officer Kamaron Sardar is going to get you.

Did you not get the memo, nearly TWO YEARS AGO, that it's illegal to talk on a phone without a hands-free device? And what makes you think you're so important that you have to text while driving, putting everyone around you at risk?

Ys. I M Tlkng 2U!

Everyone is text-happy, Sardar said, but if you're not a motorcycle cop who can split traffic and come right up on the culprit, it's hard to nail somebody who's thumbing away with their hands down low. Cellphone gabbers are much easier to spot, he said. And a lot of them drive almost exactly like drunk drivers, weaving, altering speeds and changing lanes without looking.

So he parked on a side street along Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz, next to Mustard Seed restaurant, and we watched the cars go by.

Don't worry, Sardar told me. This is L.A., and we would not fail.

Five minutes into it, boom!

Eat your heart out, Starsky and Hutch.

David insisted he can drive safely while talking and that he is too technologically challenged to bother with a hands-free device. The really dangerous drivers, he said, are the ones texting.

Tell it to the judge, Davey.

Fact: Distracted driving causes an estimated 6,000 fatalities each year in the U.S., and some of the more common distractions include texting, phoning or fiddling with a GPS.

Fact: An estimated 500,000 people are injured each year by distracted drivers.

Fact: A first-offense citation like the one Sardar wrote Dave costs way too little to be a deterrent. The ticket, court costs and penalties total only about $76.

Fact: I'd raise it to $500.

More for the second offense. Jail for the third, just like DUI.

The most distraught guy we nabbed was Arthur, one of those typically oblivious drivers who was practically stopped in the middle of Hillhurst, phone to his ear.

Arthur said he was a messenger from Glendale and he was getting $7 to deliver a package to an address he couldn't find. That's why he was on the phone. He almost had a stroke when I told him the ticket would cost him 10 delivery fees.

Arthur had a passenger who didn't speak English.

"He's a magician," Arthur told me, and his friend demonstrated by throwing his voice.

"Good," I said. "Let's see if he can make your ticket disappear."

Heh. Enjoy the rest.

A Perfect Metaphor

As I grudgingly schlep towards a still distant (cough) senior citizen status, I ran across this photo in the LATimes that not only sums up my two decades of desert motorcycle racing, but depicts a fine way to go kicking and screaming into that good night - a hospital air Flying W into the setting sun. Ahhhh...

GOP Suggests Alternate To Kagan

Via YubaNet:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Howling in protest over Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's lack of judging experience, leading Republicans today urged the President to withdraw Kagan and instead nominate Paula Abdul.

"The American people have had years of watching Paula's judging expertise, and they know that she is fair," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "She's certainly fairer than Simon."

As to the criticism that sometimes on "American Idol" Ms. Abdul seemed to be not all there and had nothing to say, Sen. Sessions said, "You could say the same thing about Clarence Thomas."

They're good pirates now...

A group of Somali pirates captured by the Russian navy in the Gulf of Aden and then set free in a boat are most probably dead after failing to reach the shore, a Russian defence source said Tuesday.

The 10 pirates were captured last week after seizing a Russian oil tanker but were then unexpectedly released, with Russian officials saying there was insufficient legal basis to keep them in detention.

"According to the latest information, the pirates who seized the Moscow University oil tanker failed to reach the shore. Evidently, they have all died," the high-ranking source was quoted as saying by all Russia's official news agencies.

Pussies. Cap'n Bligh had his crew row and sail for 47 days and 3618 nautical miles and only lost one man.

No details were given over the manner in which they could have lost their lives.

Can you say 'Kalashnikov' and '12.7 machine gun'?

EssEffistanians and analterrorist sexcoffee

If it's Wednesday, it must be Mark Morford, this time going off on "family values" and his hate mail. If the title of this post doesn't get you to go read, there's nothing more I can do. Except:

So I'm skimming like a mud puddle Jesus through another hunk of grammatically wretched hate mail, kindly informing me that both I and the city in which I live are godless, stinky insults to all humanity (yawn), that all of us here in Perverted Pelosiville are depraved sickos due in no small part to our pathetic liberal values (zzzz), our lack of openly displayed firearms and our obvious adoration of terrorists, immigrants, communism, anal sex, artisan coffee, organic produce and, of course, organic analterrorist sexcoffee.

All told, it's a rather uninspired, typically brainless hunk of Tea Party-grade spittle, true 2nd grade stuff that's nowhere near as nasty as some of the hate mail I used to get back in the 00's BAC (Before Anonymous Commenting) -- the absolute finest examples of which, by the way, I've included in my book, "The Daring Spectacle." It's something to see.

Yeah, yeah, Mark. I bought the sonofabitch. Button it. Like that'll happen. Notice how I cleverly linked the title to BuzzFlash instead of the trunk of your car. Heh. But I digress...

What if I were to trot out the irrefutable stats about, say, education levels, or teen pregnancy rates, or abortion? How about college graduation rates, marriage stability, or even adoption? What about general health? Obesity? What if I were to casually mention, with sufficient factual backup, how blue states tend to trounce nearly every red state across the board in these key markers?

Would it matter? Would the spittle-flecked bipeds who write to me (or comment down below) and misspell "commy" and "sodimite" listen or care in the slightest? I already know the answer.

An exercise in futility. Ya can't fix stupid.

Examples? Legion. You've probably already read about teen pregnancy rates in relation to religious belief (ref: this terrific piece from the New Yorker). It's a simple enough equation: the more religiously conservative a given state is, the more it's guaranteed to be lacking in quality sex education, easy access to -- and information about -- contraception and women's health, and the more it tends to wallow in fear of sex, the body and the stickier dynamics of human relationships.

Upshot: As the strict, antiquated religious codes of these states fail -- as they have for millennia -- a far higher number of those states' sad, uninformed teenaged girls get knocked up, marry far too young, get divorced, never get a real education, earn low wages and generally contribute to every unpleasant and downward spiraling statistic in America, right along with the slumpy males. Yay family values!

Of course, the instant I considered sending the depressed haters of me, you, this city, all "blue state" values a link to this or any of the other fine articles detailing the utter failure and bassackwardness of conservative "family values" mindsets, I just laughed and sighed and reached for my mug of analterrorist sexcoffee, remembering quite well my own hard-fought advice, dispersed not long ago.

It was a column titled, if you will, "How to talk to complete idiots" (also featured in the book, btw)(He never gets tired of, er, flogging that thing, does he? Heh. - G), which details the tragic failure of facts, science and research in the face of those real red state values, such as hysteria, alarmism and a childlishly literal interpretation of wonky Christian mythology.

But it gets better: Because even if they accept the data as partly true, the typical red state reaction is to argue that the real reason teen pregancy, abortion, divorce and so on are far worse in the "family values" states is not because the rules and religions are flawed and outdated, but because they aren't being enforced strictly enough. And for that, they blame ... you guessed it ... the liberals.

Ah, disingenuous doublethink. It's a family value.

Sometimes I think I quote his stuff at too much length, and that I could just put "Morford" and link to it and everybody would go read him anyway. Then I realize that that just wouldn't be as much fun.

Bush Team Unaware of Transoceanic Transportation Prior to September 11

Dissident Voice

We’ve had nothing but trouble since those damn Neanderthals invented the floating log

We've had nothing but trouble since the neocons put that damn Neanderthal in the White House too. My apologies to Neanderthals.

Almost nine years after the terrible September 11 tragedy, linguists have pieced together subtle clues that could explain why the Commander-in-Chief opted not to harden U.S. defenses when faced with warnings of an imminent terrorist attack.

Their conclusion: before 9/11, the President, Vice President, National Security Advisor, and others in the White House were under the impression that the oceans — yes, the oceans — primarily the Atlantic and Pacific, but perhaps also the Arctic, would protect the United States from harm. It is not known if the group believed the Gulf of Mexico (in its pre-flammable state) or the Great Lakes had any defensive properties.

Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, refused to personally comment about the ocean theory, but an aide said, “Mr. Rumsfeld has made clear his responsibility regarding 9/11 very clear — he had none — now get the hell off his geraniums.”

Indeed he did. In 2001, Rumsfeld said; “Under our Constitution, under our laws, the United States military’s task is to defend against foreign invasion and foreign threats. The threat we saw recently was from a person in our country in one of our airplanes filled with our citizens. This is a law enforcement job. It is a job for the FBI. It is a job for the police.”

Some of the clues:

Oceans No Longer Keep U.S. Secure
It turns out they are only made up of water — hellava vivid lesson, though!
...

President: Attack on American Soil Unimaginable Prior to 9/11
TWO oceans! That should be enough, shouldn’t it?

More BS Bush and his minions actually said in ignorance of the fact that one of the first times the oceans failed to 'keep us safe', leaving out that a coupla British fleets sailed here in the 18th and 19th centuries and minorly fucked us up, was in a little-remembered incident called World War Two when German U-boats sank ships in sight of our shores and landed agents on the East Coast, while a Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery in California and others launched air and fire-bombing attacks in the Northwest. Nothing like what we did to both those parties, of course. Their oceans didn't keep them very safe either.

Then there was that whole deal about airplanes, and later missiles, flying across our protective oceans and turning us into radioactive rubble. What was that called? Oh yeah - the Cold War. Can't blame the Busheviks for forgetting that one - it only lasted about fifty years and was over by the time they assumed (carefully chosen word) office.

The hell we can't.

Dual Quotes of the Day

From a perhaps slightly pretentious 'recommended short read' in the EssEffZam about why Californians ain't exactly bowled over by Moosebreath:

Which brings me to the core of the argument against Palin. "Californians tolerate all sorts of weirdness, but they want their crackpots a little more cerebral," [...]
...

As one of my readers aptly noted, "It's time for the Wild Alaskan Dingbat to fly north."

"Because Corporations are people too."

Our buddy 'Nucks goes off on the oil companies.

...

I have an idea that those dirty fucking bastards at Goldman Sachs are hoisting pitchers of champagne because when this is said and done, you are going to make the damage they have done look like a Chihuahua pissing on a rug compared to the damage you greedy fuckers are about to be responsible for.

...

Thing is, my friend, BP, if the expenses pile up too high, will file bankruptcy to try to get out from under them. I'm sure they have about 500 lawyers looking at every bit of law regarding "responsibility" for environmental disasters. I'm expecting them to follow Exxon's model and hang it up in the courts for 20-odd years.

CREW Sues DOJ Over Missing Yoo Emails

YubaNet

Melanie Sloan, CREW's Executive Director, stated: "Given that millions of emails disappeared from Bush White House servers, no one should be surprised to find that emails disappeared from the Bush Justice Department as well. What's violating federal records laws compared with avoiding accountability?" Sloan continued, "The public deserves to know the truth behind the OLC torture memos and the Obama administration faces a choice: it can cover-up the Bush administration's misdeeds or allow the truth to come out and help the country confront and move past this shameful episode."

The entire Bush maladministration needs to be in jail. I hope this helps.

3-D Centerfold

The Detroit News

Chicago -- Playboy readers who can only imagine what it would look like if a centerfold jumped right off the page are getting new specs to help them see into Hef's world.

The magazine's June edition hits newsstands Friday equipped with 3-D glasses. Now the toy that has kids dodging dragons, meatballs and tall blue aliens at the movies will help adults focus on what is, at first glance, a very blurry Playmate of the Year.

Blurry, schmurry. Just make it warm and soft...

Quote of the Day

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

The teabaggers will no doubt assume this is just another Librul media plot on the road to socialism.

Mixed Emotions

Raw Story, links at site.

Ron Paul hopes Hemp History Week will reap more co-sponsors for legalization bill

Groups hope to collect 50,000 signed post cards urging Obama and Holder to put end to industrial hemp ban

As we all know, hemp is one of the most useful agricultural products on the planet and was lumped in with its smokin' dope cousin for the purpose of political oppression. It has never made sense.

"Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about Hemp History Week," Paul said last week on the floor. "To celebrate the American heritage of growing industrial hemp, the Hemp Industries Association, Vote Hemp, several American manufacturers, and allied companies and organizations have declared May 17 to May 23 to be Hemp History Week. Throughout the week, people will recognize America’s legacy of industrial hemp farming and call for reinstating respect for farmers’ basic right to grow industrial hemp."

Paul noted that he introduced his Industrial Hemp Farming Act (HR 1866) [To amend the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marihuana, and for other purposes.], "five years ago to end the federal government’s ban on American farmers growing industrial hemp."

The bill currently has 21 cosponsors:

Mostly Dems, but also my totally useless Repug congresscritter and two more California congresscritters even more useless than him. I'm so confused...

The 'mixed emotions'? Paul's not as bad as some of the wingnuts, but having him and three of the worst right wing CA congressmen being for something I'm for is like watching your worst enemy drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac.

Poll shows Sestak ahead

The Plum Line, links at site;

This, from Rasmussen, might be the first non-tracking poll to find Joe Sestak leading Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary:

Suppose the Democratic Primary for the 2010 United States Senate were held today. Would you vote for Arlen Specter or Joe Sestak?

Sestak 47 percent

Specter 42

Eight percent are undecided. Over the weekend, Sestak edged ahead in the Muhlenberg College tracking poll -- he now leads in that poll by five -- but many observers were holding out for corroboration from second poll.

We now have that second poll, courtesy of Rasmussen. It's the first public survey that isn't a tracking poll to show Sestak ahead. While it's true that in both polls Sestak's lead approximates the margin of error, making this a dead heat, Rasmussen clearly shows Specter losing support: He's down six points from March, and a far greater number of respondents perceive him as running a negative campaign.

If this trend continues, watch for Specter to go Independent. It's all the rage these days for those who might lose their party primaries.

Specter should have been sent home in disgrace 47 years ago right after he invented the Magic Bullet, instead of being allowed to rise above his level of incompetence to his present position. I firmly believe that was his payoff for thoroughly muddying the waters and getting the Warren Commission off the hook without having to open the can of worms that needed to be opened.

Yes, I hold grudges. It's way past time for him to go.

Besides, we need more blue water sailors in the Senate than stateside Air Force paper pushers.

Update:

Joe The Nerd on Specter possibly offering to throw some hands with Sestak;

John Baer of the Philadelphia Daily News was the moderator of the only Sestak/Specter debate held last Saturday night. Here’s a quote from his recap (full link):

“Right after the debate, still at his lectern, Specter snapped at his Senate challenger: "Do you want to continue this?" I heard him say "fisticuffs" and thought there'd be some action. But he then rendered an unceremonious, wave-of-the-hand, tight-jawed dismissal and, boom, he's out the door.”

Some thoughts about this…

1. Specter’s judgment should be called into play to challenge an Annapolis Grad to a fight – Sestak could probably kill him with a pencil.

"Smilin' Joe" probly wouldn't need no steenkin' pencil, just blow real hard.

2. If Specter is getting that angry it means that Sestak is closer than the polls are revealing. He is inside Specter’s head and ripping out the wires. Specter is imploding. You want 6 more years of this?

Me like!

3. This challenge was probably staged. An 80 year-old challenging a 50-something to a fight is a lose-lose for the 50-something. If Sestak takes the bait and beats the crap out of the 80 year-old the public would be outraged at the “elder abuse”. Kudos goes to Sestak for being a warrior who knows when not to fight.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, but fuck it - if a guy chooses ya off and ya kick his ass, it's on him. It'da saved PA from the cost of a primary. Heh.

I'd pay money to see those two hook. A small buttered popcorn would be plenty 'cuz that'd be a short fight.

More at Joe The Nerd. He closes with:

This whole thing should backfire on Specter as a way to get sympathy. It just makes him look pathetic.

He always has been. It's just out in the open now.

Note to Arlen: Time to retire. McCain's got an extra rocking chair and drool bucket.

Company says it has solution for Gulf oil spill, but being ignored

From Signs Of The Times, with video:

St Petersburg, Florida -- With the disaster in the Gulf keeping everyone on edge looking for a solution, the answer might lay in material manufactured by a Columbian company with an office in Florida.

The company, Global Environmental Technology, has a product that is 100 percent organic and was invented in 1998 by its president, Carlos Forero. He won science competitions in Switzerland and Austria for the product, which encapsulates oil and cleans the material up.

You would think that with the disaster in the Gulf, and oil spilling out and heading to the beaches, the Coast Guard would be interested in the product. However, the company says all they are getting is red tape and getting nowhere.

Liz Cabot, Forero's sister, says the Coast Guard said come back when they got EPA approval.

When EPA reviewed the product and said it could be used, the company went back to the Coast Guard and Cabot says they were told they had to fill out paperwork. Cabot says they have been waiting and waiting for the paperwork to clear.

It doesn't sound to me like they're being ignored, really, just mired in bureaucracy, roughly akin to a logjam in molasses.

It sounds like a good product, and it seems like EPA moved to approve it for use fairly quickly. Once it clears the Coast Guard it remains to be seen how long it will take to get enough of it manufactured to deal with this massive quantity of oil.

Note to the Coast Guard and other hoops the product needs to jump through: The clock is ticking. Show a little sense of urgency and cut the red tape and get the product out in the Gulf and on the problem. See if it works. What have you got to lose? The coastline and jobs are already toast.

Or is the problem that Big Biz has yet to determine who is going to make money on it?

Bullshit on rye ...

Cdr. Huber looks at the finger-pointing in the Pentagon over why we're still "fightin' the terrists".

...

The "Blame Cell," in its various ad hoc and formal manifestations, has been successfully warding off culpability for the Defense Department's failures since the Korean War. Our services' graduate-level war college programs wax operatic about the brilliance of Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur's amphibious invasion of the Inchon Peninsula that cut off the North Koreans' lines of communication and forced them to retreat back above the 38th parallel.

...

The bull feather merchants are maintaining the same traditions in their campaign to shirk accountability for the dismal state of our conflicts in Iraq and the Bananastans. Like MacArthur before him, "King David" Petraeus is lionized as a military genius and considered a potential GOP candidate for president, this despite the fact that his generalship has transformed the western half of Asia into a perpetual exploding cigar. The myth that the Iraq surge accomplished anything persists like the villain in a horror flick franchise, and even after two troop escalations, Pavlov's dogs of war continue to claim our hunting trip in Afghanistan can only be won if it's properly resourced.

...

The only thing I can say about our "wars" is that they're keeping Americans in the defense industry employed.

Ya can't get through ...

To these people. There's a reason Gord and I call them the Dead End Quarter - the 25 to 30% of Americans who swallow the party line without thought or criticism:

We have some new national polling coming out tomorrow on offshore drilling. The most astounding number from the poll? 28% of Republicans said the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made them more likely to support drilling off the coast to an equal 28% who said it made them less likely to be supportive. 44% said it made no difference to them and that's understandable, but why would an oil spill make you more supportive of drilling?

...

Can't stand it ...

Thanks to Mr. Mass Transit for the link.

The Mining Company's Way Or The Highway

[A big welcome to Crooks and Liars readers. Thanks Mike! - F.]

In case anybody still doesn't think Big Biz has us all by the short and curlies, go read about what it's done to one California desert town.

LATimes

Boron was built on borax. The dull, gray substance — used in detergents, fiberglass and flat-screen televisions — was discovered here in 1925. Soon after, hundreds flocked to this harsh, scorching landscape for jobs in the mine. They company paid well and offered good benefits. Generations of families worked there and job security was a given.

But times have changed.

Rio Tinto Minerals, the British-Australian conglomerate that operates the mile-wide strip mine, says it has lost 25% of the worldwide borax market and business must adjust to survive.

The company offered workers a new contract that included a 2% annual raise, a $4,000 signing bonus and an early-retirement package. In return, they demanded wholesale changes in the seniority system, the creation of more non-union jobs and the right to make some full-time jobs part time.

Over five months of talks, workers refused to accept certain proposals, especially those dealing with seniority.

When they showed up for work Jan. 31, the gates were locked and replacements had been bused in.

From KERO 23:

But union workers said it's Rio Tinto Minerals that hasn't been willing to negotiate.

Jack Libengood ILWU Local 30 said, "It's been about their contract, not ours. They haven't even really listened to our concerns across the table."

They didn't get to be the 4th largest mining company in the world by givin' a shit about you, pal. They don't like pesky unions standing up for your rights, either.

Go see video of "The Class Struggle And The ILWU Local 30 Rio Tinto Lockout". Powerful. Quite long at 28:30, but well worth watching.

Six hundred ILWU Local 30 miners in Boron California are in a life and death struggle with one of the biggest mining companies in the world Rio Tinto. On April 16, 2010 two of the locked out miners and labor supporters joined with them at the British consulate in San Francisco to demand an end to the union busting.

They make some damn good points about the future of the working man and the middle class.

Do I Look Illegal?

The Rude Pundit, Alan Colmes, and Lizz Winstead are some of the many faces in Political Carnival's video "Do I Look Illegal?" Some serious, some sarcastic, but all sincere and angry. (The dirty secret is that all of us in the video are actually illegal. Especially Colmes. That Canadian bastard's been passing for American for years now.)

Colmes is CANADIAN?!!! That 'splains a lot about how come he never coldcocked Hannity, eh?

Go see the vid.

Ideology Must Fit On A Bumper Sticker So The Morons Will Chant It Like It Means Something

Here's the last few ¶ of a piece by David Sirota on "I Want My Country Back":

To underscore feelings of grievance and nostalgia, the slogan ends with a word deliberately implying both theft and resurrection. In tea party mythology, "back" means taking back a political system that was supposedly pilfered (even though it was taken via legitimate elections) and then going back to a time that seems ideal. As one tea party leader told The New York Times: "Things we had in the '50s were better."

To the tea party demographic, this certainly rings true. Yes, in apartheid America circa 1950, rich white males were more socially and economically privileged relative to other groups than they are even now. Of course, for those least likely to support the tea party -- read: minorities -- the '50s were, ahem, not so great, considering the decade's brutal intensification of Jim Crow.

But then, that's the marketing virtuosity of the "I Want My Country Back" slogan. A motto that would be called treasonous if uttered by throngs of blacks, Latinos or Native Americans has been deftly sculpted by conservatives into an accepted clarion call for white power. Cloaked in the proud patois of patriotism and protest, the refrain has become a dog whistle to a Caucasian population that feels threatened by impending demographic and public policy changes.

As a marketing masterpiece, the slogan would certainly impress the old Madison Avenue mavens. The trouble is that as a larger political ideology, its hateful and divisive message is encouraging ever more misguided madness.

The same things and worse happened in the '50s that are happening now. Difference is, we didn't hear about it like we do now. Ignorance is the bliss the teabaggers want.

From Reason to Madness

Words Of Power. Links at site.

Time to View the Political Spectrum Not from Left to Right, But from Science to Superstition, & from Reason to Madness

At one end of the spectrum, there is Sarah Palin speaking to Bill O'Reilly on Rupert Murdoch's dime:

“I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant,” adding, “They’re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments, it’s pretty simple.” (Faux News, 5-7-10)

It is, of course, historical fact that Jefferson, Paine, Washington, Franklin and others among the Founding Fathers were Deists; they were not Christians, and their view was that Nature was divine and that science and reason were vital elements of its revelation. It is also historical fact that the separation of church and state was fundamental to the U.S. Constitution, in both its essence and its form.

Palin and others who espouse such nonsense, whether in more sophisticated framing or not, show as much ignorance about the historical context and motivation behind the Boston Tea Party (which was an anti-corporatist act of civil disobedience) as they do about the Book of Revelations (which was a poetical text of a particular style, used by its author to address the issues and circumstances of his own time).

At the other end of spectrum, there are those who courageously champion reason and science, those who have diligently done the math, and those who patiently uphold common sense.

While they're working, the regressives are screaming and yelling "Go back! Beyond here be dragons!".

To once again quote a line from a Steve Martin tune, "...memories of what never was, become the good old days".

"Amoral Supermen of the Left"

P.M. Carpenter

Even though the mind-melding, word-spinning Frank Luntz has been quoted by GOP insiders as saying that a House Republican majority in 2011 is "a done deal," Karl Rove and former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, who remembers what an effective RNC looked like, are taking no chances.

They've teamed in the development of a sprawling campaign apparatus independent of the GOP's national committees, organizing a string of "American"-this and "American"-that assassins of whatever American political decency is left -- from "American Crossroads," which will act as an institutional bag man; to the "American Action Network," which will act as a propaganda arm; to the "American Action Forum," which will try to act like it's a think tank; to the oddly "American"-deprived "Resurgent Republic," which, as Politico described it, will act as "a message-testing laboratory." You got it. A lie factory.

None of this is particularly surprising, of course, especially since every Republican's best friend, the Supreme Court, okayed corporate cash to flow like Gulf oil into GOP campaign coffers. What is striking, however, is the almost laughable siege mentality of underdog status that exists among the organizers.

All of these woe-are-us sentiments were presumably uttered in the absence of snickering, and doubtless each contained a certain strategic overture to the vulnerably monied and hopelessly gullible: the poor GOP, kicked around lo these many years by the outrageously affluent, viciously organized and malign left. Won't you help it out?

The right has been spewing this nonsense for so long -- the left is gonna get ya, the liberals are everywhere, the Liberal Elite and the Liberal Establishment are on an inexorable Euro-socialistic march of domination -- at least since the McCarthy Era, that even its leading luminaries of lunacy are by now inclined to believe their own propaganda.

Just listen to ultraconservative panelists so frequently spotted on C-Span, holding forth from, say, the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute. To hear them tell it -- tell each other, and with stunning sincerity -- American conservatism is at best stumbling along, battered as always by the all-powerful Left, which has permeated and diseased, perhaps irreversibly, the American System.

More than that, however, is the value of knowing the enemy's mind -- the first and indispensible stage of any successful political warfare -- and by that I mean the right's clinical paranoia. In that, there are needling opportunities for the left, assuming it itself can avoid mistaking paranoids for supermen.

The paranoid delusional part is that the Repug Masters of the Universe just know as if from God that they are the ones who must rule and it is ample evidence of the "plot" by the "Amoral Supermen of the Left" that the reins of Congressional power were jerked away from them and the White House was stolen back from them at that pesky ballot box by more votes than they could nullify and suppress.

Not being much given to admit mistakes, much less their conspiracy of deception and evil, it has probably never crossed the Repugs' mind that the Great Unwashed finally caught on and threw the bastards out. The key to regaining power must be to lie harder and faster.

God's laughin' Her ass off.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Joe the Plumber Elected to GOP Committee Seat in Ohio
First step on long road to eventually getting a plumber's license.

Supreme Court Closing Front Entrance
Sign to be changed to “Equal Justice in Rear.”

Feds May Probe Apple
But only slap on wrist expected from iCommission.

REMINDER
The right of terrorists to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Completely nuts ...

That's the GOP at this point. If you ain't batshit insane you ain't a Republican:

...

Imagine a government in which Bob Bennett of Utah is considered a liberal and you have some idea of what will happen if the Republicans seize power.

Don't know much about ...

Barry's SCOTUS nominee but I do know we'll be in for a buncha stupid wingnut tricks when the hearings start.

New Gulf Coast Delicacy

From 'Strange Stores' at the LATimes

Headline of the Day

Lebanon fires 10-ton hummus broadside at Israel

Maher on Rushole

Hey, you mothers!

Happy Mother's Day!