Moosebreath is a patch on a Marine's ass!*

Bleach alert!

Forgive me for saying this, but click to embiggen. Blechh...

A Marine Gunny has given a new meaning to the phrase "tramp stamp".

Raw Story

If you're ever lucky enough to be in Afghanistan, Gunnery Sgt. Benjamin Lepping’s left butt cheek has a special surprise.

Sarah Palin.

If I'm ever 'lucky' enough to be in Afghanistan, that's the last thing I wanta see. The undersides of 10,000 broken Humvees will be infinitely preferable, thank you very much. Some things are best left to the imagination. Or left out of it.

News of Lepping's Palin tattoo -- which displays her trademark glasses and smiling mug -- has apparently been making the rounds in Lepping's ranks overseas, and appeared online at the Military Times website on Thursday. The Times' headline was, "Marine’s cheeky Sarah Palin tattoo the butt of jokes."

"When I came to Afghanistan, I expected to find many strange and unusual sights," the paper's reporter penned. "A gunnery sergeant with a tattoo of Sarah Palin on his buttocks wasn’t one of them."

I can honestly say this is the first time I've seen a Gunny's hind end. Horrifying.

Goddam, Gunny, ya coulda at least had the tattoo be of the back of her head while she was kissin' yer ass. Shit, if ya wanted remembrance of the good times in Alaska ya coulda got a tat of a Husky or a moose or crabs or sumthin'. Well, maybe not crabs. You probly got plenty of those.

The funny part (to me, sick puppy that I am) of this is that the guy's an EOD man in 6th Marines (2d MarDiv, my old outfit. Fuckin' swell. Yeesh.). One hiccup and that whole grisly tableau, hash marks and all, will be hangin' on some goat humper's wall.

*Credit where credit is due: Mrs. G came up with that. Thank you, sweetie. I think.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

From 2006

Emmylou Harris ~ Orphan Girl

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Texas Dildos

Yes, I know the title is redundant. Friday Morford channels Molly Ivins on the Texas lege on his way to discussing the equally, if not more so, moronic Oklahoma one. Not to be missed!

There's a touching scene in "The Dildo Diaries," a sweet 'n' slippery little documentary released way back in 2002, in the very beginnings of the Dark Days of Bush, in which we as viewers are privy to a truly hellish hallucination, a series of images that, should you ever choose to bear witness, will haunt you for the rest of your days.
...

We are shown, via actual footage, a typical workday inside the Texas state legislature.

The scene in question focuses on a very weird, amusing little debate on the House floor. The combatants are trying to decide, awkwardly, laughably, horrifyingly, the issue of whether heterosexual sodomy -- good ol' anal sex -- should be banned outright, right along with then-illegal homosexual sodomy, which in turn was a fine adjunct to the state's classic chestnut-of-a-law declaring that it was completely illegal to be gay in Texas.

This ol' backwoods bozo kinda gets from this that it's OK to stick yer dick in a woodchipper in Texas as long as it's not in the exhaust pipe. It figures that this would be a big topic in a state with 'ass' in its name.

Mr. Morford's larger point is about the damage just inflicted on women's rights in Oklahoma, and you should go read, but I'll stick with Molly. Miss ya, hon.

Caution: Unless you are at work and just wiped up an oil leak and immediately used the same shop towel as a snot rag, this is not work safe. Then again, you know your co-workers better than I do. Hell, call 'em all over to watch.

Also, the following video has been known to make strong men blush, like about two minutes ago, and the fellow to whom I refer had a prostate exam yesterday and thus is somewhat current on this subject, though not in any fun way. (I'm fine, thanks, but I wish they'da taken the climbing spikes off the telephone pole first! The doc's shit-eatin' grin was a tipoff, but it was too late...).

Memorable line: "I would suggest you see a doctor about his aim". Trust me...and check out the chachabingoes on the redhead toward the end. Makes me hungry like a baby!

Thanks to DildoGranny. I kid you not.

Damn, I forgot ta give ya a 'liquid alert'. Joke's on you! Heh.

The Palin Brand

Timothy Egan in The Gray Lady's Opinionator:

In the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.

And why not? Vaughn Ward, the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho, has the dubious character trifecta of the Palin brand: bone-headed, defiant and willfully ignorant. When told that Puerto Rico was not a country, he said, “I don’t care what you call it.”

On Tuesday, this Palin protégé was routed in a huge upset, despite a big early lead in the polls, a 6-to-1 fundraising edge and that Friday fly-in by the former half-term governor, who has Idaho roots.

Between surreal appearances from Wasilla as the caged pundit of Fox News and quick, splashy landings in the lower 48 states, Palin has shown she still has the attention span of a hummingbird on a nectar jag. She does not do basic homework. Never has. The result is a string of endorsements for people whose lives are living contradictions of their stated philosophies.

But in deciding to get rich quick, the demi-governor has ditched whatever grounding she may have had in what Bush aides dismissed as the “reality-based community,” and lost her way in the Last Frontier State. Her brand is toast there, as well.

Of late, whenever a candidate with the Palin blessing blows up, she blames it on the “lamestream media,” not personal responsibility. It’s a curious claim, coming from a person who said she studied journalism in college, but is appalled by real journalism.

The attacks on her man in Idaho, Palin told a half-empty arena in Boise on Friday, were “a violation of our press freedom.” In fact, it was the press — led by the venerable Idaho Statesman newspaper — simply doing the thankless job of trying to keep politicians honest. The real piling on came from Idaho conservative bloggers, who were unrelenting in pointing out how the Palin candidate lifted his campaign speech almost word-for-word from Obama’s stirring 2004 Democratic convention address.

It’s early in the campaign season, but these car wrecks on the Palin highway are piling up. As for the Palin brand, it seems to represent no consistent philosophy, no guiding principles, no remedial vetting. It stands for one thing — Palin — and in that sense, she does have a legacy, though it can only be measured in dollars.

Go read the rest. It's schadenfreudelicious.

Politically, her 'brand' is turning into 'Typhoid Sarah'. Or maybe 'Yugo'. I doubt if she cares, or even notices, as long as the checks cash.

She's going to give one of her screechy addle-pated rants against reality at Cal State Stanislaus (rhymes with 'slaw') for $93,000 and bendy straws. I won't go into the brouhaha out here over paying this kind of money for lies and delusions when our institutions of higher learning are in a precipitous financial state.

I just hope her speech doesn't undo their educations and make the students stoopid.

Note to Typhoid Sarah: Keep up the good work until your brand of nutjob politics is an even worse bad joke than it is now and the rest of us can move on. When we're free of your wacko politicians trying to take over, you'll still be fine. Since ill-gotten gains are best quickly spent, take the money and run to the place of your dreams where right-wing religion rules and there's no government intrusion in your daily life or Constitutional rights for people who don't agree with you, just like you want to see here, and you can be on your own like the rugged American individualist you think you are. May I suggest Somalia? You'll love the tropical breezes and diseases and the down home maritime approach to international trade too!

When you get there, live fast. Your life expectancy will be about the same as a Marine radio operator's on a hostile beach. It's worth it to be 'free', huh?

Dear Dr. Laura...

Got this by email from my pal Bev:

[In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on theInternet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. Your adoring fan.

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia]

Just because people are intelligent and educated and capable of making lots of money, it doesn't necessarily mean they got any smarts or common sense. This is particularly so for The Haters following the Repuglican't agenda.

Then again, intelligence and education help when ya wanta be a smartass and stick yer finger in dumb ol' Dr. Laura's eye.

Note to Dr. Kauffman: Try some hickory or mesquite chips when yer burnin' a bull.

Litmus tests ...

No, I don't want the Dems to become the Republicans, but in the case of the "Blue Dogs", what do they have to do to get their membership cards pulled? Jesus H. Christ, if a Republican went against the party line as many times as these people do, they'd be tossed out on their ears. Shouldn't you at least have to support some of the party's principles and vote with your own when it really matters? I mean, why be on the team if you're rooting for your opponent to win?

Just askin'.

Perspective ...

While not minimizing the BP disaster, nor my sadness at the damage to the environment and the locals' way of life, they sure as hell didn't bitch about the money companies like BP brought in:

... I've been schooled recently that the people of Louisiana love their corrupt politicians and expect them to keep Big Oil happy.

...

These are the folks who don't want "big government" meddling in their affairs, who don't want the gravy train derailed because of "government regulation", yet they're on every TV show now, bitching about how the government hasn't done enough to help them.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

You can't welcome these corporations with open arms, hearing their promises of employment and money, dancing for joy as the leases were sold, and then cry when they give you the shaft.

...

Times Picayune outdoors Editor Bob Marshall put the blame on the backs of Louisiana’s elected officials, saying they became boosters for development, not protectors of the public trust. "The shock being expressed by these folks – and many of their constituents – at the terrible environmental gamble that comes with offshore drilling goes beyond preaching caution after the horse is out of the barn. After all, these same groups helped open the barn door, hung a feed bucket around the horse’s neck, and then gave it a good slap on the rump to speed it on its way."

Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around. But maybe it goes beyond just the feds, the Louisiana congressional delegation, and other public officials. The state as a whole just might want to take a look in the mirror. Louisiana was seduced by an outside industry full of vast economic promises. The money came in easily and there can be no dispute that many new jobs were created. But when you put the financial tally to paper, has it been worth it? [my ems]

...

When you deal with the Devil, eventually you have to pay the price (1 ea. Human Soul) and the people of the Gulf Coast are now paying with their souls, on many levels.

By god, we should do all we can to plug the leak and clean up the mess (and put some big shots from BP in jail), but when this is over, the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the others might just want shut the fuck up and let the "big government" do what it has to in order to make certain this never happens again.

I'm sick and tired of all these folks basically saying they don't want to be part of the United States until the shit hits the fan. They don't like the East and West Coast "Liberal Elite" until they're up to their necks in shit, or water, or oil, and then they're the first ones in line with their hands out. They don't want to pay taxes, but they sure as hell want the government to have the wherewithal to dig their ass out of whatever hole they're in.

Yes, I feel horrible for the fishermen, the hoteliers, and all the other folks who've had their lives turned upside down, but it's time they realize that nothing is for free. You might not have to pay for it right away, but the bill will eventually come due. The Gulf states are paying for the easy money and jobs they got when the oil leases were sold. If they don't want this to happen again, they'd better take a hard look at what they're getting before they sign on the dotted line.

Republicans Demand a Government Takeover and Bailout of the Oil Spill

Bob Cesca

Now that crude has begun to wash upon the shores and wetlands of Republican red states, any superficial bumper sticker griping about socialism has been temporarily forgotten.

That's the bitch about building a party platform around specious, shallow platitudes. They might be effective in terms of rallying the easily-led, low information base, but as soon as practicality steps in, all sloganeering is dropped in lieu of confronting and dealing with reality. Subsequently, these alleged free market state's rights small government anti-regulation southern conservative cardboard standee Republicans continue to demand federal help and socialized taxpayer money. The Republicans are demanding redistributed wealth from Pennsylvania and Vermont and Illinois and New York and Massachusetts with all of its socialist bleeding heart tree-hugging environmental wacko liberals.

However hypocritical the Republicans might be on this, they're ultimately correct. The federal government has a responsibility to protect our economy, our natural resources and our lives from the destruction that's often wrought by irresponsible corporations. Thanks, Republicans, for finally catching up.

The Repugs haven't caught up with jack shit. As soon as this oil mess is off the news cycle they will conveniently forget their moment of sensibility and it'll be back to business as usual.

But for as long as it lasts I am enjoying the irony of them being forced to pop their heads up out of their own ideological muck and mire and draw a nice clean breath of reality.

The Doomsday Bomb

Tom Tomorrow

Click to, er, explode it

Not One of the Ten Commandments Are in the Constitution

Tina Dupuy

There are no democratically elected leaders in the Christian bible. I know – it’s shocking. But, if you catch the rhetoric pertaining to the US Constitution, you’d think the Ten Commandments are its bullet points. They’re not. The whole idea of a representative democracy (a Greek word) comes from Ancient (think then-solvent) Greece. The leaders in the bible were all kings and/or tyrants and the Bill of Rights is nowhere in the New or Old Testament.

So when fly-by-night pontificators, the loudest being the scholarly Sarah Palin, claim this country’s laws are ordained by God via the bible, she needs to show her work – because freedom of the press, due process and freedom of speech are not through-lines in biblical teachings. [...]

Evidently, just because it’s “protected speech” doesn’t make it “factual.”

When you break it down, three of the Ten Commandments are universal laws with zero controversy (do not murder, do not steal, no false witnessing). The teetering point to make half of the most widely accepted version of the Ten Commandments actual laws have been fought over by the states. Blue Laws, laws prohibiting things on Sundays based on the Commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, are still on the books in some places. They’re some of the sillier laws in the country. In Texas you couldn’t buy anything on Sundays you could do work with. So hardware stores had to put blue price tags on things like hammers up until the law was overturned in 1984. There are still places where you can’t buy a car on “the day of rest.” Let alone booze.

Talk about over-reaching government dictating what businesses can do.

The question is: do we really want to live in a country that makes not honoring your mother and father a crime? Is it wise to have a law mandating you can’t have any other gods or make false idols or covet your neighbor’s spouse? The Founding Fathers (ahem) clearly thought it wasn’t.

Why, if you want America to be more religious, do you need to co-opt history to accomplish it? Have the courage to stand up for your convictions without creating fiction about the founding documents. I don’t agree with the Founding Fathers about everything (slavery, women’s rights, native peoples rights). But that doesn’t make the US Constitution, in my eyes, any less of an amazing feat for humanity.

So go ahead and stand up for your faith and be proud. But lying for it is, ya know, after all – bearing false witness.

I said somewhere something like extremism in the defense of ignorance and false throwback ideology for political power is no vice. It's the phony christian thing to do and IOKIYAR.

Alan Grayson Is On Target About Al Qaeda and the GOP

Legal Schnauzer, links and videos at site.

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) is taking heat in some circles for allegedly comparing Republican officials to members of the terrorist group Al Qaeda.

First, Grayson did not compare Republicans to Al Qaeda. But if he had, he would have been on the right track.

I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and have faced various forms of retaliation for daring to expose Republican corruption in our state courts and to write critically about the Bush Justice Department, especially its handling of the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor cases in the Deep South.

I know, from firsthand experience, that Alan Grayson is right--Republicans can, and do, act like terrorists.

Well, that depends on your definition of terrorism--and we have examined that subject in a post titled "Dubya: The Terrorism President." While some see George W. Bush as the president who fought terrorism, I argue that he is the president who actually fostered terrorism--on our own soil. And the Bush brand of terrorism was driven largely by a Rove-led hostile takeover of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Here is one definition of terrorism that I find instructive:

Terrorism: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against people or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives.

We've been conditioned to believe that terrorism involves bombs, airplanes, injuries, and death. But the definition above indicates it can be more subtle than that.

Go read the rest. This guy is right on the money.

How Glenn Beck Taught His Feminine Side To Turn Tricks

The EXileD

The following is an adapted excerpt from Alexander Zaitchik’s book, Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, just released by Wiley & Sons.

But when it comes to public crying as vaudeville, Beck owes less to universal womanhood than to a very specific brotherhood. He’s not stereotypically premenstrual as much as classically Mormon. Like so much else that baffles people about Beck, his approach to public tears has been shaped in the crucible of his adopted faith. It was the lachrymose Latter-Day Saints who turned an amateur crybaby pro.

When viewed in the context of Mormon practice, Beck’s public crying begins to make more sense. Like his Millennialist politics, they cause liberals to laugh but command respect from Mormon and evangelical religious conservatives. This helps to explain the yawning comprehension gap between his religious fans and his secular critics. Secular liberals watch Beck’s cheap theatrics and see unmanly, dishonest, and possibly insane behavior. Mormons and like-minded evangelicals, especially Pentecostals, see familiar signposts associated with masculinity, sincerity, and even authority.

Anyone who has followed Beck over the course of his career knows that he never followed the Amazing Mr. Plastic Man into the basement, never drank from the Kool-Aid tasting of a truly loving cosmic consciousness. Nor did he lay down his sword. Beck’s spleen drives him still; his self-loathing remains as twisted and deep as ever, daily manifested by a steady stream of gruesomely violent fantasies, vicious personal attacks, and eliminationist rhetoric that routinely reduces his political opponents to cockroaches, cancers, and vermin.

No, Glenn Beck is still the same splenetic jerk he was before he found his Mormon Jesus. His newfound piety is as contrived as his tears.

Miss Becky is a shameless crybaby-on-demand RWNJ cultist whore who has made millions telling ignorant (even if educated) regressives the lies they want to hear.

Call him home, Lord, call him home. Then cast him into Darkness. Ha, joke's on you, Glenda!

Here is a great (I think) comment, as far as it goes, by FrankMcG:

The Mormon religion is the greatest dirty old man scam ever conceived. You make it so older men can marry as many wives as they want as soon as they hit child bearing age, while at the same time ship all the young men off on “pilgrimages” to eliminate the competition. By the time they come back all their childhood sweethearts are married and pregnant to said dirty old men, forcing them to turn to the younger generation of young girls and so the cycle continues.

Really, all religion from the dawn of man has always been just one big con to convince younger tribe members (who can still do work and are useful) that the old men are still important and relevant.

Old men are the ones who start wars, too, and send the young men to do the dirty work to their detriment and the gain of the old men.

Job creation ...

Raisin' da cheeb; via our buddy Montag:

...

"My gut instinct said that this would be a great revenue and job generator for the city," she said. "But after running the numbers, "I went, 'Wow, that’s really a job generator.'"

Brion’s report found that licensing a seven-acre cannabis growing facility near I-880 at the Embarcadero would create up to 371 union jobs, paying an average salary of $53,700 a year. The site could produce an average of 58 pounds of cannabis per day, and generate gross revenues of around $59 million per year. The site would grow an estimated quarter of one percent of the estimated 8.6 million pounds of cannabis cultivated annually in California.

...

I wonder if they'd let me build a little cottage right in the middle of it?

Brown is the new green ...

Bashing BP, stolen from my pal Creature:

Bullshit walks ...

I like President Obama, I really do, but sometimes I think he needs an aide to light a fire under his ass. When this bitch blew up, he should have grabbed that Aussie fuck from BP by the balls and started squeezing immediately. By now, the guy's head should have exploded.

That said, via Skippy, a list of things that could be done by the White House regarding this horror.

...

9) Call that lazy-assed sad-sack Joe Lieberman and tell him whatever super-secret-y deal you guys have going in the way of a quid pro quo is off if Lieberman cannot find some reason to investigate the relationships between Department of Interior and any corporation with which it deals. Make the call private, and tell him if he doesn’t have hearings within 15 days you are going to publicly call him on the carpet for the benefit of CT voters every chance you get until 2012.

10) You know damned well if they cut corners in the Gulf of Mexico, they did it elsewhere. Threaten to go for the jugular on them if they don’t continue to play ball with clean-up in the Gulf.Take a bunch of bloggers up to BP’s operations in Alaska and let them roam around for a couple weeks. Make BP pay for it — figure it out, you have the EO in one hand and the power to print money in the other. Keep the pressure on BP until they beg for mercy.

...

It's time for some serious action, a time to send a signal (the opportunity lost a year ago with the banking industry) to corporations that play time is over. It's time to back up the strong words with deeds.

Lawyering up ...

The conservatives get all fired up when 'terrorists' are given the opportunity to retain counsel. Looks like the leadership at BP is beginning the effort to keep themselves out of jail:

WASHINGTON — A top BP worker who was aboard the Deepwater Horizon in the hours leading up to the explosion declined to testify in front of a federal panel investigating the deadly oil rig blowout, telling the U.S Coast Guard he was invoking his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.

...

They know somebody fucked up and this was no 'accident':

...

Employees and experts testified that in the hours before the explosion, they witnessed a power struggle over that decision — the kind of argument common among the different parties that lease and run complicated offshore drilling operations, but one that this time, had deadly consequences.

One employee who worked for the rig owner, Transocean, was so mad after the fight that he warned they'd be relying on the rig's blowout preventer if they proceeded the way BP wanted.

...

Somebody was showing off for the home office suits and everything went to Hell. I ain't holding my breath but it would be nice to see a few of these fuckers frogmarched into a U.S. courthouse.

Quote of the Day

Fez:

... Yes, that's the real news, a blogger, let alone a conservative one, getting laid.

This just in

Ru Rand Paul ain't Libertarian enough for the Libertarians as they try to out-Libertarian each other.

WaPo

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The Libertarian Party is considering running a candidate in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, saying GOP nominee Rand Paul - the son of a former Libertarian presidential candidate - has betrayed the party's values.

Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch said Wednesday that Paul has been a black eye for Libertarians because of stands he's taken on issues, including his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Koch said Paul is not a Libertarian. He called Paul and his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, "faces of the same bad coin."

"He had gone from being an outsider candidate to a tea party candidate to an establishment candidate in the past nine months," Koch said. "It's a complete identity crisis. I've never seen anything like it."

The cat don't have a real clear idea what 'establishment' candidate means, does he? Heh.

"The reason why we would even consider running somebody in this race is because we're not going to let Rand determine what a Libertarian stands for," he said. "I'm here to say Rand does not have the Libertarian ideology."

Libertarians typically side with Democrats on social issues and Republicans on fiscal issues. Because of that, a Libertarian candidacy would likely draw equally from both Paul and Conway, said University of Kentucky political scientist Stephen Voss.

IMNSHO, an 'establishment' Libertarian candidate will split 5 - 7% off the Repug/Teabagger vote, less off the Democratic vote and Conway might win.

So now Kentucky Libertarians are squaring off against the Teabaggers as being the 'establishment'. This is getting better and better.

Jokes

Mrs. G's sister sent her some jokes for her birthday. Here's couple of 'em.

Two Reasons Why It's So Hard To Solve A Redneck Murder:
1. The DNA all matches.
2. There are no dental records.
...

While shopping for vacation clothes, my husband and I passed a display of bathing suits. It had been at least ten years and twenty pounds since I had even considered buying a bathing suit, so I sought my husband's advice.

'What do you think?' I asked. 'Should I get a bikini or an all-in-one?'

'Better get a bikini,' he replied. 'You'd never get it all in one..'

He's still in intensive care.
...

Ooh, bad move, dude. Musta lost his mind to strong drink. Intensive care is as good a place as any to sober up and reflect on errors of judgment.

I like this one:

The graveside service just barely finished, when there was massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance.

The little old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, 'Well, she's there'.

Heh.

SPF 100 will melt your face off

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford on lies, lies, and more lies about a variety of things. Purposeful misconceptions too.

(Oh, and beds? Mattresses? Those posh, $5,000 ones with the four-inch pillowtops and gold-dipped European springs that have been individually licked by eunuch gnomes? Also a total lie. After about a grand for a great, basic mattress, your body has no clue what it's riding on, and that includes Charlie Sheen and Stoya. Just FYI).

On it goes. Recently was I at Walgreens perusing the candy-colored collection of hardcore chemicals known as consumer sunblocks, all those supposedly safe, healthy, body-protecting lotions, liquids and sprays, nearly every one claiming something quite happily impossible (100 percent waterproof! Total sun block! Does not cause instant blindness in monkeys, we think!), all of them so full of marketing gloss that you're meant to believe one shot of Bullfrog™ Super Waterproof MegaSport SunPreventer Extreme II lets you go traipsing completely naked through sub-Saharan Africa for a month, never suffering so much as a freckle.

It's a crock. [...]

What else you got? Food expiration dates? A lie. Ethanol? Lie. Clean coal? Lie. Coke mini? Total bulls-- lie. Bottled water? Massive, unconscionable lie, still and forever. The Bible? Cute cluster bomb of childish oral-tradition mythology told by angry, sexless white men and then translated from multiple dead languages and re-written and re-edited countless times throughout history for the sake of power and political gain and to control the ignorant masses via guilt, shame and fear. Oh, and also a lie. But, you know, a well-intentioned one. Sort of.

The Bible? Yeah, one little white lie amongst many that are ongoingly wreckin' the world.

The good news is, it's not really true. The good news is, most of what we worry and stress about never actually comes to pass. The vast majority of fears are unfounded, the dire threats to our lifeblood turn out to be whimpering clowns who only wanted a moment of attention because they're lonely and sad. Just like everyone else.

The good news is, the good news is still outweighing the bad. The good news is, if everything were as dire and hellbound as the Christian fundamentalist right, the eco-maniac left and the libertarian nutball fringe say it is, we would've blipped out a thousand years ago in a puddle of whining, bloodshed and severely sunburned shoulders. Isn't that reassuring? I have no idea. Who wants lip balm?

More. Links. Go.

Headline of the Day Zwei

Set your drink down and go read this. Schadenfreude, thou art mine!

Sarah Palin Gives Disastrous Speech At Commercial Real Estate Conference, Calls Obama An "Opium" Addict

Update:

Panning Palin
By Madeleine Begun Kane*

I never “got” Palin’s appeal.
I’m confused. Please do tell. What’s the deal?
Ill-informed and quite crass,
With a voice that breaks glass —
Why on earth would folks pay for her spiel?

*Whom I totally adore. It goes beyond 'adore' but she reads blogs that link to her. (Wink)

One of her commenters, PianoMan:

You folks who on Palin are stuck:
She’s just out to make a quick buck!
Your choice of a hero
To me is a zero
So I shrug and say WTF?

There's some other clever ones too.

The GOP's boardroom populism

Nothing new, but Paul Krugman tamps the turd into a nice neat brick.

So here's how it is: They're as mad as hell, and they're not going to take this anymore. Am I talking about the tea partyers? No, I'm talking about the corporations.

Much reporting on opposition to the Obama administration portrays it as a sort of populist uprising. Yet the antics of the socialism-and-death-panels crowd are only part of the story of anti-Obamaism, and arguably the less important part. If you really want to know what's going on, watch the corporations.

Many Obama supporters have been disappointed by what they see as the administration's mildness on regulatory issues — its embrace of limited financial reform that doesn't break up the biggest banks, its support for offshore drilling, and so on. Yet corporate interests are balking at even modest changes from the permissiveness of the Bush era.

From the outside, this rage against regulation seems bizarre. I mean, what did they expect? The financial industry, in particular, ran wild under deregulation, eventually bringing on a crisis that has left 15 million Americans unemployed, and required large-scale taxpayer-financed bailouts to avoid an even worse outcome. Did Wall Street expect to emerge from all that without facing some new restrictions? Apparently it did.

So what President Barack Obama and his party now face isn't just, or even mainly, an opposition grounded in right-wing populism. For grass-roots anger is being channeled and exploited by corporate interests, which will be the big winners if the GOP does well in November.

If this sounds familiar, it should: It's the same formula the right has been using for a generation. Use identity politics to whip up the base; then, when the election is over, give priority to the concerns of your corporate donors. Run as the candidate of "real Americans," not those soft-on-terror East Coast liberals; then, once you've won, declare that you have a mandate to privatize Social Security. It comes as no surprise to learn that American Crossroads, a new organization whose goal is to deploy large amounts of corporate cash on behalf of Republican candidates, is the brainchild of none other than Karl Rove.

Him again. Will no one rid us of this meddlesome turdblossom?

But won't the grass-roots rebel at being used? Don't count on it. [...]

The Dead End Quarter loves being used. Beat me, bite me, whip me, fuck me, make me write bad checks. As long as it's against godless commie pinko Libuls who want to kill grandma and take our guns away and put one of them in the White House, extremism in the defense of ignorance and delusion is no vice.

So where does that leave the president and his party? Obama wanted to transcend partisanship. Instead, however, he finds himself very much in the position Franklin Roosevelt described in a famous 1936 speech, struggling with "the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering."

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Roosevelt turned corporate opposition into a badge of honor: "I welcome their hatred," he declared. It's time for Obama to find his inner FDR, and do the same.

Fuckin' A. If the right wing bastards hate me as much as I hate them, I'm happy. I guess I'm not a very good Librul, but then neither is Obama.

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

This isn't backed up by anything else I've seen, but I have absolutely no problem believing it. I'm callin' this one a 'must read'.

Secular Humanism.org

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

Gee, ya think?

For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

The answer is: All of the above plus.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

I think the 'ominous pall' was cast a long time ago. This just adds religious insanity to it.

As more and more comes out against the fundie corporate nutjob criminal Bush maladministration, it becomes ever clearer that we are lucky as a nation to have survived it, if just barely.

Note to God: Everybody who says "God don't make no junk" is deluded. You made plenty of it and it fucked the joint right up for eight awful years and counting. Knock off the cheap shit, Asshole.

Almost

Boston Globe

Governor Deval Patrick, even as he decried partisanship in Washington, said today that Republican opposition to President Obama’s agenda has become so obstinate that it “is almost at the level of sedition.”

For a politician to say something is 'almost' traitorous, even as a 'rhetorical flourish', means it's way, waaaay past 'almost'.

Headline of the Day

White Supremacist Watch: Stormfront funding Rand Paul

Paul's base. Teabaggers and Paleolibertarians are bad enough, but this is sickening.

"Civil discourse" ...

Wasn't that the term the conservatives used when we'd become so outraged over the myriad of things Bush did to bring the country to the point it is now?

Well, it seems "civil discourse" has devolved into death threats and violence now that they're out of power.

...

FBI agents tracked the calls to a 54-year-old Texas man who lived alone — and who at one time had owned a 20-gun arsenal of handguns, shotguns and rifles. According to the documents, he told officers that he was “really, really drunk” when he made the calls. He said he was just “venting” — taking out his frustrations after hearing a discussion of the Fairness Doctrine and becoming concerned that the government would attempt to abolish the radio shows of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

In testimony submitted to Congress, Capitol Police officials have said that the threats against lawmakers have caused them to dramatically increase their security efforts. Police who work on protective details say demands on their time have skyrocketed, and the department has requested a 54 percent increase — of $2.7 million — to fund travel for its dignitary protection officers in fiscal year 2011.

In fiscal year 2009, dignitary protection was provided at 139 congressional events, a nearly 100 percent increase over 2008. Capitol Police also moved to provide “a more robust role” to town hall meetings, including working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies.

...

Had we made threatening calls to elected officials during the Bush administration (much as many of us would have liked to see the lot of 'em up against a wall), the Secret Service would have carted us all off to Gitmo.

As Mr. Aravosis says:

...

The Republicans have bet the bank on turning the country against government, in the hopes that it will get the Democrats unelected. Except that the kooks are hearing the GOP's message, about Obama being a socialist, about there being Maoists in the Cabinet, about Obama wanting to kill your grandma, and they're responding accordingly

As long as you have the conservative leadership (Rush, Hannity, and Beck) calling for Jihad, more and more of these assholes are gonna come out of the woodwork. Maybe Obama can declare them terrorists and have the CIA arrange a few 'accidents'? Hey, they say it's legal now ...

My hero!

Now get out.

Montag chronicles the latest case of WalMart screwing over an employee:

...

Wal-Mart, where they rollback everything decent and admirable in life just to make a little more profit.

Nobody Puts BP in the Corner

The Rude One

BP is BP, motherfuckers, and who the fuck are you? Some puny government? Man, BP has fucked up entire nations so it could drink their fucking milkshakes. British Motherfucking Petroleum. C'mon, who the fuck do you think you are? BP eats Amocos and Arcos, and it'll lay pipeline wherever the fuck it wants and make governments work for the privilege. BP says jump and the fuckin' earth will shake from all the people hopping in unison.

So, really, when BP CEO Tony Heyward says, as he did yesterday, that he was "devastated" by walking amidst the environmental wreckage caused by his company, or when managing director Robert Dudley says that "there's nobody -- nobody -- who is more devastated by what has happened" than BP, well, what can one say to such touching human emotion other than, "We hope you get raped by alligators while the pelicans cheer."

Wouldn't hurt if the 'gators ate their fuckin' neither. Save some for the pelicans.

How do you think this plays out? That some fucking miracle happens? That BP pays every dollar to every fisherman, every shrimper, every marsh tour boat operator, every business that has to cut back or shutter because of lost tourist dollars? That Congress will pass any regulations that have gums, let alone teeth? That President Obama will put on his Aquaman Underoos and dive down a mile to personally shove a cork into it? Hey, if we're gonna fantasize, we may as well have fun with it.

Look, we know what happens: For BP, it's a holding pattern until the goddamn thing is plugged and a relief well is drilled a couple of months from now. BP's gonna stand there and take everything that everyone is gonna throw at it. It'll go to the meetings and listen to the fishermen talk about the destruction of their heritage. Its executives will sit at congressional hearings and soberly answer questions. Heyward will scrub a seagull. Then, once the oil stops, BP will unleash the lawyers to scorch the earth it hasn't befouled. It will seek to pay as absolutely little as possible. It will make settlement offers that are a fraction of the real damage and people will take that because time is passing and everyone needs to move on. It'll contribute thousands of dollars to members of Congress. Hell, now it can just run campaign ads itself: Lisa Murkowski, brought to you by BP. Environmentalists will attempt to continue to call attention to the unending effects of the damage, but no one will pay attention once the greasy birds die off. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will sit back down and demand nothing more. He will, in fact, talk about the future and making sure that offshore drilling continues for the good of the state's recovery.

Because they are fucking BP. And who the fuck are you?

Just someone who at times has entertained thoughts that offshore drilling is almost a necessary evil who now thinks it's just plain evil.

How Facebook Is Redefining Privacy

Time magazine's cover article this week is about Facebook. It's an eye-opener. Many links to related articles.

Shorter: You're more likely to buy something if your friend buys one. Oh, and Facebook's money comes from ad sales.

The willingness of Facebook's users to share and overshare — from descriptions of our bouts of food poisoning (gross) to our uncensored feelings about our bosses (not advisable) — is critical to its success. Thus far, the company's m.o. has been to press users to share more, then let up if too many of them complain. Because of this, Facebook keeps finding itself in the crosshairs of intense debates about privacy. It happened in 2007, when the default settings in an initiative called Facebook Beacon sent all your Facebook friends updates about purchases you made on certain third-party sites. Beacon caused an uproar among users — who were automatically enrolled — and occasioned a public apology from Zuckerberg.

And it is happening again. [...]
...

Facebook is readjusting its privacy policy at a time when its stake in mining our personal preferences has never been greater. [...]

"I'm CEO ... Bitch"

Oh yeah? Find somebody else to work for you ... Bitch.

Facebook has developed a formula for the precise number of aha! moments a user must have before he or she is hooked. Company officials won't say exactly what that magic number is, but everything about the site is geared to reach it as quickly as possible. And if you ever try to leave Facebook, you get what I like to call the aha! moment's nasty sibling, the oh-no! moment, when Facebook tries to guilt-trip you with pictures of your friends who, the site warns, will "miss you" if you deactivate your account.

Facebook wants you to get into the habit of clicking the Like button anytime you see it next to a piece of content you enjoy. Less than a month after launching Open Graph — which made its debut with some 30 content partners, including TIME.com — Facebook is quickly approaching the point where it will process 100 million unique clicks of a Like button each day.

The more updates Facebook gets you to share and the more preferences it entreats you to make public, the more data it's able to pool for advertisers. Google spearheaded targeted advertisements, but it knows what you're interested in only on the basis of what you query in its search engine and, if you have a Gmail account, what topics you're e-mailing about. Facebook is amassing a much more well-rounded picture. And having those Like buttons clicked 100 million times a day gives the company 100 million more data points to package and sell.

The result is that advertisers are able to target you on an even more granular level. For example, right now the ads popping up on my Facebook page are for Iron Man 2 games and no-fee apartments in New York City (I'm in a demographic that moves frequently); my mom is getting ads for in-store furniture sales (she's in a demographic that buys sofas).

This advertising platform is even more powerful now that the site can factor in your friends' preferences. If three of your friends click a Like button for, say, Domino's Pizza, you might soon find an ad on your Facebook page that has their names and a suggestion that maybe you should try Domino's too. Peer-pressure advertising! Sandberg and other Facebook execs understand the value of context in selling a product, and few contexts are more powerful than friendship. "Marketers have known this for a really long time. I'm much more likely to do something that's recommended by a friend," Sandberg says.

As powerful as each piece of Facebook's strategy is, the company isn't forcing its users to drink the Kool-Aid. It's just serving up nice cold glasses, and we're gulping it down. [...]

But corralling 500 million people is a lot harder than corralling 10 million. And some users are ready to pull the plug entirely. Searches for "how to delete Facebook" on Google have nearly doubled in volume since the start of this year.

I came very close to 'pulling the plug' on Facebook. I'm bored to tears with it. I couldn't care less about how many goats you fucked in FarmVille, or how badly you burnt dinner in some imaginary kitchen, and on and on. I'm tired of being asked to join things I couldn't care less about and wondering if I'm going to hurt somebody's feelings if I don't.

I'm leaving my Facebook account alone because there are things on there that I like. It's nice to be able to see how your friends are doing, even if what they're doing isn't much. I leave the game progress reports in because that's the only thing some of my friends and relatives are up to. Sad. There are occasionally updates and articles on things I'm interested in.

That said, I don't like Facebook. I put up a mildly off-color joke on my page and Facebook took it down. Hey, all my Facebook friends are adults and if they're censoring me because they're letting just anybody see my page, or if it offends their dainty sensibilities, well fuck 'em.

I used to go there several times a day so I wouldn't miss anything but I haven't visited the site in days, with the exception of yesterday when I got an email saying a friend had written on my wall. Some of the stuff people share is interesting and fun but too much of the content is drivel and mental diarrhea. Worse than here, even!

If you don't go every day, whatever's there is pretty much gone forever as far as accessing it unless you go to each individual friend page. I could do it, I suppose, I don't have that many friends, but I've got better things to do. I'm doing one of them now.

I guess I'm not properly 'hooked'. I've been hooked on shit before and it's no goddam good. Perhaps that's why I'm a little bit more resistant to it.

After reading the Time article, I did go in and change my privacy settings to 'friends only'. I'm not trying to meet people, I've gotten friend requests from total strangers, which is creepy, and there's plenty of other places that sell my info that I get enough solicitations and advertising via email, snail mail, TV, billboards, etc. etc. already.

Note to Facebook: Get your shovel outta my ass and go mine somewhere else ... Bitch.

No great loss ...

GM built the last Hummer and now the brand is no more. Maybe the price of gas might drop a penny or two:

SHREVEPORT, LA (WKOW)--The last Hummer rolled off the assembly line Monday at Shreveport's General Motors assembly plant.

...

They were junk to begin with and a bitch to drive on crowded streets (since, it seems, none of my customers who have them ever took them in the dirt). It is not a sad day in the car world.

A potential bailout ...

Waiting to happen.

Seems Michael "Livin' Large On Master Charge" Steele has put the GOP in a bad way financially:

Washington (CNN) - An internal Republican National Committee document obtained by CNN paints a damning picture of the committee's financial standing compared to the past five election cycles.

The document, pulled together during a recent review sparked by concerns over RNC spending practices, said the committee had $12.5 million in cash on hand at the end of April.

...

Now, to you and me, $12mln is a big deal. Not so, it seems, to a political party.

...

Looking only at even-numbered years, this year's $12.5 million end of April COH is less than one-third the amount the RNC had on hand on April 30 for the 2002 ($47 million) and the 2006 ($44.6 million) midterms.

...

Yes, Republicans, keep doing what you're doing and the Dems won't have to worry about winning the midterms. You'll be bankrupt by then.

Thanks to Oliver Willis for the link.

Question of the Day

Karoli:

...

It begs the question: Did they let people in chicken suits vote in Nevada BEFORE that?

Seward's Icebox Fulla Legal Dope

EssEffChron

If Californians want a glimpse of how the landscape might look should a November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana pass, they could turn north.

They would see complication. And a cautionary lesson. And maybe hope for those who want pot smoking legitimized.

It's the most liberal pot policy in the nation, made that way under a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court ruling that said that what a person does in his home is protected under an unusually strong privacy provision in the state's Constitution.

There ya go! Such enlightenment got conned into electing Moosebreath governor? Go figure.

There are ambiguities and pitfalls, however, but hope floats. Go read.

Taco Deco

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

Excellent piece on Arizona Anglos' cultural insecurity by Gregory Rodriguez in the LATimes.

It's easy to assume that Arizona has become the epicenter in the battle against illegal immigration primarily because it has one of the highest percentages of undocumented migrants of any state in the union. But that's just half the story behind the fear many white Arizonans evidently feel.

By the late 20th century, white Arizonans had perfected a style critics dubbed "Taco Deco," "Mariachi Moderne" or simply "Refried Architecture" — that faux Spanish colonial architecture with arches, tiles and the bougainvillea climbing everywhere (Southern California has its share too*). According to Phoenix architecture critic Lawrence Cheek, in the Valley of the Sun, "The farther you move away from the Hispanic neighborhoods of central and south Phoenix, the more refried architecture you see. The style has been coopted not by the people who could legitimately claim it as their heritage — they tend toward Middle American tract homes — but by itinerant gringos in search of a heritage…."

*Nothing new. Me 'n Mrs. G both grew up in Spanish-style houses hundreds of miles apart. We didn't move there from anywhere.

Faux Native American culture is another part of the Arizona aesthetic. I know a fancy spa in Scottsdale that has a tepee in the back where a shaman leads meditation sessions. (Never mind that tepees were used by Plains Indians far from the Southwest.) In some parts of town, you can't shake a stick without hitting mass-produced Kachina dolls, wrought-iron Kokopellis welded by hippie sculptors, and Indian jewelry that isn't made by Indians.

Boy, that's no shit! It gets to hilarious extremes up around Sedona, and other places I am sure. The roadsides all over the state have jewelry stands run by Indians. Unless you see them make the stuff, you don't know where it's from, and them blanketasses are the silent type. They ain't tellin'.

That said, the jewelry business in all of Arizona ain't a pimple on the ass of the jewelry business in downtown Santa Fe NM. I wore out a pair of shoes following Mrs. G around there one morning. Heh.

And you flip one particular light switch in my house by makin' Kokopelli smile...

None of this should be mistaken for genuine cross-pollination or healthy race relations. On the one hand, it demonstrates the Anglo newcomers' desire to acquire the trappings of ethnicity. On the other, it suggests how comfortable they are commodifying and consuming less influential cultures.

And make no mistake, the coming of Anglos meant the delegitimizing of other cultures in the Arizona Territory. In the early 1900s, during Arizona's struggle for statehood, its representatives had to prove to Washington that it was, in essence, white enough to enter the union.

Because of the large presence of non-Anglos, Indiana Sen. Albert Beveridge, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, argued that the federal government should view Arizona as it would an overseas possession. To avoid its becoming like "the Negro section of the South," he wanted Arizona to be managed the same way as the Philippines.

When it was time to write a constitution, this logic was made explicit, and non-Anglos were relegated to second-class status. The struggle for statehood had honed a clear notion of what constituted the preferred Arizonan. As historian Eric V. Meeks has written, "Racial inequality was not simply an unfortunate corollary to full statehood; it was built into the very identity of Arizona from its inception."

I thought for a while that I could retire in Northern Arizona (that's anyplace north of the Phoenix city limits or the Maricopa County line). Wide open spaces, wonderful scenery, lots of things to see and do, peace and quiet, a great VA system.

Not any more.

Headline of the Day

Texas cops mistake actual weed for marijuana, spend hours doing yard work

Cool way to avoid the high cost of hiring Meskins!

My sides, they hurt...

Sorry, Guys, But We Won't Do Right-wing Crazy Forever

P.M. Carpenter

I know exactly how Frank Rich feels.

"Yes, the Tea Party is radical, its membership is not enormous, and its race problem is real and troubling," concluded the Times columnist yesterday, but "if the Democrats can’t muster their own compelling response to the populist rage out there," then this tiny, radical, troubling bunch of crackpots could win it all in November.

Does that make sense? Of course it doesn't. Yet it reflects the left's enduring sense of pessimism as well as self-knowledge of its historically disadvantaged status against the loud, activist right. No matter the growing Mt. Everests of evidence that the opposition is imploding, we should be very, very afraid. Because afraid is what we do, because the right is so damned wily and the left is so incredibly inept.

Still, the right can go too far in its conceit and self-assurance. And that would seem to be precisely what it's doing now, to the enormous benefit of the left, even if the latter trusts the trend not.

Our center-rightness is indisputably dominated by the center. That's what allows the left its occasional triumphs and dooms the right's outright lunacy, which is swiftly becoming personified not only by Mr. Paul, but the unfailingly reliable Newt Gingrich.

Go read what he says about Neutie and his "secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did" meme. Heh. The nearly sane amongst the Repugs are backpedalling so fast from that one that they're wearing out their chains and sprockets in the other direction.

Yes, it's good that the Dems aren't goose-stepping-toward-1954 ideologues like the Repugs. Yes, it's bad that they're disorganized and light on ballsack. Our best chance is for the Repugs to tear themselves to shreds, and to them I say "continue the march" with my blessing.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Good quick read by Will Durst:

[...] Democrats have a secret weapon this November and his name is Michael Steele.

Steele is not just the center post in the GOP big tent movement, he’s the post, the flaps, the stakes, the ties and the canvas; and party leaders would rather stick a fist full of paper cuts in a vat of Tabasco Sauce than write off their first African- American chairman during an election year. These days, the GOP Black Caucus could hold its convention in a phone booth, and they don’t make phone booths anymore, and the analogy still holds.

Most of the places he visits, he’s not simply the only black guy in the room, he’s the only black guy admitted to the grounds without a police escort. [...]

[...] On CNN last February, he dismissed Rush Limbaugh as “an entertainer" and "incendiary." The outrage from Rush’s fans, the vocal, visible, thick and dense end of the Republican base, forced Steele to backtrack faster than freshly waxed skis on newly fallen powder.

First he was directed to beg the poster boy for OxyContin Today’s forgiveness. To say Rush was less than gracious is like implying frozen goose fat makes for substandard bicycle spokes. Steele genuflected on Rush’s show and kissed his ring while Rush didn’t bother taking it out of his back pocket.

Between Steele and his "Just Say No To Obama" Repug establishment faction and the batcrap crazy racist and hater "Just Say No To Establishment Repugs" and "Turn Back The Clock To When The Colored Knew Their Place" factions, they're splitting things up 'til they're putting themselves right where we want 'em. Loud and out of power beats the shit outta robbing us blind like they've done for thirty years. Not that it's stopped, but under Dems at least we can hope it will slow down a little. There's NO hope with Repugs.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Texas School Board Adopts New Curriculum
Students can finally learn about our Founding Fathers, Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm.

6 Men in 520-Day Simulated Mission to Mars
Results will be compared with six women spending 520 days in simulated mission to Venus.

Study: Those Over Fifty Happier, Less Stressed
Knowing those under fifty will have to work until they're ninety.

Pelosi: Congress Members, Staff Will Have to Fly Coach
More Legroom for Americans Act suddenly has 535 co-sponsors.

Vatican Warns Cell Scientists Not to Play God
Says only the Church decides who should play God.

Irony huh?

As long as it's still America ...

They can build wherever they want:

The Imam planning an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero says his critics are bigots and the project will stamp out terrorism - not fan the flames.

...

The meeting came one day after Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams called the project a monument to 9/11 attackers "for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god."

...

Until they ban Islam in the United States (won't surprise me to see that coming down the pike someday), people have the freedom to worship whatever god they want and they're allowed to worship on their own property. Ain't nobody gonna bitch if they build a church or a synagogue there, are they? Most of the people who will worship there are American citizens (though that might be a tentative status in the future as well) and good, decent people. It's time to STFU and stop treating Muslims like second-class citizens at best, enemies of the state at worst.

Quote of the Day

Mr. Philadelphia:

...

More than that, someone needs to get on the teevee and point out that no, it is not ok for any actor - state, big corporation, or terrorist - to destroy the coastlines and economies of several states. You don't just get to say 'woopsy' and move on. Gigantic fuckups need to have consequences for the perpetrators, even though these days that seems like an amusing notion.

But like the Wall St. types who destroyed our economy, these assholes will walk away with a slap-on-the-wrist fine at most. As long as big business of any stripe has most of one political party and a part of another in their pockets, nothing meaningful will ever be done.

Light Blogging Today

I'm in the middle of Mrs. G's annual marathon birthday celebration which started Friday at the Full Belly Deli, continues today at the Sunday Celtic Jam (which I will attempt to film, if 'film' is still the word to use) at the The Auld Dubliner at Squaw Valley, and which hopefully will culminate in a Grand Finale on Tuesday at Village Pizzeria which is a much better restaurant than the name implies.

At our age, birthdays are one less rather than one more so ya gotta cram as much into 'em as ya can. That's Mrs. G's philosophy. I just let mine slide by as best as I can.

This b'day is a huge one for her - the Medicare Birthday. I'm just along for the wild ride, kinda like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove. I drive and open my wallet and nod my head a lot. What makes mama happy makes me happy and anything else would be like shovellin' shit against the tide anyway so why bother?

To illustrate how fluid this whole deal is, yesterday we were at the supermarket. The announcement came over the civilian equivalent of the 1MC that anybody who showed up at the end of aisle 2 in the next two minutes would get a free paring knife. We burned the wheels off our shopping cart gettin' there 'cuz If It's For Free, It's For ME. We weren't alone. Well, Mrs. G listened to a knife salesman's spiel and got her paring knife and a little gadget ya put in an orange like a really brutal enema hose and squeeze out orange juice. I'm too much of a smartass to stay quiet during a sales pitch and didn't wanta mess the guy up so I walked a few feet away and just watched. Pretty good knives. The guy carved up a steel hammer with one of 'em.

Not my line of country. If I can't cut something up with my Buck Bantam ($16) or my Ka-bar (3 years of my life), it don't need cuttin'.

Mrs. G wanted the knife set the guy was selling. We have lotsa knives and I tried to talk her out of it. After a coupla minutes I realized she really wanted 'em, so rather than be a total jerk (which I'm good at) I asked her if she'd like to have them for a birthday present.

Her reply: "Instead of jewelry? You bet!"

That's my girl! Forty bucks later (low end of the earring spectrum), she got outta there with something like fifteen knives and three orange juice enema gadgets and is happy as a clam.

And that's the whole idea...

Gotta go drain the dogs and get ready for our Celtic music/Irish-style food adventure. See yas.

Update:

I had Mrs. G read this. She said she wished she hadn't blurted out the "instead of jewelry" line, so tomorrow I'll head for the Husbands' All-Purpose One-Stop Shop. Heh.

Update II:

I think I got some pretty good music. Go see the vids here and here. Be sure to read my extensive descriptions. Heh. The one below is kinda special and came as a complete surprise. That's my fat ass blocking the view.

When I got done recording music, I turned the camera off. Imagine my surprise when I got home and found this in the camera. I must have turned it on again by mistake. Or was it the little people wishing my bride of 36 years a Happy Birthday...?

Tech News

One day your pants may power up your iPod

But where d'ya plug it in...?