Saturday, September 11, 2010

Saturday Homebrew Music Video That May Require Intervention Blogging

I used to just think of this as kind of an oddball novelty tune. Now I think of it as life under Repug rule...

Autoharp virtuoso and all around eccentric guy from Seattle, Bryan Bowers (site) does a tune about expectations. From his LP/CD "Home, Home on the Road".

I'm expecting winter...



If anybody has a recording of his "Hash Eatin' Song From Virginia", please get it to me somehow or tell me where you got it.

Nine Years Later

Ted Koppel

The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another. Bin Laden deserves to be the object of our hostility, national anguish and contempt, and he deserves to be taken seriously as a canny tactician. But much of what he has achieved we have done, and continue to do, to ourselves. Bin Laden does not deserve that we, even inadvertently, fulfill so many of his unimagined dreams

If bin Laden did not foresee all this, then he quickly came to understand it. In a 2004 video message, he boasted about leading America on the path to self-destruction. "All we have to do is send two mujaheddin . . . to raise a small piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses."

Through the initial spending of a few hundred thousand dollars, training and then sacrificing 19 of his foot soldiers, bin Laden has watched his relatively tiny and all but anonymous organization of a few hundred zealots turn into the most recognized international franchise since McDonald's. Could any enemy of the United States have achieved more with less?

Could bin Laden, in his wildest imaginings, have hoped to provoke greater chaos? It is past time to reflect on what our enemy sought, and still seeks, to accomplish -- and how we have accommodated him.

Every time we undermine our principles, whether out of fear or anger or intolerance, bin Laden wins a little more.

Since That Day

Go read this one by William Rivers Pitt.

Nine years, four national elections, two wars and two presidents since that day, and where are we now as a nation? Broke, deranged and dangerous pretty much sums it up. [...]

Sexy music blogging ...

I love this tune:



Carlos Santana and Macy Gray - Amore(Sexo)

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

"Stuck in Lodi"

Emmylou on the John Fogarty song - from 1992

Sam Bush on mandolin.


Emmylou Harris ~ Lodi
Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Creepier than you think*

*Title links here.

Lawrence O'Donnell said yesterday that the whole cult leader/Qur'an burning deal is turning into South Park (no cite, but I heard him say it). He's pretty close. I don't watch that show and I'm sick of this one as well.

Headline at BuzzFlash:

After Visit from FBI, Loser "Minister" With Checkered Past Decides to Abandon His 15 Minutes of Infamy and Calls Off Quaran Burning. Did the FBI Make Him an Offer He Couldn't Refuse Like Not Charging Him With Some Past Infractions? Hmmm....

From the link:

The FBI visited Jones at the Dove Center on Thursday, according to Jeffrey Westcott, special agent in charge of the Jacksonville, Florida, bureau. The FBI also visited him a few weeks ago, he said, but would not say what was discussed.

Well, gee, that calls for some speculation...

Could the FBI have reminded him that he's been accused of slavery?

Shane Butcher, who was expelled from the church for disobedience, told the Gainesville Sun he worked for the pastor's TS and Company for up 72 hours a week without pay, and meals were provided from a ''food bank''.

Mr Butcher said punishments for disobedience ranged from cleaning the barnacles off Mr Jones's boat in Tampa, to carrying a life-size wooden cross or writing out all of Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible.

Emma Jones, the pastor's daughter from his first marriage, has described her father's church as a ''cult''.

Could they have mentioned that the FBI is chockablock with forensic accountants who just love revoking tax exempt status from phony religious tax cheats who put the administration's ass in a sling?

Pastor Terry Jones runs a used-furniture business out of the church, buying old furniture from around the state, storing it in the church sanctuary and selling it on eBay. Academy students work full-time packaging the furniture; according to the rulebook, lunch breaks are for testing students on their homework.

The center's tax-exempt status was partially revoked because of the apparently for-profit used furniture business.

Or maybe the G-Men have some nekkid pictures of him and Rushole doing a really 'sloppy joe'?

Conservative blog American Thinker notes that you can't choose your high school classmates either, in response to the "news" that the pastor in Florida threatening to burn a Koran -- presumably at least once -- ate sloppy joes in the same cafeteria with controversial pundit Rush Limbaugh, who is no friend to Muslims or, apparently, cultish book burning fringe figures either.

Now Jones has captured the world’s attention with his book-burning act and finally become “Cape Girardeau’s most prominent export,” at least for this week. He has achieved A-list status, however fleeting. Predictably, Limbaugh responds as though they never walked the same public/socialist school hallways together — calling Jones a “crackpot.” What does it all mean? That Limbaugh has become the envious one, naturally.

A world-class weapons-grade dick gets dick envy over a wannabe! Priceless! But I digress...

Note to Cape Girardeau school board: You better check up on what's goin' on in your classrooms if you're turnin' out yingyangs like those two.

Or maybe it was just that the G-Men kept calling him "Pastor Koresh, oops!" over and over during their interview?

Perhaps there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it's the headlight on a train that's about to run over Pastor Fucktard's skinny white ass. Or the headlight on a BATF tank.

South Park? Go ahead and kill Kenny. If it shuts him up, who the fuck cares?

Update:



More at YubaNet.

Off of Social Security and Medicare ...

And up against the wall. "Want a blindfold, grandpa? Cigarette?"

I know the conservatives want to cut "entitlements" but literally killing off old people seems extreme even for them. But they seem to think that the elderly are being profligate spenders on health care and so they need to "take responsibility" and pay more so they won't use as much. Anyone who's been around old people and their plethora of health issues knows that's tantamount to killing them.

...


Fuck them old people. They only paid taxes all their lives, worked hard, fought for their country, and tried to raise their kids right.

The conservatives look at the aged they way they look at the military. If you're too sick or can't afford healthcare, just like a soldier who is injured and can't carry a rifle, they don't want to know about you. They want you to go away and die. Heartless cocksuckers.

Running late this morning, had too much fun with our friends from CA last night. See yas later ...

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Oo-rah!

I fuckin' love this!

US Marines Thursday rescued a German-owned ship seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia after hijackers vainly sought the crew which hid in a secret compartment, the US military and the shipping firm said.

The pirates spent nearly 20 hours searching for the crew and even phoned the shipping company in Germany to ask where they were hidden, a spokesman for the firm said.

"The crew had closed down the engines and locked themselves away in a safe room which the pirates were unable to find," he said.

After searching the ship for three hours the pirates picked up the phone and called the shipping company asking about the crew's whereabouts, the spokesman said.

"They were told the crew was on holiday," he said.

"They then asked how to switch the engines back on, but were told they were broken," he added.

Priceless! Usually it's just Marines that fall for shit like that. I'm surprised the home office crew didn't ask the pirates for a credit card number to pay for their passage! Hey, the Marines'da coughed it up...

The rescue operation was launched from the USS Dubuque after a Turkish frigate -- part of a multinational force -- responded to a distress signal from the Magellan Star which was sailing from Bilbao in Spain to Singapore.

Dubuque (LPD-8) is a Landing Platform, Dock gator navy amphibious landing troopship that carries 900 Marines. She is home-ported in San Diego.

The Marines are with the 15th MEF or MEU. I am not sure of the difference between an MEF and an MEU, and the unit in this incident is being reported both ways, but these appear to be 1st Marine Division troops out of Camp Pendleton CA. I am unable to determine the exact unit these Marines are with at this time. Marines like to know that shit. Coulda been the Mess Kit Repair Platoon for all I know.

Doesn't matter. The Somalis wised up when they saw a platoon of 'em coming and opted for their own lives. They'll no doubt get a trip to New York, have their case thrown out, and get a bus ticket (or 1st class air fare) home where they'll receive a hero's welcome. They oughta wash up on the Somalia beach with aces of spades pinned to their foreheads with a 5.56 round, but that's just me.

Good on yer, Jarheads. You make this old Marine proud.

Improvement

Obama: Quran burning ‘a recruitment bonanza’ for al Qaeda

It's a big improvement that al Qaeda's main recruitment center in the U.S. is now one batcrap crazy southern hater phony xtian snake oil salesman in a tin building out in the middle of no-fucking-where rather than in the Oval Office like it was when Bush was warming the seat there.

Jumping On The Bandwagon Update:

Tennessee minister plans to burn Quran, too

“The guy is a nut,” Herbert said. “This is crazy. I am sorry that anyone who names the name of Christ would do this.”

Nuttier'n a squirrel turd. Monkey see, monkey do. Yeesh.

Mrs. G just said that wasn't a nice thing to say about monkeys. Yes, dear.

Burns on Rose

If you are still interested in the perfect storm of incompetence that went into the Iraq fuckuo and what may lie ahead, go see last night's conversation between John Burns and Charlie Rose. It takes 30 minutes and they discuss other things as well such as Burns' lack of a haircut and the new Brit government. I was transfixed by it. Burns knows his shit and I'm glad he got out of Iraq with his life and most of his sanity.

The View From India

Vijay Prashad tamps our politics into a nice neat brick in a piece entitled "White Fright".

The far Right is making a bid to use the average American's economic frustrations in its campaign against the minorities and immigrants.

This may be the most succinct single paragraph I've seen:

Barack Obama's election was a blow to white supremacy. No longer could it be said that the highest reaches of American society were out of bounds to non-whites. It rattled the cages of hardened racists. Protests came fast on the heels of the election. Those who refused to believe that a black man could be President of the U.S. sought fantastic reasons to deny reality: that Obama was not born in the U.S. (a criterion for the office) and that Obama was secretly a Muslim (until now not a disqualification for the office). Having inherited an economic and foreign policy mess, Obama did not articulate a plan that generated confidence among the large section of the American middle class that saw its jobs and its wealth disappear (one indication of the lack of trust in the future is the decline in the birth rate since 2007). The unemployment rate continued to rise, and home foreclosures seemed unstoppable. The general drift in the country was fodder for the growth of small protests, whose presence attracted the attention of Washington's far-Right organisations and the money of the sturdy pillars of the far Right. Former Congressman Dick Armey's FreedomWorks gave its activists to the nascent Tea Party, and rising figures in the Republican Party, such as Sarah Palin, offered themselves as its leaders. They were funded by such figures as David and Charles Koch, owners of Koch Industries, the second largest private firm in the U.S. (after the agro-business behemoth Cargill). The grass-roots protests soon became astroturf events.

Why can't our "press" do that? We always seem to get the clearest view from afar.

Much more.

93-Year-Old Vows to Arrest Qur’an Burner

Pensito Review

Local (in my neck of the woods anyway) legend Stetson Kennedy, best known for his ground-breaking journalism exposing Ku Klux Klan members in the 1940s, is taking on the Qur’an burning church. The 93-year-old Kennedy has vowed to perform a citizen’s arrest of Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center on Sept. 11.

Goddam, Pops (I don't get to call very many people that anymore)! That's the spirit!

Question of the Day

Why do I have to know about this little troll named Snooki?

Good God, with all the news coverage of her, you'd think she cured cancer instead of just being a professional twat.

Can we do this ...

To George Bush when he goes somewhere?

Sounds like Blair can't run away from his own history. First he was pelted with eggs and shoes in Dublin then he canceled an book signing event in London. Now that protesters discovered he was preparing for a party at the posh Tate Modern in London, he canceled his showing there as well.

...


If we can't get the war criminals to The Hague, maybe we can keep them under "house arrest". At the very least, give them something to think about before they leave the house.

I say this ...

Every year.

Being the avid cruisers the Mrs. and I are (we frequent Holland America Line), the odds are not in our favor that we'll end up on a ship with these assholes one day.

...

By my count, that is thirty men and only three women, and I’m being generous about the “women” part since I’m not sure Phyllis Schlafly even counts as human anymore, much less as a woman. On the other hand, it would probably be worth the price of admission just to listen to Schlafly order Ramesh Ponnuru around all week (“Boy! Cabin boy! Bring mama a mai tai and I’ll give you a shiny new dime.”) while Rich Lowry cruises the piano bars with his new wingmen: Greg “The Gut” Gutfeld and Jonah ” The Much Bigger Gut” Goldberg.

...


Somebody'd be going overboard, be it me because I couldn't take it anymore or Jonah and the rest of 'em, because I couldn't take it anymore. It would, however, be fun to see Jonah try to outswim a Japanese whaling ship. Heh ...

As if ...

We didn't know this was coming:

...

They said that we just needed to pass this so we could get something better down the road. Perhaps that's true. But for the foreseeable future it's going to a fight just to keep the fairly crappy plan as it is, and I frankly have very little faith that' they'll be able to do it. I certainly hope they do.

...


Especially if we end up with a Republican Congress this fall, the health care "reform" legislation is a goner. At the very least, we're not going to get more (remember they said they'd make the bill better as time went on) for the foreseeable future. We'll be lucky to keep what we fought for.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

the Right to Be a Fucktard

El Rude-o. Go read.

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution allows one, nay, encourages one to be a total fucking douchebag asshole in support of whatever fucktarded cause one and one's yahoo posse want to hoot and holler over. It's that simple. It's that cut and dried. And the reason it encourages such behavior is that judging who is a total fucking douchebag asshole and whose cause is fucktarded is in the eye and ear of the beholder. For, indeed, one could have argued that blacks in the Jim Crow south who were peaceably assembling at lunch counters were the assholes. And one could argue the opposite. Many people considered the Chicago Eight a bunch of unAmerican hippie cocksuckers who deserved only imprisonment, if not exile. One could argue that Gregory Lee Johnson was a complete cunt for burning an American flag outside the Dallas City Hall during the Republican National Convention in 1984. But the Supreme Court said in 1989 that his level of cuntishness didn't matter. What mattered was that it was speech (with even Scalia agreeing). And that as such, go fuck yourself with your precious little hurt feelings.

That's the deal. That's why you say rights are rights. As New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has emerged as this passionate advocate for free speech, said, "The First Amendment protects everybody, and you can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement." Bloomberg was commenting on Pastor Yosemite Sam's plan to burn a pile of Korans outside his shitty little church in Gainesville, Florida.

And you know who else is right? Fucking Pastor Yosemite Sam himself. Yeah, he's a hateful redneck son of a donkey ass-fucker (more or less). But read what he says on the church's website about why he's burning a Koran:

When you read the rest, you will find that you have to grit yer teeth and agree with the son of a bitch. What he says is hateful and distasteful and stupid and uncaring and unmindful of possible consequences and damned un-Christian and he has every right to say it and calling bullshit on him will just get us a load of our own wind-borne piss back in our face.

Hypocrisy, stupidity, and plain old lying are protected speech. Anybody can say any damn fool thing they want to, and they do waaaay too often.

More doggie ...

As you folks know, I'm all sloppy about the new dogs coming next week. I showed ya pictures of Choo-Choo the other day (here and here) so today, I introduce you to the other new face in the Fixer household. This is Ziva.





A week from Saturday, we travel to Pennsylvania to pick up the Dingo sisters.

Disgraceful Symbolism: IOKIYAR

Fred Kaplan in Slate:

Republicans are usually eager to trumpet their support for the troops and the war against terror. So why aren't they condemning the Florida pastor who plans to lead his congregation in a Quran-burning bonfire on Sept. 11?

In September 2007, the Senate voted 72-25 to condemn the anti-war group MoveOn.org for running a full-page newspaper ad that denounced Gen. Petraeus, then the U.S. commander in Iraq, as "General Betray Us."

If the senators want to show their genuine support for Petraeus (and not just indulge in an easy political stunt), they should denounce Terry Jones for endangering the troops and providing aid and comfort to the enemy—and, better still, send federal marshals to Gainesville, Fla., to help the local fire chief (who has ordered Jones not to burn the books) maintain public safety.

Fred goes into the effect this might have on the troops but he didn't answer his own question posed in the opening paragraph. I will.

The reason the Repugs aren't condemning this disgraceful act by a publicity-seeking phony xtian preacher is because they don't want to piss off their anti-Islam base of haters two months before an election.

Book-burning in this case is not about denying knowledge like it has been in other times. It's entirely symbolic. The Qurans here are nothing but flammable wood products, probably printed in English which most Muslims in the world couldn't read anyway, and millions of printing presses the world over crank 'em out every day in most every language.

We oughta consider ourselves lucky that he's not going to burn a Muslim.

Burn a Bible, save a kitten

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

Comedic horrors thrive, moronism seems to inbreed and fester, and most of it manifests under the banner of a mutant Christian God, or extreme conservatism, or some form of fundamentalist moral outrage that can't exactly be explained but which often makes its most devout adherents appear to be nothing more than frenetic fleas sucking blood from the Great Hound of life. The beast merely scratches and sighs, and keeps right on gnawing the bone of eternity.

Oh, the hardcore lefty fringe has its violent cretins, to be sure, natty Earth Firsters to slavering PETA blood hurlers, eco-terrorists and freako off-grid cults, but those groups never claim to be a vital part of the Democratic Party. Liberalism does not depend on terrible education rates to survive.

The GOP, on the other hand, sucks hard from the teat of ignorant extremism, splashes gleefully in the shallow mud puddles of Sarah Palin's battered grammar, draws much of its power from the worst the human spectacle has to offer. Simply put, the modern Republican Party would not exist without its army of high school dropouts drunk on Rush Limbaugh and sexual dread. It's not difficult to imagine "Burn a Quran Day" becoming a new Texas state holiday.

What to make of it? After all, the world has always been speckled with rabid clowns, an endless parade of spittle-flecked sociopaths that make us shudder and sigh, many with "Reverend" before their names or "Show" just after it. American culture is rife with worldviews so narrow and poorly educated, you can be quickly convinced we are but an inch from permanent insanity.

Shit, Mark, an inch would be a safe margin! Right now it seems like it's a millimeter and closing.

After all, the Fred Phelps, the Glenn Becks, the Terry Jones of the world are but our basest natures made manifest, the bleakest, most paranoid, lazily ignorant parts of each and every one of us. Deny it at your peril. As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "the bitterest contradictions and the deadliest conflicts of the world are carried on in every individual breast capable of feeling and passion." He should know.

There are far too many people who have allowed, or worse encouraged, their lizard brains to shape their lifeview, and they all seem to have a forum these days with their own media and political party. Ain't the rest of us lucky? Yeesh.

"... a fucking disaster ..."

There is a critical point that I fear the commentariat is just not getting. In my darker moments I fear that some of my fellow economists aren’t getting it either but we aren’t going to go there.

...


I've been thinking this for a long time. For those who don't know, my dad was a defense contractor. During the Vietnam War, he had more work than he knew what to do with. He subcontracted to Grumman, Republic Aircraft, and several hundred machine shops that were working 3 shifts. His place was unionized and so were all the corporations and shops he dealt with. He went out in 1984, Grumman and Republic left soon after and now, I only know of 3 of those machine shops still in business and they're closed by 5 pm. Shit, these folks helped put a man on the Moon.

...

This is a failure of our basic institutions of production. The job of the market is to bring together willing buyers with willing sellers in order to produce value. This is not happening and as a result literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced.

Let me say that again because I think it fails to sink in – literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced. Not misallocated. Not spent on programs you don’t approve of or distributed in tax cuts you don’t like. Trillions of dollars in value are not produced at all. Gone from the world entirely. Never to be had, by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Pure unadulterated loss.

...


Not being an economist, or even good with money, I defer to experts, but to me it seems like we're turning into one big "unemployed nation". Everything we buy (nearly) is made somewhere else. I get parts from the Ford dealer and the box tells you where the part was made. Shit, I'd be surprised if the box itself was made in the U.S. Half of our military aircraft are made in another country. How do we get those jobs back when those in other nations will do them for less, with less benefits? How do we get the American people (as a whole) to pay a little more for "American made" when they can barely squeak by on their low salaries (or unemployment checks) buying Chinese or Vietnamese shit at Wal-Mart? I don't see how it can be done.

It's one of the reasons I fear this nation is in an irreversible decline.

Thanks to Mr. Philadelphia for the link.

Chicken? Egg?

Our pal D-cap has an excellent essay up on the state of "journalism" today:

Which came first - journalists turning into to a bunch of sideshow barkers because the only thing Americans want is to be entertained or Americans losing any semblance of reality because the once noble profession of journalism has turned into nothing more than a conduit to sell Tide and Toyotas?

...

The politicians have beaten the journalists at their own game - the politicians know it, the public knows it - only the journalists haven't quite figured it out. Journalists used to be savvy about their strategies and smart about their tactics when they went looking for the story. The victory was uncovering the truth, not selling the most Toyotas. Today people like Palin, Romney, Paul, Rubio, King, Boner, and McConnell have been taught to master anti-journalism skills and make the press work for them. They have been able to stack the deck and play the journalists to their advantage.


Truth has taken a back seat to revenue and any control we might have had over our government is long gone. If a person gets their news solely from the TV, they have no clue about how things work.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Trumka: "Most Crucial Election in 75 Years"

Truthout

Many unionists are frustrated as usual by the lack of a viable progressive alternative to the Democratic Party. But they'd best beware, as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says, of the serious consequences of being less than enthusiastic supporters of Democratic candidates in November's elections.

"The Republican Party of NO doesn't want our vote," says Trumka. "All they want is for us to stay home. They want us to feel hopeless and disgusted so they can come back by default." (my em)

When patience and enthusiasm don't work, fearmongering might. Right out of the Repug liebook, only I'm not lying. Be afraid. Vote.

1938 in 2010

Paul Krugman with a history lesson:

I had hoped that we would do better this time. But it turns out that politicians and economists alike have spent decades unlearning the lessons of the 1930s, and are determined to repeat all the old mistakes. And it’s slightly sickening to realize that the big winners in the midterm elections are likely to be the very people who first got us into this mess, then did everything in their power to block action to get us out.

Third plunge of the dagger

Read this piece at Words of Power.

Dissed and Marginalized by POTUS' Inept Inner Circle, Progressives Must Rally (Again) to Save POTUS & the Democrats? Yes.

A coupla terrific paintings and a few words about how the current Dark Ages started in California and are fixin' to maybe get darker from there in a coupla months.

Starting to get the fuller picture of what has happened here?

As California goes, so goes the nation. Remember, the Reagan Counter-Revolution came to power here first.

So will the battle for Senator and Governor here signal the end of all hope, or the beginning of the reversal of the illness that has seized the US body politic?

And yet, it can even be worse. Just allow John Boehner to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and send Carly Fiorina to Beltwayistan and Meg Whitman to Sacramento, and you will see how much worse it can get, and how fast. Right now, it is very bad, but we have some leverage and a place to stand. If we lose the House or are further weakened in the Senate, or if POTUS fails to be elected to a second term, and the 5-4 corporatist edge on SCOTUS is institutionalized for another generation, well ...

And those of you who think it might be better to stay home, and let it all turn back to the Greedy Oiligarch Plutocracy (GOP), in order to hasten some more radical change, you are as deluded as the tea-baggers who are following Beck and Palin over the cliff into a hell-realm.

Just as an aside, and I throw those in anywhere, Mrs. G says GOP stands for Greedy Obstructionist 'Phobes.

Which side are you on? Yes, it is another moment to choose sides.

Vote in November, and influence everyone you can to vote in November. We must buy ourselves more time.

I know that we're not particularly fond of the Democrats right now, but the alternative is far worse. Cheney was right when he said the American people get their chance to be heard every four years, or in this case, every two years. As distasteful and arrogant as that is, it's absolutely correct. If you still your voice by throwing away your vote, either by voting for unelectable third-party candidates or staying home in disgust, you are helping the Forces of Darkness who seem poised to turn out in record numbers.

I'm not voting for Rahm or Axelrod or any of the other Dems I'd like to punch in the nose, or Obama this time, and I actually like our Dem candidates out here in California, but if I had to hold my nose to vote for them, I'd still do it in a heartbeat.

If you remember the apt right now old joke about the people in Hell up to their necks in shit, if the Repugs get back in control, coffee break's over. Back on your knees.

So ...

I'm off to work. I hope I remember how to fix cars. Righty-tighty ...

Why do they hate our troops?

Another crazy Jesus freak preacher and his sheeple think it's big fun to stage a "Burn A Koran Day". Don't forget, these are the same people who were rah-rah, gung-ho, kill the ragheads and "support the troops" during the run up to war. Now, they don't seem to care about those same troops they been supporting.

The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops' lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.

Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems "not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world".

Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Centre, has said he will make a bonfire this week on the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks.

...


I don't see anything in the way of "outreach" or "dovishness" from these people. If it weren't for the suits and ties, you wouldn't be able to tell the American Taliban from the Afghan type.

Fuck Rahm ...

And if you wonder why the White House runs the way it does (and Barry will probably be just another one-term President), you just have to look to the Chief-of-Staff. Rahm Emmanuel is nothing but a double-dealing slime mold and it's come back to bite them, and the Dems, in the ass.

Michael Moore, via Digby, on Rahm's disregard for the base:

Dear Rahm Emanuel:

Happy Fuckin' Labor Day! I read this week that — according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration's former "Car Czar" — during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, "Fuck the UAW!"

...

Nonetheless labor unions did create a middle class for the majority (even companies that didn't have unions were forced to pay at or near union wages in order to attract a workforce) and that middle class built a great country and a good life. You see, Rahm, when people earn a fucking good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good paying jobs, and then the middle class grows fucking big. Did you know that back when I was a kid if you had a parent making a union wage, only one parent had to work?! And they were home by 3 or 4pm, 5:30 at the latest! We had dinner together! Dad had four weeks paid vacation. We all had free health and dental care. And anyone with decent grades went to college and it didn't fucking bankrupt them. (And if you ever used the F-word, the nuns would straighten you out in ways that even you couldn't bear to hear about).

Then a Republican fired all the air traffic controllers, a Democrat gave us NAFTA and millions of jobs were moved overseas (hey, didn't you work in that White House, too? "Fuck the UAW, baby!"). Unions got scared and beaten down, a frat boy became president and, like a drunk out of control, spent all our fucking money and our children's money, too. Fuck.

...


One day, before I die, I'd like to see a Dem in the White House who is a true Lefty (Obama & Co. would be considered raving conservatives in Europe). Ain't had one of them since LBJ. Alan Grayson, maybe?

Too little, too late ...

So, we're pretty much assured of a Dem disaster this fall. They pretty much have themselves to blame, from Barry on down. He should have been giving speeches like this from the get-go.

The Barack Obama who showed up in Milwaukee today is the one I remember from 2008 who seemed to disappear over the past year or so. If he keeps this tone between now and November, I'll bet on the press narrative changing from "Dems are hosed" to something far more positive. With a mix of humor, sarcasm and a generous dose of fire, Obama put Republicans on notice: Their days of obstruction are numbered.

...


What the Dems don't seem to get is that the campaign season doesn't start 2 months from Election Day. The Rethugs are always campaigning, in one form or another, constantly throwing shit against the wall to see what will stick and the Dems need answer, and ridicule it. They can't wait until a few weeks before the election to mount a counterattack.

Unfortunately, after this election, the obstruction, with a Rethug majority, will become weapons-grade.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Moonbeam! Finally!

LATimes

Jerry Brown launches his first ad in California gubernatorial campaign

His rival, Republican Meg Whitman, has been pummeling the candidate with a barrage of advertising over the summer that questioned his record. Brown could not afford to advertise over the summer, but labor unions did on his behalf, questioning Whitman’s qualifications. But this marks the first ad making a pro-active case for why voters ought to support Brown.

The ad, which will begin airing on television later this week, says that during his prior two terms as governor, Brown eliminated waste and luxuries, balanced budgets, cut taxes and created 1.9 million jobs. “California was working,” says the announcer.

Brown them introduces himself and names three priorities that keep in mind voters’ frustration with government –- frugality, local control and only raising taxes if voters agree.

My only question for our current Attorney General and next Governor is "What was it like boinkin' Linda Ronstadt?". Enquiring minds wanta know...



JerryBrown2010

Headline of the Day

California pot legalization ‘could end Mexican drug war’

Swell. I hope it takes a big chunk outta our drug war in the process.

The Poodle Speaks

I watched Christiane "Still A Babe!" Amanpour interview Tony Bliar on This Week yesterday. Once a poodle, always a poodle, this time yipping mightily with a book to sell. Look in 'fiction' next to Bush's book.

MoDo

He says he does not regret serving as the voice for W.’s gut when the inexperienced American princeling galloped into war with Iraq. As for “the nightmare that unfolded” — giving the lie to all their faux rationales and glib promises — Tony wants everyone to know he has feelings.

So do the families of the hundreds of thousands whom you enabled to become dead and injured, arsehole.

There is no apology, but Blair sounds like a man with a guilty conscience.

He concedes that the invasion of Iraq was more about symbols than immediate security, about sending “a message of total clarity to the world,” after 9/11, that defying the will of the international community would no longer be tolerated.

Unless, like us, you're big enough to get away with it. How's that workin' out?

Blair did not want to be W.’s peripheral poodle. He wanted to “stand tall internationally” with Britain’s main ally and not “wet our knickers,” to use a Blair phrase, when the going got tough (or delusional).

You don't always get what you want. Blair and Bush were both Cheney's little fixed poodles. Either one of them could have stopped it before it happened.

It is criminally naïve, given the billions spent on intelligence, that Blair and W. muffed the postwar planning because they never perceived what Blair now acknowledges as “the true threat”: outside interference by Al Qaeda and Iran. So the reasoning of the man known in England as Phony Tony or Bliar amounts to this: They had to invade Iraq because Saddam could hypothetically hook up with Al Qaeda. But they didn’t properly prepare for the insurgency because they knew that Saddam had no link to Al Qaeda.

He knew Dick Cheney had a grandiose plan to remake the world and no patience for “namby-pamby peacenikery.”

“He would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran,” as well as “Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.,” Blair writes of Cheney, adding: “He was for hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We’re coming after you, so change or be changed.”

The religious Blair fancied himself a conviction politician who had intervened for good in Kosovo and Sierra Leone and would do so again in Iraq. So he did not, as he said others did, “reach for the garlic and crucifixes” when Dick hatched his sulfurous schemes.

Fuck the garlic and crucifixes. Someone shoulda reached for a big pointy wooden stake and driven it through where The Dick's heart would be in a human being and at least pinned him to the ground so he couldn't move.

If he had challenged W. and Cheney instead of enabling them, Blair might have stopped the farcical rush to war. Instead, he became the midwife for a weaker Iraq that is no longer a counterweight to Iran — which actually is a nuclear threat — and that seems doomed to be run one day by another brutal strongman.

Yep, did the wrong thing, then did the thing wrong, and all for naught. Countless lives and money and Iran wins and we lose when we didn't have to even go and shouldn't have gone in the first place. And the best part? We will be paying for the failed* neocon wet dream for generations.

You fucked up right along with Bush and Congress, Blair, and all the spin and smoke and mirrors in the world won't change that.

*Actually, the neocons may have succeeded all too well. They always really wanted to make war on Iran. When Iran claims Iraq as its spoils, that might make it easier for them to beat the war drum to retaliate against Iran for undoing all 'our brave troops' and contractors did in Iraq.

Our only defense is to not let the Repugs hijack the country again.

You want to go to war with Iran? Don't vote.

Update:

From MoDo to MoJo. Heh.

In his new book, the former British prime minister asks for a fair hearing on the Iraq war. But he ignores a key meeting where George Bush suggested they con their way to an invasion.

Gotta leave out the inconvenient parts of history that would make him look like the poodle and war criminal he is. It's his own memoir after all.

Out with the old, in with the new

AP/MSNBC

BAGHDAD — Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.

Well, the "end of the combat mission" didn't last very long, did it? Maybe it was the end of the old combat mission and this heralds the start of the new combat mission. Yeesh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

U.S. Combat Troops Leave Iraq While Government Stuck In Factional Gridlock
Iraqi government not doing too well either.

Blackwater Created 30 Shell Companies to Get Big Government Contracts
Millions paid out to Bluewater, Blankwater, Belchwater, Bleepwater and 26 other phony fronts.

Glenn Beck Launches Own News Site
Faces stiff competition from RavingParanoidNews.com, NutcaseNewsNetwork.com and The Wackington Post.

Federal Appeals Court Rules “Ladies Night” Promotions Constitutional
“Free Jell-O Shots for Babes” also passes legal muster.

Labor Day Music Blogging ...



Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Feel Like A Number

Fuck off ...

Why do these fucking southern Jesus freaks have to bring their traveling circuses to NYC?

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Florida televangelist Bill Keller began the first service of his new 9/11 Christian church at ground zero on Sunday.

...

"If they want to go there [the 'Ground Zero' Mosque] and preach the lies of Islam, I can come and preach the truth of the bible," Keller said.

Keller spoke before roughly three dozen supporters, with support of varying degrees.

...


Like the Muslims at the Mosque, this guy has every right to preach and build his own church. Unlike the Muslims at the Mosque, this clown is nothing more than a demagogue.

It gives me faith in my fellow NYers that there are a million people who live within walking distance from this guy's 'church' and only 36 of them showed up.

Fuck off and go home, asshole.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Quote of the Day

Ol' Fez:

...

Ooh, Lindsey Graham too! So not just Herpes, but a nasty case of Chlamydia as well.

Shopping ...

My British buddy Dave calls me a "sloppy dick" because I get all romantic with the Mrs.; I get that way about the dog(s) too. We went shopping today and bought new harnesses, bowls, and a 2-by leash. Did I mention I got two doggie coats from Queen Mary 2 (Like this one.)?

Sloppy dick indeed!

Another Choo-Choo pic. Heh ...

Why Glenn Beck Ought to Be Repeatedly Cock-Punched (National Archives Edition):

Other than just on general principles?

The Rude Pundit

You see that? That's the first page of George Washington's Inaugural Address. It's got eight pages. Fox "news" host and Jim-Jones-without-the-guts Glenn Beck did not hold a single page of it. He didn't even hold the clear box that it's preserved in. Why? Because it's George Washington's Inaugural Address, fucker, and no one gets to touch it because it will fucking fall apart and then America will be destroyed by angry Revolutionary War zombies. Such is its power. The only upside is that they would eat Beck first and we'd at least get to see that on YouTube.

In his new self-serving piece of worm shit website, The Blaze, a Beck ball-washer named Scott Baker writes, in a pretty much incomprehensible article, that he was there with Beck: "Did I 'hold' it? That depends on what the definition of 'hold' is. Perhaps I 'hold' it closer in my heart for having gazed upon it? Perhaps I 'hold' it in greater esteem for having pondered the care and craftsmanship of the author." Umm, Scotty, if you say, "I held my balls," that means you were cupping your sack. If you say, "I held my balls in my heart," that means you spend too much time jerking off. But, oh-ho, oh-ho, how libtarded we are, caring that "words" actually "mean" "things."

However, Beck didn't just mention the holding in passing. The Rude Pundit watched the entire day of Beckturbation. Beck made a big deal about it. He put out his hands, as if they were sanctified by their contact with the holy papers of our past. He used the image to separate himself from the unworthy masses (who couldn't call a member of Congress for a private trip to the Archives). He was transforming himself into an apostle of a white American Christianity. The proximity to the relics made him holy. Is that too far? Is that hyperbole? Then you weren't paying attention.

Beck's followers won't care, you know. They'll just dismiss it as shitting on their parade. Why should a man like Beck be held to the truth? The truth is just so many chains to the earth. The faith shall set you free. And sometimes faith requires a leap over the dissonance of facts.

Sometimes, shit. Always, to the pseudochristers.

Freedom’s Just Another Word*

*From Me and Bobby McGee. The rest of that sentence is the operative part.

Daddy Frank on Obama's tepid speech on Bush's War:

What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose “end” he was marking. [...]
...

Yet most everyone, regardless of age or calling or politics, is at war — not with terrorists, but with depression, with their consciences and with one another.

I hope anyone who supported that criminal war and now realizes how wrong it was never again has a good night's sleep.

Americans are less forgiving. In recent polls, 60 percent of those surveyed thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, 70 percent thought it wasn’t worth American lives, and only a quarter believed it made us safer from terrorism. This sour judgment is entirely reality-based. The war failed in all its stated missions except the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

For this sad record, more than 4,400 Americans and some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate) paid with their lives. Some 32,000 Americans were wounded, and at least two million Iraqis, representing much of the nation’s most valuable human capital, went into exile. The war’s official cost to U.S. taxpayers is now at $750 billion.

That's the official cost. The people in the know who claimed the real cost will be $3 trillion are now saying they low-balled it. I have no cites for this. When it all gets added up in a coupla generations, they probably did.

Bacevich also wrote that “common decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment.” Americans’ common future demands it too. The war’s corrosive effect on the home front is no less egregious than its undermining of our image and national security interests abroad. As the Pentagon rebrands Operation Iraqi Freedom as Operation New Dawn — a “name suggesting a skin cream or dishwashing liquid,” Bacevich aptly writes — the whitewashing of our recent history is well under way. The price will be to keep repeating it.

Don't worry, we will. One of the things this country is not at all good at is taking long hard looks at ourselves. When stuff starts showing through the new coat of whitewash, we just slap on another coat. When that one inevitably fails, we just don't look at it.

And yet here we are, slouching toward yet another 9/11 anniversary, still waiting for a correction, with even our president, an eloquent Iraq war opponent, slipping into denial. Of all the pro forma passages in Obama’s speech, perhaps the most jarring was his entreaty that Iraq’s leaders “move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative and accountable.” He might as well have been talking about the poisonous political deadlock in Washington. At that moment, there was no escaping the tragic fact that instead of bringing American-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, the costly war we fought there has, if anything, brought the bitter taste of Iraq’s dysfunction to America.

Swell. Thanks again, Georgie.

Much more. Pops lets it fly.