The event is being held on a working farm owned by one of Mrs. G's classmates. There are crops growing about fifty feet from where the grill is. The farm is 100 acres, which is pretty good size for being right in town.
More later if I'm able...
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The leader of the Roman Catholic church concluded a speech, made before the Queen and assembled dignitaries at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, with the argument that the Nazi desire to eradicate God had led to the Holocaust and a plea for 21st-century Britain to respect its Christian foundations.
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IN SCENES of calm bemusement not seen in the lower United States since John Scopes taught innocent schoolchildren evolution, it was reported yesterday that Pastor Terry Jones had given up on his plans to burn 200 Korans and was instead planning to incite atheists by soaking a gross of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion in moonshine and putting a match to them.
Atheists, who hadn't been expected to come out in pick-up trucks with gun racks on their rear windows and circle his church with their engines revving like goaded Rottweilers, didn't.
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The problem is Lewis is right. Most of this country could care less about the issues and would rather vote for someone that is "fun to have a beer" with or would be a good "roll in the hay." It doesn't matter that our previous beer buddy and current old man's wet dream both have a minimal grasp of reality, not one iota of worldliness and zero intellectual curiosity - they were (and are) very entertaining.
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Even among Washington Republicans, John Boehner stands out for his especially deep ties to corporate lobbyists. They've committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign, played at luxury golf resorts alongside him, even thrown waterfront bashes and warehouse parties on his behalf.
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I'm going to come out of my blogging shell to praise President Obama for naming Elizabeth Warren to his team with a mandate to effectively run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Not only did he pick the best person to get the agency running, he's bypassing the mess that is the Senate appointment process. Strike one up for enthusiasm there ...
But how did the United States of America get here? How could the most powerful nation on earth with a sophisticated media that is constitutionally protected from government censorship have stumbled into today’s dreary place filled with such up-is-down commentary?
However, America’s decoupling from reality – and its disappearance into the swamp of unreality – began in earnest with the rise of actor and ad pitchman Ronald Reagan, who crafted a host of get-something-for-nothing policies that appealed to a nation that was struggling to adjust to a more complex world.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Tea Party Primaries - Beyond the Palin | ||||
www.thedailyshow.com | ||||
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Think Progress reports that bringing a "diverse group of voices" that "reflect the cultural, economic, and political landscape" of the U.S. actually means "white, male, senior, and Republican"
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I especially love O'Donnell's bit about how if her husband knows how to pull his pud, he won't need to have sex with her. I'm a chick, okay, so maybe I lack the mystical understanding of The Penis here, but ... is this at all the case? Unless you're yanking yourself sore like a teenager, do you really lose interest in all other forms of sex? Isn't the stereotype of males that they're CONSTANTLY after it and girls have to slow them down? "If he knows how to pleasure himself, what am I there for?" Um, I don't know, what are you there for? Do you really want your husband only fucking you because you're his only option as all else is denied by God? Isn't this how rent boys and airport bathroom liaisons happen?
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The conservative movement* has spent the last 20 months sowing hysteria about President Obama's agenda. The most respectable Republicans call the president a socialist, a radical, a threat to freedom. The less respectable Republicans, many of them highly influential, call him an alien, a sympathizer of radical Islam, a conscious enemy of the United States who is trying to wreck the economy. Obama is a dangerous figure, he cannot be compromised with, and the fight against him is a twilight struggle to save the last vestiges of the Republic.
And so it has been amusing to watch Republicans as they desperately attempted to persuade Republican voters in Delaware to support moderate Mike Castle over Christine O'Donnell. The political logic is obvious: Castle would have been a near shoo-in to win, while O'Donnell is a near shoo-in to lose. [...]
But the Republican base has been taught not to think this way. This isn't just politics, remember? This is a twilight struggle for freedom. And Mike Castle didn't just cast a couple bad votes. He acquiesced in a sinister plan to undermine capitalism. How could they ever support a candidate like that?
Moreover, Republican voters have luxuriated in the belief that they represent the true majority of the American people. Obama may have won by fooling the voters, or possibly by stealing the election with Acorn, but the enduring majority of the public is staunchly conservative. Indeed, Republicans only lost because they strayed from the true faith.
But the conservative base is not in on the joke. And so Republican elites found themselves with just a few frantic days to undo the toxic and intoxicating effects of 20 months of relentless propaganda. Vote for the man who compromised with evil! The true conservative can't always win! They couldn't do it.
I won't say that the Republican base strategy has been a total failure. But it is nice to see it blow up in the face of the establishment from time to time.
With the battle won by the ultra-right in Delaware, the national conservative pundits who backed Christine O'Donnell in last night's GOP Senate primary have turned on a man who is presumably one of their own: Karl "The Architect" Rove. After Rove bemoaned O'Donnell's nomination as the end of the GOP's chances to take back the Senate in a heated interview with Sean Hannity last night, pundits and tea partiers have slammed him as a traitor and even called for Fox News to suspend him as an on-air analyst.
In one five-minute interview, it seems, Rove went from keeper of the conservative cause to the next Jane Hamsher in the eyes of those who are ostensibly his allies. [...]
O’Donnell blasts GOP ‘cannibalism’: Everything Rove says is ‘unfactual’
Hey, GOP, have a blast with Tea Partying non-fucking primary winner Christine O'Donnell, who is basically William Donohue in a skirt (she's one hardcore . It's kind of nice that the Republicans just teabagged themselves out of any chance of winning back the Senate. You've heard about O'Donnell's stance against self-fingering. But there's so very much more.
2. "I'm a young woman in my '30s and I remain chaste." - From MSNBC's Scarborough Country, November 13, 2003. O'Donnell was 34. She is now 41 and unmarried. Because of her strict views on abstinence, she is either a virgin who has never even masturbated or a liar. Or perhaps, last night, after her victory over the man she projected gayness onto, she leaned forward against the center of the lectern where she gave her victory speech. Perhaps in the wood there she could feel, just lightly on her edges of her tightly covered pussy, the vibrations of the sound of applause from the crowd. Perhaps, her body acting without her even realizing it, she moved ever so slightly so that her clitoris was now pushed against the lectern, and, perhaps, the roar of her supporters made it shake just enough to alert her long-dormant desire, her subconscious need, and her clit became engorged with blood, which only heightened her sensitivity. Perhaps this confused O'Donnell's nerve endings, unaccustomed to an application of such delicacy, and perhaps she pushed even more against the lectern, almost as if her labia were drawing her toward the vibrations, the flute-playing swami to her cobra, making her subtly hump it. Perhaps, and only maybe, she felt flush, wondering what this sensation was, that victory combined with adoration was making her feel all a-tingle. Perhaps she came, quietly and just once, climaxing with the end of her speech. Perhaps she wondered what it meant. Perhaps she took it as a sign from God that it's okay to touch herself. Or, more likely, perhaps she wondered who let the devil into the Dover Elks Lodge.
3. For anyone who wonders if O'Donnell can pull out an upset, let's put her numbers in context:
Number of registered voters in Delaware: 621,746
Number of registered Republicans: 182,796 (29%)
Number of votes O'Donnell received: 30,561
By the Rude Pundit's awesome abilities with a calculator, that means she received: 16.7% of registered Republicans.
Number of registered Democrats: 292,738 (47%)
Or, in other words, Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, and the Tea Party can go fuck themselves.
This much we know: America needs its demons. We need our enemies, our menacing and dark-eyed nemesis, that foreign and terrifying thing we do not understand and against which we must rally and wail, push and pule, fight and destroy.
Communists. Arabs. The Japanese. Blacks. Native Americans. Hippies. Gays. "Gooks." Immigrants. Chinamen. The poor. Women. Teenagers. Vegans. Science. What's the problem with this nation? What's really eating at our soul and threatening our honest love of an angry God, apple pie and giant homoerotic firearms? It ain't us. It's them. They're trying to mess with our heads, steal our freedom, impregnate our virgins, poison the water supply. Damn them to hell, and where's my shotgun?
The sentiment has since grown in fits and farts and boozy burps, fanned by Rush Limbaugh's moron Dittoheads, Glenn Beck's gullible simpletons, and of course, the Tea Party, perhaps the first significant political movement entirely dependent on our failing educational system to survive (my em). Truly, the Tea Party might just be the dumbest gaggle of humans ever to rally around a nonsensical, as-yet-unstated worldview no one can quite spell out. Because they have no clue what the hell it is.
Wait, did I say this enemy-invention thing was an American tradition? Far from it. Demonization of the Other as a means to boorish, violent nationalism is universal to nearly all cultures, all nations worldwide. We are, you can say, a planet of self-righteous, petulant tribes, claiming this or that strip of dirt, crying that God chose us as his most favorite, flinging feces at each other like deranged monkeys, signifying nothing. Ain't it grand?
NEW YORK -- Political novice and tea party ally Carl Paladino has beaten the Republican designee in the race for the party's nomination for New York governor.
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And if you're making that much a year you can afford for your taxes on your income over the $250,000 household threshold go up a little. Speaking of which, that's another thing I get tired of while hearing these guys cry about how those tax cuts expiring are going to harm the ones right on the edge so badly. They act like the higher rates are going to affect their entire income. If you made $250,100 for the year after your deductions, the only part of your income that's going to be affected by the higher rate is that last $100, not all of it.
Someone needs to explain the concept of tax brackets to these clowns and the media needs to quit allowing any of them who are confusing the public about just how much more a year anyone that's just above the $200,000 a year individual income of $250,000 a year household income would actually see their taxes rise if the Obama administration's proposals end up being enacted.
Is Newt Gingrich just pretending to have lost his mind, or has he actually gone around the bend?
What in the world is "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior" supposed to mean? That Obama is waging a secret campaign to free us from the yoke of British oppression?
Gingrich seems to believe that our culture and values are also threatened from within -- by black and brown people who demand that they, too, be given a voice in defining that culture and those values. He really needs to get out more. But, hey, it's a free country. If he wants, Gingrich can imagine himself a retired British colonel in 1963, harrumphing in his armchair about who lost Kenya. A diverse and multicultural America has long since moved on.
The Backlash from the Election of Obama and 9/11: The Barbarians are Inside the Gate. Excerpt from Book by Will Bunch on the New Right, Built on a Foundation of Hysteria, Racism and Islamophobia.
“ . . . I have a birth certificate here from the United States of America saying I am an American citizen, with a seal on it . . .” She briefly turns toward the paper, as if to make certain of what she just said, then continues:
“ . . . signed by my doctor and a hospital administrator stating my parents, my date of birth, stating the time, the date. I wanna go back to January twentieth”—the day that Barack Obama became president, the day that changed everything—“and I wanna know why are you people ignoring his birth certificate?!” The mention of the birth certificate gets a big roar and a couple of full-throat-and-belly cheers, and the uproar only grows in volume as the woman in red picks up verbal steam.
“He is not an American citizen!!! He is a citizen of Kenya!” Hands in front of the woman in red now smack together in fervent applause. “I am here because my father fought in World War Two with the Greatest Generation in the Pacific Theater for this country, and I don’t want this flag to change!
“I want my country back!”
But the average anti-Palin/Beck protester was 50 years younger than the average Palin/Beck supporter, so that’s something.
Our correspondent has punctured the defenses and is now inside the stadium:
In the 10 minutes it took for me to go to my car and send the last batch of photos, Beck/Palin (peace be upon them) gave up on their TSA plan and only screened Suspect People. Only white people=no suspects. The hall is full. The stage is nearly barren of decorations, only two old-timey blackboards and an A’merkin flag can be seen.
…. Long line for booze: I’m beginning to understand how Beck’s psycho ramblings take root in the teabag mind.
Anti-AARP group set for launch. First Requirement of Membership Should be That All Supporters Refuse Medicare, Pay Their Own Medical Bills, and That They Return Their Social Security Checks to the Treasury. Fair Enough.
The problem, you see, is that Barack Obama is not the kind of nigger they're used to, so they have to turn him into another kind of nigger. Obama just doesn't conform to what the right sees as the various kinds of American niggers they're used to either manipulating for their purposes or deriding as lazy/arrogant/violent ("uppity" sometimes sticks). And he certainly ain't the wannabes, the power-seeking blacks who align themselves with the right, like Michael Steele, like Clarence Thomas. No, all the attempts to turn Senator-Candidate-Nominee-President Obama into a regular ol' nigger just failed. So they have to turn him into another kind. They have to make him into the exotic nigger, the Hottentot, more attuned to the nature of the savage white-conquering Africans than to that of the Zip Coons and Jim Crows. For many on the far and not-so-far right, Obama is Othello, the black Muslim from faraway dark lands ready to fuck and strangle your white daughters.
Why are the mad rantings of Dinesh D'Souza in any way significant? Because they were supported and echoed by Newt Gingrich this weekend, who said in an interview with the National Review that D'Souza's article offers "stunning insight" into the President. "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior," said the bloated reminder of the decadent overreach of a power-drunk Republican party. This is the man who is the intellectual heart of conservatism in this country.
Isn't this convenient? One no longer has to argue about whether or not Obama was born in Kenya. One only has to say that he's turning the United States into Kenya. Now that's a scary-ass nigger.
So the Republican mantra that only white is right goes on. [...]
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Of course the reason for such tactics is clear. Republicans have nothing on which to run other than hate and lies. Their new plan for America is the same as the old plan: More tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare, less services for the poor and middle classes, and zero regulation of corporate criminals.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!
First Medical Marijuana Ads Air in California
Paid for by Fritos, Chips Ahoy! and M&M's.
Study: Employers Less Likely To Hire Applicants They Associate with Alcohol
So don’t list “drinking” under “hobbies.”
??? - News Quiz - ???
Obama has proposed a corporate tax break exactly like Republicans in Congress have been demanding. Therefore, they will:
A ) vote for it.
B ) vote against it.
C ) pray.
D ) run around in circles, barking like dogs.
Hint: woof, woof.
Remember
Only 363 more shopping days until the next Hatemberfest. Another national day of mourning turned into xenophobe porn.
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Why do we have billions to make neighborhoods in other countries look like this, but we can't replace gas main lines that do this type of damage in our own country?
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The Bebelplatz is known as the site of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremony held in the evening of May 10, 1933 by members of the SA ("brownshirts"), SS, Nazi students and Hitler Youth groups, on the instigation of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The Nazis burned around 20,000 books, including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and many other authors. Today a memorial by Micha Ullman consisting of a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases, commemorates the book burning. Furthermore, a line of Heinrich Heine is engraved, stating "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" (in English: "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people"). Students at Humboldt University hold a book sale in the square every year to mark the anniversary.
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I will say that Newt's little movie does have nostalgic value. There was a time not too long ago when a corporal in the German Army running for Chancellor made a lot of the same type of claims against another religion group - the Jews. We all know how that turned out. I am surprised Newt's wife number three isn't hawking canisters of Zyklon B with Sharron Angel as 2nd amendment remedies during the trailers in the beginning.
Newt isnt' the only potential Presidential nominee leading the charge of Muslim-hate. Teabagger Queen Sarah Palin (who spends as little time as possible with her children, including the special needs child Trig) has chimed in quite steadily on this subject. Only Naschnook of the North has been a lot more subtle about spreading the hate around. She hasn't outwardly called for a crusade against Muslims like Gingrich - she just keeps hinting that this religion is all about anti-Americanism.
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"This Statue of Liberty was gifted to us by foreign leaders, really as a warning to us, it was a warning to us to stay unique and to stay exceptional from other countries. Certainly not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies," Palin said to cheers from the crowd.
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I love their arrangement of this Eric Anderson classic. Those harmonies are so sweet and so is Ginger's lead vocal.
The people of New York deserve a lot of credit for keeping their wits about them on that day. It's too bad the government didn't stay as cool and instead decided to use it as an excuse to bring their neocon wet dream to life.