Saturday, October 2, 2010

What a long strange trip it's been*. And I never left my chair...

Mrs. G is in the other room watching her NASCAR race. I gave up interest in that when they changed the racing into TV wrestling and replaced all the drivers with Ken dolls, so I'm just hangin' out watching music videos.

At some point in time everything went sorta surreal. I hit on a vid about Bonnie Raitt at Frederick's which sounded like a promising way to spend an afternoon...

That led to a nice stage performance by her, which led to my fantasy dream date, which took me to my all-time favorite version of the song below, which led me to performances of the same song by James Taylor, who wrote it, James and Carly Simon, James and Joni Mitchell, two guys pretending to be James and Carly (I am not capable of making that up!), and finally to Sting, who played an instrument with an unpronounceable name because I don't know what it's called, who also did a nice tribute to James.

My all-time favorite version:


Linda Ronstadt, 1974
Thanks to SaintFu.


*Reference is from this.

Saturday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

I See Hawks In L.A. do "California Country" from their CD of the same name.

I was born in L.A. and lived there for 35 years and this song speaks for me. I'm still standin' elsewhere in California country.

Video is CA SR 267 northbound from Martis Peak Rd.

Headline of the Day

White America Has Lost Its Mind

Heh ...

Nucks and his cat have a 'conversation' about Rahm. I don't think Rahm's gonna like what they cooked up.

See yas ...

No wonder Rick Sanchez didn't do his show yesterday (A pleasant surprise to see Brooke Baldwin on instead). I always said he was a big dumbass and a buffoon, but he proved it the other day:

Hypersensitive doofus and CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez had a "moment" on Pete Dominick’s Stand Up! satellite radio show yesterday.

Wait, let me rephrase.

By "moment," I mean he went flying off the rails, performing the clumsiest swan dive EVAR into a mile-deep ravine, screaming anti-Semitic, bigoted, self-righteous “woe is me” bullshit all the way down to the bottom, where he landed with a sickening thud to little or no applause.

...


No great loss, though I wonder which idiot they'll give his show to. They should just leave Baldwin there, she's far more intelligent than Sanchez and I'm sure she could do a better job.

Update:

Athenae:

So apparently Jon Stewart's success is due to his being a member of the Super Seekrit Jewish Cabal of Jewy Jewishness, and not the result of working his ass off in stand-up which wasn't very funny and other shows which weren't very funny and movies which just flat-out hummed balls for like four decades. I mean, he's not Justin Bieber, okay?

...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

From a concert at The Kings Hall Belfast


Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Friday, October 1, 2010

That's a big C-L* there, bucko ...

It's Friday of a tough week and I'm tired. I'm surfing over to our pals' pages for a peek and then I'm going to bed after I walk the varmints once more. I guarantee yas Gord'll have some Emmy Lou up by morning and and I'll have something to say about something too. The monsters also have their first vet appointment with Dr. Grove tomorrow so that should be interesting as well. Let's hope the disruption to the office won't be that bad. See yas tomorrow. Heh ...

*Care Less

Shopping Day

The pups get a spa day and we get breakfast at Q's, then Costco and whatever.

I'll leave ya with this from the LATimes:

The second day of telenovela-style conflict between the billionaire Republican candidate and her former $23-an-hour maid roiled the campaign for governor, as Whitman sought to limit damage by blaming the contretemps on her opponent, Democrat Jerry Brown. But she acknowledged that she had no evidence of his complicity.

$23 an hour? Think I'd look good in one'a them skimpy l'il maid outfits? Oh, hell, it probly doesn't fit anymore...

After Allred called a second news conference for midday Thursday, Whitman called one of her own for mid-morning, at which for 46 minutes she answered questions, repeated her version of events, denied that she had ever mistreated Diaz Santillan and said the woman was being manipulated by Democrats.

Heh. Dems finally learned something about campaign dirty tricks from the Repugs!

Yeah, Meg, it's all the Dems fault that you employed an undocumented maid for nine years and canned her just before you ran for governor and got caught at it by a smart operative and it got used against you. Yeesh.

We're lovin' the shit outta this out here!

See yas later.

Health Care by Jesus ...

You know this is gonna work out so well:

"Who is this Barack Obama who mocks the armies of the living God?" demanded James Lansberry, Christian crusader against government-regulated health care, last summer in the heat of the battle over reform.

Since the health-care reform bill passed last month, Lansberry has become a hot commodity on the conservative talk-radio circuit where he sings the praises of health-care-sharing ministries (HCSMs), Christian nonprofit organizations through which members agree to cover each others? health-care costs. As president of the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries, Lansberry, and his team of lobbyists, had persuaded Senate lawmakers to exempt alliance members from the individual mandate. That exemption, Lansberry said, made those ministries "an island of freedom amidst this terrible piece of reform legislation" and "the last pro-life option for Christians of faith." [my em]

...


As Digby says:

...

Did any of you know about this exemption? I missed it. And it's very, very interesting because it's a loophole that will undoubtedly be very lucrative for the hucksters.


All I ask is when these peoples' health care costs become socialized. You know, if it's not already, it will turn into an outrageous, ponzi-like scam. You know we're gonna have to bail the lemmings gullible fools victims out.

Maybe she can find a new one ...

On Ebay?

California's Republican gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman, is getting hit from all sides today on immigration-- not just because of her flip-flopping on the topic, but because of the shocking allegations being brought forward by her nanny of nine years, Nicky Diaz Santillan.

...


The 'nanny scandal' might hurt her this week but she's a Republican, so next week it'll be okay. And hypocrisy in a Republican isn't a flaw, it's a feature.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Land sharks ...

Two minutes before breakfast.



Ziva and Da Chooch

How 19th Century Prostitutes Were Among the Freest, Wealthiest, Most Educated Women of Their Time

Good piece, you should pardon the expression, at AlterNet (!)

In the nineteenth century, a woman who owned property, made high wages, had sex outside of marriage, performed or received oral sex, used birth control, consorted with men of other races, danced, drank, or walked alone in public, wore makeup, perfume, or stylish clothes -- and was not ashamed -- was probably a whore.

I think the word 'whore' is better applied to politicians and right-wing gasbags than it is to the ladies who practice legal prostitution. Call a hooker a whore in a legal Nevada brothel and count your bullet holes. But I digress...

High-end madams were not the only prostitutes who acquired substantial wealth. A middle-class reformer in Virginia City, Nevada, noted with disdain that local prostitutes were "always dressed the richest." The historians Blackburn and Ricards concluded that while prostitutes in Virginia City were not the richest people in town, they "did amass more wealth than most of their customers. In addition, compared with other women of the city, the white prostitutes were well-to-do. This was because virtually none of the married women and very few unmarried women had any money at all. If the prostitutes came West to compete economically with others of their sex, they were successful."

Today's women attorneys might also find their earliest ancestors among western madams, who regularly appeared in court on their own behalf and won quite frequently. [...]

Ladies, if you should decide to return to the strategy of those halcyon days in order to advance in society, I offer you the secret of success:

Senior citizen discounts.

Yobama, what up?

Digby

What do you suppose they were trying to say here?

...POTUS BE DOWN WID DE FATTY BLUNTS AND MENTHOLS, MOFO CRACK PIPE AND GANGSTA RAP?

Yeah, Miles Davis is a rapper. Yeesh. 'Fatty blunts' are OK. Heh.

Digby again:

Are all black musicians gangster rappers? Or maybe they're talking about Mick Jagger who, after all, learned to dance from Tina Turner who was married to the wife beating Ike, so that's sort of makes him an honorary gangster. And Dylan did that song about Hurricane Carter. So yeah, if you add in the "R&B" (and I think we know what that's code for) Obama's pretty much a Crip. I always suspected it.

There's a whole buncha stuff I'da liked to have learned from Tina Turner. Damn that skinny Limey for beatin' me to it!

IMNSHO there's nothing as lame as a white boy tryin' ta sound 'street' and we all know what that's code for, right?

This anti-Obama racist shit's so far past ridiculous it's ridiculous.

Headline of the Day

For Germany, WWI finally ends on Sunday

How nice for them!

For the rest of us, the horror unleashed by Gavrilo Princip's pistol shots on 28 June 1914 which led in an almost perfectly straight line of westerners' fuckups to today's Middle East situation continues.

Creep U

Breitbart and his spawn O'Keefe.

...

Lying to a reporter in order to lure her onto a boat under false pretenses, then secretly recording her reaction to being confronted in an enclosed, unfamiliar environment by a strange man with handcuffs and sex toys, all while disparaging her as a "bubble-headed-bleach-blonde," is not a "stunt." It is the vicious, misogynist act of a twisted person whose 15 minutes should have expired long ago.


Disgusting pigs. I'd like to see them have to 'pull stunts' for the general population in a federal prison.

Thanks to Fez for the link.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Hitting close to home ...

Being a mechanic, working for somebody else, I got some rules for myself when dealing with customers. I refuse to talk politics, sex, and religion with them. I yell at them all the time for slacking off on their maintenance, or for being whiny, or for just being an idiot, but there are some subjects I just don't broach.

Firstly, getting into an argument with a customer on faith-based, or sex-based, or politically based terms can cost my boss a lot of other customers (in a small town, generally those who think alike hang together). Word of mouth can kill you in this business.

I might be the best mechanic in the world (I am) but it don't matter if some die hard conservatives think I'm a godless infidel, gay loving, baby-killing, commie, pinko, Kenyanophile, anti-colonialist (I am), they're gonna think my boss is too and go somewhere else. I don't care what they say about me, but he has to live and run a business here and if you get on the wrong side of the local 'chattering class' (in this town it's conservative) life can get very difficult. I live 30 miles away; feces hitting fan won't splatter me but I ain't gonna make life hard for my friend.

That said, this clown stands to lose a lot of business from the libs:

...

Everyone knows I live in Southern California and it's supposed to be this liberal haven of the country. I've been rehabbing my nerve damage so I can't move around too freely, but my car hasn't had an oil change in a very long time. There's a Goodyear dealership that did a good job the last time I went there. Plus I can actually walk home from the place while the work's being done. So I went to get the long-awaited service. I was helped by the owner of the place and after we chatted about what I needed, we went inside so he could write up the order as my car was taken inside and put up on a lift.

As we were at his computer, finishing up the input of our transaction, I saw that Fox News was on his TV and I jokingly said, "Oh, you have Fox News on?" He said, "I didn't put it on, but so what? What's wrong with it?" I said, "It's a propaganda network." He asked, "People can tell what the truth is, so who cares even if there is only ten percent of the truth?" I pointed out that for most people, it's hard to know which ten percent is the truth. That was my first mistake. There were a few other customers behind me, but that didn't faze the owner, as he then launched into a profanity-laced tirade against politicians and of course, the cancer of our society, the unions.

...


I realize many parts of California ain't as progressive as Gordon's backyard, but I'm sure if word gets out (and it will), this guy's gonna have an "out of business" sign on the front door real quick.

Beverly Hills Tea Party

This is the silliest one yet. I grew up on the same block that Pat Boone lives on. I was in my early teens when he moved in. I even helped him catch his poodle once when she was in heat. I won't give away his address of course, so let's just say his maid could hit the hotel on the cover of "Hotel California" with a Gucci tennis ball from there and not hurt her throwing arm.

Mr. Boone has always been conservative. He made his fortune as sort of a goody-twoshoes alternate-Elvis who didn't scare uptight white people. White bucks vs. Blue Suede Shoes, so to speak. He earned his money honestly and can do whatever damfool thing he wants to with it, up to and including making a fool of himself. Trust me, us old farts don't give a shit about that!

I think what shoved his old white ass off the fringe right edge was the fact that Ozzy Osbourne lived next door to him before he moved to the house seen on The Osbournes. Heh. I think that would have been fun! Our next door neighbor was a Russian spy. His wife gave me cookies. I could go on and on about People You've Heard Of whose yards and garages I snuck into and played in when I was a kid. I useta swipe Eskimo Pies out of Rory Calhoun's garage fridge, f'rinstance. But I digress...

Then again, maybe it's because Beverly Hills has a high proportion of Jews. And Arabs and 'Persians' that weren't there in the old days.

My folks moved there about the time Will Rogers was the Mayor of Beverly Hills. They were well-to-do, but not filthy rich like you have to be to live there now. Point is, this is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in one of the wealthiest towns in the world. Rich conservatives are just as loony and deluded as less well off ones, and for even less reason.

It's nice to see that Victoria Jackson can still get work now that her looks and mind have gone. I'm very compassionate. Heh.

LATimes

Boone looked young and fit at 76, with his perpetual tan and stay-press hairdo. As I approached the stage, he was singing the song he'd written for the occasion — the first-ever "Beverly Hills Tea Party" rally.

Most of the people in the crowd were middle-aged or older, white and very angry in a Libertarian way about taxes and government spending. Several speakers and attendees said the movement isn't a Republican or Democratic thing; it's about the fact that political leaders are out of touch elitists, and the political process is broken and bankrupt.

Horseshit. Of course it's a Repug thing, but there are dumbass Democrats too, I guess.

Joe Clark complained about how the overtaxing, overreaching government is determined to decide what car we drive, what doctor we see and what foods we eat. He doesn't trust either party, he told me. But his sign left no doubts about his preference.

"Teach A Man to Fish, The Democrats Lose a Vote."

The level of discourse, in other words, was not always clever or scholarly. UCLA's Bruin Republicans had a refreshment stand with a life-size cutout of Ronald Reagan, a curious choice at a small-government shindig, given that spending grew astronomically under Reagan, and the deficit exploded.

"Because it's a piece of ..."

And she looked like such a nice church lady.

I asked, perhaps ill-advisedly, what drew her to the rally.

"I'm an American," she said, foaming. "I'm a patriot. I'm a constitutionalist. I believe in the Founding Fathers."

OK, I think I've got it. And dare I ask what went wrong in the country?

"The progressives," she said, claiming the country had been given over to socialists, communists and fascists.

Welllll, not really...

Another thing I don't understand is how, if our individual liberties have been stolen, it's possible to stand in a public park and in the name of God call the black president of the United States a liar, a racist and a communist.

"I'm a beginner political activist," said former "Saturday Night Live" star Victoria Jackson, who took to the stage with a ukulele and sang "There's a Communist Living in the White House."

I thought either Jackson was satirizing the movement or that she was doing a Porky Pig impression. [...]

Ooooh! Cold shot! Come ta think of it, she does have sort of a porcine look to her since she, er, filled out. Let's hope she can't fly! I get a visual of a portly cross-eyed middle-aged slightly demented and vaguely satanic Sister Bertrille on a weaponized broomstick...

Silliest damn teabagger rally yet, but funnier'n shit to an old homeboy like me.

Anticolonialism 101


Thanks to YubaNet.

And what's wrong with curmudgeonry, youngster?

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford, who's going off on his thoughts about not liking the latest hit band even though he's 'supposed' to.

This is the thing: You gotta double check, as you age, as you move through, as you settle into certain habits and rhythms, that you're not blocking out fresh, invigorating information simply because it doesn't fit with what you're comfortable with, what you're used to, the way you think it's supposed to be.

I find it sort of mandatory, in other words, to defy the onset of the ugly conservative mindset, increasingly inflexible and limited, unable or unwilling to be pleasantly surprised, revitalized, renovated. This way pain lies. This way intolerance lies. This way curmudgeonry and angst, mistrust and Fox News. I have no need to fit in with the skateboard crowd. I have plenty desire to avoid turning myopic and bitter.

I listened to that band on TV for about ten seconds. I agree with Morford on that, but the 'onset of the ugly conservative mindset' etc. is not a given or a danger unless your brain is stuck in the past to begin with.

Change is constant and not all of it is good. Or bad. As long as you seek the truth for yourself and keep learning you'll be all right.

Speaking just for myself, a certain brand of benign curmudgeonry is my goal at this stage of life, and mistrust is a simple defensive tool against people telling me what to think against my own best interests. I'll make my own damn mistakes, not theirs, thank you.

Now, put back the divots and git yer skateboard off my lawn, kid.

Blind faith ...

People ought to know what they're talking about before they run their mouths but then, this is America. Keep 'em brainwashed and stupid.

If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.

Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith."

...


Why do you think the hypocrisy of religion boggles our minds?

...

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

Atheists and agnostics also tend to be relatively well educated, and the survey found, not surprisingly, that the most knowledgeable people were also the best educated. However, it said that atheists and agnostics also outperformed believers who had a similar level of education.

...


Yeah, we care about it. Our nightmares probably contain some sort episode of being marched into church at the point of a gun, or burned at the stake.

You want a what?

Athenae is on the rich blowhards who think some hardworking schmuck who survived long enough to earn a pension, shouldn't:

...

I am about done with comfortably situated loudmouths like this talking smack about the few people in America who've managed to hang on to the pension that used to be considered the due of hardworking men and women. Teachers, bus drivers, janitorial staff, all these people get ridiculed for still belonging to unions that have some power and are willing to fight to keep it. We say, "I don't get a pension, so why should you have one?" instead of, "You get a pension, so why don't I have one?" A pension used to be a middle-class reward for having destroyed your knees on a dock, your eardrums and hands on a factory line, your health in the classroom teaching the feral dingos spawned by your neighbors. It used to be an expectation.

...


But, big rich assholes who run a company into the ground, lay off thousands of employees, those guys get millions in separation bonuses. But heaven forbid they pay any fucking taxes.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

"Just buck up ..."

Susie Madrak had the temerity to call David Axelrod on the "hippie-bashing" by the White House and Dems in general, and now she has something to say about Joe Biden telling us to just buck up:

...

Just buck up.

I'm not sure how we turned out to be the targets, but it looks like we're officially on notice. No more complaining about frivolities!

The people still without jobs? Quit yer whining.

The ones on food stamps? You, too.

Your house is being foreclosed on? What a buncha whiners. Shut yer piehole!

Those of you living in your cars? Be grateful you still have cars!

Sleeping on your friend's couch? Beats a cardboard box, don't it?

You can't afford to see a doctor? You'll be able to do that in 2014. You can't wait just four more years?

And they actually wonder why the base isn't motivated.

...


No shit. I didn't expect Barry to be a flaming lib, but I did expect universal health care and the closing of Guantanamo. I wish there was an (realistic) alternative.

Ho Hum...

Not much to rankle my ass enough today to post on it, so I just worked on a post at Fixer & Gordon. I'll be back in the saddle when there's something to ride about.

Quote of the Day

Our pal UL:

...

The Democrats, in 18 months, went full bedwetting retard at full speed.

Get out ...

And don't let the door hit ya in the ass:

It appears that we are about to hear Rahm Emanuel is about to announce his departure as White House Chief of Smack.

...

"If you have nothing to hide ..."

Digby looks at the "Security State":

...

Essentially what they are saying is that at American airports if the government finds someone's behavior "suspicious" they have a right to detain them and search them for evidence of terrorism. If they don't find evidence of terrorism, but they still find the person "suspicious" they can then call in police, who will look for evidence of non-terrorist related crimes. What constitutes suspicious behavior? Only the "specialist" knows for sure. And if you demand to know why they are calling the police, that constitutes "escalating behavior" which gives them cause for further inquiry.

This is how the creeping police state slowly takes over. They use the excuse of national security to chip away at the constitutional constraints that prevent the government from abusing its authority. The citizens are in a constant state of paranoia, worried that what they know is innocent will "look" guilty and afraid of asserting their rights because the act of asserting them is considered evidence of something to hide. There are thousands and thousands of people in every aspect of American life now granted the authority to do this in the name of anti-terrorism. [my ems]

...


"Yessir, he just looked guilty."

And it's getting worse.

It makes it easy for them to control the masses but what they forget is that one day, the masses will have had enough.

Monday, September 27, 2010

On Motivation Counselling

From a WaPo excerpt of Bob "I did really good 40 years ago" Woodward's new book:

President Obama was on edge.

For two exhausting months, he had been asking military advisers to give him a range of options for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he felt that they were steering him toward one outcome and thwarting his search for an exit plan. He would later tell his White House aides that military leaders were "really cooking this thing in the direction they wanted."

Note to President Obama:

The military Higher Higher is used to giving orders and has forgotten how to take them from the mere civilian scum who are ostensibly in charge. I suggest you gather them together in a suitable setting such as sitting on the ground in a 'school circle' like a lower-than-whale-shit Marine recruit and gently remind them thusly:

"Listen up, maggots. I have called this moment of prayer because you fuckers have forgotten something that is an important part of the basis of the country which you serve. Which. You. SERVE. You best read the Constitution of the United States you have sworn to defend over again, if indeed you have ever read it in the first fuckin' place. Do it now. Whip 'em out, turn to Article 2, Section 2, and we will read the first sentence aloud together. That'll be enough. Any more will tax your little pea brains.

"What? WHAT? You don't have your little red books with you? ASSUME THE FRONT LEANING REST! GIMME TWENTY!"

(Pause about thirty minutes for the brass to realize they've been told for the first time in years to do something they'd better do, a bunch of grunting and groaning while they do it, and the ensuing wheezing to settle to a dull roar)

"Well that was a sorry sight, you old bastards. Thanks to all these news cameras, you'll be able to review your performance later this evening while you're douching your arm muscles with liniment. Pathetic! I can only hope that the actual combat officers could do better, but they're off fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and couldn't be here with us today.

"All right, I'll fucking read it to you. Turn yer goddam hearing aids up. Ready? Here it is:

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States...

"There's more, but fuck it, that pretty much makes my point. There's shit in there about me asking your opinion, but nothing, I say again fucking nothing, about you bastards being in charge of any-fucking-thing.

"In case it hasn't penetrated those thick skulls of yours, I'm in charge of your fucking comfort zone on behalf of the people of the United Fucking States, and your comfort zone does NOT, I say again NOT, extend to telling me what to do or trying to thwart my plans. You might have been able to shove that little weakling Bush around with the help of Rumsfeld and The Dick, but that criminal element is gone and you fuckers best realize it or those goddam stars on your shoulders are gonna hit the ground so fucking fast it'll look like a goddam meteor shower!

"In case it ain't sunk in yet, here it is again - I OWN YOUR FUCKING ASSES, not the other way around, and YOU FUCKERS WILL SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT WHATEVER GODDAM STUPID ASS SHIT YOU WANT unless it relates to the health and safety of the troops. Remember them? We are gonna do what I want from now on, and you bastards WILL do your goddamndest to see that we are successful.

"In other words, if I call on you to give me a fucking exit plan, you will give me a fucking exit plan, and the best one you are capable of. If you balk at this, your next order will be from some E-5 in a combat zone to burn the fucking shitters, and said fucking shitters WILL be burned spotlessly fucking clean and you WILL eat your fucking ice cream ration out of them as a test.

"The American people have paid through the fucking nose to educate you, train you, advance you through the years to put you in your too-goddam-comfortable lofty positions, provided you with staffers and quarters and medical care, in short, every goddamned thing you have today, which DOES NOT include setting policy in any way, shape, or form.

"To conclude this regrettably necessary meeting, from this moment on WE ARE GONNA DO THIS SHIT MY WAY. Fall in behind me like the good soldiers you used to be or put in your papers and go fishing or be a FOXNews analyst or some other useless goddam thing for the rest of your lives on America's generous government dime.

"Your course of action is clear. When I call Attention, you will rise to your feet and say 'Aye Aye Sir!' in unison at the tops of your voices. There are MPs standing by to assist any of you who do not feel like carrying out the first order you have been given in years.

"TEN-HUT!

"What's that? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, GIRLS!

"Better. Police the area and fall into platoon formation from which the Gunny will dismiss you to turn to and carry out your orders. Do not make me have to do this again."

Then, Barry, do a smart about face and walk away. Somewhere in the deep recesses of their military minds those clowns will know you're right and may amaze you with what they can do with the proper motivation.

Addendum:

I made the above shit up, of course, but I'm not far off. Go read this article in Newsweek about the SecDef and what he's up against in the Pentagon. Excerpts:

Gates grumbles about perks and posh quarters—generally defended by senior officers as a reward for decades of stressful family moves every couple of years—but those are not his real targets. The defense secretary’s deeper complaint is about what he calls “brass creep.” Roughly translated, it means having generals do what colonels are perfectly capable of doing. Generals require huge staffs and command structures: three-star generals serving four-stars, two-stars serving three, each tended by squadrons of colonels and majors. This sort of elaborate hierarchy may have been called for in Napoleon’s day, but in an era of instant communication, Gates thinks the military could benefit from a much flatter, leaner management structure.

Gates is also looking to cut the Pentagon’s civilian bureaucracy, which has added a thousand new staff since 9/11. Around the time of the attacks, Rumsfeld reckoned that 17 layers of officialdom lay between him and a line officer. A recent internal study, Gates says, found that “in some cases the gap between me and an action officer may be as high as 30 layers.” (In 1948, when the Cold War began, the secretary of defense had a deputy and a staff of three supervising 50 employees; today, he has 26 political appointees running a staff of 3,000.) The outcome, says Gates, is “a bureaucracy which has the fine motor skills of a dinosaur.”

They should only go the way of the dinosaurs...

These next two ¶ will piss you off:

In the spring of 2007, Gates read a newspaper story about the Marines using mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles known as MRAPs. Gates was impressed to learn that the MRAPs had sustained 300 attacks without a single lost Marine. The secretary of defense inquired, “Why is the Army not doing this?” The response, says Gates, was that the MRAP “wasn’t part of the Army’s program, and if they spent money to get the MRAPs then they might have to sacrifice something else that they were going to get 10 years from now, maybe. And that just made me crazy.” So he intervened: “We had zero MRAP all--terrain vehicles in Afghanistan in January ’09. Now we have over 5,000.”

Gates became unusually exercised when he recalled his efforts to make sure soldiers wounded on the battlefield in Afghanistan were evacuated in what doctors call “the golden hour”—the time when the badly wounded may be saved if they can get to a doctor. “The standard for medical evacuation [from the battlefield] in Iraq was an hour,” says Gates. “Everybody had to be ‘medevaced’ within an hour. But Afghanistan is a lot tougher terrain. And so it came to my attention that they had settled on two hours. And I said: ‘Bulls--t. It’s going to be the same in Afghanistan as in Iraq.’ And the medical guys, the medical bureaucracy, pushed back on me and said: ‘No, no, it really doesn’t matter.’ And I said: ‘Well, if I’m a soldier and I’m going out on patrol, it matters to me.’ And so we sent a bunch of new helicopters, three new field hospitals, a whole bunch of stuff. And so now we have the ‘golden hour’ in Afghanistan.

It looks like he's trying. As a former Non-Commissioned Officer and leader of men (cough), thank you, Secretary Gates.

"What this lying son of a bitch is really saying is..."

From Politics Plus:

Inserted from Think Progress

From a 'comment' I presume. I didn't read all 296 of 'em.

People, what Agent Orange is telling us is that we all need to be good little sheeple and trust Big Brother Boner to take care of us, because we’re not smart enough to handle the solutions. Well I know plenty about Republican solutions. I went through eight years of Republican solutions and I’m still trying to find O rings on sale to repair the damage that Republicans’ tender mercies did to my nether orifice.

What this lying son of a bitch is really saying is that he lacks the courage to tell us what Republican plans are. He does not want to talk about tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for criminal corporations, dismantling the safety net for which we have all paid with our taxes and social security contributions, and cutting back services, except for the rich. America opposes his real plan and rightly so. With all their faults, most Democrats try to represent everyone. Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of criminal corporations and the richest 1%. Your vote matters!

Man, that's the whole deal in a nutshell!

Lemme know if ya find them O-rings. I'm using a wheel bearing oil seal from a four-wheel-drive Dodge truck and the metal part chafes...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Communist China's 90th Anniversary Film Sponsored by Cadillac
“Official limousine of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Larry Summers Going Back to Harvard
Surveying economic wasteland he helped create, prolong, says “My work here is done.”

59% Say Palin Unqualified to Be President
But that wouldn't stop them from voting for her.

It's more disturbing that 41% do think she's qualified.

Forbes 400: Richest Increase Wealth by 8%
Much of it being spent to support extending Bush tax cuts.

Heh ...

My current governor cutting up on SNL:

Sage ...

That would be Barry Goldwater. Yes, Barry Goldwater. Go see D-cap:

...

When Jerry Falwell opposed Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1981, he said "every good Christian should kick Falwell in the nuts." He criticized the military's ban on gays, told the GOP to lay off Clinton. He wanted to legalize medical marijuana. He did not want to be associated with the new right of the Republicans. In 1989, he stated the Republican party had been take over by a :"bunch of kooks." (if he only was alive today!). In 1994 he said to the Washington Post:

When you say "radical right" today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye .


Finally Barry Goldwater said to Bob Dole during the 1996 campaign "we are the new liberals of the Republican Party."

...


The 'staunch conservatives' of my youth would be flaming libs today.

More "Pledge" ...

Our pal Comrade Misfit boils down the Rethug "Spooge on" ... ahem, "Pledge to America":

"We promise to what we said we would do in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, but we never got around to doing in the years that we controlled the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Presidency. But this time you really can trust us. Would we lie to you?"

Just "no" ...

No plan, no new ideas, no sane ideas, just "no":

Republicans have unveiled their 21-page "Pledge to America" but there is one pledge that the next potential House Speaker won't make. When asked several times Sunday, John Boehner refused to say that he would put an end to all earmarks if Republicans take over the House.

...


"Earmarks"; aren't those what John "The Senile" McCain said were putting this country in so much debt?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sunday Evening Crazy Hebrew Redneck Music Blogging

Kinky Friedman - They Aint Makin Jews Like Jesus Anymore - Vicar St - Dublin - Ireland - 2003


Thanks to dublin1996, Ireland.

Equal time ...

Since I put up a pic of the passed-out pup yesterday, I figured I'd give Da Chooch equal time. She's gotten a lot better with the camera.



Da Chooch watching me eat a pretzel

Officially Ready For The Ice Floe

Today is my 65th birthday, so under Repug rule they would save some government spending of my own and your money by launching me out to sea and waving "goodbye sucker".

I am now an official Olde Pharte (Thank you, Lurch), although I've been practicing for this day for years.

Headin' out now to The Auld Dubliner to hear some food and eat some music. Something like that.

Dirt bike venues being what they are, which is dirty, I had to wash the pickup so I could go to my own birthday party. Yeesh. There's no justice in this world.

More on my dirt bike adventure yesterday at Fixer & Gordon. I need to complete the post, but it's up as much as I've done. Actual video of me not screwing up!

Maybe there is justice...

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

This song has a great line in it:

There's a lotta players in this game
And they all wanta dance


Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen do "Just Tell Me Darlin'" from their 1996 album "Bakersfield Bound*". One of my favorite albums. Enjoy.

Video is southbound from Truckee on CA SR 267 through Martis Valley.

*It's real country, without the smoke, big hats and line dancers.

Taliban Dan

Raw Story

Grayson ad compares Florida religious fundamentalists to Taliban

Alan Grayson, the Democratic firebrand from Florida's 8th District, made himself a nationwide household name -- and angered conservatives -- last year with his declaration that the Republican plan for health care amounts to hoping sick people "die quickly."

Now his latest move could prove equally infuriating to his political opponents. In a new election campaign ad, Grayson compares Florida's Christian politicians to the Islamist fundamentalists of the Middle East.

And your point is...? 'Bout time that got said out loud. Elsewhere than just in Florida would be good too.

The article is much longer, but I'll cut to the chase:

The following video was posted to YouTube by the Grayson for Congress campaign team, Sept. 25, 2010.



More videos at graysonforcongress.


I guess one Democrat with stones is better than none.