Saturday, November 5, 2011

Fuck Godwin's Law

Quote of the Day

Drifty:

...

But as long as enough of the suckers remain brainwashed by Mr. Frum's former employers into believing that their problems are really the result of sinister conspiracies of unions, uppity women, welfare queens and dirty hippies, they will continue to obediently march this country into an assisted national suicide, listening happily to Sean Hannity until the very end.

And that will be the story of us.

My congressman ...

Said the smartest thing he's said in a long time:

...

On a related note, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) argued yesterday, “I think Arizonans should consider impeaching Jan Brewer.”

...

Clean your own house first ...

No need for me to comment:

A former chief of Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, says that ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel pose more of a threat to the Jewish state than Iran. Ephraim Halevy pooh-poohed the threat from Iran, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were said to be rounding up support for a unilateral attack on Iran. Halevy said Iran is “far from posing an existential threat to Israel.”

...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Live in Kings Hall Belfast late 80's


Emmylou Harris ~ Born To Run / Driving Wheel
Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Telling the truth ...

I get how the military works, and your mind and convictions are not your own (believe me). So a general who actually tells the truth, of course, will lose his command, but it's refreshing to hear.

The Koch Brotha ...

Really?

There’s embracing the Koch brothers, and then there’s Herman Cain.

“I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother,” Cain told a crowd at a Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity gathering in Washington Friday.

...


Update:

Really ... again?

Bachmann: The Founding Fathers chose to have the NYSE in NYC rather than DC


The stupid is strong today.

Pain was part of the process

LATimes

Reporting from San Diego — When the recruit staggered out of the Thunderdome pugil-stick arena, he had the early signs of concussion: glassy eyes, confusion, unsteadiness on his feet.

His face had been gashed by a smashing blow from his opponent — another would-be Marine desperate to please drill instructors with a display of unrelenting aggression.

Heh. They say "unrelenting aggression" like they don't understand exactly what it is that Marines do, like it's a bad thing even.

I remember my rifle-butt-and-bayonet training with the pugil stick. Barely. In my first bout I was too slow and got my bell rung like the kid above. I wasn't about to let that happen again. In my next bout, maybe during the same session, maybe not, I took an unauthorized two-handed grip like on a baseball bat and waded in fast and swung for the fence. Smacked my opponent upside the head with all my might and down he went. I didn't want him getting up and coming after me so, with the same grip, I raised that thing up in the air intending to bring it down on his noggin as hard as I could like splitting firewood. I was gonna do him.

I never got the chance, thank you Jesus and two Drill Instructors, one each from his platoon and mine, who grabbed me one to either elbow and lifted me right off the ground and set me down gently (for Drill Instructors) a few feet away with a "good work, Private". I swear they grinned at me, which Drill Instructors generally only do when they're inflicting great discomfort.

They liked my "unrelenting aggression", for that was the whole point of the training.

I got the message this training was meant to impart, other than just plain old knocking your opponent's head off with a simulated 10-pound M-14 before he can do it to you, which was hesitate and die. Get there fustest with the mostest and prevail and live to fight another day.

There are (or were, may not be PC these days) signs all over the Marine Corps that said something like "Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country. We win wars by making the other bastard die for his." Also, particularly in training areas, one that says "Let no man's ghost ever say we failed to do our job".

Aye, aye, sir. Message received and understood. We weren't there to learn how to dance.

In those days, the protective gear was a football helmet. Period. Today the recruits wear all kinds of protective gear we never imagined. "Thunderdome" (two men enter, one man leave) hadn't been invented, but I wouldn't doubt it's the same sand pit we used.

All that said, the article is about the Marine Corps responding more quickly to recruit injuries. I'm glad of that.

Recruit training was and is very physical. Running, calisthenics, obstacle courses, swimming, crawling, lifting things. Did I mention push-ups? Lotsa push-ups. Regular push-ups, knuckle push-ups, knuckle push-ups holding an M-14 which must never touch the ground (those hurt), push-ups with another recruit sitting on your back, push-ups on asphalt, push-ups in sand, push-ups in the chow line, push-ups with yer head in the toilet, push-ups in every clime and place.

There were bone injuries, shinsplints, green stick breaks, the occasional real broken bone. There were dual injuries too, like a black eye on a recruit and a corresponding injured knuckle on a Drill Instructor. There were recruit bruises elsewhere with no damage to the Drill Instructor.

There was almost always a Navy Medical Corpsman, "Doc", present, except when the recruits were getting fist-shaped bruises. Their function was to give first-aid, call for a meat wagon, decide if the recruit was faking it, and hand out APCs (All-Purpose Capsules, fancy name for aspirin) for everything from concussions to traumatic amputation, and tell you to suck it up, you'll be OK. If you were really hurt or sick, you got taken care of. A lot of recruits wouldn't report an injury until they were almost dead because they didn't want to be set back to another platoon.

I'm sure things are safer in recruit training these days and that's good. We just didn't know any better way back when.

Update:

Couldn't resist. The funny part is all the civilians watching.

Recruits conduct pugil stick bouts in front of a circle of educators from Chicago and Minnesota

A new element of school curricula perhaps?

Thanks to MidwestMarines.

Word ...

Blue Girl and Yellow Dog:

For now, GOP primary voters ... don't believe the accusations of sexual harrassment against Herman Cain. But how long will that last? That depends on the race of the women who accused him. If they are African American or Latina, the base won't care -- but let just one of them be white, and he will be history so fast he'll think he woke up late in the afternoon in a sundown town. You read it here first.

Yes ...

Let's just go attack Iran:

Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

...


The Likudniks have been chomping at the bit for a long time and now the nuts here and in the Kingdom are starting to touch themselves at the thought; consequences be damned:

...

Iran's forces may not be up to much but, with the help of Hamas and Hezbollah, they could wreak havoc. British and US troops in Afghanistan would be exposed to even greater danger than they are now – their bases in the Gulf, notably in Qatar and Bahrain, would be easy targets. The Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf, the canal through which more than 50% of the world's oil is shipped, would be closed. What would arise from the ashes?

Some may say that is a price worth paying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The suggestion is that there is a "window" now that would enable Israel on its own to strike Iran's nuclear sites. Next year, the "window" would be left open to the US (and the UK) before Iran's nuclear weapons reached the point of no return.

Such reasoning, if this is what it can be called, is that of the dangerous fool. How crushed and devastated would Iran have to be before it could no longer restart a nuclear programme, even one just involving fissile material as a weapon for terrorists? [my ems]

...


After 10 years of perpetual war, the expense and disaster for our collective economies, the loss of soldiers' and civilian lives in the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, how these people could actually consider an attack on Iran is unconscionable.

If the Israelis want to go, fine. Let them and let them deal with the consequences. We should just sit back and watch.

Great thanks to Da Beas for the links.

Interesting ...

The manliest man in the blogosphere, "an 11 on the manly scale of absolute gender", the General himself, gets an email from the guy who runs Rentboy.com. What's interesting is one line in it:

... Republican political conventions are always very lucrative for escorts and we would not want to risk a good gig.


Hey, the GOP's money is just as green as yours and mine. It's just a shame that, thanks to their political pursuasion, they can't be true to themselves. I pity these self-loathing people. Thanks to the blatant hypocrisy of the party they belong to, they've denied themselves a life of happiness to follow the GOP's twisted ideology.

The Troll speaks ...

And lies:

Yesterday New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg alleged that Occupy Wall Street participants at Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) are chasing criminals out of the park instead of reporting them to police. In reality, Occupy Wall Street has its own well-trained internal security force, but this team does not substitute for the police when it comes to criminal activity that threatens our community or local residents. Occupy Wall Street participants have called upon police on occasions when people with predatory intentions have come into the park and engaged in illegal and destructive behavior, and have in fact turned over criminals to the NYPD.

“Bloomberg lied yesterday when he claimed that a sexual assault suspect was merely kicked out of the park, when in fact OWS security personnel forcibly removed the individual and handed him directly to the NYPD,” said Andrew Smith, a member of OWS’s overnight Community Watch. “The Mayor should get his facts straight before he calls responsible citizens protecting our community ‘despicable.’”

...


Indeed, especially since the NYPD is directing "undesirables" down to Zuccotti Park:

The NYPD has allegedly come up with an ingenious way to sabotage the Occupy Wall Street protest in lower Manhattan: Just send drunks and homeless people down there!

...


Yes, we should help the homeless, for many of us are just a layoff or a medical issue away from losing their homes, but when the city uses them as pawns to discredit peaceful protesters, that's 'despicable'.

The Liberal Manifesto

Excellent post by JP. Read it all:

...

While being on the opposite end of the political spectrum, we will also fight to the death, GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans and other conservative gay rights groups, for your right to be treated fairly and equally, to openly serve in the armed forces without prejudice and recrimination, to love and marry as you see fit. We are not saying you cannot retain your political views, even though we are justifiably baffled by your insistence on artificially attaching yourself to a party that by and large loathes you. At the end of the day, you have to admit you have far more allies on the liberal/progressive side than you do on the conservative side.

We believe in telling the truth and sticking to the facts without resorting to thuggery, dirty tricks and character assassination. Your African Americans are no better than others nor do we say "our" to imply ownership ideological or otherwise. Slavery ended during the Civil War.

We do not champion one religion or another for supremacy. That mindset was studiously avoided by our Founding Fathers when they wrote the Constitution of the United States of America and, once again, the first amendment does not give supremacy to Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindis, Lutherans, Methodists, Unitarians or any other denomination. Freedom of religion was one of the biggest reasons our ancestors came to the New World.

...

Thursday, November 3, 2011

There ya go ...

When a non-violent protest becomes violent, thanks to the idiot who got himself run over by a car and the other idiots who had to break windows and go nuts with spray paint, you get news stories like this.

The minions of the 1%ers are using all their clout to marginalize the protests as it is, they don't need to be given ammunition from our side. Somebody needs to get a hold of the Oakland folks and get them to clean up their own house. Graffiti and vandalism of innocent people's businesses and property can do nothing but hurt us in the PR battle. It also gives the cops an excuse to bust heads preemptively.

Think about it.

Ready! Fire! Aim!

Cain sets off circular GOP firing squad

Music to my ears!

Romney Campaign Memo:

The Koch Brothers Are The ‘Financial Engine Of The Tea Party’

Anybody got a coupla handfuls of sand?

A Letter from Bank of America

[NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) November 2, 2011 – The following letter was sent today by Bank of America to all of its debit card customers:

Dear Valued Customer:

As most of you probably know by now, last month we instituted a $5 monthly fee for all of our debit card users. To say that what followed this decision was a shitstorm would be a massive understatement.

Considering that just three years earlier taxpayers had bailed us out with billions of their hard-earned dollars, it's understandable that Bank of America was compared to a person who, as he is pulled from a burning building, turns and kicks the fireman in the nuts.

That's why we are writing to you today with a simple message: "Our bad." And to tell you that we are refunding the $5 to you, effective immediately. All you have to do is pay a simple, one-time $10 refund fee.

You can receive your refund online, or pick it up at your nearest Bank of America branch, where a teller will hand the money directly to you for a simple, one-time $15 handling fee.

If you do visit your branch, feel free to use any of our services, including our state of the art ballpoint pens and deposit slips. (Prices on request.)

Again, accept our apologies for instituting the debit card fee. We have learned our lesson, and we make this solemn promise: next time we squeeze money from you, we'll do it in a way you won't notice.

Sincerely,

Bank of America]

I cancelled two BofA credit card accounts last week. I hadn't used them in years and they were expired but they tried to charge me for a McAfee anti-virus "subscription" which I no longer wanted. When the gal asked me why I was closing them out, I told her I didn't like BofA. Her reply was "absolutely!".

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

I don't care who you are or whether I support your cause or not. If I were in the same position, I'da run your ass over too. All the asshole had to do was move. The minute he started slamming on the car's hood, he was roadkill in my book.

Update:

And, I see a lot of bloggers making a big deal this guy was driving a Mercedes Benz. So what. I know a lot of people who aren't rich who drive a Benz. A lot of them can barely afford to keep it running but that's the car they have for whatever reason. I'm pretty well off and I drive Fords. What's that say? (Shut up, Chevy guys. Heh ...)

I support ($$$) these protests wholeheartedly. I stand with Scott Olsen and the other vets. But let's pick our "poster children" a little more carefully. If this is supposed to be a non-violent protest, be non-violent. This guy was just an idiot and got what he deserved, let's not glorify him.

Veterans March For Occupy Wall Street

Click to embiggen

Business Insider


Teachers, auto workers, nurses and more have had their chance to show their support for the ideals of the Occupy movement.

Today, veterans had their turn.

There is no perfect way to describe what it looked like, we can only say that their demonstration was serious and somber unlike any other.

This was not a party with music and cheering, their signs were not funny either, this was a true march in protest. After all, these men and women are soldiers.

As they made their way to Zuccotti Park, the feeling was tense. People who watched from their offices did not smile or laugh, they stared and whispered quietly to each other.

And then the veterans took the human microphone. Like their steps, their voices rang in perfect time. The occupiers stood in shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifilence, only opening their mouths to repeat what the soldiers said.

When one Navy veteran addressed Zuccotti Park he put it very simply: "If you continue to assemble in peace and solidarity, justice will come to pass. We are the 99%."

Click here to see the veterans march.

Seems like "Semper Fi" is spreading. Get some, my brothers and sisters in arms!

Headline of the Day

OWS Surrounded Goldman Sachs HQ Chanting "Arrest George Bush" w/ GW Inside

Not gonna happen, of course, but at least he knows how we feel.

38

Today is me'n Mrs. G's 38th wedding anniversary and we have a big bash planned!

First, we're gonna go to RiteAid (read the review. Heh.) and pick out anniversary cards for each other to read and then put 'em back.

Then we're gonna go out to dinner all the way over at Lake Tahoe at our regular Las Panchitas and NOT order off the Early Bird Special menu!

We're really gonna live it up! It's gonna be a tiring day but what the hell!

Off again ...

Gotta take the little red beast for shots this morning. Should be fun; she's a real drama queen when it comes to the vet. Before Dr. Grove even gives her the shot, she's wailing like someone is killing her.

Quote of the Day

Drifty:

...

The only real difference between what Mr. Brooks does and what Rush Limbaugh does is that Our Mr. Brooks works his ass-for-rent/tell-you-any-lie-you-wanna-hear end of the business for high-income-bracket-types and with a courtesan's blush, while Limbaugh grinds out his living giving fast, unromantic ten-dollar political handjobs to white trash.

...

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Saving water ...

Ever since I did the big remodel in the house, I've been in conservation/green mode. Every bulb in the house is either a CFC or LED, even the yard floods. I've insulated to R-49 to save on oil too. Worth every penny when the oil company we've been with for 45 years calls up and asks if we're using someone else because we use less than 100 gallons/quarter.

The thing that was bugging me was the old toilet in the "guest wing" bathroom. It is 50 years old, original to the house, and it's like unleashing Niagara Falls every time someone flushes. When I built the master suite downstairs, I put in a 1/2 gallon/flush unit, but the guest bathroom is the only room I haven't done any work to aside from paint and a new sink. I've been waiting to replace the toilet until I redid the room (next spring or summer), but the waste of water was getting to me.

So today I got after it. I overhauled the old "throne" with a dual flush system from these people, along with a new fill valve. Seriously easy installation and only minor adjustments to calibrate. Took me less than an hour and it works amazingly well. Can't wait for Suffolk Water to call and ask if I've dug a well. Heh ...

Christ ...

Go somewhere else:

...

The debates between President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger will take place Oct. 3 at the University of Denver, Oct. 16 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. The vice presidential debate is set for Oct. 11 at Centre College in Danville, Ky.

...


We got kids trying to learn there. Fuck up somebody else's children.

Happy Palindrome Day!

It's 11022011.

Get the hook...

Pizza Guy on China:

“Yes, they’re a military threat, they’ve indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capabilities, so yes, we have to consider them a military threat,” he said.

China has had nuclear weapons since 1964.

He's really, really trying to get out of the mess he got into by underestimating the stupidity of the GOP base. If he'da said that on F**Noise they'd have just nodded their heads and drooled like they do and popped wood over the thought of nuking 1.3 billion little brown people.

This time he's not playing to them. He's getting serious. He said it on PBS, which they don't watch because it's a buncha godless commies, worse, Liberals, and made himself look the fool in front of folks with brains. He's serious about wanting out.

Someone should tell him he's wasting our time and just get the hell out.

Headline of the Day

Right-wing host: A Romney nomination means ‘the end of the GOP’

Jeez, he says it like it's a bad thing. I may have to become a Willard supporter.

Yeah, yeah, here come the jockstrap jokes...

Seven billion ways to swallow God

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford going on about 7 billion human beings.

Seven billion eager souls later, you'd think we'd have it sort of figured out.
...

"I don't quite know how it happened. One day I was sipping some Maker's and blowing some hot love into this sweet Ocarina app Moloch gifted me, and the next, boom, seven billion ravenous little fleshbombs running around like they own the place. I gotta back off the mushrooms." -God

Why bother? That ship done sailed, Dude. We're about to fuck ourselves out of a place to sit at the dinner table.

I know ...

I get all dry when I talk about the European economy and people's eyes glaze over. Well, I'm still giving you a post about the European economy but all I'm doing is pointing you to a little Q & A with Kevin Drum. Not as dry as me and gets to the point of the problem facing Greece and the Eurozone and, eventually, us. A snippet:

...

Hmmm. Given that choice, they might decide they'd rather give their money to German banks than to Greek civil servants. What happens then?

Greece defaults. And that almost certainly means that Greece exits the euro.

Why?

It's the growth thing again. If Greece defaults, nobody will loan them any money. That means huge cutbacks, which means the economy will tank, which means even more cutbacks, etc. The traditional way out of this spiral is a massive devaluation of your currency. But Greece doesn't have a currency. It has the euro*.

So if they want their economy to grow again, they have to (a) default, (b) exit the euro and re-adopt the drachma, and (c) devalue the drachma. This will cause massive amounts of pain, but it will also make Greek exports super cheap, which will eventually revive their economy.

So why not just let that happen?

It's just too catastrophic to consider. German banks, of course, would collapse and have to be bailed out. Ditto for banks in other countries that have lots of exposure to Greek debt. But that's not the worst of it. If Greece exits the euro, it will become terrifyingly obvious that other weak countries might exit too. Portugal, Spain, and Italy are the obvious candidates. Investors, spooked at the thought of their money being stuck in a country that might exit the euro and devalue all its bank deposits, would start huge runs on banks in those countries. The ECB would have to intervene and provide liquidity without limit. It would be a disaster.

So exiting the euro can't be allowed?

Right.

But if there's no exit, there's no devaluation, and Greece is pretty much screwed forever.

Right.

...


Basically, ain't nobody, here or there, ever thought the good times would end. Surprise!

*And just to add, this is the reason I've been saying all along that the EU will eventually turn out to be a failure and was doomed to be so from the beginning. If you have a single currency being used by 20-odd different countries without strong central control, even the smallest of economies among them can bring the whole house of cards down.

"Patriotic Americans" ...

ATLANTA - Four suspected members of a fringe north Georgia militia group were arrested Tuesday by federal authorities and charged with plotting to buy explosives and trying to make a deadly toxin in a bizarre plot to attack unnamed government officials.

...


Hey, they're old, white, and Christian. They gotta be patriots, right?

...

"I've been to war, and I've taken life before, and I can do it again," [one of the supects] told an undercover investigator, according to the records.

Thomas' wife, Charlotte, called the charges "baloney."

"He spent 30 years in the U.S. Navy. He would not do anything against his country," she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

...


The minute you plan to kill innocent people, be they Americans or anyone else, you are a terrorist, period.

Great thanks to our pal Pam Spaulding on the Facebook.

Listen to me ...

Being most in Western Europe don't much like Muslims, and many states have enacted some seriously anti-Muslim laws, it might behoove you to develop a thicker skin:

The office of Charlie Hebdo, one of France’s leading satirical magazines, has been attacked over its decision to use a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed as its guest editor.

The Paris-based publication was petrol bombed overnight and its offices partially gutted.

...


Now, I'll be the first to admit the French have been complete idiots toward their Muslim community and so have the Swiss, but you can't go blowing shit up because someone makes fun of your religion.

Demonstrate, bitch and moan, but all you're doing by destroying private property is giving the nationalist assholes more ammunition with which to run you off the continent. Get mad at the ridiculous head cover and minaret bans, stuff that takes away your rights. Bombing the French equivalent of Mad Magazine is gonna turn your supporters against you quicker'n shit.

Muslims better grow up and fight the fights worth fighting. Fight for your rights, not over a stupid cartoon or a classless newspaper article.

The only ...

Instances of "voter fraud" are the conservatives trying to defraud the voters. Protect yourself (H/T: MBRU).

Stupid Bobo ...

Another who can take Bobo Brooks down and evicerate him is Charles Pierce. His opening line sets the tone:

I don't think it's too strident to demand at this point that David Brooks be hauled up before a jury consisting of everyone else in America and forced to defend himself against several million counts of being an insufferable twat in a public place ...


Personally, I think, at this point, that Brooks just writes his crap so folks like Mr. Pierce and Driftglass can make a living because his columns remind me of a 15 year old who's just discovered high school scoiology. He lobs these pop psych meatballs up there like a major league pitcher who's lost his stuff and those two, among others, hit it out of the park every time. Continuing the graph:

... In today's episode of Missing the Point So I Don't Miss a Meal, Our Mr. Brooks informs us that he once again has placed us all under close inspection beneath his monocle and discovered that some of us are very angry, not because some thieves in nice suits pillaged the national economy and then held the scraps for ransom. Oh, no, that isn't it at all, and he's got some wholly arbitrary ad hoc sociological categories to prove it.

...

Living here in NY, 40 miles east of New York City, we get bombarded by commercials for The New York Times constantly. One line says that "The Times has the best writers in the world and there's no disputing it". I'll give 'em this, they still have Krugman.

Michael Moore annoys me ...

He comes off like a pissed off little kid and I can't sit through an interview with him, yet I love his films and his message:

...

Moore said Obama’s problem was not liberals like himself, who would still vote for Obama. The problem was that liberals wouldn’t be able to convince others to turn out for the 2012 elections because Obama did not clean up George W. Bush’s mess.

...


He's dead on and I hope Barry gets it. Ain't no Republicans voting for him and as long as he panders to them, he's gonna alienate the people who'll actually consider getting out and pulling the lever under his name. He promised change but that ain't happened. The corporations still run the show and our war criminals still run free. Had he done what he'd promised, there would be no Occupy movement now. I hope he realizes that.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

In case you're wondering...

...why I'm spending so much time back at Facebook, this is one of my friends:

A 'token' of respect

Raw Story

Coulter on black liberals: ‘Our blacks are better than their blacks’

Heh. The beauty of that remark is she has no idea how condescending that sounded. Might as well have said "our blacks are blacker than their blacks".

She doesn't care. She's got her washed-up ass back on TV for the moment. Whee!

Update:

I must admit that the Skankogeist actually got part of a sentence right not long ago when she was trying to get Secaucus Fats to run, and I paraphrase, to wit:

"...then we get Romney and then we lose."

Yes, Liberals Are Totally Responsible for the Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Story

El Rude-o

You know on thing that's really hilarious about conservatives? How they preach the "personal responsibility" dogma and then, when they're caught doing something wrong or fucking up, it's always someone else's fault. Asked something in a debate that makes 'em give an answer that reveals how batshit or stupid they are? It's a "gotcha" question. It's discovered that a leading presidential candidate settled a pair of sexual harassment claims against him? He's now "a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics."

Hey, whatever works...(smiley face)

Now, a liberal could get pretty goddamn upset and sputter, "No..fuck you...After what you did to Bill Clinton? And you're gonna accuse us of anything? Blow a rhino dick, you fuckers."

But screw it. The jig is up. They caught us. Again. You're right, you smart smarty conservatives. This is totally the work of the same liberal cabal that faked Obama's birth certificate and made Larry Craig like to get his cock sucked in men's rooms.

Here's how we did it:

Go. Oh, one more:

Oh, how we thought we had enough layers for plausible deniability, not to mention the obvious alibi that it was either the Romney or Perry campaigns, but Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh were just too damn smart for us.

I think it was Pizza Guy's own campaign that tipped off Politico. He wants outta this so bad without just up and quitting and he's getting desperate. Every time he says something stupid enough that it oughta sink him like the Titanic it just makes him more popular with the Dead End Quarter morons. What's a guy to do?

The DEQ probly thinks, "What's the big deal? They were only women."

Thoughts on Perry's NH speech

If you missed Goodhair's New Hampshire speech, go see it uncut here.

Well, he can no longer be considered uptight and wooden in his delivery. I would say he's loosened up considerably. Heh.

Fucker was higher'n a kite. He was almost, I say again almost likable.

I have no idea what messed his ass up. Mrs. G thinks it was Red Bull and vodka. Whatever it was, it's an improvement.

He's still fulla shit.

Silly Question of the Day

Why is the DOJ Assaulting California's Legalized Medical Marijuana Instead of BP?

'Cuz it's easier to fuck with stoners and sick people than with the Awl Bidness*, that's why. Yeesh.

*Thanks, Molly.

Off ...

To deal with the bureaucracy of New York State. I have to renew Da Chooch's license and clear up some misunderstandings about my dog. Namely asking one question: "Does this look like a Chihuahua to you?"



I'm taking pictures and documentation, the vet's and breeder's phone numbers as well. Hopefully I'll be able to provide enough proof for the bureaucrats. This should take the better part of the day, I'm sure.

Update:

Oy. How it went at the Town of Islip Animal Shelter.

Me: I'd like to renew my dog's license and edit her information.

Nice Lady: Sure, Mr. F, what seems to be the problem?

Me: Seems you guys think one of my dogs is a Chihuahua. She's not. (I hold up the pic above that I printed out.)

Nice Lady: So your other dog is a Chihuahua then?

Me: No. They're sisters. Purebred Australian Cattle Dogs both. (I take out Da Chooch's AKC registration papers)

Nice Lady: So you used to have a Chihuahua?

Me: Never had a Chihuahua, don't want a Chihuahua.

Nice Lady: Well, we can't change the breed of dog on file.

Me: I'd rather not take the chance, should she get lost, that there would be some confusion if you found her. I'd like my Cattle Dog back, not a Chihuahua.

Nice Lady: Well, then we'll have to do a new license application.

Me: That's fine. Gimmie the form.

Nice Lady: I'll have to call over to Town Hall and Albany first to make sure I can do it and cancel the original license.

Me: Fine, say hi to the Governor for me. (She didn't think that was funny.)

After 20 minutes she comes back and gives me the form. I fill it out and hand her my $6.

Nice Lady: Do you have her rabies certification?

Me: No. It's the same one I submitted last year. It's good for 3 years.

Nice Lady: But this is a new license. I need to submit a new certification.

Me: Can't you just rip it off the old file and put it on the new one?

Nice lady: Unfortunately not, all the hard copies get shipped up to Albany.

Me: Would there be any way you could call her vet and have them fax one over? (I slide the paper with the number on it across the desk)

Nice Lady: I guess I can.

She goes to call and I play with the cat that has decided I'm one of her staff. 20 minutes later, she comes back with the fax.

Nice Lady: You're all set, Mr. F. Sorry for the delay but earlier this year, the State of New York decided it would be cheaper for them to give the authority for administering the dog licensing program over to the towns.

Me: Is it?

Nice Lady: Not for us. Expect a property tax increase this year.

Me: Darlin', I expect a property tax increase every year.

So, now Da Chooch is a Cattle Dog again. I'll never get that hour back.

Quote of the Day

Professor Myers:

...

If they really cared about babies, all their energy would be spent correcting that abysmal infant mortality rate. But they don’t. They care about god and public piety, nothing more.

...


Great thanks to Yellow Dog for the link.

Word.

David Atkins:

...

People are only going to get more and more angry until they start to see some justice. Remarkably, though, our elites don't even seem to get the idea that there were even misdeeds that require any accountability. That's a recipe for increased acrimony and conflict. If bipartisan fetishists and various pearl clutchers want more public unity and less fractious political discourse, they should start looking into how to satisfy the public's yearning to see justice done to those who continue profit at their expense.

Really?

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Tuesday on a resolution to affirm the phrase “In God We Trust” as the nation’s official motto, according to Politico.

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), the founder and chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, sponsored the legislation. It would encourage the public display of the motto in all public buildings, public schools and government institutions.

Forbes said he introduced the bill in January because he was troubled by a pattern of omitting God from the nation’s heritage.

...


Who knew this was the most pressing issue facing the nation?

Monday, October 31, 2011

Haiku of the Day

By Madeleine Begun Kane

Who needs Halloween?
I get my share of horror
from Republicans.

Leaving Iraq

Thanks to YubaNet.

Manny and Smokin' Joe

Take a break and go see the latest law enforcement procedures in use in Sierra County, just north of me. It's a far cry from the days when the resident deputy in Sierraville would run out on foot and try and catch motorists who ran the stop sign in front of his house. Heh.

Sierra County now has 2 passive speeder deterrents. The original is "Manny the Mannequin" in a static post position. The sheriff's office tows Manny around a couple of times a year and parks him in spots where we receive the most requests for his presence, to slow speeders down.

He is one of the hardest working deputies in that he never takes a break, never gets complaints nor does he ever complain. He slows speeders down without ever having to write anyone a ticket.

Additionally, the sheriff's office spent about $12,000 on a new "Your Speed Is" flashing radar speed sign on South Lincoln Street (SR-89) in the Town of Sierraville between Willow Street and Beverly Lane.

I like those signs. Lets me check the accuracy of my speedometer.

In the other picture you can see the original sole traffic signal in Sierra County, the flashing red light at the stop intersection of highways 89 and 49 (Main and Lincoln Streets) in Sierraville.

With the flashing radar sign, we now have two actual traffic lights.

The "two actual traffic lights" in Sierra County are only a few hundred yards apart.

Sierraville and its neighboring metropolis of Calpine are where folks move to when the hustle and bustle of Truckee get to be too much for them. Heh.

Update:

Mrs. G has taken to reading the Brain. She just came in and told me she didn't know Sierra Co. was using a dummy in a police car.

I gently reminded her that there are dummies in police cars everywhere. This one's a mannequin.

Bombs, Bridges and Jobs

Paul Krugman

A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe “that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.”

[...] In the same vein, I recently suggested that a fake threat of alien invasion, requiring vast anti-alien spending, might be just the thing to get the economy moving again.

Might work. Repugs do fake threats very, very well.

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

Amen, er, praise the Lord and make more ammunition!

No pull trigger, STFU

From a post by William Rivers Pitt on OWS:

Welcome home, Marine. Thank you for your service to your country, but since you dared to exercise your First Amendment right to peaceable assembly, here's a cracked head for your trouble. And you thought Iraq was dangerous.

Yeah, joke's on you, Jarhead.

Occupy Oakland Update:

Censored News, photos and videos.

San Francisco Sheriff's officers on center front police line, during shooting of Marine Scott Olsen have been verified, by way of an official list of officers. They are San Francisco Sheriff Emergency Services Unit (ESU) officers Scott Bergstresser, Ceciel Yambao and Hugo Aparicio.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- US Marines are gathering evidence to prosecute the officers who shot fellow Marine Scott Olsen, member of Veterans for Peace, at Occupy Oakland on Tuesday night. Scott was standing in front of police to protect the people behind him, when police fired directly at him.
Scott suffered a skull fracture when a police projectile struck him in the head. After Scott was down, and people rushed to help him yelling for medics. Police threw a flash grenade at Scott after he was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth and head.

More. Get some, Leathernecks.

The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism

Chris Hedges

(This is an article by Chris Hedges that no major publication will print.)
...

Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School , told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

All debates with the Christian Right are useless.

The piece was posted yesterday but appears to be several years old. Doesn't matter. It will be true for years to come. Read it.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Karzai Says He'd Back Pakistan in War With U.S.

The punch line doesn't matter. Let's take our troops and money and go home.

Pat Robertson Says GOP Base Becoming Too Extreme
Note: not a typo.

Americans Now Owe More on Student Loans Than on Credit Cards
More research on subject must be done by grad students in hock up to their eyeballs.

Golf Makes Changes to Some Ancient Rules
For one, players will no longer be required to dress like a Florida retiree.

Whew ...

These are the times I love living here on Long Island. While the surrounding area got dumped on this weekend and looks like Gordon's neighborhood, we emerged unscathed. When you're surrounded by 61* water, it's hard to make snow.

Word.



Stolen from our good friend Grandpa Eddie on the Facebook. Click to biggen.

I don't know why ...

Everybody is surprised:

...

Anyway, if you're looking for someone who would actually sell out America, you need look no further than Mitt Romney, who may well be the Republican standard-bearer next year. Like many Republicans, he would allow Israel to dictate U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation:

...


They already do.

Of course ...

If Pizza Man were a Dem, it would be a bug. As a Rethug, it's a feature:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain planned to make several scheduled appearances in Washington on Monday following a report that alleges he was twice accused of sexual harassment while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

...


Blue Texan says:

The Pizza Guy’s down to 13 minutes.


I think it'll give him a boost in the polls, unless the victims were white women.

Attention!

Blind squirrel finds nut.

Heh ...

Heh ...

Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Bowtie of Doom ...

For Mitt Romney anyway. Steve Benen looks at George Will's latest spooge that slams Romney big time. I think the Repbublican establishment has conceded the 2012 race already and they want Romney out of the way so they can start again with a less-crazy field in '16. Presumably they want to lose horribly so the crazies can be marginalized between now and then. Their attempt to put the genie back in the bottle, or unshit the bed, as it were. With the microscopic attention span of the average American, the lunacy of this campaign should be all but forgotten, provided the crazies are chased back to their holes.

If not, why would an establishment guy like Will give the Dems a ready-made campaign quote like this:

...

Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from “data” (although there is precious little to support Romney’s idea that in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants is a powerful magnet for such immigrants) and who believes elections should be about (in Dukakis’s words) “competence,” not “ideology.” But what would President Romney competently do when not pondering ethanol subsidies that he forthrightly says should stop sometime before “forever”? Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?

...


If the establishment wants one of theirs to win, they wouldn't be saying shit like this. If the one establishment guy in the clown car doesn't win the nom, none of the other clowns has a chance of beating Barry (unless they cheat ... big). If Romney does win the nomination, his establishment "friends", like Will, will have already given Barry enough ammo to kill him in the general. I don't think there's another establishment "savior" (non-Mormon, of course) waiting in the wings whom the crazies will accept. I expect to see Bush Son The Slightly Smarter in 4 years. These idiots make Jeb's dimwit brother look like a fucking genius.

Spend ...

7 1/2 minutes of your time this morning listening to a good tune and watching an outstanding video:



Eagles - The Last Resort


As a commenter at the page said:

... Thank you for taking the time to do this! You've truly captured the message of this incredible song - Don would be proud.


Indeed!

Just sayin' ...

Didn't they use this excuse at Nuremberg?