Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on May 28, 2013
"Icy Blue Heart" [background vocals by Bonnie Raitt] (written by John Hiatt)

From "Bluebird" album [1989]

Thanks to ilikepants711.

Island Style

I'm as sick of wingnuts as ever, but it's same old, same old, every damn day so I've been listening to music instead. Somehow I got caught up in Hawai'ian music today, which I love.

Recorded at the 2005 festival, Jack Johnson and Jackson Browne join John Cruz for his original tune "Island Style"
As featured on the new release Jack Johnson and Friends "Best of Kokua Festival" available now at

http://www.kokuafestival.com/best

Thanks to KokuaHawaiiOfficial.

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods to Costco we must go, so I'll just leave you with this list of contenders for the new Bull Goose Loony of Crazytown after Crazy Eyes leaves Congress. All the usual suspects. Heh. See yas.

Family Concerned After John McCain Wanders Into Syria

America's Finest News Source

“Unfortunately, this has been happening a lot lately; he’ll walk out of the Capitol building, get disoriented, and then we get a call late at night saying that John is in Syria,” McCain’s wife Cindy said upon learning that her 76-year-old husband turned up in the war-torn country after ambling across the Turkey-Syria border and delivering a rambling, incoherent speech to a group of rebels.

More. My sides, they hurt...

5 Reasons We’ll Miss Michele Bachmann

Quit laughing. This is serious shit. Heh.

The Political Garbage Chute

I’m not sure if I let out a “Yee-haw!” or a “Fuck yeah!” or a “Boo yah!” but this morning before I had fully woken up I let out a shout of joy the likes of which I rarely get a chance to, especially when covering politics. Literally the first words I read this morning put me in such a good mood that I think if all my extremities fell off right now, I’d still be gleeful.

Michele Bachmann is leaving the House of Representatives next year!

Bachmann is the Queen of Derp, the High Priestess of Stupidity, and the Czarina of Dumbassery. In her time in Congress her most notable achievements were staring into the wrong camera while delivering the Tea Party rebuttal to one of President Obama’s State of the Union speeches and an Islamaphobic crusade she went on that got her smacked down hard by Senator John McCain on the Senate floor. Oh, and she also voted a ton of times to repeal Obamacare…symbolically.

Sure, she’s the personification of all that we hate about Congressional Republicans, but won’t we miss Michele just a little bit? I think we will, and here are five reasons why.

#4. Marcus’ Wonderful Holiday Cookies

It’s a little-known fact that Marcus Bachmann, Michele’s beard totally heterosexual husband and companion who in no way is hiding his own sexuality so that Michele looked more electable to conservative voters makes amazing cookies. Every year around the holidays, he makes snicker doodles, oatmeal raisin, and sugar cookies with his phone number on them and he hands them out at all the YMCAs in and around D.C. With Michele gone after next year’s election, this will be the last year that Marcus’ “Come, Taste My Cookies” tour will come to town.

Apparently, one of the reasons she's leaving is that now that gay marriage is legal in Minnesota, she feels the need to protect the sanctity of her marriage by staying close to home to keep an eye on Marcus lest he run off with the pool boy. Heh.

Democrat Levels Fox News By Explaining Why Karl Rove Should Be Investigated By IRS

I love this photoshop!


Politicus USA

Fox News had a gotcha moment go wrong, when Sen. Dick Durbin explained why Karl Rove deserves to be investigated by the IRS.
...

Sen. Durbin did a great job laying it out. Karl Rove deserved, and continues to deserve IRS scrutiny because his dark money Crossroads groups are violating the rules for tax exempt organizations. Rove has regularly boasted about how much money Crossroads is spending to defeat Democrats, when tax exempt nonprofits aren’t supposed to be engaging in partisan political activity.

The money shot:

There are two things that Republicans never want to talk about when it comes to the IRS scandal. They try to avoid Citizens United, and fact that these right wing organizations were trying to abuse the system in order to get tax exempt status.

Republicans are working furiously to make the IRS scandal about Obama, because they don’t want America to wake up to the real scandal. The influx of dark money thanks to Citizens United, and the right’s widespread abuse of 501(c)(4)s are the stories that Republicans are trying to hide.

Sen. Durbin didn’t play the Fox News game. Instead of being on the defensive, he laid out the dirty little secret that the right doesn’t want America to know.

Guess what, righties - we know.

My miracle can beat up your miracle

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about how the age of technological miracles constantly leapfrogs itself and has rendered us blasé about it all.

Did you notice? The wow factor of what our consumer tech can do is now so routinely high, so commonplace, we look right past the fact we’re no longer heading toward a truly miraculous tech age; we’re already there.
...

It’s sort of embarrassing. Battles absolutely rage among pale geeks, and even many consumers, over the most inane and miniscule application tics, hang-ups, lack of a certain phenomenal feature in this or that device. It would all be sweet and hilarious, if it wasn’t so frequently hateful and nasty.

It’s like two naïve snobs fighting over the saltiness of the caviar. It’s like arguing over the brand of jet fuel used in the Lear. It’s an embarrassment of riches, with both sides attacking each other over whose enormous pile of gold coins is slightly glitterier on a given day, from a given angle, if you’re wearing the right slouchy hoodie and never have sex.

Sweetheart, can’t you see? It’s a goddamn pile of gold coins. No one cares which one’s slightly better at drunk texting your ex-girlfriend via slurred voice command in the dark. Check that: far too many still care, and modern culture is the worse for it.
...

So it goes for the current state of everyday tech. We’re all driving ridiculous, luxury sports cars now. Even the most basic smart phones can now perform what would be seen as stupefying miracles just a handful of years ago. Any mobile web browser running on any platform can effortlessly reveal the universe. We all have access to everyday tech so advanced, it is indistinguishable from magic.

So smile, biped. Quit fighting about utter nonsense. It’s nearly impossible to make a “bad” choice in the upmarket, high-tech category anymore. You exist in rarefied, first-world air. You are surrounded by magic and wonder. It’s when we stop noticing that fact that the real trouble begins.

It's absolutely impossible for me to make a "bad" choice of these gadgets and gizmos. I don't have any of them other than a computer and don't plan to. I'm surrounded by magic and wonder anyway. It's called "life".

"Without Republicans To Obstruct Him..."

California Governor, Without Republicans To Obstruct Him, Creates Budget Surplus

California has been seen as a basket case with regards to its exploding budget deficits. Interesting enough this was occurring during the administration of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. He attributed the deficits to reduced tax revenues and overspending. He cut programs in draconian fashion but could never escape the reality that he was making the problem worse. Ultimately he did what both Reagan and Bush did, leave exploding deficits to their successors.

California now has a budget surplus. Depending on whose numbers one uses, it is anywhere from $1.2 billion according to the Governor or $4.4 billion according to the Legislature’s independent financial analyst. How did California do it and what should they do about the surplus?

Democrats President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and Governor Jerry Brown did not attempt an ideological game with blinders to the actual results. They tried basic arithmetic. They raised taxes. Interesting enough, the results were the same.

Bill Clinton got a balance budget with a surplus. Barrack Obama is seeing a budget deficit that is shrinking faster than anyone expected. Suffice it to say that the budget deficit hole left by two wars, two massive tax cuts, and a massive drug program on the credit card by the previous administration along with an irresponsible & intransigent Congress cannot be solved in two terms.

Jerry Brown remembered basic arithmetic as well as he brought California to a budget surplus. He raised taxes on the wealthy and cut programs (some more than he should). Does this sound familiar, the balanced approach? Time and time again the evidence is out there that it works and it improves the economy for all.
...

Maybe the reason back in February California companies did not bite on Governor Perry’s “sell Texas” tour is that inasmuch as they may love that the Governor of Texas is willing to pilfer the middle class to bring them to Texas, they know a pilfered middle class does not make the best workforce. California spending its surplus not on tax cuts, or abusive business incentives but instead on human capital in the form of education and improved healthcare is a sustainable long-term solution.

Go Moonbeam!

Memorial Day

My thoughts in particular go to the 4400+ U.S. troops that died in vain in Iraq for nothing but a neocon wet dream and a failed oil grab. Remember. Never again.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

REPUBLICANS FURIOUS OBAMA WANTS TO END WAR ON TERROR
“That was our war,” says one.

Now More Poor People in Suburbs Than in Cities
Fled cities to escape poverty, bought houses they couldn’t afford, went bankrupt, and are now dumpster diving behind suburban supermarkets.

European Study: Human Disaster Looms if Global Temps Rise 4ºC
Fortunately, we use Fahrenheit over here.

Whew!

Brit Builds World's Fastest Fully-Functioning Toilet
Warning: don't tailgate.

Headline of the Day

German brewers demand moratorium on fracking to protect the purity of their beer

Good for them. Won't work here. More contaminants in mass-produced American beer will just make it taste better. Yuck.