"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away..."*

*Apologies to John Lennon.

Sorry about the light blogging yesterday. I experienced a slight meltdown and then had a vision of life in a post-apocalyptic world. Wait, that sounds like straitjacket time - my computer went on the blink. Literally. It had a blinking orange light where the steady green 'on' light oughta be and wouldn't start. Deader'n a fuckin' doornail.

It was just about the same sensation as when your motorcycle flames out twenty miles from your truck out in the middle of the desert. It gets awfully quiet, the world expands exponentially, and you get the sinking feeling that you're all alone out in the middle of it. And you are. Then you get over it and start in on trying to get it running again so you don't have to walk for eight hours to cover the distance you rode in twenty minutes.

I managed to bang out one little post on Mini-Hal while I was figuring out what to do next. With the desktop out, I was starting to feel as if I had ceased to exist as a human being, same feeling folks get when their car breaks and the mechanic can't get it fixed by lunchtime.

I've almost been expecting it. The cooling fan's been running a lot more than usual lately and it was getting louder. We had a computer years ago that wouldn't start when the fan went bad, so that's where I looked first. I peeled the fan out and sure enough, it had a notchy bearing like the steering head bearing on a motorcycle that's been pounded in a straight line too long. I don't know a damn thing about computers, but I knew that wasn't good. Whether that's what's really wrong with Hal is a moot point until I get a new fan in, but it needs replaced so that's where I'm starting.

I was a radio repairman in the service, so I was ready for anything when I opened Hal up. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there aren't any tubes in it! I should have known - the tube tester disappeared from the drugstore some time ago.

I started looking for parts. I called all three of the local computer joints listed in our phone book. Got three voice mails and am still waiting for call backs. Yeesh. Makes me wonder what those guys do for a living. It used to be that you got drugs at independent motorcycle repair shops that were only open at night. Maybe now it's 'puter shops. Heh.

I tried to look for parts online on Mini-Hal, but our ostensibly 3G air card is hampered by the weakest tower in the AT&T system by their own admission, one bar on a good day, like a wireless dial-up, only slower. It takes five or ten minutes for a page to load, you click on wherever it tells you to next, five or ten more minutes, repeat a coupla more times, and eventually get a "page not found" and start over someplace else. Grrrr. It took hours. Finally got a phone number for Dell and got the part on its way from a nice kid in the Phillipines. It's shipped and in a coupla days I'll be able ta try an' figger out what else needs to be done ta get Hal arcin' an' sparkin' again.

Didja ever have one of those "lights on in yer head, dipshit" moments? I sure did. About the time I was feeling all proud of myself for getting the part ordered against all the forces in opposition, Mrs. G came home for lunch. I told her what all had gone on and she came up with one little sentence: "Why din'tja hook the laptop up ta the DSL?"

Doh. Hand. Forehead. Smack. Get up off the floor. Repeat. She does that shit to me all the time. Actually I think I do it to myself.

Installed some software, cleared some space, hooked up a coupla cables, and here I am, all hi-speed like God intended and all's right with the world, in sort of an 'OK Temp' fashion. About my only problem is pulling out the keyboard from under the desk and wondering why it doesn't work. Hand, forehead...

On a good day, that would have been the end of it. Not so fast, white boy.

Came time to schlep down to the post office and pick up the mail. Went into the spare bedroom, where I can smoke, to watch a little news while I put on my pants (the folks at the PO are a buncha soreheads if I don't) and shoes. The TV is about thirty years old and runs on a box from the cable company. The box itself is so old that the cable company quit charging me rent on it years ago. Pointed the clicker at it and - nuttin' honey. Changed batteries, recalibrated it, bupkis. Oh, well...

As a mechanic, I know all too well that things happen in threes. The thought of "Oh shit, what's next?" came to mind as I surveyed my choices of transportation to go for the mail. I pondered which vehicle was a) least likely to break, b) which one did I stand the best chance of fixing by the side of the road using only my rocket scientist mind and roadside debris, and finally c) which one would I be most likely to be able to push a mile uphill to get home. I chose the Royal Enfield even though it failed to meet criterium 'c' by about 300 pounds, which is what I would have used even if all these dark thoughts hadn't been clouding my mind. Since all my troubles had been with electronics, the RE barely has any, and doesn't need them to run as long as the battery isn't dead. There is something to be said for old school simplicity.

Got the mail, got the cheapest remote they had at RiteAid, got the TV working, so far so good. As the fellow who just jumped off the 30th floor said as he went past the 15th.

I guess ya gotta have a day like that once in a while to remind you of how well things go normally, but yesterday was plenty, thank you, Jesus. Pardon me for bending yer eyeballs with it. Later.

More excuses ...

Excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one and they all stink. The Dems have a lot of them when it comes to their level of fail. This one, in particular, chaps my ass (using the nearly-dead as an excuse for not pissing off the Rethugs). The Great Orange Satan via Joe:

Democrats have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate, meaning they should be able to push through the Democratic agenda without interference from an irrelevant Republican minority. Except that it's the Democrats we're talking about, and there's always an excuse why they can't do the right thing.

Now it's that they really only have 58 votes.

You see, Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd are too sick to show up! Both have been wheeled in for key votes in recent months, and one thinks the same could be done for key health care votes, but they have become the newest excuse for Democratic impotence in the Senate.

...

Investment advice ...

From Maru:

Invest in Kleenex futures now!

The sequel to the conservatard masturbatory fantasy Red Dawn starts shooting September 8th.

Umbrellas and rain wear too. The spooge'll be flyin'. Heh ...

Problem?

What's a little forgery between friends?

Update:

Funny, but I don't know if I like the idea of using a member of my family to make the joke.

Update Zwei:

And Badtux has the real deal. Obama's a fucking alien! I'll believe that before I believe he was born in pre-Kenya.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Economy Slightly Less Worse Than Expected
Translation: you can come in off the ledge, but leave the window open.

Attorney General Still Undecided About Prosecuting Bush Officials
May hold them in Guantanamo until he makes up his mind.

Perfect! That's what it's there for. Take yer time, Eric...

New Jersey to More Than Double Solar Power Generation
Once deal finalized with Mafia, rabbis.

Sex Toys for Dogs Debut
Not shown: leg toy.

Maybe ...

People should pay more attention. Digby's right, and its one of my pet peeves; people don't know enough about how our government works or what the issues are really about. It's your country, people. What those weasels in Washington do affects us directly. Why wouldn't someone want to be as informed as possible?

...

Everyone in the place was complaining about the insurance companies and how broken the system was. But they were also convinced that the Democrats are trying to pass socialized medicine. When I asked what they thought that meant, they said, "government takeover of health care." And they were seriously worried about how that was going to affect them.

I don't know where these people are getting this. They aren't political, they don't listen to talk radio or read blogs. This is just what's out in the ether, what people are saying in casual conversation. The ear worm is "we've got a problem, but the Democrats are going to take over health care and make things worse." It's not entirely surprising, but it's depressing nonetheless.

Voter apathy is one of the things that really annoys me, along with being misinformed. In this day and age, with the advent of the intarwebs, there is no excuse for not getting what's going on in the government, be it local, state, or federal.

It seems to me, the people who bitch the loudest don't vote and have no clue of what they're really bitching about. To those who don't vote: Shaddap! To those ignorant of the issues: Go find out before you open your trap!

Now, I can tell from the first sentence if someone watches Fox 'News' or not. Usually I don't waste my time with people who watch Fox. It just ain't worth it because they generally don't want to hear anything. The plain old uninformed are fun to watch as their expression changes when you calmly explain what some piece of legislation means to them. You see the light bulb go on over their heads.

Example:

Customer/Acquaintance/Friend: "Obama's gonna raise taxes to pay for health care."

Me: "Do you make more than $250K/year?"

C/A/F: "Are you kidding?"

Me: "Then you have nothing to worry about."

C/A/F: "No shit?"

Me: "Dude/Dudette, 95% of Americans won't get a tax increase. Only the really rich are gonna pay more and even those making $250K will only pay 1% more."

C/A/F: "That's not bad."

Me: "Indeed. Go now, and spread the word ..."

I'm tired of people pulling stuff out their ass on subjects they know very little to nothing about. I get it a lot in the car business, folks who think they know something about cars lecturing me. Do they realize, when they flap their traps to an expert on the subject, they just come off sounding like a bigger moron? Just because their buddy or some moron on TV says something doesn't make it accurate or true.

Listen, the reason the Chimp and his henchmen got away with so much is that nobody ever questioned anything, nobody doing anything but the most superficial thinking about the threat from Iraq, or how innocent people ended up at Gitmo, or how the government tapped your phones and read your email without warrant - I could go on forever. Yes, our lapdog news media shoulders a lot of blame but if our populace weren't so ignorant, they wouldn't have gotten away with so much.

There are very few people I trust with my future or my money, certainly no one in Washington. While I can't grab them by the balls and win their hearts and minds, I sure as hell keep an eye on what they're doing to protect myself from their fuckups. If you don't know, or don't care, then you can't bitch about what they do to you.

Oy gevult!

So, the Mrs. and I are done cleaning and we're sitting in bed with my laptop, watching the Mets, picking out shore excursions for our Eastern Europe/Scandinavia/20th Anniversary cruise next August (2010). As most of the regulars know, Mrs. F is a Russian/Eastern European Jew. So we're looking at shore excursions in St. Petersburg, Russia and Talinn, Estonia (she has people from both places) and we noticed they have some Jewish history/culture tours. So then we see that you have to be part of one exclusive Jewish group to go on these excursions. Naturally, my whole civil rights/equality/leftist thing kicks in and I ask the Mrs: "What makes this particular flavor of Jews more equal than you? Shouldn't you be allowed to experience your heritage too?"

"Google the name of the group," she said, not knowing what it was.

I did.

Seems we'll be sharing MS Prinsendam with these folks*.

So we both look over their website and I turn to her and say: "I wonder how many of 'em I'm gonna offend?" Gonna be an interesting cruise. Heh ...

*Not that I have a problem with it. Last year, aboard Prinsendam in the Med, we ended up hanging out with a whole buncha Presbyterians. Fun folks and I only pissed off one or two of them. Seriously, the reason we go on these cruises is to meet people from different walks of life to learn from and about them. Cross-posted at Worlds.

Brewskies, Blacks, Bikes

Daddy Frank on the White House Brew-ha-ha (I've been waiting days to say that! I'm over it now...). Links aplenty.

This one ended with a burp. The debate about which brew would best give President Obama Joe Six-Pack cred in his White House beer op with Harvard’s town-and-gown antagonists hit the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Had Obama picked a brand evoking an elitist whiff of John Kerry — Stella Artois, perhaps? — we’d have another week of coverage dissecting his biggest political gaffe since rolling a gutter ball at a Pennsylvania bowling alley.

Q: Why is Bud Light like sex at the beach?

A: Because it's fuckin' near water...

(Rimshot)

It’s also stupid to look at Harvard as a paradigm of anything, race included. If there was a teachable moment in this incident, it could be found in how some powerful white people well beyond Cambridge responded to it. That reaction is merely the latest example of how the inexorable transformation of America into a white-minority country in some 30 years — by 2042 in the latest Census Bureau estimate — is causing serious jitters, if not panic, in some white establishments.

Ground zero for this hysteria is Fox News, [...]

Duh.

What provokes their angry and nonsensical cries of racism is sheer desperation: an entire country is changing faster than these white guys bargained for. [...]

Obama’s election, far from alleviating paranoia in the white fringe, has only compounded it. There is no purer expression of this animus than to claim that Obama is literally not an American — or, as Sarah Palin would have it, not a “real American.” The birth-certificate canard is just the latest version of those campaign-year attempts to strip Obama of his American identity with faux controversies over flag pins, the Pledge of Allegiance and his middle name. Last summer, Cokie Roberts of ABC News even faulted him for taking a vacation in his home state of Hawaii, which she described as a “foreign, exotic place,” in contrast to her proposed choice of Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the real America of Dixie.

Story within a story. Here's how "real America" Myrtle Beach is: they don't like motorcyclists. White or black.

MB has had two separate motorcycle rallies for years. The city council decided to 'cancel' both of them.

“Myrtle Beach is no longer the location for two long-running motorcycle events. After many years, our residents grew weary of three weeks of noise and traffic congestion each May, and they asked City Council to end the events. As a result, the Harley-Davidson Dealers Association Spring Rally and the Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest will not be held in Myrtle Beach,” Rhodes wrote.

To discourage bikers, the city has implemented stricter noise and muffler rules, will be enforcing a helmet law within Myrtle Beach itself, has established rules against large parties in parking lots and has tightened curfews on juveniles. Increased police DUI checkpoints have been mentioned as possible points for sound emission tests as well. All this with the disclaimer that Myrtle Beach is not “anti-biker or anti-motorcycle.”

The Harley-Davidson Dealers Association Spring Rally is brand-specific and mainly for white riders, but everybody is welcome.

The Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest is AKA "Black Bike Week".

I guess that's democratic, after a fashion. Throw the blacks out, ya gotta throw the whites out too to make it look good. After all, they're all just scooter trash.

Not everyone agreed:

[...] “The City of Myrtle Beach has initiated a media campaign designed to deter the good, law abiding motorcycle riders from coming to our area. The information being disseminated by the Grand Strand Chamber of Commerce and City of Myrtle Beach does not accurately portray the views of the people of Horry County. The majority of people and businesses look forward to you visiting and desperately rely on your visiting to make it through the year.”

It states that most of the businesses that cater to bikers are in Horry County, which has not adopted the new ordinances enacted by the city of Myrtle Beach. The Harley dealer will soon have maps of the area and routes to avoid Myrtle Beach up on its site. [...]

Bikes ain't motorhomes. They don't have room for beds, kitchens, refrigerators, etc. What bikes have room for is money and credit cards, and riders spend! And local merchants from Daytona to Sturgis (happening as we speak) love it!

Here's the real America: The bikers, white and black alike, told Myrtle Beach to stuff it. Yo, Myrtle Beachoids, hear that rumblin' in the distance? That's thousands of riders ridin' around yer burg to spend their money somewhere they're appreciated. Hope ya enjoy all the peace and quiet.

Atlantic Beach and the Grand Strand hosted Black Bike Week this year, but the Carolina H-D Dealers moved their run up to New Bern NC (Oh swell. That's just north of Camp Lejeune. You thought bikers were trouble? Now yer gonna get Marines!). Myrtle Beach done screwed the pooch for the whole area on this one, and especially screwed is the local Harley-Davidson dealer. The dealerships love rallies with lots of out-of-towners. They won't be hiring extra temps either.

I've got no idea what the black biker set is gonna do. They're resourceful folks and I'm not gonna worry about 'em. They'll think of something. Ride on, brothers and sisters. For more on black bikers, go see this older post of mine.

Back to Pops:

As Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post and Helene Cooper of The Times have pointed out, a lot of today’s variation on the theme is class-oriented. Some whites habituated to a monopoly on the upper reaches of American power just can’t adjust to the reality that Obama, Sotomayor, Oprah Winfrey and countless others are now at the very pinnacle, and that they might sometimes side with each other just as their white counterparts do. Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer. Call it Village People populism.

Sometimes the most revealing expressions of this resentment emerge in juvenile asides — Bill Kristol (on The Weekly Standard’s blog) ridiculing Gates for writing a flowery travel magazine article about his privileged vacation home of Martha’s Vineyard, or Heather MacDonald (in National Review) mocking Gates as a “limousine liberal” for his supposedly hypocritical admission that he has a “regular car service” and a “regular driver” to fetch him at the airport. Who does Henry Louis Gates Jr. think he is, William F. Buckley Jr.?

The one lesson that everyone took away from the latest “national conversation about race” is the same one we’ve taken away from every other “national conversation” in the past couple of years. America has not transcended race. America is not postracial. So we can all say that again. But it must also be said that we’re just at the start of what may be a 30-year struggle. Beer won’t cool the fury of those who can’t accept the reality that America’s racial profile will no longer reflect their own.

I'm better with down-and-dirty motorcyclists than I am with elites, but Pops does a good job with 'em.

Sunday Spring Cleaning Music Blogging ...

Yes, the Mrs. and I are a little late but now that the construction's done we can really get after the rest of the house. Keeping with that theme, I give you the "Spring" movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons:

Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (Spring) [Summer, Autumn, Winter]

Who needs health care reform?

Jonathan Alter

Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.

I'm glad they don't. I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists.

Go read the rest.

Marines in Afghanistan

These are from i5000s and depict members of Golf Company, 2d Bn., 7th Marines (G/2/7) in Afghanistan. He has quite a few of these.

Marines from 2/7 Golf company find pot fields :) Go Marines!

And then, and of course I have no idea if these videos are in any way related. Heh.

Dancing with Lt. Brewster in Farah, Afghanistan.

Quote of the Day

If this line doesn't get ya to go read this Morford piece on growing pot in state parks, I don't know what will:

Keep your California raisins, babydoll. Great wine, pot, avocadoes, sodomy, artichokes? Now you're talking a new state motto.

Ooooooh! Avocadoes and artichokes!

We can change our state motto from 'Eureka!' to 'Yeah! Freakah!'

About the Christians ...

One of the reasons I basically laugh at Christianity; you know, those who profess so much love for the teachings of Christ? About those Crusades? Yeah, Jesus would have loved that. All the good stuff that went on during the Reformation? Another top-ten on Jesus' hit parade. The Holocaust? Oh yes, the Nazis were ordained by God, don'cha know. And you know what really blows a stiff breeze up JC's skirt? Batocchio via Digby:

...

The disconnect from professed Christians on the torture "debate" is particularly astounding. Given how central the crucifixion story is to Christianity, and that it depicts Jesus tortured and then executed in one of the most cruel methods ever devised, it's mind-boggling to see anyone claim that supporting torture and Christianity are compatible - or that Jesus would support waterboarding. According to Christian doctrine, Jesus' suffering redeemed him and the world - but it's not the Romans who Christians are supposed to emulate in the story! "Turn the other cheek," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "As you have done to the least of my brethren, so have you done unto me" are hardly pro-torture slogans. But in the hearts and minds of movement conservatives, not even Churchill, Saint Ronnie or Jesus himself can compete with the comforting violence of Jack Bauer.

...

Oh, we're so saintly because we "defend the unborn", but once they're spat from the womb they're ours to do with as we please. Jesus loves him a target-rich environment.

I'm sorry. I know, to many of you, your faith in some supreme being gives you comfort and strength. I know there are a lot of people who do follow Jesus' word and are very good folks; quite a few of them in my family. What I don't get, though, is how people square themselves with the hypocrisy of those who purportedly "speak god's word". From the things I've heard and seen over the course of my lifetime from religious leaders, from all I've read of history and the wars and atrocities committed in the name of god, I feel safe to say that Jesus would never recognize these people at his followers and he would vomit if he learned what has been done in his name.

And these people believe they can judge my morality? It's to laugh.

Update:

Our pal Montag has more 'Christian fellowship':

You don't have to worry about torture, the evils of the world or even Jesus Christ Himself. Ray McGovern examines the paradox of Institutional Christianity that does not practice or believe the teachings of Christ.

...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

This one's a favorite of mine.

Sorry for the Out Of Proportion Stretch and Sinc, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris Gold Watch And Chain

Ya sure stretched the heck outta Emmylou, ya ol' dawg! She's liable ta have marks! Heh.

Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt ~ Gold Watch And Chain

Thanks to clydeclark.

Speak Truth To Stupid

Bill Maher

Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything.

For the last couple of weeks, we've all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the "birthers" -- the far-right goofballs who claim Barack Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii and therefore the job of president goes to the runner-up, former Miss California Carrie Prejean.

And there's nothing anyone can do to convince these folks. You could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background ... and they still wouldn't believe it.

Which raises the question: Why, in this country, is it always the religious right that won't take anything on faith?

Because they're stupid, gullible, racists who won't believe anything that goes against what they want to believe, Bill, and if they have an opinion, it's because Rushole, Hannity, or Miss Becky told them what it is.

And once these stories get out there, they're hard to stamp out because our media do such a lousy job of speaking truth to stupid. Vietnam, Iraq and the Spanish-American War were all sold on lies that were unchallenged or even abetted by the media. Clinton got impeached and Kerry got destroyed in large part because the media didn't have the guts to say, "This is nonsense."

Lou Dobbs has been saying recently that people are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate. Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night.

And Lou, you're their new king.

That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the reality-based attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. This isn't a case of Democrats versus Republicans. It's sentient beings versus the lizard people, and it is to them I offer this deal: I'll show you Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.

Aw, Bill, we're screwed!

Firefox hits a billion

LATimes

The much-loved Firefox Web browser reached a milestone this morning -- its billionth download.

The download counter (Wow! Looks like one a' them national debt counters! - G) rolled over within the last hour. Quite a feat for a browser that unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Apple's Safari is run by a nonprofit organization with fewer than 250 employees. Despite its lack of big corporation backing -- or maybe partially because of that lack -- Firefox has become hugely popular worldwide.

But it couldn't have gotten there on good feelings alone. The free browser that debuted in 2004 consistently gets high marks for speed, efficiency, adaptability and user-friendliness.

Fixer turned me on to Firefox years ago. Thanks, F-Man. It's free and it works. Now if I can just get him to get me a new motorcycle the same way...

I like it and recommend it.

Congrats, Foxy.

Re-Clunk

House OKs $2 billion more for 'cash for clunkers'

"The American consumer has taken cash for clunkers on a test drive and . . . they want to continue this program," said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), one of the sponsors of the original legislation.

Lemme see if I got this right - a government program to give taxpayer money back to taxpayers to rope them into buying cars at a discount from the car companies the government bought with our tax money. Hmmmmm...

It's a government spending program and it's popular! Imagine that.

Library Expansion in Posh NY Hood Goes On

School Library Journal

A year after SLJ reported on the contentious dispute over a proposal to add a children’s room to the East Hampton Library in New York, the kids of the posh summer community are no closer to seeing it become a reality.

Library Director Dennis Fabiszak has said that the East Hampton Village Board of Zoning Appeals has expressed concern that an expanded children’s collection would lead to more library usage by those who live in the less affluent areas of Springs and Wainscott.

I've become kind of a fan of the TV show Royal Pains about a concierge doctor out in the Fab Humpingtons. The homes they show are excessive in the extreme. I grew up in Beverly Hills, which would probably be considered a 'less affluent area' out there. Yeesh.

Yeah, God should only forbid the children of the merely affluent, even wealthy, get to read the truly filthy rich people's books and soil the library with their presence. Besides, they might show up barefoot riding water buffaloes or something.

Update:

There was a glaring geographical error at the 'Beverly Hills' wiki link that should have been obvious to anybody who ever lived there, so I edited it. First time I've done that. Damn, it was easy! So easy, in fact, that I went back and added a bunch more shit I thought enquiring minds would want to know. Just a coupla discreet tidbits that I thought were lacking, but what I know about that town pre-1971 would bust it (and Wikipedia!) wide open was I of a mind to!

Ale to the Chief!

Click to embiggen

I couldn't resist. Neither could anyone else. Heh.

HuffPo

Late-night comics found a few things to laugh about in the racially charged arrest of a Harvard professor – once beer was added to the equation.

"Alcohol usually cools things off – have you noticed that?" CBS' David Letterman said on Tuesday night.

Letterman joked that Vice President Joe Biden has already been put to work buying a keg for the meeting.

"They'll come over, one beer will lead to two, two will lead to nine, next thing you know everyone will forget that they were ever mad at each other," he said. "They'll start doing Jaeger shots out of Betsy Ross' thimble. They'll make prank phone calls on the Red Phone. Someone will be like, `Let's TP the Capitol building!'"

Hughley doesn't believe the Gates incident was a case of racial profiling, and thought it wouldn't have escalated if the professor had known one of his neighbors had called the police. He also doesn't think it will be a lasting issue.

"If Al Sharpton ain't marching, then it ain't a big deal," he said.

Colbert noted that police had dropped charges on Gates even though "he committed the perfect crime, robbing his own home. Think about it. He knew exactly when he wouldn't be home."

Comedy Central also flew in Larry Wilmore from California, identified as the show's "senior black correspondent," for the most direct jokes at Gates' expense on late-night TV.

He showed a picture of the stocky professor and asked, "What's his black anthem? We shall overeat?"

Wilmore noted that Gates had said "yo mama" during his confrontation with Crowley.

"How many decades has he been holding that in?" Wilmore said. "Did he call him a jive turkey, too?"

Wilmore did have one thing in common with white comics: He couldn't resist a beer joke.

"Alcohol – that'll end well," he said. "Booze isn't how you resolve a racial conflict. It's how you start one."

Daniel Kurtzman's Political Humor Blog

"Of course, this could be trouble, because the last time Obama got a few beers in him, he bought General Motors." --Conan O'Brien

Bush was so incompetent he couldn'ta thrown a beer bash in a brewery if the snacks were already there. Obama has yet again proved his mental superiority, like he has every single day of his term so far.

On the technical side, Prof Gates apparently got a Sam Adams instead of his preferred Jamaican Red Stripe, the cop had a Blue Moon, which sounds like something I'd do on a cold day, and the Prez had a fine Belgian beer, a Bud Light.

Peanuts and pretzels were served. This bunch was smart enough not to choke on the pretzels.

No word on whether the partygoers climbed up to third floor balcony and had a contest to see who could piss as far as the Rose Garden, or who won.

Just as an aside, I once saw a Marine chew the top off a can of Red Stripe to get at the contents. There were three of us walking along on Vieques and some guys threw us three Red Stripes from a truck. We didn't have a church key (this was a long time ago!) so he did it three times!

I think the Presidential beer party was a very nice bit of symbolism if nothing else.

Update:

El Rude-o chimes in:

As you probably surmised, that's the array of malty, hoppy beverages sucked down by President Barack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge police officer James Crowley at their meeting (the photo is inaccurate, although it's a lovely still life - and do they really make Obama/presidential seal coasters?). And guess who drank the faggy, sweet Blue Moon? Surely the effete President or the effeter Professor. Nope. Obama demonstrated his man o' the people cred with the Bud Light. Gates, honoring America's founders the same way Harvard frat boys do, drank a Sam Adams Light (Nothing 'light' about Gates' beer in the above photo. Darkest one there. Damn racist camera. . .G). (Why was it originally reported he drank a Red Stripe? Because it's from Jamaica, where a lot of black people live? Racist fucking media...) And the Belgian longneck was deep-throated by Sgt. Crowley. With a slice of orange. Biden drank kiddie beer.

No, the problems of race weren't solved at the White House biergarten. But, as they slurped down more and more suds, things got a bit randy, as Skip Gates asked Crowley if he'd like the slave experience just to, you know, understand oppression a bit more. With a knowing smirk, Crowley responded that if Gates had the chains, he had the wrists. "Why don't you two get a room?" Biden exclaimed. Obama rolled his eyes, walked away, having had enough of this bullshit distraction, and told the Secret Service to let the Professor and the Cop have a couple of hours in the Lincoln Bedroom, where Gates could continue the lesson.

Ooooh...

Top half of the world, bottom half of the world, mox nix

The Political Carnival

VIDEO: Sen. Cornyn confuses China, India; calls India security threat

I have to quote John Aravosis:

That's okay, we often confuse Cornyn for a real Senator.

Where do we get these ying-yangs? Do they go into politics when McDonalds doesn't want them?

Query for God: Yer testin' us, right?

Get out already ...

Lyin' sumbitch is still here:

Hey remember a few months ago when Rush Limbaugh said he was moving out of the People's Republic of Manhattan because he was fed up with all the taxes and whatnot? Well, he's yet to leave our fair city!

...

Late for work. See yas ...

Link thanks to Oliver Willis.

Quote of the Day

Tristero:

We are waaaaay beyond Orwell, people.

No shit ...

Did someone actually think the program wouldn't be popular?

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government’s $1 billion “cash for clunkers” program to spur new car sales ran through the money six days after it began, Senator Debbie Stabenow said.

Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, and other lawmakers called for an infusion of taxpayer money to subsidize more new-vehicle purchases in the effort to revive dealerships and automakers while getting older, less fuel-efficient vehicles off the road.

...

For the last 2 weeks, people have been towing, dragging, and pushing cars to the shop for us to get running so they can trade 'em in. Also the fact a lot of dealerships (in this area anyway) are offering to match the government rebate dollar-for-dollar. That comes to around $9000 to put down on a new car. Some places you can walk out with a pretty decent brand new little car for under $10K. Let alone the fact we're getting a buncha shitty old cars off the road. Let alone the fact the auto industry is getting a boost.

No shit the program is popular. I wonder what politicians will do to fuck it up.

Look out, Blue Dogs!

Nucks has been out in the heat and he's one pissed off Mohican:

...

This is NOT a war zone,this is the United States of America and you selfish cock bites are munching on quail wings and caviar and telling 72% of the rest of us to suck it up and pay your cerebraly abscessed donors more than we ever have before.

...

Boy's gonna get yer asses.

"Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption."

Yer ass. I wonder if O'Rally and his fluffers newsbots ever been there?

Vid stolen from Brad.

Stop, yer killin' me ...

David Vitter ... values ... in the same sentence?

"I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values," said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections."

Strayed? More like abandoned. The Rethugs have a corner on the chutzpah market. Oy!

Yo, GOP...

...you worked these whackjobs like a rented mule. They're all yours. Live with it. Serves ya right.

Thanks to YubaNet.

Obama names Medal of Freedom recipients

I made a joke elsewhere today about the Medal Of Freedom. It looks like President Obama may be restoring some honor to it.

LATimes

The White House said today that this year's honorees were "chosen for their work as agents of change. . . . They have blazed trails and broken down barriers."

In naming them, Obama has made a calculated statement -- just as his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, made statements with some of his selections for the Medal of Freedom, some of which stirred controversy.

Among the last honorees of the Bush White House: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, two of Bush's strongest allies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, honored at the White House in January days before Bush handed over the presidency to Obama, who had pledged to end the war in Iraq.

Among those whom Bush honored in November 2007: Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, author of an amendment banning public funding of abortions.

Among the most controversial of Bush's choices: three of the central players in the run-up to the Iraq war and the execution of American policy in post-invasion Baghdad -- former CIA director George Tenet, ambassador and Iraq provisional authority director L. Paul Bremer and Gen. Tommy Franks -- honored in December 2004 as opposition to the war was growing.

Bush was a self-serving political dork.

Go read the list. Only one real clunker IMNSHO. My favorite is:

Joe Medicine Crow -- High Bird

Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief, is the author of seminal works in Native American history and culture. He is the last person alive to have received direct oral testimony from a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn: his grandfather was a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. A veteran of World War II, Medicine Crow accomplished during the war all of the four tasks required to become a "war chief," including stealing 50 Nazi SS horses from a German camp. Medicine Crow was the first member of his tribe to attend college, receiving his master's degree in anthropology in 1939, and continues to lecture at universities and notable institutions like the United Nations. His contributions to the preservation of the culture and history of the First Americans are matched only by his importance as a role model to young Native Americans across the country.

Stealing SS horses! Who but a righteous blanketass woulda thought of doing that when there was so much of greater import going on in the biggest war in history? Good for you, Chief!

A 'role model' for youth indeed! Make sure your pasture gate and your corrals are locked lest yer remuda come up a little short. Heh.

Coffeepot maker vents about doing business in California

LATimes columnist Michael Hiltzik has a pretty good piece on doing business in California:

Wilbur D.Curtis invented the globular glass coffeepot, that staple of coffee counters everywhere, in 1940. Since then his son and grandsons have turned Wilbur Curtis Co. into a manufacturing concern that earns revenue approaching $100 million by turning out commercial coffee brewing equipment from a sprawling factory in Montebello.

But their long history in California doesn't exempt the Curtis family from the costs and hassles that give this state its reputation as one of the hardest places in the country to do business.

There's no point pretending that the state's anti-business reputation is a right-wing rap on the liberal Golden State, or a plot by the Chamber of Commerce to pump the Legislature for special favors, or -- here's the bottom line -- undeserved. It's as real as rush-hour traffic, and anyone concerned about improving the quality of life for all Californians needs to take it into consideration.

That brings us to a fundamental issue: the dysfunctional state government. One reason the state doesn't have enough money to provide essentials like decent education and adequate roads is that it squanders resources on lower-priority items, such as jailing marginal criminal offenders and giving grandchildren of elderly homeowners a property tax break.

When I was a kid, California had a population of 18 million. Now it's 36 million. When I was a kid, California had 6 prisons. Now it has 33. The prison guards union is the most powerful in the state. Locking people up here, as in the rest of the country, is big business. Try closing a prison or letting non-violent inmates out to save money and you'll find out just how powerful these bastards are, as have several governors. It's back on the table, but I don't have much hope that Ah-nold can get anywhere with it.

Mrs. G and her sister inherited a house from their grandmother and the property tax assessment did not change. Mrs. G didn't want the headache and sold her half to her sister's daughter. Mrs. G's sister pays property tax at the old rate, her niece pays about ten times as much on her half at the new rate.

Granny had lived in that house for about 70 years, and it was a nice house in a nice neighborhood and has some local historical value as well, but like a lot of old folks' houses it was in need of a lot of work in order to make it habitable for a tenant. By selling it, Mrs. G slid out of having to pay her half of the $50 grand it took. Besides just a lot of general repair, think about bringing a 1920s house up to modern code. Gulp.

I disagree that 'giving homeowners a property tax break' is in any way a bad thing. Prop 13 saved my ass back in the '70s and continues to do so and is one of the main reasons I can afford to own the house I've lived in for 29 years. Property tax here is based on the latest purchase price, not what it would sell for. If you stay in one place for a long time you get a break. Buy a house in California today, stand by for a ram come tax time, and it's still 1% of the purchase price plus 2% annual increase plus 'special assessments', of which there are more every year and they never go away. I bought a house I could afford. It's not my fault it's gone up in value and there's no good reason I should be penalized for it.

I also think that if a house passes down in a family succession, it's wrong to screw the inheritors.

It's the commercial property end of Prop 13 that needs to be changed, not the residential.

I'm going off on a tangent again, but it's part of my charm. Heh, but speaking of taxes, the largest increase in California income tax came under that famous anti-tax Governor, Ronald Reagan.

Anyway, go read about the coffeepot business in California. The article doesn't go into the environmental regulations that California firms need to deal with under the law, but that's another reason a lot of outfits have left.

I'm glad the coffeepot people are going to stay. I like coffeepots. I am blogging right now courtesy of one of those.

Quote of the Day

From MoDo:

As McCain pal and Republican strategist Mike Murphy so sagely observed recently: “If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, would we even be talking about her today?”

Oy...

Like her or not, Modo's got her claws out for Moosebreath, "Nixon with hair extensions".

Late ...

The Mrs. is in the city office today so I had to kick her out at the train station. In lieu of my usual bullshit, check out our pal D-cap:

For a brainless wonder, I have to give Sarah some credit - she does have one redeeming quality. Like no other female politician, Sarah Palin has the ability to get 70 year old men to release testosterone into their bloodstream from a cobweb covered gland ...

Heh ... Later.

Light blogging techno day

Pardon the light blogging today. I had a project this morning.

I was converting a VHS tape to DVD. It's tricky. You have to be careful about the oxygen:acetylene ratio, where and how you apply the heat and how much, what types of hammers to use, where and how you hit it and how hard, which panel beating form you use, stuff like that.

Seriously, that part was mostly a matter of reading the directions on the VHS/DVD machine. And following them. What a concept!

The tape was a compilation of films about Southern California motorcycle races from 1952-1959, and I've had it since maybe 1985. I hadn't watched it in a long time, so I sat and watched it while it was dubbing. I'm happy to report that the tape hadn't noticeably deteriorated and the subject matter took me back many, many years.

Then I had to write some liner notes for it and make sure they fit in the jewel case.

The whole thing worked so well that Mrs. G wants me to do Man Of Aran next, so I had to dig that out to do tomorrow. I have lots of VHS tapes to do, so it's looking like busy, busy until I run out of blank DVDs, then I can 'forget' to get some more for a while.

I've also been busy lately looking at old slides and compiling a selection out of maybe 600 of them to get put on a DVD at Costco this coming Friday. Now I've gotta get a slide scanner so I can digitize the rest of them into the computer, and whatever it takes to upgrade the computer to burn DVDs.

Then I need to get a DVD copier so it'll be easier to share all this stuff. Sigh. It never stops, but modern consumer home electronics is a wonderful thing and will let me put a lot of memories into an easier viewing and much more transportable format.

Suggestions are welcome.

Naturally, I want to do all this stuff so it'll all be on DVD by the time I need to put it all on Blu-Ray. Timing is everything. Yeesh. At least I got all my Super 8 home movies done last summer.

I gotta stay busy or I'm liable to get old right along with Super 8 and 35mm slides and VHS, which were the home media marvels of their time. I think I'll just shine on the 8-tracks...

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
I may burn out but I'll never rust!

See yas later.

Yer ass ...

Listen to me. There ain't no way I'm gonna stop eating red meat. Not even cut down a bit. Mrs. F is an artist with beef (shaddap, get yer minds out the gutter) and there's no way I'm giving it up, period. I don't care how much cows fart or burp. I'll give up a lot of things for the environment but beef ain't one of 'em.

If it's any consolation, I didn't like writing that sentence any more than you liked reading it. But the evidence is strong. It's not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it's that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.

According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat's contribution to climate change is intuitive. It's more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. "Manure lagoons," for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas -- interestingly, it's mainly burps, not farts -- is a real player.

...

I know, eating a lot of red meat ain't good for you. Neither is smoking. Neither is alcohol. Know what? We only get a finite amount of time on this Earth. I'm gonna live while I can enjoy it. Why in Hell you think I travel so much and go out of my way to enjoy life? It's living. Beats just existing. If it means giving up 15 or 20 years on the back end, so be it.

And the winner is...

BuzzFlash

We have a winner in the BuzzFlash "What Would Bush Have Been if His Last Name Were Smith?" Contest
...

This was a tough one to decide. There were so many fine and humorous entries which you can read at the original contest site. There were long ones about W's fate were his last name Smith; there were short ones.

We'd like to have given out several first prizes that include copies of the great books: "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" and "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free."

But we could only pick one.

So, congratulations to Gordon Moore of Truckee, California who won the books for his answer to "What Would Bush Have Been if His Last Name Were Smith?"

Gordon's BuzzFlash winning response is: "All we'd have ever heard out of him would be 'Want fries with that?'"
...

We highly recommend you read all the entries because there are so many good ones, but Gordon's won on succinct simplicity, but many were in contention.

A throwaway line for a throwaway president. Low humor prevails! Finally. Heh.

Thank you, BuzzFlash.

Change? Not ...

Deacon Blues, I feel, has it pretty spot on when assessing the chances of us getting any real health care reform:

...

The result is that the final bill will contain no public option, no employer mandate, yet will contain an individual mandate. This means that taxpayers will not have the choice between the insurance industry and a government plan, and will be forced to pay the industry for their health care. In other words, by allowing the industry-bought centrists in the Senate to assemble the bill, Barack Obama is about to preside over one of the biggest pieces of corporate welfare in our history.

...

Indeed. I don't feel the public option will become reality either. Another blogger (again I forget who - see Gord's post for explanation) put it correctly when saying, paraphrasing: "The health insurance companies would put themselves in the category, like the big banks, of 'Too Big To Fail'." And they are pointing the TBTF pistol at the temple of the White House.

...

Obama has one other choice before him, but it would take guts that he doesn’t have. If he gets the bad bill, after sending limp signals about his displeasure over its final components, Obama can take a page from the Clinton administration: triangulate against Congress and veto the bill. Tell the American people that a bill that was bought with industry money is more of the same. Tell America that Congress needs to come back and try again next year, and remind voters that Congress is supposed to work for Main Street and not the industries who write the checks.

...

This, of course, won't happen. The White House has done little to take advantage of the majority in both houses of Congress by putting pressure on wayward Democrats, nor has our Senate leader done anything to justify the title of 'leader'.

Ladies and gentlemen, with the evolution of this health care 'reform' bill, I hope any naive misconceptions about whom your elected representatives actually represent have been dispelled. You and I don't matter in the face of Big Business and the amount of campaign cash they can shovel to Congress.

The "Average American" is an abstract construct to them. Something to point to and say "we're doing it for them", and I'm sure some of those in Congress believe it. But we're really something like the photo of happy people that comes with a new picture frame, generic humans. There is no empathy, no feeling, for those in the frame aren't their own family, merely a representation of what actually is. There are people starving and homeless thanks to health issues that have put them over the top, but the starving and homeless don't contribute to a candidate's reelection fund. More Americans will be joining their ranks if the situation remains.

The debate has turned into a joke. There is no debate anymore, just 500-odd idiots running around hoping they will come up with a new way to repackage the status quo into something we can swallow, something that won't have us marching on Washington while still protecting the profits of Big Insurance. We'll be lucky (those of us who have health insurance) to keep what we have once all the dust settles. A big 'fuck you' is about all those who were expecting (thanks to Mr. Obama's rhetoric on the campaign trail) anything resembling the system the Europeans and Canadians enjoy will get.

As with Wall St., you and I will be expected to shoulder the burden of loss yet never benefit from the profits. After all the flowery bullshit we heard during the longest campaign in presidential history, it amounts to just that. Bullshit. I'm seriously disappointed in Mr. Obama, though the actions of Congress are no surprise. I told Mrs. F last night, if a public option isn't part of the bill Obama finally signs, I won't vote for him in '12. I won't vote Republican, but I won't vote for a Democrat who, with a majority in Congress and a mandate from the American people, would leave 50 million Americans out in the cold. Supposedly, the Democrats are better than that.

Big pot year in CA state parks

Fixer stocks up a whole week's worth

Click to embiggen

EssEffChron

Legalization is not the solution, Johnson said, given that most of the pot is being grown illegally on public parkland by foreign citizens who cannot be taxed.

Bullshit. That's a cop talkin' like a cop, which is out the side of his neck.

Legalize weed and there'll be no need of these cartels to provide it and they'll go away.

Bill Kristol admits govt.-run health care can be better than private

We all know that Bill Kristol is a warmongering neocon anti-Obama wrong-all-the-time asshole. I almost turned The Daily Show off last night when he came on, but I didn't and I'm glad.

Watch Jon Stewart play Kristol with light line and set the hook and trap him on health care in this. Kristol also volunteers to get Sarah Palin to "do" Jon. Heh.

See it in print here.

That’s when Stewart struck.

“Bill Kristol just said … that the government can run a first-class health care system and a government-run health care system is better than the private health care system.”

“You trapped me somehow,” a visibly uncomfortable Kristol responded.

Yeah, he let you talk.

Also, it's pretty obvious Kristol has no experience whatsoever with military health care. There's a big difference between what they have to do after a grunt gets his leg blown off and day-to-day health care, and how they look at PTSD and TBI.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Kristol Extended Interview
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Careful!

You know Sarah Palin won't go quietly. She might even end up being the American Joan of Arc:

...

This is why we dismiss the former governor of Alaska at our peril. She does a good job of hiding her militia/Jeebofascist leanings, but when you put together her looneytunes church, her love of guns, and her affiliation with the Alaska Independent Party, and throw in a soupçon of Republican Male Lust, and mix it with Americans' economic fatigue, anything can happen.

...

After 8 years of Bush/Cheney, I don't think anything can be ruled out anymore. Just because something is stupid, bordering on insane, doesn't mean Americans won't embrace it wholeheartedly.

A word of advice ...

This post stays on top today - G

To any cop who thinks like this:

... At that moment I can assure you the officer is not all that concerned with trying not to offend you. He is instead concerned with protecting his mortal hide from having holes placed in it where God did not intend. And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own.

...

The last guy who threatened to shoot me (he thought I was sleeping with his girl - I wasn't) got his .357 taken away from him and was pistol whipped into unconsciousness with it.

Respect is a two way street. I cooperate with police and I am respectful. I do expect to know why I'm being detained and what cause the officer has to do so. Start waving your cock at me and we'll have problems. There are a lot of guys out there who've seen and done more than a precinct full of cops and aren't scared of a gun, badge, or the funny paint job on the car. Save your penis-waving for the nurses in the ER you're trying to screw.

When cops and district attorneys begin to apply justice in pursuit of the truth, not just to make a conviction, is when I'll begin to cut them some slack but as things stand now, I refuse to let myself be abused by a police officer because he didn't get laid last night or got passed over for promotion or he's scared to death I might be an armed felon and he ain't taking no chances.

This is still the United States of America, not a war zone, and the majority of people are non-violent, law-abiding citizens. There is no reason for cops to act as if they are Marines routing the Taliban in Helmand, Afghanistan. Yes, there are violent criminals on the loose, but that's why the cops (especially around here) are paid so well (or should be if they're not); to put their lives at risk to apprehend those people. Acting like everybody not wearing a uniform is the enemy is unacceptable; the reason they give cops community relations courses. It's time the cops listened to and applied what they learned there instead of leaving it in the classroom. Did the fact they jacked up a brother trying to get into his own house surprise anyone? I'm very surprised they didn't beat the crap out of him first before dragging him downtown.

Since 9/11, and during the Bush years, the police were emboldened to "keep America safe" by any means necessary. With all the Homeland Security money local police departments received, most of them outfitted themselves to near-military standards and many act as if they're on patrol in Iraq and the law is a pacifier for the naive. It doesn't help the fact many cops joined their respective police forces just for the power trip. As I've said many times, many joined for the wrong reasons and those who would make the best police officers don't want the job.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good cops out there and I've met quite a few but, as with everything else, the bad ones tarnish the acts of the good. It's time for police departments to realize they'll get respect from the citizenry when they begin to show some. When you have guys running around thinking they're Navy SEALs or Imperial Stormtroopers, there will continue to be problems. When you treat everyone who isn't white with suspicion, you will not get cooperation solving crimes in ethnic neighborhoods. Demanding respect while showing none will get you less.

Headline of the Day

Greenwald:

Bill Kristol condemns lying for political ends: Seriously

Stop, yer killin' me ...

...

Certainly, we are concerned about job stability. But veteran journalists are equally troubled by the online threat to standards we hold dear.

...

If you idiots had any standards anymore, me and Gord wouldn'ta spent the last 5 years of our fucking lives bitching to high heaven on this fucking blog about all the abuses that have gone on because you motherfucking whore bastids abdicated your jobs. Fuck you all.

Link thanks to Mr. Supertrain.

Holder and Conyers Call and Respond

AfterDowningStreet

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation into the misdeeds of former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney.

Holder, in turn, has now called on Conyers to open impeachment proceedings against former head of the Office of Legal Council Jay Bybee, now a judge in the Ninth Circuit.

Conyers, in response, has demanded that Holder open a complete investigation of 14 different areas of criminal enterprise and appoint an independent counsel, offering a list of eight possible candidates.

Holder, in reply, has insisted that Conyers reissue all of the subpoenas his committee has failed to enforce over the past two and a half years and use the Capitol Police to enforce them at once.

In response, Conyers' office has issued a new report on the need to weed out corruption and undo politically motivated prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jeebus, sounds like an old-fashioned 'call and response' tune!*

Maybe we're getting somewhere. Let's hope. Please read the rest.

*Example (to fiddle and banjo music). Caution - under no circumstances should you get a visual of Holder and Conyers. Heh.:

Call (male): "All I wanted was a piece 'a ass..."

Response (female with a gun): "Go all night or it'll be yer last..."

While You Were Out

Will Durst. Funny! Or sad, but probably cubicle typical.

Besides needing a vacation from your vacation, the worst part of returning to work after a traditional summer holiday, is the realization that you're going to need a minimum of two days for every day gone just to get back into the swim of things. And the mound of memos piled on your desk is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here's just a few.

Monday. 3 pm. I have been informed that the layoff wheel has been set up in the lunch room. All employees will spin it once a week. Mitchell in NY.

Tuesday. Some ridiculous single digit hour in the am. Your suggestion about cutting executive bonuses was forwarded to New York. Smoooth move. Ali.

Thursday morning. Some idiot visited an Albanian porn site and now there's a virus eating all the hard drives. You might want to reboot your computers. Now. Mister Roberson, VP of HR. By the way, whoever is shredding the layoff wheel every night, cut it out. It won't help.

Friday. 9:14 am. The guys in Creative want to know if Mt. Rushmore is a natural formation. No, I'm not kidding. Oh sure, they have jobs. Mrs. Scott.

Friday afternoon. I have been informed that on Monday, we will be measuring inseams for the smaller cubicles. Mr. Roberson. VP of HR.

Heh. I've had one job in my whole life where I sat down to work. I got canned from it the day I returned from the only paid vacation I've ever had.

Big Pharma Party Poopers

AlterNet. Go read.

Drug researchers are trying to replicate marijuana's therapeutic effects, but without the "side effect" of getting people high.

"Side effect" my ass. Yeesh. These clowns want to take ten years to make over and worsen something that has been proven for thousands of years, all so that can make money from it without pissin' off the Puritans and the liquor industry (go see this). It's OK if it helps you, as long as you don't have any fun.

It's no wonder they've been fighting ganja legalization tooth and nail and will continue to do so. There's no money for them in a remedy you can grow at home that's good for you and fun to take.

A short poem, a couplet perhaps, just popped into my head:

If yer eyes ain't red
Yer off yer meds...

Contest

BuzzFlash

For 8 years, BuzzFlash and many other sites reminded people that Bush wouldn't have gotten any of his jobs -- including President -- if his last name were Smith. The guy was as good as a curse when it came to business, except for the Texas Rangers where he was given a fortune by his Daddy's friends to essentially be a greeter -- which you got to admit he is good at.

So, BuzzFlash will give a prize to what our staff judges as the best comment (post below) that answers the question: "What would George W. Bush have done for a job if his last name had been Smith and he were born to a poor family?

The winner will receive a free copy of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" and "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free."

Contest closes at midnight on July 20th.

I know who the winner is, but modesty prevents me from telling you who won until BF announces the winner tomorrow or Wednesday. Ahem...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Good News: More Jobs Saved
Bad news: they're all at Guantanamo.

Cheney's Secret Service Protection Extended
We'll all be protected from Cheney for another six months.

Swell. Where were they when we needed them?

California Budget Agreement Balances Competing Interests
Keeps tax breaks for idle rich, drops safety net for unemployed single moms.

Pat Buchanan: “White Men Built This Country”
By slaughtering red men, enslaving black men.

New iPhone App Locates Nearest Medical Marijuana Dispensary
Along with nearest 7-Eleven.

And in the "Huh?" Dept.:

Bra for Men Gaining Popularity in Japan
But athletic supporters for women a flop.

Corned Beef Sopranos

BuzzFlash

A Quick Look At The New Jersey Corruption Scandal
-- Verse-Case Scenario by Tony Peyser

If you want to cut this
All down to size, guys,
Syrian Sephardic Jews
Are the new wise guys.

A year or so ago, I read an excellent novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Sort of a parallel universe detective story. In it, WWII ended in 1948, Israel had been destroyed, and the Jews had been relocated in Sitka, Alaska. It won several Science Fiction awards.

The part that relates here is that in the novel the Hasidic Jews run organized crime. Heh. Oy, prescient the author was!

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

The title of the post comes from a cop I knew once. He had been a cop in St. Louis or Kansas City or somewhere like that and relocated out west because the Jewish gangsters there wanted him dead. He called them the 'Corned Beef Mafia'. So may have been The Purple Gang in Detroit.

Update:

Speaking of The Purple Gang, my Dad was a friend of this guy in the old days in Reno. I met him when I was about 10 years old. A nice old man.

Mert Wertheimer was the head of the Chesterfield syndicate, concentrating its activities in Macomb County Michigan, near Detroit. It was once politically powerful in Michigan. Mert Wertheimer was by many accounts part of the Purple Gang of Jewish gangsters, so one could assume that the Chesterfield Syndicate operated at least by permission of the Purple Gang.

Memories.

'Cash for clunkers' gets on the road

LATimes

Clunkermania officially begins today.

The federal government finally released the rules that dealers and their customers have to follow to participate in the much-discussed "cash for clunkers" program, which can provide consumers with up to $4,500 in cash when they trade in an older vehicle and buy a newer, more fuel-efficient model from a participating dealer.

Here are some questions and answers about the program.

Q: How do I know if my trade-in vehicle is eligible for the program?

A: It must have been manufactured in 1984 or later, and have a combined city/highway fuel economy rated at 18 miles per gallon or less. The program is advantageous only if the trade-in value is less than the minimum $3,500 offered by the government.

Q: Can the credit be applied to any new vehicle?

A: All imports and domestics with a list price under $45,000 are eligible, as long as they meet fuel economy standards of at least 22 mpg for cars or 18 mpgfor SUVs, small pick-ups and minivans, and 15 mpg. for large vans and trucks. The new vehicle must exceed the trade-in by at least 4 mpg for cars, 2 mpgfor SUVs and 1 mpg for large trucks to qualify for the $3,500 rebate. The full $4,500 rebate kicks in at an increase of 10 mpg, 5 mpg and 2 mpg, respectively.

Much more.

Neither of my old rigs qualify. My '76 Chevy Van is too old, and my '92 Dakota is worth too much money. Oh, well...

Huell Howser

If you live in California and get a PBS station, you know who Huell Howser is. I wish they'd show his stuff outside the state so people could see the many parts of my state that they wouldn't normally see. Shit, I've been all over this state in my 63 years, but ol' Huell has made a career out of it! He's been places no one but locals knew existed before he went there. I've watched literally hundreds of his shows and they're very good.

Nice article about him in today's LATimes:

I am a fan of Huell Howser, the roving reporter.

His thick, brush-cut hair; broad-shouldered, erect bearing; and pin-neat, pastel way of dressing -- combined with a boyish face and wide smile -- give him the aspect of a drill sergeant in an army whose mission is happiness. With his family-friendly exclamations -- "Wow!" and "Oh my gosh!" and "That's amazing!" addressed in a hearty Tennessee accent to what can seem the least amazing things -- he is easy to lampoon (a little long, but funny - G). So far beyond being a glass-half-full guy, I imagine him being handed an empty glass and crying, "Hey! I've got a glass!" And if he had no glass, he'd find out where they make glasses, and go down and do a piece on the place.

Adam Carolla mocked him regularly on his KLSX-FM morning radio show, but there is a lot of love where Howser is concerned. (I tried a Google experiment: The phrase "I love Huell Howser" received 4,340 hits; "I hate Huell Howser," four.) A ham and pineapple cheeseburger in Yermo, a double chili cheese dog at Pink's and a doughnut at Stan's in Westwood all bear his name. He was integrated into an episode of "Weeds" last year, and "The Simpsons" used him, as Howell Huser, in the 2005 episode "Something About Marrying." He found out about that only afterward from friends, and "so I called the head guy the next day, Matt Groening. I said, 'Matt, you should have told me I was on -- I'd have had a party!' He said, 'Well, if it's any consolation, I think we had the longest writers meeting ever because everybody around the table wanted to do their Huell Howser impression.' "

(Groening confirmed the story by e-mail: "Yes, everyone at 'The Simpsons' does a Huell Howser impression. We all love him. I have on my permanent do-not-delete TiVo Huell's visit to the Bunny Museum. I hear, but haven't seen, that Huell's climb up a wind turbine tower is a classic. At the show we all love HH so much that after first sending him up, we had HH play himself in an upcoming episode," a fact that Howser himself neglected to tell me.)

There is something of the friendly alien about him, the man from space for whom everything -- every flower, every doughnut, every doorknob -- is new and miraculous. He is famous for stating the obvious, but the obvious things are exactly those things that we forget how to see.

Here's a wacky example of the kinda stuff he does:

Thanks to gschales.

Many video clips here. Mostly straight ones but more spoofs than I ever would have imagined!

To swipe one of Huell's tag lines, he truly is part of California's gold. I hope your state has someone like him.

Marine v Ugandan Breakdance Challenge

A little Sunday afternoon terpsichorean interlude.

Cpl Jones lifts morale of the troops after arriving in Iraq by dancing with some Ugandans singing some cadence!

Watch it 'til the end. Cpl. Jones rises to the occasion with a big finish!

I think this did more for diplomatic relations than legions of Georgetown graduates in pinstripe suits.

Thanks to kyot96.

Note: For some good Jarhead cha-cha slidin', check out "Your Tax Dollars At Work" in the thumbnails.

Update:

The Air Force knows how ta get down too!

Fixer's gonna kill me for that one. I'll try to make up for it here.

And That’s Not the Way It Is

Daddy Frank on Cronkite, McNamara, Vietnam, Watergate, and the sorry state of journalism today. Links at site.

[...] The successive blows of Vietnam and Watergate during the Cronkite ’60s and ’70s shattered the nation’s faith in most of its institutions, public and private, and toppled many of the men who led them. Such was the dearth of trustworthy figures who survived that an unindicted official in a disgraced White House could make the cut.

What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

To appreciate how special Cronkite’s achievements were, consider our recent past. As the Bush administration hyped Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent W.M.D. and nonexistent link to 9/11, The Times and The Post too often enabled the fictions. But at least some reporters at these papers and others elsewhere were on to the hoax — even if their findings were buried in the back pages. At the networks, Cronkite’s heirs were not even practicing journalism. They invited administration propagandists to trumpet their tales of imminent mushroom clouds with impunity.

When McNamara died this month, many recalled his status as Exhibit A of what David Halberstam labeled “the best and the brightest,” the brilliant and arrogant Kennedy-Johnson team that blundered into a quagmire. Far less was said about how McNamara, at his height, wielded that image to spin a dazzled Washington press establishment on his misplaced optimism about the war. The Washington Post’s obituary, pointedly or not, included a photo of a smiling McNamara enjoying cocktails with a powerful syndicated Post columnist (and Vietnam apologist), Joseph Alsop. The obituary also noted that McNamara served on The Post’s board — a sinecure he was awarded after he had helped send some 50,000 Americans to pointless deaths.

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank.

I have nothing to add. Please go read.

Just fuguin' around

Fixer got me in the mood for an instrumental with a fiddle in it!

Alison Krauss & Union Station ~ Choctaw Hayride

Thanks to zone003, Oz.

Quote of the Day

Scott:

...

While ordinary Americans responded to the [September 11th] attack by helping complete strangers find their friends and loved ones, standing in line for hours to give blood, and bringing food and water to rescue workers, our leaders met in the citadels of power, assessed the situation, and made the cool, calculated decision to panic.

...

Fugue state ...

Vanessa Mae and the Bratislava Radio Symphony Orchestra play Bach's Toccata & Fugue:

Vanessa Mae - Toccata & Fugue