Your government is trying to kill you

The best line in this is "my underwear looked like the mudflaps on a swamp buggy" (been there, done that), but my main point is: if there's any lingering doubts that the pundits, and in particular Little Miss Becky, have no limits as to the depths they will plumb to spew fear over nothing, this oughta take care of 'em:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Doubt Break '09
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Colorado Balloon Boy Named Head of GOP

SPR

"When you think about it, it's really the perfect choice - an immature person, surrounded by hot air, but who still never gets off the ground."

I watched a few minutes of the Great Balloon Chase. Shot with a long lens from a helicopter, the balloon looked like it was really big and going really fast. Turns out it wasn't very big at all and was going pretty slow. Just like the GOP.

Obama proposes $250 for retirees

We got one of these in May. It bought us a new washing machine right when we needed one. Looks like we're gonna get another one.

The Hill

President Barack Obama proposed giving payments of $250 to more than 50 million retired Americans who won't get an increase in their Social Security checks next year.

"Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," Obama said.

I applaud the sentiment, but me 'n Mrs. G are probably the least hardest hit by the recession. Everything we own is paid for, we only use our credit cards for internet purchases, gas, and travel, and hardly ever so much that we can't pay it off every month without difficulty, we have retirement accounts that just sit there, in short, we planned ahead a little and it's paying off, at least in financial peace of mind.

I'm sure there are folks out there to whom $250 will make a difference, and I feel for them. I don't mean to sound like the old rich white guy I'm not, but that amount ain't shit these days. It used to be you could buy a pretty good car or bike for that, but I wouldn't sleep in a $250 car these days!

All that said, I'll gladly accept some of my tax money back, and I hope it comes soon. My TV quit the other day and I had to buy a new one (Energy Star rated, of course), and 500 bucks'll just about cover it.

Just as an aside, when I properly disposed of the old TV at the recycling center, it took me an' a Mexican to get it out of my truck and into the bin. I can lift the new one with one hand and it was $200 cheaper too and uses less electricity. That's progress. TVs, like all appliances, aren't made to last as long as they used to be. The old one lasted 8 1/2 years as opposed to the TV in the spare bedroom which is 25 years old and works fine. That's the flip side of progress.

The gang rape and the Republicans

Mark Morford on the pro-rape Repugs:

It is with this wonky filter in mind we turn our gaze to the gaping hellmouth that is the U.S. Senate, that drab cauldron of grumpy old men, defeminized women and tiny handful of rebellious dissenters, all of whom claim to have your best interests at heart but mostly only really give a damn about which lobbyist will help them best make their next boat payment.

It's the same old spectacle, isn't it? There they go, tossing around the health care reform issue like it didn't affect millions of humans every single day, throwing in massive compromises and snags just so the GOP can fellate its pals in the insurance industry and a gaggle of aggrieved Democrats can get their egos fluffed and you still won't be able to get a decent dental plan for your family.

But now, just for fun, let's take it a step further. Or rather, darker. Let's go ahead and step right onto one of those large, rusty nails sticking up from the senate floor, so painful as to make your stomach turn, a bit of your lunch jump back into your throat.

Here is freshman Minnesota senator Al Franken's first-ever legislative action, a relatively simple, almost laughably surefire bill requiring the Pentagon no longer do business with any contractor -- hi, Halliburton! -- that requires its employees to agree that she cannot sue said contractor if she is, oh let's just say, gang raped by its employees.

You read that right. It's a can't-sue-us-if-you're-raped clause. In a U.S. government contract. Aimed squarely at Halliburton. Thanks, Dick Cheney!

Let us pause to imagine if, say, Wal-Mart had such a clause. Or maybe Toys 'R' Us. Starbucks. Let us imagine the appalled outcry. But Halliburton? Dick Cheney's vile little spitwad of shameless war profiteering? No problem. Hey, it's Republican-endorsed military contracting. No one said it was ethical.

The most repellant part is the 30 U.S. senators -- Republicans each and every one -- who just stepped forth to vote against the Franken amendment, essentially saying no, women should have no right to sue if they are sexually abused or gang raped, Halliburton and its ilk must be protected at all costs, and by the way we hereby welcome Satan into our rancid souls forevermore. God bless America.

Let us repeat, for clarity. Franken's amendment passed with a vote of 68-30. Meaning 30 U.S. senators voted against the elimination of the rape/sue clause. Meghan McCain, call your dad. He's one of them.

So perhaps all we can do is ponder how pathetic and sad these various senator's lives must be, how these bitter old men will now go home at night and announce around the dinner table that, yes, today they worked very hard to help improve the welfare of the nation by essentially enabling rape and sexual abuse, tried their darndest to prevent women who've been viciously attacked from having much legal recourse. And lo, Satan will chuckle happily.

Then maybe these senators will try and hug their wives, or their daughters. And maybe, if there's any justice in the universe, their wives and daughters will slap them as hard as humanly possible, lock them in a shipping container, and never let them touch them again.

Why look, there's grandpa McCain. There's disgraced man-child John Ensign. Hooker-lovin' David Vitter. Saxby Chambliss. Inhofe. It's a veritable welfare-state who's who of Dick Cheney's sanctum of oily fluffers, and many more who would love to be. Shall we write a nice letter to them? Or maybe their wives and daughters?

I think these 30 asshole senators aren't as much pro-rape as they are pro-tort reform, as in there should be no civil or criminal or any recourse by the peasant victims of their big contributors. They've got it rigged so what Halliburton et al do overseas stays overseas.

That said, I think there are at least a few who think rape is what women are for, being vessels of unholiness and properly subservient to 'men' as the rightful Masters of the Universe and all, and that they should have no rights other than the God-given right to be dominated and humiliated by the same so-called 'men'.

Mainly, Morford's right. It's all about the money. It's disgusting and I hope this comes back to bite 'em all on the ass.

As usual ...

The American taxpayers are supporting the "red" states. It really chaps my ass that those who can't wrap their heads around having a black President benefit most from his largess.

WASHINGTON – Businesses reported creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs in the first months of President Barack Obama's stimulus program, according to initial data released Thursday by a government oversight board. Military construction led the way, and states in the South and Southwest saw the biggest boost. [my em]

...

Weren't these the states whose governors "rejected" the stimulus money? Just askin' because the governor of New York is about to cut everything to prevent us going belly up. We could use any extra the "big government" might have.

I'm sorry, at the risk of offending many great progressives down there, but fuck these people. They're the ones who yell the most about the "lack of values in New York or San Francisco", yet are the ones with the highest teen pregnancy rate and highest percentage of divorces. They are the ones who dismiss any federal program as "big government intruding into their lives" or "wasting their tax dollars" yet are perfectly willing to accept every dime they get from it.

Fuck them.

The next time one of their elected leaders makes a stink about federal money going to "welfare queens" or "those that don't deserve it", let's cut back on the amount of federal money they get. Let's face it, they should just say they don't want federal programs designed to help those who aren't Christian and Caucasian, not necessarily in that order, for heaven forbid they turn away any coming to them.

They're worried about the deficit should the health care bill pass with a "public option"? I'm worried about the deficit because we're spending so much on defense vis-a-vis the actual risk (psst ... the Cold War is over). How about we cut back on bombs and bullets and take care of Americans here? That wouldn't happen down there, would it? Not with all the defense contractors putting red staters to work. There's a government program is I ever saw one.

My message to those folks: How about shutting the fuck up and saying "thank you" to the rest of us?

Great thanks to Ol' Fez for the link.

How long ...

Have we been saying Joe Lieberman has to go?

...

We're told that Lieberman needs to still be part of the action because he's with us on everything except the war. Now we have to include health care on his list of shit he's against us on. What next?

...

So ...

That's how they make Easter eggs. (h/t Comrade Misfit)

...

A government contractor at Hanford, in south-central Washington State, just spent a week mapping radioactive rabbit feces with detectors mounted on a helicopter flying 50 feet over the desert scrub. An onboard computer used GPS technology to record each location so workers could return later to scoop up the droppings for disposal as low-level radioactive waste.

...

Vintage Dragsters

Please go enjoy this photo gallery.

"...left to their own devices, the nation's health insurers admit they're gonna ass rape us."

The Rude One on the insurance cartel's threats about health care reform. Links at site.

The horse's head of a report delivered by the American Health Insurance Providers to the beds of sleeping senators is quite a document, not just because of what it threatens, but because of what it admits. [...]

[...] In other words, left to their own devices, the nation's health insurers admit they're gonna ass rape us. They just wanna make sure we understand that if reform passes, they'll also...(tsk, tsk, such language! - G)

[...] Seems like a clusterfuck of such epic proportions that there's no fucking way you are going to understand any of this? No shit. The Rude Pundit just wrote that, and it seems like it's not only opposed to common sense, but it's where common sense goes to vomit and die.

Because the natural response to any of the insurance companies' threats is "Wow, there's an industry that needs the government to step in." And thus the circle is complete.

The Rude Pundit has tried to come up with a rational reason why the public option is still even being debated and is not the centerpiece of the bill. He can't do it. By AHIP's own admission, they have to be stopped or they'll kill again. The report is a taunt, a thug-level threat, terrorism, if you will. With no government alternative to corporate health insurance, it's like asking captured bank robbers if they'd mind not robbing banks anymore. When they say, "Yes, we mind," you ask if they'd stop shooting hostages. And when they say, "We'll think about it," you thank them for accepting their punishment so gracefully and release them.

I hope the AHIP mafia stepped on their dicks enough that folks take notice. The way to deal with bullies is to confront them. Then beat the shit out of 'em.

Fahrenheit 451, with fried chicken and all the sides

This is NOT satire. Raw Story:

A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.

Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.

The event also seeks to destroy "Satan's music" which includes every genre from country,rap and rock to "soft and easy" and "Southern Gospel" and" contemporary Christian."

Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.

I don't give a shit what they burn as long they paid for the books and music, but it looks like the preacher figured out how to attract all 14 members of his congregation. Heh. Gotta cook the chicken over something and most of these books may serve their highest usage as cooking fuel anyway.

If these morons knew how close to Catholicism, aka 'those bloody papists', the Church of England, aka 'Anglican Catholics' or 'Episcopalian' really is, they'd burn the 'Authorized Version' as well and just make up their own like everybody before them did.

My personal Sacred Texts are motorcycle service manuals.

Majority Of Newspapers Now Purchased By Kidnappers To Prove Date

From The World's Best News Source, after The Daily Show of course:

NEW YORK—According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the day's date in filmed ransom demands.

"Although the vast majority of Americans now get their news from the Internet or television, a small but loyal criminal element still purchases newspapers at a steady rate," study author and Columbia journalism professor Linus Ridell said. "The sober authority of the printed word continues to hold value for those attempting to extort large sums of money from wealthy people who wish to see their loved ones alive again, and not chopped into pieces and left in steamer trunks on their doorsteps."

"These are sick, sick individuals," Ridell added. "God bless them for saving our industry."

"They're also great for wrapping up a severed ear and mailing it to the family when they don't come through with the cash fast enough," the source continued. "And I always enjoy reading For Better Or For Worse."

[...] While most Americans have cut back on specialty publications, kidnappers still find them useful for making cut-and-paste ransom letters and death threats.

Although newsstand sales remain steady, neither newspapers nor magazines have seen much growth in terms of subscriptions, as their last existing consumers are extremely reluctant to provide permanent addresses.

"In order to reflect the purchasing habits of our most loyal customers, we will work with our distributors to ensure that these people can get newspapers at all hours of the night in inconspicuous, security-camera-free venues," said billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who later offhandedly mentioned that his wife often takes late-evening walks all by herself. "As long as violent sociopaths continue to abduct those closest to affluent people for huge cash ransoms, the long and storied tradition of the American newspaper will be preserved."

And let's not forget that there's nothing better than newsprint for firing up the woodstove and lining the birdcage, not to mention the classic presentation of fish and chips.

Besides, where else can you find out which of your neighbors are being foreclosed on without the 'notice of trustees sales' in the classified ads?

A lot of talk ...

But I'll believe it when I see it. With Harry Reid at the helm, any threats made by the U.S. Senate toward the insurance industry have a slim chance of coming to fruition. But while we're talking about yanking the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption, why not include a provision to jerk the tax-exempt status of churches, synagogues, and mosques? Times are hard (except for those on Wall St.) and communities need all the help they can get.

Late for work ...

The best explanation I've heard ...

About why Obama should have won the Nobel. Michael Moore via Maru:

...

The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.

And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.

...

I'm down wid dat.

And ...

As if you didn't know, Tom Friedman is still an idiot.

...

More importantly, I thought we understood that this kind of adolescent, swaggering attitude turned out not to be the best way to deal with the rest of the world. I guess it's a sign of maturity that Friedman isn't advocating shock and awe this time, but it's clear he hasn't yet grokked the fact that the US can't rely on bombast and bombs to deal with foreign governments, legitimate or not.

Quote of the Day - Zwei

Athenae:

... It is entirely possible to hold in one's mind the idea that Obama is the best president we've had in a long time, and that he's not doing enough on X, Y or Z to move things along.

McDonald's At The Louvre

Thanks, YubaNet.

From the looks of the lady making the comment, her fries follow her wherever she goes too...

GOP Claims Olympia Snowe Was Born in Kenya

Andy Borowitz via YubaNet

Just moments after she broke with fellow Republicans and voted in favor of health care reform, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) came under fire from the GOP for allegedly lying about her nation of birth.

"This vote is going to raise suspicions, once again, that Sen. Snowe was born in Kenya," said GOP Chairman Michael Steele. "We demand that she prove, once and for all, that she is definitely not Kenyan."

Orly Taitz, leader of the so-called "birther" movement, said that Sen. Snowe's vote was "textbook Kenyan" behavior: "She's putting her tribe first."

Elsewhere, the Rev. Moon married 10,000 people, putting him slightly ahead of Liza Minnelli.

Ready to eat your face and scream

Mark Morford is talking about horror/apocalypse movies, and manages to talk about the far right in that context. As long as we have ignorant Repugs, I don't need to go see any horror movies.

I mean, we adore violence, mayhem, the id unleashed. We are eternally fascinated by our own decay and demise, enthralled by our most disturbing fantasies, everyone not so secretly wishing they really could turn into a zombie, vampire, werewolf or a hundred other misunderstood mutant monsters because, well, that's what we all like to think we are, right? Some noble, misunderstood beast? Hey, I get it.

What's more, fear is where the money is. Fear is where the power is. Who wants to hear a tale where everyone wakes up to their divine natures, where suddenly everyone in town starts channeling the Dalai Lama and no one steals anything or molests anyone or calls the president a commie socialist Nazi whilst humping their Bible and quoting their gun? Oh wait, that's backwards. Or not.

Even the laughable "Left Behind" series of apocalypse porn books written for undereducated Christian paranoids traffics in the same violence-drenched, juvenile chyme as your average dimestore horror flick. Turns out even Christian euphoria and enlightenment are bathed in gunfire and blood. After all, everyone knows Jesus loves nothing more than a good, flesh-rending massacre, right?

As long as it's a massacree of us godless librul commie fucks, I guess. The christards have been willingly duped to twist the whole concept of what they claim to believe in into something that would horrify Jesus. Probably make a good horror movie.

For Zappatistas

Article in LATimes.

Now there's a headline that catches your eye. Yes it turns out that late Frank Zappa, the restless musical genius who may have been the most committed inconoclast in the history of rock, was a pal to the late Jack Kirby, the cosmic dreamer who is arguably the second most essential figure in the history of the American comic book. (You have to put Superman at first.)

Quote of the Day

The first little bit of a good article by Robert Parry on the reasoning behind Obama's Nobel:

Last year, Barack Obama did something extraordinary for the cause of world peace. He built a campaign that wrested control of the U.S. government from a gang of duplicitous warmongers.

"If you need a goat f****d, CNN will do it!"

Funny and sad but true at the same time, Jon Stewart roasts CNN and by extension, cable 'news'.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Brings a whole new level ...

To the term "Eat Me". God, I love the French:

Paris Chocolate Fashion Show: feast for chocolate lovers

If ya really gotta be ...

A racist Nazi pig, at least do it right.

Irony and Satire are dead ...

Been saying it since the Chimp's first term. Even Gordon, our eternal optimist, has to label his satirical posts as such because people will believe they're real. Hey, the truth is more ironic than The Onion nowadays. To wit:

...

"We're not going to be the party of angry white guys," [Self-hating closeted homosexual Sen. Lindsay] Graham told the irate, overwhelmingly Caucasian crowd, apparently ignoring the obvious irony of his directive.

...

Sigh ...

Great thanks to our pal UL for the link.

Is this where the line forms ...

To kiss Olympia Snowe's old white ass?

President Obama appeared in the Rose Garden late Tuesday afternoon to hail the Senate Finance Committee's passage of a health-care overhaul bill - singling out Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Me.) for her "courage" and "seriousness of purpose."

...

Is she a Democrat? No. Will she bring other Republican votes with her on the final health care bill? Probably (almost certainly) not.

Mr. Obama, one Republican vote, given so grudgingly, does not bipartisanship make. Fuck Olympia Snowe and all the Republicans (and their corporate puppeteers) and give the overwhelming majority of Americans what they want. A publicly supported health care program that is good and affordable.

Light to none blogging today

A part broke on my motorcycle (Imagine that! It's only nine years old!) and I gotta go to Reno and get a replacement so I'll have a running bike until the snow flies. See yas later.

Yeah, why not?

Jill just had to have a procedure and after a successful outcome asks a question:

...

I'm fortunate in that even if I do have to pay for it, it won't bankrupt me. I would guess that this is not the case for up to 90% of Americans. The difference between me and Republicans is that I ask "Why can't everyone have this", whereas Republicans say "I get my health care -- fuck you."

...

Fortunately, like Jill, the Mrs. and I have good health insurance. They've always been there to put me back together and the Mrs.' week-long stay (with surgery) in Sloan-Kettering a few years back would have bankrupted us (or brought us really close to the edge) were it not for our insurance.

There are many Americans one hospitalization, one surgical procedure, one emergency room visit away from financial ruin. We have people debating whether or not to allow undocumented immigrants die from their illnesses instead of someone paying to treat them.

...

There are six insurance company lobbyists for every member of Congress. These lobbyists have spent $380 million in the last few months buying the minds of American Idiots and the votes of Congresscritters so that their gravy train will keep on rolling. That's enough to pay the premiums for family coverage for over 29,000 families. Assuming $5000 per colonoscopy (WITH anesthesia), that's enough to pay for 76,000 colonoscopies. Even if you believe that insurance company executives are entitled to eight-figure compensation packages, do you also think that lobbying is the best way to spend $380,000,000? [my em]

...

For those taking the insurance companies' side in this, I have a question of my own: Where's your humanity?

With what the insurance companies spend ensuring their position and monopolies (don't forget, they lobby Congress all the time, not just when something of this much import to them is on the table), they could have insured everyone in America who needed it. It is disgraceful on both the insurance companies' part and those in Congress who enable them.

Jill agrees with me on another point:

...

Here's how Wikipedia defines "protection racket":

...

American health care policy has become a form of legalized robbery, the same way defense contractors were allowed to loot the Treasury at the height of the Iraq War. It's time for guys like Harry Reid (and you too, Mr. President) to grow some nut and call it like it is. The insurance companies and their elected cohorts have traded their humanity for profit and campaign donations. It has to stop now.

Quote of the Day

Digby:

... Personally, I think that a report put out by my cat would be more reliable than one that was put out by the insurance companies. (And he's not even an economist.) ...

Quote of the Day

Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation on TRMS about Rushole's past drug use re owning a team:

"If OxyContin keeps Limbaugh from owning an NFL team, it truly is the miracle drug!"

No shit!

Maybe video later.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's called extortion ...

Being it's Columbus Day, this is quite apropos. The Mothers And Fathers Italian Association used to call it "protection".

I guess the insurance industry finally decided they weren't going to get the kind of sweetheart deals that PHarma and the Hospitals got, so they've gone on the warpath by holding a gun to ... er ... releasing a "cost projection" report about the effects of health care reform. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that it says they will raise premiums sky high if reforms are passed.

...

"Ey, ya nevah know when ya might have a fiah or some punks wanna trow a rock tru yer windah. We make shuah dat don't happen ... for a small weekly payment, ya heah."

Quasi-Holiday Bonus Music Blogging

Since today is kinda sorta a holiday, I thought I'd slip in a little bonus music.

Guy Clark performing with Emmylou Harris at the 2005 Americana awards, with Shawn Camp on the fiddle.

Guy Clark w/Emmylou Harris ~ Dublin Blues

Thanks to Txmusicam.

Support the Troops? NIMBY!

[Welcome to Crooks and Liars readers. Thanks, Mike! ~ F]

Veterans For Common Sense

October 11, 2009, Taylor, Texas (Austin American-Statesman) — A California company wants to convert an empty facility formerly used as nursing home into a trauma assistance center for as many as 88 female veterans, including those who have been sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers.

But some Taylor residents say they don't want the facility in their town.

Wolbrueck lives across the street from the proposed facility where veterans would live. She said she fears that veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder might attack residents in the Buttermilk Hill neighborhood.

"They can have an episode where a flashback transports them back into a combat situation, and they can perceive anyone as a threat: an elderly person taking a walk around the neighborhood, or a child on a bike," she said.

Yeah, 'support the troops' is fine. Until they need support. Then they're all crazed time bombs and should go live in someone else's neighborhood or under a bridge. Maybe especially female veterans - PTSD combined with PMS might level the joint.

Yeesh. Moral values, you know. It's for the children. Hooray for the red, white, and blue. Until the chickens come home to roost, that is.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Legalization of Marijuana Gains Support in California
Legalization of OxyContin gains support in Mississippi.

Drop in Birth Rate Blamed on Recession
Babies having second thoughts about being born already $40,000 in debt.

Physicist Working on Large Hadron Collider Arrested for Al Qaeda Links
Terrorists reportedly trying to obtain a black hole.

McDonald's Opens in the Louvre
Officially brings to close 500-year epoch of European cultural dominance.

Pity me ...

It's Columbus Day, in New York, and I work for an off-the-boat Italian. It's gonna be all Italy, all day:

Today is a holiday because a Spanish queen sent some bocciagalupe out to get her a curry and he got lost and found chocolate and syphilis instead ...

I wonder if the Native-Americans celebrate today too?

Wingnut logic ...

George W. Bush (if the Scandinavians would stop smoking dope) should be the one to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Scott takes a look:

Doug Giles, pastor of Our Lady of Free In-Room Coffee and HBO, and father of Fantasy Camp Follower Hannah Giles, is here to pierce Obama’s Nobel Prize-winning pretension like a Roman soldier poking Jesus with a spear to see if he’s done.

...

Being a godless infidel, I hadn't been to a church service in a while (aside from weddings and funerals) and I hadn't realized they changed their whole schtick.

...

What kind of Scandinavian trip weed are you guys roasting up there in your skull bongs? You blondies are orbiting the moon on this one!

...

Of course, if the Nobel boys truly wanted to dole out props to people who actually brought real peace to rank regions, men such as George W. Bush, who liberated 50 million Muslims in Iraq living under jackass Hussein’s murderous boot

...

Last mass I went to, Fr. Joe talked about the church carnival that raised money to help the disadvantaged in South America and Africa. He talked about helping your fellow man who'd fallen on hard times (it was during the 'Nixon Recession') and the losses to our parish in the Veitnam war (everybody knew a family where a father or son was killed there). He talked about kindness and caring for all of God's children.

I guess all that compassion went out the window in the past 35 years in favor of hate and prejudice. Services in this guy's church must resemble a Klan meeting.

Just sayin' ...

What gets me is that the news media spends more time talking about Dave Letterman's, and now Jimmy Kimmel's, sex lives when all evidence so far shows they were faithful to their partners when in committed relationships.

How come, when the senators and reps who are part of the 'moral' and 'family values' crowd (and generally the loudest) cheat on their wives, multiple times, it's glossed over? Reported on once or twice and then down the memory hole?

Hypocrisy (not even) among late night talk show hosts isn't detrimental to the running of the nation, yet we make a big deal of it. Though when our elected reps cheat and lie, well, that's business as usual.

Quote of the Day

The Rude One speaking of Michael Moore:

...

America has always been his subject, and there are few people who have loved this country as much as Michael Moore. But while most Americans love this nation as if it's their hometown football team, he loves it like you love your child. That means that, while he may be ready with the praise, he is ready to scold it and correct it and try to make it better as it grows. For what else do we want for our children than for them to be confident, happy, and secure adults?

...

Saturday Night French Rockin' Boogie

I know Fixer likes French stuff so I went looking for some nice French music for him. Found it! This one's for you, pal.

Geno Delafose and French Rockin Boogie at the Nuits Cajuns Cajun and Zydeco Festival, Saulieu, France in 2004. Filmed by Phil Underwood, UK

Thanks to zphil, UK.

Told ya

I'm wired funny. I was over at our pal PC's place and saw this:



So, naturally, this starts playing in my head:

Frank Zappa - Montana

"Just me and the pygmy pony ..."

Neutered, chickified moderate meows back at Rushole

The Nation

The good folks on the set of Morning Joe spent Friday morning dodging prairie oysters flung by the host at rival Rush Limbaugh, who had called Joe Scarborough a "neutered, chickified moderate." Rush had simply been trying to geld another Republican who dared criticize him, but this time Scarborough gelded back and it was not a pretty sight.

It all started earlier this week, when Scarborough ripped Rush for going "off the deep end" by jiggling with glee over Obama's failure to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.

No forgiver of lese-majeste, Limbaugh hit back Thursday at Joe and "PMSNBC":

"I would be careful," Joe replied this morning, "if I had put my testicles in a blind trust for George W. Bush for eight years." He liked the image so much he painted it again, and again: "There are a lot of people on the right that in fact did put their testicles in a blind trust for the past eight years and stopped being conservative and started being apologists."

Eeew! on Joe's suitcase metaphor. But more eeew on Time.com's Mark Halperin and his rictal smile as it dawns on him that he's one of the apologists who Joe just sliced and diced.

Joe stood up to the hazing this time, and it doesn't look like he'll blink at some later date. That's in part because the Palm Beach Penguin left him no choice--how else can a true, white male conservative react to being called "chickified"?--and also because some political taboos are loosening, with both David Brooks and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham already openly defying Rushbo.

But what's really changed is the country, which, most polls show, is no longer buying this Master of the Universe trash talk from anyone. [...]

That ain't gonna make 'em stop, but it's good that folks are catching on. Outside the Dead End Quarter, that is.

DO NOT MISS THIS!

This should be required viewing for Dems in 'Balls 101'.

This is Alan Grayson discussing health care on the floor of the House on 10/8/09. He sends a message to Democrats: No one elected Olympia Snowe President of the United States. And he sends a message to Republicans: No one cares about your feelings.

Thanks to RepAlanGrayson.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

This song features Rose Maddox, an old favorite of mine since Town Hall Party days on late night TV in L.A. She was in the vanguard of what is now known as 'The Bakersfield Sound' as a member of The Maddox Brothers and Rose. I even got to meet her once. Musta made her day!

A quiki from her wiki:

She has been called The Original Hillbilly Filly and The Grandmother of Rockabilly.

Laura Cantrell's song "California Rose" was written in memory of Maddox[1] Emmylou Harris* believes Maddox has never received the recognition she deserves, in part because of what Harris calls a reluctance in American society to celebrate the value of white country and roots music.

*I've never seen so many links in my life!

Well, Emmylou, I'm recognizing her a little today.

Emmylou and Rose on the song they recorded for Roses' 1983 album Queen Of The West. John Jorgenson also featuring.

Rose Maddox & Emmylou Harris ~ Down, Down, Down

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Party!

At Siri's house. She's throwing a Nobel party for our President:

... can't wait for the Oslo Award Show, I'll be doing a full open bar with hot and cold catered hors d'oeuvres. There WILL be an ice sculpture of Limpball's with an apple in it's mouth, balls in a vice, plus candle glow and glitter, sequins and light show, fire works and cake pop outs. It'll be bigger than the Oscars here!!!

...

I'm there!

And on a serious note about this. I understand why the Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Obama. It is a big symbolic gesture by Europe to welcome us back into the fold, so to speak. Thing is, were I Obama, I don't know if I would accept it. I got a problem with being used, on any level, to send a message. Maybe I'm picky but that's the way I am.

That said, party on! Wingnut heads are exploding.

We need immigrants ...

Our pal Comrade Misfit is spot on:

...

Immigration works in America in a way that it does not in most other nations. The reason it works is because of our Constitution. Not because of the exact words, but because the bedrock, the foundation, of this nation is the Constitution. A immigrant comes to this country, works hard, becomes a citizen. He or she may forever struggle with the language, but their children won't. Their grandchildren may have some passing familiarity with their grandparents' language, but their own children will not be raised with it. They will be Americans to their very marrow.

...

This is the only place it the world it works that way.

Early Saturday ripoff blogging ...

Well, not really but it sounded good. Now, I love Bob Dylan but there are a few songs of his that others have done far better (in my humble opinion).

First up, a Jimi Hendrix cover:

Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower

And then:

Johnny Winter - Highway 61 Revisited

It's the guitar work ...

EssEff Fleet Week

Frisco is having its Fleet Week this week, coinciding nicely with the Italian Heritage Day Parade which apparently commemorates Columbus' discovery of America for white people when he steamed into San Francisco Bay....

I like ships, so I clicked on the ones shown. It looks like there's gonna be four.

HMCS Edmonton. A Canuckistanian coastal defence vessel of 55 meters, crew of 37. Geez, Canada, can ya spare it?

USS Green Bay (LPD 20). Gator Navy vessel, hauls Jarheads to war zones. 684 feet, 24,900 tons, 40,000 horsepower.

Interesting statistic:

Crew 360 (28 officers, 332 enlisted), three Marines

That oughta be enough Marines to keep them swab jockeys in line.

"Ten thousand gobs
laid down their swabs
to fight one sick Marine"

Heh. Just as an aside, I was reminded of that ditty the other night when I watched an old silent movie, "Tell It To The Marines" on TCM. Only movie Lon Chaney ever starred in without the makeup and costumery he was famous for. He didn't need any makeup either. Silent movie my ass, as an old Jarhead I could hear him loud and clear! As a hard-boiled Sergeant of Marines, he made Gunny Ermey look like a choir boy!

USCGC Boutwell (WHEC-719), a High Endurance Cutter, nice looking ship, homeported in Alameda CA across SF Bay! The Coasties have spared no effort to make Fleet Week a success!

In fairness, I should say that the Coast Guard works for a living and any effort from them is welcome.

SS Jeremiah O'Brien, a beautifully restored WWII Liberty Ship, tied to the dock as usual. Goes out a few times a year so they can dredge the coffee grounds out from under her.

O'Brien is quite an attraction in Frisco and has quite an extensive website. If you want to impress your date, you can even rent her!

I will close this now. I have admirably restrained myself from making Frisco/gay/semen seaman jokes and it hurts...

The Rams Deserve Him

Think Progress, links at site:

Black NFL Players ‘Wouldn’t Play’ For Limbaugh’s Team: ‘He’s A Jerk’

Earlier this week, the media reported that hate radio host Rush Limbaugh is involved in a bid to purchase the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams franchise. Many sports media figures lambasted the idea of Limbaugh owning an NFL team, with one writer saying it “would definitely hurt” the Rams while another said his “head exploded after hearing this Limbaugh news” because he is “a pungent bowl of stark raving bigoted lunacy.”

Now, the players themselves are piling on. Specifically, many African-American players have explicitly stated that they would never play for a team that Rush Limbaugh owns. “All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on,’” New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News, adding, “I don’t want anything to do with a team that he has any part of.” Other black players expressed similar sentiments:

Then follows some players' sentiments and a recap of Limpbaugh's racist remarks.

Advising the NFL to block Limbaugh’s pursuit of an NFL franchise, St. Louis Dispatch sports columnist Bryan Burwell wrote recently, “Dancing with Limbaugh is like dancing with a snake. Eventually, the snake will bite you. That’s his nature.”

I disagree. I hope Rushole buys the Rams and then loses all the black players. It'll serve those goddam Rams turncoats right for leaving L.A. and taking the one pro team I ever rooted for in my life since childhood away from me.

Rushole Update:

Miss America pageant selects sexist Rush Limbaugh to judge its competition.

OK Fixer, I give up. You win. Irony is deader'n a carp.

On the other hand, who gives a shit. That competition is sexist its own self, and according to one commenter over there:

We still have Miss America pagents?

Huh. Who knew?

Heh.

Ode To Pro-Rape Republicans

Mad Kane

Thirty Senate Republicans voted to keep rape victims who work for defense contractors from having their day in court. How? By voting against an Al Franken-proposed amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies (like Dick Cheney’s KBR) “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.”

Franken was inspired to sponsor this amendment by the ordeal of Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. A clause in Jones’ KBR employment contract made employer-friendly private arbitration her only recourse, precluding Jones from seeking justice in court.

I hope all those pro-rape Republicans (listed below my limerick) are proud of themselves:

Ode To Pro-Rape Republicans (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Though Republicans yearn for support
From females, they’re bound to fall short:
Their position on rape
Is in criminal shape
Cuz they treat it like less than a tort.

Here’s the list of the thirty pro-rape Republican Senators:
Lamar Alexander (R-TN) John Barrasso (R-WY) Christopher Bond (R-MO) Sam Brownback (R-KS) Jim Bunning (R-KY) Richard Burr (R-NC) Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) Tom Coburn (R-OK) Thad Cochran (R-MS) Bob Corker (R-TN) John Cornyn (R-TX) Mike Crapo (R-ID) Jim DeMint (R-SC) John Ensign (R-NV) Michael Enzi (R-WY) Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Judd Gregg (R-NH) James Inhofe (R-OK) Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Mike Johanns (R-NE) Jon Kyl (R-AZ) John McCain (R-AZ) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) James Risch (R-ID) Pat Roberts (R-KS) Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Richard Shelby (R-AL) John Thune (R-SD) David Vitter (R-LA) Roger Wicker (R-MS)

I think they all need to be buttfucked and teabagged without their consent 'til they see the light. There's a couple of 'em who'd probably like it.

Nobel Sigh Of Relief Prize

The Beeb

US President Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Call it the Nobel "We're So Glad The Neocons Are Out Of Power We Could Just Shit" Prize.

The Repugs are claiming that the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its credibility. They keep giving it to Liberals and furriners and people who do good things for their fellow man instead of to mass murderers like Kissinger.

It's a little too late ...

To say "my bad". 'Journalism' reached new lows during the Clinton years and Joe Conason (one of the few real journalists around) finds the ones coming clean still have jobs:

...

At this late date, it is scarcely radical to suggest that Whitewater and all the other "scandals" deployed by the Washington press corps to besiege the Clinton White House (before the Lewinsky affair) were without substance. In the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, which created and promoted those stories, even such media mandarins as Thomas Friedman and Evan Thomas now casually assure us that they were overblown, even "bogus." And former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan today admits that the famous takedown of the Clinton healthcare reforms he published in 1994, Betsy McCaughey's "No Exit," was essentially a fake too.

...

They just pulled it out of their ass.

...

Belated as those affirmations are, by more than a decade, they may still matter -- if only because they arrive at a time when the mainstream media is just beginning to descend into some of the same bad habits that plagued us during the last Democratic presidency and the far right is already talking impeachment.

...

Of course they are and the so-called "liberal media" is gonna give 'em a platform, just like they did during Clinton's time. Not that anything said is new. The pattern of broadcasting any dirt (truthful or not) about a Democratic President and giving a Republican the benefit of many doubts was predicted during Bush's first term (we were hopeful back then that we could get him out in '04).

As bloggers and real journalists ran around with their hair on fire saying we were lied into the Iraq War, the MSM was busy helping the Republicans brand John Kerry a flip-flopper, as a man who didn't deserve the commendations earned in Vietnam while his opponent did everything he could to avoid service, to the point of basically abandoning his post during a time of war. Those opposing anything Bush did were crazy, shrill, Bush-hating, left-wing freaks; idiots sitting around the basement in pajamas spouting off on things they knew nothing about.

We were right, but that means nothing.

When I was young, I learned (and watched examples of) journalists held the highest standards to ensure their credibility to their readers and viewers. You were supposed to trust them, and you did. You knew you would be given the facts as they were known and the opinion of the newscaster, and his superiors, would not affect the story. You knew it as an article of faith.

Sadly, it is no longer so. Money is the bottom line and scandal sells. Be it genuine or not it's put on the air and smeared on a dead tree. Everything you read and hear has to be taken with a weighted slant, with the question "Who is pulling the strings?". Under the guise of fairness and balance, lies and distortions are given an equal platform with the truth. Other facts are omitted in fear of angering a corporate master or powerful lawmaker who could make life difficult regardless of who might be in power.

As Barack Obama tries to find his presidential footing, the tsunami of scandal is once again heading toward shore and the same 'journalists' are riding the wave as they did during the 90s. Their previous behavior is shrugged off as a 'product of the times' or 'the conditions at the moment' and they'll move on, this time giving voice to the people who question the validity of Obama's birth, his religious identity, and his 'far left' (read: Communist) leanings. I'm only surprised something hasn't come up that he dated (heaven forbid) a white girl sometime in his past. It's only gonna get deeper.

The state of journalism in the United States is sorry and until it turns around (not holding my breath) we will have to sift our information for truth. To those of us who've spent the past few years doing it, it'll continue like business as usual. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans still take what they read in the New York Times and Newsweek, and what they hear on CNN (or worse) as gospel, and that's why so many Americans believe Saddam had WMD and Obama wants to convene "death panels" to winnow out the elderly.

So be prepared, ladies and germs. It's only gonna get crazier and the same mouthpieces are gonna bring it to ya, live and in color with a conservative slant. Put on your hip waders and get out your sieve.

Great thanks to Digby for the link.

If ...

You don't believe me, ask the guy who got us into this mess 30 years ago:

...

As President Obama considers whether to send tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan, Mr. [Charles "Charlie Wilson's War"] Wilson worries that the war could become "another Vietnam."

"It's probably best to make a calculated withdrawal," he said. "If I were the president, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd probably shut it down, rather than lose a lot of soldiers and treasure." [em in orig]

...

Back after dinner.

"...Steely Anne, his spiked dildo with Coulter's face on it."

I saw this headline:

Rove smears Obama advisor as advocating for NAMBLA

Then I saw The Rude Pundit's latest take on Turdblossom and realized he's probably pretty well acquainted with the subject, not that I would ever believe a thing Rove says:

Karl Rove has had it. "These microdicked dogfuckers don't know what the fuck they're doing," he says as he clicks through news stories on his computer in his basement, staring at the glowing screen. The very fact that there's still a chance that the Democratic president will get a decent health care bill out of Congress is proof enough for Rove that the Republicans are so very lost without him. The dead male hooker handcuffed to the radiator in the corner doesn't really care, but, as far as Rove's concerned, Ahmad or whatever the fuck he called himself, is a fine sounding board. "They let the lunatics and evangelicals take over," he says, practically spitting at images of Glenn Beck and Betsy McCaughey. "You never let them take over. You tell 'em you'll take care of it and just shut the fuck up."

Rove knows: if the truly, clinically insane right-wing nutzoids take over a movement from the mere sociopaths like himself, then, like a ball gag tied too tightly on an Iranian manwhore, it'll just choke the whole thing, ruin a perfectly good evening, and be a waste of money. "Oh, wait," Rove says to the corpse behind him, "that's just you...Akbar, was it?" He shrugs and continues, "Soon, the whole movement becomes identified with the crazies and that just fuckin' turns off everyone else - the independents, the media, a fuckin' lot of our own. Stupid fuckers."

He's seen the signs, shit that never would have gone down if he were still on the Hill with the power he once wielded like a rhino with a chainsaw horn. He'd've had Lindsey Graham's kneecaps shattered. He'd've made sure that Beck was caught balls deep in a mule's ass. Unity, motherfuckers, that's what's important. He destroyed John McCain. Olympia Snowe would have received black roses in the mail by now. This ain't rocket science.

It's just so easy to make Democrats show their haunches, ready to be fucked. He reads his most recent Wall Street Journal column to the choke chain-wearing body, where he uses the grimmest possible polls to try to demonstrate that Democrats will lose power if they pass health care reform. "You see? You let 'em get that knot in their stomach, that feeling they're gonna shit themselves if they take a risk, even if the absolute reverse is the truth. That's called fear. And fear makes you freeze. And nothing gets done." Set the terms of the battle, Rove knows, create plausible lies first. Add in shit like "death panels" and "socialism" after the doubt's been sowed, not before. "That's the closing argument, not the opener - the icing, not the fucking cake," he says just before clicking over to some necrophilia websites for ideas.

You had yer chance, Karl. What blew it was trying to do it with that dildo Bush. Besides the evil insanity of every idea you ever had, of course.

"Where was dis Google all dis time?"

This is a young gent named William Kamkwamba from Malawi. Watch this. It will make you feel good.

William Kamkwamba recounts his mission to overcome famine and poverty by building a windmill from a picture in a library book.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Must see TV ...

If you didn't catch Olbermann last night, you owe it to yourself to take 12 minutes out of your day and do so:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

8 years on ...

(stays on top today - G)

And we're still in Afghanistan. The way things are going, we'll be there at least another eight. I heard a lotta shit about Afghanistan since I've been back and most of it stupid.

Seems the big idea is to send another 40,000 troops over there. You see the "surge" in Iraq worked (sorta) so naturally that's the thing to do in Afghanistan. The dumbest thing I heard yesterday was John McCain saying:

"The closest parallel we have to Afghanistan is Iraq."

Let me tell you something, the similarities are few and far between and basing an Afghan strategy on whatever we did in Iraq won't work (Not that it worked in Iraq, we're "cutting and running"; remember?). First, the terrain is different, far more inhibiting. Second, the people are different (but let the Republicans tell you how), and they think in very different ways.

How many times do I say "amateurs talk strategy; experts talk logistics"? Listen to me; you think we had problems getting convoys from the airport to the Green Zone, or out into the field in Iraq, where it's relatively flat, with relatively decent roads, without being ambushed?

I think Afghanistan has only one paved highway and most of the roads through the mountains are dirt tracks that are only accessible by donkey. You ain't getting a convoy of semi-trucks up in there. And then let's look at (while we're trying to resupply in that forbidding terrain) the millions of places to set up ambushes in the mountains. How in Hell you think the Afghans chased the Soviets out? Near the end, the Russians couldn't run a convoy without it being attacked, even with support from helicopter gunships. When idiots with RPGs can take positions higher in altitude than helicopters can fly, you got some serious problems. Figure out what it takes to replenish 40K troops and then figure out how to get them their supplies without heavy losses. Once you do that, then talk to me about a surge.

The people themselves are a setback to "winning", generally through no fault of their own. I laugh when they say they're trying to build an "Afghan Army". There are very few in the place named "Afghanistan" who consider themselves Afghans (a moniker and demarche created by the British); they are a tribal people. Their first allegiance is to their family and then to their tribe, be they Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, or Turkmen. There has never been a central government with any power to affect people's daily lives outside the environs of Kabul. Even the puppet goverment we installed has a very limited reach. How can we expect people to rally 'round a flag and a nation they have very little connection to, let alone be willing to fight and kill their own people for? At least the Iraqis understand the concept of central government (Saddam impressed it upon them), the Afghans don't and there's no way we can impose it upon them in 50 years, let alone a decade.

Our strategy in Afghanistan was misguided from the beginning and then allowed to languish while our attention was diverted to Iraq. Any chance we could have imposed some sort of central government on Afghanistan has come and gone and now we're only delaying the inevitable. The mighty British Empire cut their losses and left and the counterinsurgency operation by the Soviets pushed them over the edge of bankruptcy. We will learn another hard lesson forgotten since Korea and Vietnam by the time we leave as well.

Those who rant for 40K American souls to be sent to the front immediately are misinformed at the least but mostly outright warmongers; small men and women who can only achieve 'greatness' upon a pile of bodies. Afghanistan has to stop, in a way where we can keep the threat from them to a minimum (I'm not naive) and still remove our troops from the theater. It is a complete waste of money and lives and we don't have a surplus of either.

Update (Thursday morning):

Thinking about it, in some conspicuous place in Washington, in the medium of white marble, should this be etched:

Democracy cannot be imposed from outside, it can only arise from within. Democracy cannot be forced at the point of a gun.

Once our leaders (who think people in other places are lining up to get themselves some good 'ol American democracy and only need us to give it to 'em) wrap their heads around that, our Afghan policy (and foreign policy in general) will become sensible.

Update II:

Greenwald also makes the point I was trying to:

... Regarding the primary rationale for escalating (or even remaining) in Afghanistan -- namely, that if the Taliban control Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will return and once again have a "safe haven" there -- DDay asks an excellent question: since the Taliban already control a huge portion of Afghanistan and have for a couple of years (up to 80%, in fact), why hasn't Al Qaeda returned? He argues that "this persistent lie about Al Qaeda's aims in the region underpins the entire case for escalation, just the way the domino theory underpinned consistent troop buildup in Vietnam," and makes an excellent argument in support of that view which is well worth reading ...

More on Afghanistan

I don't know what to do about Afghanistan, but no one else does either.

Lara Logan of CBS knows as much about the situation there as anybody. She was on Charlie Rose last night and laid it out pretty good. What a clusterfuck!

In a 25 minute segment, here's the upshot - the way to deal with the tribes is to get them to support you one by one. Here's how she says to do it:

"If you go with us, here's what we can do for you - (whatever).

If you don't, we will kill you."

I'm not saying I think we should do that, but it's probably true.

Charlie's videos are hard to snag, for me anyway and believe me I've been trying (ended up with five of 'em, undid that, couldn't get it again even once. Grrr...), but I highly recommend you go see it. You can access it here, as well as segments on Pakistan with David Ignatius and Shah Mahmoud Qureshi, worth watching if you have the time.

Update:

BuzzFlash

Hidden away in the Scranton Times-Tribune "Arts and Living" section Tuesday was a bombshell from former Democratic Representative of Texas Charlie Wilson.

The man whose adopted mission to save Afghanistan from the Soviet incursion in the 1980s spawned the notion of "Afghan freedom fighters," a book and a Hollywood movie now says we need to get the hell out of Dodge.

What a fuckin' mess. We dropped 'em like a hot rock when the Russians left because we weren't thinking (I could put a period right there) past the Cold War, and we probably should have stayed engaged on other than a military level and maybe the Taliban would not have come to power. Then Bush, who reluctantly picked up what by '01 was a really hot rock when what he wanted to do was unnecessarily invade Iraq and had a little temporary shock effect on al Qaeda and the Taliban at little cost, put the hot rock on the shelf thinking it had cooled off when what it really did was get so fuckin' hot that now we can't hold it without a major effort we don't want to do because his goddam imperialistic criminal effort in Iraq has tired us of all this bullshit. Thanks again, Georgie, you dumb motherfucker.

That sentence was a truly convoluted stream-of-unconsciousness, but that's the way it came out.

Update II:

Robert Scheer

It’s time to declare victory and begin to get out rather than descend deeper into an intractable civil war that we neither comprehend nor in the end will care much about. Terrorists of various stripes will still exist as they have throughout history, but the ones we are most concerned about have proved mighty capable of relocating to less hostile environments, including sunny San Diego and southern Florida, where the 9/11 hijackers had no trouble fitting in.

There is a continued need for effective international police work to thwart the efforts of a widely dispersed al-Qaida network, but putting resources into that effort does not satisfy the need of the military establishment for a conventional field of battle. That is the significance of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s leaked report calling for a massive counterinsurgency campaign to make everything right about life in Afghanistan, down to the governance of the most forlorn village. The general’s report aims not at eliminating al-Qaida, which he concedes is barely existent in the country, but rather at creating an Afghan society that is more to his own liking.

It is a prescription, as the Russians and others before them learned, for war without end. That might satisfy the marketing needs of the defense industry and the career hopes of select military and political aspirants, but it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. In the end, it would seem that some of our leaders need the Afghanistan battleground more than the terrorists do.

We need to either a) get out of Afghanistan now and go back when it becomes necessary in a few years like we did last time and will do five more times in this century if we go that route, or b) go in there with a million troops representing every country in the world and fuck the joint up once and for all. The former is more likely than the latter.

Here's the news flash: Afghanistan and Pakistan are not going to go away, and they need to be dealt with and we're not leaving there anytime soon. The best we can hope for is that someone comes up with something that will do some good. Don't hold your breath.

Watch sparks shoot out his...

Steve Martin shows how he's really upped the ante for his performance at Carnegie Hall.

Now THAT'S showbiz!

The clip didn't show the rig on the back of the banjo that did that but Steve did on the show. I guaran-goddam-tee ya it wasn't his $25,000 Gibson Florentine!

Thanks to CBS.

Headline of the Day dos

Sotomayor Asks More Questions In An Hour Than Thomas Has In Years

Heh.

Want fries with that 'Sacre Bleu!'?

NY Daily News. Read the comments.

In a move guaranteed to wipe the famous smile off Mona Lisa's mug, McDonald's is planning to open an eatery inside France's great temple of culture: the Louvre museum.

There went the neighborhood...

The newspaper said workers at the museum were aghast, quoting an art historian fretting about "the very unpleasant odors" that might waft through the distinguished old palace.

That from the people who invented perfume before they heard about soap!

A country that famously venerates haute cuisine and the joys of regional recipes has fallen hard for standardized American grease bombs. In 2007, France became McDonald's biggest market outside of the United States.

If ya think I'm needlin' my favorite Francophile and epicure Le Fixeur a little, yer right. Heh.

Hardin dodges a bullet

I've been following this for a week or so, backstory here and here.

Raw Story

'Red flags' cause Mt. officials to nix 'American Police Force' deal

Plans for a California company to take over this city's empty jail were put on hold Monday, following last week's revelations that the company's lead figure has a criminal history.

The decision came as Hardin's leaders announced the resignation of both the attorney and the economic development official who helped craft the jail deal for the city. Also Monday, a security industry veteran whose name was linked to the project denied involvement.

Heh. I bet their 'resignation' involved tar, feathers, and a rail.

Go read the rest. The town took my advice and is going after the three Mercedes-Benzes as well as a buncha money.

Not-so-dumbass country fucks: 1

City slickers: 0

Headline of the Day

Homeland Security plans to scan air travelers’ bodily functions

You want 'bodily functions', eh? I'll show you bodily functions! The next time I fly, I'll make sure it's the morning after All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite. They won't be able to fly above 12,000 feet because the other passengers will open the windows!

Quotes of the Day, with video!

Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, appeared on Tavis Smiley last night, discussing how the xtian right has subsumed the Repug party and why it is fucking up all over the place. Here's the quote, slightly paraphrased due to my senior memory, from 7:56 in the video:

The sun is setting on this movement and what we're hearing from them now is a death rattle, but a death rattle can be very profound and very dangerous.

Hmmmmm. Fundie and Repug death rattle good. Fundies and Repugs dangerous bad. Profound? Ha! You make me laugh, Max! I getcher drift though.

QotD pt. 2 (10:35):

The conservative movement isn't dead. It's undead. It's like a zombie lurching at Obama.

Take 11:31 and go see the full interview. Worth the time.

Also see Max on Democracy Now. I usually watch that just to lust after Amy Goodman. Max really lays it on the Usual Suspects in this one.

Notable quotes:

Faith in a holy cause is a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

On their opposition to health care reform:

What we're seeing is a movement that is terrified that government will start to be able to solve people's crises because they survive and thrive on manipulating people's personal crises.

Much more.

It's about time ...

The 'powers-that-be' realize the really great thing about women is they come in all different sizes and shapes. The fashion/marketing/entertainment industrial complex has messed up a lot of young lives in their promotion of 'only skinny is beautiful', causing girls to feel worthless should they not be a size zero.

This is good news:

Germany's most popular women's magazine is banning professional models from its pages and replacing them with images of "real life" women instead.

...

Good on 'em.

Ladies, please, if you take any advice from this old dog, let it be this: Look at your mother. Generally, you will gain weight in the same places she does. You can't help it; it's all in the genetics. A guy who judges the worth of a woman by her body shape isn't worth knowing.

I can't believe how many beautiful women I've met whose self-esteem is in the dumper because they don't look like the girls in Vogue. You can be as beautiful as you want to be and don't let anyone tell you you're not. Be proud of who you are as an individual, not what some suit on Madison Avenue says you should be.

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit:

...

Only those seditious bastards in the GOP who have never worn a uniform are so ignorant as to dream of a military coup.

Before we get carried away ...

By the New York Times article that Armageddon is nigh, don't believe it:

...

Obama's National Security Adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, denies The New York Times' report that Iran's nuclear program is more advanced than previously believed; stands by the 2007 NIE conclusion that Iran ceased work on a nuclear weapons program back in 2003; and affirms that, as part of the ongoing negotiations, "Iran has taken positive steps," steps he deems "very significant." ...

Not that I pay attention, but I'm sure I'll be hearing "but the liberal New York Times says so, so we have to bomb Iran now" any time now. Unfortunately, someone whom I know is still connected with Brit intelligence seems convinced the Israelis are gonna hit Isfahan and Natanz early next spring. We'll see.

Anne Frank

The memory of Anne Frank's ordeal and death is one of the best symbols of why we must hate the Nazi and Fascist mentality and never, but never, let it rise again like it tries to do all the time.

I got onto this from a post at YubaNet about Anne Frank House.

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.

Thanks to AnneFrank, Netherlands.

10 hot news items you might've missed

Mark Morford didn't. Heh.

Let's take it from the top, shall we?

1) Congressional Republicans are furious indeed that uppity Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) claimed, right there on the House floor and using a big piece of paper with large, clear letters they could actually read and everything, that the GOP's health care plan basically consists of hoping that sick people will just "die quickly."
...

"This is an outrage!" said some not-really-outraged Republican congressmen I'd normally name here, but I won't because he's basically an amalgam of a whole slew of them and doesn't actually exist, per se.

"It's a total lie!" he said anyway. "Republicans often love it when people suffer long, slow inexorable deaths, particularly if it serves our political purposes. Remember Terry Schiavo? Hell, we would've been happy to drag her tragically comatose body around for a good two or three more years if she hadn't been allowed to pass quietly and destroy our big media charade of fake indignation," he did not add, before being devoured by invisible sharks.

2) Top Pentagon officials are calling for an end to the U.S. military's historical ban on allowing women to serve in submarines. [...]
...

"After all, what young, tough woman in her right mind wouldn't love to be stationed for many, many months deep inside the bowels of a submersible, claustrophobic, phallic-shaped military weapon stuffed like a testosterone Bratwurst with young, lonely, homoerotically supercharged seamen, most of whom haven't seen a real female since 2008 and aren't allowed to relieve any 'tension' except with each other, and therefore and have so much pent-up sexual energy that they spasm uncontrollably every time they pass a loaded missile tube?" Roughhead did not add. "Insert seamen joke here."

Example of 'seamen joke':

You know what they say about being in the Navy...if you don’t sleep on your back.... someone will.

And the joke would be...?

6) Scientists have discovered about 850 mostly blind, pale creatures living deep underground in the Australian outback, with lots more to come.

The pallid, weak, delicate little creatures, collectively nicknamed "the GOP base," are both admired for their weird tenacity and also widely pitied for being so easily pulverized into goopy nothingness by the bright light of even a tiny hint of actual reality.

10) Study No. 3 wraps it all up in a sweet, if completely specious, little package, by suggesting that if your kid eats lots of candy every day, odds appear to be much better that he'll be arrested and go to prison later in life, presumably because he's already developed an addictive personality and Skittles are obviously a gateway drug to artisanal chocolate and anal sex and black tar heroin, which are themselves gateway drugs to becoming a full-on junkie, which will, in turn, make you a huge drag on the American health care system, in which case it would be much better for everyone if you'd just get it over with and die quickly. Thank you.

Stay healthy, Mark. Physically, that is. We need you.