Saturday Homebrew Music Video Blogging

I'm so bored with the same old same old today that I jumped this one up the queue a day early just for something to do.

I lost track of this band (bio) after their first two CDs. I found 'em again thanks to the magic of the internets.

This song has everything - young love lost, lifelong obsession to beyond the grave, ridin' the rods, train whistles, but mostly it has the amazing pipes of Kim Fox and some great family harmony.

I gotta get me one'a them train whistles for my 'sickle. I could have a lotta fun with one of those on these mountain roads...

This is From the Fox Family 1995 CD "Follow My Lead". Composed and lead vocal by Kim Fox. This band has since reformed as '3 Fox Drive'. That's a lot easier to look up on YouTube than 'Fox Family' unless you like looking at families of foxes. I mean, they're cute and all, but most of 'em can't sing...

Navy Drone Violates D.C.!

Navy Lost Control of Drone Over D.C. Due To "Software Issue"

Thankfully, the incident has prompted the Navy to ground all six of its Fire Scout drones while they figure out what happened. The Times says that "the Navy did not describe the scene inside the ground control station as operators sought to re-establish communication with the drone," but I'll bet they were all like "oh shit oh shit oh shit." [NYT]

That sound you hear is enlisted men's stripes hitting the deck at Pax River. As usual, no officers or civilians will be affected in the flurry of scapegoating.

Too bad this couldn'ta waited 'til tomorrow and ran outta gas right over the Lincoln Memorial and fell on Miss Becky. A sign from Above.

Understandable Mistake

I swear I thought this headline at HuffPo was about Mehlman in the wake of his coming out:

Glamorous Ballerina Was Nazi Party's Secret Weapon, Files Show

Oops. Heh.

Tomorrow ...

Tied up to the pier at Tilbury, England. Bandwidth sucked since we left Oslo, day after yesterday, and spent 2 nights fighting through Force 9 winds and 20 foot seas. Since yesterday was a "sea day", all the old folks were in the computer center (as opposed to being on a shore excursion) sending e-mails to their grandkids so it was impossible to upload pictures. I'm running out of time on my internet package (and I refuse to pay $0.75/minute) so I'll have something up about our day in Oslo tomorrow, when we leave Prinsendam and board Queen Mary 2 in Southampton. Gotta finish packing, so I can unpack tomorrow, so I can repack in a week, only to unpack when we get home. Oy! Great cruise!

Blackwater vs. Pinkwater

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, with links and video.

I had gone to Prince's home, together with two CODEPINK colleagues, assuming it would be empty. I'd read in the New York Times that Mr. Prince and his family had moved out of the country, fleeing from a series of civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations stemming from his company's contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the news, "In documents filed last week in a civil lawsuit brought by former Blackwater employees accusing Mr. Prince of defrauding the government, Mr. Prince sought to avoid giving a deposition by stating that he had moved to Abu Dhabi [which is in the United Arab Emirates] in time for his children to enter school there on August 15." Susan Burke, the lawyer seeking the deposition, announced that she was flying to the Emirates to find him.

I had been feeling particularly upset about Blackwater lately. Seeing the combat troops leaving Iraq, I'd been thinking about the banner CODEPINK members held in countless anti-war vigils: "Iraq War: Who Lies? Who Dies? Who Pays? Who Profits?" Politicians lied about weapons of mass destruction, Iraqis and American soldiers died, U.S. taxpayers paid, and companies like Blackwater make a killing. In just a few years, Blackwater received over $1 billion in U.S. government contracts, contracts that accounted for 90 percent of its revenue. Erik Prince, the company's sole owner, was now taking his profits, trying to sell the company and running away to the Emirates, a country that has no extradition treaty with the United States.

So we decided to make a symbolic gesture of visiting his home in McLean to bid good riddance to bad rubbish. On Friday, August 20, five days after the Prince children were supposed to be starting their new lives as schoolchildren in the Emirates, we mapquested the old McLean home and drove there, ready to take a photo with our "Adios Diablo Prince" sign and leave.

When the police arrived, Joanna Prince lied and said I'd been told to leave the house and refused. I was arrested, charged with trespassing, held for 5 hours and forced to pay $500 in bail. I have to appear in court on September 28. So does Joanna Prince. Will she show up in court or will she--like her husband--run away to Abu Dhabi? Will the court subpoena her to appear? Will her husband, a man who shuns publicity, tell her that she is crazy to pick a public fight with CODEPINK (or Pinkwater, as we now call ourselves) and make her drop the charges? Will I be able to sue her for false arrest?

Stay tuned for round two of Xe (formerly Blackwater) vs. Pinkwater (formerly CODEPINK).

Heh. Big, brave former SEAL took de money and run Abu Dhabi (apologies to Harry Belafonte) so he could keep our money and stay out of jail. Left his wife behind to clean up after him. She's probly tougher than he is anyway.

Note to Diablo Prince: The Emirates ain't far enough, Sparky. Be afraid, be very afraid. The Pinkwater ladies are coming for you.

The right-wing, blinded by its own hysteria

(A big Brain welcome to Crooks and Liars readers. Thanks, Mike - G)

Good op-ed on the Park51 right-wing spew by Eugene Robinson.

When did the loudmouths of the American right become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and professional victims? Or is it all just an act?

It's an act at the top, The Word handed down from On High at the bottom and bleated loudly as an act of faith.

Message to anyone who will listen: You're a victim. Be very afraid.

The sky is falling! Brown people are coming to get you in your beds!

In the process, this anti-mosque pitchfork brigade is surely recruiting terrorists left and right. As Ahmad Moussalli, a professor at the American University of Beirut, told the Los Angeles Times: "Rejecting this has become like rejecting Islam itself." All the Islamophobic rhetoric tends to reinforce the jihadists' main argument, which is that the United States and the West seek to destroy the faith held dear by more than 1 billion souls.
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The thing is, though, that the manufactured brouhaha over the Park51 project is part of a larger pattern in which the far right embraces victimhood and stokes fear. The faction that likes to portray itself as a bunch of John Waynes and "mama grizzlies," it turns out, spends an awful lot of time cowering in the corner and complaining about how beastly everyone else is being.

And look at the hysteria over illegal immigration. Facts don't matter -- for example, that the flow of undocumented migrants has decreased, or that border enforcement under President Obama is much tougher than under George W. Bush, or that illegal immigrants are not responsible for any kind of crime wave. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), has gone so far as to sound the alarm about alleged "terror babies." The idea is that undocumented pregnant women would cross the border so that their children could have U.S. citizenship, then take the babies away to be raised as terrorists -- who would be able to come back in 20 years or so, with legitimate U.S. passports, and presumably wreak untold havoc. No, I did not make that up.

Is the far right really afraid of its own shadow? Do these people really have so little faith in our nation's strength, resilience and values? I hope this is all just cynical political calculation, because there are genuine threats and challenges out there. We'll be better off meeting them with a spine, not a whine.

The far right's top echelon knows good and damn well that there's nothing to fear. They also know they've got nothing constructive to offer that will help anyone besides themselves and have to stir up fear and panic amongst the Dead End Quarter to regain power so they can line their pockets and wreck the joint once and for all in the process.

Fire Simpson

Paul Krugman on the deficit commission:

I always thought that the deficit commission was a bad idea; it has only looked worse over time, as the buzz is that Democrats are caving in to Republicans, leaning ever further toward an all-cuts, no taxes solution, including a sharp rise in the retirement age.

I’ve also had my eye on Alan Simpson, the supposedly grown-up Republican co-chair, who has been talking nonsense about Social Security from the get-go.

At this point, though, Obama is on the spot: he has to fire Simpson, or turn the whole thing into a combination of farce and tragedy — the farce being the nature of the co-chair, the tragedy being that Democrats are so afraid of Republicans that nothing, absolutely nothing, will get them sanctioned.

When you have a commission dedicated to the common good, and the co-chair dismisses Social Security as a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” you either have to get rid of him or admit that you’re completely, um, cowed by the right wing, that IOKIYAR rules completely.

And no, an apology won’t suffice. Simpson was completely in character here; it was perfectly consistent with everything else he’s said, and with his previous behavior. He has to go.

Note to Obama: Dude, don't put a Repug on anything involving our money. They want it in their pockets. It's their M.O.

Especially an old fool who's hated Social Security forever, thinks we're getting something for nothing, and probably never paid a dime into it himself.

Thanks to CHRIS123445, UK.

Shopping Day

Today is the fourth Wednesday of the month, known as 'payday' to Social Security recipients, so we're gonna take our commie pinko welfare and go live it up at Costco. Might even splurge on a hot dog! One each even!

I'll leave ya with this homebrewed music video by The Kathy Kallick Band from their CD Between The Hollow And The High-Rise. This song was originally written about President McKinley, then upgraded in honor of Hoover, and now upgraded about the Chimp.

There have been so many versions and recordings of this song that I couldn't find the lyrics. You have to listen kinda close to get them. It's worth it. Also, make sure your fillings are in tight and enjoy the ride.

See yas later.

The Billionaires Behind The Hate

This is the 'must read' of the year. Jane Mayer turns over some exceptionally slimy rocks.

A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!”

[...] “As state socialism failed . . . the target for many within these organizations shifted to any kind of regulation at all. ‘Socialism’ kept being defined downwards.”

Indeed. I'm surprised they haven't labelled Jesus a socialist for all that commie crap about helping the least among us.

The Kochs have long depended on the public’s not knowing all the details about them. They have been content to operate what David Koch has called “the largest company that you’ve never heard of.” But with the growing prominence of the Tea Party, and with increased awareness of the Kochs’ ties to the movement, the brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny. Recently, President Obama took aim at the Kochs’ political network. Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, in Austin, he warned supporters that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Citizens United case—which struck down laws prohibiting direct corporate spending on campaigns—had made it even easier for big companies to hide behind “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity.” Obama said, “They don’t have to say who, exactly, Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation”—or even, he added, “a big oil company.”

We know more now. This is an important article. Thank you, Jane.

Danger! Beyond here be Negroes...

Jason Linkins on the travel advice offered to Miss Becky's suckers customers sheep who plan to go to the fearsome Big City for his hopefully under-attended "take back civil rights for the Repugs who opposed it" rally this coming weekend.

A blogger at Maine Refounders(*) has taken it upon himself to offer repost a DC visitors guide to anyone coming to the Rally For Glenn Beck's Material Wealth, scheduled for August 28th. So, if you want some not-half bad restaurant recommendations or are interested in learning how you can avoid Nancy Pelosi's house, get thee hence. That said, I find this take on the DC Metro system to be sort of comical:

*Comical rightie nutjobs. If they were funny.

As someone who rides the Green and Yellow Lines all the time, I can assure you that there are no "rules" that state these subway lines must be avoided at all times, especially at night. But then, I guess I'm not using "A Cliche-Ridden Guide To Avoiding The Black People On The Subway In Washington" as a rulebook. Ironically, one needs to ride the Green/Yellow line in order to visit the National Archives, where the Constitution of the United States is housed. (Not that these rally attendees have any particular reverence for that document.)

Look, Glenn Beck rally attendees, if there's one essential piece of information you need to know, it is this: DO NOT STAND TO THE LEFT ON THE ESCALATORS UNLESS YOU ENJOY BEING MOCKED AND ABUSED. Just remember to stand to the right on the escalators, and your visit will be more than pleasant.

UPDATE: DCist provides the essential Google Map, revealing the tiny sliver of Washington, DC deemed fit to visit. I'd point out that where I live -- Arlington County -- is generally very safe and hospitable to visitors. The problem for rally attendees is that it's also packed stem to stern with progressives! (Cower in the shadows of the Mercatus Center, I guess?)

I went to D.C. once. The only places I visited were Cap'n Guy's and The Rocket Room. I have no idea what neighborhood they were in.

Update:

I looked 'em up:

the Rocket Room, an early rock club at 12th Street and New York Avenue near the old Greyhound Bus Station

Wasn't no music there that I can remember, just beer.

I looked up the other one too. Nuttin', honey. Maybe I'm the only one who remembers it.

In Case You Missed It

Jon Stewart has better fact checkers than the MSM in this exposé of FauxNews' Circle Of Lies in the made-up Scaring White People For Fun And Profit Park51 furor.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

And Your Moment Of Zen:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Moment of Zen - Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on Fox News
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The Republican Area 51

Good post at Welcome Back to Pottersville:

“Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington.” - Erstwhile alternate historian Newt Gingrich in opposing the Cordoba Community Center on Fox

In a paraphrase of the old bromide against the Irish, it can be said that God invented Koolaid to prevent Americans from running the world for too long.

Let me impress upon you one inescapable, incontrovertible, ineluctable fact: We are simply the stupidest and most willfully ignorant nation on earth. We’re the world’s biggest racial, national and religious melting pot yet the most bigoted. As Maureen Dowd reminded us yesterday, we panic in herds yet come to our senses, if we ever do, one at a time (my em). Our eyes snap open like a doll’s when we’re alarmed yet when we awake from one soporific or another, we need to rub those eyes for a few minutes. Stupidity and ignorance has a much longer half life than truth and the facts. If stupidity was made of hydrogen and oxygen, our country would look like New Orleans the day after Katrina. And if racial or religious bigotry was gold, there’d be a rush of grubby Republican prospectors every year or so.

Much more.

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Berlin yesterday and we had a great time. In addition to sightseeing, we had a Bavarian lunch (soul food for me) and the Mrs. got to do extensive shopping. Heh ...

We're in Copenhagen now, waiting for a storm to blow by to go ashore.

Canuckistanian Hemp Car

Cannabis electric car being made in Alberta

Sounds very innovative and cutting-edge, but the jokes are flooding through my brain so fast they can't stop long enough for me to grab one...

Spinning the US Failure in Iraq

A 'must read' by Robert Parry:

When I watched the last U.S. combat battalions leave Iraq on Wednesday night, I couldn’t help but recall the scene when the last Soviet troops departed Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989. In both cases, the two governments soft-pedaled the hard truth about the strategic defeats that the withdrawals represented.

However, back in Washington, everyone seems to have a motive for looking on the bright side.

President Barack Obama wants to continue the military drawdown without getting blamed for what history may record as a humiliating U.S. defeat; the influential neocons want to pretend that their recommended “surge” in 2007 worked and that their original idea to invade in 2003 was the right call; Republicans don’t want to remind the voters about President George W. Bush’s WMD lies; and the major U.S. media hopes an aura of “success” in Iraq will obscure its own role in the debacle.

Even among critics of the war, there seems to be more relief that the war is finally coming to an end than a willingness to comment on the American failure. There is also some suspicion on the Left that the U.S. military occupation will simply continue under some new subterfuge.

Yet, without hard-hitting assessments of the failure, Official Washington gets yet another reprieve on any accountability.

That’s especially good news for the neocons who manipulated the U.S. political/media process to get their war of choice in Iraq seven years ago and have survived the war more deeply entrenched within Washington’s policy and opinion circles than before.

Swell.

However, by controlling the “successful surge” debate, the neocons rehabilitated themselves. And, not surprisingly, they then used their stronger position to push Obama into another “surge” – for Afghanistan. Down the road, the neocons also have kept alive the possibility of even one more “regime change” war – with Iran.

Double fucking swell.

If the Iraq War were viewed as comparable to the Soviet miscalculation in Afghanistan – a largely self-inflicted wound by a superpower – there might even be some choice space in Washington power circles for those brave few who dared question the neocon wisdom during the Bush-43 administration.

Instead, the early history of the Iraq War is being written by the neocons and their allies – perhaps not the victors in Iraq but surely the victors in Official Washington.

The real history of the Iraq clusterfuck will not be written in our lifetimes and no one now alive will ever see the inside of a prison, much less the gallows, for their participation in America's biggest war crime. Pardon me, America's biggest war crime yet.

Related:

Officials: We could still lose Iraq

Watch for these officials to suddenly have more time to spend with their families.

Heads up for Blogger users

I have no idea of the truth or facts of this and present it for what it's worth.

Warning to bloggers: Google’s new “Gestapo bot” shutting down Blogger sites

For years I have maintained several blogs on Blogger – three in fact – and all three were shut down last night by Blogger (Google) administration and my account was blocked.

Reason: Violation of Terms of Service.

One thing all three of my blogs had in common is that they were NOT AFFILIATED with Google’s AdSense (advertising) program. In fact, my blogs ran no advertising whatsoever. With specific regard to Adsense, my lack of participation meant that my blogs were generating no income for the powers-that-be. These blogs were “freeloaders” at the Blogger (Google) trough. Clearly they had to go.
...

I suggest Blogger users back up their material or move their blogs elsewhere – for peace of mind (at the very least).

There's a lot in between those quotes. If you have more information, please let us know.

Some comments here.

How Fox Fraudcasting Betrayed Petraeus

Daddy Frank puts the ginned-up furor over Park51 into a slightly different focus.

Here’s what’s been lost in all the screaming. The prime movers in the campaign against the “ground zero mosque” just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America’s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they’re wielding is not merely pounding Park51, as the project is known, but is demolishing America’s already frail support for that war, which is dedicated to nation-building in a nation whose most conspicuous asset besides opium is actual mosques.

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?

You’d think that American hawks invested in the Afghanistan “surge” would not act against their own professed interests. But they couldn’t stop themselves from placing cynical domestic politics over country. The ginned-up rage over the “ground zero mosque” was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad — a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated — but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season.

Much more.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Last U.S. Combat Troops Leave Iraq
Only 50,000 “support troops” remain, says Office of Slippery Language.

California Statehouse Race: Whitman's $104 Million vs. Brown's $1 Million
For every thirty-second Whitman commercial, Brown hands out another flyer.

OED Now Includes “Vuvuzela”
Also “vuvuzelaphobia” and “vuvuzelacide.”

Malware Winning Battle Against Antivirus Software
As predicted in Revelations.

REMINDER
Never compromise your principles, unless you're in a tight race.

Epic Playground Fail!

Obviously symbolic of the outcome of Repug education policy - shit 'em out ready for those sub-minimum wage jobs offered by their masters and big contributors.

Sure, go down the slide, kids. But when you get to the bottom, don't look behind you.

From HuffPo.

Camera mount

This is a response to a request from one of our good friends on this post. Boy, between you guys and Fixer, I'm earning my money today! (cough; sob...)

The motorcycle is a 2001 Royal Enfield 500 Bullet Classic, an old-fashioned lump manufactured in India for over 50 years. With a claimed 22bhp, it is more or less a self-propelled boat anchor speed-wise. At my age, speed be damned, been there, done that, still alive in spite of it. It's fast enough and it's a helluva lotta fun to ride.

It is not the ideal camera platform. A legacy of its old-fashionedness is that it vibrates at certain speeds and the camera is sensitive to it. I'm working on it.

The camera is a Samsung F-33. It gets good reviews and I'm very happy with it as my first camcorder. Also, it was cheap enough that if when the bike vibrates it to bits I will revere its memory and go get a new one. If I solve the vibration problem and hit the lottery, I'll get this one.

The mount is a RAM Mount which I got from Motovideo. Simple and sturdy, again not ideal, but good value for money. When I get a suction cup base for it I'll regale you with windshield panoramas from the pickup. Better for winter too. Heh.

The overview. Pardon the open garage door. I forgot you were coming.

Click fotos to embiggen

The close-up. The mount is two ball joints with a springloaded clamp between them for adjustment.



And the obligatory artsy-fartsy picture-within-a-picture shot:



My YouTube buddy lunmad does DIY Triumph maintenance videos and lovely riding videos in the North of England. He bungee cords a tripod across the back of the bike and the results look very good. I want the camera where I can see it in case when it starts to unscrew itself.

Taking and sharing little movies from the bike is a lot of fun. So is telling you guys about it.

The Finnish Air Force Flag

At a request from Fixer, who is suffering (Ha!) from a lack of bandwidth in some frozen backwater of the world, here's a little on the history of the Finnish Air Force flag.

The historical use of the swastika in Finland:

In Finland the swastika was often used in traditional folk art products, as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood. Certain types of symbols which incorporated the swastika were used to decorate wood; such symbols are called tursaansydän and mursunsydän in Finnish. Tursaansydän was often used until 18th century, when it was mostly replaced by a simple swastika. It was also, from the first years of its existence to the end of the Second World War, the roundel of the Finnish Air Force.

How it got on the FAF flag:

Von Rosen had painted his personal good luck charm on the Thulin Typ D aircraft. This charm – a blue swastika, the ancient symbol of good luck – was adopted as the insignia of the Finnish Air Force. The white circular background was created when the Finns tried to paint over the advertisement from the Thulin air academy.[5] The swastika was officially taken into use after an order by Mannerheim on 18 March 1918. The FAF had to change the insignia after 1945, due to an Allied Control Commission decree, where the swastika had to be abandoned due to the association with Nazism.

How it got back on the flag, from a contributor here:

The design appears in pre-World War II flag books and roundel charts, so the 1957 adoption restored the old design that pre-dated Hitler's rise to power. It took a decade for resentment to die, I suspect, before they could go back to their traditional emblem.

The Finns are a scrappy, independent lot who wanted their good luck charm back and screw everybody else, I suspect.

You want me to eat what?

Helsinki and Stockholm. Making speed across the Baltic now, heading for Warnemunde, Germany tomorrow.

Just a little note: At the beginning of this trip, when we were in Amsterdam, I told the Mrs. that I had a funny feeling I'd run into someone I know. Three nights ago, we walk into the Ocean Bar for drinks before dinner and who's sittng there having a beer but a buddy from the engineering department aboard Queen Mary 2 who just got promoted to the fleet division. He's leaving in Copenhagen and will meet us again aboard Mary. Small world ...

Manzanar, the song

I was doing a little nose-to-the-grindstone (heh) research of my music for future music videos when I ran across the song below, Manzanar. I've done a few posts on the title subject, easily accessible from the latest one in February.

I wanted Brainers to hear this song but I wouldn't have dared to put a song about involuntary US government confinement of US citizens onto a video of the absolute freedom of riding a motorcycle. Nope, ain't gonna do that.

What to do, what to do? Go lookin' for it elsewhere, ya lazy old fart. Look for it I did.

Whether you're a liberal thinking in terms of right-wing camps for you, or a wingnut thinking in terms of commie pinko camps for you (the better choice!) doesn't matter - it's been done well within living memory for no better reason than fear and hate. It was wrong then and it's wrong now and it will be wrong forever. Mrs. G grew up with kids born in these places.

I usually say 'enjoy' but that is hardly the word for this. Watch and listen and think. And never forget.

The first one is by Laurie Lewis (wiki) from the CD Wounded Heart of America, a collection of Tom Russell's songs done by him and others which I highly recommend.

Thanks to MrLawliet1989.

And this one:

Public domain footage set to Tom Paxton's version of Tom Russell's song about the Japanese relocation in WWII.

Setting this to public since the copyright owner (of the audio track) seems cool with it.

Thanks to AbnerMull.

Let's Not Overthink This

Digby on the latest right-wing lie that Obama is a Muslim:

In a less politically correct time they probably would have used a different word.

They call him a Muslim -- and are quite suddenly lashing out at "his people" almost a decade after 9/11--- simply because they aren't allowed to call him what they want to call him. Sure, they don't think Muslims are American. They also don't think liberals are American, blacks are American, Mexicans are America, gays are American, atheists are American or anyone else who doesn't identify themselves explicitly with them are American. They are, you see, Real America. Everyone else is not.

This stuff is like water --- it always finds a way to seep out. Calling Obama a Muslim is just a convenient way of justifying their existing bigotry toward everything he actually is. It's not really all that complicated.

She's right, but it actually is more complicated than that: as long as The Haters' attention is misdirected to focus on Obama, Pelosi, Reid, liberals, gays, Mexicans, and blacks, it's not focused on their real enemies who are working them like a rented mule.

More Homebrew Music Video

I got such a nice response to my first one which I posted yesterday that I decided to shoot the works. This is all I have for now. I gotta go out and put some miles on my video camera lest I start repeating myself! It's a damn dirty job, I tell ya, but someone's gotta do it. Heh.

Pretty music and cruisin' down the road without having to watch where you're going. It doesn't get any better than that! You don't even have to have handlebars bolted to your desk like I do...

As long as folks enjoy my eclectic (some might say 'odd') music I'll try to make this a weekly feature.

Herb Pedersen sings his own composition "Easy Ride". Not a motorcycle song but I ain't got no late night truckin' blues video. I like this song and hope you do too.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou singing to her daughters Meghan and Haillie

I wish they were my daughters too...

Thanks to TheChoughs, UK.

Inaugural Homebrewed Music Video Blogging

Using the theory that the 'Friday Document Dump' is an ingenious invention to keep as many people as possible from seeing something, I present my first ever homebrewed music video.

Me 'n Mrs. G went for a nice 30-mile ride this past Monday, up to Donner Summit and back. I turned my camera on for the return trip and got 21:29 of video. You can go see the raw vids at my YouTube channel. There's even some of Mrs. G (in Part 3), whom I conned into taking the lead against her better judgment. You can even hear me doing it in my best Simon Legree twirling-my-pencil-moustache voice. She actually only did it because we were about to get run over. Heh.

If you go see those, turn your volume down. There's absolutely nothing wrong with my motorcycle, and I can barely hear the wind and mechanical noise and feel the vibration when I'm motoring along, but the little camera sure can. The music is a nice way to hide all that and let you have a nice visual to a pretty song.

There's a lot of good music on YouTube, but there's even more good music that ain't. I'm going to put up stuff I like over time. I finally figured out how to do it, i.e. read the directions and used my head a little to get the common point between where my music is and where my video editor can snag it.

This is one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums and I think the footage fits it pretty well. Sometimes I sing this to myself while I'm riding. So far I've managed to get my eyes back open in time...

I emailed Ms. McCaslin (Mr. Ringer is no longer with us) and asked her permission to use this and she sent me a very nice reply and said more or less to knock myself out, so here it is:

Note: there's a very tiny glitch at the end and it's too much trouble to get it out. Maybe someday...

"Strawberry Roan" by Jim Ringer and Mary McCaslin (site, wiki) from the LP/CD "The Bramble and the Rose". Song written by Bob Simpson. One of the best motorcycle songs ever.

Thank you Mary for your permission to use this.

Scene is eastbound from Donner Pass to Donner Lake.

If ya liked this one, there's more in the pipe. If ya didn't, yer in for it...

Ironically, this could prove there is a God...

Fat chance.

Thanks to YubaNet.

Thank God global warming is a hoax

If it's Friday, it must be Wednesday's Morford:

I mean, right? You know? Because gosh Jesus in angry apocalyptic heaven, wouldn't it be just terrible if it were all true?

Wouldn't it be horrible if all this stunning, insanely mounting, irrefutable evidence -- death, floods, fires, heat waves, the worst this and the most violent that in 1,000 years -- were some sort of surefire, cumulative sign that we have, if not directly caused, then wildly accelerated and amplified the imminent implosion of this planet?

But we didn't! And we haven't! And we aren't! I mean, whew.

I am delighted to be reassured by the fringe right wing that the piles of dead bodies, millions of lost homes, and even the very sun itself are part of a vast conspiracy, a plot to form an evil one-world government, a lefty liberal charade even in places that don't understand or care what the hell a liberal is. See? Do you understand how powerful the lie? Amazing.

[...] Here is your big lesson: Do not listen to people who actually know things. Only listen to people who react, negatively and whiningly, to people who actually know things. It's the American way.

[...] But I repeat: It's not our fault. Seven billion rapacious, industrialized bipeds have the impact of a feather. All this destruction and death? It's just God's will -- except for those places that don't believe in a Christian God. Serves them right, doesn't it?

I must be more of a Believer than I thought. The weather's been very nice here, and there's nothing much around here that can fall on me or inundate me. Unless God drops it on me from the sky, that is.

Headline of the Day

U.S. Soldiers Punished for Not Attending Christian Concert

Understanding America's Class System

You may not agree 100% with this rant by Joe Bageant, I certainly didn't, but it's worth a read.

How about them political elites, huh? Five million bucks for Chelsea Clinton's wedding, 15K just to rent the air-conditioned shitters -- huge chrome and glass babies with hot water and everything. No gas masks and waxy little squares of toilet paper for those guys.

There's a picture. Pretty fancy port-a-cans!

Yes, it looks big time from the cheap seats. But the truth is that when we are looking at the political elite, we are looking at the dancing monkey, not the organ grinder who calls the tune. Washington's political class is about as upwardly removed from ordinary citizens as the ruling class is from the political class. For instance, they do not work for a living in the normal sense of a job, but rather obtain their income from abstractions such as investment and law, neither of which ever gave anybody a hernia or carpal tunnel. By comparison, the ruling class does not work at all.

This political class stands between all of us down here and the tiny minority in the ruling class waaaaaay up there, wherever the hell up there is. No use to squint. You can't see it from where we are. That comes in mighty handy in denying the existence of a ruling class.

On the other hand, you do not need to see an egg-sucking dog in action to know what to expect -- or not to expect. [...]

And besides, the ruling class holds all the money, not to mention the media that informs the populace as to what is going on in our country. It controls our health care, our banking and retirement funds. It controls our education or lack of education, and it controls the price, quantity and quality of the food we eat. It controls the quality of the air we breathe, and soon, through pollution credits, even the price they will pay for that air. Most importantly, it holds concentrated legal and governmental authority, not to mention the machinery of both parties to grant itself more authority.

In the face of all this stands a very diverse public, which regardless of what some might claim behind a few beers, is not about to take up arms or use force to unseat the ruling class. When your life and your family are so utterly controlled by persons and forces that you cannot even see, you don't take such risks. That's not gutlessness. It's common sense.

The higher truth is something we recognize when we encounter it. We may not have the right words, or all the facts, but we can feel it in our bones. Intuition is the first glimmer in the distance. It goes unsaid that we always have the choice of not looking in truth's direction, or not looking for it at all. Seldom is it a pleasant sight, which is the chief sign that it is truth. Even the best of it arrives to the sound of ominous bells.

Much, muuchhhh more.

You Hate America If You Are Against Park 51

The Rude Pundit was not going to write about the Not-At-Ground-Zero Not-Just-A-Mosque again today. For, truly, there's a few more important things going on in the world, like, you know, the floods in Pakistan and that war you might not really remember in Afghanistan. But the complete fucktardation over the building of a Muslim organization's community center on a shitty block in the vicinity of the seedling of an office building that will be known as "the Freedom Tower" is another of those continuing demonstrations of what a bunch of simpletons fill the airwaves, streets, and legislative halls of this country.

Here's what GOP House candidate Ron McNeil said to schoolkids at a Panama City, Florida forum: "That religion is against everything America stands for. If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians."

GOP House candidate. Figures. Someone needs to grab that sonofabitch by the stackin' swivel and esplain to him that he shouldn't preach hate to school kids.

Let's bottom line this shit and then the Rude Pundit's done: You despise this country if you think the Cordoba Initiative should move its planned community center. You have no understanding of the Constitution. If fact, you are in opposition to it. You have no respect for freedom of religion or speech. You are a coward who believes that the Constitution and the nation are too fucking weak to handle such freedoms. If you're not one of the crass politicians seeking to exploit the simpletons for your gain or a ratings-whore on Fox, you are a vile, hate-filled, unprincipled lump of shit who thinks that rights are only good when convenient for you, and you are too fucking lazy to fight for anything other than your prejudice and hatred. That's easy, motherfucker.

But because the Rude Pundit does believe in principles and rights, he thinks it's nobody's fucking business (including the mythologized 9/11 families) where the damn thing's built. What's more, even though he thinks you're a knuckle-dragging yahoo, he'd defend to the end your right to yowl your imbecility through your facehole.

I wish them knuckle-dragging yahoos came with volume or 'mute' controls, but he's right. Choices have consequences. Words are choices and words have meaning, and I think it's perfectly OK to defend their right to yowl their imbecility whilst standing over their supine form after punching them in the facehole for their hateful spew.

It ain't Florida ... 2

The Summer Palace and The Hermitage. Off to dinner ...

America In Darkness

A 'must read' by William Rivers Pitt.

Things have come to a pretty pass when I'm the guy saying it would be really helpful if George W. Bush were still around. I'm saying it, and I mean it, because this country could really use his brand of wisdom right now.

Let me be clear: I despise the man. Loathe him. He was quite simply the worst president in all of American history; if a future president wants to outstrip his deplorable record, they will literally have to crash the Earth into the Sun to pull it off. He is a thief, a liar and a murderer, and I consider the fact that he has not been called to account for his serial crimes against the American people and the world to be a failure of leadership equal to Hitler's decision to open a second front. If George W. Bush were on fire in front of me, I would not piss on him to put him out.

But I'd really like to hear from him right about now. [...]

Damned if Mr. Pitt ain't right. Did you feel the Earth's axis shift for a second?

Just Say Now

An update on the California initiative to legalize the herb.

Rolling Stone

[...] "Not so long ago, the pro-pot people used to be the nutty ones," says Doug Linney, a longtime environmental organizer who serves as the lead political consultant for Tax Cannabis. "Now it's just the opposite."

This law-and-order approach plays well with soccer moms in Los Angeles, who often provide the swing vote in California politics. "Like most things in politics these days, it's going to come down to the conflicted baby boomers," says Bill Carrick, a prominent Democratic consultant based in Los Angeles. But leading Democrats are still shying away from the measure, fearing that legalization will be used against them as a wedge issue. At recent meetings, both the California Democratic Party and the California Labor Federation voted to remain neutral on Prop 19. "The Democratic point of view, which is understandable, is that we don't want to be seen as the party of drugs and dope," says Carrick.

In fact, advocates argue, the campaign to legalize pot could actually have the opposite effect, sparking a "burnout turnout" that will boost Democrats in November. When asked how the party can get first-time Obama voters to show up this fall, the 78-year-old chairman of the California Democratic Party, John Burton, gave a one-word answer: "Pot." Indeed, polls indicate that legalization could lure Obama voters to the polls like no other issue. The progressive blog Firedoglake and Students for Sensible Drug Policy recently launched a "Just Say Now" campaign, both online and through college campuses, to turn out young voters. And Nate Silver, the noted political statistician, believes that polling on pot, which shows legalization with a 50-50 chance of passing, may undercount its true support. In a reverse of the so-called Bradley Effect, in which white voters support black candidates in public but vote against them in private, voters may denounce legalization to pollsters but quietly support it on Election Day. Silver dubs this the "Broadus Effect" in honor of Calvin Broadus, better known as Snoop Dogg.

If the measure does pass, proponents believe that the White House will not challenge it in court — much as New York was allowed to stop enforcing alcohol laws in 1923, a decade before Congress ended Prohibition. "I would hope the Obama administration and Attorney General Holder would see this as an example of the gen­ius of the Founding Fathers, who looked at the states as 'crucibles of democracy,' " says Wheaton, who drafted the ballot initiative. For now, however, advocates concede that Prop 19 faces an uphill climb. "We're fighting almost a hundred years of lies," says Mauricio Garzon, the campaign's director. Similar measures failed in Alaska and Nevada twice in the past decade — as well as 38 years ago in California, when the initiative was coincidentally also named Prop 19. "The burden of proof is always on the yes side to change the status quo," says Mark DiCamillo, director of California's Field Poll.

Yet proponents of legalization are cautiously optimistic about the current political climate. "If it fails, it fails temporarily," says Dan Rush, who predicts victory this year. "We'll take what we've learned from this initiative and create one that can win on the 2012 ballot." And if Democrats lose their congressional majority in November, as some are predicting, perhaps they can go to California and smoke away the pain.

Marijuana prohibition started in the '30s as an anti-Mexican political numbers game. In the '60s, it became part of a generational war between the Masters Of The Universe and Boomers when young white people discovered it along with countless other lies that came from the top down. Prohibition has been idling along as a way to punish people ever since, but it has been getting weaker and weaker - possession of small amounts was decriminalized in California from a felony down to a misdemeanor and then an infraction (like a traffic ticket) maybe twenty or so years ago, and on down to the legalization of medical marijuana. A lot of cop shops don't even bother trying to enforce it any more unless they have Mexicans and blacks to oppress.

Now it's on the ballot. We're almost there. We've come a long way since LeMar and it's only taken 46 years.

Yes on 19.

An Open Letter to Newt Gingrich

From Andy Ostroy:

Dear Newt (May I call you Newt? Not because I seek any sort of convivial familiarity, but simply because you remind me of a slimy lizard):

There's been lots of speculation lately as to your political motives and aspirations, and whether or not you're planning a run for the White House in 2012. So I am here to ask you, in fact beg you, to please run for president. There, I've said it. And I mean it with all the passion and dedication of a card-carrying liberal who wishes to see your political fortunes erupt like Mt. Vesuvius. And if I may be so bold as to ask, even beg, for another favor...please name Sarah Palin as your vice-presidential running mate. This would be a Tea Bagger's dream ticket, and a Democrat's wet dream ticket. My goodness, I believe I just soiled myself a little just thinking about it.

Just think, after you and The Wasilla Wonder are nominated you can start thinking about your cabinet, and how you can stock it with brilliant 21st Century thinkers and bridge-builders like Rand Paul, Ken Buck and Sharron Angle. Sean Hannity could be your Communications Director. Rush Limbaugh your head of Community Outreach. You can even revive Dick Cheney and appoint him your Middle East Special Envoy. I hear they just love him over there. Good grief, man, just think about the bazillions of fired up Tea Party peeps you'd draw to the polls.

Now here's the good part. [...]

Yep. Go.

Headline of the Day

Badtux tipped us off to this in 'comments' on this post. I don't give enough of a shit about that broad to go look it up, but when it popped up in front of me...

Ann Coulter Bounced From Right-Wing Conference Over Appearance at "Homocon"

So long Annie Boy. You've been cast out by the True Believers for not being nutzoid enough. Never thought I'd see the day. Heh.

It's not about the mosque...

Will Bunch hits the nail on the head:

Which brings us to the present crisis: Mosques in America. It should tell you something that the backlash against Muslims practicing their faith in America is far greater in 2010 than it was in the months immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That's because the political firestorm with its epicenter in lower Manhattan really has nothing to do with 9/11 or its aftermath, and everything to do with "the Other" the awful forces and fears that have been unleashed in the last couple of years -- fears that craven politicians like Gingrich, Palin and the formerly rational Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota are eager to surf into the White House in 2013. If the Manhattan mosque controversy were really about our 9/11 sensibilities, how does one explain the opposition to other Islamic houses of worship from Tennessee to California to Staten Island?

Let's face it: This country has long had its Know-Nothings and its Birchers and its McCarthyites, but it never had gizmos like Fox News or Sarah Palin's Twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It's time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over "anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the Oval Office are all part of the same war against "the Other," and that we are in the fight of a lifetime.

No shit.

The good Mama Grizzlies speak out

This vid was posted day before yesterday and has gotten 55,000 views. Don't mess with Mama Grizz!

Watch these Mama Grizzlies speak for themselves -- then you can speak out. Visit www.sarahdoesntspeakforme.com and sign our pledge to vote in November.

Also see Care2Causes and EMILY's List.

Thanks to emilyslist.

It ain't Florida ...

Our first day in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Headline of the Day

The Psychotic Hysteria of Republicans and "Terrorist Babies." The GOP Should be Gagged with Diapers.

Loaded ones.

The Right-Wing Judy Garland

Click to embiggen

It may not be as controversial as the building of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, but if history tells us anything about the Religious Right’s relationship with The Gay, there should be a hot time, not only on the evening of September 25, when GOProud, the organization that claims to be “the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies,” hosts HOMOCON 2010, but during the lead-up to the event as well. GOProud’s special guest will be … let the trumpets ring out … Ms. Ann Coulter.

“The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left,” said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud.

“I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’ – Ann Coulter.”

I'm speechless...

My first thoughts are a) these guys have kicked 'crazy' and 'self hatred' and 'delusional' up a notch, and b) Coulter is having trouble finding gigs, which is a good thing.

Much more.

The Baltic ...

Our first stop in the Baltic, Talinn, Estonia. Medieval Europe at its best.

Daughter's off ta college and I'm gonna go pee in the woods...

This is just kind of a heartwarming column by Chris Erskine on his daughter going back to college after the summer break.

I mean, who needs that kind of noise? Her time home this summer has been a thunderstorm of slamming doors and thumpy footsteps across oak floors. She closes the refrigerator, ka-BOOM. She closes the garage door, ka-BOOM. When late to stuff, as she inevitably is, her steps ka-BOOM-ka-BOOM-ka-BOOM across the living room and all the way to the car.

It's kind of like when Elvis used to ride horses through Graceland, except louder. Yesterday, our house surrendered. And the foundation wiggled a half-inch deeper into the earth.

Attention, world: Geeks are all the rage. Lord help hunks like me and you.

Sigh...

"I have to pee," he says with a shrug, then leaves the house like he's just won a Corvette.

This used to distress his mother, this out-of-doors habit. Shamefully old school, she was of the opinion that human beings should use bathrooms whenever possible. Then she had two sons and realized that urinating outside was one of the great joys of boyhood — especially between the ages of 4 and 74. No one really understands men, especially women.

So true. Sometimes I eschew the porcelain convenience and save it up 'til I walk the dogs and can mark my spot in the woods.

Peeing outdoors illustrates the difference between men and women as well as anything: Men face out of the wind. Women face into it. If that ain't 180° out, I don't know what is.

There's more, but I'll just leave ya with this teaser:

Speaking of which, we had this discussion the other day at breakfast, two other husbands and I sitting at a fast-food stand along the boulevard as summer whizzed by.

One of the dads proposed: "Could you ever be totally honest with your wife?" at which point...

We The Bigoted People

Thanks to YubaNet.

The "Ground Zero Mosque" and Victim Worship

The Rude One

Here's one of the stupidest things said so far about the whole big ball of stupid that is the "controversy" over the Muslim community center being built two blocks from the sight of the former World Trade Center: "Everything Bloomberg and Barack Obama say about this sounds right. But if the only constituency that matters here - the ones left behind by the victims of Sept. 11 - think they're wrong, they are." That bit of solipsism masked as empathy is from New York Daily News writer Mike Lupica.

Enough. Truly, enough. This is written with utter sympathy for people who lost loved ones or were hurt or made ill by the attack on 9/11. But it is with complete disdain and a "fuck you" to those who exploit their pain in order to spread hatred (and that includes some of the victims themselves). There is something appalling and sick about watching preening bags of fuck prance around on Fox "news" and use dead people as shields so they can say bad things about Democrats, liberals, and/or Muslims.

And, by the way, have you ever spent time in the blocks around Ground Zero? It ain't some pristine site of our American revirgination. It's a filthy downtown of a city, like every filthy city downtown. The streets are dirty; there's homeless people all around; there's discount stores, fast food joints, and other crap places in between the decent buildings and public art. Some of the people from outside the city who want to talk about "honoring the dead" or some such shit probably buy the crap Twin Tower souvenirs from the Middle Easterners selling them at grubby tables across the street, between Ground Zero and the Trinity Church, or they get street meat from Halal carts. Fuck, before the 9/11 attacks, it was a fucking wasteland at night and on the weekends down there. The Cordoba House? That's on a block that no one walks down unless they're specifically looking for a place there, not because it's dangerous, but because it's just another goddamned city block with nothing special about it.

So, really, truly, take your sudden belief in the glowing sanctity of the ground that holds the construction site of an office building that will be filled with Wall Streeters dicking over Middle America and shove it up your opportunistic and hateful asses.

There's been a lot of "they've got the right to build the mosque there, but they shouldn't" going around. I heard one guy on TV, I don't know who, compare it to civil rights thus: "you can sit anywhere on the bus you want, just not in the front".

Naming Climate Change Disasters After the Deniers

Peter H. Gleick

So, I have a new proposal. Henceforth, just as we give names to hurricanes, I propose we name climate disasters after those who deny the reality of climate change in the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence. After all, why use generic names and tarnish all future Andrews, Betsys, Charleys, and Katrinas when we can remind ourselves that without these individuals' stubborn opposition in the face of all evidence, we and our children could have lived in a world where these events were far less prevalent. And just for fun, I have some modest examples here:

There are several, but this one cracks me up:

The Inhofe Lake Mead Bathtub Ring: Water levels in Lake Mead on the Colorado River have dropped to levels not seen since the reservoir was first filled in the 1930s, threatening water supplies throughout the southwest, and exposing whitened rock rings around the lake's edge. Over the last decade, the Southwest has suffered the sharpest temperature increase in North America, rapidly diminishing snowpack, loss of vegetation, expansion of forest pests, and rampant wildfires.

I think Inhofe (R - Oil) should more appropriately have had the Gulf oil volcano named after him, but this is still a good idea.

By the way, I've seen the Lake Mead Bathtub Ring. It's as ugly as the inside of the deniers' minds. It's also a portent of bad things to come.

It's a trick question, right?

Robert Creamer

What's the difference between mainstream Republican leaders and the Tea Party extremists that have been winning Republican primaries across the country?

Reminds me of this:

Q: What's the difference between pygmies and a women's track team?
A: One's a buncha cunning runts and the other's a buncha running....

Sorry. I guess that doesn't fit very well since Repugs and teabaggers are both, but I can't control what pops into my mind.

The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most to their corporate backers and playing instead to the fears and anxieties of their rank and file voters.

Nor, of course, did Bush campaign on the pledge that he would take the long-term surplus in the federal budget he inherited from Clinton and turn it into more debt, during his term, than all of the presidents before him in American history put together.

This year, the Republican establishment is not worried about the primary victories of Tea Party candidates because they will advocate "far out" extremists policies. Most of the Republican Party leadership agrees with those policies. The problem is that these candidates don't seem to have enough sense -- or political experience -- to know that they're not supposed to go around talking about those policies before they're elected.

Good long article, but this sums it up:

[...] Tea Party extremists who haven't learned yet to moderate their language - and earnest true believers like Paul Ryan who think they can convince America that what's bad for them is good for them - have complicated the Republican problem. [...]

The Repugs have been successful in lying and fearmongering to Americans to get them to vote against their own best interests for years decades. The real question now that the economy has people paying more attention and might actually listen to the Repug spew is:

Will it work this time?

{Crickets}

Quote of the Day

Howard Fineman in a Newsweek article about Repug fearmongering for the upcoming election. This is good on more than one level:

Given where Republicans — and come November, maybe the country — are headed, I wanted to interview a well-known Republican of color. Rep. John Boehner was out of town, so I called former representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma. [...]

Heh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Polls Bad News For Obama, Congress, Both Parties
Good news for one-worlders, anarchists, end-timers.

Congressman: Terrorists Having Babies Here, Training Them Overseas
Then returning to run for congress.

Schism in Conservative Ranks
Anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-union, anti-big government wing splits from anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-gay, anti-Semite wing.

United they stand, divided they fall. Things are so shitty, that qualifies as good news. Yeesh.

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal

Following up on Fixer's post, just below and at Worlds, the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal is a very interesting and scenic waterway.

Brought to you by the UCA, here's a choice of videos on how the canal works and the Kiel Canal in 9 minutes. Be sure to duck for the bridges!

Anchors aweigh ...

Made the ship yesterday afternoon and pulled out of Amsterdam right on schedule. We're in the Kiel Canal now, heading for the Baltic.

The egg settin' horse and...

I've posted about Utah Phillips before. He's gone now, but he's still one of the best storytellers goin'. This story is on his CD The Moscow Hold which I highly recommend to anyone who likes to hear funny stories.

His performance at the Strawberry Music Festival Spring 2007, Camp Mather, Yosemite.

Thanks to VeniceArtists.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt ~ Raise The Dead

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Goodbye, Amsterdam ...

Gotta catch a ship. Some stuff from our last day in Amsterdam.

Cal Thomas Says the Terrorists Are Right

El Rude-o

That headline is not hyperbole. Entirely straight right-wing nutzoid Cal Thomas, who is entirely straight despite always looking like he's contemplating balls dangling in front of his face, said so in his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the incoherent yawps of a man so sexually repressed that he'd make John Calvin say, 'Dude, you need to get laid'"). The entirely straight Thomas writes, regarding the Proposition 8 decision in California, "A nation that loses its moral sense is a nation without any sense at all. Muslim fanatics who wish to destroy us are correct in their diagnosis of our moral rot: loss of a fear of God, immodesty, especially among women, materialism and much more."

You got that? The Muslim terrorists are right. Even though he follows it up with "their solution -- Sharia law -- is wrong," he adds, "they are not wrong about what ails us."

And the entirely straight Thomas doesn't even condemn the tactics of "Muslim fanatics." No, just that they prefer nutzoid Islam to nutzoid Christianity. Thomas says of the post-1950s "destruction" of America through "tolerance," "None of this should surprise anyone who takes the time to read and understand what happens to people and nations that disregard God." See? Entirely straight Cal Thomas is very different from Muslim extremists because...ummm...

I'm sure 'tolerance' is the problem. Yeesh. Right-wing religious nutzoids are right-wing religious nutzoids. Period.

Let's send ours to fight theirs. In Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the middle of the Gobi, anywhere the noise wouldn't keep us awake, and let 'em have at it. They'd be out of our hair for a while and hopefully not many would return.

Spaceballs = No Balls

David Sirota

Call me an '80s junkie, but when I saw the results of this week's closely watched Colorado election, I immediately thought of "Spaceballs." In that Mel Brooks masterpiece, a Darth Vader spoof named Dark Helmet says "evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Make it "dumb and broke," and you have a powerful explanation for incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's narrow primary victory over former state legislator Andrew Romanoff.

For those who care about a progressive economic agenda and about injecting democracy into the Democratic Party, this is encouraging when put next to the similarly impressive results of White House-thwarting Democratic primary challengers in Pennsylvania and Arkansas. And that trend explains the increasingly fierce pushback from Washington.

Yes, this is why Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, so vociferously berated the progressive movement on the eve of Colorado's primary, and why DNC powerbrokers moved so forcefully against Romanoff. He was the latest candidate to represent what those elites know to be an ascendant national progressive uprising inside the Democratic Party – one that keenly understands money's corrosive effects on public policy and that, therefore, rejects the Beltway's corporatist model.

Seeing that this uprising threatens their power and their D.C. worldview, these elites are desperate to preserve Dark Helmet's principle – so desperate, in fact, they have resorted to employing Obama's presidential campaign infrastructure to prop up more conservative candidates against progressive challengers in intra-party battles.

This unholy alliance managed to hold off the onslaught this time. But make no mistake – Colorado is yet more evidence that the days of "Spaceballs" defining the Democratic Party are ending.

The right has gone farther to the right and so has the left as if it were the right thing to do. It's not. I hope Sirota's right but I'm not holding my breath.

"Spaceballs" refers to the "space" where the Dems' "balls" oughta be.

In The Matter Of Robert L. Gibbs

Paul Krugman. Short, sweet, and to the point.

There he goes again. What gets me is how unprofessional the whole thing is.

Look, if you’re a public figure of any kind, you’re going to face a lot of criticism. Much of it will seem unfair to you; some of the unfair criticism will come from people you expected to take your side; you’ll be angry, you’ll feel that people are putting their egos or their personal aggrandizement above the cause.

Welcome to reality. It’s my reality — and I’m just a professor/columnist. Someone actually in the White House has to be prepared for much more of this kind of thing — and if you don’t have a thick enough skin to take it, find another form of employment.

I’m not saying to turn the other cheek and always say something polite as a general principle; by all means lash out at your critics, if you have something to gain by doing so. Rudeness at the proper moment can serve a purpose — as I hope I’ve demonstrated over the years. But if you vent for the sake of venting; if you alienate people you’re going to need; then you’re just being stupid.

And that, I’m afraid, is what’s going on here. Rachel Maddow isn’t going to go away, or turn all meek, because the White House Press Secretary implicitly denounced her. Even more to the point, liberal critics have an audience because they’re reflecting real concerns of real people. Those concerns need addressing, if necessary in the form of explanations of why their expectations can’t be met. Denouncing the people giving voice to those real concerns as the “professional left” is both unfair and, as I’ve said, stupid.

And both the president and, more important, the country deserve better.

Over 200 comments. I won't go quite as far as No. 5 because the wingnuts are the greatest danger to this country in our history and I'm not going to sit out any elections ever, but this is what could happen:

I can only speak for myself, I'm not going to vote for Obama or the Democratic party any more. They give a harsher lashing to the left than the right. The people on the left have a desire to improve things and the people on the right only want to win. If the president doesn't denounce these comments and get his act together very soon, he's lost a strong supporter. This is not an overreaction. He just doesn't get it and doesn't deserve reelection. I'd rather see Palin destroy the Republican party for good as president than watch Obama prop it up with his naiveté.

Obama's not going to lose those who know over Gibbs' comment, but he needs to not lose those who aren't as committed to truth, decency, and reality. He might not have turned out the way we wanted, but he's what we've got.

I've been insulted before. I'll get over this one too. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Repug rule can and will and must be prevented from doing so.

Voting for Democrats may have devolved into simply being the lesser of two evils, but that's the system we're stuck with.

Update:

One of the commenters has linked us to "The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity".

Go read this. Fits the right to a T.

Canals and jetlag ...

Got to bed early Wednesday night but not before cruising the canals of Amsterdam.

Update:

Since I had some time this afternoon (tough day of shopping with the Mrs.), I figured I'd put a post up of yesterday's adventures.

I'm taking today off

The wingnuts are going more batcrap crazy by the day. The White House is too afraid to take on our enemies so they're making their (former) friends into straw men and calling us names. Yada yada. Nothing new. I'm dead from it. Fuck it for today.

Dam straight!

We're here and I got wifi in the hotel room! Yay!

Take this job and slide it

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) August 10, 2010 – Effective immediately, all workplaces in the United States will be fitted with inflatable slides to enable disgruntled employees to quit as dramatically as possible.
...

Starting on Monday, inflatable slides will be installed in such diverse workplaces as Home Depot, Starbucks, and the White House, said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

"If post offices had inflatable slides, think of the lives we could have saved," she said.

Alarming Repuglicants

Thanks to YubaNet.

Cast thy gaze heavenwards

YubaNet

The Perseids come every year beginning in late July and stretching into August. Among the many nights of the shower, there is always the one night that the viewing of the shower is at its best. This year, that evening falls on Thursday, August 12. Sky watchers can witness colorful fireballs, occasional outbursts and long hours of gracefully streaking meteors.

Get a chaise lounge and do some oohin' an' awin'. Hints & tips.

Note to The Biggest Little City In The World, 35 miles away: Turn them f**kin' lights down for a while, willya?