"...behold this carousel of whiny self-victimhood"

Here's a coupla ¶ from Glenn Greenwald on Richie Rich's Pity Party.

For billionaires to see themselves as the True Victims, to complain that the President and the Government are waging some sort of war against them in the name of radical egalitarianism, is so removed from reality -- universes away -- that's it's hard to put into words. And the fiscal recklessness that the Kochs and their comrades tirelessly point to was a direct by-product of the last decade's rule by the Republican Party which they fund: from unfunded, endless wars to a never-ending expansion of the privatized National Security and Surveillance States to the financial crisis that exploded during the Bush presidency. But whatever else is true, there are many victims of fiscal policy in America: the wealthiest business interests and billionaires like the Koch Brothers are the few who are not among them.

[...] They single-handedly fund advocacy groups and covert campaigns on a wide variety of highly controversial issues that adversely impact huge numbers of people. That they expect to be able to do that without any vigorous response or opposition or anger is just reflective of their oozing sense of entitlement: the same syndrome that leads them to perversely believe that the True Victims in America's political culture are its wealthiest and most powerful.

This strain of delusional self-victimization is not uncommon. One commonly finds those who are the strongest and most powerful convincing themselves that they are the oppressed and the marginalized. Many Americans believe that -- as they invade, bomb and occupy countless Muslim countries -- that they are the ones being victimized by the Muslim world, while many Israelis and their loyalists believe that the nuclear-armed, constantly invading, occupying and bombing nation is the real victim of aggression and militarism in the Middle East. [...]

This is exactly the psychological affliction that leads Wall Street plunderers and tycoons and billionaires to see themselves as the victims of the resentful lower-classes and the "radical egalitarians" who run the U.S. Government. Even as they get richer and everyone else gets poorer, even as the very few remaining restraints on their political power are abolished, even as the disparities in wealth and power grow ever-larger, they become increasingly convinced that everything is stacked against them, that there is a grand conspiracy to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. All of this could be confined to a fascinating, abstract psychological study if not for the fact that the people who think this way exercise the most political power and continue to exercise more and more.

But...but...but...nobody was supposed to know...our Supremes said so...the peasants have found out and now they don't like us...waaaaaaaah...

Note to the Kochs et alia: you are crunchy and will taste good with ketchup. If there's anything left after cleaning.

Huckabee: All Americans Should Be Forced at Gunpoint to Listen to David Barton

This is at Talk To Action.

While most eyes were on the Conservative Principles Political Action Committee conference in Iowa on Saturday, many of us who follow the religious right were more interested in another conference, also held in Iowa, on Thursday and Friday. This other conference was the Rediscover God in America conference, where all the same potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls that appeared at the Saturday's Conservative Principles PAC conference told us what they really think -- that America should be governed by biblical law.

Sure, there was a lot of talk about important issues like the economy at the Conservative Principles PAC conference, but it was at the Rediscover God in America conference that we learned that all of our economic policies should be based on the Bible. And who did we learn this from? None other than Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, who kicked off the conference with a lengthy presentation of his usual historical hogwash. Then, one by one, as the potential Republican presidential candidates took the podium to let the audience full of pastors know just how Christian they are, each began by gushing about what a great historian and good friend David Barton is.

You can read the rest of this, and there's video with Suckabee's 'gunpoint' comment left in although it was edited out of the webcast. Edited out for good reason - Huckeeboy let their true feelings slip out.

Yes, to these crazies we should all be forced at gunpoint to listen to the lies and rantings of the American Taliban. Do what the religious right wants or they'll shoot you. Good Xtians to a man and damn white of 'em.

Not getting involved ... (revisited)

Being I've operated with both of these aircraft, one has to wonder how uninvolved we're actually becoming:

...

But unlike the attack aircraft used in the war’s first days, these planes fly low to the ground and fire cannons instead of dropping bombs. Experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, the A-10’s 30 millimeter “Avenger” guns to shoot holes at ground targets; the A-130 loiters over its targets at 15,000 feet before firing its 25 mm, 40mm and 105 mm guns. If you want to take out enemy tanks, trucks and artillery pieces from the sky — with friendly dudes on the ground nearby — these are the planes you fly.

...

The other side ...

Of the Cattle Dog coin.

Remember about a month an a half ago, when I posted a vid of my little idiots dogs roughhousing while I was trying to blog? Well, this is the other side of the coin, when they're beat and don't want to be bothered.



Sorry but you'll never get that minute back. Heh ...

And yes, that's the Beeb on in the background.

I realize ...

We've been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator but shouldn't an elected representative know a little about geography?

The old joke goes that most people can't find whatever country the United States is at war with on a map.

...

I mean, I guess sitting on the House Foreign Affairs Committee doesn't require knowing much about anything "foreign". Seems believing anything French is no good is qualification enough.

Oh yes ...

You see it all the time. Women fake rape to get abortions. Christ ...

Summing up ...

The political discourse in America in the beginning of the 21st Century. The Rude One:

...

Something's seriously fucked beyond fucked when, in order to be considered at having a real shot at winning Republican primaries, you gotta not just go nutzoid anti-choice and anti-gay (which is stupid enough), but you gotta at least leave the door open for genuine madness in order to appease the inmates at the asylum.

Getting crazier by the day too.

Progressive crazy ...

See, this is what gives political adversaries ammo:

... I'm not sure that this kind of gimmickry doesn't diminish the seriousness of PETA's cause ...

They want San Francisco to change the name of the "Tenderloin" district. Mr. Aravosis calls it right.

... I think it important that someone keep pressure on the food industry to better its practices, make them as humane as possible, etc. But is complaining about the Tenderloin district really worthy of PETA? ...

Dennis Kucinich is another one. He has some great points, and does some great work for the progressive cause, but his dives into the realm of nutty diminish his message and makes it too easy to disregard everything he says.

Let the conservatives play on the crazy side, but if anybody's gonna take progressives seriously, they gotta get away from the nitpicky shit that makes them look like obsessive nuts.

In this day and age, with the conservative opposition research machine going full bore, it might help the cause if those on our side with a national forum thought about what they are about to say before they opened their traps.

Isn’t it time for a no-fly zone in Arizona?

I've been having a hard time finding something to get worked up enough to post on today. Usually it's easy. The Repugs have gone from shooting themselves and each other in the foot to blasting each other's feet off with high explosives. I like that, but it's getting so common I've become blasé, jaded even, about it. Ho-hum. I mean, Fixer's garden and my snow are more interesting.

Libya? Opinions are all over the place, including mine. ¿Quien sabe?

I came when I found Laura Flanders combining the two! Joe Arpaio is a self-serving bully who likes to humiliate inmates with green baloney and pink underwear, which is easy since they're in his jail, and take law enforcement resources away from the important stuff like safeguarding the community and blowing them on grandstanding and publicity seeking. Using a TANK to bust up a chicken fight fer chrissake?!

Right-wingers love this asshole, which is reason enough to dislike the pig.

Text at AlterNet.

Thanks to lauraflanders.

Not getting involved ...

It just gets better:

President Obama has a signed a secret presidential finding authorizing covert operations to aid the effort in Libya where rebels are in full retreat despite air support from U.S. and allied forces, a source tells ABC News.

...

Mark my words, this is gonna bite us in the ass.

Off to the garden center for more junipers ...

Update ...

In a comment on my earlier post, Gordon said: "We will, of course, require photographs of this marvel as it develops." Ask and ye shall receive:

Yesterday, I laid out the perimeter and the bed around the tree. There was nothing here but the big ol' maple and the gnarly old wisteria in the corner (you can barely see it on the far left in the 2nd pic) When I was a kid, this was my baseball field (home plate was about 10 feet to the right of the maple). When I took these two, I'd started putting in the heather and creeping juniper.





Today, I planted the rest of the shit around the tree and the anchor shrubs in the perimeter. The lilacs are on the perimeter, every 5 feet, but they're hard to see. They came as saplings (see 3rd pic) and they are tiny. If I knew they would have been this small, I would have waited and bought mature bushes. I can just picture my yard rabbits having a field day with them but we'll see by morning. Might be the last thing they eat (where's my .22). Heh ...



Update:

I put this in comments (for our pal Jay in NC) but it'll probably be easier here (using the above pic as reference):

...

Perimeter:

On the corners are Dwarf Alberta Spruce
In the middle is a Japanese Holly
The Lilacs are of the Old Fashioned variety, standard color

Bed (l to r):

The fan looking things are Broom Evergreens
The purple shrubs are a combination of Heather and Heath
The plants with the green and white leaves (closest to the tree) are Wintercreepers
The green plants closest to the edge are Blue Star Juniper
The little round grass balls are Blue Fescue

...

***

Click pics to make bigger.

I still have to get the stones for the border around the tree and I have to head up the street to 9 Brothers Gravel Yard (a good, mostly, buncha Italian boys who I went to school with) to look at flagstones for the walking areas.

If anybody wants to know which shrubs are which, let me know and I'll put up a list of what I used.

Update Zwei(Thursday):

So I got a little carried away this morning. Heh ... I added some depth to the perimeter, pairing an English Dwarf Boxwood (l) with the Alberta Spruces. In front of the old Wisteria(r), I put two more clumps of the Blue Fescue and Sweet Flag Variegatus. I also stuck a Blue Pacific Shore Juniper(c) with the Japanese Holly.

Thankfully, I got everything planted before the rain really started, but it's been a constant drizzle all morning. I wasn't gonna take the little mud balls dogs out with me but the Mrs. is in Hartford on business and I'd be damned if I trusted the two of them alone in the house for 4 hours while I'm playing in the dirt.

Now you have us out in the rain?

Shopping Day

We're off to The Big City to spend some of our Gummint Welfare rockin' chair money! Keep working! Heh.

See yas.

Hypocridiot-O’-The-Day!

The whackjob wingnut M.O. in a nutshell.

VIDEO: Oops! Michele Bachmann demands freedom of speech… except for the L.A. Times
...

Priceless. Just perfect. Watch all the way to the very end:

Fox News ate my nuclear dolphins

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford, who's all, er, aglow in the wake of the disaster in Japan.

It is 2011 and here is what we know: Reality is fluid, fact is malleable, cause and effect completely uncertain. We know what we don't know, but we also know the opposite. We are told multiple stories, versions, ideas, adaptations of truth that cannot be verified or confirmed, because our global media has lost nearly all credibility, largely because of, well, you, because everyone wants it all for free, the value of an engaged, highly informed populace has plummeted, and also because media conglomerates have shamelessly whored out their once-respectable newsrooms as a profit centers.

Result: Fox News. Result: Andrew Breitbart. Result: A shamelessly malevolent GOP that openly loathes its own constituents and fellates the rich like never before. Result: The truth simply doesn't have much of a chance. Wait, does it? Maybe it does. After all, positives abound.

There has never been a better time to be an optimist. There has never been a better time to be a fatalist. There has never been a deeper collective urge to tune out all the careening white noise and dash off to the woods with a packet of poppy seeds and a copy of "Sailing to Byzantium" and start your own cult.

Except that the woods are full of pesticides, meth labs and redneck Tea Party inbreds who think Obama is a Muslim Nazi socialist, guns are for licking, and you, yes you, are a despicable godless commie pervert for caring enough to read this column right now.

Damn right I am!

So much ...

For "handing over responsibility":

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is engaged in a fierce debate over whether to supply weapons to the rebels in Libya, senior officials said on Tuesday, with some fearful that providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war and that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda.

...

We're still paying for our interference in Afghanistan in the '80s when we armed the "freedom fighters" against the Soviets. How long will we pay for this?

Theme of my day ...

Same as yesterday:

Elton John - Empty Garden

The Beatles - The Walrus

Lyric:

...

Sitting in an English garden
Waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come
You get a tan from
Standing in the English rain

...

The reason I was turning the garden yesterday is because today I have 16 shrubs in pots (that I picked up at 0600 this morning) that I have to plant plus 20 lilac bushes coming via UPS later in the morning that all have to get into the ground before I close my eyes tonight.

The Mrs. always wanted an English garden and now that I have the time (sorta) and our friends Chris and Terry from Wales are staying with us for a week over July 4th, I figured better now than never.

Tahoe's winter: 'The snowiest March we've ever seen'

Good. I thought it was just me...

Sierra Sun

Ski resorts are reporting either record or near-record snow accumulations, causing many to extend the ski season into mid- to late- May, and boaters are preparing for a summer season that figures to feature high water levels for Lake Tahoe, Donner Lake, the Truckee River and other regional waterbodies.

Squaw Valley USA is reporting its best season ever from a snow accumulation standpoint, reporting 691 inches as of Tuesday, March 29. Thus, the resort announced it will extend its ski season to May 30.

“With this much snow, Squaw Valley will have great coverage through May 30 and possibly even longer,” said Andy Wirth, Squaw's chief executive officer. “We will certainly be examining the possibility of opening for July 4, conditions permitting.” (my em)

According to the Associated Press, California Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to declare on Wednesday an end to the state's 3-year-old drought, an announcement expected after completion of the state's final snow survey.

Heavy snow and drenching rains have left California reservoirs at high levels. The Sierra Nevada snowpack was 159 percent of normal as of Friday.

Damn good thing there's no 'climate change'. I'd hate for this past winter to become the norm.

Breakin' trail to the dryer vent

It looks like Fixer 'n me are both doing shovel work today. He's turning his garden (two posts down), I'm tryin' fer warm underwear. Let's just say we is both ho-ing...

This was my recon job yesterday. At one point Mrs. G saw the dogs going by outside the office window and hollered hello and I hollered 'hi' back.

Also, with one day of sunshine and mid-40s temp my snow pile went down almost a foot. It was like summer! More, more...! If I wait a coupla weeks for clean skivvies maybe the dryer vent will clear naturally...no, no, there must be something in the Geneva Convention about that.



Update:

I got the dryer vent dug out. I sat on the snow under my dripping eaves wearing a hooded rain jacket. I now understand the full meaning of "colder'n a well digger's ass". My jeans are in the dryer, the venting of which is melting that pile of snow at a prodigious rate. I wish.

I had to dig straight down about three feet. I used both long and short handled shovels. I broke a short handled one the other day and when I went to replace it I found the cutest little shovel I've ever seen. I'da bought it if I hadn't needed it. Its use is limited but it worked well for this close-clearance job until the hole got so deep I couldn't reach any farther. It's called a Razorback Little Hog and I got it at our Ace Hardware store. Under 20 bucks, but I had a $5 coupon.

Thar she blows!

Worst of Durst

Sarah Palin visited Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, and was very excited because whaling is a big industry around Alaska.

Don't we get an attorney?

No.



Turning out the garden this morning and, for utmost efficiency (I got no fucking time), my little "helpers" were confined to the kennel while I was working.

"Drunk" food all the rage in Shakytown

For us Krautophiles. Brand X via the LATimes:

Eating: L.A. bars and eateries sprechen Deutsch

But lately a new breed of late-night destinations is sweeping into Los Angeles, catering to a younger crowd that associates late-night cool, clubbing and great food with cities such as Berlin.

Last month, Angelenos saw the debut of nighttime hang Steingarten LA, and in the coming months at least two more spots serving up German-themed late-night thrills — Kai Loebach’s Currywurst on Fairfax and Würstkuche Venice — are rushing to meet the demand for “drunk” food and imported craft beers.

“People are already going to be drunk when they come in here,” says Kai Loebach, the Westphalia-born owner of the forthcoming Currywurst on Fairfax. It is not related to the Berlin Currywurst in Silver Lake.

“I was born and raised on currywurst and I’ve always craved the quick fix satisfaction of eating it after midnight in L.A.,” he said.

Currywurst and beer after midnight, blow the blankets right off the bed by morning. Sounds good to me!

Ya think?

Maybe, if you're having a meeting about the fate of Libya, you might want to have a Libyan or two among the attendees?

(CBS/AP) LONDON — World powers were meeting in London on Tuesday seeking to plot out an endgame for Muammar Qaddafi's tottering regime and to strike agreement on plans for Libya's future.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Arab League and as many as 40 global foreign ministers were joining the talks — seeking to ratchet up pressure on Qaddafi to quit.

...

Just sayin' ...

Addendum: And, again, just sayin', maybe we should send our own war criminals to The Hague before we demand the Libyans turn Gadhafy over.

Accidental Priceless Video

I went and broke trail to check on the dryer vent a little while ago. Video of that later, but this is a quickie and it's priceless!

She asked if she could pick the scene for me to show. I asked her if she had jumped up and down and waved her arms and hollered "That's the one! That's the one!" anytime in the last 45 minutes. When she replied in the negative I accused her of a lack of showmanship and told her I'd pick it. Heh.

My wife likes to look at houses we can't afford. Looks like she found a nice one.

This is what happened when I missed the 'off' button on the Active-i glasses/vidcam and set it on the desk whilst awaiting my turn on Hal. I could not have planned this and I have 45 minutes of it. Heh.

Willie Nelson’s prosecutor wants to see marijuana decriminalized

A 'must read' for all you heads, at Raw Story.

The Texas county attorney who's letting musician Willie Nelson plea his marijuana charge down to a fee and a song told Raw Story in an exclusive interview that he wishes authorities could just drop the criminal penalties for pot altogether and make getting busted more like getting a parking ticket.

Kudos to the DA!

County Judge Becky Dean Walker, he said, refused to allow Nelson a plea-by-mail, which is typical for misdemeanor marijuana possession cases in some Texas counties.

"She said to me: 'You ain't letting him plead by mail, 'cause I'm not accepting that,'"' Bramblett explained. "I said to her, 'Why?' And she said, ''Cause I want to meet Willie Nelson.'"

Fuckin' A! Shit, lady, if you'da asked, he'da let ya get high on his bus!

Note to prosecutors everywhere: If you bust me for weed, please just let me pay the fine. If you ask me to sing, it would be a case for The Hague as a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Oh please, please, please...

Richard Clarke Says U.S. Chamber May Have Committed A Felony With Hacking Plot

It's only a crime if someone looks into it. Fat chance.

Joe Bageant 1946-2011

Talk To Action

Our friend and occasional guest front pager Joe Bageant died yesterday after a four month bout with cancer. He was 64. Right now, I do not have the words to say much more than that I will miss him and that our country was a far better place with his distinct, original and I think, historically important populist voice in it. He was a great story teller who had great stories to tell. Unsurprisingly, his essays were among the most popular ever posted on this site.

His 2005 book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War is still a great, wise and humorous read. One friend said: "Bageant writes in the tradition of Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth." High praise, and right-on. His next book Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, will be published in the U.S. next week.

His essay, What the 'Left Behind' Series Really Means, originally published in December 2005 and posted here at Talk to Action in February 2006 is reposted (along with the comment thread) on the flip. -- FC

Go read an excerpt from "A Whore That Sitteth Upon Many Waters".

Joe Bageant is someone I like to read and haven't read enough. He will be missed.

(Un) American Thought Police

Paul Krugman on the Repug witch hunt of U. WI historian William Cronon after he published something they didn't like.

If this action strikes you as no big deal, you’re missing the point. The hard right — which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party — has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment.

The Cronon affair, then, is one more indicator of just how reflexively vindictive, how un-American, one of our two great political parties has become.

I will ass-yoom that Mr. Krugman is being sarcastic. Neither of our big political parties is exactly 'great', and one of them is criminally despicable.

After all, if you go through a large number of messages looking for lines that can be made to sound bad, you’re bound to find a few. In fact, it’s surprising how few such lines the critics managed to find in the “Climategate” trove: much of the smear has focused on just one e-mail, in which a researcher talks about using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in a particular series. In context, it’s clear that he’s talking about making an effective graphical presentation, not about suppressing evidence. But the right wants a scandal, and won’t take no for an answer.

Is there any doubt that Wisconsin Republicans are hoping for a similar “success” against Mr. Cronon?

Someone like Mr. Cronon can stand up to the pressure. But less eminent and established researchers won’t just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they’ll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble.

What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.

Facts, especially when they're the truth about them, are anathema to Repugs of every stripe, and by 'stripe' I mean the hash mark residue on their lips from Big Corpora's skivvies. The last thing in the world they want is 'honest discourse' because they know it'll sink 'em. Crank up the RS3M* and make critics afraid. They're good at that.

If we don't fight back, we lose, and there are no rules. A Repug ballsack in yer teeth means you're doing it right.

*Repug Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine

My pet desire when it comes to the lyin' sacks a' shit is a creatively edited video of Breitbart pourin' the pork to his butt boy O'Keefe. A disturbing yet lovely visual.

Headline of the Day

Dutch bankers' bonuses axed by people power

Mama Don't Send Me to the Big-Box Store

Via BuzzFlash. I like this and I think I've found a Las Vegas that doesn't need to be a bombing and gunnery range impact zone.

Thanks to hymiehymie.

Related:

What Happens When We Become the United Nations of Walmart?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Poll: 29% Can't Name Vice President
Poll taken in West Wing of White House.

Maine's Governor Orders Removal of Mural on Dept. of Labor Depicting Rosie the Riveter, 1st Woman Cabinet Member Frances Perkins, Other Labor Heroes
New mural will show Koch brothers playing tennis.

Glenn Beck May Start Own Channel
For viewers fed up with Fox's liberal slant.

Prehistoric Texans May Have Been First Humans in U.S.
Many still there.

Tea Party Fundraiser Features Joe the Plumber, Sheriff Joe, Joe Miller
All to honor Joe McCarthy.

And you wonder ...

Why we're so fucked up?

...

Really? Am I the only one who is astonished that Market Gods are robots that can't tell the difference between Ann Hathaway and Berkshire Hathaway and obviously just buy and sell on "buzz" whether it's good or bad? That's not even remotely rational.

...

Stay classy, America ...

Since the Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Meltdown began, the world governing body of real football soccer has mandated a minute of silence before every match out of respect for the Japanese. Now, I probably see more soccer matches in a week than most Americans see in their lifetimes and I've seen the "minute of silence" a hundred times since the catastrophe. In every match, in Europe, in Asia, in South America, the referee had to blow his whistle to end the silence. Caught the US - Argentina match the other night from Jersey's Meadowlands. Let's just say I was somewhat embarrassed.

Snakes in the Bronx!

I guess this ain't helping revenue at the Reptile House. Heh ...

NEW YORK -- A poisonous cobra has vanished from an enclosure outside public view at the Bronx Zoo, and its Reptile House remained closed Sunday as a precaution while zoo workers searched for the missing reptile.

...

Don't know why ...

But this has been going through my head since I woke up this morning:

Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks

Update:

Figured it out. I must have heard the soundtrack from the trailer of this stupid movie.

And, as I'm catching up here after running around all weekend, this popped into my head after reading Gordon's post:

The Police - Canary in a Coal Mine

The Meskins are on my roof!

Four guys showed up at 8AM. They put the ladder on my freshly shovelled (by me) deck and in about two minutes it looked like a blizzard out my front window and the snow on the deck is four feet deep. I have to wait for them to move to the sides to go shovel myself out because if I went out there now they'd have me buried up to my neck in a New York minute!

This deserves telling - one of the gents is wearing leather street shoes, probly the ones he walked into the U.S. with. He put plastic shopping bags over cotton socks and another pair of socks over that.

Don't anybody ever tell me Meskins don't wanna work. An Anglo woulda complained up one side and down the other that he couldn't do this work because he didn't have the proper footwear.

More as this develops. Photos later. This is kinda my day today.

Update:

The vatos are back up on the roof after comida at the Siete-Once. While they were gone, I was scoopin' dog poop off my driveway and the plastic D-handle on the shovel broke. Got all four knuckles, two of 'em big time. It's only a flesh wound, but I left a blood trail headin' for the band-aids.

The snow is off the front of my roof and they are working on the back side. I've got a pile of snow in my driveway I can't believe. Loader time.

Later.

Update II:

2PM. The snow's off the roof, the Meskins are gone. El jefe Jose said one more big storm and my house would have broken in two so it was money well spent.

I'm still tunnelling from my front door to the driveway. Making good time. I've got about six feet down at the deepest spot and twenty feet out to go, just one shovel width will do for now.

More when I have time.

Update III:

Here's some photos. No pics of the Meskins. When I pointed the camera at 'em, they all dove off the roof for some reason. They were on the clock and I couldn't afford the lost time to dig 'em out again. Heh.

Before:

Click photos to embiggen

After. You can see the access I dug on the left. I need to go down another foot or so but that's enough for today.



Another perspective of the snow that's now on the driveway. It's like that all the way around my house. All you can see out the windows is snow and the windows in back are six feet off the ground. Tomorrow I have to dig down and make sure the dryer vent is clear so Mrs. G can dry the laundry. No energy left today.

Yesterday I shovelled five feet of snow off my deck and I'm damn glad I did. It has five more feet of snow on it today and I'da had to shovel ten feet off it.

As you can see, I'm well and truly snowed out of my garage. I can climb over the pile and get in but I can't get anything out that I can't carry. Like my snowblower. I'm going to see if the Honda can take that pile down a little at a time by climbing and blowing and backing down and repeat. Hey, it might, who knows? Not the whole pile. I may be crazy but I'm not stupid. Just enough to get the snowblower out when it snows again. If it won't, I'll dig it a path. My other recourse is to get a loader in to haul it out. Problem is, the 'hood is pretty full and it might be hard to find a place to put it. Fuck it, it'll melt.



I know it looks like I bought myself a pain in the ass, but it's a pain in the ass I can deal with myself. From now 'til July if that's what it takes. The Meskins put the snow right where I told them to - off the roof. I'm not exactly thrilled with that pile of snow and the many future hours of communing with nature that it represents but it's harmless now and it's better than a broken house.

I are happy now. Well, relieved. Tired too. This is the 7th day in a row I've been workin' snow around here and I'm taking the rest of the day off.

Winter of '52

I have about eight feet of snow at my house. I posted about shovelling off my deck a coupla weeks ago*. It's as deep with new snow as it was then and I'm going to shovel it off again today. The Meskins may come tomorrow, weather permitting, and I want someplace for the snow from the roof to land without getting so deep I can't reach that high. When I think of the winter of '52, I count my blessings that I live in the local Banana Belt.

*Post is gone forever to whither I do not know. We're too prolific around here for Blogger to keep track of it all.

Update:

Just got a call. The Meskins are on their way as we speak. Fuck me. I can always stand on stacked milk crates to shovel...

Update II:

False alarm. Bentley brought a ladder over for 'em. They'll be here in the AM. Put my pants on fer nuthin'...

Bentley was near here working on a house that had a chunk of ice as big as the bed of his F-350 slide off the roof and fall the wrong way and punch a hole through the side. Picture broken wall studs stickin' through the drywall into the living room.

Mark McLaughlin talks about one of the biggest winters here in the Lake Tahoe area!

Thanks to RSNTVTAHOE.

Maine Gov. Paul Lepage Agrees to Install New ‘Labor Mural’

"We think 'Children In Coal Mines' best captures the old-time values we want to get back to."

Thanks, Don.

Stand Up For Your Rights And Starve

Think Progress, links at site.

Buried Provision In House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer:

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

With a record 42 million Americans on food stamps during these poor economic times, it appears that the right is simply looking for more ways to hurt working class Americans.

Update

Believe it or not, there are already a whole host of sanctions against strikers in the current Food Stamp program -- the section quoted is actually part of a 1981 Reagan era law. Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) has introduced a bill to do away with these restrictions. A 1988 Supreme Court case reversed lower court decisions that ruled these sanctions unconstitutional.

There it is - go against the Bosses and lose Federal benefits. Who's yer daddy?

California going to sh*t

Grist

Recession-wracked California is truly going down the toilet.

For green energy, that is. In a gift to headline writers everywhere, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday handed out nearly $1 million to fund an experimental project to convert what it politely refers to as "biosolids" into electricity. In other words, sh*t.

Okay, we'll suppress our inner 12-year-old boy now. This is serious sh*t. No, really, we'll stop.

Much more.

Boy, if this works we can light up the world with the heretofore useless output of Limbaugh, Beck, Bachmann et many alia! Once again, California leads the way!

Note to the Energy Commission: Hand out some money to figure out how to make energy outta SNOW, willya?

Until this is fixed ...

GE isn't the only one doing it by a long shot. An article a year or two ago stated that at least 80 of the top Fortune 500 companies pay no US taxes at all while dozens more pay percentage amounts far below what the average small business owner or head of household pays. But GE is the acknowledged leader in making tons of money for it's executives and shareholders and not paying their fair share of taxes and indeed, actually getting billions of dollars FROM the poor and middle class taxpayers.

...

The middle class will continue to disappear. Saw a statistic that average net worth for an American family has dropped 23%. It's going to drop more as we make up in local taxation what we're getting cut from federal and state budgets. Until those who aren't paying taxes are forced to, things will only get worse. As long as these politicians (of both parties) are afraid to demand fair taxes on the rich and corporations, the middle class will have to pay and will continue to suffer.

***

Again, for my lack of posting I apologize. Still dealing with Dad-in-Law issues, construction, and getting ready to leave for London in 3 weeks (that sure snuck up on us quick).

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Live performance of Six White Cadillacs from Emmylou Harris at the IFC Crossroads House in Austin, TX, from SXSW 2011.

From her new album "Hard Bargain".

Thanks to ifc.

Muslims Have No First Amendment Rights

I have said before, and maintain, that to some people "religious freedom" means you can belong to any batcrap crazy right-wing christowhacko nutjob retard protestant sect you want to. Right again, G-Man!

TPM

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the social conservative group the American Family Association, says that when it comes to Islam, the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right. "Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam," Fischer wrote today.

"The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary," Fischer wrote on his Renew America blog.

There's a link to that, but not from me.

Fischer, also known for his frequent anti-gay, anti-bear rhetoric, has previously called for the U.S. to have "no more mosques, period," because "every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad." He's also suggested that we should "handle Muslims just like we handle neo-Nazis."

Huh? Let 'em have parades in Jewish neighborhoods? Let 'em stockpile guns and ammo in private compounds? Never refer to them as terrorists after they bomb something because they're good white Xtians? Give them all the protections of the First Amendment? I sense inconsistency there. Heh.

Tons of comments:

I know of no one more deserving of getting lost in the woods, and having a gay bear make him his bitch.

I hate to Godwin a thread, but what DO you call people who cordon off swaths of humanity and label them less than human by denying them full human rights?
...

Obergruppenführer?
...

Sturmbahnfuhrer... better looking uniforms.

Hey, I'm an atheist as well - how come I never see you at services? ;-)

I'm guessing he's unfamiliar with Article 11 of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli:

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Too bad so many folks pay little attention to facts which contradict their belief system...

I'll stop with that one because it's the root of our problems, but there are many more.

The Craft Beer Chronicles

This may be of interest to you beer guys.

Brand X

Stark Bar grips craft beer bandwagon rave, makes local beer writer mad

Beer writer?! You can get paid for that?

Whereas L.A.’s bars and restaurants were once divided into two categories (those who served craft beer, and those who did not), the more recent arrivals seem to be increasingly divided into two new categories (those who serve craft beer right, and those who do not).

Chilled glasses aside, I also wonder why Stark Bar offers one type of glass for all sixteen beers. They’re ready with an array of glassware to serve any wine or mixed drink you order. But for beer, they only have a goblet. Now, a (room temperature) goblet is a great vehicle for a burly beer like, say, a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, or even an Imperial IPA. But the majority of the beers on Stark Bar’s bottle list require a pint glass, not a goblet.

I had no idea there was such ritual involving the proper serving of beer. "Pull the tab, chug" was about as far as I ever got. I don't imbibe any more, but this article made my eyes glaze over like I never quit. Heh.

Enjoy.

Hey, it worked to start WWII in Europe...

...and the Chimp considered doing it to start his war in Iraq, so it figures some wingnut would drag it out for their war on the middle class.

Indiana prosecutor told Wisconsin governor to stage ‘false flag’ operation

An Indiana prosecutor and Republican activist has resigned after emails show he suggested Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stage a fake attack on himself to discredit unions protesting his budget repair bill.

"If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions," Lam said in his email.

An associate? A registered Repug lobbyist? Someone on his own staff? Hopefully the clown would be a terrible shot and ding him right between the runnin' lights by mistake. Heh.

Update:

Similar story at TPM. Great comments!

But what does it mean to *read* something really? Maybe for elite coastal liberals reading actually involves looking at the words on the screen or page. However, in Real America (tm) it is sufficient to merely be aware of the existence of email to know that it is in support of your position.

Walker really needs to come clean on which false flag operations were considered and which weren't.

I like that, but I think his actions and disingenuous rhetoric (aka "lies") are proof enough.

Your State Sucks Because Your Governor and Legislators Are Dicks

El Rude-o

Yes, even with the eternal dickishness of Republican legislative behavior when it comes to abortion, which is their favoritest issue, even with the totally dickish campaign to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights, GOP governors and their lackey co-conspirators in the legislatures have found new and exciting and unusual ways to be complete wads of dick. We're talking here about spending time on shit that's absolutely worthless except as a way of announcing, "Holy Christ, we're a bunch of dicks."

Several examples of how legislatures have found new and exciting and unusual ways to be complete wads of dick.

Over in Ohio, which is in competition right now for America's dickiest state, the Senate there just voted to ban mention of federal stimulus funds on signs that mark construction done with federal stimulus funds. And that's fine and dandy: the Obama administration does not require such labeling of how your tax dollars are being spent to improve your roads and bridges. Of course, they also voted to allow advertising on state road signs. Classy all around.
...

[...] The Republican reasoning behind the elimination of the stimulus signs was that they were merely an advertisement for the successes of the Democrats. That was just too above-board a way to show job creation. It's much easier (and way more dickish) to bribe your rich friends under the table.

The fun part? You elected these dickheads, good citizens of these states, and now you've got huge buyer regret. Here's a tip: don't elect teabaggers or Fox "news" commentators.

The 'baggers say they want less government intrusion into your life and freedom, but in actual fact they're perfectly willing to use all the government intrusion that's necessary to make sure you get the 'freedom' to do things their way. Or else.

In my experience, "or else" are the last two words a bully says before his nose goes 'splat'. These governors need massive shiners to show that godless commie liberal pussies and just plain Americans can throw a helluva punch when they get tired of being pushed around.

One more dumb snow video

Not much goin' on the last few days but do the best I can for Mrs. G and her new see-through eyeball, move snow around, and anything I can to ward off a little touch of cabin fever.

The time stamp on the vid is wrong. It was actually about 1 PM. Musta changed when I dumped the vidcam's memory so it'd work again. It's OK now.

I called my friend Bentley, who is a Celtic musician who pays for his habit by being a roofing contractor, to find out if he knew anybody who can shovel the snow off my roof. Strange things are starting to happen in the house and I think I'm creeping up fast on my snow load. I have no desire to go up there and Mrs. G doesn't want me to. I called the right guy. He said he just by chance has a crew standing by seeing as how the car wash is closed for a few days and all he's been doing for the last month is shovelling off roofs anyway. He said he wouldn't ask anyone to do that in this weather and he'd bring 'em over as soon as we get a break in the storms. I was off the phone before the line came to me, "...unless they're Repuglicans".

Just so you'll know, I've only had to shovel my roof twice in thirty years and I'm gettin' too old for that shit. This has been an above-average snow year, a real old-time Truckee winter.

I edited this down and spared you, among other things, five minutes of my man cave that bears dare not enter office upside down after I missed the 'off' button and set the glassescam on the desk upside down. Heh.

Enjoy the video. I can hear you folks in Florida laughing...

The GOP's Libya dilemma

Doyle McManus

How do Republicans support the bombing without supporting President Obama?

Republican presidential hopefuls have been scrambling to figure out the right vocabulary for denouncing President Obama's decision to launch U.S. planes and ships into action against Libya's Moammar Kadafi.

Because Obama made the decision, they know they're against it. But it took most of them a day or two to settle on exactly why, in part because so many of them had called for intervention before Obama pulled the trigger.

Please read the rest.

The Repugs' Job One is to make sure somehow - by any means necessary, whatever it takes - that Obama fails. Period. If Libya, the economy, civil rights, the middle class, the Constitution, you name it, is ripped asunder in the process, it's acceptable collateral damage to them as long as they gain the power to take from the little guy and give the proceeds to their Masters.

Semper Huh?

LATimes

Border Patrol agents on Interstate 8 east of San Diego arrest two alleged smugglers and 13 migrants wearing military garb while traveling in a van with U.S. government plates.

The illegal immigrants donned Marine Corps camouflage uniforms and military-style buzz cuts. The license plates on their van had been switched from Mexican to U.S. government plates. If anyone asked, they were Marines traveling to March Air Reserve Base.

But their ploy didn't take into account the possibility of being stopped by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was a former Marine armed with a simple question. The agent, S. Smith, asked the driver to tell him the birthday of the Marine Corps. The driver, Arturo Leyva, didn't know.

Every, I say again every Marine knows that. Nice try, vatos. Gimme 15 to 20. Heh.

Gotta get out more ...

I've said, since I've been blogging, that my travels throughout the world have made a big impact on what I feel America's place on this planet and responsibilities toward it should be.

If there is ever a truism in life, I've found, it's that people are far more alike than different. We all want the same things and have the same aspirations, regardless of race or nationality.

Krugman touches on this today (along with a handy map):

...

But what struck me about the whole piece was the assumption that modern medicine in general is something only we lucky free-market Americans have, while in Europe they’re still using leeches or something. In other words, it’s part of the superiority complex you often encounter in U.S. politics; people just know that we’re the best, and won’t believe you when you tell them that actually they have the Internet, cell phones, and antibiotics in Europe too.

...

Though, seemingly unbelievably in this day and age, I still run into Ugly Americans all over the world.

I've had many experiences with European health care over the past 45 years (the first time when I was 4 years old, breaking my leg while jumping across a stream that runs behind the house). I've seen their cancer wards (when my uncle was dying with leukemia) and how they treat their old people (my great-uncle and aunt and their nursing home care) and we would be damned glad to have what they do.

I hope I live long enough to see the US come to its collective senses.

Eventually ...

The Republicans might get to the issue they ran on:

...

But in the three months since taking over the House and expanding their voices in the Senate, Republicans have yet to pass a jobs-focused bill, instead prioritizing numerous social and cultural issues that are unrelated to job creation -- and have little or no chance of becoming policy.

Here are six such legislative goals they've been hard at work on.

...

You know, regardless of their ideology, a buncha people voted for them (right or wrong) on the promise they'd put Americans back to work. What the Republicans, on every level of government all across the country, are doing amounts to legislative malpractice.

Thanks to our pal Montag for the link.

So ...

I hope nobody still believes Libya is a humanitarian mission:

...

[British Prime Minister David] Cameron's foreign secretary, William Hague, was evasive during a heated BBC interview Monday about whether Gadhafi would or could be assassinated.

"I'm not going to speculate on the targets," he said, adding ominously, "that depends on the circumstances at the time."

However, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox insisted Gadhafi was "a legitimate target," underlining how the objectives of the military intervention remain nebulous and obscure outside the corridors of power in Washington, Paris and London.

George Friedman, founder and chief executive officer of the global security consultancy Stratfor, observed: "The long-term goal, unspoken but well understood, is regime change -- displacing -- the government of Gadhafi and replacing it with a new regime built around the rebels ..."

...

The Libyans are gonna have a new government by the time this is over, come Hell or high water. The no-fly zone was a ruse, just as WMD in Iraq was and, whether this was planned weeks ago or they pulled it out of their asses once they began this adventure, "regime change" is the mission's endgame.

Too big to fail?

Let's hope so:

...

I suspect the medical marijuana industry, thanks to its fast growth, is approaching an important financial tipping point as it becomes legal in more states. At a certain size, it will have enough employees, related businesses who depend on it, and governments who rely on its tax revenue that it will become integral in the greater economic web. As a result, it will start gaining political clout as it becomes better able to directly lobby for its interests and becomes more important to the overall economy. Effectively, the industry will be increasingly “legitimated,” mainly because the political system won’t be able to afford not to.

Mixed Emotions

TPMMuckraker

Darrell Issa (R-CA) lobbed criticism at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Wednesday night and revealed he is investigating allegations that the agency intentionally let more than 1,700 guns be illegally trafficked to Mexico.

Holy crap. Yes, I'm glad my pet outrage of the moment is being investigated.

By Issa?! Not so much. We'll see how this goes, but I have zero confidence in that puke. All that might happen is that any evidence that could be used against the government perps will forever be tainted and inadmissible at their trial, which probably won't happen at all now that he's involved. I think he's best used for investigating things that will have no meaningful outcome, like the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate.

The investigation of Operation Gunrunner is best left to very high-powered law enforcement and a Grand Jury.

Then again, if the plan is to let the rocket scientists who came up with that deadly criminal nonsense off scot-free, Issa's the man who can make it happen.

Glenn Beck is a message from God

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford. The cat's smokin' some good shit today! Do not miss this one! Links I can almost guarantee you won't see anywhere else today.

Truly, it's astonishing to read of someone so far "out there" on the right-wing fringe, someone so legendary for his aggressive ignorance of all things subtle and intellectually astute, someone whose "facts" are regularly discredited, well, it's just refreshing to learn the man knows a thing or two about, say, Shaivist unity consciousness, or the Mahayana cognitive obscurations, perhaps Christian mystic's desire for direct experience of God, all of it based on texts and teachers who sing so far outside the halls of the typical monotheistic, dualistic gobbedlygook religions they might as well be, well, radical liberals.

How else to explain? Certainly no one can be so ridiculous as to suggest that some sort of miserable, bearded Christian deity was just sitting around, bored out of his mind and a bit pissed off, and suddenly decided, on a frustrated whim, to flick his middle finger against the Pacific plate and touch off a temblor that killed thousands and sent a nation into a vicious tailspin, just to "send a message," like a petulant toddler acting out against quiet time.

Go. Enjoy. Leave a trail of bread crumbs so you can find yer way back from some really deep...

Headline of the Day

Chavez says capitalism may have ended life on Mars

My first thought was oy gevult! but I got to thinkin' about it. I don't know a damn thing about Mars, but even out on the end of the Crazytown Political Pier with some of our own politicians as he is, he may be right. Capitalism unchecked is fixin' to end life as we know it on this planet.

Slice 'n Dice Day

I dropped Mrs. G off for her eyeball job at 10 to 7 this morning. She is having cataract surgery in her left eye.

Please pump good wishes at her. Thank you.

Guilty pleasures dept.:

I'm hardly ever out that early in the morning. No reason to be. So I figured that since I've been busting what's left of my ass clearing snow to dig us in, then same-same to dig us out, and it's gonna be more of the same since it's snowing now and it's supposed to snow for the next week, and since I was already out and about, I might as well treat myself, so I went and did something I haven't done in a coupla years. I actually had pre-planned this and bummed the cash off Mrs. G before we left the house.

I went to Mickey D's and had a Big McStarchbombBreakfast. Quite filling, no worse than I remember it.

The joint was pretty empty. I knew about what I wanted, but I couldn't see it up on the menu. Three different people tried to rotate the menu to "morning" and the dinner picture kept falling out. Two men failed to accomplish the mission. Finally, the counter girl yanked the thing out by its roots and rotated the menu so gramps here could see the shit he wanted.

They were playing 'old people music', which I liked. Elvis, Everly Brothers, Motown, British Invasion. I was probably the only person in there (I actually was the only person in there. On my side of the counter anyway.) who knew the words to all the songs. I put on a semi-deranged look and thanked them for the Vietnam era memories on the way out. Heh. It went right over their young heads.

There's no smoking in Mrs. G's truck, so I finished my McCaffeine outside and burned one. Snowing, no plows working close by, hardly any traffic. Absolutely small-town peaceful and beautiful. A rare sight for me and a moment that won't last long, but then none of them do.

It was a nice way to start the day.

Update:

Mrs. G is home now and everything is fine. Thank you all for the good thoughts.

More small town shit:

At 9 AM I got the call that my rig was ready to be picked up Mrs. G was ready to come home. I got to the ambulatory surgery center and things took a turn for the truly weird and wonderful. The gal who was looking after Mrs. G turned out to be the old girlfriend of a friend of mine who died in an auto accident about 23 years ago. He was a mechanic, a SAAB specialist of all things. Anyway, we hadn't seen one another in all that time, but she recognized me (a face for the ages?) and caught me up on his daughters' lives, whom I remembered as little girls and who now have kids of their own of course, and her own life since. Mrs. G was still getting unwoozy enough to walk so we chatted for maybe 20 minutes or so about all kinds of things, like how I caused the road out to her rural-even-for-around-here neighborhood to get paved*. Thanks for the memories, Susie.

*I worked for the Census in 2000. Susie's neighbors told me to make damn sure they all got counted because they wanted the three miles of dirt road to Russell Valley** to be paved so they didn't have to snowmobile their kids out to Hobart Mills to catch the school bus any more. The road is now paved, the school bus comes, and I modestly claim credit.

**Best I could do. I don't think that's Susie's house. Heh.

About Libya ...

Greenwald with a level-headed look at our motivations, then and now:

...

I understand -- and absolutely believe -- that many people who support the intervention in Libya are doing so for good and noble reasons: disgust at standing by and watching Gadaffi murder hundreds or thousands of rebels. I also believe that some people who supported the attack on Iraq did so out of disgust for Saddam Hussein and a desire to see him removed from power. It's commendable to oppose that type of despotism, and I understand -- and share -- the impulse.

But what I cannot understand at all is how people are willing to believe that the U.S. Government is deploying its military and fighting this war because, out of abundant humanitarianism, it simply cannot abide internal repression, tyranny and violence against one's own citizens. This is the same government that enthusiastically supports and props up regimes around the world that do exactly that, and that have done exactly that for decades.

...

And there are people who've been suffering for decades who could use our "help" that will never be forthcoming.

As I've said more than once over the years, I don't have a problem with using the US military for humanitarian purposes. If we were to honestly say, "we will not allow tyrants to exist on this Earth"; if we would decide to be "the worldwide protector of human rights", I'd back that. My concern is the innocents who get trampled by these despots; the fewer, the better. Were we to have a non-cynical policy, as opposed to the hypocritical approach we have today, I wouldn't mind US power being used to make the world a better place (and I'm not just talking about shooting wars, but humanitarian relief - a good job for the Christian Airmen Air Force).

That said, a lot would have to change in this country, especially how we see ourselves in relation to the rest of the world and our obligations to it. Right now, until we get our house in order, any imposition of our will on another nation will be taken with nothing more than cynicism. The United States of 2011 has no standing as the moral arbiter of anything.

Populism ...

Not:

Last week, ThinkProgress documented conservative efforts in twelve states to shift the tax burden onto the middle class even while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy. In three states, conservatives are going even further, proposing massive estate tax cuts for millionaires even as income inequality is at its [worst] since the 1920s ...

Now tell me how voting Republican is good for the middle class? There is no such thing as "trickle down economics". It's called pissing on us and telling us it's raining.

Could it be ...

These two are actually realizing what it means to be a Supreme Court Justice?

What a dipshit...

...and wrong to boot. Just go read this. Pearce is the racist/teabagger/tenther/asshole who came up with AZ's "show us your papers" hatebill.

Headline of the Day

Gov. Brown Offers To Send His Dog to Debate Grover Norquist on Proposed Statewide Vote on Tax Hike Extension

Heh. No contest. Sutter'll beat him hands down. Then he can eat him.

There's good news too

Political Carnival

Major tea party convention suffers from shrinkage

The post leads off with a video of George Costanza gettin' caught nekkid after being in a cold swimming pool. Heh.

The tea party is shriveling. It is experiencing its own unique little brand of shrinkage. It’s dwindling away, melting like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, diminishing in whatever stature it thought it had, whittled down to nearly nothing, slip-slidin’ away… at least if its Tampa, Florida convention is any indication.

This was to be a big shindig, a huge shebang, a real barn burner… except for just a few minor issues: There were no– as in zero– female speakers; “video recorders and audio rendering devices were prohibited and would be grounds for removal without refund;” only about 300 showed up to see a crowd-enticing line-up that included Ron Paul, ClusterFox’s Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Tom “mandatory literacy test” Tancredo; all which resulted in the venue looking a little something like this:

Photo: large room, few people.

It seems as if the 'baggers finally figured out that AV lasts forever, is irrefutable, and capturing their misreality for the ages is not in their best interests.

Hence, their spiffydoodle event turned out to be a colossal dud.

Thank you Lord.

Via Think Progress, where there’s more:

[T]his kind of uber-conservative fare has had no trouble attracting bigger crowds not long ago.

That was then, this is now. Cricket, cricket.

I guess the successful pro-union rallies consisting of of hundreds of thousands who have consistently shown up week after week are coincidental. Comparing the enthusiasm, passion and numbers of those supporting the New Civil Rights Movement to the paltry turnout at the Very Important Tea Party Convention is nothing more than a meaningless exercise in… gloating.

I'll take gloating. We need more gloating where those yingyangs are concerned.

Clusterfuckiya ...

Unfortunately, with all the running around I'm doing, I can't insulate myself from what's going on in the world. It would be nice if I could because this Libya operation is pissing me off.

We've gone, in less than a week, from wondering whether to enact a no-fly zone or not to a UN resolution and a full on ground attack operation. Now, I can understand taking out anti-air installations and cratering runways in the guise of a no fly edict, but how come we're hitting tank formations? How come we're hitting supply convoys? How come we're hitting government compounds in Tripoli? Last time I checked, tanks don't fly and neither do semi-trucks (unless you kick 'em out the back of a C-130 on a pallet during a low level cargo offload).

To me, it looks like "regime change" revisited. Nobody's mentioning what they'll do if Gadhafy manages to weather all this. Judging from the "rebels" organization, that's a genuine possibility. So what are we prepared to do about that? Are we planning to send "advisory" teams in, a la the Northern Alliance operation at the beginning of the Afghan fiasco? Or are we prepared to put up with a wounded and dangerous Gadhafy? Seems to me we're determined to get him out regardless.

I'll give George Bush (well, really his "handlers" because he couldn't have pulled it off) credit for one thing. They actually had a plan (not saying it was good) when they decided to remove Saddam Hussein. They prepared for it before Bush was even elected. This Libyan adventure looks like the most poorly planned military operation of our time.

This has a distinct possibility (probability even) to descend into a long, low grade insurgency, something I'm certain our military, political (well, the Republicans would like to pin another quagmire on Obama), and economic (the oil companies, both inside the US and out) leaders certainly don't want.

To be completely cynical (which, at this point, is probably being realistic), this op was nothing more than taking advantage of civil unrest to make an oil grab. It's not easy to pump oil and transfer it out to the Med ports (a lot of Libya's oil production is out in the desert) via hundreds of miles of pipelines that are easy targets for an insurgency. The only satisfactory end would be Gadhafy gone along with his loyalists, and a deal in place with the new government for the oil rights. This requires a strong government, able to keep their boot on the necks of those who sympathize with Gadhafy and would be willing to agitate. Looking at the motley crew of "rebels", I don't see how that's going to happen without "assistance" from the Western coalition (you know the Arab League states are only there for window dressing).

Ending, I can't see any way this doesn't end up as another "long war", or at least a commitment on NATO's part for "advisory" and "training" operations for a long time to come. My only hope is that Obama ends our participation in the next few weeks and leaves it to the Euros to figure out. I'm not optimistic.

I'll be back later this evening.

So much for the "fairly easy drive home"*

*Reference is to the post just below this one. Everything went fine until we started up into the mountains, except for one iffy moment when Mrs. G made my blood turn to ice in Sacramento rush hour traffic with one little sentence: "Watch it, Asian girl on her phone at 3 o'clock..."

This may be my worst video ever, but consider the circumstances. Me and Mrs. G were having fun anyway.

Eastbound on I-80 during chain control on 3-21-11, not sure just where, but east of Drum Forebay Road.. About 6PM. Handed the camera to my wife. Heh.

Got home to three feet of new snow in my driveway. The Berm Fairy (I think) had plowed it out just enough to get off the street. Thank you, Dave.

See 'Berm Fairy' video.

Used a Vivitar DVR620HD. About the size of a cell phone, but better. Can't get annoying calls on it.

CAFKIA (comment, post below) nailed it. Snowed like a big dog. Got home at 8PM. Blew and shovelled snow, ran over buried trash can lid, replaced shear bolt, got truck up driveway at 11:30. Tired. Just enough energy to do this. More later. G'night. Zzzzzzz....



Update:

One thing our big rainstorm did was clear the air. The photo shows something I don't think I've ever seen before and I've been in California for 65 years. The photo was taken from near Lockwood (Monterey County) on U.S. 101. In the center is a strip of dark/white between the green and the clouds. That's the Sierra Nevada about 100 miles or more south of where I live. Using the old ruler/map scale/pencil & paper method I determined it's approximately 140 miles distant. I knew it was a long way off, but that surprised me a little. I saw the clouds starting to sock in over there and didn't want to miss the photo op. Five minutes later it was gone. This view is a rare occurrence, folks. Please click to embiggen.

Headin' home today

Yahoo! News

Air pollution regulators in Southern California say they have not detected increased levels of radiation from the damaged Japanese nuclear reactors.

They're lookin' in the wrong place. It's been raining since Friday. They should check to see if the storm drains have become self-lighting. Also, there's so much standing water that we're likely to have glowing mosquitoes here shortly.

I stepped outside our room this morning for my first cuppa/smoke/ great ripping fart and saw blue sky for the first time in three days, so we should have a fairly easy drive home.

First things first. It'll be off to Rancho Grande Park to empty the pups and then to Francisco's Country Kitchen for something with dangerous levels of eggs and linguica and then hit the road.

I'm looking forward to seeing my state in lovely shades of green instead of its normal 'one-match brown'. See yas tomorrow.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

NRA Declines Invitation to Meet With Obama
He'd asked they come unarmed.

Good News: 70,000-Member Internet Pedophile Ring Broken Up
Bad news: SEVENTY THOUSAND!

Head of Fox News Resigns
After secret recording catches him saying something bad about liberals.

Pepsi Designs 100% Recyclable Plant-Based Bottle
To hold its artificially flavored, artificially colored sugar water.

March Madness Begins
Once schools that don't pay their players are eliminated, tournament gets interesting.

The real world ...

Intrudes. Sorry about my absence over the weekend. Dad-in-Law Fixer has taken a turn for the worse (not life threatening, thank god). Those of you who've dealt with caring for a family member with Alzheimer's knows what I'm talking about. He was out of control delusional Friday night, enough to scare the shit out of the health care aide we have for him and they took him to the hospital. He's home now but we're doing interviews with new aides, having to up the level of qualifications to deal with him at this point. We're still trying to keep him in his house (as opposed to putting him in a home) and hopefully we can find someone who can handle him by the end of the week.

While the old man is the last of the parents we have left, we've never had to deal with Alzheimer's (cancer took my parents and the Mrs.' mom) and it's one of the saddest things to see. To see a man who was once the Deputy Comptroller for the City of New York not be able to add 2+2 is heart wrenching.

I'll be in and out but hopefully things'll be back to normal in a couple days.

Somebody besides us...

...went first so it's OK if we jump in, I guess the thinking goes. I hope so.

Truthout

In a briefing Saturday afternoon, Vice Adm. William Gortney told reporters that about 110 Tomahawk missiles, fired from American warships and submarines and one British submarine struck 20 air-defense targets around Tripoli, the capital, and the western city of Misurata. He said the strikes were against longer-range air defense missiles as well as early warning radar sites and main command-and-control communication centers.

EssEffChron

Gortley said the assault was supported by Western and Arab nations, while declining to name all involved. [...]

Not very reassuring. I guess he's expecting some of them to cancel. Like the Arab nations that say they're on the side of the people but don't want their people to get any ideas.

I hope Mooamar caves in quick and this can be over with.

Two Ghouls

William Rivers Pitt on comments made by two well-known scumbags in the wake of the disaster in Japan.

These are two fairly nauseating examples of some of the reactions to what happened in Japan, but these pale in comparison to the reactions from a pair of soulless cretins we know all too well. Try to contain your shock, but yes, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh went out of their way to peg the needle on the Ghoul-o-Meter in the aftermath of the Japan calamity.

So yeah, Beck is not saying that God struck Japan because you're a bad person doing bad things and because he has stuff on radical Islam...but he's not not saying it, either.

Got it?

Me neither.

Fuck Miss Becky. I'm sure someone, somewhere, is blaming it on gay pride parades in Orlando or something. Run-of-the-mill assholery. On to an even worse douchebag.

The theme of a vengeful Gaia is suddenly all the rage for the scumbag wing of the Radio Right, as evidenced by Rush Limbaugh's gleeful reaction - literally: gleeful - to the catastrophe in Japan. The March 15th edition of his radio show featured a caller who joked about nature taking a hard shot at Japan despite that nation's excellent recycling policies. Vomitous hilarity ensued:

CALLER:

'Caller' my ass. Probably on Limpdick's payroll, fully scripted to make his moron audience drool in ... well, drool more than usual. Go read it if you want to.

It is worthwhile to note that, for reasons passing understanding, Rush Limbaugh is still prominently featured on American Armed Forces radio. Currently, there are scores of American service members in Japan assisting with the search for the lost and the injured. They are witnessing firsthand the reality of this disaster. One wonders if those men and women find it all as funny as Rush does.

Do me a favor, gentle reader.

Step outside. Look all around you at your familiar surroundings, your home, your car, your place of business, your garden, your family, your pets, your neighbors, your friends, your life.

Now close your eyes and imagine all of it gone, just gone, reduced to matchsticks and blood.

Now make a joke. Blame it all on people you don't like.

Yeah, I didn't think you could.

You're a human being, not a ghoul.

Somebody needs to deck that sonofabitch. Just one punch. Make his nose look like a run-over cantaloupe and give the bastard an ear-to-ear raccoon shiner so everybody'll ask him what happened and he can say a human being, maybe even a pussy Liberal, kicked his useless fat ass.

I couldn't do it, but I'd sure like to. I couldn't do it because it'd feel too good to stop after just one.