Thursday, August 9, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
A Life Unenvied: The Obsessive Desperation Of Willard Mitt Romney
Subtitled (by me): "It must suck to be him". A 'recommended read' at Kos.
...go wrong...go wrong...
Probably the "inevitability" part.
I get an image of Willard as a man treading water, barely able to keep his head above water and not quite understanding that each additional pebble from his past or his mouth that he's putting in his pockets has a connection to why it's getting harder to breathe.
Don't you just hate it when a prophecy doesn't come true? All his life, Mitt's been on quest for the presidency, a role for which he was preordained. The GOP convention is just days away, and the nomination is all but final. Everything's falling into place. All he has to do is pick a vice president who can add a touch of humanity and street cred to the ticket, get through the debates unscathed, spend Sheldon Adelson's money on some more factually bereft attack ads, and step across the finish line to get his reward. What could possibly go wrong?
...go wrong...go wrong...
Interestingly, Mitt's sons expressed reluctance about another run for the White House. Didn't they get the memo? What part of dynastic inevitability don't they understand? [...]
Probably the "inevitability" part.
Filled with umbrage and indignity, Mitt is pulling out all the stops. There is no lie or misrepresentation too egregious, no back-room deal too sleazy, no previous position immune to the possibility of retroactive revision.
...
Stripping away every last vestige of his supposedly self-made-man success, he stands before us like the emporer, naked, and holding a small hand-lettered sign professing:
"I'm not Obama"
and wondering what in the world he has to do to make this gosh-darn prophecy come true. How much more must he endure? When will this persecution ever end?
The hell-hound, growing impatient, snarls:
"Keep moving, jackass."
and a cold wind rustles the trees that no longer seem anywhere close to being the right height.
I get an image of Willard as a man treading water, barely able to keep his head above water and not quite understanding that each additional pebble from his past or his mouth that he's putting in his pockets has a connection to why it's getting harder to breathe.
14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools
Mother Jones, with many links and some good graphics.
And Bob Jones U too, motherbobjoneser. That's the ticket to catch back up to the rest of the world in education. Yeesh. Hold your nose:
The Rude Pundit, a native of Louisiana, weighs in on this horseshit:
I like Louisiana. I like its music, its food, its folks (mostly), and its culture. I even watch Cajun Justice which is very good-natured for a cop show and fuckin' hilarious! Especially when they're chasing down a rougarou or finding an obeah woman to remove a voodoo curse put on 'em by some drunk they arrested. Heh.
Louisiana has been taking it in the shorts for years. Goobernor Bobby "Little Creep" Jindal, following the Louisiana tradition of horrendously corrupt and inept governance, is leading the charge in the state-by-state Repug "Wreck America For The 1%" program by dumbing down education so Americans will be grateful to their Masters for menial jobs at Chinese wages.
One state down, 49 to go.
Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers' dime.
...
Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based "facts," such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and all sorts of pseudoscience that researcher Rachel Tabachnick and writer Thomas Vinciguerra have thankfully pored over so the rest of world doesn't have to.
And Bob Jones U too, motherbobjoneser. That's the ticket to catch back up to the rest of the world in education. Yeesh. Hold your nose:
6. The KKK was A-OK: "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001
7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound: "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath…Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."—United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996
The Rude Pundit, a native of Louisiana, weighs in on this horseshit:
Yes, education in Louisiana is fucked beyond fucked. There's Delhi Charter School, which is finally getting sued for its seven year-old policy of forcing female students to take pregnancy tests and then making pregnant students receive schooling at home. There's the insanity that's being taught at the many evangelical schools that have received state money. So your child can learn such useful information as "But instead of this world unification ushering in an age of prosperity and peace, as most globalists believe it will, it will be a time of unimaginable human suffering as recorded in God's Word. The Anti-christ will tightly regulate who may buy and sell."
...
A couple of weeks ago, Mitt Romney praised Jindal's edumacation policies; he has said they are models for the rest of the nation. When the Rude Pundit was home in Louisiana, he mentioned that he thought that Jindal would be Romney's vice-president nominee. "Romney can have him," said a Republican relative, who had voted twice for Jindal. "He's ruining this state."
I like Louisiana. I like its music, its food, its folks (mostly), and its culture. I even watch Cajun Justice which is very good-natured for a cop show and fuckin' hilarious! Especially when they're chasing down a rougarou or finding an obeah woman to remove a voodoo curse put on 'em by some drunk they arrested. Heh.
Louisiana has been taking it in the shorts for years. Goobernor Bobby "Little Creep" Jindal, following the Louisiana tradition of horrendously corrupt and inept governance, is leading the charge in the state-by-state Repug "Wreck America For The 1%" program by dumbing down education so Americans will be grateful to their Masters for menial jobs at Chinese wages.
One state down, 49 to go.
Well-armed gay chickens for Jesus
After that title, you may shoot me. There is nothing more to see. Heh. If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on, well, well-armed gay chickens for Jesus. And climate change deniers. He's pissed and rightly so.
Much more. Go read.
Welcome to the bizarre, reverso-world lessons of the NRA, the Christian right, Fox News, the God-fearing and the wildly paranoid. Behold, those who somehow believe, despite all evidence, history and common sense, that only guns prevent more guns. Only hate prevents hate. And only the latent, ongoing threat of violence prevents more violence. Call it “Jesus’ lost teaching.”
...
This is the way of the GOP and the Tea Party alike: Nothing short of comprehensive denial will work in the face of overwhelming facts pointing that global warming is here, is quite furious, is largely our fault.
...
Therefore, when teams of UN scientists march into U.S. congressional chambers with their elitist “PhDs” and their snobby “knowledge,” their “years of intense study” and their fancy “climate models” and plead that something must be done to help stave off the worst that’s heading our way, you have but one response: You spit on them and laugh.
Not a joke. Just happened. If you’re a dishwater-dumb GOP senator, if you’re a Tea Party ignoramus, you mock the intelligence of science and shoo the little PhD’s out of your committee, right past the millions of dead fish currently clogging our overheated rivers, past the scorched pastures and farmlands, over the amazing news that more than half of all U.S. counties nationwide have been declared natural disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
...
Perhaps it’s all a bit much? Perhaps you are in need of a bit of healing balm right about now, a small bite of irony to make it all better? Here you go:
Some of Chick-fil-A’s chickens are gay.
Much more. Go read.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Quote of the Day
Stolen from various Facebook pages until I could steal it from mine:
Heh.
Seen on Twitter:
Dear Religion, while you were figuring out which chicken sandwich is ok to eat, I just landed on Mars. Sincerely, your pal Science
Heh.
Suck it, bitchez
The Rude Pundit weighs in on Harry Reid finally & thankfully growing a pair and stirring the punchbowl with an outboard motor about Willard's tax dodges returns:
And the pounding on your heads will stop when you take your teeth out. I thought their corporate masters would have already told them that.
Politics is not an ethical game. Governing should be, but isn't. However, politics is a wallow in filth that'd make farm hogs say, "Whoa, save some shit-filled mud for the rest of us." For years, we on the left have had to sputter and suffer as Republican after Republican has lied willfully and consciously about the records and lives of Democrats. We have tut-tutted and demanded retractions and corrections. We have slapped our foreheads bloody as we've seen the lies become what many, many people believe is the truth, whether it's Dukakis being soft on crime or Clinton having Vince Foster killed or Gore saying things he simply never said or Swift-boating or birthering. Outrageous, easily proven lies, and we have been told to suck on them like they're a candy cane sticking out of the pants of Uncle Sam.
So you know what? What's good for the motherfuckin' goose is good for the motherfuckin' gander. How's it feel, conservatives, to be helpless in the face of both the allegation about Romney's taxes and your candidate's smug refusal to release any information that would disprove the allegation? Pretty sickening, isn't it? Hey, that candy cane actually tastes like cock when you have to put it in your own mouth.
And the pounding on your heads will stop when you take your teeth out. I thought their corporate masters would have already told them that.
The stupid ...
It burns:
I gather reading isn't in the curriculum?
Wheaton College, a private Christian school in Illinois, wishes to be exempt from the Obama administration's newly-enacted birth control insurance mandate, like other religious-run schools and hospitals. But there's one problem: Wheaton doesn't qualify for the exemption, despite the fact that they're adamantly against emergency contraception and birth control and all the unbridled harlotry that proliferates in the presence of the two evil medicines. The reason they don't qualify? Turns out that before all this Obamacare business, the school was already covering emergency contraception. I believe the technical word for what just happened is "Derp."
...
I gather reading isn't in the curriculum?
Monday, August 6, 2012
Deuddersun's ride
Here's our pal deuddersun's first video with his new Pivothead recording glasses. Very good for the first time out. What I noticed was BRICKS! Tons and tons of BRICKS! We don't do bricks out west here except for chimneys, and those that do replace them with something else after even a small earthquake. After picking up all the bricks off the ground. Also, he lives in a very pretty area.
I've got the Active-i video glasses. I think d's are better. I haven't done any riding vids other than this one because they wouldn't fit under my helmet until I got the Bell Shorty. D has inspired me!
Ya done good, pal!
I've got the Active-i video glasses. I think d's are better. I haven't done any riding vids other than this one because they wouldn't fit under my helmet until I got the Bell Shorty. D has inspired me!
Ok, so I have a lot to learn. Since the camera is located between my eyes, what you see is what I am looking at. I will have to learn to keep my head somewhat still or make smoother moves. It looks like I am about to crash at any moment and I can assure you, that is far from the truth. Also, I need to do something about wind noise. I think a small piece of scotch tape over the microphone may do the trick. It should cut out the wind while still allowing the mic to pick up engines sounds and my voice. I'm going to have to do a little experimentation to get it right, so please bear with me. Thanks!
Thanks to deuddersun.
Ya done good, pal!
Quote of the Day
Maddowblog on another Romney whopper:
Rmoney and the Repugs count on it.
It's as if words no longer have any meaning, and Americans politics has become so blisteringly stupid, candidates believe they can say literally anything and get away with it.
Rmoney and the Repugs count on it.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
Oh suuuuure...
Heh.
Global Warming Skeptic Paid Millions by Kochs Publicly Reverses Position
After hiding his millions offshore.
Top Wall Street CEOs Contribute to Romney by 4-To-1 Margin Over Obama
Figure so disproportionate White House says it just might stop doing everything they say.
Oh suuuuure...
Poll: Romney Has 20-Point Advantage Among White Voters
“I just like the color of his skin,” says one.
Cheetah Sets World Record for Fastest 100-Meter Dash
Timed in 5.95 seconds by one of the uneaten officials.
Heh.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Sacramento Hempfest 2012
This is going on right now. I couldn't snag the KCRA News video but you can see it here. Let's just say that many "215 cards" were issued. After careful evaluation, of course.
Here's some'a de entertainment, mon:
Here's some'a de entertainment, mon:
89.5fm OZCAT Radio at Sacramento Hempfest 2012
Sensi Dread & The Ganja Trees stopped by for a few Songs before his set on the Stage.
Thanks to Sensidreadband.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Harry’s Game
Go read this by TBogg:
Oooooookay...:-)
Yup. Pass the popcorn!
So… in an interview with the HuffPo, Harry Reid accuses Mitt Romney of possibly not paying any taxes for the past ten years based upon a conversation with a Bain investor. Conservatives lose their shit. Reid repeats his statement on the Senate floor. More shit is lost. Romney butches up and comes back with “put up or shut up” which is laughable under the circumstances coming as it is from someone who was forthcoming enough to share a snapshot of his personal finances from the last year and a half that he has officially been running for President but now crosses his legs and won’t give up the goods for the ten years that preceded them. Then Dana Bash reports that Reid’s source is a credible person. A tsunami of shit is waiting to be lost.
Are we having fun yet?
Yup.
So lets game this out a little further.
Oooooookay...:-)
And this is all so unfair because Democrats aren’t supposed to punch back.
How’s that sound so far?
Still having fun?
Yup.
Yup. Pass the popcorn!
Quote of the Day
From a piece at Truthout by a former Repug pol:
Wingnut politics in a nutshell.
The primary purpose of the GOP these days is to provide tax breaks and other financial advantages (such as not regulating pollution and other socially costly externalities) to their wealthy donor base. All the rest of their platform, all the culture wars stuff, is simply rube bait.
Wingnut politics in a nutshell.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Heh ...
Think the Brits are still sore about the Mittster? From the Newcastle Brown Ale FB page with the caption: "Dressage. Perfect for doing a beer run.".
Too High To Fail
Bill Maher in the NYT Sunday Book Review.
As it should be. Please read the rest.
The “war on drugs” is America’s longest war. It has cost taxpayers $1 trillion in the last 40 years, Fine notes, and it has turned our nation into “the most highly incarcerated society in history.” In 2011, a global commission on drug policy (whose members included Paul Volcker, George P. Shultz and former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) declared that “the global war on drugs has failed.” Sixty-seven percent of Americans agree. Antonin Scalia and Pat Robertson are now to the left of President Obama on pot.
...
“Too High to Fail” takes the form of a fly-on-the-wall account of Northern California’s burgeoning legal cannabis industry. Fine, an investigative journalist, takes us to Mendocino County, where he follows one plant from seed to medical marijuana patient in the first county in the nation to decriminalize and regulate cannabis farming.
Fine fits in well in Mendocino. Bearded and driving his vegetable-oil-fueled truck, he looks and plays the part. But be warned: if you are indifferent to drug culture, you may roll your eyes at some of the stoner talk. When Fine says, describing a Mendocino grow house, “I felt like I was inside a Peter Tosh album cover photo,” even I wanted to tell him he was harshing my mellow.
Mendocino County is depicted here as a kind of democratic utopia where local law enforcement and cannabis farmers are on the same side. In 2008, the county passed a land-use ordinance called Chapter 9.31, which authorized growers to cultivate up to 99 cannabis plants (this has since been reduced to 25). Rather than turning the county into a police state, legalization made it safer. Revenues in the municipality increased, and cannabis farmers were treated as law-abiding citizens.
As it should be. Please read the rest.
No Expectations
I am having such a ball watching the Repugs self-destruct that I have laid down my rifle for the day and picked up a bowl of popcorn! I don't care who strews the field with their corpses as long as I get to do The Dance Of Joy over them! Gaffney, Bachmann, Norquist, McCain, Coulter, Romney, Westboro Baptist Coven, anti-gay chicken sandwiches, and all the rest of the Tiny-Brained, Who-Fuckin'-Ever, have at it!
Note to the Repugs and wingtards: As you do battle with each other, take a tip from Marines: put your wallet in your right hip pocket. Saves your buddies time when you blow yourselves...to Kingdom Come, that is. Heh. My expectations are high: And then there will be none.
Note to the Repugs and wingtards: As you do battle with each other, take a tip from Marines: put your wallet in your right hip pocket. Saves your buddies time when you blow yourselves...to Kingdom Come, that is. Heh. My expectations are high: And then there will be none.
Nanci on the Jagger/Richards song that The Rolling Stones recorded for their Beggars Banquet album. From this weekends Cambridge Folk Festival. Maura and Pete Kennedy accompanying - unsure who the drummer is..
Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.
Headline of the Day
Mitt Romney Replaces Sarah Palin as America’s Most Hated Politician
There are others I hate more than either of those. Neither one of them started a criminal war. Yet.
Quote of the Day
From Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian:
I can hear Mitt Romney at job interview: “No, I'm not showing you my resume. You prove that I don't have enough experience or shut up and give me the job.”
Experts ...
The GOP's 'expert' on voter fraud. Heh:
But of course!
A new paper claiming that voter ID laws actual protect rather than disenfranchise minority voters is getting play in conservative circles. What isn’t being mention so much is the background of the paper’s author.
...
Cooper may not have any expertise on voter fraud, but he does know a thing or two about falsifying documents. Cooper was indicted in 2009 on five public corruption charges, charged with exchanging political favors for gifts from Jack Abramoff. Cooper allegedly accepted bribes as a staffer to former Majority Leader Dick Armey, as chief of staff for Voice of America and when he worked for the Department of Labor. Cooper later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying a disclosure report and was sentenced to 36 months of probation.
...
But of course!
Dear Mittster ...
...
Romney said, “Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s gonna have to describe who it is he spoke with because of course that’s totally and completely wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources and we’ll probably find out that it’s the White House.”
...
It's time for you to put up the tax returns or shut up about Harry Reid. Nobody believes you except the rubes who eat paste or get paid to recycle your bullshit.
Regards,
F
Thursday, August 2, 2012
How to say "fuck you, asshole" in Hawai'ian
“I witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor and had the privilege of serving in the United States Army during World War II and I find the comments made by the Congressman from Pennsylvania to be misguided and insulting. It is complete nonsense to suggest that a matter discussed, debated, and approved by the Congress and the President is akin to a surprise attack that killed nearly 2,500 people and launched our nation into the second World War or a terrorist attack that left nearly 3,000 dead and led to fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Having fought for this nation in Europe, I find that I have a special kinship with those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and I routinely visit with the most severely wounded veterans of those conflicts. Just yesterday I met with a brave young man who lost all four of his limbs in Afghanistan. I hope the Congressman from Pennsylvania has the courage to share his comparison with them,” said Senator Daniel K. Inouye.
Don't worry, Danny K., he doesn't.
Update:
El Rude-o on Sen. Inouye's comment:
[...] Then he challenged Kelly to tell wounded soldiers from Afghanistan that contraception coverage is the same as 9/11. That's the rhetorical equivalent of shoving a pineapple up Kelly's tight ass.
Headline of the Day
The Pussy Riot Trial Begins: Feminist Activists Take on Putin
I just wanted to say "pussy riot". Heh.
Romney's Wimp Factor
You owe yourself a favor. Read this.
He was born rich and entitled. He never had to. There was always some underling to blame.
Riding a flying pig. Heh.
Thanks a great steaming pile for the image of Pee-wee ordering a martini "shaken, not stirred" in that voice...
Yeah, we know. We just had one of those. Romney is cut from the same cloth.
His biggest selling point is that he's not Obama. That will be enough for some but it won't be enough. Thank you Jesus. Or Joseph Smith. Heh.
The episode highlights what’s really wrong with Romney. He’s kind of lame, and he’s really ... annoying. He keeps saying these ... things, these incredibly off-key things. Then he apologizes immediately—with all the sincerity of a hostage. Or maybe he doesn’t: sometimes he whines about the subsequent attacks on him. But the one thing he never does? Man up, double down, take his lumps.
He was born rich and entitled. He never had to. There was always some underling to blame.
In a similar vein, it was breathtaking, and a meaningful window into his thinking, that he thought denouncing “Obamacare” to the NAACP constituted courage. That was the opposite of courage—an easy shot aimed at people who aren’t voting for him anyway. Going to the Southern Baptist Convention and telling them they’re all wet about Mormonism? Now that would be courage. Can anyone picture Romney doing that in a million years? The Mormon God will come down from Kolob before that happens.
Riding a flying pig. Heh.
[...] You watch something like his recent VFW speech, and you see that he so desperately wants people to see him and think: “He’s like Reagan.” Please. You would no more cast Romney as Reagan than you would Pee-wee Herman as James Bond.
Thanks a great steaming pile for the image of Pee-wee ordering a martini "shaken, not stirred" in that voice...
But if Romney is elected? Be nervous. A Republican president sure of his manhood had nothing to prove. Reagan was happy with a jolly little shoot-up in Grenada, and eventually he settled down to the serious work of arms control, consummating historic treaties with Mikhail Gorbachev. But a weenie Republican — look out. He has something to prove, needs to reassert that “natural” advantage. That spells trouble more often than not.
Yeah, we know. We just had one of those. Romney is cut from the same cloth.
[...] Voters want candidates who are harshly tested and emerge from those tests stronger. Romney is desperate above all else to dodge them — and when they have come, he’s failed.
His biggest selling point is that he's not Obama. That will be enough for some but it won't be enough. Thank you Jesus. Or Joseph Smith. Heh.
Ah, the boom ...
Mitt Romney’s policy director Lanhee Chen claims that a new study showing 95% of Americans would see a tax hike under Romney’s tax reform plan is “biased” and fails to take into account the explosion of economic growth that will occur under Romney’s administration.
...
It's as magical as the Mittster's underwear. As soon as he's elected, there will be a miraculous economic boom that will allow us to not give a shit about how much more we have to pay to give him another tax cut. I might have been born at night, but not last night.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Points Shaving Scandal!
Olympic badminton players ‘threw’ matches
Who knew there was a 'point spread' in badminton? Yeesh.
Sensitive, those Guidos
Raw Story
Is "no balls" the same as calling a politician a "moderate Republican"? Or worse, a "Democrat"? If the pols get ahold of this, watch for similar legislation here.
But seriously, folks, the proper response to the cry of "no balls!" is "Oh yeah? Watch this...". Heh.
Italy’s highest court ruled that telling a man he has “no balls” as an insult is a crime punishable with a fine because it hurts male pride in a ruling on a curious row between two cousins.
Is "no balls" the same as calling a politician a "moderate Republican"? Or worse, a "Democrat"? If the pols get ahold of this, watch for similar legislation here.
But seriously, folks, the proper response to the cry of "no balls!" is "Oh yeah? Watch this...". Heh.
Headline of the Day
GOP lawmakers: New birth-control mandate like Pearl Harbor and 9/11
Good fucking grief. Hyperbole is alive and well amongst the partisan tiny-brained.
Gadding of a Gawky Gowk
MoDo
Note to pigeons: Don't wait for that or you'll be miserable. Go ahead and let fly wherever you catch him.
Remember when Janice Soprano shot her fiance to death after he punched her in the mouth? Then she calls Tony to come over and help her. He mops up the blood and has his thugs chop up the body.
“All in all, though,” Tony tells his sister sincerely, as he drops her at the bus station, “it was a pretty good visit.”
By Sopranos standards, all in all, Mitt Romney had a pretty good visit overseas. But by political standards, it was more like Munch’s “The Scream.”
Wherever he went, whatever situation he was in, he remained frozen in himself. It was reminiscent of the stinging review of an Oscar Wilde lecture by Ambrose Bierce, who wrote that Wilde was a “gawky gowk” who “wanders about posing as a statue of himself.”
...
Stuart Stevens is right when he says it’s easy to imagine Romney in the White House. I can visualize him right now, lapidary and frozen, in the Rose Garden. A statue of himself.
Note to pigeons: Don't wait for that or you'll be miserable. Go ahead and let fly wherever you catch him.
Your terrifying lack of imagination
If it's Wednesday it must be Morford who finally sees the big problem.
Actually, Mark-o me boy, it's woe to the rest of us who don't.
I have perhaps identified the single most lethal problem facing modern culture.
...
Here lyeth the tragedy: A shockingly large (some would say increasingly large) number of Americans — particularly fundamentalists and neoconservatives but plenty of hardcore liberals and vegans too — never get much of an education, and therefore never get past Level One. They are the Rick Santorums and Michele Bachmanns of the world, those who think cavemen and dinosaurs hung out together, Noah built a giant boat and God really is an angry old man in the sky who judges you for supporting gay people and enjoying porn.
They are the Tea Party and the Vatican, the bitter atheists and the NRA, Fox News and George W. Bush, the frat guys and mal-educated teens who think vampires are just hunky, sullen hotties and not dark metaphors for perverse sexuality or maybe faith and rebirth, who think Frankenstein is just a lumpish monster and not a complex literary symbol for the mysteries of science and the dangers of tampering with nature.
They are, perhaps most dangerously of all, the severely religious who think God really did knock up a virgin, Joseph Smith is more than just a polygamist huckster, and a very dead Jesus really did rise up out of a cave like a balloon and no way is the resurrection myth just a nice, universal metaphor for spiritual awakening, for “rising up” to your own higher, divine self — no shame, guilt or blind faith required. I know, right? That’s crazy talk. Just ask Kansas.
...
Of course, to many on the right, Joseph Campbell would now be considered a heretic, burned at the stake for daring to suggest all bibles, gods, religious stories across the planet are merely the same moral folk tales repeated throughout the ages, that no single religion has dominion over any other, that all such myths are meant to be taken as spiritual signposts and woe to the culture, the leader, the deranged warmonger who takes them as literal fact.
Actually, Mark-o me boy, it's woe to the rest of us who don't.
Congrats, Willard!
Dear Willard,
Congratulations on the successful conclusion of your "Moonwalk Tour", so named by Tweety because you had to walk backwards on everything you said.
You cleverly managed to piss off about 60,000,000 Brits, a billion and a half Muslims, all the Palestinians, about half the Israelis who aren't Likud, Hasidim, or Lubavitchers, and threw a little gratuitous disrespect for Ann and her dancing horse into the mix without even ruffling your hair. In Poland, your aide offered the press corps a little romantic opportunity as well. That's understandable. Good help is hard to find when neither end of your party likes you. Heh.
You missed a trick, though - you should have gone from the United Kingdom to Poland so you could have picked up a nice Polish ham as a gift for Bibi.
You only managed to piss off a little less than a third of humanity. Don't get your magic underwear in a bunch over this. You can correct it by making your next World Tour south of the equator. South America, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa await your tender touch. You can visit the jobs you created in China as well.
You'll have plenty of time for this after the election. Call it the "Ugly American Tour II".
Praying for your successful retreat into the gated communities of your choice, never to be heard from again, I remain
Your pal,
Gordon
P.S. I got 400 bucks back from the IRS this year without paying anything in. It only cost me $5000 to pull it off. If you need any tax tips, give me a call. Not collect.
Congratulations on the successful conclusion of your "Moonwalk Tour", so named by Tweety because you had to walk backwards on everything you said.
You cleverly managed to piss off about 60,000,000 Brits, a billion and a half Muslims, all the Palestinians, about half the Israelis who aren't Likud, Hasidim, or Lubavitchers, and threw a little gratuitous disrespect for Ann and her dancing horse into the mix without even ruffling your hair. In Poland, your aide offered the press corps a little romantic opportunity as well. That's understandable. Good help is hard to find when neither end of your party likes you. Heh.
You missed a trick, though - you should have gone from the United Kingdom to Poland so you could have picked up a nice Polish ham as a gift for Bibi.
You only managed to piss off a little less than a third of humanity. Don't get your magic underwear in a bunch over this. You can correct it by making your next World Tour south of the equator. South America, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa await your tender touch. You can visit the jobs you created in China as well.
You'll have plenty of time for this after the election. Call it the "Ugly American Tour II".
Praying for your successful retreat into the gated communities of your choice, never to be heard from again, I remain
Your pal,
Gordon
P.S. I got 400 bucks back from the IRS this year without paying anything in. It only cost me $5000 to pull it off. If you need any tax tips, give me a call. Not collect.
Heh ... Part Zwei
So, the Frothy One had to weigh in on the Chick-fil-a brouhaha with a comment about the sauce. Oh yes they did.
Quote of the Day
Mike Flannigan:
Perhaps we would've been better off sending Don Rickles abroad- At least he's funnier.
Gah ...
Don't the conspiracy nuts ever stop?
WASHINGTON -- A Republican member of the Tennessee state legislature emailed constituents Tuesday morning with a rumor circulating in conservative circles that President Barack Obama is planning to stage a fake assassination attempt in an effort to stop the 2012 election from happening.
...
Philosophy ...
Tengrain sums up the crazy in two sentences:
At least Murphy Brown was human (and Quayle was stupid so I'll give him that he couldn't tell the difference between fact and fiction), but getting into it with Kermit and Miss Piggy? Hey, if you want to argue with puppets, that's fine, but if you do, you certainly shouldn't be taken seriously. Unfortunately, in America of the 21st Century, this man has a congregation.
Wingnuttia has such a slim grasp on reality that nothing shocks me much anymore. In the early ’90s VP Dan “Potatoe” Quayle, who publicly fought the fictional character Murphy Brown for having a fictional baby out of wedlock seemed laughable at the time, but now would be taken completely in stride.
At least Murphy Brown was human (and Quayle was stupid so I'll give him that he couldn't tell the difference between fact and fiction), but getting into it with Kermit and Miss Piggy? Hey, if you want to argue with puppets, that's fine, but if you do, you certainly shouldn't be taken seriously. Unfortunately, in America of the 21st Century, this man has a congregation.
"Terminator" is upon us ...
The Squids have a new toy:
"Autonomous" being the operative word. Just a matter of time before a drone busts me for driving like Steve McQueen. Heh ...
NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Maryland — If you saw it in person, you’d probably think it was a UFO, too.
That’s what happened when the Navy trucked its batwing-shaped drone of the future from California to its new testing bed here in Maryland. Across the country, 911 switchboards lit up with reports that mysterious trucks were hauling a spaceship. In truth, it was a demonstration model for something the Navy desperately wants: to launch an armed, spying, stealthy drone from an aircraft carrier, one of the hardest maneuvers in aviation, conducted with the click of a mouse. But up close, you can see why people freaked out.
...
"Autonomous" being the operative word. Just a matter of time before a drone busts me for driving like Steve McQueen. Heh ...
Great thanks to Susie for the link.
I'd like this to be true ...
I wonder if McCain slipped Harry some info?
The campaign says there was no year where he didn't pay no taxes but I wonder how many wingnut heads would explode if they find out he didn't pay much more than you and me.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the T-shirt gun of unsubstantiated claims in an interview with The Huffington Post, saying a former Bain investor told him that Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years, hence the lack of disclosure:
...
The campaign says there was no year where he didn't pay no taxes but I wonder how many wingnut heads would explode if they find out he didn't pay much more than you and me.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
A Message from NBC About Its Olympics Coverage
There's been some accusations that NBC's Olympics coverage blows chunks. Their alleged response:
Where's my credit card?
If you’ve been watching NBC in prime time the past few nights, you’ve probably noticed how, night in, night out, we’ve been wrecking the Olympics for you. All we can say is, our bad. At NBC we’re just not used to broadcasting things that people want to watch.
But all that’s about to change.
...
For only $29.95 you can watch the Olympics with no spoilers, no maudlin “personal narratives,” and no promos for NBC’s new fall shows like that egregious one with the doctor and the monkey we show like every five minutes. And for $39.95, no Ryan Seacrest.
Where's my credit card?
"Hold my beer and watch this!"
New Zealand man hospitalized after lighting fireworks in butt
“What must of seemed to be a great idea at the time has backfired, resulting in the male receiving quite severe and very painful burns to his cheeks, back and private bits,” he added.
...
The man told NT News* he wanted to “put on a good show” for his friends after drinking a few beers.
“He screamed a little bit and there were a fair few f-words,” his friend commented.
*"Why I stuck a cracker up my clacker" Do not miss this! My sides, they hurt...
Good show, mate! Beats the shit outta dancing with a lampshade on your head!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
I wobder if he'll come back with those Hasidic hair dangles in front of his ears...
Yeesh.
And hand jobs formerly covered by Medicare will be no more.
That's known as the "F**News model" to pollsters.
Romney Visits Wailing Wall
Prays for success of GOP's voter disqualification strategy.
I wobder if he'll come back with those Hasidic hair dangles in front of his ears...
Fox News Reports 83% of Doctors Will Quit Over Obamacare
Based on brief call-in poll of Fox viewers claiming to be doctors.
Yeesh.
WellPoint, Other Insurers Now Outsourcing Nursing Jobs to India, Philippines
You'll have to scream a little louder when your i.v. slips out.
And hand jobs formerly covered by Medicare will be no more.
Knowing Endings of Stories Makes Them More Enjoyable, Not Less, Says Study
In fact, knowing result of study beforehand made it more fun to conduct.
That's known as the "F**News model" to pollsters.
Quote of the Day
Jed Lewison:
Heh ...
But that all being said, you have to give Romney a little bit of credit here, because his ability to insult everybody he comes in contact with actually has an unintended side effect: he could be the first president in American history to actually give Palestinians and Israelis something new in common.
Heh ...
So ...
A Brooklyn neighborhood is shaken today after six people—including a two-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy—were shot in a drive-by shooting yesterday at 7 p.m. While police are trying to determine what sparked the violence, WABC 7 reports that some community leaders think it was gang members trying to settle a score.
...
Close to a million New Yorkers are jacked up by the NYPD every year for doing nothing more than walking down the sidewalk. A baby and a 14 year old boy were killed last week. An 18 year old girl was killed the week before. "Stop and Frisk" isn't working and the only thing it is doing is creating a bigger rift between the community and the cops. It is racist and most of the stops, if they do end up in an arrest, are for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Not many gun busts. I can't wait until that little bastard is out of Gracie Mansion.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Me'n Fixer do the "Dance of Joy"!
They made us wear clothes for this one. Drat. Some conflict between freedom of artistic expression and what might fly into the punch bowl, I think.
Thanks to MrOum2010, India.
Quote of the Day
From a piece in The New Yorker on Willard's continuing "Gaffe-a-palooza Tour" in Israel:
I had to tell a friend on Facebook that this was satire. The line is blurred...
Mr. Romney’s day concluded with an awkward moment at the West Bank, where he attempted to deposit ten million dollars.
I had to tell a friend on Facebook that this was satire. The line is blurred...
This ...
Is gonna be a generational problem:
So the older folks will be destitute and the young can't afford to live. What does America become then?
...
Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The specter of downward mobility in retirement is a looming reality for both middle- and higher-income workers. Almost half of middle-class workers, 49 percent, will be poor or near poor in retirement, living on a food budget of about $5 a day.
...
So the older folks will be destitute and the young can't afford to live. What does America become then?
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Limeys Have Wingtards Too
The Guardian, UK.
And motorbikes that leak oil and won't start when it rains. Might as well paint their faces blue and live in caves as well. Their wingnuts are just like ours with a posh accent. Heh.
David Cameron will face pressure to remove the Tory whip from the Conservative MP Aidan Burley after he tweeted that the Olympics opening ceremony was "multicultural crap".
Burley, who was sacked as a ministerial aide last year after he took part in a Nazi-themed stag party in the French Alps, described Danny Boyle's work as "the most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen".
...
In his first tweet Burley wrote: "The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen – more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?"
A minute later Burley tweeted: "Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multicultural crap. Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!"
And motorbikes that leak oil and won't start when it rains. Might as well paint their faces blue and live in caves as well. Their wingnuts are just like ours with a posh accent. Heh.
Conversations ...
So, the Mrs. and I are watching the opening ceremonies when the phone rings. Looking at the caller ID, I see it's a number from England. It was a call I'd been expecting for the previous 24 hours. It was my dear old friend Terry, the crazy Welshman.
Terry is 65 years old, a successful businessman, and a dyed-in-the-wool Tory; no flaming lib by any measure. He is, however, a man with a lot of common sense. Why is it that only in America can a lying, two-faced turd like Romney be taken seriously? Everywhere else, they see him for the bastard he is.
Me: Hey, mate, just watching the Queen and James Bond. How's by you?
Terry: Who the fook is this bloody fooking Romney character?
Me: He's running for President.
Terry: President? No ...
Me: What, you don't like him?
Terry: Like him? Bloody fooking 'ell, the man is a bloody fooking idiot. You Yanks can't be serious about him, can you?
Me: According to the polls, 40% of us are.
Terry: Didn't you learn from that idiot, Bush? What the fook is wrong with you people? Why did you send this guy here?
Me: He's showing off his diplomatic skills.
Terry: Thinks he's a diplomat, does he? Bloody fool. He comes here, insults my country and my Queen, and violates our security protocols and he thinks he's a bloody fooking diplomat? Now that Mrs. Obama; she's a statesman. You gotta promise me, boyo, you can't elect that fooking idiot. Bloody fooking prick, he is.
Me: I'm doing what I can, brother.
Terry: Do more. So, how's your lovely missus ...
Terry is 65 years old, a successful businessman, and a dyed-in-the-wool Tory; no flaming lib by any measure. He is, however, a man with a lot of common sense. Why is it that only in America can a lying, two-faced turd like Romney be taken seriously? Everywhere else, they see him for the bastard he is.
Saturday Emmylou Blogging
Couldn't find it so I thought I'd make a bogus film with a great song!
Nothing bogus about it, kid. Good job.
Emmylou Harris ~ "Heaven Only Knows"
Thanks to 210DiABLA666.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Reporter Covers Westminster Dog Show While on Acid
Makes TV a little more interesting!
TheFW
The Republican convention. Better yet, dose the attendees. Heh.
TheFW
Well, that was certainly better than the usual glowing red carpet coverage. What other awards shows would you like this guy to cover? People’s Choice Awards? Golden Globes? Webby’s? Let us know!
The Republican convention. Better yet, dose the attendees. Heh.
How good is this?
Mr. Aravosis compiled screen shots and video of the British media taking a whack at the Mittster. It is a voluminous collection. Heh ...
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Romney in Shambles as Britain Proclaims Him Worse than Sarah Palin
Do yourself a favor and go read this about Willard steppin' on his dick in Blighty. The last coupla lines sum it up:
My sides, they hurt...
The British opinion of Romney has gone from he might be another Bush to oh my God, he makes Sarah Palin seem prepared.
Not since World War II has London seen a bombing as thorough as Mitt Romney’s.
My sides, they hurt...
Foreign policy cred ...
Or the lack thereof. On the Mittster's first trip put of the country as a candidate, he managed to piss off one of our staunchest allies. Wonder what he's gonna do with our enemies?
Dickface.
Mitt Romney is off to a spectacularly bad start in London, at least according to the British press ridiculing the Republican candidate on his first major foreign trip.
British officials — and the newspapers that cover them — took offense to Romney questioning whether London is well-prepared to handle the security issues ahead of the summer games. Romney called the situation “disconcerting.” British Prime Minister David Cameron hit back, saying there is no doubt “Britain can deliver.”
“We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world,” Cameron added. “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”
...
Dickface.
Cruise News You Can Use
The cruise me'n Fixer have been wanting to take.
We could sign on as instructors on that one. Unlike those guys, we can hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle. Heh.
I think that's a Russian 12.7 machine gun. Who but the Russkies would put a shoulder stock on a heavy machine gun?
And now, some squids who know what they're doing. The Royal Navy with some ear candy. Call it "the sound of men working on the chain gun". Gives me goose bumps! Click here to see the "embedding disabled" Reuters version with commentary.
Slow days are fun. :-)
We could sign on as instructors on that one. Unlike those guys, we can hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle. Heh.
I think that's a Russian 12.7 machine gun. Who but the Russkies would put a shoulder stock on a heavy machine gun?
And now, some squids who know what they're doing. The Royal Navy with some ear candy. Call it "the sound of men working on the chain gun". Gives me goose bumps! Click here to see the "embedding disabled" Reuters version with commentary.
Slow days are fun. :-)
Shh!
Loud Sex Can Lead To Death, Says Science
Another use for duct tape?
I told you it's a slow day. It still is.
Bayarreah Rancid Transit
EssEffChron
Holy, er, shit...
An end effect (wince) of All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite at the taqueria next door, no doubt.
It's a slow day.
When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team.
Holy, er, shit...
An end effect (wince) of All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite at the taqueria next door, no doubt.
It's a slow day.
Rs want to return to our roots
If there's any doubt Rmoney and the Repugs (sounds like a really bad doo-wop group) want to take us back to when Old White Men were young, this should dispel it.
Think Progress
It's there if you must.
In a Romney administration, watch for a return to Jim Crow and 'Duck and Cover' as well. Some people never got past High School it seems.
Update:
More on the Repug retrograde movement* in the LATimes:
*"Retrograde movement" is mil-speak for "retreat". In this case, from progress.
As out of touch as he is, Willard must think there are more right-wing crazies than there had better be.
Note to Willard: They're loud. And scared of things changing. And really stupid, which is what you are counting on. You know enough accounting tricks, given your business experience and all, to make the Dead End Quarter into a fake majority you can take to the bank as 'leverage' to buy the election. Keep thinking that. Heh.
The money shot:
I hope they don't figure out that when you're always looking in the rear-view mirror the image is a backwards view of where you've been. Maybe they just see something they don't like gaining on them, but the realistic view is always out the windshield.
Think Progress
Mitt Romney’s campaign often sounds like it still wants to fight the Cold War. Romney himself said that Russia is the U.S.’s “number one geopolitical foe” (a statement that even Colin Powell mocked) and back in April, a Romney adviser criticized President Obama’s “Czechoslovakia” policy. Today during a foreign policy debate at the Brookings Institution, senior Romney adviser Richard Williamson, attacking Obama’s Syria policy, said the Middle East country is “strategically important to the Soviet Union.” Watch the clip:
It's there if you must.
In a Romney administration, watch for a return to Jim Crow and 'Duck and Cover' as well. Some people never got past High School it seems.
Update:
More on the Repug retrograde movement* in the LATimes:
*"Retrograde movement" is mil-speak for "retreat". In this case, from progress.
Clearly, Obama would be doing much worse if he faced a more appealing opponent. No one but Romney's loyal wife is all that crazy about poor Mitt, while Obama is still well liked by a majority of voters. That gives Obama a small advantage. Ironically, though, it may be the folks who detest him and invest in him all their fears who actually are giving him even more of a boost. When middle-of-the-road voters hear the right-wing, paranoid talk about a president they have gotten to know as, if nothing else, a calm, decent family man, they may be inclined to put aside their disappointments with Obama’s first term and give him another four years rather than reward Romney who continues to cater to the crazies.
As out of touch as he is, Willard must think there are more right-wing crazies than there had better be.
Note to Willard: They're loud. And scared of things changing. And really stupid, which is what you are counting on. You know enough accounting tricks, given your business experience and all, to make the Dead End Quarter into a fake majority you can take to the bank as 'leverage' to buy the election. Keep thinking that. Heh.
The money shot:
The president looks far left to conservative Republicans only because they have moved so far right – or, more precisely, so far back in time. They have reverted to an older GOP philosophy – the slavish devotion to wealthy business interests of William McKinley and Warren G. Harding. They have paired that with a fundamentalist religious outlook that used to be found more commonly in backwoods tent revivals and the musty corners of pre-Vatican II Catholicism.
So far, Obama’s campaign has been all big-spending political hardball and very little inspiration. In that, it is a mirror image of Romney’s campaign. Sadly, the presidential race may not get much more edifying in the three months remaining. As a result, if Obama wins this, it will not be because voters endorse or even understand his vision of the future. Rather, it will be because they do not want to revisit the past with Mitt Romney and his backward-looking party.
I hope they don't figure out that when you're always looking in the rear-view mirror the image is a backwards view of where you've been. Maybe they just see something they don't like gaining on them, but the realistic view is always out the windshield.
Crybabies ...
Wah-wah-wah; if we can't repeal Obamacare, we'll defund it. Fuck them sick people, and everyone else:
These people are the embodiment of the term "motherfuckers".
In the letter dated July 18, more than 100 GOP lawmakers asked House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) to stop “any legislation” from coming to the floor that would fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — potentially leading to a government shutdown. Congress must pass a funding measure before October 1 to keep the government running, yet a majority of Republicans are willing to risk a shutdown in order to take away coverage from more than 30 million Americans and increase the deficit by more than 100 billion.
...
These people are the embodiment of the term "motherfuckers".
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Hiding in Plain Sight
My favorite BTIR* on Willard's ex-Cheney-neocon-inspired lie-o-rama at the Reno VFW convention:
I disagree. He'll have plenty of time for stonewalling after the election when all he'll have to do is ride up and down on his car elevator.
*Big-Titted Irish Redhead
Update:
Joe Conason, with video:
Note to Joe: you shoulda been more specific and said "goddam Cheney neocons".
If I closed my eyes, and added a creepy monotone, I could have been listening to Dick Cheney.
...
After the speech, Eric Edelman, a Romney campaign adviser, chimed in on ferreting out Obama leakers in a press release; unfortunately, BuzzFeed soon pointed out that Edelman “was implicated in the country’s last major national security leak investigation — the outing of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame” when he served under former Cheney aide Scooter Libby in W.’s administration.
Romney is so secretive that he’s beginning to make the über-clandestine Cheney look like The Bachelorette.
...
So far, Mitt’s casting a shadowy silhouette, hiding his fortune in foreign tax havens, hiding tax returns, destroying and hiding records as head of the Olympics and as governor, hiding a specific sense of where he would take the country.
Americans don’t want to play hide-and-seek with their presidential candidates. Romney should listen to himself: The time for stonewalling is over.
I disagree. He'll have plenty of time for stonewalling after the election when all he'll have to do is ride up and down on his car elevator.
*Big-Titted Irish Redhead
Update:
Joe Conason, with video:
National Memo Editor-in-Chief Joe Conason said that presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney “has no strong convictions of his own” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” on Tuesday night.
Conason made the comment in response to Romney’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in which the former Massachusetts governor echoed many of the arguments made famous by the George W. Bush administration.
“[Romney] is going to the basket with the same move that Republicans have used for the last ten years or more. Democrats are supposedly weak,” Conason said. “The president has a very easy response to that, which is ‘tell it to Osama bin Laden.’ For that matter, tell it to Moammar Gadhafi.”
“This is someone with no real experience in these matters, who has entrusted himself to a group of people who have been proven wrong,” he added.
Note to Joe: you shoulda been more specific and said "goddam Cheney neocons".
Headline of the Day
Rmoney is on a 3-nation tour to visit his 'base' of ex-pat tax evaders in London and Israel. Must be going to Poland for the ham. It seems to be working for him.
Mitt Romney Soars In Polls After Leaving Country
A tip o' the Brain to our pal Walter K Maier.
A deadly rampage of shocking kindness
If it's Wednesday it must Morford sounding off in the wake of the Aurora murder rampage on human nature and the other kind of 'snap' we rarely hear about.
If it don't bleed, it don't lead. Horror sells, random acts of kindness do not.
I look forward to the day when a quiet, reclusive loner finally snaps, leaves his tiny apartment and marches onto an elementary school playground in broad daylight and hands every child a bar of dark chocolate, an awesome pop-up version of ‘Leaves of Grass’ and a $25 gift card for Kiva.org.
...
Do not misunderstand. Well do I know we as a culture are fed a steady, gruesome diet of ultra-violence, religious ignorance, marketing chyme, warped sexual messages, hate and corruption and the bottom-feeding vibration that is reality TV. Well do I see the nefarious forces at play, and how many people respond to them by creating even more. I get it.
But that doesn’t mean that’s our nature. That’s just capitalism mating with sensationalism getting bitch-slapped by egomania, minus shrewd education, superlative whisky and the deep tongue kiss that comes from true spiritual investigation. I mean, obvs.
...
This sort of “snap” toward the positive, toward changing life for the better, this happens far more than Aurora, or Columbine, or Virginia Tech, or the Iraq war, or any horror you can name, and that includes Penn State and the Catholic church’s coverups and just about anything Pat Robertson has ever said in his entire life.
It happens, actually millions of times per year. Perhaps billions. It is happening right this moment. You rarely read about it. There is no Facebook page or Twitter feed. There is just no way to keep track.
If it don't bleed, it don't lead. Horror sells, random acts of kindness do not.
Bark, woof ...
My girls have volunteered to take a bite out of the Mittster's ass the next time he comes to Long Island grubbing for money.
Pic stolen from Dogs Against Romney.com.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Mayberry R.I.P.
Daddy Frank only infrequently writes feature articles. They're worth the wait. On "declining America" and "American exceptionalism". Runs to 5 screen pages and is my "highly recommended read" of the day.
Shorter: The old white men that have traditionally run the joint are pissed that we let The Other in and America is getting browner and that signifies a collapse of the bad old ways of the good old days.
Don't worry, you old farts. Eventually the leaders of the 'browning of America' will become just as corrupt and repressive as you are and everything will be normal again.
In reality, The Andy Griffith Show didn’t transcend the deep divides of its time. It merely ignored them. “Local control” of Mayberry saw to it that this southern town would remain lily-white for all eight years of its fictive existence rather than submit to any civil-rights laws that would require the federal government’s “top-down management” to enforce. [...]
...
These declinist authors have in common a paucity of plausible or practical solutions to address the laundry lists of imperatives that America must deal with urgently if it is to save itself from perdition or extinction. But their most revealing shared trait, whatever their individual politics or panaceas, is an authorial demographic—they are all white men of a certain age (my em). It’s not happenstance that the Indian-born Fareed Zakaria, who shares some of the declinists’ complaints, conspicuously stands apart from them by defining his subject, in The Post-American World, as not “the decline of America” but “the rise of everyone else.”
...
Samuel Huntington wrote in 1988 that declinist waves “may be better indications of American psychology than of American power,” and that “decline, in short, may be in the eye of the beholder.” That certainly applies now. However serious America’s problems, the declinist panic has been fed psychologically by the advent of Obama: He was vilified for negating American exceptionalism months before he was even inaugurated and had the chance to take any official action that affected the country’s fortunes one way or the other. That Establishment pundits would be fellow travelers in this animus, yearning for an Obama who is not Obama, or for a great white daddy who would bring back the good old days, is a bipartisan indicator of a larger resistance to the onrushing ethnic, social, and cultural change in America of which Obama is only the avatar. It’s a kinder, gentler, and more respectable form of Palinism.
Lost in all our declinist panic is the fact that the election of an African-American president is in itself an instance of American exceptionalism—an unexpected triumph for a country that has struggled for its entire history with the stain of slavery. “Only in America is my story even possible,” Obama is understandably fond of saying, knowing full well that as recently as the year of his birth, 1961, he would not have been welcome in Mayberry, let alone the White House. That his unlikely rise has somehow been twisted into a synonym for America’s supposed collapse over the past four years may be the most disturbing and intractable evidence of our decline of all.
Shorter: The old white men that have traditionally run the joint are pissed that we let The Other in and America is getting browner and that signifies a collapse of the bad old ways of the good old days.
Don't worry, you old farts. Eventually the leaders of the 'browning of America' will become just as corrupt and repressive as you are and everything will be normal again.
"the dynamic duo of Republican fucktardery"
El Rude-o sounds off on Crazy Eyes and Louie the Gomer.
"Bachmann's view of America" is a dark and scary place and thank God (probably not her dark and scary God) it exists only in her head and those of just enough others to have elected enough like-minded scaredy-cat room-temperature-I.Q. throwbacks to have temporarily seized the government and we see how poorly that works. She is going to lose her next election and we will be on the way back from madness.
So when the dynamic duo of Republican fucktardery, Representatives Michele Bachmann and Louis Gohmert, work together on an issue, they create a deep and powerful void of ignorance, a black hole where imbecilic thought is actually dangerous. [...]
...
There's always somebody out there who is fucking things up for Bachmann. Liberal educators, socialist members of Congress, Muslims, all the stealth anti-American Americans who simply won't let Bachmann's view of America come to its fullest fruition. Perhaps the good idiots of Bachmann's district, who keep sending her back to Congress, ought to consider that their representative is the one who has America wrong.
"Bachmann's view of America" is a dark and scary place and thank God (probably not her dark and scary God) it exists only in her head and those of just enough others to have elected enough like-minded scaredy-cat room-temperature-I.Q. throwbacks to have temporarily seized the government and we see how poorly that works. She is going to lose her next election and we will be on the way back from madness.
You know ...
It woulda been nice if one of these Rethugs would have stepped up when that idiot Peter King (R-Long on Stupid) had those anti-Islamic hearings of his. At least they can draw the line between plain ol' stupid and completely batshit crazy ... sorta.
Better late than never but it appears Michele Bachmann's over the top fearmongering is losing her some more friends on the right. Last week it was House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers. Now we've got her fellow Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner pushing back at her nonsense as well.
...
If you have a Facebook account ...
You know all about this because you see it in your news feed from your crazy conservative relatives.
Racism is alive and well on Facebook, despite the social network's policy banning hate speech.
A new study from Baylor University shows how anti-Obama and just plain racist groups use Facebook to spread their messages. And we're not talking about politics, but Ku Klux Klan-style hate speech using old stereotypes updated with do-rags and golden grills.
"Some people have declared the present a "post-racial" era in that U.S. citizens elected a black president, maintaining that policies to address racism are no longer necessary," Mia Moody, Ph.D., who led the Baylor study, said in a statement. "But depictions of minorities in new media show otherwise."
...
It's crippling our business!
Not so much:
It's all about the greed, nothing more. "More for us and fuck the rest of you" is the 1%ers' motto.
...
Over a four years period from 2008 to 2011, Corning Inc. was one of 26 companies that managed to avoid paying any American income taxes, even though it earned nearly $3 billion during that time. In fact, according to Citizens For Tax Justice (CTJ), the company received a $4 million refund from 2008 to 2010. That didn’t stop Susan Ford, a senior executive at the company, from telling the House Ways and Means Committee this week that America’s high corporate tax rate was putting her company at a disadvantage: [all ems in orig]
...
It's all about the greed, nothing more. "More for us and fuck the rest of you" is the 1%ers' motto.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Romney and the White Horse Prophecy
Salon
We need that like we need another itchy asshole.
Far fetched? Sure, but you can believe that the Saints have their own brand of radical right-wingers who are working towards this, and I put nothing, but nothing, past wingtard religionists.
A close look at the roots of Romney's -- and the Mormon church's -- political ambitions
Upon completion of his foreign mission, he immersed himself in the 1970 senatorial campaign of his mother, Lenore Romney, who was running against Phillip Hart in the Michigan general election. That same year, the Cougar Club — the all male, all white social club at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City (blacks were excluded from full membership in the Mormon church until 1978) — was humming with talk that its president, Mitt Romney, would become the first Mormon president of the United States. “If not Mitt, then who?” was the ubiquitous slogan within the elite organization. The pious world of BYU was expected to spawn the man who would lead the Mormons into the White House and fulfill the prophecies of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., which Romney has avidly sought to realize.
Romney avoids mentioning it, but Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an “army of God” advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy. Challenging Democrat James Polk and Whig Henry Clay, Smith prophesied that if the U.S. Congress did not accede to his demands that “they shall be broken up as a government and God shall damn them.” Smith viewed capturing the presidency as part of the mission of the church. He had predicted the emergence of “the one Mighty and Strong” — a leader who would “set in order the house of God” — and became the first of many prominent Mormon men to claim the mantle.
Michael Moody says political success was an institutional value of the LDS church.
“The instructions in my [patriarchal] blessing, which I believed came directly from Jesus, motivated me to seek a career in government and politics,” he wrote in his 2008 book. Moody recently said that he ran for governor of Nevada in 1982 because he felt he had been divinely directed to “expand our kingdom” and help Romney “lead the world into the Millennium. Once a firm believer but now a church critic, Moody was indoctrinated with the White Horse Prophecy. Like Romney, Moody is a seventh-generation Mormon, steeped in the same intellectual and theological milieu.
“We were taught that America is the Promised Land,” he said in an interview.”The Mormons are the Chosen People. And the time is now for a Mormon leader to usher in the second coming of Christ and install the political Kingdom of God in Washington, D.C.”
In this scenario, Romney’s candidacy is part of the eternal plan and the candidate himself is fulfilling the destiny begun in what the church calls the “pre-existence.”
We need that like we need another itchy asshole.
Far fetched? Sure, but you can believe that the Saints have their own brand of radical right-wingers who are working towards this, and I put nothing, but nothing, past wingtard religionists.
The hunt for a mariachi suit in East L.A.
A mural and shrine in Mariachi Plaza de Los Angeles (in East Los Angeles) are dedicated to musicians.
A little light fare for Monday.
Most of us probably think of mariachis as strolling musicians whom we pay off not to play at our table, but they're part of my Los Angeles cultural heritage. Don't have mariachis in your neck of the woods? The demographics are changing. You will.
EssEffChron
My heart sinks when I see the black gate in front of the window. "Lunes cerrado," says a hand-scrawled sign on the door of La Casa del Mariachi. Closed Mondays.
Everything I need is in the window display: the straight-cut pants adorned with silver botonaduras; matching chuleco (vest); the chamarra (short jacket); and the moño, a fluffy bow tie. These items together are called a "traje de charro," which loosely translates as "cowboy suit," and refers specifically to the outfit worn by the lead singer of a mariachi band. Sold separately and equally important: boots, belt, buckle and sombrero.
...
I pay Cesar cash, and he hands me a dark blue moño. "I wore that suit when I was in a group called Mariachi Sol de America. You can find them on YouTube," (Aqui - G) he says.
"What instrument do you play?" I ask.
"Guitarra y biguela," he says. As I begin to remove the jacket, Cesar puts his hand on my arm. "If you are going to remain in this barrio, you should keep the traje on."
That's the opposite advice I expect, a white gabacho from Colorado parading around East L.A. in a traje de charro seems like asking for trouble, but Cesar explains: "The thieves, pandilleros and gangbangers, they'll leave you alone. They respect mariachis."
Respect indeed. The pandilleros are afraid that, if approached, los mariachis might start playing!
Headline of the Day
DARK KNIGHT SHOOTING VICTIMS PRACTICALLY SHOT THEMSELVES, SAYS PROMINENT ARIZONA IDIOT
Same wingtard who wrote the "show me your papers" law. Someone needs to beat the crap out of this asshole.
Oh, the irony...
Ironic Times
"Hands free" texting? I don't wanta know...
Heh.
Bad News: Worst Drought Since Dust Bowl
Good news: more Woody Guthrie
California Legalizes Hands-Free Texting While Driving
Also ventriloquism, psychokinesis.
"Hands free" texting? I don't wanta know...
London: With Olympics Near, Security Breaches at Heathrow Have Authorities Worried
Inexperienced airport personnel allow modern pentathlon team from “Talibania” to enter country.
New Tablet Safe for Christians Introduced
For example, when you search for porn films, it redirects you to Christian-themed porn films.
Snooki Endorses Gingrich
He asked her to wait until after he dropped out.
Heh.
Quote of the Day
From the Rude One's FB page:
Mighty nice of them. Heh ...
In Hell, the demons took a break from anally violating Joe Paterno to let him watch the NCAA news conference.
Mighty nice of them. Heh ...
Sunday, July 22, 2012
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