City Lights

From a photo gallery at the LATimes. 10 more. Way cool. I live in the dark spot west by southwest of the dot signifying Reno NV. I can also see why there's so much trouble back east. Heh.

Click to embigdazzle!

Prejudices

When I heard about the Boston Marathon bombing, my first thought after it was determined not to be a natural gas explosion, was that it was home-grown right-wing terrorists. Local Patriot's Day, Income Tax day, etc. To me, it fits.

Other people have their prejudices too. One of the first reactions I heard was "Burn all the mosques! It's Obama's fault!"

I'm ashamed to have to call those assholes Americans.

Who do you think is closer?

Another Empire To The Graveyard

Remnants of an Army by Lady Elizabeth Butler.

Depicts Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the Bengal Army arriving at the gates of Jellabad on his exhausted and dying horse. He was thought to be the sole survivor of some 16,000 strong army and followers from Kabul, which was forced to retreat the 90 miles over snow covered passes to Jellabad during the first Aghan war. A few others eventually struggled through to the fort.

Click to embiggen

Michael Korda on our ill-fated Clusterfuckistan adventure and defeat.

Nations, like people, seldom learn from their own experience, still less from the experience of others. It is a huge tribute to the tact of the distinguished British historian William Dalrymple that it is not until page 435 of his dramatic, richly peopled, and spell-binding history of Shah Shuja and the first British battle for Afghanistan, when he at last draws the inevitable parallel between the British attempt to subdue and control Afghanistan in the mid-19th-century and America’s own disastrous war there over the past decade. [...]
...

Perhaps the most famous military painting in the history of British art is Lady Elizabeth Butler’s The Last Remnant (Wrong title - G), an immense Victorian tear-jerker of a picture that depicts the approach of the alleged last survivor of the British army sent to Kabul, Dr. Brydon, to the gates of Jalalabad, slumped on an exhausted pony and bearing the news of the British Army’s total destruction (nearly 20,000 killed). In a nation that has often sought pride as much in heroic defeats as in victories, the haunting scene of the Last Stand of the 44th Foot at Gandamak—the soldiers forming a square and defending themselves with their bayonets until every one of them was slaughtered by howling, ferocious Afghans—remains as well remembered in Britain as Custer’s Last Stand is in the United States.

One might have hoped that the virtual annihilation of a whole British army in 1842, as Britain’s imperial power waxed, would have discouraged the United States from trying to impose its will on Afghanistan, or at least persuaded the United States government and military establishment to study the past before committing us to the longest military adventure in American history, but no such luck.

More like "fat fuckin' chance".

Kipling nailed it:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

The Queen(s) in this case being Cheney and Bush, neither one of whom has any idea what it's like to be a soldier. Damn their eyes.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Leaked Intel Report: North Korea Capable of Launching Nuclear Missile
Based on intercepted email Dennis Rodman sent Scottie Pippen.

Markets Higher on Increased Chinese Consumer Demand for Imported Goods
They're beginning to buy some of the stuff made in our sweatshops.

Poll: 92% Favor Universal Background Checks
NRA: that's hardly unanimous.

It's close enough for government work.

Airlines Ponder Installing Scales, Charging Passengers According to Weight
Move hailed by jockeys, deplored by sumo wrestlers.

Secessionists

In toto from Democrats Organizing For America.

"This is not my nation any more.

This is not my America!" they say.

Don't laugh- they're probably right.

Because if you believe that America in the 21st century should function under the same assumptions and with the same values as America in the 18th century...

then no, this actually isn't your America any more.

If you believe that "Freedom of religion" means that you have the right to make decisions about health care, family planning, equal rights, evolution and education for people who do not share your religion...

you're in the wrong place.

If you believe that black people vote for a black man only because of race but white people never vote for a white guy because of his race...

if you believe that a 90 year old veteran who has been voting for 50 years should be denied a ballot because he no longer has a driver's license...

then it's not your America any more.

If you believe that bullying and abuse is ok as long as you do it for Jesus, and that kids are better off in orphanages than with gay parents and that rape shouldn't be an 'excuse' for an abortion because some girls rape easy...

this is not your America.

If you believe that the working poor, pensioners and veterans in America just want 'free stuff' but the wealthy demand their personal income tax cuts for the good of the nation...

no, this is not your America.

If you think you have the right to say who other people can love...

this isn't that place.

And if you believe that it's not possible for your candidate to lose an election unless the "urban" people cheated...by voting... that an acceptable way to win is to try to stop as many people as possible from voting, that "bipartisan' means that all the wrong people are supposed to do things your way and that the "United" part of "United States of America" only applies when your party is running the show...

then you don't understand what America is.

It's not a country where you can just 'opt out' when things don't go your way, and where a bunch of people whining that they want to leave will make us turn our backs on our principles.

It's not a place where beginning a sentence with "I'm not a racist' makes it ok to call the President a ni**er.

It's not a country where a rich, privileged old man can attack a young woman's character in vicious and almost pornographic simply because he disagrees with her politics and not suffer consequences.

It's not a place where we believe that a helping hand in the middle of a natural disaster should come with a pricetag..

It's not a nation where we think it's ok for poor people to die from treatable diseases because millionaire CEO's don't want to cut into their profits.

And thankfully, it's not a nation where bitter, obscenely wealthy men can buy themselves an election.

You folks are the same people who yell "America- love it or leave it" at us every time we try to fix what's broken around here.

Now, it seems like you don't love it enough to stick around and work together.

Well, we're not trying to run you out, but you are certainly free to go.

Of course you don't get to take your state with you- sorry, but that 'Constitution' thing you're always going on about says the states stay together.

And you don't get the flag you're always waving; that belongs to America.

But you can leave, if that's really what you want.

The border is that-a-way.

Tracy

Thank you, Tracy.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Pretty song, positively cosmic slide show, message from God.

Thanks to 1BlueStarRising

Headline of the Day

Doctors Reveal Dick Cheney Burning Through At Least 3 Hearts Each Week

And we get to pay for it. Lucky us. Grrrr...

Rand Paul and the Sweet Smell of Your Own Crap

(Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the link)

From a post at TPM about great white hope and missionary Rand Paul venturing among the natives. Last coupla ¶:

The gist of what happened yesterday was that Paul took this clown show to an audience at an historically black college where, yeah, they actually do know that Lincoln freed the slaves and that Frederick Douglass was a Republican. And they’ve even heard about the Dixiecrats. After I reading Benjy Sarlin’s account I was surprised Paul didn’t introduce himself by thanking the crowd for welcoming him to the ‘Democrat Party Plantation.’

Rand’s surprise was akin to one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons when Bugs’ nemesis walks over a loose floorboard and the board flies up and whaps the guy right in the face. You can become so lost in your own story that you confuse your conciliation with your aggression. The GOP is so deep into its own self-justifying racial alternative reality that there’s some genuine surprise when the claptrap doesn’t survive first contact with actual black people.

Note to Randian Paul: Pull the spears out and go back to the drawing board. Heh.

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods etc. etc. See yas. I'll leave you with this lovely thought:

Quote of the Day

El Rude-o from his post about some dumbass song:

This notion that Christians or whites or straights are persecuted or under attack is utter bullshit. Is anyone taking away any rights from you? No? So you're equating "persecution" with someone saying "you're wrong." The thing is that white, straight, Christian (mostly) men are shit-scared of their power dwindling so they have to make themselves into victims. They have to shut down progress because they see it as just an attack on them.

The "culture war" in a nutshell.

Headline of the Day

Former Tenn. Lawmaker Allegedly Drove 90 MPH While Masturbating Out Window

I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how he could do that and there's only one answer - cruise control. And alcohol. Heh.

Top 40 Ding Dong!

Following up on my post on the death of Iron Drawers:

‘Ding Dong! The witch is dead’ heads to top of UK charts after death of Margaret Thatcher

“Ding Dong! The witch is dead”, as sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, on Tuesday raced to the top of the Amazon download chart in Britain, a day after the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Another version sung by jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald placed at number 4 and also topped the iTunes UK vocal chart as record-buyers passed their judgement on the legacy of Thatcher, who died of a stroke on Monday aged 87.
...

The Official Charts Company, which collates sales from all outlets, predicts that the “macabre sense of humour of British music fans” will give the 1939 record a top 40 placing in their weekly chart.

The Brain is once again proud to lead cultural trends! Heh.

Gee, ya think?

Right-wing religious nuts limit Republican Party's future

Who knew the christowhackos could do the country such a service?

Click to embiggen

From the LATimes

Headline of the Day

New brain study should probe shallow recesses of tea party minds

That'll be kinda "Brain Study 101". Not hard, won't take long, good practice for studying actual brains later on.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Guided Missile Destroyer John S. McCain Sent to Korean Peninsula to Deter Threats
If that doesn’t work, we’ll send John McCain himself.

How d'ya say, "hey you kids, get off the lawn!" in Korean?

Obama Apologizes for “Best-Looking” Remark About California AG Kamala Harris
Says he should have left it at “Va-va-va-voom!”

He's right, though. Kamala's a babe!

Researchers Find Computers Can Read, Record Our Dreams
New app records, edits dreams, uploads them directly to YouTube.

Stock up on bleach. There's gonna be a shortage...

Los Angeles First City to Synchronize All Its Traffic Signals
Now when you're stuck at a gridlocked intersection for thirty minutes, so is everyone else.

Various places in L.A. have had synchronized traffic lights for years. Steve McQueen said he could make all the lights on Ventura Boulevard at 3 AM if he was going 130mph. I have reason to believe he knew whereof he spoke.

A Majority of 52% Now Supports Marijuana Legalization
And nearly 40% say don't Bogart that joint.

My friend, pass it over to me...

Thanks to Andrey Milevskiy.

Heh.

Headline of the Day

Conservatives Are Morphing into the Party of Doomsday Preppers

“It’s not that conservative people are more fearful, it’s that fearful people are more conservative,”

Old Cold War bomb shelter joke, right after the nuclear holocaust:

Knock, knock...

"...Who's there?"

Scaredy cats suck and they're trying to take us down with them as a matter of policy.

Ding Dong!

The witch is dead!

Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as "terrorists", something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto ("One of our very best and most valuable friends"). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, "across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless." [...]

How George Bush Gave Krazy Kim The Bomb

From October 10, 2006 by Greg Palast.

How did a berserker like North Korea’s Kim Jong Il get the bomb in the first place? Answer: He bought it from the Dr. Strangelove of Pakistan in 2001 — while all our President’s men ordered our intelligence agents to keep their eyes shut tight.

Why would Team Bush pull back our agents from nabbing North Korea’s bomb connection? The answer in two words: Saudi Arabia.

The agent on the line said, “There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis.” Khan is Pakistani, not Saudi, but, nevertheless, the investigation led back to Saudi Arabia. There was no way that the Dr. Strangelove of Pakistan could have found the billions to cook up his nukes within the budget of his poor nation.

We eventually discovered that agents knew the Saudis, who had secretly funded Saddam’s nuclear weapons ambitions in the eighties, apparently moved their bomb-for-Islam money from Iraq to Dr. Khan’s lab in Pakistan after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.
...

The U.S. government missed discovering Dr. Khan’s radioactive fire sale because our agents were hard at work ignoring the Saudi money trail. If the agencies had not been told to “back off” the Saudis and Dr. Khan, would the U.S. have uncovered the nuclear shipments in time to stop them? We can’t possibly know, but, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, it’s amazing what you don’t see when you’re told not to look.

Thanks again, Georgie. Worst. "President". Ever.

Well, that didn't take long...

Click to embiggen

Via Truthout.

Knuckledraggers of North Retardistan

Boy, just like Christians cherry pick the Bible, conservatives read the Constitution selectively, don't they?
...

I don't know why we're spending so much money and so many lives fighting the Taliban overseas when we have our own homegrown version right here at home. We have to get rid of these superstitious, anti-science, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-progress, anti-humanity, knuckle dragging Neanderthals or our country is doomed. Remember this story in the 2014 mid term elections.

Thanks to oldfartrants.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Apr 5, 2013
Live at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta, GA, 4/4/2013

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell ~ Invitation To The Blues

Thanks to ra33ra33.

Break the kids in early...

...in the school-to-prison pipeline. The Prison-industrial Complex needs a compliant taxpayer-funded labor force to keep the overhead down and enhance the bottom line.

Click to embighouse

Thanks to YubaNet.

Nuke Nuke Mickey Lover

Well, this oughta piss the kid off! Heh.

Anonymous hackers take control of North Korean propaganda accounts

Click to empiggen

"Zone Of Impunity"

HuffPo:

Secret Files Expose Offshore's Global Impact

Dozens of journalists sifted through millions of leaked records and thousands of names to produce ICIJ’s investigation into offshore secrecy
...

A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.
...

Mobsters and Oligarchs
...

Politically connected wealth

Promises like those have been met with skepticism, given the role played by key G8 members — the U.S., the U.K. and Russia — as sources and destinations of dirty money. Despite the new efforts, offshore remains a “zone of impunity” for anyone determined to commit financial crimes, said Jack Blum, a former U.S. Senate investigator who is now a lawyer specializing in money laundering and tax fraud cases.

“Periodically, the stench gets so bad somebody has to get out there and clap the lid on the garbage can and sit on it for a while,” Blum said. “There’s been some progress, but there’s a bloody long way to go.”

NAMES, dude, we want NAMES.

Update:

Leak of Identities & Emails of Rich Hiding *$32 Trillion* Offshore

Some names, but not nearly enough.

Be careful what you wish for

Colorado gun group leader: ‘There’s a time to hunt deer’ and a ‘time to hunt Democrats’

You better stick to deer, asshole. You're going to get more than you bargained for. Not all us Dems are peacelovedope hippies who won't shoot first. I've been shot at. Have you?

"Vote Sanford, South Carolina," By The People Of Other Awful States

Mr. Bilbeau of Goblinbooks is a wicked, wicked man. Heh.

Hey. It's Florida, Jersey, and a couple of the other guys. We're calling in a favor. We need you to elect Mark Sanford and give him a wide margin. We want a breather. No more bad press for awhile. We're tired of being known as the bad parts of the country. It's your turn, okay?

Florida is sick of everyone talking about how people are eating each other's faces off and voting Rubio. Texas wants to tone down the coverage about how you can bring a gun into a delivery room. And New Jersey just wants no one to mention it in any way. You guys are as terrible as we are. It's time people appreciated that. Vote Sanford. It's the right thing to do.

If you elect Mark Sanford, it will confirm every stereotype of asinine, hypocritical social conservatives who don't even know the Bible they like to beat other people up with.
...

We all have our rednecks lopping their limbs off in powerboat accidents and going to CPAC. But you guys started the Civil War, for chrissakes. Seriously. Why the hell does no one ever call you on that? You owe us.
...

Pick up that slack, South Carolina. The ignorant, heavily-armed people of this great land are counting on you. Be the jackasses we know you can be.

Heh.

Headline and Quote of the Day

Reaping What You Sow: Are White Supremacists Preparing to Fight a new Civil War?

The US Republican Party ignores any white hate group threat since these groups are largely anti-Obama and vote Republican.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and racists are the scum of the earth and should be shot on sight. Possibly a less-than-liberal viewpoint, but it's mine.

Related:

All charges dropped against 2 members of white supremacy group

Some others were convicted.

The convictions so far are: Christopher Brooks, 28, sentenced to three years in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; Luke Leger, 32, and Kent McLellan, 22,both sentenced to four years of probation for pleading no contest to participating in paramilitary training.

All had been accused of training with AK-47s and other weapons to kill Jews, immigrants and minorities during a two-year undercover investigation of paramilitary activities in Holopaw, a remote area in eastern Osceola County.
...

In a similar case in 2007, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office intelligence unit duped a leader of the Aryan Nations hate group into allowing undercover deputies to form a motorcycle club known as the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division.

I bet their annual picnic was a hoot. Heh. Oy.

I have a sneakin' hunch we're going to see a lot more of this update:

Report connects Tea Party leaders with white supremacist groups

For some reason, this does not surprise me.

Why you probably suck at sex

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about ... teehee!


Go read. This one only needs one quote:

After all, when all you’re fed is junk food and Red Bull, who will teach you about duck confit and single malt? When all you have is a blunt sexual hammer, everyone just gets nailed.

Old Stoners Rule!

I love it when then the mysteries and wonders of the universe are reduced to one old stoner doing arts and crafts! And He created me in his own image!

Click to embiggen.

Thanks to the LATimes

Not much going on today so I'll just leave this so the spammers can earn their money.

The Coming GOP-Evangelical Divorce

Michael Tomasky

What are evangelical conservatives going to do? I ask the question not with any sympathy, but with a mountain of schadenfreudian glee—I am profoundly reassured about my country’s direction every time I hear Tony Perkins bemoan it. But however it’s asked, it’s a question that’s growing more and more urgent. Mike Huckabee says that if the GOP embraces same-sex marriage, “evangelicals will take a walk.” Others pooh-pooh this on the usual grounds that they’ve got nowhere else to go. But they do: back to private life. And it’s my bet that in, say, eight or 12 years’ time, that’s where a lot of evangelicals will be. Having gotten into politics to rescue America from the sinners and fornicators, I reckon a critical mass will decide by 2024 that it was fun while it lasted, but that the fight is hopeless.
...

Then what for the Christian right? They got into politics in the 1970s. Remember, Jerry Falwell himself, in a 1965 sermon called “Ministers and Marches,” denounced mixing religion and politics. But then came late-’60s tumult, Roe v. Wade, and kindred signs of the devil’s grip (preceded by the Supreme Court’s decision to take God out of the classroom). Religious conservatives got into politics to undo those things. And here we are, 50 years later, and it’s only gotten worse as far as they’re concerned. By 2024, if my forecasts are correct, things will get only worse still.

Well, how much patience can a movement have? By 2024, evangelicals will have been up to their armpits in politics for half a century. With what to show for it? A country where (I’m betting) abortion is still legal, and now Adam and Steve are saying vows. And their vehicle for their agenda, the Republican Party, will be walking away from them to a place where they smell more votes (and money).

The money boys, aka the "Repug establishment", have been working the Bible thumpers like a red-headed stepchild for their votes for forty years and not given them a damn thing they wanted. I'll be glad to see a really bitter divorce of a marriage made in hell.

Make up your own "Defense Of Marriage" jokes. Heh.

Guns for Gays

The Rude Pundit

Here's what has to happen: we gotta get gays and lesbians by the thousands...no, no, by the tens of thousands to buy guns. No, wait, even better. Someone call George Soros for some major scratch. We gotta start a program to arm Ls and Gs and Bs and Ts and even Qs with the baddest ass guns currently legal, motherfuckin' AR-15s and fuckin' .50 caliber rifles, toss in some pistols like Glocks and Magnum revolvers. And get 'em all concealed carry and whatever other licenses they need. Then, once all the gays got themselves armed, they need to start showing up with their guns, all tricked out in the most over-the-top outfits that play right into what ostensible straights fear most about the LGBT community, crazy stereotypes, like cross-dressed feather queens and tight-pants and cropped shirts on skinny boys and the bull-dykiest-lookin' lesbians that you can imagine. Send 'em out with their guns to shooting ranges, to gun shows, to pro-gun marches, every fuckin' place that NRA gun nuts and militias and white supremacists and worse show up.

A queer army, man, of locked and loaded leather studs and lipsticked femmes. And it's not just a show, motherfuckers, although what a goddamn show it'll be.

I like it! And the guns will be fabulous!

This ain't some April Fool's Day joke. It's time to go all Black Panther on their asses. We can have a fabulous group of armed drag queens show up with their AKs strapped to the back of their sequined dresses and promenade around downtown because it's their constitutional fuckin' right. We can have a troop of muscle bears and suit-wearing butches show up at Tea Party events locked and loaded, wonderin' why "freedom" doesn't have anything to do with who you love. And, just to be helpful, we'll need to have a security team of trans gun owners to guard schools, all wearing school uniforms, of course, of course.

Yeah, some of the gun-noids will be fine with it, happy that more people are armed for the coming black helicopter zombie nightmare. But you can bet there's gonna be a whole lot of 'em that start reconsidering this whole "no compromise" position on gun "rights."

Yep. It'll scare the shit outta the lily white gun nuts when The Other, Any Other, show they have rights too.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Growing Fleet of New Warships Under Command of Various Chinese Gov’t Agencies Harrassing Neighbors in Disputed Waters
After Chinese Navy, second-most powerful regional force is now Beijing's sanitation department.

GOP Balks at Official Path to Citizenship
Prefers free market solutions such as forgery, bribery, identity theft.

French Province Using Drones to Deliver Newspapers
Featuring computer-generated content and printed by automated presses, it's delivered right to the door of its humanoid readers.

The kid who used to deliver it on his bicycle is now operating the paper drone from his mom's basement and becoming obese. The progress of man.

FAA Predicts 10,000 Drones In Skies by 2020
Majority will be operated by 14-year-old boys.

Watch out for falling newspapers.

Bad News: Deaths Tied to Painkillers Rising in U.S.
Good news: you won’t feel a thing.

It's a blessing...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Nov 26, 2012
Kentucky Educational Television's "The Lonesome Pine Specials"; recorded at the Kentucky Center for the Arts; producer Richard Van Kleeck; director Clark Santee; copyright 1992, KET

Sam Bush - mandolin, fiddle
John Randal Stewart - guitar
Al Perkins - dobro, banjo, guitar
Mark Winchester - bass
Larry Atamanuik - drums

Emmylou Harris & Nash Ramblers ~ Walls of Time

Thanks to foxfireman188.

The kid needs a 'time out'

North Korea puts rockets on standby to 'mercilessly strike' the U.S.

The proper response:

Thanks to YubaNet.

Truncated transcript from today’s SCOTUS argument

This is funny. Just go read it. COURTNEY MILAN'S TUMBLR.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. Today, we—

ROBERTS: In keeping with the practices of this Court, we don’t allow anyone to complete a full sentence before interrupting them. Tell us why the people who hired you should even be allowed to bring a case.

COOPER: Because California said so.
...

BREYER: I’m going to ask you an extremely long question riddled with nonspecific nouns, and you’re going to have to guess what I mean by it.

COOPER: I’m pretty sure the answer is no? But let’s stop talking about whether I should be allowed to talk, and get on to what I’m going to be talking about. Which is: nostalgia. Nostalgia for the good old days of traditional, bedrock values. Man, back in 1971, this Court said there was no federal question as to same-sex marriage. Those were the fucking days.
...

Ted Olson’s turn.

OLSON: We all know that if you don’t decide on behalf of respondents, you’ll be heralded as bigots for generations to come, so—

ROBERTS: Before we get to the question of our bigotry, can we talk about standing?

OLSON: Yeah, they have none.
...

SCALIA: I’m going to ask you a ridiculous question: When did it become unconstitutional to discriminate against gays and lesbians?

OLSON: It would be bad form at this juncture to say, “Fuck you, Scalia, you just want to grandstand,” so I’m just going to say it’s a nonsensical question.
...

VERRILLI: Look, we’re trying to find narrow grounds for you to affirm under, if that’s what you’re looking for. Narrow grounds. Affirm. Maybe even 6-3?

JUSTICES, COLLECTIVELY: Yeah, none of us are buying it. It’s probably the only thing that the nine of us agree on.
...

SOTOMAYOR: Okay, but lemme explain how the Supreme Court works. We’re actually terrified of screwing up. That’s why we mainly take cases where there’s a circuit split—because then there’s a lot of arguments on both sides. We’re all kind of freaked out here, because no matter what we decide, someone will be out for our blood. We avoided doing the right thing on racial segregation as a court for 50 years. Why not do this here?

Go.

The Red Tape Diaries

This is as good an explanation of the VA backlog as I've seen.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Your evolution is totally gay

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on the evolution of support for equal rights of marriage, whether real or politically motivated.

Out of the cheap woodwork they come, these swiftly “evolving” politicians, racing as fast as they can to get with the foregone program and support gay marriage ASAP because they see the writing on the Supreme Court wall, which is the same as the writing on the bathroom wall, which is the same as what appears in every poll and survey and sample across the civilized, intelligent, non-Republican world.

And that writing says one thing: Idiots and fools, cretins and political roadkill are ye who do not get over your uptight sexual fears and ignorance of God, pronto.

The hottest story of all right now? Aside from the “leery,” “reluctant,” dully conservative Supreme Court whimpering toward a half-baked, non-sweeping decision on Prop 8 and DOMA that no one will really like? Speed.

Which is to say, everyone’s amazed at the breathtaking, almost impossible-to-believe quickness at which the gay marriage issue has “evolved,” not just for politicos desperate for the love of younger voters who don’t give a damn for the ludicrous “culture wars” of their elders, but for the entire culture, how quickly gay marriage has skyrocketed to a majority of public support in a short handful of years, so fast that no one can really answer why.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth aside, perhaps it's because folks simply aren't as mean as they were, or better informed that civil rights for one are civil rights for all or they mean nothing.

From the Atlantic link above:

The consensus from Court watchers Tuesday seems to be that the Court is itching for a way to avoid a sweeping ruling on same-sex marriage. I can buy that. Such a ruling would be terribly disappointing to same-sex marriage advocates (and probably not beloved by same-sex marriage foes, either). But in this seminal case, to paraphrase a former government official, you go to court with the justices you have. And the justices America has right now seem ready to wait a while longer to recognize marriage equality. Charles Cooper, the lawyer without any facts to back up his argument, may end up winning in the end.

Young Mark winds it up:

Of course, this is not news. The fact that so many politicians are jumping on a fast-moving, sexually charged bandwagon when it’s the easy and opportunistic thing to do is only evidence that they’re politicians, doing what politicians do. Which is, making everyone gag at their hollow and pseudo-spiritual “awakenings,” right on cue.
...

Speed bumps will persist, the Supreme Court may or may not have the balls to declare as valid what everyone already knows is imminent, hateful states and staunch conservatives will go to their graves waving their sad flags of religious ignorance and fear, same as it ever was.

But gay marriage is essentially done. Liberals won. Your kids have already moved on, long ago. And of course, they also de facto/by and large support gun bans, women’s rights, environmental action, et al. And would you look at that? They didn’t even have to “evolve” to do it. Go figure.

I did a lot of their "evolving" for them on a number of subjects over the years. Damn kids come to the right answer without even having to work for it. Heh.

The stupid, it burns...

Raw Story

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee sprung to action and demanded answers after confusing a mop sink recently installed in the state Capitol for a Muslim foot-washing sink.

Members of the state House and Senate contacted state Senate Clerk Russell Humphrey to ask if the floor-level sink had been installed outside the House chamber men’s restroom to accommodate Muslims’ ritual of washing their feet before prayer, according to The Associated Press (Nice photo of the sink - G).
...

Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley assured the lawmakers in an email that “the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use.”

“It is, in layman’s terms, a mop sink,” Ridley said.
...

“Tennessee, like the federal government, has a compelling state interest to protect our citizens from jihad terrorism,” Matheny said at the time.

That measure would have criminalized Muslim foot-washing rituals and dietary restrictions.

I will assume the legislation would have criminalized Jesus washing his disciples' feet as well. They could clean swabs in it while they're waiting for his return. Idiots.

Then again, maybe there aren't any real followers of Christ's teachings around there.

Republicans Struggle to Recover From TeaPartyitis

Will Durst on the GOP "autopsy".

The study was commissioned by members of the party's hierarchy and given the official title- Growth and Opportunity Project. A GOP for the GOP. Although Grossly Obvious Poppycock fits as well. Claiming party purity trumps electoral victory, there is already heavy pushback from the right. "What good is it to win earthly spoils when you lose your immortal soul and your breath still smells like embalming fluid?"

What this really calls for is an independent perspective. You want an autopsy, we'll give you an autopsy.

"Summary Report of Autopsy concerning the corpse of the 2012 Republican campaign. External Examination. Close inspection of the body, an old white billionaire, reveals a serrated knife approximately 9 inches long with the initials, Grover Norquist, engraved on the handle, protruding from under the right side between the 4th & 5th ribs.

Gunshot residue found covering the right hand in excess of ½ inch depth, which considering the holes in the right temple exhibiting upward trajectories, is consistent with what can only be described as a series of self- inflicted gunshot wounds. DNA tests reveal skin samples found under the broken nails of both hands are indicative of numerous encounters between the victim and an unknown woman or perhaps group of women.

The nose is missing which corresponds to the victim's recent recurring publicized bout of TeaPartyitis, a disease which causes the sufferer to cut off his nose to spite his face. In the rectum, what appears to be a wooden stick 6 inches long and ¾ inch in diameter, has been lodged for quite some time causing a critical backup of feces.

Pending toxicology results from the lab, internal examination reveals organs in a state consistent with the victim's age, with two conspicuous anomalies. A steady diet of bunk and bamboozle has dulled the senses creating a milky film that covers the retinas. Most exceptional was the astonishing discovery of the total absence of a heart.

It is the opinion of this office the cause of death was this myocardial void along with the aforementioned complications from various acute traumas. In other words, the victim was probably dead for a long time, just didn't know it."

If they'da had a nose they coulda smelled it.

Everyone Knows A Gay Person. Everyone Knows A Conservative

Goblinbooks. Caution: scary picture!

We're in the middle of a stunning upsurge of support for gay people and an equally stunning collapse of support for conservatives. And I believe the reasons are the same: More and more people actually know them.
...

[...] And we, the public, also know, through personal experience, that Roberts himself was recommended to the bench by a halfwit who thought Jesus Christ actually told him to launch a preemptive war on Iraq.

Yes, yes we know that.

With increased openness, you can encounter gay people or conservatives anywhere. You might meet a coworker's partner at a company lunch, say, or have a longtime friend post a picture of an aborted fetus on your Facebook page. Maybe an older relative finally has the courage to express himself - and he either tells you he's going to start dating, or he sends you a racist email about the president.

However these things happen, millions of people across the country are getting more accurate images of both groups. They understand a gay person is a well-adjusted man or woman who happens to be attracted to people of the same gender. And they understand a conservative is someone who doesn't believe in climate change, and maybe not even evolution, and enjoys hoarding weapons and highlighting the scariest parts of Atlas Shrugged.

The way forward, in both cases, is clear. Gay people should be proud of who they are. They should feel free to talk honestly, even bluntly. Conservatives should really, really do the opposite. They need to pull the plug on CPAC and encourage Michele Bachmann to build that compound she's probably sketched out. They need to fight those feelings they have about contraceptives and the gold standard. They're not right. They're not natural.

They need to find a deep, dark closet and just cram themselves in there. For good.

I long for the day when a "brave conservative" is one who dares to come out as such instead of one who wants to send other people's kids to die in unnecessary criminal wars.

Light Blogging Today, i.e. I'm Pooped

I'm taking it easy today. We did a lot of driving this past weekend. Rode a trial on Saturday and collected a new pooch on Sunday. I'll let others have at the wingers today.

Here's the pooch. She's a 3-year-old tricolor Springer Spaniel named Roxie. Beautiful and friendly and settling in. She's the one on the left.


Here's a short vid of a bit of the trials action. Mrs. G walked almost a mile to get this. Prairie City SVRA is HUGE and the other sections were too far to walk to.


I win the 1st Place trophy every time because I'm the only one who ever signs up in my class - Old Farts Who Oughta Know Better.

Click to embiggen

Interestingly, the artist who did that lovely rendition of the dusty, tired boots that came off a dusty, tired rider, a white-bearded old trials rider himself name of Gene, was right there at the post-trial trophy presentation. I shook his hand and told him how terrific I thought it was.

It was a helluva good weekend and I'll just bask in the afterglow while I wait for my first-time-out-this-season thigh muscles to quit screaming "abuse!" at me. Heh. See yas later.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

WHITE HOUSE PETITION CALLS FOR
POLITICIANS TO WEAR NASCAR-LIKE ADVERTISING
And keep all their cash bribes in a clear plastic
globe on their desk.

GOP Leaders Decide It's Time to Reverse Course
They'll reverse their position on immigration, gays, taxes, abortion and urge fellow Republicans to begin cross-dressing and getting tattoos.

That would be an improvement. The Big House is a good place to get tattoos. Their cellies might set 'em on the road to cross-dressing too. Heh.

Another Putin Critic Living In Exile Commits Suicide
Once again by stabbing self in foot with poison-tipped umbrella.

Much more believable than twelve self-administered rounds in the back of the head.

REMINDER
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is about twenty cops with guns.

Shit, that's how many cops show up for a DUI arrest. Heh.

Zippers Cause Most Penis Injuries, Study Finds
Except in Scotland.

Ah don' care, Ah'm nae wearin' a skirrrt! Y-fronts 'neath mah breeks ha' always sufficed!

Goin' ridin'

Spring done sprung early this year so I'm off to ride the PITS trial at Prairie City today. See yas.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

One of my favorite songs. Written by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons.

Published on Mar 18, 2013
Emmylou Harris Rodney Crowell " Wheels" SXSW 2013 Waterloo Records

Thanks to walken16.

This makes me so angry I can't fucking see straight Headline of the Day

TSA orders wheel-chair bound double-amputee Marine to “walk”

"War on Easter" Headline of the Day

Bill O'Reilly: The Left Is Trying to Destroy the Easter Bunny So That Everyone Can Do Drugs and Have Abortions

Mr. O'Rally needs to be shown gently to the door. Of the rubber room.

Repug Autopsy

Click 'em to 'em biggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Can we skip to the burial now? Heh.

A missed opportunity

Coulda got 'em all with one round...

Click to embiggen

A tip o' the Brain to Seniors for a Democratic Society.

Headline of the Day

Native American Lawmaker To Anti-Immigrant Kansas Official: ‘When You Mention Illegal Immigrant, I Think Of All Of You’

Heh.

Unintended irony is where you find it

What's funny about this is the GOP already has the worst sinners and biggest criminals. Heh.

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Quote of the Day

From Daddy Frank on the National Circus.

The House GOP still doesn’t know that Obama won the election. This includes Paul Ryan, who is like one of those Japanese soldiers who kept on fighting on a remote atoll years after V-J Day, refusing to believe that his army had been defeated.

Heh. I get a visual of Lyin' Ryan sneaking outta the woods at night to steal food and clothes. From widows and orphans, of course.

Like, Duh Headline of the Day

Republicans can’t tell fact from fiction

Punk'd again. It's almost too easy. Heh.

A Republican discovers his heart

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on Senator Portman's reversal of his stance on gay marriage.

Bingo. After years of deep homophobia and toeing the heartless party line, the mildly thoughtful senator finally snapped to the fact that his kid deserved as much right to be as in love, legally married, miserable and undersexed as anyone else.

Heh.

By the way, isn’t it interesting how you never see a Portman-type scenario in reverse? How you will never hear an intelligent progressive step up to a microphone and say, “Ladies and gentlemen, after years of fighting for liberal causes, I’ve come to the conclusion, after my daughter revealed she’s a born-again Christian, that I’ve had it all wrong. I now believe women are far inferior to men, and the church should make all the decisions about their horrible vaginas. Also, more guns will solve the problem of all the guns, homosexuality is a disease, and black people should never be allowed anywhere near a public drinking fountain. Thank you.” True heart openings are always toward the progressive; true thoughtfulness never constricts.

Never say never, young Mark. Such thoughtfulness as I've been able to muster has constricted my heart towards conservatives. Whenever, rarely it seems, one of them appears to see the light, I'm suspicious of his motives.

Perhaps this is the ugly downside of Portman’s epiphany, and why it made headlines at all: because of the stark contrast to the norm. Because the right’s intolerance is still so heartless and cruel. Because so many conservatives still react in the exact opposite manner when their kid – or any kid – comes out.

Which is to say, they will not welcome their gay child. They will not offer compassion, understanding or love. Many gay children are instead shunned, abused, beaten, rejected and kicked out of the house. The parents will refuse to attend the gay wedding, refuse to allow the gay partner into the home, will never speak to their godless pervert kid ever again.

Don’t think it happens much anymore? You are wrong. It happens far more than you think. And it’s behavior completely exclusive to the conservative right.

My point exactly. They are slowing the progress of the world.

March Madness

Heh.

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Letter From A Dying Veteran

Truthdig, in toto.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

You nailed it, Mr. Young, and I think they realize full well what they did. Admitting to their lies is out of the question as is admitting to a "mistake". All the deaths, all the expense, all in vain for nothing but a neocon wet dream and an oil grab.

Even worse would be admitting they lost their criminal war of choice. Also, that they didn't get the oil they went to Iraq after and that they handed the joint to Iran.

They don't give a damn about the death and destruction and expense, now or for the rest of the time our nation will be paying for their crimes in myriad ways until all the Veterans and the memory are gone.

They will probably not get a "day of reckoning" this side of the veil where it might count. We will never get the pleasure from seeing them hang that we deserve.

I just hope the rest of us remember enough not to go to war with Iran.

Two Titans of Titanic Stupidity

The Political Garbage Chute

Karl Rove versus Sarah Palin…every comedic writer’s wet dream. And what makes this showdown even more delicious is that they are both right. I mean not about their ideological points of view. Oh, they’re definitely not right about anything of substance, not at all. But in terms of this feud –and more specifically the barbs they traded — they both landed solid, truthful blows on one another. Two titans of titanic stupidity locking horns, both of them the exact right poison their party needs to take in order to put themselves out of their misery once and for all.

I'm fuckin' lovin' it! More butter on that popcorn, please!

So we have two human beings who really ought to know better making grand statements about the other being the bigger asshole. Meanwhile, the country thinks they’re both assholes and most people don’t care what either Sarah Palin or Karl Rove think about anything.
...

What Rove and Palin’s clash demonstrates is that the GOP is in no position to recover from their tailspin of 2012. Both of them are nothing more than media whores at this point, trying to capitalize on former fame or success, though with Palin it’s fame without any real measurable success…other than being famous. In Rove’s case he’s a has-been who helped dismantle the Republican Party’s reputation for fiscal responsibility by helping secure eight years in office for the freely spending Bush Administration. The GOP’s survival depends on its ability to shun both Palin and Rove; neither represent a path forward for the party. But then again, not much that the Republicans have been doing would give anyone any indication that they even want to move forward.

Seeing the internal dysfunction within the Republican Party should give the rest of us our clearest insight yet into why President Obama has had such a hard time working with the House Republicans. They’re a party lost right now. The world is moving on without them. Marriage equality is a foregone conclusion, as at the very least removing marijuana from the list of drugs included in our insipid War on Drugs, and true single-payer health care isn’t that distant a dream either. Whether the Boomers or their children – the generation to which I belong — accomplish just these goals is the only real question. But regardless, these three unavoidable milestones are in America’s future, and what the GOP has to ask itself is just how far onto the wrong side of history do they want to be.

The Moosebreath/Turdblossom turkey slap and hissy fit of irrelevance between the money end of the GOP and the whackjob end is something we've seen coming since Grampa Walnuts' defeat and it's getting into full swing! About fuckin' time.

That's the federal GOP. The state GOPs are busy wrecking the joint, red state by red state. Elections matter.

Cheney Marks Tenth Anniversary of Pretending There Was Reason to Invade Iraq

Borowitz

The ceremony, held on the grounds of the Halliburton Company headquarters, brought together the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and other key members of the lying effort.

Calling the assembled officials “profiles in fabrication,” Mr. Cheney praised them for their decade of dedication to a totally fictitious rationale.

“Making up a reason to invade a country is the easy part,” Mr. Cheney told them. “Sticking to a pretend story for ten years—that is the stuff of valor.”

Mr. Cheney added that their “steadfast charade had raised the bar for all future administrations.”

“When it is time to invade Iran or Venezuela, will the President have the will to make up an entirely fake reason to do it?” he asked. “That remains to be seen.”

It'd be a lot funnier if it wasn't for all the needless death and expense.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

FAR RIGHT LOCKS OUT FAR FAR RIGHT FROM CPAC CONFERENCE
Those too conservative for Sarah Palin met in adjoining rubber room.

New Pope Gets Right to Work
Hunkers down with Vatican lawyers.

Leaked Pentagon Report: F-35A Joint Strike Force Stealth Fighter Would Be Defeated in Aerial Combat
Recommends planes be sold to our enemies.

Who'll buy 'em now? Yeesh.

Subaru Recalls 47,000 Vehicles Because Their Engines Might Start Up on Their Own
Several have returned themselves to the factory.

Oh, the irony I missed...

The guys at Ironic Times haven't got this week's up yet and I have to go out. Here's one from last week that I missed:

Karzai: Taliban Working With U.S. to Keep War Going
Analysis: somebody didn't get his sack of cash this week.

That is probably closer to the truth than we'd like to think, but we're used to that.

New Republican Plan: Try to Fool All of the People All of the Time

El Rude-o on the Repugs' autopsy of Why They Lost.

[...] In other words, how to lie better and how to get more people to believe the lies, a new and improved motherfuckery.

See, the big problem is perception, you know. Yeah, it took massive polling and surveying and phone calling and a shit ton of money paid to someone to find out that when people are "[a]sked to describe Republicans, they said that the Party is 'scary,' 'narrow minded,' and 'out of touch' and that we were a Party of 'stuffy old men.'" Honestly, it sounds like they're describing a cabal of creepy child molesters or the Catholic Church (or, you know, both at the same time). And it ain't helped by shit like Mitch McConnell's white staff doing the "Harlem Shake."

The problem here isn't that people see the GOP as a bunch of cigar-smoking bankers. It's that people know what they are: a bunch of jerk-offs who believe appalling things who do nothing but block the efforts of the President they elected twice and who are supported by an assortment of Obama-deranged racists, gun-toting idiots, sexist and homophobic assholes, and Rush Limbaugh, along with the cigar-smoking bankers.
...

How hilariously does this document miss as a self-examination? Well, it's as if it grabbed its balls, felt a strange lump on one, and decided that all that it needed to do to make that go away is to masturbate more.
...

Here's a solution the Rude Pundit has proposed a number of times to Republicans: Stop being dicks. It's really that simple. You're a bunch of dicks. When you look in the mirror, that's a dick looking back at you. Honestly, if you want to have any relevance at all, it's all you gotta do. We see through the smoke screen, no matter who is blowing it.

Fat chance. To quit being dicks, they'd have to abandon their "principles" like they know the meaning of the word and give up all the mean-ass bullshit they've been peddling all these years. Ain't gonna happen without one helluva lot of funerals. Fine by me.

When a motorcycle is as broken as the Repug party, new chrome ain't gonna fix it. The only solution is to lift up the gas cap and slip a new motorcycle under it.

They need to break off the Tea Party but then they wouldn't have ANY voters. Heh.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Mar 11, 2013

On May 15, 2011, Country Music Hall of Famer Emmylou Harris performed the National Anthem at the Nashville Sounds game.

Thanks to Michael Whitty.

"Support the troops" my ass. Again.

When it comes to governance, it's no wonder Florida looks like a dick.

Houston Chronicle

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida's lieutenant governor resigned and nearly 60 other people were charged in a scandal involving a purported veterans charity that authorities said Wednesday was a front for a $300 million gambling operation.

The organization, Allied Veterans of the World, runs nearly 50 Internet parlors with computerized slot machine-style games, which have come under scrutiny in Florida but are in a gray legal area.

Even so, investigators said the charity was a fraud and executives gave precious little to veterans while lavishing millions on themselves, spending it on boats, beachfront condos and Maseratis, Ferraris and Porsches.

Go read the rest of this. Using Veterans to scam folks out of their hard-earned money chaps my ass. I hope the bitch gets twenty years. Everybody else too.

Bush Baggage

newsvandal

Nowadays, it’s awfully expensive to get all your baggage onto an airliner.

Unless your name is Bush and the plane is Air Force One.

In fact, the mainstream media has a long history of bending over backwards to help handle the Bush family’s substantial pile of baggage. Like a team of personal skycaps, they’ve dutifully stored it in the deep, dark memory hole we call “the past.”

List of 70 years worth of unpunished Bush family crimes follows. America's "First Family" of organized crime.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of “the war formerly known as Iraq,” the media focuses more on Brother George painting 50 dogs than on the relentless suffering and carnage both he and, by extension, we all left behind in Iraq. Too bad he didn’t literally “paint 50 dogs.” The media might actually obsess on that story. They sure as shootin’ don’t want anything to do with covering the chaos and death playing out every single day in Iraq.

Here’s a news flash: America destroyed a country under false pretenses.

Yep. America.

The real baggage here—the heavy historical baggage—is not simply the few “personal belongings” left behind on Air Force One by George and his band of Neo-Con artists. Rather, it is an ongoing indictment of America as a nation. Something we will carry for a long, long time.
...

So, keep this in mind when pundits and prognosticators discount the likelihood of another Bush presidency. If the last fifty years have proven anything, it’s that there is no amount of baggage that cannot be buried deep into the dark recesses of American history.

Just ask Henry Kissinger.

I think Jebbie is outta his fuckin' mind. Baggage? Boosh name's got plenty o' steenkin' BAGGAGE! He'll never be President. I have spoken.

A Message To CPAC From Something Caught In The La Brea Tar Pits

I'm from L.A. and grew up only a coupla miles from the Tar Pits, the very definition of "primordial ooze", so this one tickled my funny bone. In toto from Goblinbooks which is clever and getting to be a regular stop.

Guys, please stop.

Quit struggling. Struggling only makes it worse. Believe me, I know. If one of your main speakers is Sarah Palin, it is time to just admit you've lost. She sort of defines what losing is, right? Losing, at its worst, is becoming a terrible caricature of everything that's wrong with your side. I mean, I chewed off my own paw in frustration, and even I have the presence of mind to know inviting her was a bad move.

God, this is just painful for the rest of us to watch. Right now I have a dire wolf who's trapped here with me, and he's howling and trying to eat my face. And that's still way, way better than being stuck in a hotel room next to Rick Perry.

Why would you do this to yourselves? I'm a dumb animal, and I have no clue what viscosity is. You, on the other hand, just lost a well-publicized election by alienating women and social moderates. And you respond by torpedoing gay rights groups and inviting Santorum to slather you with his crazy talk. Do you understand that you have absolutely no excuse?

It's like you wanted to get into this terrible fix. It's like the futility of fighting for an ignorant and out of date worldview is just too much for you anymore. You're trying to go extinct, aren't you? I get that. Of course, you're going to take the new guys down with you. People will see Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio here, and they'll remember how deeply out of touch their views really are. Tar pits are like that. Everyone gets stuck together. Everyone dies together. If the GOP had any sense they'd just lock the doors on you people, and let nature take it's course. But we all know the GOP's track record...

I almost feel sorry for you. I really do. And then I remember who you are, and that feeling kind of goes away.

Well, I'll tell Reagan you're coming. Bye.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles has a Dinosaur Hall (click on #1 if the page has moved on) chock full of complete prehistoric critters hauled out of the La Brea Tar Pits, their bones blackened from millions of years submerged in the tar. I get a thrill up my leg when I think of today's dinosaurs (Moosebreath, Good Hair, Frothy Mixture, et al) on display like that! Soon, I hope.

It wouldn't hurt me even a little bit to watch the whites of their eyeballs disappear into the muck either.

The Dead End Quarter is bigger than we thought

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on the Dead End Quarter, which can run as high as 37% depending on the issue.

Six percent of Americans believe in unicorns. Thirty-six percent believe in UFOs. A whopping 24 percent believe dinosaurs and man hung out together. Eighteen percent still believe the sun revolves around the Earth. Nearly 30 percent believe cloud computing involves… actual clouds. A shockingly sad 18 percent, to this very day, believe the president is a Muslim. Aren’t they cute? And Floridian?
...

In sum and all averaged out, it’s safe to say about 37 percent of Americans are just are not very bright. Or rather, quite shockingly dumb. Perhaps beyond reach. Perhaps beyond hope or redemption. Perhaps beyond caring about anything they have to say in the public sphere ever again. Sorry, Kansas.
...

It’s a fact even recognized by Louisiana’s own Gov. Bobby Jindal, who had the nerve to defy his own state’s (and his own party’s) famously low IQ by saying, after the last election, “The GOP must stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults.”

Of course he’s right. But where would that leave their base? And who will tell the megachurches? And does Jindal not know Louisiana is where they teach that the existence of the Loch Ness monster is evidence that evolution is a lie?

How it all really happened. Obviously.

Brings to mind a stunning study about facts and truths. Have you ever heard it? It goes something like: Here is hard evidence, scientific evidence, irrefutable proof that something is or is not true. Here is dinosaur bone, for example, which we know beyond a doubt is between 60 and 70 million years old. Amazing! Obviously!

But then comes the impossible snag: If you are hard-coded to believe otherwise, if your TV network or your ideology, your pastor or your lack of education tell you differently, you will still not believe it. No matter what. No matter how many facts, figures, common senses slap you upside the obvious. You will think there is conspiracy, collusion, trickery afoot. The Bible says that bone is only eight thousand years old. Science is elitist. Liberals hate God. The end.

I would say that liberals hate people who claim that God tells them who to hate.

[...] Christianity is a total fabrication! Always has been, always will be.

So are all religions that aren't based on the world around us. I tell people I'm a Pre-Jacobite Animist Gnostic. I've never been asked to explain. Heh.

Please read the rest. The young feller makes some more good points.

Why You Don't Need to Give a Shit About Paul Ryan's Budget

El Rude-o on Ryan's "budget".

The Rude Pundit is sick of Paul Ryan. He's sick of Ryan's goofy fuckin' face, he's sick of Ryan's slickly sincere voice, he's sick of Ryan rolling into town with donkey piss in a bottle and sellin' it to us like it's the key to eternal life. That cart's been here before, we heard everything he's had to say, and we chased his yowling ass away, tarred and feathered, back to Wisconsin.
...

The proper way to think about Paul Ryan's latest iteration of his budget, a budget that helped the GOP to lose in 2012, a budget that was rejected by the majority of voters through the election, is that it's a proposal of punishment for a nation that rejected the Republican way of doing things (my em). It's Ryan's and the GOP's way of saying to 99% of America, "Fuck you." Ryan may as well have put a picture of himself flipping us off on the cover.

What could I possibly add to that?

Making Believe

This one goes out to Paul "Lyin'" Ryan for his latest fairy tale budget.

Thanks to manbehindthescreen1, Netherlands.

"Xbox Medal" On Hold

Good. McClatchy.

The military has stopped production of a new medal for remote warfare troops - drone operators and cyber warfighters - as it considers complaints from veterans and lawmakers over the award, a government official said Tuesday.
...

Officials said in announcing the medal last month that it would be the first combat-related award to be created since the Bronze Star in 1944. And they said that in recognition of the evolving 21st century warfare, the medal would be considered a bit higher in ranking than the Bronze Star, but lower than the Silver Star.

The Veterans of Foreign War and other groups say that ranking it ahead of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart is an injustice to those who served on the front-lines.

John Bircher, a spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has said the veterans groups are not objecting to the medal - just the ranking. He said some medals ranked ahead of the Purple Heart are achievement medals that can be earned outside of war time. What bothers many veterans is that the new Distinguished Warfare Medal appears be a war-time medal that trumps acts of valor, which he finds insulting.

If I had a name like "John Bircher" I'd have sued my parents long ago... But I digress...

Fuckin' A it's insulting! Putting a medal for essentially playing a video game from the comfort of a stateside billet ahead of one earned in Shitholestan with a rifle in your hands is damned insulting. I realize that Air Force butterbar 2d Lieutenants need recognition for their "bravery" and since they mostly "fight" from Nellis AFB, how about discount coupons at Nye County brothels?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Holder Admits It's “Difficult” to Prosecute Big Banks Due to Possible “Negative Impact” on Economy
Much easier to impeach Attorney General for failing to enforce laws.

And replace him with Elizabeth Warren.

North Korea Threatens to End 60-Year Cease-Fire With South
If South Korea won't replace transmission on Dennis Rodman's Hyundai.

Heh.

Scientists: We’d Have to Drink 100 Bottles of Wine a Day to Get Anti-Ageing, Obesity, Diabetes, Cancer-Fighting Benefits
So better get started early in the day.

No word on the possible effect on productivity.

Disgraced Ex-Gov. Sanford Asks Wife He Dumped to Run His Campaign for Congress
His campaign slogan: “He's Got Chutzpah.”

Big brass ones!