The rain in Belgium ...

Finally I'm catching up. My post on Bruges, Belgium is up over at Worlds. Mrs. F even says a few words.

At sea tomorrow. All we did was shop in London but I'll have a post up tomorrow and I'll be taking pics for a little tour of Prinsendam.

Time for dinner ....

Still headin'...

Spent the night at the Days Inn in beautiful downtown Adelanto. Not the Prins Shmendrick, but it'll do. As to the availability of weed and sex, Mrs. G is with me so I didn't ask...

The motel is run by an Indian couple named Patel. Nice folks. I mentioned that I finally met Patels who lived up to the name of 'innkeeper', and the lady corrected me thus, "Oh, no. It is just a popular name, like Gonzales." I can dig their frame of reference given the sign on the business next door, 'Llantera - cambios de aceite'.

A lovely find a block away for dinner last night - La Botana. Very, very good.

Adelanto has a motorcycle race track right on US 395 in the middle of town. I raced there on Saturday nights 30 years ago. It was a TT and 1/2-Mile track then, but it's a Motocross track now. Times change. It wasn't in the middle of town then either.

Adelanto is also home to the BRAC-ed George AFB, and near El Mirage Dry Lake which you've seen in TV commercials and movies, trust me on that.

I used to do a lot of my desert riding near here as well. This area holds lots of good memories.

We're headin' on down into Riverside this morning to take care of some business with the owner of this outfit, and then on to brother Dave's house in the San Fernando Valley and then to Arnie's Bidet B'day party. Later.

Finally ...

Got everything straightened out and have the first post up from Amsterdam.

A quote from Mrs. F: "My dad's gonna see that you know."

Heh ...

Update:

My second Amsterdam post is up. London today and I'll have something up from the beautiful city of Bruges that we visited yesterday.

Headin' out...

Me'n Mrs. G are headin' out fer a coupla days. We're going to L.A. to pick up a piece of sports gear, more on that later, and to attend a birthday party. I should be back here on Monday.

Frankly, after the introduction of the Stepford Veep candidate and the godawful anti-Constitutional bigoted hate-and-lie-fest in St. Paul I will be grateful to listen to some tunes and watch the movie on the windshield for a day or so.

See yas.

What are you fighting for?

An oldie from Phil Ochs that still sounds contemporary.





This song was written and recorded about 40 years ago. Watch how the images from the last 8 years eerily match the 40 year old words. This was a 20-something year old kid who got it 40 years ago. It is taking too long for the rest of America to catch up.

JG.

Still kicking ...

Yeah, I'm still alive. Aboard Prinsendam trying to get connectivity problems straightened out before we head out for a day in Bruges, Belgium. Hopefully, I'll have a post up later this evening. I've had worse internet connections but not many and it won't let me upload pictures. More later ...

Life of Her Party

Please enjoy MoDo on Palin.

For many years, reality was out of vogue with Republicans. They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina, of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden.

When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and here at home, their mantra was, as Rummy put it, “Stuff happens.”

Now reality, in all its messy, crazy, funky glory, has flooded the party, in the comely, crackling form of Sarah Palin.

Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness, McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra: “Life happens.”

Indeed, it does. [...]

It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock, bemoaning a “poverty of values.” It also seems like a long time — and another McCain ago — that Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.

This week, the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol’s pregnancy, using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin — who will no more support sex education than polar bears — was committed to the cause.

The political unknowns, of course, want that tantalizing brass ring, so they’re not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons, if they’re lucky enough to be ineptly vetted. This is ironic, since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises — Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention — is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes.

Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.

The social conservatives/fundie whackjobs, AKA the Repug Base, are so desperate to see someone as hypocritical as they are on the ticket (as hypocritical as McCain is, he's not near hypocritical enough for them, oh nosiree!), and as desperate as McCain is to solidify them behind him, Palin is what got coughed up like a hairball to fill the need.

Here's something none of them seem to be taking into account: more and more Americans are sick and tired of the religious right thinking they own the joint. They don't. Bush and Rove treated these people like kings because they wanted their votes, then shit on 'em and told 'em it was manna from the Lord.

It's not going to work this time. I think she's the best choice McCain's handlers could have had him make to ensure his own defeat. They got nothin' but fear & smear and a whackjob nobody. It plays well to the wingnut base in the XCel Center, but the base ain't as big or as important as it used to be and it ain't gonna be near enough to elect the old fool.

GOP Claims Palin Teen's Pregnancy Is All Hillary's Fault

Well! I knew Hil had balls, but...

CLG

ST. PAUL, Minnesota – Key leaders of the Republican Party are going on the offensive to head off criticism of their new Vice Presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin due to the disclosure that her 17-year old unmarried daughter Bristol is pregnant. "If it wasn't for Hillary’s long time support of loose morals and whipping up women to think they can make decisions about their own bodies, none of this would have happened," said Grover Norquist, anti-tax activist and GOP leader. “Staying married to that cheating liar of a husband of hers, gave the message to our daughters that it is acceptable to lose all respect for themselves and to forget our all important teachings of abstinence only. Shame on the Clintons. They should be impeached all over again,” said senior McCain advisor Steve Schmidt.

"The focus of blame lies clearly with the Clintons and the rest of the Godless Democrats," said Family Research president Tony Perkins, “and certainly not with the Palin's. Fortunately, their daughter Bristol believes in pro-life and will keep the child and will marry the child’s father as soon as a suitable father can be located.” More importantly for Palin and the Republicans, the elder statesman of the evangelical movement, James Dobson of the powerful Focus on the Family organization said he backs Palin completely. "We all know that this teen pregnancy is the result of the Democrat Party’s unabashed support of the gay agenda."

"This disclosure will not hurt the Republican ticket but actually help it," said Annette Ratliff a Texas delegate to the GOP convention. "It shows that the Palin's wrestle with the same problems as ordinary Americans and their handling of it shows strength, determination and that they are just like us. Now if it was Chelsea Clinton or one of the Obama girls who got pregnant when they are teens, it would be nothing less than a message to the American people of a shameful flaunting of immoral behavior encouraged by parents in league with the devil himself."

IOKIYAR. To be in league with the devil, that is.

Biden: Criminal charges against Bush Admin. on the table

Kos

Holy crap. Boy howdy, did Political Radar bury the lede in a big way. I direct your attention to the 9th and 10th paragraphs of their blog post about Biden ripping into Bush today:

Looking to the future but with one eye on the past, Biden also promised that an Obama-Biden government would go through Bush administration data with "a fine-toothed comb" and pursue criminal charges if necessary.

"If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation," he said, "they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution - out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no one, no attorney general, no president, no one is above the law."

The man who is very likely going to be the next Vice-President of this country just said that they are going to undertake a detailed review of the last eight years of Bush Administration conduct and pursue criminal charges where they are warranted.

Wow. Just....wow.

Go all pit bull on their ass, Joe. Without the lipstick, of course!

Amy Goodman Speaks About Being Arrested at RNC

Here's another one.

Update:

Articles & Blog Posts on the Arrests

Peggy Noonan Calls Palin Nomination “Political Bulls**t”

BuzzFlash

Today’s episode of Republican Pundits Gone Wild, the long-running reality show, features Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy, with Republican pedigrees as long as anyone out there, busting on John McCain for his nomination of Sarah Palin. They were caught off-camera and it’s now at Youtube. You don’t expect them to be honest or anything.

Muzzled McMom

Raw Story

On a few occasions during this campaign season, the let-it-all-hang-out rhetorical style John McCain's 96-year-old mother employs has caused some unwanted distractions for the Republican presidential candidate.

Roberta McCain's gaffes used to seem an endearing marker of the "straight talk" candidate's roots, but just as the GOP message-men have forced their candidate to stick to the script, so are they keeping his mother away from any open microphones, according to Sirius Radio's Michelangelo Signorile.

"They won't let me be interviewed," McCain lamented to the radio host who approached her Tuesday during the Republican convention in St. Paul. "They won't let me talk."

Much more.

The Repugs are scared pissless that a 96-year-old woman might tell some truth! My sides hurt...

Rum Campaign Tweaks Twin Cities

Promo Magazine

Republican conventions are known for being tightly scripted, unsurprising and pretty bland, and signs indicate this week’s gathering in St. Paul, MN, won’t break that basic mold. But upstart rum brand Kilo Kai hopes to throw a little swerve into the party’s stride this week with a guerrilla promotion that takes aim at a political sex scandal well known in the Twin Cities.

The spiced rum brand and its agency All Terrain sent teams out Monday to place promotional footprints in the public bathrooms of hotels, bars and nightspots around the Twin Cities and also around the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, where the 2008 Republican National Convention is being held this week. The footprints ask stall occupants to “Tap your toe if you want to hook up with Kilo Kai.”

They're "tweakin'", all right! Go read the rest. Damn, it's hard to type whilst rollin' around on the floor! Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! What was that? I think somethin' just fell off...

Rare Whistleblower Victory

This a matter of local interest. I'm a local and I'm interested. Yerington NV is maybe 70 miles southeast of here. Somehow, the toxic soup at the edge of town was left off the official city website promoting real estate and tourism. The little community of Weed Heights just above the site is rarely mentioned.

Click to embiggen, or...

...access the photo here. Purty lake, huh? Don't dip any part of your body in it that you want to pull back out of it. From Earthworks:

Nevada: Yerington Mine
The Anaconda Mine is a copper mine bordering the town of Yerington Nevada, and covering more than 3,400 acres. At the mine, acid run-off and waste rock containing low levels of uranium, thorium, and other exposed metals were disposed in unlined ponds.[8] Testing has revealed uranium-contaminated groundwater and residential wells.[9] Groundwater is the sole source of water for over 5,000 people in the area.

That's the background for this news release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Labor Department Confirms Retaliatory Firing in Violation of Anti-Pollution Laws

Washington, DC — A federal review panel has ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally dismissed a manager overseeing the cleanup of the Anaconda Mine for raising serious worker safety, as well as serious radiation, air and water pollution problems, according to a final order released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This decision represents a rare pro-whistleblower verdict from Bush administration appointees.

“I'm glad to have this vindication and achieve closure on this matter,” stated Earle Dixon, who continues to oversee toxic clean-up operations for a state agency. “Significantly, the Board found the true reason behind BLM’s retaliation and recalcitrance was to avoid sampling that would show mine operations profoundly contaminated soil and water with acid, metals, and radionuclides.”

The substance of Dixon’s concerns was validated when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stepped in and took control of the site in 2005, shortly after Dixon was removed, under the Superfund law.

“It has taken Earle Dixon nearly four years to win some small measure of justice in a system that is clearly broken,” commented PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization litigated the case with Dixon’s lead counsel, Mick Harrison. “The federal government desperately needs more courageous public servants like Earle Dixon in its ranks.”

The ruling for Dixon is also notable because under President Bush, the U.S. Labor Department has become a graveyard for the vast majority of eco-whistleblower complaints.

It appears that Mr. Dixon was fired because he was about to cost a Big Mining Co. lots of money in direct contravention of Bush and Repug policy. You and I are paying to clean it up now, although ARCO did have to kick down $2.7M to the Feds recently.

I'm glad he got a rare small measure of justice in spite of this administration.

We need more courageous public employees and less corporate-owned ruling elite.

Current Repug Pols Conspicuous By Their Absence At RNC

Chad Rubel at BuzzFlash: Eye On The Races:

Many missing elements from the GOP last night, including current Republican politicians

I watched an Oscar-winning performance last night. No, not Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" but Fred Thompson as Fred Thompson in "Rally around the Old Guy."

When Thompson was running for president, he was Fred Thompson, politician. Last night, he was Fred Thompson, actor. Despite his extensive catalog of movies and TV, Thompson tends to play similar characters: conservative, Southern, stodgy. It could be said that is because Thompson has limited range, but no no, Thompson is so convincing as a right-wing prick that he gets typecast.

And last night, the GOP needed Thompson, the actor, to step up.

After all, the Republicans need to sell the John McCain that may have existed back in 2000 and pretend this is the same McCain in 2008. This requires great acting chops. Thompson gave the best speech of the night, and it still wasn't that great. The speech was the highlight of the night, and that wasn't saying much.

They haven't got much to sell, and not much to try to sell it with.

And the other thing missing were actual politicians: the number of current Republican politicians that I saw last night were Bush and Norm Coleman. And Bush wasn't even in St. Paul. You had the feeling that Coleman had to be there, being the former mayor of St. Paul, and representing the state where the convention is. But Coleman is in a grand fight with Al Franken for his Senate seat, and likely didn't want to be anywhere near the convention.

To put it in a slightly different way, no Repug who wants to be re-elected came anywhere near the joint. Heh.

There's stuff about Lieberman's speech and Bush's phoned-in drivel, and more as well.

There was one deal I saw that I think typifies Repugs' outlook. A TV interviewer, I can't remember which one, was talking to some prig of a delegate who said approximately the following:

"I'm sore that our convention was cancelled to placate the liberal media because some people were getting rained on."

I think that sums up the R's 'hooray for me and fuck you' attitude pretty well.

Update:

The interview referred to above was on The Daily Show in a segment likening the XCel Center to the Superdome during Katrina. From Raw Story, with the video:

One Republican delegate lamented to Jason Jones, "I was real excited until we decided to cancel the convention to placate the liberal media. ... I don't understand why it is that all of a sudden you can't tell the truth about Barack Obama because some people are getting rained on."

Birds Of Fire Boogie

By request. Different. Hope ya like it.

Mahavishnu Orchestra

NRA Poster of the Month

Click to up-thunder Sarah's thighs

St. Paul the Police State

There's lots ands lots of stuff on the police tactics being used to instill fear into the riffraff in St. Paul so the Repugs can have a nice quiet non-convention free of Constitutional Rights. Glenn Greenwald has a good one, video, links, and many comments.

Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

Not 'protesters', but 'suspected' protesters. Preemptive arrests before any overt act has taken place. 'Suspected' of planning to use The First Amendment. Yeesh.

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.

Nestor indicated that only 2 or 3 of the 50 individuals who were handcuffed this morning at the 2 houses were actually arrested and charged with a crime, and the crime they were charged with is "conspiracy to commit riot." Nestor, who has practiced law in Minnesota for many years, said that he had never before heard of that statute being used for anything, and that its parameters are so self-evidently vague, designed to allow pre-emeptive arrests of those who are peacefully protesting, that it is almost certainly unconstitutional, though because it had never been invoked (until now), its constitutionality had not been tested.

There is clearly an intent on the part of law enforcement authorities here to engage in extreme and highly intimidating raids against those who are planning to protest the Convention. The DNC in Denver was the site of several quite ugly incidents where law enforcement acted on behalf of Democratic Party officials and the corporate elite that funded the Convention to keep the media and protesters from doing anything remotely off-script. But the massive and plainly excessive preemptive police raids in Minnesota are of a different order altogether. Targeting people with automatic-weapons-carrying SWAT teams and mass raids in their homes, who are suspected of nothing more than planning dissident political protests at a political convention and who have engaged in no illegal activity whatsoever, is about as redolent of the worst tactics of a police state as can be imagined.

No shit, but whaddya expect from the Repugs?

The gestapo tactics may have prevented public assembly to dissent just like it was meant to, but there are going to be legal repercussions from this police terrorism for a long time to come. Look for a new Ramsey County Sheriff before too long, and for his department to be hiring. The Feds who put them up to it will fade anonymously into the woodwork as usual.

Since our pal Jane was standing right there when one of these criminal home invasions went down, stay in touch with Firedoglake for more. The top post today is 'St. Paul or Beijing?'.

Update:

Here's some relevant links at Hullabaloo.

Hookers and Blow at RNC

ABC News

As residents of New Orleans were fleeing Hurricane Gustav, top Republican party officials donned pink boas and swigged vodka shots at a wild whirl of corporate and lobbyist-paid parties this weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Many corporate sponsors and their lobbyists carried through with plans for lavish entertainment of GOP lawmakers and others despite calls from the campaign of Sen. John McCain that Republicans should tone down the convention festivities.

Yet, last night lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed Martin and the American Trucking Association put on a raucus six-hour party at a downtown bar featuring music by the band "Hookers and Blow." There was no evidence of any actual prostitutes or cocaine.

Oh, they were there. Ya gotta know what to look for. The prostitutes were probably not all female, and would have looked more like executives than streetwalkers, not that there's much actual difference between the two in Repugland. Lobbyists can afford the good stuff.

As for cocaine, it's always done in the Ladies' Room because there's a lock on the door, so ya gotta watch for dudes goin' in and out of there. The pink boas may have been camouflage. Heh.

Business as usual at the RNC. Who cares about the peasants downriver?

Update:

Blogs mock 'Hookers and Blow' party at RNC

This deal is funnier'n shit and more than a little symbolic of Repug indulgence and indifference, but the band has never had this much publicity and I bet they're lovin' it!

Psssst!

Fixer's gone! Let's screw around. Make suggestions that'll be fun and get us in trouble in 'comments'!

I put this song up every time he leaves. This version was posted on YouTube just yesterday, as if I'd tipped Parrotisla off...

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band - Gypsies In The Palace