Saturday Git'cher Toes ATappin' Blogging

Alert: If you have your keyboard on one'a them slide-out trays, like I do, shove it back under the desk lest you knock it to Kingdom Come with yer knees when ya get ta dancin'. Don't ask me how I know this...

Check out the two backup gui-tar pickers. I think one of 'em is Keith Richards.

Chuck Berry & Linda Ronstadt ~ Back In The U.S.A.

Michael Moore Lays Out His ‘Conditions’ for Sanjay as Surgeon General

SPR

"Larry, I'll withraw my objections if Sanjay is prepared to film a segment where he shoots himself in the leg with an unregistered gun, and then seeks treatment under the 'health care plan' of an unemployed auto worker whose job has been shipped overseas."

Ouch.

Note to Sanjay: first you'll go to jail for illegal handgun possession, discharging a firearm within the city limits, and maybe attempted murder. Your AMA affiliation may make it gang-related, which enhances the sentence. Then your leg will turn green and fall off. Best of luck.

Goodbye to Bush in Three Minutes

David Swanson at AfterDowningStreet:

Cindy Sheehan asked if I could record a 3-minute goodbye message to Bush and Cheney for her radio show, so I wrote down and read the following:

Never more than in this moment, George, have you been a uniter, not a divider. The joy at your departure is world-wide and wonderful. But I don't want to fully embrace it because I don't want this to be the last we see of you. When I was four years old I watched Richard Nixon leave, and that was just about the last we saw of him, and that is what brought us you. Instead, we should have had monthly reports of regret and repentance from Nixon's prison cell for 20 years. You yourself may have longer than 20 years to live, although with your boss we may have to hurry or invest in a heart transplant. My strongest wish, George, is to give you and Dick and Rummy and Condi and Yoo and Bybee and all the gang what you have denied to so many others: a fair trial.

Your stupid smirk and Cheney's nasty grimace will thankfully no longer be omnipresent, but the damage you have done will be much harder to remove, and if we do not punish you for it, it may be repeated and never undone. I wish you no ill. If letting you go drink and golf would impose a democratic rule of law on future officials, then that's what I would favor. As it happens, of course, that would only encourage people as mean and destructive as your brother Jeb, although not specifically Jeb, of course, since nobody with your last name will be able to win an election in this country for 50 years.

If you pretend to pardon the people who committed your crimes for you, we will challenge that absurdity in court, and we will pursue state, local, civil, foreign, and international prosecutions until you are behind bars.

Washington D.C. is going to look something like a colder version of New Orleans before you drowned it this month as millions of people get drunk on the delirium of seeing you drag your contemptible carcass out of town. Two events I plan to take part in illustrate the mood.

On January 19th, we're going to gather in DuPont Circle, march to the White House, and throw shoes and boots at you. Check out http://shoebush.org to see what we have planned.

On January 20th, we have a permit for an Arrest Bush demonstration on the sidewalk in front of the FBI building along Obama's inauguration parade route. We're going to be sending a clear message to your successor. Take a look at http://www.arrestbush2009.com

We've created nice warm sweatshirts that say Arrest Bush and Cheney, and people can go to http://afterdowningstreet.org to buy them. We'll be dressing for success, George, but without the flight suit, the aircraft carrier, or the bullshit.

You've lied to us for eight years, so the truth may not catch your attention, but this is the truth: we will not rest until you are convicted and incarcerated. (my em)

No, we won't.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris ~ Roses In The Snow

2009: All panic, all the time?

Mark Morford on 2009 and some New Year's Resolutions.

Is this the year? Is this the one where it all comes together and it all begins to make some sort of strangely cohesive sense, where you really begin to sink into warm pools of calm awareness laced with laughter and love and really healthy teeth, where you finally accomplish or at least begin all those lingering and latent projects you've been craving for so long, like learning to bake orgasmic homemade bread or creating that hyperliterate travel/sex blog or meditating at dawn, all while reminding yourself every single day to tell everyone around you how beautiful and important and luminous they are, and how grateful you are every moment just to be here, sharing space with them, touching the planet, feeling it all, entirely clothing optional?

Or was that last year? And this one can be summed up in two little words: "More Ambien"?

Resolutions:

8. Organize sock drawer in armoire of fears
9. Stop and smell the roses
l0. Stop and smell the roses, and then lean in a little closer and actually lick one to see if it tastes like God or sex or marshmallow or merely pesticide and dirt
11. Realize I do not have to stop and smell the roses all the time because goddammit I have a metaphorical rose right there under my karmic nose at all times, and I merely need to acknowledge it and appreciate it now and then and maybe get a nice little bud vase to put it in. And hell, maybe I don't even like roses, and that's perfectly OK, roses are totally overrated and overexposed anyway, right? Like vitamin water? Like Scarlett Johannsen? Like that guy from Maroon 5? Now orchids. There's a flower for you. I mean, a good orchid makes your average rose look like a toothless hag at the prom, you know? Basically like comparing fine rum to a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck, am I right? No contest, really. Yes, gimme a suggestive, dangerous orchid any day over a pitiable, lumpy rose. But hang on -- can you really stop and smell the orchids? Do they even have much of a scent? Besides, orchids are pretty sexual, yonic, pornographic, even. Sort've makes you want to do more to them than merely smell them, you know what I mean? Wait, would they arrest you for that sort of thing? I bet they would. Bastards. Then again, as catchphrases go, I suppose "stop and hump the orchids" has a pretty lousy ring to it. Hideous bumper sticker, too. OK, so roses it is. They are sort've nice, to be honest. Beautiful, even. Sorry about what I said before. I was just being a shmuck. Hell, who doesn't love a nice bouquet of roses? No one, that's who.

24. Write more while slightly drunk (see previous)

Well, looks like he's keepin' one of 'em anyway. Heh. Enjoy.

Idiot Stick

So I was reading an article about a resurgence of folks growing their own food, with this photo posed to resemble Grant Wood's American Gothic.


Jesus Christ, buddy, take a grinder to that fuckin' shovel! And get a spade for digging and use that thing for flingin' the dirt. It would embarrass me all to shit to get caught in a newspaper photo with my shovel in that condition! City folks, bah!

I use a shovel virtually every day, during the winter anyway, and have an extensive collection of them. The right tool for the job, and keep 'em in good shape.

The folks in the photo are in Topanga Canyon, I think. I know what they grow up there, and have for fifty years and more. Be sure to smoke at least three helpings a day. Heh.

Pipe Dream

This is so ridiculous I couldn't resist.

Joe the Turdherder Plumber is going to be a war correspondent for ten days or so in Israel for the wingnut blog Cheetos Dust & Jizz In Mom's Basement Pajamas Media. Go see Jon Stewart on this (fast forward to 3:30).

One of Joe's comments was, "Being a Christian, I'm pretty well protected, I believe."

Stewart said he should repeat that as often as possible while over there. Heh.

Note to Israel and Hamas: Lest this clown's very presence in your area, where he has no business being at all, prolong the armed conflict while you argue over who gets to hand the ignoramus his ass, I have a bilateral solution:

Each of you hand him one cheek, neatly wrapped in butcher paper of course. One kosher, one halal.

Moral values ...

And these are the people who would lecture us over the 'morality' of sex education and the availability of birth control.

Ignoring sex education does not appear to be working very well. Bible studies and pretending as though sex doesn't happen with teens is not a policy. Wouldn't it be nice to see this Congress put an end to the silly abstinence programs that cost so much and deliver consistently bad results? Oh wait, we need to be fair to them too despite the facts.

Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report released Wednesday.

...

What's moral about bringing so many unwanted children into the world? What is so moral about young men and women, barely adult, having to give up any dreams they might have had to support a child (children) at such a young age? It kills me to come home in the afternoon and see so many young girls in my neighborhood (lotta Good Catholics here) pushing baby carriages instead of being in school, instead of looking wide-eyed at the world deciding which part of it to conquer.

When I was 17, the world was my oyster, living in the Far East and enjoying as many of life's pleasures as I could, the last thing I wanted was to be 'in the family way'. Thankfully, birth control and STD protection was available from the military if not in the local area, but in many places in this country it's not an option. We see how well teens can control their hormones just because Preacher Man and Jesus tell them to.

In these lean times, our money can be better spent than supporting abstinence-only sex ed programs (I also have this little constitutional, separation of church and state issue). In this day and age, where people are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands, it is wholly unfair to bring unwanted children into the world to young parents whose means are few and potential is slim. Only the children suffer; the teen parents and their babies.

Dear Sarah,

Yes, you're right. It is about class. Caroline Kennedy has more class in the tip of her little finger than you do in toto.

Regards,

Fixer

"History has passed by a two-state solution."

Here is an excellent conversation on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Not a sound bite, 26 minutes. Schedule some time and watch it. Some startling points, at least to me.

Cheers to the tour that ends in brew

This may be of interest to some of you jetsetters:

One of Amsterdam's most popular attractions among young adults, the Heineken Experience, has reopened after a year of renovations.

The new Experience updates its offerings with several high-tech exhibits targeting the YouTube generation.

For instance, visitors can perform karaoke of the cheesy Dutch classic song "Tulips from Amsterdam" against a backdrop of canals - and instantly send a video clip of the event by e-mail to their friends.

There ain't enough beer in the world to get me to do karaoke. I'll pass out long before I'm drunk enough.

At the end of the tour comes - what else? - a bar stocked entirely with Heineken. As a gag, bartenders serve water to anybody who tries ordering a Bud.

I'm surprised they don't trot out a horse with a tap handle on it...

www.heinekenexperience.com

"May you live forever, you son of a bitch"

William Rivers Pitt in a letter to Bush about his legacy:

From a certain perspective, one could argue that you have been the most successful president the country has ever seen. Think about it, because according to your definition of "success," it's true. You came into office looking to make your friends richer, and to fulfill as best you could your most overriding personal belief: that government is the problem, so government must be damaged and denuded to the point of impotence. Through your tax cuts and your two vastly expensive boondoggle wars, you made your friends rich. By unleashing Mr. Cheney and your other minions, you tore the Constitution to shreds and tatters. You have achieved both goals in smashing style, so from that certain perspective, you have triumphed.

Could you also, from the proper perspective, be considered our greatest president?

Perhaps, someday, if we make it so.

It will be in the best interests of many powerful people if we as a nation simply dismiss you and forget you ever happened. A lot of news media people want us to forget you, because in forgetting you, we would forget the media's vast complicity in your actions and misdeeds. A lot of rich people making new fortunes from war profiteering and defense contracts want us to forget they and you even exist, as it would make it possible for them to do it all again someday. A lot of politicians who stapled themselves to you would simply adore it if we forgot about you. The Republican Party would be forever in our debt if we forgot about you.

No. We will not forget you. We will remember.

We the people are going to save you from ignominious oblivion. We will remember. You could be the president who doomed America, the worst president of all time, but we must not, will not let that happen. You will be remembered differently, because we will hold the memory of you high, and behold you, and say, "Never, never, never again." We have tasted the soot and smelled the blood on the wind; we have seen how fragile our way of government is when placed in the hands of low men such as you, and because of that, you will be remembered for all time.

Your greatness will be defined by how we rise to overcome and undo what you have done. Your greatness will stand forever if we never, ever forget the hard, bitter lessons you taught us. We are responsible for this republic, for our Constitution, and for each other. We are our brother's keeper. You taught us that by becoming our Cain. You nearly slew us, but here we stand, and we defy the place in history you would relegate us to. We defy you, and by doing so, we rise.

Something like you must never again be allowed to happen to this country, and if we save ourselves by preventing you from ever happening again, your greatness is assured. You are the tallest of all possible warnings, and a promise all of us must solemnly and stalwartly keep. If we can damn you to the past, we will save our own future.

May you live forever, you son of a bitch.

I've read a lot of stuff by Mr. Pitt, and this is the first time I've seen him swear. Bush'll do that to a fellow.

The 'comments' made me shake my head as well. Most of them agreed with Mr. Pitt, but enough of them called the truth about Bush 'leftist bs' that it makes me realize they're still out there.

A new day may be about to dawn, but we must not let down our guard. The forces of evil in our country, like the Taliban, are going to regroup and try again.

Harry Reid Seems To Be Bungling The Burris Situation

A poem by Tony Peyser:

Who is best describing this huge problem?
If you ask me, for damn sure
It's that savvy blogger over at firedoglake;
That would be Jane Hamsher.

Her basic point is so convincing; shouldn't
Senator Reid be a bit
Less angry with Burris & much more at that
Traitor from Connecticut?

A quote from Jane:

A seventy-one year old dude who hasn't held office for 14 years, appointed by a crook, takes the Senate Majority Leader to the cleaners.

Yep, he sure did.

Paging Dr. Gupta!!!

Obviously, this woman never puffed up a fattie:

...

And now, we’re going through it too. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug on college campuses today. While this isn’t anything new, it’s still something to consider, especially when short-term effects of smoking include distorted perceptions, difficulty solving problems and complications with learning and memory.

...

Listen to me. Aside from what it does to your lungs (better than cigarettes iin my book, because it at least does something for ya while it kills ya), pot is not a dangerous drug. Ever heard of anyone OD-ing on marijuana? You smoke too much, you fall asleep after killing a box of Twinkies and a half gallon of chocolate milk.

...

But still, some of my classmates claim they can write more profound papers and engage in better conversations when high on marijuana. Others say they hit the pipe nearly every day and can still pull high GPAs. They say it’s just a phase.

...

Let's see. Built outstandingly good race engines - check. Written 14 novels - check. Designed and remodeled my house ... myself - check.

If more people smoked dope and the world would be a better place. If anything, it should be legal for medicinal purposes, let alone the lives it will save in the 'War on Drugs' if it's legalized and taxed (remember the recession?):

On Tuesday afternoon El Paso Mayor John Cook vetoed a resolution unanimously passed by city council that would have asked the U.S. government to begin a serious debate on legalizing narcotics.

Earlier in the day city council passed a resolution, ration[aliz]ing that the best way to stop the drug wars in Juarez may be to legalize the drugs here in the United States. It was part of a larger resolution outlining several steps for the United States and Mexico to take in order to cut down on the number of murders between rival drug cartels. Last year more than 1,600 people were murdered in Juarez.

...

Of course, what then would the prison industry do?

...

The headline of this story tells you all you need to know about how the War On (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs occupies a position in the public discourse that is considered unassailable. The City Council’s resolution just asks the federal government to debate drug legalization, and the headline reads: “Mayor Cook Saves City From Possible Embarrassment” - because nobody serious would ever question the Drug War! How embarrassing to have the gall to ask Senator Hutchinson to even think about investigating alternatives to spending $50 billion a year trying to stop people from using drugs!

...

Wonder what we could do with that money, eh? The 'War on Drugs' has done nothing but make foreign drug lords rich, get a lot of people killed, and a whole lot of other people thrown in jail for non-violent, minor offenses. Thing is, over the last 30 years, the flow of drugs has just gotten heavier. How long does it take this country to figure out when they're fighting losing battles?

Quote of the Day

Our pal 'Nucks:

... Harry Reid needs to be put to pasture like a three legged goat with a Hard On.

Quote of the Day - Tres

Digby:

... This has been about the most inauspicious beginning of any congress I've seen, a total embarrassment to the Senate Democrats, who've managed to make the House look like the more restrained, deliberative body ...

Jesus Christ, Harry, we all told you this would happen a week ago.

The Ponzi Scheme Presidency

Six words: Tomgram. Recommended read. Take a lunch.

Eight years of bodies, dead, broken, mutilated, abused; eight years of ruined lives down countless drains; eight years of massive destruction to places from Baghdad to New Orleans where nothing of significance was ever rebuilt: all this was brought to us by a President, now leaving office without apology, who said the following in his first inaugural address: "I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility... to call for responsibility and try to live it as well."

He lived, however, by quite a different code. Destruction without responsibility, that's Bush's legacy, but who's counting now that the destruction mounts and the bodies begin to pile up here in the "homeland," in our own body count nation? The laid off, the pension-less, the homeless, the suicides -- imagine what that trillion dollars might have meant to them.

Quote of the Day deux

From an op-ed you should read by MoDo:

I know Caroline Kennedy. She’s smart, cultivated, serious and unpretentious. The Senate, shamefully sparse on profiles in courage during Dick Cheney’s reign of terror, would be lucky to get her.

Amen. From your lips to Paterson's ears, Red.

More Sanjay

Paul Krugman

So apparently Obama plans to appoint CNN’s Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General. I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts”, when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong.

What bothered me about the incident was that it was what Digby would call Village behavior: Moore is an outsider, he’s uncouth, so he gets smeared as unreliable even though he actually got it right. It’s sort of a minor-league version of the way people who pointed out in real time that Bush was misleading us into war are to this day considered less “serious” than people who waited until it was fashionable to reach that conclusion. And appointing Gupta now, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.

I wonder when it will become 'socially acceptable' to say out loud that Big Pharma/HMO/AMA for-profit health care is a big ripoff and that we need a universal single-payer system like the civilized world has?

Panetta Symbolism

Update:

Why DiFi and Rocky
Don't Like Obama's Pick for CIA

Update zwei:

Why Feinstein broke with Obama on Panetta

Shorter: Ego and political pecking order. It will pass, and Panetta will be in.

As much as I would like to see DiFi and others in fear of prosecution for aiding and abetting war crimes, they're immune from that.