Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Welfare states ...

Dear Mississippi.

Shut the fuck up:

Yes, it's true, as BuzzFlash at Truthout documented a short time ago, the State of Mississippi (MS) "sucks up $2.73 in federal support for every dollar its residents pay in national taxes." In the dog-whistle language of the right wing, that makes the state where 66 percent of GOP voters believe in creationism, an official "welfare state."

In short, the MS state government run out of Jackson is a leech upon the US government, but try telling that to Mitt Romney.

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Like my dad used to tell me when I was a kid, as long as I'm supporting you, you'll shut up and do what I tell you.

The Jukebox in my mind ...

Some good blues from Cyndi Lauper.

Cyndi Lauper - Don't Cry No More

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Thanks to MisAcerdayt179.

Fuck it...

I'm declaring "Weekend!". It's been raining here for four days. It's only just turned to snow. If we're gonna get our predicted 5-7 feet by Monday it better heavy up pretty quick.

I really like this song and nobody's made a video of it yet so I did. My folks said I'd probably go to my, er, reward on a motorcycle and that's fine with me, thus the subject matter. This song has the best verse I've heard in years:

"If you visit my grave you won't be alone,
I'll be dancin' on my own gravestone,
Bring your pretty woman, bring your fruit of the vine,
A whole lotta laughin' and a little bit o' cryin'! "

Can't ask for much more than that.

The first time I heard this song I was kinda put off by it. After a coupla times I understood - death is the end result of life and the song celebrates it as such. This is actually a pretty happy song. Fullscreen for best effect.

BTW, I put this vid on the band's Facebook page and they liked it and thought it was "trippy".

I See Hawks In L.A. ~ The Spirit Of Death

Thanks to me.

Repugs should stop and smell the flowers

I'm thinking of sending them some nice bouquets of these:

You might think that titan arum is just another monstrous, maladorous growth best left in its native jungles of Sumatra, where its vile-smelling flowers sustain the rare species by drawing pollinators with a hankering for rotting flesh. Hence the nickname -- corpse plant.

And I wish them all the tidings the name of the plant implies.

Shit seeks its own level Headline of the Day

Westboro releases ‘You Might Be a Slut’ ad for Limbaugh’s show

Quote of the Day

Bill Maher via PoliticalTicker:

"It's no coincidence that the type of tree which God forbade Adam and Eve eating from was the tree of knowledge. Rick Santorum home-schools his children because he does not want them eating that (audio bleep) apple," Maher said. "He wants them locked up in the Christian madrassa that is the family living room, not out in public where they could be infected by the virus of reason."

Home schooling is a great way to keep kids from learning inconvenient things they don't want them to - facts, truth, history, science, etc. An ignorant population is easily frightened and manipulated and will believe the lies the Repugs want them to.

The War on Women ...

The new MoveOn.org commercial if you haven't seen it:

Might as well ...

Wear sheets. Or, as Fez put it "Old, extra White and Stupid is no way to go through political life." Why? This is why:

...

"The Republicans really are the party of white people, and especially older white people," Kohut told reporters as the poll was released. "They’ve done nothing in this campaign to make themselves be more favorably viewed" among other parts of the electorate.

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Latinos, for example, view the Republican Party unfavorably by a 2-1 margin (30% favorable, 60% unfavorable). By contrast, Latinos view the Democrats favorably, 56%-31%.

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Christ ...

This is why I generally avoid Americans when I'm traveling abroad. I've heard this shit many places ("What do you mean they don't speak English," in some little town in Bumfuck, Portugal) but a presidential candidate with 3 graduate degrees should know better, even if it is the Frothy One.

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Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told Puerto Ricans on Wednesday they would have to make English their primary language if they want to pursue U.S. statehood, a statement at odds with the U.S. Constitution.

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The best one I ever heard was in the Port of Marseilles, France. I was standing on one of the weather decks aboard MS Prinsendam with the cruise director, his wife, and my wife (all Francophiles btw) when another passenger asks the cruise director why the flags on the pier, arranged in a circle, didn't have an American flag included in the display. The cruise director explained France was part of the EU and the 20-odd flags were from EU nations. The other passenger asks then "So why don't they have an American flag?"

When someone in Europe says "you're so American," it's not intended as a compliment.

That Sinking Feeling

Newsweek

For passionate Pacific Islanders, the people of Kiribati are displaying impressive sang-froid. Destined to disappear undersea as a result of climate change, the atoll nation is making arrangements for the day when it will exist only in out-of-date atlases. Kiribati’s government intends to purchase 6,000 acres in Fiji—a land blessed with less precarious sea levels, and, clearly, a very accommodating people—on which to relocate Kiribati’s entire population of 103,000. The projected date for the change of address: 2062.

In case you've never heard of Kiribati, you have. Here's a little movie about it:

Thanks to openflix.

Statistics ...

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In 2009, Benjamin G. Edelman of the Harvard Business School published the results of a state-by-state study on the number of people who were subscribing to adult membership Web sites; Edelman found that eight of the 10 states that had the highest per capita consumption of online porn were states that Republican John McCain won in 2008’s presidential election. Utah topped the list, and other red states in Edelman’s top 10 included Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alaska, North Dakota and West Virginia. The only states in Edelman’s top 10 that Obama won in 2008 were Florida and Hawaii.

More recently, in December 2011, Rutgers University researcher/blogger Omar Haq published the results of his study on Google searches for gay porn. Haq found that between 2004-2011, the top 10 states that had the most Google searches for gay porn included five states that McCain won in 2008 (Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia) and five states that Obama won (New York, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida). “People subscribe to a lot of porn in the southern Bible Belt states,” Haq noted. “I really believe it is suppression. Freud himself said that the more you suppress people, the more they are going to want to do something. It might be due to conservatism; I think that definitely plays a role."

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Can we now please shut up about porn vs. morality?

There's a first ...

I actually agree with Ann Coulter:

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"And just a more corporate problem is I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party," she said. "I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people — as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that."

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It's because the Dem base probably has an average of 75-100 IQ points over the GOP base.

Quote of the Day

Blue Girl and Yellow Dog:

Shut up about firing Rush Limbaugh! For the love of all that is holy, shut up about firing him. He needs to stay on the air and keep talking, doubling down every few days, all the way to November, criminy, even republicans are bailing on him, now is no time for him to clam up.

And ...

Speaking of right wing nutjob theocrats, Charlie Pierce* looks at the Frothy One's latest success and the people who gave it to him:

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For all the post-game analysis of whether or not Santorum is now clearly "the real conservative" alternative to Romney, and whether or not it's time for N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer Of Civilization's Rules And Leader (Perhaps) Of The Civilizing Forces, to get out of his way, the basic point is being missed. The basic argument is not about being "the real conservative" per se; it's about being "the real conservative" as "conservative" is defined by a shoeless, Bible-banging, anti-intellectual, woman-hating, sex-maddened Republican base. And, for the moment, that is Santorum in full. He has recovered from whatever damage he did to himself in Michigan, and I'm thinking he didn't really do that much. His retrograde position on contraception is now fully part of the mainstream debate. He has been rewarded by the people who feel the same way he does, and they happen to be the people who are driving the train at the moment. And he's doubled down on all the other faith-based nonsense that passes for critical thought in the Republican party. Daring to be stupid is the highest form of courage to the people to whom Santorum is pitching his campaign. And there are a lot of them, and very few of them are sold on Willard Romney.

"The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is," he said.
(I asked a tree in my front yard, Rick. It said it thought you were a colossal dick.)

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That's why guys like Frothy don't want people to go to college, ignorant people are easier to manipulate. I don't know why the GOP doesn't adopt the slogan "The dumber you are, the more we like you".

*Not a right wing nutjob theocrat.

Since ...

Politicians love watching polls, they should watch this one (.pdf!) closely:

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1. Support for Continued Diplomacy Rather Than an Israeli Military Strike
Only one in four Americans favor Israel conducting a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Seven in ten favor instead the US and other major powers continuing to pursue negotiations with Iran. Three in four say that the US should primarily act through the UN Security Council rather than acting by itself.

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3. If Israel Goes Ahead With a Strike
If Israel goes ahead with a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program and Iran retaliates (but not against American targets), only one in four favors the US providing military support for Israel and only 4 in 10 favor the US providing even diplomatic support. Few would support open opposition. The most popular position is for the US to take a neutral stance. If Israel strikes Iran even without American approval one in three Americans think the US would provide military support and a slight majority thinks that it would at least provide diplomatic support.

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The American people are sick of war and a very small few actually want us to get sucked into another one by some right-wing nutjob theocrats in another country.

Great thanks to Dr. Fez for the link.

Woman On The Wheel

I doubt if Ms. Peters anticipated the knives currently being thrown at women from the right , but this song turns out to be rather timely. Posted on YouTube yesterday.

"One false move and it's a real bad day at the amusement park"

Thanks to gretchenpeters.

If only...

Thanks to Slate.

Lee needs an Intervention!

In a Rude Pundit post about Sandra Fluke comes this:

(Note: The Rude Pundit is having a serious case of the writer's block when it comes to bloggery. Hopefully, he'll drink his way through it. If not, he may need to call in the pill guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the powder guy. If that doesn't work, he'll call the virgin sacrifice guy. One way or another, he'll deal with it.)

Fixer, if you can lift it, take yer stash bag and get over there! I know it doesn't have any virgins...