The Late Paul Addis

Burning Man's Burning Man Burned :

"an attention whore has made a plea for attention"

Thinking of this schmuck Paul Addis as an artist is not enjoyable, possible or likely.

No Standards - Plenty of Hypocrisy

"Hypocrisy is better than no standards at all":

That delightful declaration of fact from "former" gambling addict, moral leader and physical slob William Bennett says it best and clearest.

Scott Reed, a republican party strategist, applied words to the obvious:

"'The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,'” said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. 'You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.'"

Hypocrisy is the only intellectual activity not frowned upon by the leading conservative republicans and, indeed, is all they strive to achieve.

The Air-conditioned Bureaucrats

Who Do You Trust for a Real View of Iraq?: "Once again experienced military leaders will be overruled by air-conditioned bureaucrats..."

Yippee! Here comes Patreus with his report. "What's it say General? Any way out, or do you just have condolences for those who are about to die?"

Putting a Sack On Peggy

Learning to Loathe Yourself: "Notice how Noonan can see a tank and a woman and side with the tank because she doesn't like the look on the woman's face."

Peggy Noonan is all over the map. One day she's bleating ferociously about the sorry fate of manliness; the next - as if the setup is not obvious, she delivers a heartfelt comparison of any democrat to the swagger of a firefighter - the two points together illuminating her interior, earthier musings.

Her soothing words seem to drip down one's throat, many of them with the odor of lost points or the taste of bad arguments and smarmy philosophies.

"And then it struck me, suddenly, like a slow-moving vehicle: That's how you get a job as a conservative pundit. Figure out what makes you different from a white, male, protestant businessman, and hate your own guts for it.

If you're black, hate civil rights. If you're a woman, hate feminism. If you grew up poor, despise the poor. If you're a visible minority, demand more profiling. If you're gay, say you're cured. If you're Jewish, praise anti-Semites, if you're Christian, praise war."...

Maybe she was once a good speechwriter, but no more. Now she's just a bizarre diversion as one glances at her words yet one more time to see if they've all, finally, been replaced with the actual Hallmark cards from which they spring.

You Can Think, But Maybe You Can't Live, Outside The Box

I Guess We Picked A Bad Time To Quit Crack: "Among economists who saw hypocrisy in wealthy investors and Wall Street traders urging speedy Fed intervention -- a turnabout from their usual stance -- was Richard Yamarone, chief economist for Argus Research in New York.

'My mother always told me those who play with fire get burned. Here, that apparently doesn't hold true. Someone is making my mother out to be a liar, and that's not a good thing.'"

Barton Biggs, a former Morgan Stanley strategist who runs the $1.5 billion hedge fund Traxis Partners LLC in New York says, "'People are losing faith in credit, so the economy is seizing up,' he said. 'That's why it's important that the Fed cut rates and get confidence back in the system.'

What a calamitous fall can be imagined from living on the thinnest shell at the highest apogee ever imagined.

Mourning Joe Scarborough

This Cup 'a Joe is Half Empty

He is so wrong on so many things. It seems he knows it, but knows also that his ratings depend on him chewing up the scenery or blowing up an icon or... whatever it takes. His pontifications are overwhelmingly underwhelming and his caustic crap directed at Clinton, Joe Wilson, any moral lefty, is standard GOP junk slung from some of the beadiest eyes in the racket.

Imus could get it right whenever he wanted to do so, but Joe is just flailing away at the pinata du jour - hoping to get some of that highly prized "negative attraction" that causes people he doesn't like, doesn't represent, and doesn't understand, to tune in and give him ratings that he can convert to money.

The Imus Lynch Party

Al Sharpton Clings To The Bottom: Pat Buchanan sees clearly that "Imus threw himself on the mercy of the court of elite opinion – and that court, pandering to the mob, lynched him. Yet, for all his sins, he was a better man than the lot of them rejoicing at the foot of the cottonwood tree."

Great article - read it. I completely agree with Pat's statement above.

"I'd Ride His Dick In A Heartbeat!" gushes Matthews

Chris Matthews Cums: "“I thought in listening to the president, I was listening to one of the great neoconservative minds,” gushed Matthews."

Day after day, hovering on the edge of drooling idiocy, Matthews sucks up the available room air, brow-beating his guests to the point of prosecution in his unsane quest to find a nice set of GOP balls.

Here Come the Consequences

New immigration rules will force undocumented workers to be fired: "What happened: New rules proposed Friday by the Bush administration will require employers to fire employees unable to clear up problems with their Social Security numbers 90 days after they've been notified of such discrepancies in what are called no-match letters.

What it means: Hiring undocumented workers has been illegal for two decades, but until now, employers were not held liable for fraudulent documents. Employers who fail to comply will face fines and sanctions.

What's next: The new rules take effect in 30 days. "

I guess we'll be pickin' our own fucking grapes from now on.

Ooops, We Own It

Empires of Absent Mind: Rome and the USA: "'We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.' This is the famous explanation given by Victorian classicist and historian JR Seeley for the British Empire.

However debatable, it could equally be applied to the Roman republic. By 146 BC, the Romans found themselves the undisputed masters of the Mediterranean world. But they had achieved this without ever really intending to, and consequently they were unprepared to take on that mantle.

'Rome and America were founded upon the same myth, and it has shaped their destiny.'This is the position that the United States of America finds itself in today. Like the Roman republic, the US is now the policeman of the western world. Its armed forces are unstoppable, its influence is everywhere and just like the Romans, it got there by mistake. "

hmmm... there was some stuff that happened after it got there.

Bling You Can Drink

Do Diet Foods Lead to Weight Gain?: "Two years ago, scientists at the University of Texas reported in an eight-year study that for every can of diet soda that a person drank, he raised his risk of being overweight by 41%, compared to a 30% increase in drinkers of regular, sugared drinks.

Earlier this year, another study of diet-soda drinkers came to a similar conclusion, this time about metabolic syndrome, the dangerous constellation of risk factors, such as obesity, high cholesterol and insulin resistance, that increases the likelihood of heart disease. In this report, part of the 60-year-old Framingham Heart Study, researchers found that soda drinkers, regardless of whether they consumed diet or regular beverages, had a 48% higher risk of metabolic syndrome than non-soda drinkers."

One's 40 gazillion year-old body knows more about what it needs than 40 year-old corporate scientists - charged as they are with finding new ways to lure the appetite of the crowd. Let your stomach inform your desire, not the marketing professionals at Betty Crocker's corporate bunker.

Gingrich Decorates His Usual Bullshit With Some Truth

Gingrich Opens Mouth and Says: "
'None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war' ..."

"What I'm trying to start is a new dialogue that is evidence-based," Gingrich said Thursday. "It doesn't start from the right wing, it doesn't start from the left wing," he said, but is an effort to get politicians and voters to "look honestly at the evidence of what isn't working and tell us how to change it. ..."

As usual, this all sounds great, but will distort to its true shape as he begins to explain what he sees as 'evidence'.

"...'We have got to get past this partisan baloney, where I'm not allowed to say anything good about Hillary Clinton because 'I'm not a loyal Republican,' and she's not allowed to say anything good about me, or she's not a 'loyal' Democrat. What a stupid way to run a country.'"

He's right of course. There's something within him that without fail will destroy any attempt he makes at amity; whether its days or weeks later, he will sabotage the good and bring on the bad.

Secretary of Defense Smelt It

And Thinks The President Dealt It: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that he was discouraged by the departure of the major Sunni Arab bloc from Iraq’s coalition government, and noted that the Bush administration may have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian factions."

Ya think ??

"In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said: 'I think the developments on political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level. And clearly the withdrawal of the Sunnis from the government is discouraging. My hope is that it can all be patched back together.' "

Yes, that is a blunt assessment. Bush probably toked up a blunt when Gates told him.

Mitt Wants To Control Your Daughter's Vagina

Here's What a Dirtbag Would Say:

"'I, like you, hope to reclassify the most commonly used forms of contraceptives as abortions.'"...

Oh, come on, you know you want to drown him! You know you really can't believe that a civilized man said something like that in the twenty-first century. You know that if he gets anywhere near the White House that you want him arrested and executed on the spot.

..."In fact, he told the crowd, he already had some practice redefining contraception, stating, 'I vetoed a so-called emergency contraception bill that gave young girls abortive drugs without prescription or parental consent.' " ...

..."In their affair with the 'Right to Life' movement, the candidates are being unfaithful to the American public that is devoted to family planning. And like any cheater, they're doing their best to avoid directly answering questions such as: Do you support couples having access to safe and effective birth control options, including emergency contraception?" Considering that even 80 percent of self-described "pro-life" voters and a majority of Republican voters strongly support contraception, these candidates should soon figure out how risky an affair it is. ..."

Ding! Time to pay attention. This fucktard has plans for your wife, mother and daughters. He thinks about how they fuck, and he wants to tell them how, when and where to do it. Do whatever you can to stop him.

Soup of the Day

Cheney's new bullshitters hit the campaign trail: "We have all heard the administration praise the work of the tribal sheiks in turning against al Qaeda. Well, this is just a euphemism for the Sunni insurgency. That's who has turned against al Qaeda.

And why? Because they offered America terms in 2003 to do this. And it's taken America four years of war to come round to the Sunnis' terms. And, principally, that means cutting the Iraqi government out of the loop. By achieving these successes, America is building Sunni militias. Yes, they're targeting al Qaeda, but these are also anti- government forces opposed to the very government that America created."

The "suddenly Famous O'Hanlon/Pollack" have all new friends today.

The World According To Mother Tucker

Tucker Carlson "...wouldn't like to be asked rude questions, like 'why didn't you ever let the TV audience know that your dad was running the Scooter Libby defense fund?'". ...

(from a comment from Maxcat06 on HuffPo 8-1-07)

Hope it's true so that the laughtrack kicks in.

Neotard Glenn Beck Can't Read Or Think

Right-Wing Radio Is Killing Our Soldiers For Profit: "Unless the Iraqi government takes advantage of the 'breathing space' that U.S. forces are providing, Mullen said, 'no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference.'"

Righties are pushing the war because they can't stop.