Republican's Frantic Search For Validation

Why Republicans are devouring one book: "“We don’t know — because we weren’t there — what would have happened if they had left the market alone,” she said. Or, as she puts it in the book, “Of course Hoover and Roosevelt may have had no choice but to pursue the policies they did. They may indeed have spared the country something worse — an American version of Stalin’s communism or Mussolini’s fascism.”"

High There

What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners' Favorite Number: "had nothing to do with a police code -- though the San Rafael part was dead on. Indeed, a group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos - by virtue of their chosen hang-out spot, a wall outside the school - coined the term in 1971."

-----------

In 1970 and 71 I lived on San Francisco Bay in Marin County, complete with dock and boat , and remember well that Marin was one of the hot centers of my generation's universe. I can't explain exactly why it was, but it was - maybe because the whole world had been looking at San Francisco for a number of years, waiting for some new sign of the apocalypse or some cool sci-fi solution to everything or a new drug as a consolation for not finding one.

And Marin County delivered: gorgeous weather, unmatched beauty in its woods, around its lakes, on its bayshores and seashores, in it's small towns. We had the peacock feathers, Lucas Ranch, coke on the tabletops, and the highest number of stoned musicians-per-square-inch in the known world.

In 1971 San Rafael had about 30,000+ people and was not yet yuppied-up with lacquered barstools and leggy blondes. We guys still called our girlfriend our "old lady" and we accepted the granny-dress as she prepared the oh-so-cheap lentil soup and put a tie-dyed patch on our jeans.

420 was not widely known for many years, but now it is a small gift from the past, reminding everyone who cares that we did exist and that we did change the universe and that we did do it as it needed to be done.

A Crack In The GOP

Meghan McCain: "Old School" Republicans Are "Scared Shitless": "'There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being 'more' conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we're seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party. But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past.'"

She may misstep at some point, but she's not doing it now.

Fox Owns the Tea Party

What In the World Made Us Once Respect Greta?:

"For at least the second time in three days, Fox News aired on-screen text describing 'tea party' protests that Fox News hosts will be attending as 'FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.' Fox News has often described the protests as a response to President Obama's fiscal policies."

Grits-eating Surrender-necks

"If I owned Texas and hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell." - U.S. Gen. Phillip Sheridan, 1866: "Here are a few embarrassing tidbits about Texas that Governor Rick Perry doesn't want the rest of the nation to know so he can start planning his little fantasy of national politics:

1) 49th in teacher pay
2) 1st in the percentage of people over 25 without a high school diploma
3) 41st in high school graduation rate
4) 46th in SAT scores
5) 1st in percentage of uninsured children
6) 1st in percentage of population uninsured
7) 1st in percentage of non-elderly uninsured
8) 3rd in percentage of people living below the poverty level
9) 49th in average Women Infant and Children benefit payments
10) 1st in teenage birth rate
11) 50th in average credit scores for loan applicants
12) 1st in air pollution emissions
13) 1st in volume of volatile organic compounds released into the air
14) 1st in amount of toxic chemicals released into water
15) 1st in amount of recognized cancer-causing carcinogens released into air
16) 1st in amount of carbon dioxide emissions
17) 50th in homeowners' insurance affordability
18) 50th in percentage of voting age population that votes
19) 1st in annual number of executions"

So, yes, let them secede. And, wow, the French are gonna have a lot of fun with these grits-eating surrender-necks.

Yea !!! The Texans Are Leaving

Gov. Rick Perry: Texas Could Secede, Leave Union: "Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union"

We all know how charming conservative Texans really are. Losing them will be so hard... well, I'm all choked up.

If only they would really do it, but I doubt they've got the fortitude to pull it off. But they'll have no problem dropping their "americanism" - they have little to begin with.

Plus, let's beat them to shreds once and for all.

"Burn the books"

Tea Party Insanity: "'They're doing everything they can to brainwash our public...This thing they're putting on our TVs,' he says, presumably referring to digital cable converters, 'it's a brainwash unit!'

As his speech winds down, he exhorts his listeners to get their kids 'the hell out of college. They're brainwashing 'em!'

The anti-school message resonates with one woman.

'Burn the books!' she yells from off-camera. The surprised camera man asks if she's serious, and which books she'd burn. 'The ones in college, the brainwashing books, like the evolution crap.'"

GOP... Dead Ahead !!!

"Did you say Ice Berg, or Ice Cream?: "'On the day we learned that jobless claims rose to their highest levels in 26 years, Eric Cantor's charge that anyone is 'overreacting' to this economic crisis typifies the Republican just say 'NO' approach. Whether it's because they are simply out of touch with the pain American families are feeling, or they understand but are choosing to play politics instead, the lack of urgency shown by the Republican party at this time of crisis is appalling.'"

Now, now, now. Settle down Dems and move along. There's nothing to see here.

Fox on Fox Action - Angie Harmon, Republican, Actress

Republicans "Have Class": She is a genuine republican. I've got a few in my family and they are obnoxious in any discussion about reality. I still love them of course - them being family and all, and I make an effort to think of them as Labrador Retrievers mixed with too much Terrier, instead of the jerks that they are.

I was an adolescent once and used it all up, so I don't need to keep hearing the same unexplored theories about glory and truth. My true home is with the progressives, where everything is a spiritual quest with serious consequences for all.

GOP Distemper Shots Now Available

Joe The Plumber Needs A Royal Flush: "It's no wonder that actual plumbers hate this phony like he was feline leukemia."

Obama Does - Romney Can't

Romney backs Obama auto decision, praising ‘backbone’: "'I think a lot of people expected the president just to cave, write a check, and just hope for the better,' Romney said Tuesday morning on CNN. 'I think he's expressing some backbone on this.'"

Obama has skipped over the bull like Fred Astaire.

Anus Watch 2009

Glenn Beck - "I'm a rodeo clown": "If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot."

He says it best, and he further wonders if a guy from some jerkwater town can make it in the big city atmosphere of Liberaland, America? Sure he can, making a ton of cash in the process.

The Old Dame Farts

"Criticism over Obama invite mounts at Notre Dame...", says a headline on Drudgereport.

Bishops John D'Arcy and Thomas Olmsted set an ugly tone right out of the gate, stirring the panty-bunched Alumni to send letters - over 90 percent of them opposing family man and doting father Obama's appearance at commencement, preferring instead the advise of a couple of bachelor Priests.

However, as the actual article states, "73 percent of student letters supported his appearance. Among the 95 seniors who wrote letters, 97 percent supported the president's invitation."

AP Uses Broken Men As Writers

Fascination With Obama Driving Righties to the Men's Room: Hey Obama, why-ya waiting so long to comment on the issue????, asks AP's best.

"'It took a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.'"

Good plan.

But AP's Ron Fournier is a follower of snark, and as such doesn't need to think as long as there is a freeway onramp wall he can decorate. And he's the AP Washington Bureau Chief.

You Owe Us All Your Money

Suze Orman To Bush: "If I were you, I would feel so absolutely horrific that I would take every penny I had and distribute it to anybody and everybody to help them in whatever way I could. You owe the American people every penny of your fortune and your family's fortune.'"

Making Peas From Pea Soup

An Army of Quants Has Annihilated A Country

In trying to understand this whole bank disaster situation and the concepts involved - like derivatives, etc., I came across this article from 2003 by a guy who teaches some of these concepts to people called “Quants” who are the geeks who develop these theoretical valuations of assets that are used by these Wall Street “Fund” makers to make oodles of profit and gigantic salaries.

In the article he muses on about the school/real-world methods of learning. In doing so, he presents a fascinating picture of a science that today has our culture by the balls - a science that isn’t even a science, but rather a system created to explain things that only exist if you believe the explanation. When I read the article - here in 2009, with chaos flooding through the financial world, I could finally understand how greed had constructed a fake world for its own purposes, and why the value of our homes - and America itself, is helplessly sinking until it finds it's true worth.

GOP's Most Out Of Work Brain Donor

Ari Fleischer Shows His Stuff: "'After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again? And that's the threat that has been removed and I think we are all safer with that threat removed.'" - Ari Fleischer

Ah!, Saddam and 911, together again !

Help Wanted: Scum Removal Expert Needed

Jim Cramer Defines The Modern Asshat: "'What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction,' Cramer advises. 'You can't take any chances.'"

Citizens are being educated likkety-split in the workings of American capitalism. We are all coming up to speed and realizing that soft-cloth, easy-to-digest crime is un underlying engine in all of this. It's now horrifying to see that the business community around us is filled with crookery and that a smile above a Brooks Brothers suit is something to distrust.

The only thing that an American capitalist can smile about is that at least their immortal idol, Ronald Reagan, was right about something important; when it comes to the enemy - trust, but verify. I put it differently: demand professionalism every minute of the day until the bad guys are dead.

The Wolf At The Door

How the Wealthy Waged War on Each Other: "So if you want to find the real culprits in the war on wealth, don't look to Washington. Walk down Fifth Avenue, get on a chairlift at Aspen, turn on CNBC, or charter a jet to St. Bart's." - Newsweek

He's Got A Problem With His Hole

Fox News' Glenn Beck strikes ratings gold by challenging Barack Obama: "'Look in your rear-view mirror; we just passed France,' he said. 'I think our country is on the verge of disintegration.'"

Can't wait to see the website with a list of his sponsors.

Morning Game Hunter

Joe Scarborough has picked his deer and nothing's gonna change his tightly focused little brain. He's gonna shoot Geithner over and over until he stops wiggling.

Joe's a Pullman bully on the lines smashing 2x4s into worker's heads. He may not be good at it, but he's definitely at it... that's his limited charm and the reason I watch his show.

The Blink of an Eye

Space rock gives Earth a close shave: "An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday"

GOP Descends To Hell

Anger Rises Among Unemployed Over Govs Who Want To Reject Stimulus Funds: "As governors in nine states, mostly in the South, consider rejecting millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for increased unemployment insurance, there is growing anger among the ranks of the jobless in those states that they could be left out of a significant government benefit."

Hurting the sufferers is an unsane indecent act by the GOP that will define them for years.

These Governors deserve our complete contempt for putting people second and stupid, dumbass theories first. Only a bad person would do what they intend to do.

But now that everyone has handguns - thanks NRA/GOP thugs !!! - I wonder how secure and safe these Governors think they are? A panicked father with no money does what he needs to do.

The Changelessling

Kick Her In The Crotch: "...as long as the nation is obsessed with historic milestones, is no one going to remark on what a great country it is where a mentally retarded woman can become speaker of the house?"

Another cute little fart from the anethema.

But it's all just part of her well-known "Cash Raiser 2000" plan. Sure, she hates most of what she says she hates, but mainly that's just her emotional cover for her need to be obnoxious. Ask one of your shrink friends to give you the lowdown about this type of annoying behavior. Kicking her in the crotch is the only known treatment short of euthanasia.

"It's not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." -- Charles Darwin

Santelli Uses McCain's Brain

Smart As Whips: "On September 2, just days before the initial financial collapse, Rick Santelli said, 'I think the economy is healthy.'

If McCain had won, this statement would've made Santelli our Treasury Secretary."

A GOP Asshat - In All Its Glory

Watermelon Man Inspires Outrage: Mayor Dean "Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn't mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons."














It is beyond belief that these asshats still parade their ignorance and flawed souls in public.

'Astral Weeks' 2080 weeks later...

Van Morrison: 40 Years Later, 'Astral Weeks' Chills and Thrills:

Terrific article by Jesse Kornbluth !!!

And you are so right. I was the recording mixer on some of his live on-the-radio recordings - the legendary PHR recordings. Never got to really know him, and never worked with him on any of his albums, but he was around the area and in and out of the fantastic PHR studios many times. Not an easy guy to know, but the music is as wonderful as you say, and the original Astral Weeks - which I have, is one of the greatest music recordings ever made. Word.

"I Want One Million Per Episode" like Chandler Bing

Nada Bing Nada Boom - Rick Santelli Has Psychotic Episode - Insults The Contessa

A golden piñata just broke in front of Santelli – and Joe the Plumber’s bullhorn is screaming “Big Bucks in the Bank for Bitching”, the birth cry of the whining asshat. It doesn’t sound like Santelli plans to resist the siren.

The Professionals

Bye Bye Miss American Pie:

Forget all the other stuff. The death of professionalism is the wolf at the door.

The wolf lived with the GOP for the last 8 years as they built up bigger and bigger piles of federal debt, embracing and celebrating any and all theories that justified making truly gigantic piles of money - where customers are consumers who need only to hear a professional tell them to "buy it, it's all going up forever."

The professionals - on whom we must depend, conned the common man and may have buried the American dream.

The Glans Professional:

Alan Greenspan says, "The vast increase in the size of the over-the-counter derivatives markets is the result of the market finding them a very useful vehicle. And the question is, should these be regulated? Well, indeed, for the United States, they are obviously regulated to the extent that banks, being the crucial creators of these derivatives, are regulated by the banking agencies, but not beyond that. And the reason why we think it would be a mistake to go beyond that degree of regulation is that these derivative transactions are transactions amongst professionals. And the institutions which are involved have very considerable what we call counterparty surveillance, where, for example, one major bank will know far more about its customer, whether it's a bank or something else, than we could conceivably know as regulators. In a sense, this counterparty surveillance has become the crucial element which has created stability in that particular system."

Now you know.

Hey, Stop Mistreating Madoff

SEC And Madoff Reach Agreement On Fraud Case: "Madoff, who has not been indicted, is widely expected to eventually enter into a criminal deal with prosecutors in which he would plead guilty in exchange for some form of leniency."

Yes, that certainly would be a 'criminal deal'.

Leniency !

Yeah, all kinds of leniency - just as soon as we disembowel the disgusting insect, slap around the prosecutors, the SEC and the judges in this case, then make the evil curr adjust Christian Bale's lights.

Then give him to me. He stole one of my best friend's money - all of it. She can no longer afford health insurance and must un-retire and return to the job market at 62 years of age.

If this man is given any comfort or any leniency, I will haunt the fuckers that did so. Word.

"It Cures Horseness !"

Carnival Worker Burrows Deep Into the GOP Wilderness: "Brad Blakeman, a senior aide to Mr. Bush from 2001 to 2004, said the new president's language is immature.

'It's not presidential. An American leader needs to be hopeful and optimistic - and truthful. Everything he says is parsed; everything he says is searched for deep meaning. When he goes to 'DefCon 5' on the economy and says that we're on the brink of catastrophe, it's absolutely insane.'"

Brad is a total sleaze. He's a sparkly-eyed rattle-pate that sells crap to assholes. But he calls it delivering truth to power. Not to worry; just flush and he goes away - at least until the next...

The Theory Theory

The Betrayal That the Centrists Have Wrought: "This is really, really bad." - Paul Krugman, NYT

I’m with Krugman on this one. Cutting funds to the states is a fatal flaw of the Senate bill. Moving funds to the state level provides demonstrably faster and well-focused ways to provide relief. And most of the infrastructure already exists to implement the benefits.

For the GOP, to protect its grand old theories of government, to deliberately deny the American people a powerful strategy with a good chance of success, infuriates me to no end.

The GOP version of Capitalism – with its Weegee Board, “invisible hand” fantasies, looks ugly as sin when the curtain is pulled back to reveal a bazaar of criminal corporations run by value-proof amoral nerds and made legitimate by lawyers fully able to loot anything of everything.

So here we all are, stripped and abandoned – truly looted, hiding our nuts and buying very little; our banks hiding their nuts and lending very little. An unprecedentedly huge population of the mega-wealthy waits uninvolved in another landscape, while the rest of us find American life suddenly out of focus, recognizing in our bones that everything we counted on may be in play and at stake.

It is that serious, but even as we are pulled into the center of the misery itself, the GOP and its bile-filled air bullies will still sell us all out for a theory.

---------------------

Update: Here’s what I think people expect of their government right now: provide big amounts of money to the states and let their channels of distribution get needed assistance to out-of-work citizens. Remove the catastrophic inability of financial institutions to evaluate the quality of their assets, or others’ assets, by carving out the toxic debt and placing it in Federal Government ownership and control for further disposition. Then when you have an extra moment, incarcerate the Wall Street Bugsies and seize their assets. Then stand by for further instructions.

The Groans of the Rusties

Wall Street Deserted the Rust Belt States: and now what's left are the groans of the jobless as they contemplate their fate and fear for their withered families.

But one of the loudest sounds of all is the Mayor of Lansing, Michigan when he speaks to the issue of jobs with near perfect pitch, his voice strident and quaking with anger and honesty. American workers are being screwed quite handily by greedsters and power monkeys - living far from the values and realities shared by the vast majority of Americans, and it is quite clear that this guy, Virg Bernero, is reluctant to shut up and ride the Titanic.

Bernero hears Wall Street say that manufacturing is the way of the past and that we must now become a service industry nation, and asks, "What are we supposed to do, sell each other hamburgers?" And, he knows that Wall Street's answer is "yes."


Virg Bernero is the real deal for his constituents. He is demanding that everyone know that some of their fellow Americans have been written-off and abandoned in agreements made by their own leaders. He is insisting that the powers-that-be deal with the fact that the country is flooded with cars from countries where auto manufacturers don't even have to provide health-care to their workers - their government pays for it.

He demands that we all bear witness that "between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned."

If the groans of rust-belt workers are not answered with solutions, the rusties will be as abandoned as were those old Roman Britons who sent their "Groans of the Britons" to a beleaguered Emperor - and then disappeared from history as their pleas went unanswered.

I'm for an America that doesn't suck, how 'bout you?

"J.O.B.S. is on the way !!!"

( Yes, the Firesign Theater did indeed say it best. )

I think Americans want to hear about a Jobs Bill - nothing else.

Americans fearing the loss of their jobs will never spend enough to rebound the economy until there is a safety net beneath their feet.

So why would anyone be interested in championing Republican ideas that were drenched in failure as recently as 3 weeks ago?

If trapping Obama is all they've got, then Republicans have nothing - helped along by mean little cranks like Charles Krauthammer and his egg-beater fake rhetoric. The America I live in should be rid of these dark, damp men who stew and quicken their bleak nastiness.

"This Fabulous Moment"

Posted by: Lia January 21, 2009 at 06:15 AM in a comment to a Huffingtonpost.com article:

"Im here so far from you guys..Beauty city in Africa...My english is poor because my official language is Portuguese... I dont understand about politics and god or bad pronounces, i only know 2 things: "mistakes are human things". Prs. Obama can did mistake with words, but "you" did others mistakes in your life more badly and worst that a simple word...so before see other peoples mistake take a look of you. The second thing i know is CHANGE-PEACE-AND-LOVE... you guys should try to accept that the change came, and try to live better with that... dont waste time thinkin and lookin for Obama words mistakes, take a time to breath and be open eyes to see his WORK. for now, just live your life better, "carpe diem", because we are human and we only live one time in this world. Stop talking shits because whatever you do or say it not gone change the fact: OBAMA IS A NEW PRESIDENT OF USA, 44TH OR 43TH, BACK OR WHITE...IS YOURS PRESIDENT,WHATHEVER YOU LIKE OR YOU HEAT...

im glad to be alive to see change in the world... im glad to live this fabulous moment that America gives this gifth to all of the world...im African Women, but now i can say without debuts that AMERICA IS THE TOP OF THE WORLD...not because they have economy but because they have mind...

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD LOOK FOR AFRICA!"

And I thank Lia for the expressive mix of language and passion in her wonderfully fractured blessing for America.

Gone With The Web

News from Newspapers - it won't survive: On 'Morning Joe' today, guest Jack Welch said that going forward the news will be delivered from the web - newspapers will be out of that business.

Ok.

I get nervous contemplating that still unknown danger to a city's cohesion when it loses its "paper of record" - heretofore one of the essential components of the modern-world-community. How essential was that component to our emotional safety?

I'm just sayin'...

The Dick Armey

Dick Armey to Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh on 'Hardball':

"I am so damn glad that you could never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't want to have to listen to that prattle from you every day."

It's instructive to remember that Dick Armey admires Ann Coulter, and Ann Coulter admires Dick Armey - in fact, if she could she'd join it.

No Place To Hide

The Tiger Rides Are Coming:"The financial crisis is 'attributable to inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies and their unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption; excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit." - China's Premier Wen Jiabao.

"The entire economic growth system, where one regional center prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional centre manufactures inexpensive goods … has suffered a major setback." - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Rupert Murdock - "World financial markets are in a great state of disarray": "'It doesn’t really matter where you’re talking about in the world,” Murdoch said. “There’s no hiding place.'"

This bell tolls for you: "There's a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due." - Peggy Noonan

It's all around us, like particles in the air; everyone feels it, and feels it gathering into something else - something to dread, some first act of a most frightfull drama that will engulf the world.

I Wanna Be A Slave

The Boomers Got A First-Class Education - The GOP Will Never Let That Happen Again!: "'There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or by brainwashing; or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.'

Aldous Huxley
California Medical School
San Francisco California
1961"

Gulp !

The Obvious Prevails

Matt Damon Is From Where I'm From: "''Look, the best line about torture I've heard came from [retired CIA officer turned war-on-terrorism critic] Milt Beardon,'' Damon says. ``He said, `If a guy knows where a dirty bomb is hidden that's going to go off in a Marriott, put me in a room with him and I'll find out. But don't codify that. Just let me break the law.'"

That's how it should be. It's awful, it's an ethical mess, and it's barbaric from every angle. But it's the way it should be.

Zero Republicans

Masters of the Men's Room: "A nearly $820 billion stimulus package passed the House of Representatives Wednesday without a single Republican vote."

Repubs have nothing. They brought the country's economy to its knees, exposed the criminal intent and actions of major capitalists, and killed over 4000 soldiers fighting the wrong enemy.

They are liars and crooks and hardly far enough out of the ground to be sanitary.

Word to the mother - there's nothing that conservatives like better than a good lie that brings home the bacon.

Watch your wallet and watch your six.

Morning Dump - Joe and Mika Pull The Chain

Mika refers to Boxer's proposed education funding as "dumping" because she believes in a mythical capitalism that doesn't even exist - except in pompous tones at the breakfast table in a manse.
These days, Americans are surrounded by idiots like Joe and Mika who hawk books, kiss butt, rub each others egos, varnish their warped political pronouncements - all the while looking into the camera with a promise to viewers that their dribble is a value to someone.

It isn't.

Yet I watch, like a kid watching a house burn down.

Peter King - The Idiot

King of N.Y. Is One Sick Puppy - "Always has been", say those in the know : "Smile, say cheese and hold that pose till you hear the 'click'. A new bill introduced in the Congress by New York Republican Rep. Peter King requires mobile phones with digital cameras 'to make a sound' when a photograph is taken."

That's gonna be terrific! Now at concerts and weddings and impeachments you will hear a cacaphony of "clacks".

I urge folks to read more of what this asshat has proposed in the past. I can smell this guy - and so will you. He is a fake, mean man and cares about nothing except his unsane poltical stance.

Biden Cuts Another One

We knew he's the cringe-worthy gaffe-machine, but I actually thought he would self-correct. I shudder to realize that maybe he can't, and that maybe Joe Biden doesn't know that his mouth is digging a hole beneath his feet.

The Motor Home Driver

Black Like Him is Nobody's Goal - Clarence Thomas Unqualified for Emulation: "But he is not crazy, he's just... Clarence; Uncle Remus wearing a robe: an embittered, eclipsed, forgotten Negro -- outted by the most admired man in the world, the first African American President, a Black man who earned his way to the top, a self-made man, not an appointed man, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and never forgot or rejected his people.

And Clarence Thomas? Once a footstool of the right wing, now just a footnote, He will be known now and forever for what he really is: The Unqualified Justice. Thank goodness Obama has pulled that robe off, and laid bare this pathetic little man who thought himself a king, but was and is, only a pawn. And Thomas knows only too well that the real king resides down the block."

Great, scathing article - must read it !

Clarence Thomas has famously expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the position he occupies and has declared that he would rather just drive his motor home. He might as well have said that his shit smells, for all anyone cares. He has proven to be a debased coin of the realm and nothing seems to be too low for him to grasp to further that legacy.

The Care and Feeding of History

Hmmm...: "Lincoln likely would have been appalled. How could he not? He was a 19th century white man who famously said in 1858 that 'there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which . . . will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality.''

How do you reconcile that with all those cartoons of Lincoln congratulating Obama? You don't. You simply recognize it for what it is: yet another illustration of how shallow our comprehension of history is, yet another instance where myth supersedes reality."

Yet, if Lincoln had lived from then to now I suspect that he would be pleased with the fact of President Obama.

On a Wing and a Pilot

All Hail Sully !! ... one guy on TV said it "was a miracle", and the other guy replied, "yes, a miracle of training and experience."

I say it was a magic choreography created by a bunch of very good people dancing with every move they knew.

It was humans supreme - All Hail Sully and the Ferries of the Shining City !

The Unbearable Lightness of Citizenship

Ted Haggert - Speaker Pelosi Sent Words of Comfort and Support After Scandal: "Our view of what it's like sitting in an emergency room and not knowing if your insurance card is going to work—I understand that emotion now. I know what it feels like to walk somewhere instead of driving somewhere to save gas. And so, I'm different. And I am optimistic about the new administration. This whole thing had changed me. I never dreamed I would be left out this quickly."

Healthcare - the humanity within citizenship

..."And we knew that if something happened, if that that support didn't come [from New Life]—because I was an incredible failure at trying to find a job that would work—we knew we would have to depend on programs that Democrats had put in place."

The Seventh Pooch

"I can't quit you!", cries Microsoft, and screws the pooch yet again!

Windows 7 beta hits the street: "I was looking for a 'mea culpa' and some solid integration tools and compatibility features. What I got was a prettier GUI and new ways to share music with my dog. Ugh!"

If you keep screwing pooches you're gonna get - wait for it - more dogs !!

The Big Chilada

Like so much else in W's America, there's no such thing as a Big Chilada: but to W it will always be the evil pretzel that almost killed him! "This is Bush's legacy -- a stunning series of alibis," writes Nora Ephron.

"It's true what he said: we misunderestimated him.

George Bush came into his presidency with a huge wave of goodwill. Not from me, but from many others. An amazing number of people who should have known better thought of him as a charming guy whose intellectual limitations would somehow be as benign as Ronald Reagan's, whose promise of a fairly passive presidency would be as survivable as Dwight Eisenhower's..."

"He was misunderestimated in every way. It was hard to imagine that this feckless leader could do so much damage.

"...after all these years in the dark, we're ready for a little overestimation. Which is, unlike misunderestimation, an actual word. But come to think of it, misunderestimation ought to be a word. I certainly know what it means."

Meth Labs on Mars

Life on Mars - Nasa discovers methane gas on Mars: "UK Mars expert Professor Colin Pillinger believes the methane can only point to the presence of life on the planet."

Out there in the ether you can still here Percival Lowell yelling at his family's trust fund managers, "Give me the fucking money you Edwardian retards!, they ARE CANALS !!! Live with it !!!"

Joe's Got the Conch

Joe the Magic Plumber Fights With Israeli Reporter:

"JOE: The story here is people are being killed and the media's slanting it and trying to make it Hamas is, uh, as far as, that Israel's being bad. Do you believe Israel is bad?
REPORTER: Do I believe it?
JOE: Yeah, do you?!
REPORTER: I'm Israeli, so...
JOE: So answer the question"
REPORTER: No, I don't think Israel is bad.
JOE: Do you think Israel has every right to protect itself?
REPORTER: Yeah.
[pause]
JOE: You do?!
REPORTER: Yeah.
JOE: Have you said that on air?
REPORTER: I'm just a reporter."

Many of America's more obnoxious middle-aged Republicans were conceived in the back seat of a car at an aging drive-in theater while Fox Movietone News blared out of a cheezy speaker box. That's the only way to explain why there is a whole slice of society filled with Joes that can't get it up unless Fox News is somehow involved.

"The culture of the Internet is that information wants to be free."

Eric Schmidt wishes that Google could save Newspapers: "I wish I had a brilliant idea, but I don't."

"I don't think our purchasing a newspaper would solve the business problems... Until we can answer that question we're in this uncomfortable conversation."

I shudder a bit to think that soon I won't feel that hard-to-fold thickness, where all the news is in your physical grip.

I want to ask, "is there anythnig here that we should be thinking about before we pull the drapes on printed things, and paint over the still-life of "Book on a Table" and "Man Napping with Sports Section Ripped to Shreds On His Lap?"

And while it might be true that "information wants to be free", it's also true that reporters need to be paid or you don't get any.

State of Shame

Mickey Rourke: "When you used to be a somebody and you aren’t anybody any more, you live in what my doctor calls a state of shame. It’s when you had a career, then you mess up and you don’t have a career any more — and it’s all your fault."

Are We Being Lied To About Pirates ?

Our breathtaking gullibility: "In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was 'to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.'"

"Think Global, Act Global"

Local, Schmocal, says outgoing US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson: "Mr Paulson cast the crisis as partly the result of a collective failure to come to terms with the way the rise of emerging markets was reshaping the global financial system. These imbalances – arising from differences in the inclinations of different nations to save and invest – are reflected in large current account deficits and surpluses around the world.

The US Treasury Secretary said that in the years leading up to the crisis, super-abundant savings from fast-growing emerging nations such as China and oil exporters – at a time of low inflation and booming trade and capital flows – put downward pressure on yields and risk spreads everywhere.

This, he said, laid the seeds of a global credit bubble that extended far beyond the US sub-prime mortgage market and has now burst with devastating consequences worldwide."

This is the new thinking, analog to the mental landscape of climate change, with events seen in global focus.

Growing Up Brzezinski - life at Mika's house

Dr. Z paints Joe's face: "'You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you.'"

Joe, like countless other TV bloviators, relies on hiding behind the ignorance of his audience rather than tackle the requirement of his calling - presenting information distilled with judgement. But that would mean he would have to stand behind his story and behind that judgement.

Be a pro, Joe! It's not news that the public is very satisfied with being uninformed; very content to hear its' superstitions respected and its' ignorance serenaded and celebrated. But it's dishonorable to rely on these facts and think of yourself as a professional, doing your job. As Mika's dad said, "If you are going to judge your knowledge by collective standards of 300 million people don't be surprised if you are embarrassed."

Now that's good television!

HuffPo commenter TstormVA explains his take on Dr. Z's statement: "Meaning if you are not going to be a responsible journalist and take the effort to be more informed than the average person on the street before spouting off at the mouth then don't be so sensitive when the Chief big dog taps your nose with a newspaper. The Republican party has made a living at talking to the ignorant masses with ignorance."

Pass the Magic Asshat

...and drown the GOP; they wallowed when they should have served, and lied to you and me.

"'The core play in the GOP playbook for 44 years has been the magic negro playbook,' said Simon Rosenberg, head of Democratic organization NDN and one of the most well-versed party figures on racial politics. 'They don't have another play or another playbook. Whether it is Willie Horton, or welfare queens and tax and spend, or the way they have dealt with immigration... they don't have a play in their playbook that doesn't start with the exploitation of racial divisions... They are going to have to reject 44 years of GOP politics in order to have any chance in the 21st century America.'"

Spot on, that Simon Rosenberg.

Wet Dreams of Russian Thugs

Professor/KGB Retiree Predicts End of U.S.: "He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in."

It's all very cinematic, certianly possible, and...

Sell His Blood

He Made Off With My Friend's Security:

I have a dear friend that has lost everything because of this dirtbag. She is 61 and has for years served the arts community, all the while building a retirement income fund from what she believed to be secure, steady, diversified investments managed by a highly recommended fund manager named Madoff. And, let's get this straight, she also believed - as I would, that the SEC and other government entities were run by professionals who knew their duty and, at the very least, were capable of detecting some of the most obvious criminal scenarios - like the world-famous Ponzi scheme.

My friend has been attacked and is devastated and is in great pain, and it is yet more painful to know that Madoff is not in jail at this very moment. He should not be in his home under house arrest. The crime is too great, and the accusations against him involve the ruination of people suddenly financially disemboweled, with fear and poverty staring them right in the face.

That he walks around his home - while so many others will lose theirs, is hard to stomach. Somebody in the justice system must lead the way in getting this monster behind bars before he enjoys the mercy of taking his own life, and certainly before he lives another moment believing he belongs among us.

Is it illegal to yell RUSH! in a Caribbean brothel?

It used to be, but then a good man spoke up:

Powell isn't after media adulation - or even exposure. What kind of idiot would think that? Oh yeah, that kind.

Let's review, ok? Day one: Colin Powell says he is supporting Obama. Day two: Powell elaborates on why America is on the chopping block in the hearts of god-zillions of the world's citizens. Day three: ...there is NO day three because that was it - Powell did not do anything else. He did not court the press, did not book himself on every Lenoman nightshow; in fact became a notable supporter of sanity and anti-excess, and a no-show on the unsane cable news circuit.

So what is Limbaugh talking about? Nothing important, but his voice takes the place of ours when we let the little pervert sleep well.

The Tall Puke in the Man Suit

A Pounder for the Right:

When the actual story comes out about the Blago-Obama "connection", we will all get to verify the quality of Joe Scarborough's thinking; the power of his discernment. In the next act, we'll get to see Joe re-chewing the scenery until it looks like he didn't say what he actual did say.

Charles Joseph Scarborough is the confederacy's yellow journalism queen, come to life in our time to entertain the throw-back righties we all know and love.

Way to go, Charlie Joe !

____________________________

12-16-2008 - another thought...

Joe Scarborough and his littler repeater, Mika, are off the deep end with their constant sniggering and outright misstatements about Obama-Blago.

Joe is the perfect definition of what the GOP looks like today: doing his job as the Glans Mignon of the uber-righties, exposing bias at every turn of the camera, all the while as Mika stutters and grimaces and then - like Oliver Hardy, looks into the camera as if to complain that "here's another fine mess he's gotten me into."

He didn't get her into a mess; she crawled there herself. That she sits beside him is all the information one needs about where she's coming from.

But, who am I kidding? There's no way to insult Joe, because he really doesn't exist - not as a real person; he's a controlled foil.

Please tell the Third-Class passengers that we'll miss them terribly

Dear Cable News Personality Currently Bloviating On My Screen:

Please. Just stop. Stop your speculation on the auto industry's errors and problems. Some of us can't stand your snarking at working people and their desire to have realistic health-care options, retirement security, and dignified citizenship.

But I bet you'll listen with attentive consideration to the thoughts of self-serving political junkmen like the retreaded Senator Shelby.

Are you guys as good as it gets? Did Jesus pass your village by?

Fuck The Workers, Pass Me The Bonus

To hear on-air network personalities dump on the workingman makes me sick to death. 700 billion for Wall Street and it's horde of boring jerks, and for autoworkers? - cut their pay, cut their benefits, cut their retirement, cut their dreams in half.

These on-air 7-figure income carnival hacks have no IQ beyond what it takes to sneer, unknow and rant. They all stink on ice.

The Unsanity of the GOP Marches On...

"Capitol Visitor Center Fails to Honor Faith", says GOP Senator Jim DeMint: Commenting on this in The Hill," Eric writes "This is exactly what's wrong with today's GOP and the reason it's hard for people like myself, who want limited government, to get excited about the party. Worry about your superstitions at home, on your own time. Stop bringing that garbage to work. There are all kinds of problems facing our country and this clown takes the time to issue a statement regarding his disdain for secularism. If you want religion in government, move to Iran, jackass."

"I don't think we did enough"

"Campaign Boogeyman" starring William Ayers

comment by: TruEngineHearing: (from Huffington Post)

"From reading some of these posts, one would think that an entire generation of war resisters didn't know what they were doing.

From reading some of these posts, you can imagine the writers doing anything their leaders told them to do. When you read some of these posts, you can hear the arguments of those that will go and kill and die for bad reasons.

You see, Timmy, sometimes the only holy thing to do is keep names off a black wall."
__________________________________

... then ...

reply from: reliant1:

"Sometimes Timmy, the only holy thing to do is tear down the government that is intent on drafting and killing kids. Sometimes good people are supposed to stand up and fight for what is right and give everything they have for it if needed.

Not here. The good people looked away. The good people shut their eyes. The good people sold the soul of their nation for a wall.

Sorry Timmy, nothing holy is left, anywhere."

Honor the Dead - Make More

I Did Not Compromise My Principles: George Bush says "'I listened to a lot of voices, but ultimately, I listened to this voice: I'm not going to let your son die in vain,' he said. 'I believe we can win. I'm going to do what it takes to win in Iraq.'"

Letting others get killed in order to improve the lot of a dead person is the mental setup of people I am always against.

Not a Universal Soldier

We Were On The Right Side: "'The content of the Vietnam protest is that there were despicable acts going on, but the despicable acts were being done by our government. ... I never hurt or killed anyone.'"

The whole idea is to keep names off the black wall.

"What you call the violent past, that was a time when thousands of people were being murdered every month by our own government. ... We were on the right side."

We Most Certainly Should Have Done More.

"The Children Are Watching" - Noonan

But They're Not Watching Republicans: The Republicans "lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation! If that continues in coming years, it will be a rolling wave of doom."

"The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace" - says Rightie Mouthbreather

The Wall Street Journal's "Bring An Infant To Work Day" Winner Announced: "Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House."

Thud !!

George Bush did not stand by us. He forever stands by 4000 caskets filled with the remains of those you love.

Those people are not coming back, and the Wall Street Journal is screaming mad to publish writer Jeffrey Scott Shapiro's words.

Loyalty, the least admirable quality in existence, lived in high esteem within Shapiros everywhere, even as "Captain A" plowed full speed through an ice field at night with no binoculars.

Once and yet again, WSJ types shake the "invisible hand-job of capitalism" and pretend it's the grip of god.

Walking Into The Light

"Bittersweet": "Detroit, MI here...I have been tossing and turning all night long and finally gave up and got up, put the kids things together in case I didn't get back in time, made a cup a sweet chai and packed a book in my purse. The parking lot was packed, the trees full of color and the air full of hope. All this and it was only 6:30 am.

Everyone there was joyful, hopeful and polite to one another. One Love. We all talked about this lady, Barack's grandmother, and how she already knew and died with the peace of having raised to adulthood one good and exceptional man/human being. May we all know this feeling.

I took in every moment and after casting my ballot I walked outside and felt like I was looking at the sun for the first time in 8 years."

Over The Parapet - Life, Romance !

If the election lasts longer than 4 hours, call the nurse: "This is beginning to look like a five-state election. Those states are Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada. Essentially all relevant electoral scenarios involve some combination of these five states."

I should caution that by far the most likely scenario is that Obama wins some relatively decisive victory of anywhere from 3-12 points in the popular vote. If Obama wins the popular vote by anything in this range, he will find plenty of blue territory, accumulating somewhere between 300-400 electoral votes. The electoral math will matter very little.

We can probably assume, however, that IF the national polls tighten significantly (and to reiterate, the likelihood is that they will NOT), McCain will edge out a victory in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, and Missouri; put those states in the McCain column for the time being. Likewise, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa all appear safe for Obama, even in the case of significant tightening. Put those in the Obama column.

That leaves our five states in play. The victory conditions for Obama involving these five states proceed something as follows:

1. Win Pennsylvania and ANY ONE of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, or Nevada*
2. Win Ohio and EITHER Colorado OR Virginia.
3. Win Colorado AND Virginia AND Nevada.

(* Nevada produces a 269-269 tie, which would probably be resolved for Obama in the House of Represenatives.)

Now, suppose you think that Colorado is already in the bag for Obama because of his large edge in early voting there. We can then simplify the victory conditions as follows:

1. Win Pennsylvania
2. Win Ohio
3. Win Virginia AND Nevada"

Ah gee, it all sounds as easy as pie on a third date.

"So long, suckers..."

"Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.": "37 year old Andrew "Lahde became one of the biggest names in the investment industry when one of his funds produced a return of 866% last year, largely by forecasting the US home loans industry would collapse.

In his farewell letter, which concluded with an appeal for the legalisation of marijuana, Lahde said he was happy with his rewards and did not envy those who had made even more money.

"I will let others try to amass nine, 10 or 11 figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck," he wrote, citing a life of back-to-back business appointments relieved only by a two-week annual holiday in which financiers are still "glued to their Blackberries..."

"...His final words of advice? "Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life."

"Come and get me, copper" - Peggy Noonan

"A mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism": "In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.

I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

At any rate, come and get me, copper."

Who Cares That Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right As Long As Three Lefts Do?

Conservative Talk Radio Host Michael Smerconish Endorses Obama: "For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I'm voting for a Democrat for president."

"...the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that has not endorsed a Democrat for president since it was founded in 1847, followed suit. From their editorial:

Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
...

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States."

Brown Shirts On Sale in the Lobby !!

A Personal Experience of McCain:

Mary-Kay Gamel is a literature and classics professor at UCSC. She is asking people to send the letter she wrote far and wide.

It was just before John McCain's last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed on Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).

It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week, since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately. He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was, "if he likes this so much, why hasn't he memorized any of this yet?" I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his "readings" which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people's buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day. Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn't meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska, that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.

McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her. Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that was Cindy's idea - I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn't my idea at all."

I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said, "If I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson." Given McCain's personal experience with the horrors of war, I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII - but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation. I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to have mellowed out his perspective, but rather had made him more aggressive and vengeful towards the world.

My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn't be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said, "Don't you know who I am?"

I looked him in the face and said, "Yes, you are the biggest I have ever met" and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain's bullying.

Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination, but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story.

I can't imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.

-- Mary-Kay Gamel, Professor of Classics, Comparative Literature, and Theater Arts, Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064
Telephone: (office) 831-459-2381; (home) 831-429-8803
mkgamel@ucsc.edu

Bush - "Your Ass Is Mine"

Dirty Secret Of The Bailout: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

It's called dictatorial power and as practiced by Sulla, Stalin, and godzillion other tyrants, leads to greed monkees fucking impoverished boys, and to mega yachts.

They Kill Us For Their Sport

Washington, "where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and the rest of us are on the menu."

Don't miss the Moose-Ball Mousse, Sarah Palin's homemade dessert that's a snap to make - lightly-killed moose cojones, rolled in ice, then served with a rich gumbo of lies.

McCain's Mooseketeer

Whatever Palin's Been Inhalin' is now the drug of choice for Republicans everywhere. McCain's Mooseketeer has issued her clarion call to the clueless to come and watch the Grand Old Soap Opera of her life - see Track Palin ready himself to set off for Iraq to fight for the "surge", watch the new baby stare off into the distance, wonder at the sex life of the pregnant Bristol, drool for a chance to hang with the gallant and handsome First Dude, and thrill to the precocious cuteness of Piper Palin as she licks things.

I regret to say that McCain's choice to add Palin to the ticket is by any measure bold, risky and brilliant. With this move - and the apparent success of "his" surge, McCain lays out a claim to leadership and evidence of superior canniness.

Palin By Comparison

At Least God Is On Her Side: "'Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers out on a task that is from God.

That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.'"

"Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska's governor asked the audience to pray for another matter -- a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. 'I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that,' she said."

Somebody like Palin surely must have a preacher lurking in the dim background and - walla!!!, there he is, Pastor Kalnins:

"Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode."

Thank heaven for little girls. They grow up in the most unusual ways.

I just can't fathom how much fun we're about to have.

John McCain's Heart

President Palin: "'She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?' said Lyda Green, the president of the State Senate, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. 'Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?'"

An Anchorage Daily News editorial states that, "It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Uhhh... What Am I Supposed To Do Everyday?

Get Her Done, America !!: "'As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?"

Damn straight, girly ! - you should demand that information on your first day in office.

Leighton Woodhouse, Communications Director at Brave New Films, writing in HuffPo, says that "the McCain campaign is doing what the GOP always does when it has to fight for working class voters in a debate that Republicans can't win on its merits: they are reverting to symbolic politics, a role for which Palin is tailor-made."

To use Sarah's wonderfully vapid, Hiltonesque new phrase, "absolutely, yup, yup."

Woodhouse's evolved prediction is that "The McCain campaign is going to trot Palin out whenever they need to make the case that they feel America's pain. They're going to contrast her story to Obama's, and even to Biden's (not the part about being a scrappy kid from Scranton, but the part about being in the Senate for a million years)."

"They're going to turn any question about Palin's 'experience,' whether from a Dem or from a journalist, into another elitist attack on working class culture, another example of snooty, brainiac liberals condescending to ordinary Americans. And to boot, a bunch of good old boys picking on Mrs. Mom."

...it's eerily like that scene from the cable series Mad Men, where they discuss the affect of the "Official Evidence of Cancer" on cigarette advertising and how the entire health issue is now moot - everyone's fucked, so no cigarette can be healthier than another. Checkmate.

Back in the U.S. We Are

The Obama sensation is different than anything in American politics. Here we have “candidate as vessel”, filling up with the dreams of legions of citizens. Here is a guy whose growing gravitas is being secured by raw hope for a way out of the Great American Failure that we are living through. We are as refugees, slogging endlessly through waist-deep water toward a frightfully distant dry purchase.

If some people don't recognize any of this then perhaps their fate is to never make it to the crest of the hill to see what is beyond the shining city.

If they could see Novamerica, they'd grab some booze and join us – but perhaps their eyes do not see.

The Anatomy of a McCain Deception

"As only Mother Teresa can, she prevailed upon me to take this baby and another baby to the United States for medical care.'':

"As was pointed out yesterday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. Turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip.

Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy's family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network."

"Seems that Rick Warren told Larry King on Monday night that the Mother Teresa story was one of three times during Saturday's forum that McCain teared-up. They're liars and actors."

Lost and Found

Righties Pissed That Obama's Brain Works As It Should: "'Expanded access to prenatal education and heath care facilities will far more likely serve the very real state interest in preventing increasing numbers of children from being born into lives of pain and despair.'"

Right Wingers Ruin Bank, Blame Schumer

Nice Try By Swift-Boat Kill Squad : "Copies of the employee letter were distributed to the press by CRC Public Relations whose clients include the National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee."

Seems like the Republicans are all over this one.

Ugly Girl

It was all real swell until western news media pounced and made it all ugly.

Watch "The King and I" - a known classic of American cinema, and revel in female star Deborah Kerr singing some of the most beautiful songs ever written. NOT. It was somebody else singing - Marni Nixon, whose beauty was not required, and whose accomplishments as an actress perhaps not yet revealed. So?

We're such slobs it's hard to believe we used to be decent Americans - before the various Contessa Brewers and the packs of Obermanns were let loose to drum up audiences whenever and however possible. You know and I know that to keep seeing those 6 zeros in their paychecks they'd drop their pants in a second. So torturing a little chinese girl with false shame is a cakewalk for these low feeders.

Ask Chuck

Prince Charles warns that Genetically Modified Food crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster: "Millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness.'"

He's way into this issue...

"Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.

"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

"The water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost.

"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it."

I mean WAY into it...

On the Ground, In Country, Like a Rock Star !

...our sainted on-air bloviators, soaring high above reality, deliver the cliches we all need to get through the day.

The Righteous Trinity: Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity

The Shooter's Reading list: "Inside the house, officers found 'Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder' by radio talk show host Michael Savage, 'Let Freedom Ring' by talk show host Sean Hannity, and 'The O'Reilly Factor,' by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday's mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of 'the liberal movement,' and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning."

And there he is again, Michael Savage, the real deal in human tripe.

Rollin' Fat

Ornish Sees Fat On Hearts - Percival Lowell Saw Canals On Mars:

"I don't know about you, but it seems amiss to me for the media to portray this as a pro-Atkins study, really, since most of us consider Atkins to be meat-based, and shouldn't the media help us to better understand the science?"

There's a large pile of mis-directed glee in this article.

If this is what Kathy Freston knows - if this is what she thinks is true, then she knows nothing.

The edge is so far beyond the faded Dean Ornish model that it is spectacular to read this organized rant pretending otherwise.

Fear of meat is not an uplifted or valuable reason for anything; it's merely fear of meat.

Follow the actual facts and you will get to the actual edge.

He Had A Hunch

The Beautiful George Carlin: "George grew tougher and sharper over the years, putting more of himself, and his intellect, at the service of his always nimble, always adventurous comedy mind. And, while his comedy was dark, his spirit with his peers was generous."

I saw him once on a TV talk show where former Hollywood bombshell Lana Turner was one of the guests. It became immediately clear that, for some reason, she had a big dislike for him and at one point said to the other host that George actually was scaring her - his look included long-hair and roughly mantained, hippie-like clothing. George seemed to be taken aback by her obvious revulsion, and so was I - bigtime. But it was suddenly and unmistakably very clear to me that she was a monster and that he was my brilliant, powerful and beautiful knight in the blessed New Order.

Life jumped out of him like radiation, and sometimes when I saw him in the later years - older than I thought many of us would ever become, I would be reminded of these lines from a Russian poet:

Into the distance disappear
the mounds of human heads

I dwindle, go unnoticed now

But in affectionate books,
in children's games

I will rise from the dead
to say, "the sun!"

Ultimately, for me, his beauty was his hunch about life - that it was never too hot to touch, and that everything mattered.

How To Look Sick

John McCain is Ann Coulter's Dick: "Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein said that John McCain's comments Tuesday that Barack Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election were the most scurrilous he had ever heard by a major party candidate."

At first I thought it was just me; maybe I was twisting what I'd heard, but then I heard it again and realized how absolutely outrageous it is for this little boy-toy runt to think he can get away with saying crap like that.

His wife can build him another little fake lake to fish in, and ply him with more free booze and scoot him around Red America on her jet, but she doesn't have enough alchohol profits in her bag to buy the humanity and common sense this guy sorely needs.

Barbara Bush might say, "I am done with him." I say fire him from everything and get him a job "selling fish to tourists in tee-shirts" and let's get back to the future.

Something Happened To Liberty

One of the Greatest Stories Seldom Told: "Tobey Maguire is attached to Universal's 'The Crusaders,' a drama about the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case."

The story of the long, plotted, pathway to the Brown case is one of the most fantastic and glorious stories you will ever hear.

If they do it right, we will all be introduced to the amazing group of people - spread out over a century, whose cleverness, brilliance, and motivation saved all of us - whites from an eternity of raw blame and guilt, and blacks from the bleak future of secondness.

I can't wait.

If You Get Screwed - You Stay Screwed

Republicans Plan On Attacking Your Daughter. Going To Stand For It ???: "...this provision would threaten the funding of organizations and health facilities if they do not hire people who would refuse to provide birth control and defines abortion so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception."

I hope they don't come to my door and try to talk their nonsense to my kid. My reaction would be very ugly indeed.

And a glass of Chard for my cat

Pill-Popping Pets: "'He's agile,' Allan says. 'He's healthy. He's a good-looking animal.' Michelle adds, 'We love him to death.' That is why they had no choice, she says. The dog simply had to go on psychoactive drugs."

This is a great article and a fascinating topic.

Over the past five thousand and more years almost every civilization at some point experienced animals as volitional players on the human stage - and often as dear and feared gods, before whom we cowered.

I still feel the power of that past. I look to my cats in awe, treasuring them as god-like sublime perfections, and I have never doubted the reality of their passions and their sorrows and their sacred “umwelt”.

Show me the bush that they can eat when they are particularly troubled, and I will get it for them. Show me the medication that can help them deal with situations beyond their control, and I will get it for them. But I always know that their senses should not be unduly disturbed or their faculties diminished. We are interfering and, even though our motives are clean, we must do no harm.

Oops, gotta go - time to feed the Sphinx.

Google: We Can't Figure Out How To Make Money On Web Video, Either

Pock-marked Greed-monkees Are Selling Pictures of Your Girlfriend's Ass and You Don't Even Know It!: "How much longer are we going to have to hear the words 'genius', 'rocket scientist', and so on used to describe a bunch of spam-monetizing, content-stealing ad peddlers?", asks commenter clickbot.

Here, you eat Bernini; I'll eat Rafael

The Golden Gate Bridge Is A Sacred Piece of America: I would rather give up my right to walk across the bridge than sacrifice any more of the sublime beauty of its original form.

To put it fucking mildly, erecting a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge "would alter the look of the historic span, bridge officials said Monday."

"The main visual difference in the railing proposals are whether the designs call for vertical or horizontal stripes. The study did not determine which design would be most effective in preventing suicides, Currie said."

We are different than those human beings who built such a treasure, but we know the beauty that is right before our eyes, and the higher voice within us knows that our part of the story is to pass it forward without harm and intact.

"Leave the bridge alone !!!"

"Barack, you'll love this plane."

"I fixed it up real good for 'ya": "This was not Obama's regular campaign plane, which is being overhauled. It was a loaner, having previously been used by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY."

Well, that was right nice, don't you think?

..."As the pilot struggled to re-gain control of the pitch of the plane - the angle of the nose of the plane - Obama was told that he and the other 44 passengers on board might have to assume the brace position upon landing, bending forward with their heads between their knees.

That ultimately did not happen, but..."

"...National Transportation Safety Board chairman Mark Rosenker told ABC News' Dennis Powell yesterday that the incident 'is extremely serious in this particular case.'

An inflatable slide in the tail cone of the plane had deployed, making control of the plane tough. "There are hydraulic lines back there," Rosenker says. 'There are control cables that deal with the elevators and other area's of control surfaces for the aircraft, and could potentially make it extremely difficult if not impossible to fly the aircraft."

! Gulp !

Webb's "Thrilling, Frightening Masculinity"

The Love Vote: "There's nothing like the love nerds have for the one a-hole jock that's nice to them."

So true and so amazing. Webb hates - really hates, the elites. He has detailed thoughts on this issue and they all quicken to a fine-edged Scot-Irish rage where we're all back at Hadrian's wall - we Celts on the ground and us Romans on the bullwarks, trading insults, itching for blood.

I don't really see Webb eager to join the nerds, but nerds for Obama rings true.