On The Radio, In The Paper

Newest right wing talking point, as heard recently on right wing rant radio: The U. S. hasn't been attacked since September 2001 because of the (llegal) Iraq war & occupation. They don't even put it quite that way, it's usually expressed "We're in Iraq & we haven't been attacked since 9/11," not quite daring to make a direct connection. This was also expressed in a letter to the editor in the L. A Times this wk., so it's sunk into the minds of the mindless reactionary masses now. The latest attempt to justify the Iraq adventure & keep war-lover McCain from being the first Goldwater/McGovern of the 21st century, essentially. As if the people who would be/are plotting to infiltrate the U. S. & blow everything up, or whatever, have decided they're more useful planting mines & taking potshots at U. S. forces in Iraq, instead of letting illiterate goatherds do that sort of thing while the educated types are plotting mass terror in the "Homeland." Also in the fishwrapper today:

THERE is no mystery in deducing the decline in viewership of the Academy Awards show. The U.S. today is divided, half socialist and half conservative, as witness the past two U.S. presidential elections. Hollywood has overtly embraced the socialist half and turned off the conservative half, thus the latter group has begun to turn off Hollywood. Jack V. Fogarty Los Angeles

Yep, the U. S. is divided into "socialists" & conservatives. And the conservatives don't want to watch the Oscars™©. Jack V. Fogarty, you are a brain-dead idiot, unable to see beyond your phony "socialist"/conservative dichotomy. No one goes to movies or watches television anymore, & those who do are all pinkos, right?

Leap This!!

On Leap Day, why don't you take a flying leap at, oh, say, a rolling doughnut?

A Foolish Inconsistency Is The Hobgoblin of Small Minds

Althouse on the McCain + Hagee/Obama + Farrakhan thing:

I think Barack Obama didn't go far enough distancing himself from Louis Farrakhan.

Why do you think they call you a conservative blogger, Divine Ms. A.? How much farther can/should Sen. O. go, short of a physical attack on Farrakhan? Especially when you yourself admit that McCain actively solicited Hagee's support? NOTE: This item originally appeared in a different (crummy) form because your Editor ran out of time to polish it & provide links. Do click on Ms. Althouse's links though, even if they all lead to her own items. She seems to be stuck in frightful legalistic pickiness concerning Sen. Obama's "non-denunciation" of Farrakhan.

No Shit?

Actually useful (well, of personal interest) information gleaned from Ms. Megan's Blog (though, as one might expect, it's not from the hostess of the salon, but one of her commenters). And here it is, not perfectly expressed (no surprise) but we won't be re-typing it:

On a touch-tone phone, the digit 1 is in the upper left corner. On a desk calculator [and on the number pad of a personal computer] the digit 7 is there instead. "Why did the phone company deliberately violate the standard when they introduced touch-tone"? you ask... My father was an early adopter of touch-tone. He often got misdials because he touched too fast, and the phone company couldn't handle it. He complained and the phone company's customer service rep said that fast typists often jammed the system. They had to make the touch-pads different from calculators so there wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of people so well practiced at typing numerals fast that they would often get misdials. The phone company almost certainly chose that layout with that in mind.

Do any of the early adopters out there recall Touch-tone™ 'phones w/ a standard ten-key pad?

Have a Beer W/ FEAR(-Monger)

Who the hell would want to "have a beer" w/ George W(orst) Bush? What could the two of you talk about? W(orst) is completely disconnected from the day-to-day reality of real people, much as "Poppy" Bush w/ his famous amazement at supermarket scanners in 1992. What a pair of elitist idiots!

When asked about the possibility of the price going that high, president says, 'That's interesting, I hadn't heard that.' He also says a tax hike on oil companies would drive the price up further. WASHINGTON -- The prospect of sharply higher fuel prices, including $4-a-gallon gasoline, may not have made it into Oval Office briefing books, perhaps explaining why President Bush was surprised Thursday when a reporter mentioned what energy analysts are saying could happen soon in many parts of the country. "Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?" Bush responded to a reporter who said some analysts expect prices to soon climb that high. "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. . . . I know it's high now."

No shit, Sherlock. It's high now. Are the White House flunkies afraid to tell W(orst) what's going on? Is his reaction to every briefing the standard "You've covered your ass, get lost?" And decent Americans couldn't expect an oil co. to reduce its profits to mere hundreds of millions from billions just to pay some taxes to the gov't. that spends billions of dollars to make the Middle East "safe" for democracyoil cos., could they? Of course not. That would be un-American. Taxes must be passed on to the "consumer." Hey, what happened to all the oil money from Iraq that was going to pay for the war & occupation, & give us "our" energy for less? And the "consumer" reaction, as told by the left-leaning L. A. Times (which probably found many patriots who approve of W(orst)'s ignorance, but chose to quote only "Hate America Firsters"):

Bush's acknowledged unfamiliarity with the recent cost of gasoline produced some fumes at the pump. At a Shell service station in the Bay Area city of San Mateo, the price of a gallon of regular had already reached $4.29, well above the state average of $3.42, as measured by the AAA auto club. "Bush is out of touch with a lot of things we are facing today," said 33-year-old Marisa Cajbon, who was filling her Toyota Sequoia SUV with the expensive fuel. "I have to buy gas. I need to work. I have two kids. I think it's unfortunate. I think it's a crime." [...] Bush said he understood that uncertainty about the economy was hard on American consumers. But he said the answer was for Congress to make the tax cuts he pushed through in his first term permanent. Many lawmakers have balked, arguing that those reductions have led to a dangerously large federal budget deficit."If you're out there wondering . . . what your life is going to be like and you're looking at $4 a gallon, that's uncertain," Bush said. "And when you couple with the idea that taxes may be going up in a couple of years, that's double uncertainty." The average U.S. pump price was $3.16 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA, but higher in many regional markets. Roy Persinco, who filled up his Ford 250 pickup truck for $3.25 a gallon at a Santa Monica Shell station Thursday, said he spent $125 a week on gas. "I can't believe that an ex-oilman could be so unaware and ignorant of what is going on around him in the real world, but I'm sure his old buddies in the oil industry can tell him they're doing just fine," Persinco said. Another motorist, Grant Reese of West Los Angeles, volunteered to help the president keep in touch during his remaining days in office, lest he be caught off guard by the Washington press corps again. "I'd be happy to send him all my credit card receipts for gasoline from now on," Reese said, watching the pump top $40 as he filled the tank of his Nissan Altima at a Sam's Club station in Long Beach. Energy analysts have offered motorists little solace, saying that the rules of supply and demand for gasoline and other fuels are apparently being overridden, and commodity prices are continuing their run.

Yep, permanent tax cuts for W(orst)'s "have" base will be making things much better for people who pump their own gas, won't they?

Plea For Attention

Ron Paul sucks & I hate him 'cause he is a funny looking idiot who is living in the 16th century. He's all wrong about the constitution & he had sex w/ a chicken. Last wk. Whatcha gonna do about it, Paultards? Wonkette doesn't like him either.

D for The Dead/Who Rise From Their Graves/To Chop Off Your Head

Today is the first anniversary of the death of Just Another Blog (From L. A.)'s™ female parental unit, after a cardiac event 9 February 2007. Couldn't even hold on one day, until 1 March, which would have given us her Social Security for the month of March. The troubles we've had to endure. See her only speaking role in a big-time Hollywood (more or less) studio production here, about 5:25 in. And a shout-out to college friend the late Dr. Weird (he came up w/ that pseudonym long before the character in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force opening segments, by the way) dead by his own hand (& gun) in February 1977 (9 February we believe). A talented actor, & popular disk jockey in Port Townsend, Wash. He is missed. Also Action Don, who died around this time of yr. in 19921 (Oops!) heroin o. d. Founder of The Action Swingers, a subsidiary of The East Hollywood/Silver Lake Barbeque Association, which he also founded. A real Swinger, as in "ring-a-ding-ding" stylee, not lame-ass bourgeois wife swapping. Also sorely missed. And Kristen, the sister of fellow Silver Lake Bachelor's Club (not gay ourselves, but gay-friendly) member Mr. Mike, in an automobile accident in Montana just after Action Don. Met her but once, she died much too young. Sheesh, if you're a friend or relative or relative of a friend of Just Another Blog, beware the mo. of Feb.! Happy trails also to Buddy Miles. Our peripheral connection to him is that we saw him play at the late, sort of lamented Starwood, formerly at the corner of Santa Monica & Crescent Heights in WeHo one night in October 1976 or 7, on a tab from KGFJ 1260 radio, leading to more double Wild Turkeys than we can remember, which lead to further high-jinks w/ the daughter of a cast member of The Addams Family. Discretion kicks in here.

Will Not Be Missed, Ever

Oil heir & Catholic Falangist William F. Buckley Jr. (b. 1925, d. not a moment too soon) is now colder than a landlord's heart. Get the hot poop from the horse's ass, where all the drooling loonies (Jonah G.), cokeheads (Larry Kudlow), wingnut welfare grant-givers (The Heritage Foundation), Canadian crackpots (Mark Steyn), newspapers owned by dangerous cult-leaders (The Washington Times) & just plain dipshits (House Republican Leader John Boehner) chime in. And thanks to clif of Outside the Tent for providing an item about G. W(orst) Bush & his party for WFB (Whatta Fucking Buffoon?) to celebrate the 50th anniv. of Nazional Revue, w/ some wonderful links to some of NR's finer moments in the civil rights for "crazed Negroes" struggle. Personal Note: Your Editor met Mr. Buckley once, when we were seven or eight yrs. old & our parents (now both dead for their crimes) hosted a cocktail reception for "Bill" before or after a speech he gave somewhere in the Stanford University area (maybe even at the Hoover Institution). Whatever.

Are The Fucking Oscars™© Over Yet?

Finally, once & for all, we hope. They are for us. Lowest telebision rating ever, or something. The rightwing radio ranters were all over the lack of patriotism, no awards being given to Americans (well, not many) how wonderful movies were when the Hays Code was still in force, etc. Michael (the Savage) Weiner referred to the Coen Bros. as "the so-called Coen Bros." We've no idea what he meant by that. Aren't they brothers? Then he blamed islamo-fascist-jihad-terrorism on Hollywood, specifically denying that U. S. foreign policy was more than a tiny part of it, & saying that U. S. support for Israel was completely different. Now we can stop w/ all this crap, right?

There'll Always Be An England

One of the things Just Another Blog™ most regrets about being merely depressed, rather than a full-blown psychotic maniac, is the chance to act like this:

Retired English soccer star Paul Gascoigne was detained under the Mental Health Act after a series of bizarre incidents at a London hotel, according to London's Daily Mirror newspaper. The paper reported that Gascoigne "was almost permanently drunk, set off a fire alarm, spent hours gambling with staff and wandered around clutching plastic battery-operated parrots, during his two-week stay. "There were also reports he would order raw liver from room service -- and answer his door stark naked," the paper reported. A British tabloid, the Sun, followed up with a report that Gascoigne had recently checked into a rehabilitation center to help cure an addiction to Red Bull energy drink. It said he had been drinking 50 cans every day.

Sadly, we haven't the energy or desire to bother w/ any of that. Not that we'd eat even cooked liver. (Stay away from organ meats, folks. Eating a liver is like smoking a cigarette filter, f'r crissakes.) Or drink Red Bull™, let alone fifty a fucking day!! What the hell? Where's our battery-operated parrot, damnit? From the L. A. Times, but we'll bet if you searched the Daily Mail or The Sun there may be more details.

We Couldn't Have Put It Much Better Ourself, So We Didn't Bother

A liberal fascist from Australia (The nerve of these furriners, this is the only country w/ the right to tell others how to live!) weighs in on local gang activity:

I read with amazement your lead article on gangster shootouts on the streets of L.A. Please understand why the rest of the world assumes your society is utterly beyond redemption. The thought of America having the moral authority to lecture anyone is preposterous. In Australia, we had the worst mass civilian shooting ever. Our former prime minister set about banning ownership of anything but a single-shot rifle. The state governments fell into line. It is surely time for any sane American to demand your government do likewise. I won't hold my breath, however. Paul Murphy Sydney, Australia

Emphasis ours.

Ooops!! (Continued)

We insincerely apologize to pathetic nationalist tool Andrew Klavan, whose Oscar™ fantasies we mocked recently. When we made this snide post script:

P. S.: What happened to the eye patch you used to sport in the author photos on your book covers, Andy? We were looking forward to calling you a one-eyed freak. Turns out you're merely a garden-variety freak.

we were confusing Mr. Klavan w/ one Andrew Vachss, who writes real books (well, crime fiction, or mysteries, or however you want to classify it).

CONTINUED (25 February 2008 @ 1011): Time constraints yesterday prohibited us from finishing our abject apology. Here's the rest. This part:

If you've not heard of Mr. Klavern(sorry)Klavan before, he's one of those "That was despicable, let's look at it again" crime authors who doth protest the atrocities they delineate a bit too much.

was in reference to some of Mr. Vachss' work, as determined from the covers of his books during our tenure as a book shelver at Borders Books Music Video and a Cafe™. (Those who are concerned about the pay & treatment of working people will not patronize that chain, by the way.) Excuse the living hell out of us for not being able to tell the difference between Andrews.

In Which We Tear Some Candidates Some New Ones

While hoping that crazed baby-killers from our Iraq adventure in adventurism return soon to kill many of those in whose name murder has been committed (previous item) we note from someone in the NYT a certain amount of bloodlust (The sissified bloodlust of elitist pigs, who'll never come close to defending themselves, surrounded as they are by Secret Service agents & other "security" bullies who tote guns for them.) on the part of those who've chosen themselves to lead not only This Great Nation of Ours™ but all of the Free (Oh, the irony!) World. To wit:

“I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in heaven, and I can’t wait.” — Mike Huckabee “I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life.” — Mitt Romney “I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints if you will.” — Mitt Romney, amending the record once it was pointed out that he had never had a hunting license. “Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard.” — John McCain “My father taught me to shoot 100 years ago.” — Hillary Clinton

We can't wait for Huckleberry to get to heavendie like a stuck pig either. He's so fucking stupid he wants the Constitution to comply w/the ramblings of sun-baked, desert-wandering Hebrews from six-thousand years ago, so it can only be a matter of time until he trips over a fence, or his own untied hunting boot, & blows his head off w/ the shotgun whose safety he'd forgotten to check. Yeesh, whatta maroon! And Madman McCain, the coward who committed murder from the skies, is willing to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," but not to put his feet on the ground & point a weapon at another human being, despite his advice to the doubtless middle-class homeowner in the above quote. By the way, Mr. Senile, it's "You kids get off my lawn!" not "You Guatemalans get off my yard!" The sentiment is the same though: Private Property, Gun Rights, Anglos Only. Romney was always a joke, Sen. Clinton is a pandering pile of political putridity, & Sen. Obama seems to have been rendered hopeless & unable to change anything, as you'll note if you bother to click t0 & read the Gail Collins piece.

Treason? What About It? We Didn't Ask to Be Born in This Country of Thieving, Lying Murderers, & We Hold No Allegiance to It or Any Other!!

Senator Babs sends us a whiny e-mail about American service people killing themselves (instead of babies) for a refreshing change.

Dear Friend: Like most Americans, I have been both saddened and angered to hear of the substantial increases in reported suicides and attempted suicides of members of our military and veterans. At a time when we are asking so much of the members of our military, I believe that we must also be giving them the support that they need while deployed and after they return home. I am please [sic] to provide you with the text of my letter to General George W. Casey, Jr., Chief of Staff of the United States Army, regarding this matter. You can count on me to take every measure on behalf of our military. Sincerely, Barbara Boxer United States Senator

Frankly, what can one expect from people stupid enough to volunteer to "protect" a nation that won't even provide better jobs for its citizens than killing foreign babies to insure obscene oil company profits? P. S.: Why just Gen. Casey? Is it just punk-ass soldiers offing themselves? One would think more of those psycho jarheads would be taking matters into their own hands. Maybe Marines are just "man" enough to keep it in until they return Stateside, & then they'll take it out on a deserving civilian population. (Americans, not Iraqis.)