Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The In-Box

From
we are in receipt of this,
and are we fascinated. What wonderful new ideas does Jim have for us? Could they be something that the Senator & his Congressional colleagues could have a flunky turn into legislation & thereby save America from itself? (And if so, shouldn't the flunkies be typing that legislation, rather than this bulk-purchase boilerplate that DeMint will stick his name on & flog to the sort of marks who get e-mail from REDSTATE.com Marketplace?)

Well, here is the solution to all that ails us:
DeMint's newest book, NOW OR NEVER will help voters choose the right candidates at every level of government, especially the president. Few people have more credibility than DeMint when it comes to selecting and electing the best conservative candidates.

Senator DeMint will remind readers how citizen activism, Tea Parties and rallies resulted in a shift of power from Washington back into the hands of the American people. The Washington establishment was stunned by an upheaval from voters that resulted in the election of a new breed of representatives. But the 2010 election only slowed the rampage of government spending and debt. America remains on the verge of financial and cultural collapse.
Vote Republican! (And you might as well let credible endorser DeMint pick for you.) How disappointing. It's certainly no permanent base on the moon as far as big ideas go. Maybe there's something in it about poorhouses & debtor's prisons.

Could there be political & ecomonic favors the cheese-eating surrender monkeys at Hachette Book Group hope he'll do for them in exchange for their publishing this rot? (Hell, they might even have given him an advance. I'd love to know if Hachette makes any money on the deal.) One would certainly expect the great patriot that we know Senator DeMint to be to publish American.

Also at Whiskey Fire.

Dep't. Of Entropy

January's over & done w/, winter festivities are a fading memory already. Damn. It'll be spring & the sap will be flowing before you know it.

Captcha Report

Last Night's Entrée

Shit on a shingle, Stouffer's® style.
Not as bad as it looks, but we can't believe they're still making this crap & markets are still selling it, yet one can't find Stouffer's® Welsh Rarebit anywhere.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Lucky Friday The 13th

ICYMI. (We did.)
Yes, the Matthew Vadum seen here grimacing next to rat-eating sociopath G. Gordon Liddy:
So, what did he have to say?
The pot projecting on the kettle, apparently. And we are highly amused that Mr. Vadum is represented by an empty white box.

Better Late Than Never ...

... but never better late: Slate of the Washington War Crimes Post discovers that Spielberg is a pathetic hack, while noting that even the Academy®©™ has snubbed him.

P.S. to the author ("Bill Wyman is the former arts editor of NPR and Salon." There's an admission of middle-of-the-road horseshit.): Try calling yourself William Wyman, to eliminate confusion. Never again type the non-word "sameyness:"
This big-picture repetitiveness is paralleled by Spielberg’s little touches, which are presented with a similar sameyness.
And then just go fuck yourself & your mother, 'cause you're as big & lame a hack as Spielberg. (But a fuck of a lot poorer.)

P.P.S. (for fun): Spot the errors in this paragraph:
1941 was an attempt to pull off an It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-style comic panoply, complete with some elaborate fight and dance scenes, all set against a panorama of life in Los Angles when paranoia about a potential Japanese attack supposedly gripped the city. Watching it today is like watching a comedian flop on stage. There’s a lot of energy, and increasingly desperate moves, but no one laughs.
Fucking idiot.

Pinko ComSymp Attacks Canada

And who can blame him?
What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to [sic] if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largestmass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.

Professor 2012!

Meanwhile, just under Sullivan's nose at The Daily Beast, perhaps the reason for his crush on Gingrich.
It’s one thing for Newt, who gave his think-tank life a chatty frat aura during his Rose interview, to drink the AEI, Hoover, DPB, Present Danger, Liberation committee, Cheney/Rummy, Centcom, War College, Chalabi Kool-Aid. It’s quite another to take it intravenously in both arms until bloated.

What is most amazing about the national press corps is that we can have 19 debates and not hear a single memorable question about the war that is America’s greatest international debacle since Vietnam, with no moderator even wondering if Newt’s role as at least a junior planner schmoozing away at Centcom and in the AEI home office of its architects, merits questioning. Everyone agreed in 2008 that Hillary’s war vote and Obama’s early opposition helped decide that race; yet Newt’s enlistment in the Cheney/Rummy army that planned and boosted it goes unmentioned (as does Rick Santorum’s vote for it).
Doesn't amaze us in the least in this nation of short memories & chicken-shit assholes. Not in the least.

On the other hand (& this is easy to type, because it won't happen) we'd welcome a Gingrich presidency. Can't think of a better way to reveal the absolute ick that is conservatism & Republicanism to the great American unwashed & unlettered. Sometimes you just have to give a child (or a nation of sheep) a good beating to get the message across, & New Ton Lee Roy Ging Rich is just the man to beat some sense into America.*

Really. Imagine Professor New Ton as Prez. (Being a "professor:" Bad if you are a Negro &/or Democrat, yet somehow great stuff if you're Perfesser Glenn Reynolds or Gingrich. Example:
Gingrich offered an historical endorsement of pre-emptive war, describing it almost as an American habit, and said he was “fairly involved” in the Iraq attack, calling himself “the longest-serving teacher in the military” with “21 years of teaching brigadier and major generals” at the National War College. “I talk to people,” he explained.
We all know people who "talk to people." Said talkers are usually on public transit or in parks delivering deranged monologues to people who wish the talker would just go the fuck away. Imagine four yrs. of that.)
*One should, of course, be wary of one's desires. Bush the Lesser's reign from terror didn't seem to teach the undifferentiated tissue that is America much. We're probably beyond all hope.

A Moment W/ Jimbo

Powerful, yet ludicrous.

"Repulsive, Nasty and Delusional ..."

Is Sullivan talking about himself? One would think so, but ...
Here's the weird thing. I find myself rooting for Gingrich now, one of the most repulsive, nasty and delusional men in American public life. This primary season - when it hasn't eaten deep into my soul - has driven me to all sorts of strange emotions. There were a few nanoseconds when I even wanted Santorum to rally after Iowa. That's a horse race for you, I guess.
You have no soul, Sullivan, but we'll grant that all your emotions are very strange indeed. And there's nothing "weird" about it: This is the kind of crap to be expected from a sick fuck like Sullivan. Any sane country would have instructed him to "march right back on that plane, mister," the moment his onion-head appeared on the jetway. Close these porous borders, Mr. Obama!

Anorexia Up-Date (Final G-D Version)

We resolved (perhaps not here in text & all, but to ourself) never to post pix of food other than the revolting crap, raw meat & whatnot we prepare for ourself to eat, but this shallow, surface distraction is the exception. (Though really, who in hell cares what it looks like, short of actual maggots?) Anyway, this display was not for distraction; it was eminently edible, & we edibled it all.
Great, not even focused. That'll teach us to type something before a close examination of the subject.
Musical reinforcement of the message:UPDATE 2045 PST: Gee-ziz, this whole item is a complete cock-up! Here's the more specific musical item we'd planned to use until a shiny object or something distracted us:(You need only hear the first few seconds.)

The Cycle Of Death & Capitalism

Monday again, already? Oh, how we empathize w/ the little people & their "careers." Slave for wages as they will, their eventual reward is service as worm food.At least we won't have wasted the best yrs. of our life (Oops, too late!) slaving for a minuscule wage & paying debt to our masters.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Murder Is Your Middle Name

But at what cost to ourselves and the rest of the world? We’ve become the suppliers of weaponry to the planet’s hotspots. And those weapons deliveries (and the training and support missions that go with them) tend to make those spots hotter still—as in hot lead.

As a country, we seem to have a teenager’s fascination with military hardware, an addiction that’s driving us to bust our own national budgetary allowance. At the same time, we sell weapons the way teenage punks sell fireworks to younger kids: for profit and with little regard for how they might be used.
The blood is on your hands, Americans! Anything that happens to you is your fault, & we'll be laughing hard (If we aren't on the receiving end of the righteous justice of the oppressed.) when the chickens come home to roost.

Kentucky Fried Architecture

OK, we never intended this to be a photo log, but, political discourse being what it is, we are more & more convinced that direct & violent action is the only solution. (And population reduction. We'll start w/ you!) And as we're just too effing apathetic, slothful, yada to take any direct action, it's pix.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Friday, January 27, 2012

Murder In Eagle Rock!!

Kill kill kill kill kill!
I got a rage to live!
— Gregg Turner

More songs about you lying on the floor in a puddle of (your own) blood will be sung by some dude
Saturday, January 28, at 8 p.m. at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, in his segment of “Murder Music: An Evening of Songs About Killing.”

He will be joined by singer/songwriters David Serby, David Poe, Brian Wright, Phil Krohnengold, Carla Werner, Amy Raasch, Vivek Maddala, Edward Tree and Sara Lov, who will each be performing two songs in front of projections of classic Los Angeles crime scenes—visual homage to the evening’s macabre theme.

“You can see why I would be hosting an evening of murder music,” Saunders says, laughing, to Patch. But he underscores a more compelling thematic subtext: “Murder ballads are the way we have of experiencing the most extreme emotions possible without killing somebody.”
NB: To be completely clear (for once) Gregg Turner is not the singer in question, who is named Saunders but no relation that we know of to Turner's one-time associate in the Angry Samoans, Mental Mike Saunders, either.

Afternoon Plans

Off to L.A.'s The Grove, where we will be throwing paving stones at this Apple Store. (We do what we can.)
Lots of glass.
Nothing but, really.
You don't suppose those drones in the blue shirts live in dormitories, do you? Or the bloated pig consumers?

Does this Jobs guy have a grave we could desecrate? (Pissing doesn't seem enough: It's shit-smearing time!)

Meanwhile, On Planet Earth ...

Drinking & Driving: Richard Roberts.

Drinking & Hosting: Pat Sajak.

Sucking, Biting, Chewing, Blowing, &/or Eating: Everybody & everything else.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Strictly Roots Musical Interlude

Somewhat-less-rootsy:Unless the differences are a result of YouTubery &/or a crummy source.

Embarrassing Items Of The Day

TMZ:
Demi Moore's friend called paramedics Monday night after the actress inhaled a dangerous amount of nitrous oxide ... TMZ has learned.

Sources tell TMZ ... one of Demi's friends who was at her home told emergency workers Demi was doing whip-its. A whip-it is a street name for a type of nitrous oxide inhalant.

The friend said she became upset when Demi had a reaction to a whip-it and lapsed into semi-consciousness.
TP:
GOP contender Newt Gingrich made a bold pledge to establish a permanent U.S. base on the moon “by the end of my second term.” He further promised that if he becomes president, America will get a man to Mars “in a remarkably short time.” A budget-conscious President Obama ended the program for a lunar colony and moon trip after NASA reported it didn’t have the money for any part of the plan, “and even if it were to get a budget infusion, the schedule was unworkable.” Gingrich rebutted the charge that he is “grandiose” by comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, the Wright Brothers and John F. Kennedy. ThinkProgress has previously reported on Gingrich’s curious space fetish, which has included an idea for a “mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many full moons” for nighttime driving.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Why We Hate Part II

The Queen of Versailles
RTEP:
The hook for the movie and the source of the title is Jackie and David’s thwarted ambitions to build the largest house in America, modeled after Versailles and based on a sketch David drew on a private plane on the way to Las Vegas. The design is a monument to bad taste, as are the hilariously tacky portraits that litter the house they’re still living in, of Jackie as a Greek goddess and David as a Roman warrior.

But it’s also a testament to waste. Rather than using any room for multiple purposes, Jackie and David tacked ten kitchens onto their monstrosity so they can have a sushi bar as well as other specialized cooking spaces. The house has a wing for their children, a place Jackie plans to “visit” in one of the unintentionally callous things she regularly says about her brood. The basement is stacked with $5 million worth of Chinese marble, and Jackie has a warehouse full of decor she plans to use in it, from French furniture to giant replicas of Faberge eggs. Those piles of junk, and scenes of a garage full of unused bicycles for their children, or post-recession Jackie being coaxed into spending less for Christmas by her nannies and still walking out of Walmart with three sets of the game Operation (among other things) have blown past abundance or fulfillment straight to gorged. Nothing about the way the Siegels live their lives looks particularly desirable, from the house littered with dog shit to Jackie’s bed, plumped with seven layers of pillows.
Context & photo source & the like. Oh, let's double the ick factor, too:
Siegel, a 74-year-old Florida billionaire, and his 43-year-old third wife, Jackie
Think they might be big Gingrich supporters?

Amateur Campaign Strategist
"Really Big Ideas" Wrap-Up

Some fucking doofusinane drone at the Washington Examiner:
The longer this farce goes on, the more it helps President Obama’s reelection chances. Mitt Romney is either going to have to step up his game and embrace some real big ideas, like running on Rep. Paul Ryan’s, R-Wis., budget, or another conservative will have to enter the race.
Boy, that's a terrible idea. Wouldn't do that, no sirree. Uh, while you're at it, please don't throw us in that briar patch, either.

America's School Funding &
Infrastructure Renewal On Parade

Wave good-bye to our nation's future.From DefenseTech, where it's noted that many have seen this train, & some of them have recorded it & thrown it on the Internet. Don't think you can get away w/ this sort of thing in the new media era, Big Gov't.!

Hugh Hewitt Projects

The South Carolina electorate didn’t vote for a person or a platform; they voted for a personality — the fiery, combative, MSM-hating Newt. They want the GOP nominee to charge at the president, throw around the term Alinksyite, push back at John King and Juan Williams, and shout out the absurdity of Barack Obama as president and the destructiveness of his combination of epic incompetence and awful ideology.
Just a cotton-pickin' minute here: Is Hewitt implying that Gingrich is not the dictionary definition of epic incompetence & awful ideology? (Frankly, we'd be a little hard-pressed to find the President's ideology at all.)

No, Hugh thinks we need to hear all about the usual:
[T]he absolutely awful record of a failed president, about how the elite media cleared his path in 2008 and has protected him since, and how Barack Obama’s contempt for the rule of law is not only startling but a source of great worry.
When we hear the phrase "contempt for the rule of law" we reach for our Google & use biased facts & direct quotation to demonstrate how far Mr. Hewitt has projected:
The Republican contender told a forum of anti-abortion activists ahead of South Carolina's primary election that as president he would ignore supreme court rulings he regards as legally flawed. He implied that would also extend to the 1973 decision, Roe vs Wade, legalising abortion.

"If the court makes a fundamentally wrong decision, the president can in fact ignore it," said Gingrich to cheers.

The Republican contender, who has made no secret of his disdain for the judiciary, said that as president he would expect to have repeated showdowns with the supreme court. He said the court would lose because it is the least powerful and least accountable arm of government.
Gingrich 2012: "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!" Newt'll be impeachable from the moment he puts his grubby hand on a Bible & swears to uphold the Constitution.

And what does strategist Hewitt suggest? It's a simple strategy, & nothing new. Articulate the fear:
Center-right voters fear for the Republic and know their fear is legitimate. “Independents” also feel that fear, but don’t know what it is, or express it as just worry over the economy. The deep sources of that fear have to be articulated, and forcefully.
We're not absolutely sure that's a racial dog-whistle, but what are we supposed to believe the deep, beyond-the-economy sources of this legitimate, felt, yet unknown fear are? Surely not Rockefeller Republican Obama, or any actions the Congress might allow him to take. Perhaps Hewitt's center-right voter fears for the Republic because he or she is among the GOP voters who believe that Obama is Muslim, & once independents are fully informed the Republic will be saved from whatever's scaring us this wk.

The kicker? After all that slurping, Hugh doesn't think Gingrich is the man for the job. Poor little Rick Santorum should be leading the charge, because, well ... they keep picking on him, & it wasn't fair how he got his ass kicked in 2006 &, & ...
The Palmetto State was unfair to Rick Santorum, as was the MSM throughout the fall, the Iowa GOP on the night of the caucuses, and CNN’s John King on Thursday night, when the first question should have been about Iran and should have gone to the former Pennsylvania senator.* Santorum may soldier on, but whether he does or not, everyone has to respect the grace with which he has accepted a series of unfair turns dating back to 2006 when a last name in a suit swept him aside because that legacy candidate could surf a flood. Santorum is a good and very able public servant, and though he faces a very uphill battle in Florida, he’s not had much help from anyone to date, and he doesn’t need anyone’s advice on how to run that race.
In our humble opinion, if the result of one's lastmost recent electoral effort (Against a named suit legacy candidate!) looked like this,
In the November 7, 2006 election, Santorum lost by over 700,000 votes, receiving 41.3 percent of the vote to Casey's 58.7 percent, the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent senator since 1980 and the largest losing margin for an incumbent Republican senator ever.
one might need someone's (Anyone's. Please!) advice on how to run a race. And why is Poor Richard Santorum getting so little help? Because he's a creepy loser?
Incredibly the GOP next turns its fate over to NBC on Monday night. Advice to Mitt and Rick: Don’t copy Newt, but understand that he won in South Carolina because he absolutely refuses to let the MSM set the agenda, which is the president’s agenda.
Please. Just one actual example of this unified agenda? Or even the actual "agenda." (Surely it's written down somewhere, & one of Hewitt's many sources can dig it up for him.)

You may also be interested in: Dr. Freud, to the Radio Ward Please
*Why, might we ask?

Harlan Ellison & Patton Oswalt

Let's Review

In the three wks. of the new yr., three Republican electoral processes: Two elections & a caucus held in a state w/ an estimated 3,000,000 & change, 95%+ honky population that holds caucuses as early as possible every leap yr. to scam a few million dollars from campaign war chests & reporters' corporate expense accounts. (Obligatory yada.) Iowa's caucuses are the first step in a Byzantine procedure which renders them electorally meaningless:
Delegates from the precinct caucuses go on to the county conventions, which choose delegates to the district conventions, which in turn selects delegates to the Iowa State Convention. Thus, it is the Republican Iowa State Convention, not the precinct caucuses, which selects the ultimate delegates from Iowa to the Republican National Convention. All delegates are officially unbound from the results of the precinct caucus, although media organizations either estimate delegate numbers by estimating county convention results or simply divide them proportionally.
And remember that the parties themselves, not the State of Iowa, conduct these caucuses. So Romney's eight-vote caucus "victory" was later discovered to be a Santorun "victory" by 34 votes, & records from eight precincts had been "lost" & couldn't be found or used. Bear that in mind the next time a Republican drags out the voter fraud horse & starts beating it. (This is encouraging; chatter about not paying any attention to Iowa is already up, & these are the solidest reasons to do so yet.)

(Recapping that was so Iowa-dull we lost our train of thought ... Hang on, it's coming back. Something about Florida. That's it. But we're getting ahead of ourself.)

Once past the fraud & the essential tie (Which will nonetheless be remembered as a Romney "win," at least as long as anything is remembered now.) of Iowa, on to New Hampshire (Pop. 1,300,000+not much, & not quite as white as Iowa.) where Willard Mitt won but not by as much as he should have, considering his summer vacation house is right there in the Granite State; this round's first runner-up was Dr. Ron Paul, not surprising in the "Live Free or Die" state.

Then South Carolina (Unofficial motto "Too small to be a republic, too large to be an asylum.") where Gingrich somewhat unsurprisingly parlayed his debateforum performances/red meat toss exhibitions prior to the election to victory in the state that could be said to have invented red meat politics.

The point being that despite all the yammering, few delegates have been selected from these three backwaters & the first primary in a large & not so homogeneously populated state (Granted, we saw a headline somewhere claiming that Florida is South Carolina w/ Cuban-Americans. No question there be loons.) is still 10 days off, meaning everything typed & blathered to this point has been even more meaningless & futile than the ordinary hideous emptiness of human existence. Is it time to start paying attention? We ask because we've marginally better things to do than pay attention if none of the horse race crap from this wk.'s go-round is going to make any difference.

(We slave over a hot keyboard for hrs. writing a pseudo think piece & that's the best ending we can come up w/? Back to photos.)

Sunday, January 22, 2012

K.C. & Rain

Boston's Best was no picnic, but we shudder to think which Bay Area musical figure may be called upon to sing.

Oh. A real singer. A vocalist, certainly. At least the Frisco crowd isn't booing the LampoonAnthem, even if they're making noise.

Kicking Game

Better the Belichick Cheaters than the Lewis Killers to represent the AFC & hold the Lamar Hunt trophy, we suppose.

Asshole Of The Day, So Far

Go fuck yourself, your mother, & the horse on which you rode in, Cagle. No more free exposure for you around here. Hell, you should probably be paying us for running your sorry drivel in the first place.

American History

Can't embed it & just as well, it's as graphic as it gets: A link to PA State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer offing himself at a news conference 25 yrs. ago today. If only Nixon had taken this approach when he announced the press "wouldn't have him to kick around any more."

Old Peoples' Ears

Thought the announcer said we were going to hear the "National Lampoon" sung. Then the wretched Steven Tyler was hauled out to squeak & rasp it. A rendition like that should be considered an act of treason.

Elitism Report

My Dem friend Rich Yeselson asks: "Can you imagine if Barack Obama mentioned that he'd been president of the Harvard Law Review as often as Newt Gingrich reminds us that he taught history at West Georgia College?"

A Big "If"

Great American Ninny Jennifer Rubin:
If conservatism becomes a movement of anti-media bashing and hyperbolic rhetoric, it will cease to be a force in American politics. And if it is led by an egomaniac whose personal advancement takes precedence over any principle, the GOP will be (correctly) mocked.
"If?" It's not even a question of when. We can only assume that Ms. Rubin is a sort of Helen Keller figure, unable to perceive what's been occurring around her.

OK, Wait ...

Is Coach Joe Paterno of Happy Valley dead for sure? There were discounted rumors yesterday, & we'd hate to jump the gun.

Sermon Parts I, II, III & IV

Murder At The Zoo

Is this is what Medicare will become, shape up in a mo. or it's check-out time?
The sole hippopotamus at the Los Angeles Zoo was euthanized Friday after being ill with an unknown ailment for a month and not responding to treatment, zoo officials said.

Zookeepers noticed in December that the 28-year-old hippopotamus, Jabba, had a decreased appetite, abnormal bloating and was not responding to medication, zoo spokesman Jason Jacobs told City News Service. The hippo was under close veterinary care, but his condition rapidly worsened in the last few days.

The zoo's staff made the "difficult decision" to euthanize Jabba, according to a statement released by the zoo.

Jabba had been at the zoo since 2009. Before that, he lived at the San Diego Zoo for several years, where he sired several calves.
Crikey, we've had decreased appetite, been abnormally bloated & haven't responded to medication for yrs. That's no call to send us to the happy hunting ground.

Late Nite Music Bite

Saturday, January 21, 2012

"Manifestations Of Western Culture"

By Associated Press, Published: January 20

TEHRAN, Iran — Police have closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbie dolls in Iran, part of a decades-long crackdown against “manifestations of Western culture,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported Friday.

Barbie dolls are sold wearing swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear headscarves in public, and men and women are not allowed to swim together.

A ban on the sale of the Barbies, designed to look like young Western women, was imposed in the mid-1990s. In its latest report, Mehr quoted an unidentified police official as saying authorities confiscated the dolls from Tehran stores in a “new phase” of the campaign.

In 1996, a government-backed children’s agency called Barbie a “Trojan horse,” sneaking in Western influences such as makeup and revealing clothes.

Authorities started confiscating the dolls from stores in 2002, denouncing what they called the toys’ un-Islamic characteristics. The campaign was eventually dropped.

Iran that year also introduced its own dolls — twins Dara and Sara, designed to promote traditional values with modest clothing and pro-family values — but those proved unable to stem the Barbie tide.

Despite bans on many Western books, movies, satellite TV channels, music, haircuts and fashion, young people maintain their interest in that culture.

Iran’s state TV channels broadcast several Western and Hollywood films every week. Islamists have repeatedly tried to fight what they see as a cultural “invasion” since 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted a pro-Western monarchy.

Since then, importing Western toys has been discouraged by the regime.

In 2008, the Iranian judiciary warned against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences and “danger” of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys. Even so, Iranian markets have been full of them. One-third of Iran’s population of 75 million is under 15.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Not that we (necessarily) disagree w/ the mullahs in their righteous stance against Western you-name-it. Mostly we needed an excuse for these shots of a Barbie-on-a-Harley Hallmark (we assume) ornament we spotted on a Yule tree somewhere.

Etta!

Stole from Salon. (Can't be arsed to embed the others.)

Friday, January 20, 2012

Johnny Otis Show

Good piece on Johnny Otis by Erin Aubry Kaplan. Good excuse to run more of Johnny's music,'though none of the really wailing shit seems to have reached YouTube.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Steak Tartare

The Naked Dinner
It is murder, y'know.

Street, Sign, Skulls

"Whore Of Babylon!"

Would've titled it "Slut-Shaming," but we doubt if the current Mrs. Gingrich has any shame.
"Dobson first talked about how great Santorum is," recalled one source, who had first-hand knowledge of Dobson's comment. "[He said,] 'I want to tell you that I've gotten to know Karen [Santorum] and she is just lovely. She set aside two professional careers to raise these seven children. She would make a fabulous first lady role model.* And Newt Gingrich's wife, she was a mistress for eight years."
Karen Santorum (left) and Callista Gingrich (AP)
Another source confirmed the account, and said Dobson concluded the sentiment about Callista Gingrich with, "Who do you want as your first lady?"

"It was like a chill [set into] the room," said one source. Several people were offended by the comment, said another source, adding that it was noted among some participants that Callista Gingrich had only been married once.
This Good Christian Bitch, meanwhile, has little shame herself. Wonder how many glass walls she has?
Yet while Dobson’s candidate won the group’s endorsement, it’s Gingrich who’s gaining steam this week.  Some evangelicals seem surprised. Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance endorsed Santorum early on, and she told the New Yorker’s Ariel Levy she expected other evangelical women to fall in line. But many haven’t.

“Initially, my reaction to Newt Gingrich and to Callista is that the third wife doesn’t get to be the First Lady,” Nance said. “I came at it completely believing that evangelical women would not even consider him, and I’ve been surprised by their willingness to listen and forgive. I attended an event he had here with evangelicals, and there were some pretty tough questions. The most interesting thing to me was not the answers but how he handled them. The old Newt that I knew would not have handled it very well, but this Newt did. He really tried to divine what was at the heart of the question and didn’t come across as rude or arrogant.”

But Nance held a hard line nonetheless, “We cannot allow Newt Gingrich or anyone else’s moral failure to be used as an excuse by others for their own wrongdoing and saying ‘Hey, I can still be President!’”

I think Gingrich’s rise has less to do with evangelical women forgiving him than with his pitch-perfect race-baiting, especially in Monday night’s debate. On Wednesday, a South Carolina voter praised Gingrich’s performance, telling him, “I would like to thank you for putting Mr. Juan Williams in his place.”
Sexism from a "concerned woman" & race-baiting. Go Newt!

(Ab-so-fugging-lutely not cross-posted at Whiskey Fire.)

*Cf., as they type.

Dep't. Of Amplification

Traxx, the other, open restaurant at Union Station isn't doing so well either.
Traxx bar 
Easy to get that Health Dep't. "A" IF YOU AREN'T USING THE KITCHEN!
Could it be the stupid name?

TMI

It's as if everyone is shouting in our eyes 24/7. Stop it!
You know who else's color scheme was red, white & black?
Simply desperate for happiness.
Don't make us stop you. You won't like that.

The Dregs

So Rick Perry has been run out of town, leaving the Party of Greed & Fear w/ whom, exactly?

Let's recrap [sic]: Presumptive nominee Willard Mittens Romney, Newton Leroy Gingrich, Rick Santorum (Who has so suddenly & completely dipped below the radar that we're having trouble finding a recent absurd or lying quote from him.) & somebody's grampa who wandered into the hall from the old folks' rookery next door & started talking about how the "niggers" were going to riot for white women & other white property & that touching a "queer" or using his bathroom will give you AIDS.

If any of these four fuckfaces were to be elected to the American Presidency 10 mos. from now, it would confirm our carefully researched thesis that democracy (&, therefore, your entire species) is a huge & pathetic failure & we'd consider ourself perfectly justified in getting out the key & starting the Doomsday Machine.

TCB III: Queen Amy

La Brea Lenin

The Gao Brothers' "Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head," now visible.