Sunday, April 29, 2012

More Reptilian Action

The flightless four-door model.

Lizard Lounging

Moments ago:

Kenny Burrell's Giant Head

LACMA Free* Jazz Series, 27 April 2012.
*To be clear, it's not that they were wailin' Ornette Coleman or Clifford Thornton (Duke Ellington centenary deal, actually.) but that there was no admission or cover charge.

Down The Hatch W/o A Scratch

Riot Wrap-Up

It was literally 20 yrs. ago today ...
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots
Military Operations in Los Angeles, 1992
by
Major General (Ret.) James D. Delk
"This Winchell's shall not fall."

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Cupcakes On The Move

Upcoming Personal Appearance

We don't like to give our fans much notice as to where we may be too long in advance (for various reasons we won't get into right now) but today you might see us here. The truly lazy, or those keeping their carbon footprint low, may watch from home. (If you do see us, don't fucking bother us: We don't give autographs. Thank you.)

Friday, April 27, 2012

Nihilist's Corner

Cut world population and redistribute resources, expert urges

Nuclear disaster or plague likely unless population shrinks and natural resources are reassigned to poor, says Prof Paul Ehrlich
Read & weep. Once you've recovered your strength, kill yourself before it's too late.

These Are Our Neighbors

More imagery.

History Lesson

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Sick Fun

Exploding Head Syndrome: Do you have it? We do! How cool is that? It's not, as some might think, the result of cognitive dissonance, but, as w/ so many syndromes, it's all in the mind, baby:

Exploding head syndrome (a.k.a. — oh, that’s the actual name?)

Well, no, I won’t suggest it. That was just a cheap literary ploy since EHS has nothing to do with Devil’s grip — or physical afflictions of any kind, for that matter. In fact, out of all the diseases on this list, it’s probably the one you’d be most likely to volunteer to contract just to be able to say you had it. According to the American Sleep Association, “Exploding head syndrome is a rare and relatively undocumented parasomnia event in which the subject experiences a loud bang in their head similar to a bomb exploding, a gun going off, a clash of cymbals or any other form of loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head.” Fortunately, despite having perhaps the most violent name in medicine, “exploding head syndrome is not dangerous” and “has no elements of pain, swelling or any other physical trait associated with it.”
Really. Happens rarely, & only when we are drifting off to sleep (Which is why we seldom remember that it's happened, & therefore haven't been agonizing over it or caring much.) but we remembered/recognized it when we read about it.

Besides all the crap in our mind, can you guess the physiological syndrome we have that affects 18%-35% of the species? We bet you can't. We'll place an even larger bet on your not giving a flying fuck.

Frozen Food Heir Unfrosted

At Salon, a look at Tucker Carlson, which claims he used to be good. Not bloody likely, we say, although it's possible that when Tuck moved from typing to editing/publishing/whatever-it-is-he-does he passed his level of competency, Peter Principle-style.

But ...
There were warning signs, of course. Like every other raging asshole who goes into journalism, Carlson idolized Hunter Thompson (that piece has the classic “I did a lot of really cool drugs once and it was no biggie” anecdote beloved of sad “rebel” libertarian poseurs). He repeated the same stale stereotypes masquerading as clever observations (NPR listeners driving Volvos turn up with some frequency in his writing going back to the 1990s). But what really destroyed Tucker Carlson, respected magazine journalist, was TV. TV exposed him as glib, smug and not nearly as clever as he thought he was. (Maybe it exposed how well edited he’d been for so many years.)
Oh, our theory somewhat confirmed.

Plenty on what a fishwrapper The DC is, of course.

Now, you are saved from reading to the last sentence; some theories about America's aristocracy of merit may be confirmed as well:
And the fact that his full name is Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, and that his brother’s name is Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson.

GRAVE № 6
APPROX. 800
26th APRIL, 1945

While finding the re-run posted one item below in the redesigned YouTube, we were doubly surprised to come across another & more recent ('though not by much) video. We were most surprised it was "private" (Us? Self-censoring?) but we can see why. Surprise #2 was the date in one of the shots. This date in history & all.

Not necessarily Un-SFW. If it's acceptable to show the naked corpses of emaciated Jews, &c., being heaved into piles on the tube, how can your boss bitch about it? Nonetheless:
WARNING: Documentary footage of dead, naked bodies being thrown around.
A (very) rough cut of crap found on the telly, for something we never wrapped up.

It's All About Us!

Not you, or anybody else.

(Or, we could pretend we were adding our 2¢ worth to this item from No More Mister Nice Blog concerning the dignity exhibited by Ronald Reagan during his crime-plagued presidency.) And you may blame Mr. M. there for this opus again; he ran this picture
Well. The wide shot reveals Her Majesty
pimpin' a Mr. T. what, doll?
which set us off (see it move at 1:55):

Maybe Next Time

Needed: Bigger & faster meteors, because the current crop are not cutting it. Stop teasing us w/ the near misses!
An image provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
shows a meteor over Reno, Nevada on April 22, 2012.

Lisa Warren/NASA-JPL via AP
In fairness, this sumbitch was quite close to us on a global scale. So why couldn't it have hit something?

Keeping The Hepness Quotient Up

W/ more obscure music from colored people.

World Of Lies

Digging the new design at SlateSalon (12 hrs. later: Admit it; no one noticed, & few can tell the difference.)? (You do know who else that red, white & black color scheme worked out well for, don't you?) We saw something there we were going to analyze in depth (No we weren't. We maybe were going to skim it.) but what's the fucking point (of anything, ever, really) especially of political discourse, once you're grasped the unchanging truth of the very first paragraph:
The rulebook for conservative punditry is straightforward. Push for a policy. When it turns into a disaster, defend it. When the defense becomes untenable, ignore it. Finally, when something unrelated but positive occurs, take credit for it.
Good for you if, after that, you still give a flying fuck about the specific bullshit referred to in the item. If you do, you're a better citizen then we are. And a masochistic moron.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Remaking

Polished & buffed:

Naked & Exposed

Did you know? We live in a "globally exposed economy." (Exposed like being staked to an anthill in the desert sun.) Well, we do, love it or shove it. Some Limey git informs us:
These risks post a serious threat to growth, through price shocks and inflation. Their political consequences could be more serious still, with some tempted to see a zero sum competition for resources between consumers and between nations. That would be an historic mistake, triggering a spiral away from the cooperation based on agreed rules that is vital for a globally exposed economy like our own, towards a much more dangerous world of fragmentation, competition and greatly enhanced risks of conflict.
Previously (In the same quote, yet.):
...We have left behind an era in which energy, food, water, and other resources have been relatively cheap and plentiful. Rising demand is carrying us into an age of higher and more volatile prices for energy, food and raw materials.
How in hell could anyone vaguely aware of humanity & its sordid history think this facade of "cooperation based on agreed rules that is vital for a globally exposed economy" (Here we are figuratively bent over double laughing or vomiting; hard to tell which.) would continue after necessities become, if not actually scarcer, more expensive? Especially as it is the agreed rules (We've no memory of agreeing to any such rules, by the way.) that allow & encourage rampant speculation, rent-seeking & all the other terminally boring & said-so-many times already (No, the species never learns.) yada/greed that leads to environmental conditions detrimental to human (Mammalian, even?) survival.

Plus: The guy who pulled the quote believes it would be swell if only Republicans could "tell it like it is."
Imagine if we lived in a world where a US Republican Secretary of State could take to the op-ed pages, as UK Foreign Minister and conservative William Hague just has, to tell it like it is.
Where "Telling it like it is" = "Business & profit as usual/Preserve the status quo."

Uh-oh. Played right into their hands. Keeping the younger among us from boiling to death in their own puddles of waste is just a plot to destroy capitalism & its "rules," & to make everyone live in mud huts, because who doesn't like camping, we guess.

The Big Showdown

A favorite from the misty past recently located in the wilds of YouTube.One case where competition may be better than coöperation.

Private Shopping W/ Ann R. Money

From the Society Editor, what Mme. Romney was up to a wk. ago Saturday:
Yes, that was First Lady hopeful Ann Romney on Worth Avenue Saturday, looking very Palm Beach-y in her hot pink tunic and jeans with her shoulder-length blond hair. The only thing missing was the Helga Wagner necklace.

Mitt’s missus spent four hours with Alfred Fiandaca, her old pal from Boston who closed the store for her so she could shop in peace without any worries about paparazzi grabbing a shot of her in the fitting room. Trying on a little something to wear to tonight’s big dinner at Darlene and Jerry Jordan’s house, perhaps? When they’re paying 50k a couple, a lady wants to look good.

The private shopping went well for the wife of the presumptive candidate — c’mon, like that’s not a given by now — but for the customers who had “Stop by Alfred’s” at the top of their Saturday to-do list, well, not so much. They had to wait. Some did, patiently and quietly. Others did, not so patiently and not so quietly.

Finally, Ann strolled out, shopping bags in hand, smiled at the small crowd gathered on the sidewalk, climbed into the big black car waiting at the curb, and drove off.
This may shock some, but we don't believe that people who already live as if they are under Secret Service protection should be elected to political office.

And we know that the Mormons' "Heavenly Father" is a money-grubbing pig-god (It's the All-American religion, you know.) so He wouldn't disapprove of meaningless, empty consumption.

Shirley Story

This is an excuse to relate an honest-to-gawd Hollywood celebrity experience. (W/ which we may have bored the Internets limp at World O' Crap once. Whatever; plenty of Googlewidth to fill here too.)

In the mid-70s, when not consumed w/ Bicentennial Fever, we worked for an outfit that videotaped bands & other show biz lice for various non-broadcast purposes. One gig was shooting a reference tape of a dance bit Ms. MacLaine was doing for a telebision special. This being the mid-'70s, laser beams would be added later so it would look as if she were dancing w/ them or vice versa, & the laser artists (Tee hee.) needed to see what the hell she'd be doing. Grueling work, pointing a camera at a stage & pushing RECORD, but we digress. (Didn't pay shit, either.) After all the hoopla, our employer was on the (Get this, kids, showbiz w/o mobiles!) pay 'phone in the hall, & the phrase "10%" escaped his lips as La Shirley walked by. Perfectly timed, she advised him "10%? If that's an agent, tell him to go fuck himself," & kept on going.

You Lost Us At "After"

Stop us if you've heard this before. (You've probably heard it not merely before but again & again & again & again & again & again. And again. We know we have.) Michael ("Droopy Mustache of Misapprehension") Medved in The Daily Bleat.
After more than 20 years of dominating the national political scene, the narcissistic children of the ‘60s are finally preparing to amble toward retirement, leaving the nation’s highest office to leaders from less polarized and self-righteous* generations. Ironically, the boomers’ last hurrah in the presidential arena will almost certainly come from a starchy straight arrow utterly untouched by weed or Woodstock, rock ‘n’ roll or rebellion.
The "Mitt" device has located a power source & is about to plug in.
If Romney is the last of these narcissistic dinosaurs our long national nightmare of hearing shitheads tell us what shits we are may be over, at least until Vice-President Ryan, in order to preserve the profits of the military-industrial-Congressional complex, has to trim some of the fat (Like hippies deserve welfare in the first place!) from the Social Security & Medicare entitlements the old draft-dodging Woodstock narcissists are leeching from the producer class.
*You can Google it: Medved's picture is in the definition of self-righteous in any dictionary.

Two Dead Guys Enjoying Themselves

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Horses, Horses, Horses, Horses

Today In Newspeak

Holy Crap, Not Community Organizing!

Oh no he hasn't! How dare he?
President Obama's election campaign is recruiting an army of determined community organizers to walk the streets of the nation's cities this summer and autumn in the footsteps of a young Chicago community organizer named Barack Obama.

Recruits would gather other volunteers, register new voters, run phone banks and campaign events and knock on millions of doors to track voters' preferences and encourage supporters of the president's reelection.
We suppose Andrew Malcolm's next exclusive scoop will involve the Obama campaign planning to run advertisements on television later this yr. And keep it under your hat, but it's even been rumored the Prez will, of all things, be addressing the Democratic Convention. Shocking, innit?

DEMON RATS!!!

Just how old is Dana Loesch, anyway?We ask because the graphic above, to which she has proudly affixed her name, displays a maturity (& civility) far beyond anyone claiming to have been born as recently as 1978.

Also amusing are videos from Breitbart's crummy sites that don't re-size when we re-size them. But you get the idea. See it all here. ++lame, sure, but what can you expect from a rotting corpse & those who, denied the sweet release of death, continue to worship the corpse?

Riots + 20

Video courtesy of ³²®©. YouTube comment courtesy of an inane drone.
This was the best show, as well as emergency ofcourse. Southern california has changed very much since these days. You NEVER ran from a cop when that red light went on, NEVER!!! reason being the word was when they catched you, you got a good beating, and your dad would just say, "well why did you run stupid? Mommys run the households now here in So Cal, so all we have are a bunch of spoiled kids who smart mouth the P.D. and the cameras ruin law enforcement.
R.I.P. Jack Webb.
barmtrail

Whole Lotta Clicking

Over a million a month. No shit?
We'd expect our clicker finger to be better muscled.

Terpsichorean Corner

If it's Tuesday (It's Tuesday already?) it's time to twist. Today, we go Greek-style.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Sex In Iran: Girls Are Scary!

From Foreign Policy's Sex Issue. (Is your skin crawling? Ours too.)
Like Islamists in today's Egypt -- and some among America's Christian right -- Iran's revolutionaries found fertile ground on which to play the politics of pious populism, rather than concretely address the enormous challenges of building a diversified economy. The country's massive oil wealth made it appear all too easy. Khomeini famously dismissed economics as "for donkeys," and he responded to complaints of inflation by saying, "The revolution wasn't about the price of watermelons." Three decades later, the results are self-evident: In 1979, resource-rich Iran's GDP was almost double that of resource-poor Turkey. Today, it is roughly half.

The brutal reality is that Iranians had entrusted their national destiny to a man, Khomeini, who had spent far more time thinking about the religious penalties for fornicating with animals than how to run a modern economy.
Political insiders are wondering even now when Rick Santorum will pack up & head for Tehran to reinvent himself. After all, no one there remembers the 2006 Pennsylvania Senate results.

Beyond the vile smut, an actual foreign policy point is made, & we are again struck by certain similarities. Are the mullahs also holding lists of known Communist infiltrators?
What they fail to consider is Khamenei's deep-seated conviction that U.S. designs to overthrow the Islamic Republic hinge not on military invasion but on cultural and political subversion intended to foment a "velvet" revolution from within. Consider this revealing address on Iranian state TV in 2005:
More than Iran's enemies need artillery, guns, and so forth, they need to spread cultural values that lead to moral corruption. … I recently read in the news that a senior official in an important American political center said: "Instead of bombs, send them miniskirts." He is right. If they arouse sexual desires in any given country, if they spread unrestrained mixing of men and women, and if they lead youth to behavior to which they are naturally inclined by instincts, there will no longer be any need for artillery and guns against that nation.
Khamenei's vast collection of writings and speeches makes clear that the weapons of mass destruction he fears most are cultural -- more Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga than bunker busters and aircraft carriers. In other words, Tehran is threatened not only by what America does, but by what America is: a depraved, postmodern colonial power bent on achieving global cultural hegemony. America's "strategic policy," Khamenei has said, "is seeking female promiscuity."
That Eve just ruined everything, didn't she?

Sunset Boulevard

How'd we miss this? Easily. video platform video management video solutions video player But we'd be interested in seeing just how wrong they got it (Plenty:
Well, not quite East LA, or even the Eastside, but hey it's the promotional side of national news — what do they know.
We could be charitable & use the "what they left out" critique, but charitable since when, also: Two hrs.?) having resided for most of our time in L.A. & WeHo on or w/in walking distance (one-half to six blocks) of the famed spine, gastro-intestinal tract, artery-vein combo or whatever other comparison to a vital human body part that is the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. (One might think Hollywood Blvd. has that title, but its mere 40 or so blocks aren't nearly enough to hold all those dashed hopes.)Hmm. Never considered the prophetic implications of the opening lines in light of events just over a decade ago.

Well, you won't be safe in L.A. either; stay away.

PJ1

Music Monday.(Monday Music?)Extra-terrestrially themed.

Please Do Not Throw Me
Into The Briar Patch

Anders Behring Breivik said on Monday he was not criminally insane and would do anything to avoid being sent to a secure mental hospital.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Marine Layer

It did not hit the predicted 90°F this wknd.

Droop Droop Droop ...

Quote of the Day

"I'm going to try something different this year. I'm going to try to stay out of this one."
-- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), in an interview on Fox News Sunday, saying he won't endorse a presidential candidate.
Droopy-to-English translation: "No one gives one fucking shit about anything that oozes from between my hideous jowls, wretched mugwump that I am!"

Earth Day 2012

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sucks To Be You, Doesn't It?

Several hundred of you Yankee pig-dogs seem to have a low opinion of the future as staked out for you here in sunny & warm SoCal.
Cleveland is really putting up a fight. America likes Los Angeles better than Cleveland, which is favored by 32 percent of Americans. But we still have way more haters: only 25 percent of respondents said they didn't like Cleveland. The only other cities that had lower favorable ratings were Oakland (21 percent) and Detroit (22 percent). And Detroit was the only city more hated by Americans (49 percent).

The other cities that are both better-loved and less hated than us include Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Philly, Miami, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Baltimore. You can check out the rest of the survey and more analysis for yourself here and here.
Sheer jealousy. We wouldn't live in your nasty local hell-holes if you paid us. Not that you could afford us.

Sufferation

We are not suffering fools gladly.

Tempted?

Almost. The articulated red bus tells us this is somewhere served by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Then we weren't tempted, because it looks like a part of the county in which we wouldn't be caught dead, like the Valley, or perhaps West L.A./Brentwood, so why bother?

Testing, Testing

Ein, zwei, drei ... tap tap

("Scheduled" for tomorrow at 0017. "Now" being 2320 on 20 April.)

Friday, April 20, 2012

Way Too Long; Will Never Read

In the interest of polishing the barely visible patina of pseudo-intellectuality we occasionally (& often for minutes at a time) have going here, a link to something about the birth of an alleged [Cue The Jam.] modern world. [Jam not actually available here because too much Flash.]
The book tells the story of Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things,” which 2,000 years ago posited a number of revolutionary ideas — that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.

Once thought lost, the poem was rediscovered on a library shelf in the winter of 1417 by a Poggio Bracciolini. The copying and translation of the book fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

Greenblatt’s book argues that the influence of Lucretius’ work washed over modern thought like a tidal wave, anticipating not only social thought, but whole branches of modern science.
Mr. Cynical says swell, but never better late, jerks. Coulda been born into a fucking paradise, but no.

Obvious Stated Again

This time it's Eugene Robinson making a casual observation.
Let me be clear: I’m saying that the extreme language we hear from the far right is qualitatively different from the extreme language we hear from the far left*—and far more damaging to the ties that bind us as a nation. Tut-tutting that both sides should tone it down is meaningless. For all intents and purposes, one side is the problem.
Christ on a crutch, we're fucking trying here! Tough to keep up though.
In a subsequent interview, Nugent called Nancy Pelosi a “sub-human scoundrel” and referred to liberals as cockroaches to “stomp” in November.

This is what distinguishes the flame-throwers of the far right from those of the far left. Nugent and his ilk seek to deny their political opponents the very right to believe in a different philosophy. Agree with me, he says, or be stomped.
There you have it, fellow cucarachas: Welcome to Rwanda. Stomp or be stomped. We're getting out the cycle boots.
*Extreme far left language? Really. We'd like to hear some. What's Robinson heard that we haven't, & where? Euge? (Don't suggest the Trotskyites at The Nation, either.)

Now We Know Who Bert Weedon Was

Influential guitarist dies

About (2:29).

You Do Know Who Else* Was Born
On This Date, Don't You?

100 yrs. ago today, this dump hosted its first professional ball game.
*Who did you think?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Liar, Liar, Eternal Hell-fire

(Bonus musical intensifier added 20 April 2012.)

Not A Complete Dick

Concerning D.C., The Reporter types:
He Encouraged the Integration of Pop Music
From Bandstand's beginning, Clark had committed to integrating the show. The image of a racially diverse crowd of teenagers doing “The Twist” right alongside Chubby Checker is amongBandstand’s most indelible, and would later be dramatized in movies like Hairspray and on NBC’s American Dreams (which Clark produced). In 1958, Clark curated and promoted the first racially integrated pop concert – a fact fondly recalled by the estate of Michael Jackson.*
Clark (l) non-estate Michael Jackson (r): Two dead people when they weren't.
"It still wasn't acceptable for them to dance with white kids, so the blacks just danced with each other. We were waiting for the explosion, but it never happened," Clark said in a 1998 interview with Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine. "The wonderful part about our decision to integrate then was that there were no repercussions, no reverberations, no battles at all — it just happened right there on a television screen in front of millions of people."

*Bad enough that corporations are considered "people," but now estates are sentient as well? We shudder to think what amorphous entities will be granted rights & feelings next.

Litmus Test

Bonus Quote of the Day

"Further, the subject continued, that as a single man running as a political conservative, it was necessary for him to appear at campaign related events with a female escort."

-- A "close-out" memo from the Florida State Attorney's Office ending it's investigation into Rep. David Rivera's (R-FL) campaign finances.
Heh in-fuggin'-deedy.

Haven't read it; paid female escorts?
ADDED AFTER READING (1545 PDT): Why, yes, from the actual report (via TPM):
Further, the subject continued, that as a single man running as a political conservative, it was necessary for him to appear at campaign related events with a female escort. According to the subject’s broad interpretations of the law, it was appropriate and permissible to pay for his female companion’s expenditures as well, as they were essential to his elections campaigns. The subject was actually able to identify political party events, functions, or meetings, in connection with most if not all of his out of town trips.
OK then.

It Will Trickle Down (Eventually)

Stores along Beverly Drive and in portions of West Hollywood are being snapped up. As you might guess, prices are ludicrous: One space at the corner of Beverly Drive and Brighton Way is said to be leasing for $180 a square foot. That compares with $25 a square foot, give or take, at some of the larger Socal malls.
Once the wealthy job creators are confident they won't be taxed into the poor house by those 80-some Commies in Congress, some of their spending should drip on the heads of the shop clerks in these establishments, resulting in an increase of French-frying & pizza-making jobs in working peoples' residential zones, & the possible hiring of several nannies, maids & gardeners (if there are any profits at all after taxes & rent).

ICYMI

We did.
"If you can't galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we're done. We'll be a suburb of Indonesia next year," Nugent said, referring to the Asian country where Obama spent part of his childhood. "Our president and attorney-general, our vice president, Hillary Clinton, they're criminals."
Our emphasis.

Work Songs

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Tea Party Bushido

What? The deluded 27% magically became a delusional 28%?
But the polls are missing one key ingredient: the intensity of feeling and the level of determination* among the 28% of American adults (66 million people) who consider themselves part of the tea party or are supportive of it. To these people, 2012 is not “just another election.” It is the defining political battle of our lifetime.

Most of these 66 million tea partiers will vote in November. But they will do much more than vote. They will also make unprecedented personal sacrifices in time and money to help get out the vote. To a person, these 66 million Americans believe that if Barack Obama is re-elected, the constitutional republic as we know it will be destroyed. They are determined not to let this happen on their watch.
Ah. No gawd knows why we bothered w/ page two after the above, but it's good we did. We can only assume that the typist behind this piece (See bio below.) is on the outs w/ the "Washington-based organizations" that astroturf some of the Tea Party outfits, 'cause he's begging for spare change.
Only the tea party has the enthusiasm and manpower to get out the vote for Mitt Romney, but it’s financed by the spare change found in the couches of local leaders. Nonetheless, as the critical role it played in the 2011 Republican takeover of the Virginia State Senate proved, the tea party is very effective.

The big question is whether wealthy conservative donors will wake up to face the political realities and help local and regional tea party groups finance get-out-the-vote efforts. To date, they have ignored the tea party, giving their donations instead to organizations that are more interested in building their own brands than in building effective local get-out-the-vote capabilities.

[...]

But conservatives around the country should take heart because that’s an unlikely scenario. As we’re beginning to see, conservative donors are finally realizing that the scope of the conservative victory in November will be determined by the level of financial support they provide to local grassroots conservatives. They understand that when it comes to political return on investment, local tea party groups provide the biggest bang for the buck.

Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor of the “Voices of the Tea Party” e-book series and co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter and ElectionDayTeaParty.com. His new book, “Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement,” was published by Broadside Books in March 2012. He can be reached on Twitter at @michaelpleahy.

*"Our troops are better than theirs. And our votes count more, too."

Title Track, 40-Yr.Old Disc

[counting on fingers] 'Eighty-two, 'ninety-two, 'ought-two, 'ought- ... uh, twelve.  Yep. 40.Not that we were dismayed by the Ted Templeman production, but it holds up quite well.

R.I.P., Dick

Sorry to see Dick Clark go, but now that he is officially dead (Too soon? Who fucking cares, we're still alive!) we are going to take the title of "America's Oldest Teen-Ager" for our own immature self.

Also: Cheap.
If you can set aside a fierce determination to pay everyone as little as possible, my memories of him are all good.
The main points I should underscore about Dick are his professionalism — always on-time, always well-aware of the costs and problems of production — and his graciousness. Oh, and his cheapness too...but I almost didn't mind that.

Nooge News

Any one out there have a copy of the issue of CREEM in which Mr. Nugent spoke of his days in Detroit when he'd expose himself to nuns? It involves driving around near convents w/ a map on his lap & asking nuns for directions. (Use your imagination from there.) Used to have it, probably appeared during the mid-70s to early '80s. It would be a swell thing to be able to reference. In the meantime, the only good thing Ted did after breaking up the Amboy Dukes.Bass line by Rob Grange, who played bass in the Amboy Dukes.

A Polite Society

So good even the trailer is for grown-ups. NSFW if actual human dialogue (Or lots of murder.) is disapproved of there.Look, a clean version for squares:US $9.99 on Pay-per-View, through 10 May. Get your money together & c'mon over. (Gonna be five bucks apiece, 'cause we only have three chairs in here.)

Interesting that we have so many appropriate labels.

Not Un-Amusing

Linkage. For the hell of it, we installed it.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Working Like A Dog

Cult? Mmmm, Could Be ...

No doubt another of the e-mails that the religious & reactionary circulate among themselves & forward to family members. We are w/o family, nor are there droolers in our acquaintance to irk us w/ this sort of crap, so when we encounter it we like to share. Especially when it confirms our biasesrational response to religion.

So, w/o further ado, InfantryVeteran's forward. (Presented as found, because what's more endearing than "underware?" OK, the Jeff Foxworthy list approach is cute too. Critical thinking for crackers, we guess.)
Cult?
If your church makes you wear magic underware... you might be in a cult.
If your church has secret handshakes... you might be in a cult.
If your parents weren't allowed to attend your wedding... you might be in a cult.
If your church asks for your grocery money and tells you to go hungry...you might be in a cult.
If your church has more than one bible...you might be in a cult.
If your church tracks you down where ever you go...you might be in a cult.
If your church tells you to follow their leader even if they are wrong...you might be in a cult.
If your church builds a $5 billon dollar mall...you might be in a cult.
If your church hides their archives in a mountain cave...you might be in a cult.
If your church was started by a guy looking into a hat and receiving messages from magic rocks...you might be in a cult.
If it preaches the evils of sex, yet the first 2 leaders were sex addicts. . . you might be in a cult.
If at your wedding, both you and the officiating priest were wearing baker's hats...you might be in a cult.
If you have to pay 10% of your money to go to heaven and be with your family... you might be in a cult.
If you are asked by your leaders if you touch yourself at night and if you climaxed... you might be in a cult.
If when you present the facts of the church to them and they wave it away claiming "they know the church is true"... you might be in a cult.
If someone has ever said "you are in a cult"...you just might be in a cult.
If you have ever had to argue that you are not in a cult...you just might be in a cult.
Heh infuckingdeedy.

Make Up Your Mind Already

Hey Nazis, which is it, the moonor inside the planet?Wait a moment, we're getting word now ... they'll be coming from Tampa, just before Labor Day, not the sky above or the mud below.

P.S.: Anyone interested in a "Nazis on The Bottom of The Sea" direct to wherever feature?
P.P.S.: Fuck you. They do it too.
The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate. . . .

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

Pill Bucket

Nice missionary shirt & tie on Mittens (also milk), but where's the nametag?
We like his illustrations, but don't explanations defeat the purpose?

Monday, April 16, 2012

Happy Housewives

BF Politics has the scoop on Joe Smith & his doctrines as applied to Ann Romney. (No mention of dressage as Mormon practice 'though.)

Prophet Ezra Taft Benson:
This is the reasoning of the world and is not pleasing in the sight of God... Do not curtail the number of your children for personal or selfish reasons. Material possessions, social convenience, and so-called professional advantages are nothing compared to a righteous posterity. In the eternal perspective, children--not possessions, not position, not prestige--are our greatest jewels.
Prophet Spencer W. Kimball:
I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the cafe. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother--cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one's precious husband and children. Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them. Come home, wives, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal souls who anxiously await.
Other crapheads:
By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.
&
Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying.
Sound a little like that Sharia(h) law to you?

Daily Drooler

Fast it forward to (8:45). (Or listen to all of it, it's all fun.) But the drooliest is the clown at (8:45).Get the bucket.

Cheney Dead-Ender

Hope it's worth it, Juleanna Glover.Piling on.

America Eats Its Young (& Everybody Else)

Ann Romney busy raising her five spawn.
Apparently it's hard out there.
The situation is impossible for all of us, whether we're working in an office or working at home or taking a few years out of the workforce to manage the house and children and then find it difficult to get back in at a reasonable-enough wage to ensure a decent Social Security check in old age. The United States is set up on the assumption that everyone who works should do so around the clock ... and that children should be a parent's full-time focus at all times, so much so that you must abandon the rest of your life to pick them up from school at appallingly early hours so that you can then ferry them to an endless array of after-school activities. The problem with this clash isn't personal; it's a structural problem. We have set our society up in a way that makes it impossible to both work and parent. And I don't see any interest in solving this as a society.
Probably because most of the society can't even see/realize the problem. (Forest/trees.)
Any contemporary American parent has a comparable story. And of course, any meaningful career requires the same kind of around-the-clock, work-when-you're-needed-which-is-always schedule, while waged work increasingly requires a willingness to work crazy shifts without much advanced notice. Our system is just not humane—or to put it differently, we leave no time to be human. But I don't see any change on the horizon. Do you?
Yes. Yes we do. At the barrel of a gun. After we've burned everything to the ground.

Another 1,000 Wordsworth:
"Is Obama Gay?"

As good a set of reasons as any to vote for Romney.
Photo: Philip Munger/flickr® from YAHOO!

A Promise, Not A Threat

Romney’s plan to eliminate HUD, assuming he didn’t shuffle its programs to other departments, would bring an end to critical programs like Section 8 housing vouchers and community development block grants. Eliminating housing assistance is even more problematic given the disproportionate percentage of veterans in the homeless population.
We will strangle Mitt Romney w/ our bare hands if he's elected & fucks w/ our housing subsidy. Or maybe we'll torture & kill one of his awful offspring; they might be easier to get at. Death will result, either way, & we'll take as many of them as we can w/ us, because we have NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.

Not that it'll be that tough to get to Richie Romney; the Secret Service pigs are too busy stiffingnot paying prostitutes to protect anyone.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

B-52 II

Earlier anniv. item in motion.

Self-Recognition, Self-Hatred

Hey! Make fun of the tired hippies north of us once in a while, northeastern elites.

$5 Paradise

Thank You, Tucker Carlson

"News" we need:
We anxiously await Brent Bozell's paroxysm of moral outrage at the coarse & vulgar use of "banging."

Image Problem

Fascist reaction:
National Union MK Michael Ben Ari issued a response to the incident and congratulated the IDF officer who hit the leftist activists.

“Well done to the IDF officer who did what Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] and [Yitzhak] Aharonovich [minister of internal security] have no brain or courage to do,” Ben Ari said. “Radical leftists must be handled with a heavy hand. There was a tangible threat to the lives of the soldiers and the officer had no other choice.”
You know who else believed “radical leftists must be handled with a heavy hand?" That's right. Far right.

Lifted from War in Context.

V.S. Back

Vin Scully (The Dodger announcer, Philistines!) is on the air again after several days off w/ a bad cold. The guy's 82 or so, & we were a bit worried, but he made it back for Jackie Robinson Day.

B-52 B-Day

Also on this date, 60 yrs. ago: The YB-52, the second XB-52 modified with more operational equipment, first flew on 15 April 1952 with "Tex" Johnston as pilot.

Even more impressive than its longevity: A Boeing B-52H Stratofortress (61-023) flying with its vertical stablizer sheared off, 10 January 1964. The aircraft was being used as a testbed to identify structural weaknesses in the airframe when the event occurred. The crew, with the assistance of Boeing engineers on the ground, was able to land the aircraft safely.
Try that w/ a fucking Airbus.

Jackie Robinson Day

Open the door.
Jackie Robinson reporting to the Brooklyn Dodgers
from the minor league Montreal Royals, 1947.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Heat Sink Planet

One of our favorite phrases w/ which to condemn all humanity to the hell it so richly deserves (Old & bitter? Us?) is "You'll all be boiling in a stew of your own waste before you know it."

Now, scientific proof thereof!
Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years. [Pained expression from economist.] And this statement is independent of technology. Even if we don’t have a name for the energy source yet, as long as it obeys thermodynamics, we cook ourselves with perpetual energy increase.
Stew in that for a while.

Tedious Pastime

Intentional walk.
At last, managed to get an orb in play.
A run scores.
Rasta Pirate pops one up.