Saturday, May 31, 2008
Not Over Yet
Our Ears! Our Ears!!
ZIp, Zilch & Zero
The proposed Iraqi-American agreement would provide a legal framework for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq after Dec. 31, when their U.N. mandate expires. Sadr views the pact as a blow to Iraq's sovereignty. His main Shiite rival, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq -- an influential Shiite political party that is part of Maliki's ruling coalition -- has also denounced the plans. Aides to Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have also expressed concern.Oh, looks like the U. S. is negotiating w/ its puppet Al-Maliki to stay longer. Kinda like Edgar Bergen & Mortimer Snerd (or Paul Winchell & Jerry Mahoney, if you want your references from the '50s) negotiating w/ each other. Someone's hand is up someone else's booty.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Ouch!!
Upon the cast, your broken arm Stairway to the stars, I think I'll write good health to you Stairway to the stars, I hope you heal up real quickHe's like Hallmark cards, a lyric for every possible situation. As to Clear Channel, information will be on its way tomorrow, cara Sophia, & we do hope you heal up real quick. And sue like nobody's business. Ciao!!
Piling On John; Or, McCain: Douche-Bag or Ass-Hole?
He had spent the previous four years as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate, sampling life in the world’s most exclusive club as he escorted its members on trips around the globe — sitting with the sultan of Oman on the floor of his desert tent, or smuggling a senator’s private supply of Scotch through Saudi Arabian customs.We see how he ran on his status as a "war hero," as opposed to knowing anything about the Arid Zone & what an actual representative would have to know about the state to, um, represent it. And how Cindy's dad helped. A lot.He had found a sense of purpose in an apprenticeship to some of the Senate’s fiercest cold warriors. And in Senator John G. Tower, a hawkish Texas Republican, he had found a new mentor, beginning a relationship that many compared to the bond between a father and son.
With Mr. Tower’s encouragement, Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral’s star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could “do more good there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. But Mr. Lehman knew duty was only part of the reason.
“He just loved it up there,” Mr. Lehman recalled. “Like very few military people, John heard the music up there, and he really wanted to do it.”
With Hensley beer money and other contributions, the McCain camp began spreading his story through advertising. There were photos and videotapes of him limping across the tarmac, returning home after years as a prisoner of war. The candidate also was aided by his friendship with Arizona Republic Publisher Darrow "Duke" Tully, who touted himself as a war hero and was eager to spread McCain's story across his pages. The two were so close that Tully was named godfather to John and Cindy McCain's first child. (Tully resigned from the paper after it was learned that he had fabricated his war achievements; it turned out he had never served in the military.) Another influential friend was financier Charles H. Keating Jr. The Phoenix resident raised more than $100,000 for McCain. (Keating went to prison in the 1990s for his role in the failure of Lincoln Savings & Loan.)
[...]
Carlson had moved to the Phoenix area about 15 years before McCain and worked to build her Arizona resume. She was a county committeewoman and a state representative. Before that she headed a local GOP women's group. When Rhodes stepped down, she figured it was her turn to move up. Two other candidates jumped in, which threatened to split the important Mormon vote. Then, as she said, in waltzed this out-of-towner named John McCain. "It bothered me. It bothered a lot of people," she said. At town hall meetings, she said, McCain's aura as a war hero upstaged everything. "It's pretty hard to run against that," she said. "How do you debate issues important to Arizona like groundwater contamination when everyone is talking about him as a POW celebrity?"Then you could turn to the local fish-wrapper's op-ed page & see how dedicated Johnny Mack is to his fellow vets. Apparently if they actually get benefits comparable to WWII vets, Sid's afraid they won't re-up for the many, many more wars "we" must have in order to insure democracy, squash terrorism, & control every natural resource that some other country has the nerve to be sitting on.
We've previously covered (alright, alright, excerpted & linked to, not "covered") the "McCain screws his fellow vets" angle. Twice.
And we'll leave you w/ this:
At one point, Mack reportedly tried to maneuver around the celebrity candidate by reaching out to McCain's first wife, Carol, in search of anything that might sink him. But Carol alerted McCain and, at the next debate, he unloaded. "If you ever try to hurt anyone in my family again," McCain said he warned Mack, "I will personally beat the [expletive] out of you." In describing the incident in his memoirs, McCain said: "I used as much steel as I'm capable of demonstrating" in forcing Mack to back off. Asked about the episode, Mack said: "I don't want to talk about it.""If you ever try to hurt anybody in my family..." Let's see, what's more hurtful, dumping your wife who raised your children while you were in the Hanoi Hilton, or asking the dumpee (Not really a family member any more, is she?) if she might have something bad to say about the asswipe who dumped her? Get the impression that Sid's response to virtually anything said to or about him would be "I will personally beat the [expletive] out of you?" Including other nations & world leaders? Just what we need, yet another pin-dicked pseudo-macho hothead in the White House.
Decoration Day Just Another Day Off to Us
Thursday, May 29, 2008
More Puffy McMoonface*
This Week's Eat The Rich
The bedroom community for New York bankers and traders isn't suffering like the rest of the nation, but it's still feeling the pinch.We don't know if Times readers are supposed to feel sorry for people who actually have "disposable income," & believe that the wealthy are suffering as much as we are & we shouldn't go kill them, or if this is some sort of liberal/Marxist attempt at class warfare, to make the wage-slaves want to take their guns to Greenwich & bag a few non-productive parasites. (Remember, "class warfare" is not when the disposable income crowd cheats & exploits those who work for their – & the disposable incomers – living, "class warfare" is when someone mentions that working people are being fucked by their employers on a daily basis. Very, very similar to the right wing approach to "race." Mention racism & you're "playing the race card," or you're the anti-honkie racist.)
Sylwester Lemanski was this close to selling a $400,000 Lamborghini to a Wall Street investment banker. The customer had been eyeing the car for months at the dealership Lemanski manages. He had decided on the model and color -- a titanium Murcielago -- and needed only to sign on the bottom line. Then, as financial markets teetered in March and layoffs mounted on Wall Street, the customer started getting cold feet. Lemanski could feel the deal slipping away.Oh, the pain.
Hedge-fund titans still have plenty of money. But pain is acute among rank-and-file investment bankers and traders -- those earning only $2 million or so a year -- who are worried about their jobs.You call sitting in a fucking office all day long having your assistant get you lattes & make lunch reservations a "job?" Try digging a ditch, driving a truck, or working retail for a while, "rank-and-filers." You wouldn't last a day. And a customer would probably punch your lights out. We're tempted to do so just on general principles.
Fuel Price Hikes Fuel Inflation Concerns
The big concern: As energy and commodity prices soar, cost increases will seep into areas beyond food and energy, sparking a full-blown episode of inflation. So far, government statistics say that hasn't happened. Core prices — those minus food and energy — have risen just 2.3% the 12 months ended April, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Nevertheless, the inflation that consumers feel the most is much higher. Energy alone has soared 15.9%, and the price of a barrel of light sweet crude oil has skyrocketed 107% to $131.03. Including food and energy, prices are up 3.9%, the government says. Already, says David Huether, economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, soaring energy prices mean that the average worker's wages have fallen, when adjusted for inflation. "If you exclude energy, real wages would be rising now," Huether says.St. Nick on a Stick, when the NAM (they would have been w/ Prescott Bush supporting Hitler in the '30s, they are so right wing) says it's a problem for workers, you'd better take it seriously. It happened during the Nixon/Ford administration, now America's idiots let Bush in once & sort of reĆ«lected him the second time around & the result is the same. Do you fucking morons never learn? And by the way, "inflation concerns?" Have you priced (let alone purchased) milk or bread lately? The very staffs (staves?) of life (along w/ circuses, of course) aren't exactly what they were a yr. ago.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Excerpts
To this day, the president seems unbothered by the disconnect between the chief rationale for the war and the driving motivation behind it, and unconcerned about how the case was packaged. The policy is the right one and history will judge it so, once a free Iraq is firmly in place and the Middle East begins to become more democratic. Bush clung to the same belief during an interview with Tim Russert of NBC News in early February 2004. The Meet the Press host asked, "In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity? " The president said, "That's an interesting question. Please elaborate on that a bit. A war of choice or a war of necessity? It's a war of necessity. In my judgment, we had no choice, when we look at the intelligence I looked at, that says the man was a threat." I remember talking to the president about this question following the interview. He seemed puzzled and asked me what Russert was getting at with the question. This, in turn, puzzled me. Surely this distinction between a necessary, unavoidable war and a war that the United States could have avoided but chose to wage was an obvious one that Bush must have thought about in the months before the invasion. Evidently it wasn't obvious to the president, nor did his national security team make sure it was. He set the policy early on and then his team focused his attention on how to sell it. It strikes me today as an indication of his lack of inquisitiveness and his detrimental resistance to reflection, something his advisers needed to compensate for better than they did. Most objective observers today would say that in 2003 there was no urgent need to address the threat posed by Saddam with a large-scale invasion, and therefore the war was not necessary. But this is a question President Bush seems not to want to grapple with.Yes, George W. is that lazy, ignorant, & unreflective. McClellan says that proud C student Bush is intelligent, but just doesn't want to think. "It's hard work," as George has said. And he wants no part of it, after all, he's a Bush, & that sort of thing is really beneath him. We should also point out that McClellan is not a "Washington insider" or Wall Street nabob who joined the administration only to be disillusioned & write a book, but a fellow Texan who worked for Bush long before he was appointed president. One last bit, from the WaPo:
In another section, McClellan describes Bush as able to convince himself of his own spin and relates a phone call he overheard Bush having during the 2000 campaign, in which he said he could not remember whether he had used cocaine. "I remember thinking to myself, 'How can that be?'" he writes.We're also holding our breath as to when Congress will act on impeachment of these fucks. What more do you cowards need? This is well beyond the political; if starting an unnecessary war isn't a high crime or misdemeanor, what the hell is?
Assimilation & Crime
"We want what Middle America has as well," said the second-generation Mexican American, recounting the meeting. "We like to go to nice places like Claim Jumpers, Chili's and Applebee's. . . . We don't want the fly-by-night business, the 'amigo store,' which they use to attract Latinos like myself." [...] Anthony Bejarano, a Baldwin Park councilman and graduate of Georgetown University law school, is a fourth-generation Mexican American who says he speaks "very little Spanish." He said that the proliferation of what the mayor calls "amigo stores" forces him to go to other cities to shop. "I love to go to traditional Mexican restaurants. I shop at Vallarta [supermarket], but I can't get everything I need," he said. "At the end of the day, it's all Mexican restaurants here. When we want Italian, when we want sushi, where do we go? If I want a pair of Kenneth Coles, I have to go to Arcadia."Yeah, everything Pat Buchanan says is absolutely true: The Meskins all want to live in enclaves eating tortillas until they suddenly emerge to take America back from the Anglos who stole it from them right after they stole it from the First Americans. And we certainly sympathize w/ those poor souls who have to go all the way to Arcadia to get some Kenneth Coles. Corporate America is following the money, of course, which is how everyone gets assimilated.
The response by many retailers was often "This is not our customer," said Luis Valenzuela, executive vice president for NAI Capital, a commercial real estate brokerage firm. "The difference now is that corporate America has realized there's tremendous buying power in these communities." [...] And after the Starbucks opened in South Gate, it became one of the chain's leading seller of Frappuccinos, Valenzuela said. "You had some mainstream stores who really took a risk, for the first time really going into a predominantly Spanish-speaking area," Valenzuela said. "After that, you really saw Ross, Marshall, Applebee's, Chili's and a lot of those businesses in Latino areas," he said.By the way, if any of our readers have ever set foot in a Claim Jumper, Chili's, Applebee's, Olive Garden or the like, let alone eaten in one, you are cordially invited to fuck off & die, & never to darken our web log again. Moving on to crime, the racist crowd, if they weren't pathetic losers looking to blame their misfortunes on someone else, might be informed by the Times story indicating that it isn't genetics but lead poisoning that makes inner city/urban people a little more criminal than white suburbanites. Especially when combined w/ whatever social pathologies exist in those inner cities.
About 38 million U.S. homes, 40% of the nation's housing, still contain lead-based paint, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The problem is particularly acute in urban areas, which typically have older housing that has not been renovated.Remember the Roman Empire, whose decline & fall has been attributed to the use of lead pipes in plumbing.
Researchers have long known that lead exposure reduces IQ by damaging brain cells in children during their early years.It is also known that lead increases children's distractibility, impulsiveness and restlessness and shortens their attention span, all factors considered precursors of aggressive or violent behavior. [...] "The most important message is that lead affects brain volume, independent of demographic and social factors that are often used to explain away poor outcomes" in life, Cecil said. "This is independent biological evidence showing that the brain is affected by lead."Two strikes & you're out. But let's keep thinking that colored folks are sub-human animals by nature, who can't ever be allowed into "decent" society. We anxiously await a Congressional initiative to strip & re-paint houses w/ lead paint. And as usual, we aren't holding our breath.
Attention Advertisers!!
That About Which We Could Not Possibly Care Any Fucking Less
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Bye Bye, "Mommy"
Monday, May 26, 2008
Decoration Day Musings from Brother Brick
Ruminating over brain damage and other fun things on a Memorial Day weekend
Fighting off a bug this weekend and catching up on my reading. So I've been going through a big stack of cognitive/neurology newsletters I get, and as you'd imagine there is a lot of discussion on brain injuries suffered by Iraqi veterans, particularly due to concussion caused by IED's. Very profound after effects with a lot of changes in memory, skills and, most fascinatingly, behavior; victims can get quite nasty, vile and dangerous. (I'm more than a little familiar with these things first hand myself following seizures.) But it is astounding how much damage can be caused to the brain by concussion alone. Which got me to thinking.... I wonder, during the First World War, especially on the Western Front, just how many concussions were inflicted upon the soldiers who were subjected to all that shell fire? What was it? Hundreds of millions of shells fired? Is that an exaggeration? It had to be in the tens of millions anyway. Falling in a very small area, upon enormous numbers of men, for four years. Even accounting for all the duds and gas shells, that is an incredible amount of explosions in a small area upon a lot of guys over a long period of time. Who knows how many of those soldiers were concussed, and how often? There must have been, then, enormous numbers of men in postwar Europe who suffered from the after effects. So...did those after-effects collectively have an effect on post war Europe? Did those hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of concussed soldiers with all those classic symptoms of paranoia and hostility and rage and depression and confusion – were they in numbers sufficient enough to actually alter the social and political atmosphere of societies and nations in the post-war years? Pre-war and post-war Europe were much different places. Post-WWI Europe was much more violent, rent by extremism and sociopathic political movements. And I wonder if any of that mass brain damage among the men of Europe in the twenties and thirties somehow made Nazism possible? Would normal people ever have fallen for it? Hell, was Hitler himself a victim of post-concussion effects...is that what made him so evil? He spent time in the trenches, exposed, and was nearly blown to hell a couple times. A lucky bastard...but did he suffer after effects? Just an idea. But the Europe of 1918 to 1945...man, that is one inexplicably berserk place. Another horrible phenomenon that fascinates me is all these incredibly violent 'armies' of boys in Africa. They seem to be raised from the masses of orphans left by AIDS. There must be tens of millions of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and in many places so many adults have died or are dying that the social structure is simply not capable of taking care of them. Hence sociopaths collect them, Manson-like, into armies and they being kids they make ideal killers. Of course, HIV is becoming less lethal as the more virulent versions kill their hosts and, like malaria, soon it'll just incapacitate but leave the hosts capable of bearing and raising children. The supply of AIDS orphans will drop, and those armies will disappear. Funny how that happens. It's interesting that the Spanish flu pandemic had a mortality demographic somewhat similar to AIDS in that it killed almost exclusively people in the 18 to 35 year range (roughly..I can't remember the exact age range but it was young adults. The reason for this, btw, is that people above that and kids below had a resistance they'd developed after being subjected to a flu strain that the vulnerable group in between missed.) The flu killed tens of millions in Europe in 1918-19. I am guessing, then, that it left millions of orphans, especially combined with so many fathers having been killed in the war. It'd be interesting to see how many young Nazis in the early thirties were orphans. Anyway, little something to ponder on Memorial Day, I guess. War and its leftovers seem to linger long after the shooting stops. BrickEditor's Note: While we do present ourselves as the "Editor" here, we only spell-checked Brick's opus (Try it yourself sometime, B., it's fun!) & can't be responsible for any syntactical &/or grammatical errors. We don't have all day to check others' shoddy work. M. B.
Memorial Day Message to America
Today, while you're consuming at a Memorial Day mattress sale, polluting the air while charring animal corpses laced w/ hormones & anti-biotics, financing terrorism by driving a gasoline-powered vehicle, or getting the white clothes out of the closet, please take a minute to remember all the Americans who've been murdered by your government for the benefit of the military-industrial complex, granting you the "freedom" & "liberty" to be wire-tapped by the FBI or any number of other three-letter government agencies, &/or used up & thrown away by a corporate entity.
You're welcome,
Mahomet Bouffant
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Whole Truth, & Nothing But...In The Liberal Media
Poor ticket sales, expected protests scuttle Bush-McCain fundraiser at Phoenix Convention CenterYou'd think the AP would make some mention of this in its article, but instead:
Bush's Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area. A White House official said the event was being moved because the McCain campaign prefers private fundraisers and it is Bush administration policy to have events in public venues open to the media. The White House official said to reconcile that the Tuesday event will be held at a private venue and not the Convention Center.The AP does catch Official White House Lying Sack of Liquid Crap Dana Perino at it again:
During the Bush presidency, the press has nearly always been banned from fundraisers in private homes. Former President Clinton sometimes allowed the press into such fundraising settings, at least for his remarks. Bush press secretary Dana Perino said the fundraisers are closed because it has been the McCain camp's policy to close all money events. "That's their practice and we will respect it," she said. She added, however, that it is possible the two men would appear together waving at television cameras in Arizona upon arrival or departure of the president's plane.Airport photo-ops. That's really dealing w/ the issues.
The press has nearly always been banned from Bush's fundraisers in private homes. Former President Clinton sometimes allowed the press into such fundraising settings, at least for his remarks.Oh liberal media, why must you always compare President Bush to Slick Willie? Is that fair? It was eight years ago? Get over it!!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank Gawd Awmighty, I'm Free at Last!
In Stockton, [a hellhole in Northern California, in case you didn't know] McCain said he did not think the comparison was fair. "I've never been in Pastor Hagee's church or Pastor Parsley's church. I didn't attend their church for 20 years, and I'm not a member of their church. I received their endorsement, which did not mean that I endorsed their views."No, Sen. McCain, you went begging to these two deluded psychotics/slick con men & practically kissed their rings & washed their feet to get their endorsements.
McCain said he had not been aware of the comments -- which were made in a sermon in the late 1990s and turned up recently on the Internet -- when Hagee endorsed him in February.We'll just steal the next refutation from the Great Orange Satan™ itself.
It's not like Hagee wasn't extraordinarily well known, before this election season, or somehow unvettable. I have Hagee's 2006 book, "Jerusalem Countdown", sitting on my table; it's chock full of insulting statements, dire prophecies and interpretations of Scripture so, shall we say, "unusual" that they bear far more resemblance to the ramblings of a UFO cult than to what many people would call Christianity. So here are the next questions. Will far-far-right evangelicals, of the sort that want to collect Jews into Israel so as to bring about the Apocalypse, forgive McCain for dumping one of their most prominent preachers under the bus? Will McCain learn anything from this about associating with far-right figures that use religion not just as little more than excuse for their own prejudices and bigotries, but as justification for violence and war? Will the media report McCain's repudiation with even one tenth as much vigor as they obsessed over Obama's "preacher problem"? I predict the answers to be yes, no, and you've got to be kidding.That really is a cynical left-wing hate-site over there, isn't it? That fat guy who has his own fund-raising scam going (The Catholic League) was munificent enough to accept the sincere apology of Heart Attack John Hagee.
But Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said he found it "noble" that Hagee decided to sever his ties to McCain. "He knows he has become a liability to McCain, even after he has made amends to Catholics," he said. [...] "I found him to be sincere, apologetic and friendly," Donohue said. "I also found him to be the strongest Christian defender of Israel I have ever met, and that is why attempts to portray him as anything but a genuine friend to Jews -- one for whom the Holocaust is the horror of horrors -- is despicable."Who died & appointed Donohue Pope? And a big "friend" of Israel is Hagee, who hopes that all unconverted Jews will die in a lake of fire or some such crap, after Hagee has done his best to start Holocaust II in Israel in order to get the "Rapture" going. Also in the Times "repudiation" story:
McCain was in California on Thursday on a campaign trip. He participated in a business roundtable with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and vowed he would "compete and win" in the Golden State. At the rally later, he drew laughter when he mocked Obama, saying that "for a young man with very little experience, he's done very well."Great, now he's stealing St. Ronnie of Alzheimeria's lines. And the Compare & Contrast moment, also from the Times:
Less than four months after losing the California primary, Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in projected November general election matchups, a new Los Angeles Times/KTLA poll has found.Percentage among registered California voters (705 of them questioned Tues. & Wednes.) Obama vs. McBush, 47% to 40 %, Clinton vs. McSame, 43% to 40%. As always, we remind you that there are still more than five mos. until the actual election, & that polls don't mean doodley-squat, especially this far away from the event.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Your FBI in Peace & War
Agent says the FBI is not prepared The bureau is 'ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat we are facing,' he tells a House panel. Agent Bassem Youssef said that counter-terrorism agents and managers at FBI headquarters often lack basic knowledge about Middle Eastern culture, language and terrorists' ideology. Compounding matters, he said, is the fact that the FBI has continued to name supervisors to anti-terrorism positions who have little or no experience outside traditional law enforcement. The result, he said, is that agents are wasting resources chasing leads that more sophisticated observers would quickly dispense with. The time and energy expended on marginal cases has diverted resources from investigating more substantial threats, Youssef said. "The FBI counter-terrorism division is ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat we are facing," he told a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee considering legal protections for government whistle-blowers working at national security agencies such as the FBI. "Regardless of what happens to me when I walk into the Hoover building [FBI headquarters] tomorrow, that is what I hope to convey to you," said Youssef, one of several who testified at the hearing. [...] A decorated counter-terrorism agent in the 1990s, Youssef was passed over for promotions after the Sept. 11 attacks and filed a lawsuit in 2003 claiming the bureau discriminated against him based on his ancestry. The son of immigrant Christian Egyptians, he grew up in Los Angeles; he has long been the highest-ranking Arab American agent in the FBI and one of its few native Arabic speakers. Youssef has been outspoken about the failure of the FBI to recruit Arabic-speaking agents and other bureau shortcomings. After the FBI denied him a transfer to a counter-terrorism unit, he was placed in an administrative job managing the receipt of information from telephone companies. [...] Also testifying was Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who has frequently criticized the FBI for being insular and who has been a champion of government whistle-blowers. "The FBI is one of the most powerful and least transparent organizations in the federal government," he said. "Underneath all of the good things the FBI does, unfortunately, there is a history of abuse, mismanagement and retaliation so strong that it has become part of its organizational culture."Grassley said those who break the "code of silence" deserve more legal protection.And from the City Pages of the Twin Cities, we see what the FBI is up to as far as stopping domestic terrorism.
What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement.Fucking vegans. The nerve, not eating meat. That's a terrorist act in itself. But not to worry, National Beef Council. Just Another Blog™ hates America, but we loooove the flesh of dead cattle. More anti-biotics & hormones, please! (Leave a contact in the comments if you'd like to ship us some dead meat, cattlemen!)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Draw & Quarter The Rich Before Eating
Apparently clicking "reply" when he meant to hit "forward," Countrywide Financial Corp. Chairman Angelo Mozilo ignited an online furor Tuesday by describing a mortgage customer's plea for help as a "disgusting" example of form letters inundating the Calabasas home lender.Again we ask, "When will the 'online furor' turn into real fury?"
We'd Exhort You to "Eat The Rich," But They're Filled w/ Additives
Although consumers with above-average disposable incomes have been notching back since the third quarter of last year, they aren't curtailing purchases of "experiences," such as theater tickets and meals out, said Pam Danziger, owner of Unity Marketing, a research firm that focuses on luxury markets. Danziger herself draws the line at stopping Botox and Restylane treatments, which set her back $800 or so every four months. "I'm not about to give that up," she said. "That's my affordable luxury."Or:
"People are very concerned about everything they ingest, eat, put on their skin because of what it's doing biochemically to their body," said Pao, whose business helps companies develop turnaround strategies. "So the organic food market is kind of blowing out the door even though it's like four times as much as regular food." At Erewhon Natural Foods Market in Los Angeles, where "body ecologists" dispense tips from the tonic bar and customers pay $15 for a Mint Chip Energizer drink or $25 for Blood of the Dragon, business is great. If the drink they select doesn't already include it, most people add "super deer antler" (believed to boost sexual strength, virility and fertility) at $2 a drop, said Mitzi Poulin, a store manager. "Sometimes your drink can cost you $40 for just one cup," she said. Some sales come from people who partied too hard the night before. "They come and say, 'Oh, I have a hangover, can you fix me?' " Poulin said that in April, revenue was up 11% compared with the same month last year. "I cannot say that the recession affects us," she said.Not at all dissimilar to the superstitions of later period Romans. "Super deer antler." We gotcher "super deer antler" right here, Richie Rich. The Romans had an excuse, they weren't quite hep to science yet. What's w/ our "elites?" We can only hope that ordinary "real" Americans (not "white wine-sipping swells") pick up their pitchforks, light some torches, & head for the West Side of Los Angeles & the Upper West Side of Manhattan, murdering & pillaging all the way.
Jesus Hussein Christ!
“I am a war criminal,” McCain said on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” Although it came too late to save the Vietnamese he’d killed 30 years earlier, it was a brave statement. Nevertheless, he smiles agreeably as he hears himself described as a “war hero” as he arrives at rallies in a bus marked “No Surrender.”From vicious cartoonist Ted Rall, who receives the Just Another Blog™ Seal of Approval.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Marxist-Leninist Yuppie Gen Xers On The (Long?) March
We're not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, or just a thing.This is what class warfare looks like in the 21st century. In February, the CPUSA officially unveiled its newly refurbished office space in the trendy Chelsea district of Manhattan. The Reds went "green" for their $1 million overhaul, including various environmentally conscious features in the design. Huge windows and transparent walls were installed to take advantage of the sunlight and create greater energy efficiency. They also installed occupancy sensors so artificial lighting would not be wasted, and nontoxic building materials were used to reduce health risks to staff. [...] Glass walls rise from the floor to form state-of-the-art work spaces, nontoxic linseed oil burnishes the work surfaces, and biodegradable blue carpet is underfoot. Colorful paintings by the renowned artists Boris Taslitzky and Alejandro Romero, depicting the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and working-class struggle, dot the walls of the expansive open-plan office. Inside their transparent cubicles, the 21-strong staff tap away on Apple Macs and sip Starbucks offee.
Always Happy to Lend Our Name to The News
Let's Have a War (Chickenhawk Edition)
“Called for” and gonna do it are two very different things. It’s entirely called for. Strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and Quds Force training camps and headquarters. Any more crap out of Iran, and follow-on strikes on the oil and transportation infrastructure Iran uses to support and facilitate terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. It’s long overdue.So the Soviet Union should have dropped a few on the U. S. when we were arming & otherwise assisting Osama Bin Laden in his struggle against Marxist Imperialism in Afghanistan? Sauce for the goose & the gander there, Jules. But don't think we're not impressed w/ the picture on his blog header. What a man he must be. What a big gun. And an APC. Macho isn't enough of a word for him. And the adverts?
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Betcha Can't Read Just One
“From Day One, Nixon and I talked about creating a new majority,” Buchanan told me recently, sitting in the library of his Greek-revival house in McLean, Virginia, on a secluded lane bordering the fenced grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency.Yup, Pat Buchanan lives right next door to the CIA. Imagine.
Counter-Revolutionary Activity Will Be Punished Severely
McCain plans to continue, and perhaps even accelerate, George W. Bush’s conservative counter-revolution at the Supreme Court.That's all we're giving you. And it's all you need, really.
Fat, Limp-Dicked Losers Can't Die Soon Enough for Us
Tweety Chirps
So after years of exploiting buzzwords like “terrorism” and “mushroom clouds” and “homeland” and “weapons of mass destruction” to control the policy debate, the president finally went a buzzword too far.Matthews, you've been on the air for quite a while now, what's taken you so long to call out the Commander-in-Chimp on his non-stop bullshit?
Birthday Greetings to a Real American
Whiny-Ass Spoiled Americans Weigh In
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.Then PunditGuy (Clever name, that.) states:
...to think that someone who is running for president can suggest that Americans give up their freedom to spend what they want to purchase what they want; to eat what we want and to keep our houses heated to whatever level of comfort we want…it’s…Un-American.What a spoiled bag of scum. Is that all This Great Nation of Ours™ means to you, PunditGuy? A chance to be nothing more than a food tube? A spacer between agri-business & the toilet bowl? No wonder Just Another Blog™ hates Americans. We hate everyone else as well, but Yankee pig-dogs, because we've known them intimately for so many yrs., have a special place in our hateful parts.
Hagee + Hitler = John McCain?
Hitler and the Nazis were divine agents, sent by God to (with gruesome inefficiency it would seem) chase Europe's Jews towards Palestine.Who said it? Pastor "Heart Attack" Hagee, of course, who is so anxious to bring about the apocalypse that he thinks Hitler was "doing gawd's work." Is he hoping to be raptured before his coronary? Because if he dies from a heart attack, he should go to hell for gluttony.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Blood & Irony
"A full-blooded American." That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with "someone who is a full-blooded American as president." Whether Fry was referring to McCain's military service or Obama's Kenyan father isn't clear, but he may have hit upon something essential in this presidential race.Something essentially ridiculous, that is. "Oh, no, I'm not a racist. Just interested in people's blood." Let's just hear how military service makes one a "full-blooded American" as opposed to having a Kenyan father makes one not "full-blooded." Huh? We're waiting. Really, what is this? What if Sen. Obama's father were, oh, Canadian, and his name was something Scottish? Think the same dubious "issue" would be raised?
It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots."Blood equity?" What the eff is that? "Heritage?" Need we remind anyone that the only "full-blooded" Americans are those whose ancestors were here before that Columbus fellow showed up? Are we about to get another, newer, apartheid system here, based on how long ago one's ancestors showed up to keep slaves & murder the indigenes?
But there's a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.Yes, it's the old "some of us are real Americans, but if you live w/in 50 miles of the Atlantic or Pacific coasts you ain't one." And no one since the 19th century has made any sacrifice to get here, have they?
But so-called ordinary Americans aren't so easily manipulated and they don't need interpreters. They can spot a poser a mile off and they have a hound's nose for snootiness. They've got no truck with people who condescend nor tolerance for that down-the-nose glance from people who don't know the things they know.Just what things do they know? Isn't West Virginia the very bottom of the heap in education, & the leader in pollution?
What they know is that their forefathers fought and died for an America that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years. What they sense is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the remodeling of America.Funny, there just isn't anything in the Constitution that says the United Snakes is a specific, Euro-centric culture. And if America is such a great fucking idea, & the world continues to beat a path to our door, why are these clowns so worried that "multi-culturalism" will suddenly destroy everything? Isn't America a wonderful idea that transcends race, color & creed? Apparently not. Only those who work at their faith need apply, per Kathleen.
That God, for instance, isn't something that comes and goes out of fashion. That clinging to religion isn't a knee-jerk response to nativist paranoia, but is the hard work of constant faith. Likewise, clinging to guns isn't some weird obsession so that Bubba can hang Bambi's head over the mantel. To many gun owners, it's a constitutional bulwark against government tyranny. As Condi Rice has noted, it wasn't long ago in this country that blacks needed guns to protect themselves when the police would not. Some Americans do feel antipathy toward "people who aren't like them," but that antipathy isn't about racial or ethnic differences. It is not necessary to repair antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land and who dismiss the struggles that resulted in their creation. Full-blooded Americans get this. Those who hope to lead the nation better get it soon.With threats like that, perhaps we'll all soon need guns to protect us from the Kathleen Parkers & Josh Frys of This Great Nation of Ours™. Last questions: Is it only the swarthy & furrin, due to their "blood," who "disregard the laws of the land?" And who is "dismissing" the struggles that led to the creation of the "laws of the land?" Really, who? A companion piece comes from another great ClownHall thinker, Michael Medved, who seems to believe there is a specific "American DNA." The irony of a Jewish person who so identifies w/ Protestant evangelical/fundamentalists who want to see him burn in Israel to bring on Armageddon talking about "American" DNA is just too much for us. Let us know how your test turns out, Mike. We may be interested in seizing your property after your train ride. Seattle's not that far from Wyoming, is it?
Saturday, May 17, 2008
More Info, More Often
Clothing manufacturer Hugo Boss also worked for the Nazi Party. He designed the all-black uniforms for the SS Army and Hitler Youth. The clothier, now reputed for constructing some of the most chic business attire for men, just recently learned of their connections to the Third Reich after the names of prominent Hitler supporters were released. Hugo Boss, the company's founder, was on the list. Boss execs paid for further research on the company's Nazi connections to be conducted. Sure enough, the business relationship was confirmed. Hugo Boss's son, Siegfried Boss explained that it wasn't hard to believe that Boss, being a German company, had connections to the Third Reich. ''Of course my father belonged to the Nazi Party. But who didn't belong back then?" Siegfried Boss said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Profil.We might ask son Ziggy the difference between "connections," "prominent Hitler supporters" & actually designing shit for the Nazis, not that there's a link to the list, or any indication of what "prominent supporters" means in this context. We will state that we will never purchase any Mitsubishi products, as their aircraft were used to try to kill my father (and others, also) during the Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. Anyway, thanks to "g" for providing us w/ a question that we could blather about today. (The well is drying up here.) Hugo Boss, the corporate entity, may not be that old, but it looks as if Hugo himself was. Just Another Blog™, having co-invented the "jeans & t-shirt" fashion category in the late '40s (w/ Neal Cassady & Jack Kerouac) doesn't follow the fashion world that much, but we had thought Hugo Boss was an Italian corporate entity, & had no idea that there had been an actual Hugo Boss. (Trust us, we know from made-up names, & "Hugo Boss" sounds like one.) Never occurred to us that Krauts would run a fashion outfit (Who invented lederhosen?) but then again, as the guy on Dragnet said to Sgt. Friday, "Y'all a buncha Nazis, you just don't dress as sharp."
Friday, May 16, 2008
Heil Hugo!!
Among the most renowned organizations to lend their services to the Third Reich are Porsche, IBM, Hugo Boss, Bayer and Siemens.Thanks to Alex Constantine's Blacklist for leading us to this.
In Case You Didn't Get The Bigger Pcture
An individual's sexual orientation – like a person's race or gender – does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.Note that the decision is not limited to marriage alone, but uses the much more encompassing phrase "legal rights." If gawd flooded New Orleans in advance of the gay parade that was planned there, imagine how pissed he is now! We suppose we'll be hearing that this season's wildfires are the vengeance of the war god of the Hebrews. Homeowners, clear that brush, & all should be sure their earthquake survival kits are ready to go, the water, survival bars & batteries are fresh, etc. Because there's trouble coming. Gawd hates fags, you know.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
"Democrats, Not Drugs"
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called reporters into his office. "Democrats, not drugs, is what the American people need," he said. He flashed the Effexor side effects on a large flat-screen television. "Nausea, up to 58 percent," Hoyer said. "Actually it's higher than that for Republicans."From elsewhere in the WaPo:
"What we've got is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence in the American people that we will do what we say we're going to do," conceded Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.No, the American people are afraid that you actually will do what you threaten to do.
"These races were not in New Jersey or New England, where Republican erosion has taken place over the last decade. They were in the heart of the Bible Belt, the social conservative core of our coalition," Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) fretted in a 20-page memorandum given to House Republican leaders yesterday and provided to The Washington Post. "Members and pundits, waiting for Democrats to fumble the ball so that soft Republicans and Independents will snap back to the GOP, fail to understand the deep seeded antipathy toward the President, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures and, in some areas, the underlying cultural differences that continue to brand our party."They're in the same bubble of privilege & idiocy as G. W. Bush. Before we go, let's hear from two losers who were essentially run out of congress on a rail, not-yet-convicted felon Tom DeLay & serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. (That the Goofy OLD Party is still paying attention to these two bloated buffoons may indicate part of their problem.)
"We haven't hit bottom yet. I've never seen members so frustrated or demoralized," former House majority leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) said in an interview. DeLay and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) have been issuing calls to arms to their former troops. But even they disagree on the steps needed to reverse their fortunes, with Gingrich demanding an emergency meeting of all Republicans to craft a new agenda. Gingrich is offering unusual proposals such as reforming the Census Bureau and the Federal Aviation Administration. But DeLay called those ideas "a yawn" and instead demanded a dramatic agenda that would energize the conservative base -- or else face major losses in the fall leading to wholesale changes in leadership next year. "That sort of thing will happen over time if there are more losses. You can never gauge when members have had enough," he said. "There is no simple, easy way out of this," said Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster who works closely with congressional Republicans. "This is extraordinarily problematic."Yes, the nation cries out for reform of the Census Bureau. Knowing Gingrich, it's probably a plot to keep Democrats from voting, or at least to reduce representation in blue states.
File Under: Shit, Sacks of, Lying Republican
When a reporter in North Bend, Wash., asked McCain why the average voter concerned with climate change should support him over Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, his reply was tart. "I have been involved in this issue for many, many years," the Arizona senator said. "They have never, to my knowledge, been involved in legislation, nor hearings, nor engagement in this issue," he said, adding that he'd "traveled around the world and seen the impacts of climate change." What he didn't mention was that on two of those trips, Clinton was there alongside him. She joined him on a 2004 congressional delegation to Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands in the Arctic, and on a 2005 trek to Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory, where they viewed shrinking glaciers. McCain mentioned both trips in his speech but not the New York senator.Ms. Reston refers to it as "selective memory." The Times' style book probably doesn't allow reporters to flat out state that a major party candidate is a lying you know what, but we'll be holding our breath waiting for the Times to editorialize on the subject. (Please call 9-1-1 when we turn blue. Thanks.) Meanwhile, every time Republican Liar-in-Chief Bush opens his mouth, horseshit falls out. We won't even start on the whole address before the Knesset where he suggested that Sen. Obama would have appeased the Nazis, & so forth, but let's look at reaction to Bush's recent Politico/Yahoo! interview. From Tim McDonald at TravelGolf.com (which, we guess, isn't the most radical left wing site on the web, if you know what we mean):
Talk about flawed intelligence. I’m referring to George Bush’s I.Q., not the baloney he and his cronies cooked up to wage war on Iraq. Bush says he gave up golf to show solidarity with the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even with such a trivial subject, he lied. Records indicate Bush played at least another round after he swore he gave up the game. America will be a better country without this clown, the world will be a better world and so will the game of golf. I never thought there would be an American president more out of touch with the people than the first George Bush, until his slacker son came along. Troops are dying. Bush gives up golf. Maybe. Imagine playing a round with Bush. Keep an eye on his pencil and scorecard.HuffPo links to various stories indicating W.'s knee is screwed up, & that's why he's given up golf, as well as running. The actual quote:
"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."And what sort of "signal" does it send to do a "comedy" piece for whatever Washington dinner it was where he looked for WMDs under his desk & the rug in the Oval Office, etc.? Remember what a horrid disgrace it was that Bill Clinton got some action in the Oval Office, as if it's some sort of sacred location? But when Bush uses the Oval Office to mock Americans serving & dying in his war, it's all fun & games? "Mom?" "Son?" What about daughters & fathers? Which century does this abomination live in? WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? WHERE. IS. THE. OUTRAGE?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Military-Informational Complex
McCain Wrap-Up
McCain, who has sponsored a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, said his rivals had "never, to my knowledge, been involved in legislation nor hearings nor engagement in this issue," even though both Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton co-sponsored his global warming legislation in 2007 and now back more aggressive measures.Next it'll be "I don't recall..." Alberto Gonzales style. Remember Al? Where is he today? Back to his old gig shystering for Texas real estate developers? Making big bucks on the Republican rubber chicken circuit? Waterboarding detainees in his spare time?
Back on the McCain front, morbidly obese evangelical endorser John Hagee has issued a non-apology apology for his anti-Catholic rants. Y'know, where you don't actually apologize, or admit that you were wrong, but merely state that you're sorry if anyone found your "remarks" hurtful or were offended by them.
the terms he used to describe the church, such as "the great whore," were "rhetorical devices long employed in anti-Catholic literature."No shit, Sherlock. When did you figure that out, when you were busily reading all the anti-Catholic literature you could get your meat hooks on? We thought most of that "whore of Babylon" stuff came from the Book of Revelations, found in some versions of the Holy Bible. Is that all rhetorical devices now, rather than the "revealed" or "inspired" or something word of gawd?
All is well now, in the battle to impose religion by force.
"Pastor John Hagee has demonstrated an improved understanding of the Catholic Church and its history," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement. "The tone of Hagee's letter is sincere. He wants reconciliation and he has achieved it."Hey Johnny, you were asked if your campaign was involved, not if you were. That would be a non-denial denial, like the non-apology apology.
McCain said he was pleased by the exchange. "That's the kind of reconciliation that I've been engaged in for many, many years," he said.
Asked whether he or his campaign was involved in brokering the reconciliation, McCain said: "I certainly wasn't."
NB: Just Another Blog™ firmly states that the Catholic Church is a big whore, along w/ all other religiosity, but it's pretty obvious Hagee is more worried about donations going to Rome rather than Cornerstone Church, as opposed to any serious "theological" differences. It's also obvious that Cornerstone Church is as big a whore as any other religious outfit.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Tweety Does It Again
Matthews: Hillary is 'the Al Sharpton of white people' When Chris Matthews says something he thinks is clever, it usually keeps coming up throughout the night. Early in Tuesday's primary coverage, Matthews said that if Hillary Clinton uses the word "white" once more, she could be called "the Al Sharpton of white people." A couple of hours later, talking to Sen. Bob Casey, Matthews mentioned how he doesn't like using labels like white" or "working class." Matthews said, "We're not sociologists; we're Americans." And again, Matthews likened Clinton, with her use of the word "white," as possibly becoming "the Al Sharpton of white people." Let's see if he makes it a hat trick!We're not that amused by "Hillary is 'the Al Sharpton of white people,'" but what the fuck does "We're not sociologists; we're Americans," mean? People who work for a living don't exist? There are no class divisions in America? As an alleged political something, or pundit, or whatever the fuck he thinks he is, he ought to have some knowledge of sociology, oughtn't he? And maybe should stop denying the disparity in income & opportunity belying the "American Dream." Fucking mackerel-snapper. Hagee's right, in some respects. The Catholic Church does some serious drain bamage.
Tuesdays w/ Jonah
What do Yucca Mountain and Guantanamo Bay have in common? Well, there's the obvious stuff. Both have Spanish names. Neither is a great spot for a family vacation. And each is under the control of the federal government.We'll note that "yucca" is not a Spanish word. Maybe Jonah thinks that the United States was stolen from the King of Spain, rather than the people from whom the King of Spain stole parts of it.
Even if every American lived like a Prius-driving, vegan eco-feminist, we'd still fall far short. A recent MIT study found that even the homeless in America have twice the carbon footprint of the global average.In reference to the slur against the homeless, we send you to Sadly, No! And what does "eco-feminist" have to do w/ anything? Only women are...are...are what?
But here's the thing: If you want to fight a war on terrorism, or any war, you need to put captured combatants someplace -- someplace other than a conventional U.S. prison, where they're treated like any other criminal.Uh, yeah. Certainly there are no "SuperMax" prisons anywhere. Nor brigs or stockades on military bases located w/in the continental U. S. That might make it too easy for Mahometans to have contact w/ attorneys though. Speaking of which:
Just how many "20th hijackers" have there been, anyway? Back to Jonah:WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday it dropped charges against a Saudi who U.S. officials say intended to be the "20th hijacker" on Sept. 11 but sent five others to trial on accusations they planned the 2001 attacks.
A Pentagon appointee who oversees the U.S. war court at its Guantanamo Bay military prison did not say why she rejected the charges that prosecutors sought earlier this year against Mohammed al-Qahtani.
Now compare & contrast w/ this:McCarthy prosecuted jihadi terrorists as criminals in the 1990s, but he rightly scorns the idea that we can treat terrorists like bank robbers. That Clinton-era strategy "can be considered a success only if one's chief preoccupation is due process. Viewed through the prism of national security, the effort was an abysmal failure." According to McCarthy, from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 to the second on 9/11, only 29 mostly low-level operatives were caught and convicted in the U.S., costing taxpayers millions and doing next to nothing to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
Domestic spying far outpaces terrorism prosecutions As more Americans are watched, fewer cases are made. The trend concerns civil liberties groups as well as some lawmakers and legal experts. [...] The emphasis on spy programs also is starting to give pause to some members of Congress who fear the government is investing too much in anti-terrorism programs at the expense of traditional crime-fighting. Other lawmakers are raising questions about how well the FBI is performing its counter-terrorism mission.The Senate Intelligence Committee last week concluded that the bureau was far behind in making internal changes to keep the nation safe from terrorist threats. Lawmakers urged that the FBI set specific benchmarks to measure its progress and make more regular reports to Congress.So even casting due process & civil liberties to the wind, the FBI are still stumbling over their own dicks. (No they aren't. If they had peckers large enough to stumble over, the Special Agents wouldn't have joined the Bureau in the first place.) Per Sadly, No! (again) Guantanamo isn't a Spanish word either. What an ignoramus Jonah is.
Let's Have a "Long" War, So You Can Go Die
Back in September 2001, Rumsfeld put it this way: "We have a choice -- either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or to change the way that they live; and we chose the latter." In this context, "they" represent the billion or so Muslims inhabiting the greater Middle East. [...] Well into the first decade of this generational struggle, Americans remained oddly confused about its purpose. Is the aim to ensure access to cheap and abundant oil? Spread democracy? Avert nuclear proliferation? Perpetuate the American empire? Preserve the American way of life? From the outset, the enterprise that Gates now calls the "Long War" has been about all of these things and more.From Andrew J. Bacevich's fine piece on the L. A. Times' op-ed page today. And he doesn't even bring up the Orwellian perpetual war concept that the "Long War" feeds into, nor the damage that can be done to even an allegedly democratic nation by putting it on a continuous war footing.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Let's Have a War, Or At Least Drop Stuff on Another Country
I'm all for the option of invading just about anyone, at least in the sense that I believe in a doctrine of conditional sovereignty. That's to say, there's no reason why a dictatorship should expect its sovereignty to be as respected as, say, New Zealand's.Easy for him to say, he's one of those Canadians who makes a living being more "American" than most Americans, yet he'll never be carrying a gun anywhere except to a photo session.
However, I'd be reluctant to send the boys into Rangoon on the say so of Time magazine. If we've learned anything from the past five years, it's that the media, the Democratic Senators, the think-tank experts and large numbers of other fast-molting hawks are on board only until the first setback, or the first "atrocity".Or until they realize they were lied to, & (what probably really made them change their minds) were stupid enough to believe the lies about "threats to our national security." (By the way, it's not just "the boys" in the services any more, though we realize Mr. Steyn thinks whitey isn't breeding enough to keep up w/ the brown hordes, & doubtless would like to set up some of those SS-style breeding houses for "the boys" when they get back from the latest adventure.) Oddly enough, another dipstick mentioned invasion of Myanmar/Burma & compared it to invading New Zealand in a recent item. Was that part of the talking point issued to all the droolers? Can't these fucks even do a rewrite?
Let’s see: first the Wall Street Journal says that Burma should be kicked out of the United Nations (why can’t the US be kicked out, so we would be able to stop funding their rampant anti-Americanism and support of human rights violaters [sic], dictators, and terror supporting nations?) [...] So, it is apparently OK in Liberal World to invade a sovereign nation that has no bearing on US security, is not trying to gain WMD, is not systematically torturing, maiming, raping, and slaughting [sic] its citizens on purpose, is not paying families $25k to have their kids blow themselves up in Israel, and is not in violation of 17 UN resolutions, not to mention firing on US forces in the No Fly Zones. Great. Maybe we could invade New Zealand next.What horseshit. First Mr. Rum, Sodomy & The Lash is decrying the U. N.; a paragraph later a U. N. resolution is good reason to invade a sovereign nation whose greatest bearing on U. S. security was as an oppositional force to Iran. Now, of course, the president of Iran makes announced visits to Baghdad & is openly welcomed, but Bush, Cheney, & Rice have to sneak into Iraq unannounced. Final quibble: There's no real desire to "send the boys into Rangoon" in the Time article, at the most there is talk of securing the flooded areas to insure supply of food, medicine, etc. Leave it to clowns like Steyn & "William Teach" to read the Time headline & get all squishy in the Depends™, rather than read the whole thing & comment sensibly. Oh. Unocal & their ilk already have most of the oil in Burma/Myanmar in their pockets, in coƶperation w/ the generals, so there's no real reason to "invade." And there may be some sort of agenda, or instructions from Vast Right Wing Conspiracy HQ, as to the reaction to have (bash the U. N., the media, Democratic Senators & non-Heritage Foundation/AEI think-thank experts not on the non-stop war bandwagon).
Sen. Obama as "Biblical Plague"
Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.Excuse us, but isn't George W. Bush the "biblical plague" in question? He hadn't been in office a yr. when This Great Nation of Ours™ was jumped by a bunch of Muhammadans. And see the item immediately below for how happy America is under W.'s administration.
Yes, these people live among us.Nevertheless, the word is that some evangelicals dispute Huckabee's support. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.
According to this activist, at the heart of the let-Obama-win movement is longtime Virginia conservative leader Michael Farris -- the nation's leading home-school advocate, who is now chancellor of Patrick Henry College (in Purcellville, Va.) for home-schooled students. Best known politically as the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, Farris is regarded as one of the hardest-edged Christian politicians. He is reported in evangelical circles to promote the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency.
Even taking Huckabee's professions of support for McCain at face value, he is not leaving politics for the lecture circuit. He has formed the Huck PAC to back Republican candidates, his supporters have established a Web site (Huck4America.com), and Huckabee backers are behind the Government Is Not God PAC, which aims to discourage McCain from naming Romney as his vice president.
We're still trying to reconcile the "Government Is Not God PAC" w/ the concept that Huckleberry is "God's Candidate" for 2012. But consistency, foolish or otherwise, is not the hobgoblin of the small Xtian mind.
Wrong Way Bush Continues to "Lead" Entire Nation Into Toilet
President George W. Bush's approval rating has hit an all-time low in Washington Post-ABC News polling, as pessimism about the country's direction nears record territory,reports the Washington Post. For a nation supposedly founded on individual initiative (stealing everything from those who were already here, is what that really means) & "forged in revolution," one would think that Americans would be in the streets w/ pitchforks & torches (or those millions of guns they have) demanding change. Instead, no more than half of them will even bother to vote this November. It's not easy spending 24 hrs. a day hating the "nation" between whose imaginary lines on a map we were born, but polls like this & the apathetic reaction thereto make it so much easier.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
That About Which We Could Not Possibly Care Any Fucking Less
HEADLINE UPDATE
Death of the Middle Class, & Its Cars
It would be a sad end for a marque that had generated its share of automotive history. Launched in the 1939 model year as a "step-up" car for buyers between economy Fords and upscale Lincolns, Mercury was known for its powerful V-8 engines and became popular with hot rodders. James Dean drove a black '49 Mercury Club Coupe in the 1955 movie "Rebel Without a Cause," cementing the brand's place in American pop culture."It became an icon for teenagers," said Gary Richards of Sun City, Calif., a member of the International Mercury Owners Assn. "James Dean was cool; he drove a Mercury; ergo, Mercury was cool." [...] Because of franchise agreements and state laws that protect car dealers, killing off a line of vehicles can be a real pain, as General Motors Corp. discovered when it pulled the plug on Oldsmobile eight years ago. GM set aside almost $1 billion to handle the transition and still spent more than five years battling dealer lawsuits. "Discontinuing a brand isn't as easy as you might think," said Libby of J.D. Power. "It's a long-term process and it can be very expensive."We can't say if the elimination of the middle of Ford's & GM's middle cars are part of the plot, or a reflection of its success, as the middle-class dwindles & fewer & fewer consumers are able to afford anything but a shit mobile. And a shitty one at that. Chrysler, even before the Krauts & then the venture capitalists took over, had long ago dropped Imperial. They've gotten rid of the extremes, leaving it to the Dodge & Chrysler marques to demarcate the class divide, as Ford will w/ its two remaining brands. meanwhile, General Motors plods along w/ four separate lines, although to this jaundiced eye the new Caddies (pick-ups & SUVs) have little to do w. the luxury vehicle of our fading youth,