Late, But The Party's Still On

Dunno how we missed this musical posting from last wk.

No One Cares, But ...

So, does anyone else think that Mickey Kaus is gone from Tina Brown's Newsweek (& firmly ensconced at Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller) because Brown had a chance to get Andrew Sullivan?

And find your own effing links to all this incestuous bullshit. What are we, your mother? (It is just this attitude that keeps us from paid employment.)

UPDATE (1554PT 28 February 2100): We still don't care, but perhaps we should note Mr. Kaus's explanation.

Oman: Temples Of Commodity Fetishism Attacked

MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — Protesters set a supermarket ablaze and gathered in several sites in a seaside town in Oman on Monday in a third consecutive day of unrest that has included deadly clashes in the strategic Gulf nation.

Security forces sealed off main roads to Sohar, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of the capital of Muscat, in attempts to isolate the protesters and keep crowds from swelling.

Best place for revolution is a seaside town alright. And, the temples of commerce weren't attacked until the forces of authority & repression were hit on the second day of action. No stopping it now, no matter how little their experience.

Protests have been rare in the country, which wraps around the southeast corner of the Arabian peninsula. But Oman’s ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, is moving quickly to try to offer reforms to quell the demands that include more jobs and a greater public voice in the country’s affairs.

On Sunday, he ordered 50,000 new state positions and a monthly stipend of 150 rials ($390) for job seekers. A day earlier, the sultan replaced six Cabinet members.

A high-level delegation planned to travel to Sohar to meet with protesters, who on Sunday set fire to cars, a police station and the governor’s residence.

Never Have So Many Said So Little For So Long

Joe, Mike, & Pat discuss, two or three other Media Village Idjits look on.

Oscar® Wrap-Up & Reminder

Courtesy Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles Community Relations Committee Collection, Urban Archives Center, University Library, California State University-Northridge

I & I Prophesy

Heard it through the Internet grapevine:

Smaller Gov't. Theory Made Clear

T-Paw, one of we can't remember how many indistinguishable Mid-Western Republican gubners &/or ex-gubners in the thick of the speculation about possible entrants to next yr.'s (Only 10 mos. 'til 2012!) sacrificial lamb event visited that state where they're always shooting people & may have found found his campaign catch phrase:

Invoking former New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan,* Pawlenty called for smaller government.

“Do you remember the guy who ran in the NYC mayor’s race who ran his entire campaign on a simple motto?” Pawlenty asked the audience. “He said over and over: ‘The rent is too damn high!’ So here’s our simple motto: The Government’s too damn big!’”

Pawlenty headlined the three-day event and was one of three potential Republican presidential contenders — former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and Texas Rep. Ron Paul were the others — slated to speak.

Ambien®Palookas 2011!!

*(born December 1, 1946),^[2] also known as Jimmy Mack,^[3] The Black Hulk Hogan,^[4] Papa Smurf,^[5] Santa Claus on Venus^[6] and Rambo,^[7] is an American martial arts instructor, former postal worker, private investigator, Vietnam War veteran, perennial candidate, and political activist from Brooklyn, New York.

Has It Stopped Yet?

Fat Kite

LadiesCelebrities, please!

Charo: 'Lady Gaga is Madonna with diarrhea'; Singer slammed on Sirius XM ...

We think Charo's on the left. "Cuchi-Cuchi!"

The only possible winner here is the schadenfreuding public.

Spring Training At Vero Beach

Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Carl Furillo, and Duke Snider, Vero Beach, Fla.,
8 March 1951.

Sad Baseball Up-Date: Win One For The Duke

Via the Dodgers:

Dodger Hall of Fame outfielder Duke Snider passed away this morning at the age of 84 at the Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, Calif.

Born Edwin Donald Snider in Los Angeles, CA on Sept. 19, 1926, Snider was among the game's most feared hitters during his 16 seasons with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers (1947-1962), playing on a pair of World Championship teams (1955 and 1959) and in six World Series overall.

Hey. We forgot/didn't know he shared ourwe shared his birthday.* That's extra sad. Who's next, Adam West, Twiggy ... or us?

The authority:

Dodger Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully:
"He was an extremely gifted talent and his defensive abilities were often overlooked because of playing in a small ballpark, Ebbets Field. When he had a chance to run and move defensively, he had the grace and the abilities of DiMaggio and Mays and of course, he was a World Series hero who will forever be remembered in the borough of Brooklyn. Although it's ironic to say it, we have lost a giant. He's joining a great Dodger team that has moved on and I extend my sympathies to his entire family, especially to Bev."

*Day, not date, potential smart-asses.

Manly Programming Notes

Had the Laker game on, it finished, suddenly there were sissies discussing red-carpet style on the telly. It will only worsen.

So we surfed a few channels up, & currently have NASCAR on, in an effort to bank some testosterone before the rest of the Oscar®* events begin swirling about the ether.

Added random: If NASCAR is so manly, why is it sponsored by boner pills?

*ACADEMY AWARD(S)®, OSCAR(S)®, OSCAR NIGHT® and OSCAR® statuette design mark are the registered trademarks and service marks, and the OSCAR® statuette the copyrighted property, of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. ©2011 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences & ABC, Inc. All Rights Reserved

If You've Noticed A Stench Here ...

It is a wonder & a miracle that dead bodies are not yet piled up in mounds. (Any one have a couple of lumps weapons-grade plutonium?) And we haven't even started w/ the Spelling/Grammar Nazi-ing.

P.S.: When one is homeless, at least the Starbuck®'s have hot water. What a fucking world.

Blood Now Spilled In Oman

"Two people have died after police fired rubber bullets in the crowd," one witness, who declined to be named, told Reuters from Sohar. Another witness said the police had used live ammunition, but that could not be confirmed.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, trying to ease tensions in the normally sleepy Gulf state as Arab unrest spread in the region, reshuffled his cabinet on Saturday, a week after an earlier protest in the capital Muscat.

Protests were also taking place in the southern town of Salalah where demonstrators have been camped out since Friday near the office of a provincial governor.

After the clashes in Sohar, police pulled back from the protest and the crowd, some of whom were carrying gasoline and matches, was making its way to a police station, [Go cats go! — M.B.] said one witness, who gave his name only as Mohammed. Helicopters circled overhead.

Witnesses said at least eight people had been hurt in the melee in addition to the two fatalities. Roadblocks had been set up on a main road between Sohar and Muscat, they said.

Gulf Arab countries have stepped up measures to appease their populations following popular unrest that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

A Tree Grows In Korea Town Adjacent

Saturday Funnies Intellectual Property Theft

Get Your Mind Out Of The Gutter

Nice Work If You Can Get It

The blaze started around 6:40 p.m. Sunday, when a woman visited a fourth-floor apartment in Brooklyn and paid a man $300 to perform a mystical ceremony that would bring her good luck, according to fire marshals with the Fire Department of New York.

The man was known in the neighborhood as a priest, and the two were either having sex, or had sex when the fire started from the candles on the floor, though it's not clear if it was part of the ceremony, said the official, who had direct knowledge of the case but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Oh. Not so funny. A fatality, & nearly fifty families are on the street. We could rant about mysticism (Was a demon summoned?) but won't this time.

Still funny. And would've been funnier if the Obeah man had had a fire extinguisher.

No Escape

KausFiles QC At TheDC

Older humans may click to read.

Would you emphasize your eyes if they were this close together?

Maybe if you were balding & weak-chinned.

Anyway, he's on about 1992, unless they turned the robot on. Do let us know when you've worked your way up to, say, 2009 or so, Mick.

Shouldn't PETA Be On This?

Canned or Dry?

Celebrity Culture

Not even Foreign Policy (The magazine's website, not the song.) is free of it.

Admittedly the last part of an item on a declaration of national emergency (Check your rights. At the door.) by an executive in Washington, D. of C., which imposes sanctions & freezes however the eff you want to spell his name's money:

There's no word yet on how the sanctions will affect the $100 million investment by Al-Saadi Qaddafi, one of the sons, in a film company that's producing a movie entitles "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," with Mickey Rourke.

Above not our discovery. @edroso re-twitted it from @james poulos. And frankly, we were a little disappointed. Reading "Buried lede alert:" & a link to "Declares National State of Emergency," we hope for potential repression at the least, & the opening of the camps if we're really bored.

But while we were there:

The executive order itself condemns the "wonton violence against unarmed associates" perpetrated by Qaddafi, his sons, his government, and his close associates. Effective immediately, all U.S.-based assets of Qaddafi and his four sons are to be frozen and transactions intended to move those assets are prohibited. The order allows the measures to be expanded to include any member of the Libyan government who are determined to be complicit in Qaddafi's brutality.

Associates? Good job transcribing. We like the gossip-column name bolding too.

Behind & Behinder

Left the bunker today, & as a result we are still reading crap that appeared on the Intertrons at 1000 today. All of it depressing or inane. Either of which can lead to rage.

Be patient.

Indicators

From the wilds of the PuffHo, as seen in our reader:

We are never in perfect balance. But being in harmony in your life means being in a process of movement and change, balancing and rebalancing the things you do, the actions you focus on, and the things you value.

Clichéd words from which one should run as fast as the buttons on your devil-box will carry you:

Balance, harmony, process, movement, change, focus, value.

Depending, natch, on context, such words can be indicative you're about to waste time on self-deluding spiritual garbage & meaningless hippie-dippie rot. Rot as in "Rot in hell, one of America's most active public philosophers."

Please Put Them Out Of Their Misery, 'Cause We're Suffering Just Thinking About Them

We suppose they're too fucking stupid or self-retarded to know any better, but still: Is there any reason for this species to be allowed to continue making the planet uninhabitable for themselves w/ environmental pollution, & ruining the human-constructed world w/ ideological confusion & ignorance?

Many Think Health Care Law Was Repealed

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that nearly half of Americans either believe that President Obama's signature health care law has been repealed (22%) or they aren't sure (26%). Only 52% accurately say that it is still the law.

Oh crap, it gets worse:

Trump Not Surprised by Poll

Donald Trump told CNN he wasn't at all surprised by a new poll which showed him a in a virtual dead heat with President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 presidential race.

Said Trump: "The poll came out, and we're in a virtual tie and I haven't campaigned...I'm not really, despite that, that surprised, because it's a message of common sense. We can have a great country again, the problem is we don't have the right leadership. We don't have the right leaders. We don't have people that have any semblance of negotiation."

Read that last sentence again. He has our vote.

Motoring Is Murder

The 22-year-old driver who struck and killed a cyclist while allegedly driving under the influence this week has 11 traffic tickets on her record according to court records.

Danae Marie Miller was driving a white Jetta when she is believed to have hit 41-year-old Amine Britel in Newport Beach Monday night, authorities said. Britel, who was riding a bicycle on San Joaquin Hills Road, could not be resuscitated by paramedics.

Miller, who somehow was driving on a valid drivers license, actually has 17 tickets since 2005 counting citations that were eventually dismissed after she showed proof, according to the OC Register.

She was scheduled to appear in court today for a driving-while-using-a-mobile-phone ticket. At least five of her tickets are for speeding.

From LAist.

Worried No More

Now we can start spending again, to help America's economic recovery. Because we're so concerned. (About ourself, obviously. No socialist collectivist we, but a rugged individual who lets the chips fall where they may, & devil take the hindmost!!)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security checks would still go out. Troops would remain at their posts. Furloughed federal workers probably would get paid, though not until later. And virtually every essential government agency, like the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard, would remain open.

That’s the little-known truth about a government shutdown. The government doesn’t shut down.

Whew. See also: Biting the hands of the assholes who feed us.

Explaining The New World Order, BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL!!!

From here, video here, nominated here.

Still Fucking Waiting

How long, how long?

Stupid Jerk Wrap-Up

Context.

Reactionary Asshole Wrap-Up

Tea Partyers, according to yet another recent poll, are conservative Republicans. They are social conservatives and whatever the other kind of conservative is, too. (Upward redistributionist conservatives, I think.) Conservative Republicans are a demographically shrinking minority, so they needed to rebrand themselves as independents, which they more or less succeeded at. And once they get into power, as they have shown in the last month, they attempt to smash unions, ban abortion, redefine rape in order to make it more difficult to safely get an abortion, take a hatchet to women's reproductive health access in general, pass increasingly onerous and insane laws punishing undocumented migrants and those suspected of being undocumented migrants, propose unconstitutional legislation designed to combat birthright citizenship (the practical result of which would be to vastly increase the number of "illegal immmigrants" in the country), name a national gun of Arizona [sic, see below] shortly after a deadly mass shooting, and otherwise do and say things that horrify and alarm reasonable Americans. (Television and Internet to the contrary, bilious pools of screeching resentment made pathetically animate still make up a minority of the nation's population.)

Also the "no miscarriages" law that buffoon in GA offered. And we'll quickly note (As we are apparently much more knowledgeable than Mr. Pareene, ha ha, so what if he gets paid for his crummy work?) that it was Utah's loons who wanted an official state gun.

Nits aside, an adequate summation.

Dep't. of Amplification (@2335PT 24 February 2011): Typed too soon. A legislator is going for a state gun in AZ as well. But it's still a state gun, not a "national" penis-extender, so we're only half-off.

QC At TheDC

Junk line indeed.

Our Lying President

Flashback Quote of the Day

"If American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States."

-- Barack Obama, quoted by Slate, while making a campaign speech in 2007.

Should we be holding our breath for this, Mr. President??

Children's Rights Round-Up: Assholes Shouldn't Have Children

A young West Brighton couple faces criminal charges after, police allege, the mom tried to abandon her unruly 6-year-old daughter at the 120th Precinct stationhouse while the dad waited in the car outside.

Advance file photoThe arrest happened at the 120th Precinct stationhouse in St. George.

Annette Gerhardt and Gerardo Santiago, 25 and 27, of Mada Avenue, later told police they only meant it as a scare tactic, but authorities didn't buy that argument, and charged both with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child.

[...]

"I was just trying to show her she has to listen to all adults, and that's it," she said. Her and Santiago's arrests, she said, were "completely uncalled for," and she's considering pursuing a lawsuit against the NYPD.

No she doesn't, you assholes! This is a free country, & there are no goddam laws or anything else that say anyone has to pay attention to anybody, ever. Fascists.

Note pigeon in lamp.

For Local Yokels Only

Saturday, 26 Feb 2011, 12:00 PM

Save the American Dream Rally - Southwest side of LA City Hall, on 1st Street, between Spring and Main Street 534 registered participant(s) (1000 maximum) 200 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 Hosted by Guy C. Johnson, Kate Frankel Nikolenko Description In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich—and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response, and vital human services. On Saturday, February 26, at noon local time, we are organizing rallies in front of every statehouse and in every major city to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. We demand an end to the attacks on worker's rights and public services across the country. We demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And we demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share. We are all Wisconsin. We are all Americans. This Saturday, we will stand together to Save the American Dream.Sign up today to join in! Share this event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114148675325884

No way in hell will we even be awake by noon, but normal people w/ responsibilities (SUCKERS!!!) may be awake.

And don't forget your guns!

Pathetically Funny

First, we should express amazement that the typist here (A traitor to Canada, &, as she's been here for 12 yrs., probably stole a job from a real American. Are traitorous job stealers really who we want in these United Snakes now?) wanted to become a Yank. Wrong direction, sister.

As well as US Citizenship & Immigration Services' questionable acumen in determining who is worthy of Real Americanhood, they don't know enough to get the citizenship test correct, as our new frostback citizen shows us.

Then there is Question 12: What is the "rule of law"?

I showed it to lawyers and law professors. They were stumped.

There are four acceptable answers: "Everyone must follow the law"; "Leaders must obey the law"; "Government must obey the law"; "No one is above the law."

Judge Richard Posner, the constitutional scholar who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, was unhappy. "These are all incorrect," he wrote me. "The rule of law means that judges decide cases 'without respect of persons,' that is, without considering the social status, attractiveness, etc. of the parties or their lawyers."

The lesson to be learned here is that no one anywhere knows anything, less is known in this greatest of all nations ever & even less is known about this wonderful, amazing, dare we type "exceptional" scab of a nation by the cretins who work for it, & really should know something about it.

Let's fire some more teachers.

P.S.:

I was asked Question 8: What did the Declaration of Independence do?

Heeding my lawyer’s advice, I went with the official answer: “declared our independence.”

MB: GB Will Explain It All For You

Run Michele, run!

Domestic Terrorism: It's On!

Atlanta & Helena.

Guess they've realized their ideasdelusions haven't had quite the acceptance & impact they expected, so they're going to more direct methods.

And we all know who else sent thugs into the streets to further corporate power. (Freedom-loving patriots, note well what happened to those Nazi thugs once their usefulness was over.)

Newt Gingrich, Leaf In The Wind

Sez Newt, taking full responsibility & personal accountability for his actions:

“I've had a life which, on occasion, has had problems,” he added.

You know, "mistakes were made." Passive voice. Newt apparently has no control over his life, or, we can asssume, much else.

"She just fell on it, what was I supposed to do?" Perfect candidate, huh?

IWW Round-Up

One of the Trike Force Of RedState, LaborUnionReport (Is that his real name?) is about to need a new pair of boxers, because people who work for a living (as opposed to people who order people around for a living, or people who live on the dividends of the value created by workers) are getting uppity.

Given the calls for a general strike in Wisconsin, the AFL-CIO (and American Left’s) role in the mid-east uprisings, the OFA’s hand in the Wisconsin protests and, now, this admission by the AFL-CIO boss, one cannot help but wonder if, in fact, the Obama administration is engaging in activities to help his union buddies bring about real “transformational” change to America. After all, it does seem that the workers of the world are uniting in a very coincidental way, doesn’t it?

Scares you, doesn't it? There are more workers than parasites, LaborUnionReport, & democracy will triumph.

Laughing Out Loud Time

If Jerry Garcia Had Lived ...

... it probably wouldn't have been worth it.

All The Pix You'll Ever Need

Note cleverness & literacy, as compared to other elements that have recently brought signs to political events.

Technology Triumphs, 46-45

Caltech broke its 310-game basketball losing streak with a one-point win tonight — at home — over rival Occidental in the final game of the season. It's the Beavers' first conference win since, oh, 1985. The final: 46-45.

We had no idea. (Obviously, because those fucking 310-time losers would have been mercilessly mocked in this space had we known.)

Abuse

We run a nice place here, & we intend to keep it that way. So get that symbolic goatse off our freaking bog-roll.

Some Variation On "One Lies, & The Other Swears To It"

For example, in the case of Beck & Bachmann, we dunno, one drools & the other ... OK, getting icky here. Anyway:Full story on grotesque Rush Limbaugh's lies (via Drudge) from No More Mr. Nice Blog.

We're always a little disappointed when media figures don't have the information we do about what's going on. Lights on in your head, Wolffe, you Limey ignoramus.

Foaming Frother

No, asswipe, not a drug: Food, clothing, shelter, their retirement & their children's futures.

While it would be a public service to pound (Literally!) the truth into Santorum's head, it's obvious he has severe deficiencies in comprehension & reality-determining, & should probably just be locked away & heavily medicated forever, as they did w/ the mentally troubled in the 19th century where frother Rick wishes we still lived.

Eaten Away From The Inside

We'd better go out & get something to eat before we murder ourself.

Poor Slob Tries to Illustrate Something, He's Just Not Sure What

One of the many sub-human losers employed by Tucker C. at his Daily Caller decided to use a (0:47) segment to illustrate something.

Mother Jones magazine’s David Corn, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker and MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews discuss former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. What could go wrong?

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Matthews’s show, this distinguished panel took time out from the big news events of the day to talk about what a new book by former Palin aide Frank Bailey could say about her political prospects. Matthews said he doubted she would run.

“This Sarah Palin story – I don’t think she’s running now, do you?” Matthews said.

Corn disagreed. He said her personality would compel her to campaign.

“I thought she wouldn’t, but she seems so self-centered I don’t how she could pass up this opportunity,” Corn said.

That’s when Matthews offered his own psychological analysis of Palin, likening her to the tyrannical and genocidal dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“She’s like Muammar Qaddafi – she just doesn’t know the world around her.” Matthews said. “If she starts showing up with an umbrella and starts saying, ‘I’m here, I’m not there.’ Well, I don’t think she is as bad as him. I’m not going to go that far.”

Here's the whole segment, which we were probably going to run anyway.

Smart Guy Wraps Up American Foreign Policy, Throws It In The Trash

That would be William Pfaff.

The American commitment of the last four decades (at least) has been to the reactionary and undemocratic order that has prevailed in the Middle East, and to the three wars and several small and misconceived “Greater Middle Eastern” interventions that sowed the disorder now undoing Middle Eastern and Mediterranean geopolitics.

Way to fucking go, America. More from Pfaff.

When Will This Marvelous Program Be Expanded To Humans?

A National Spay Day to stop the spread of humanity over this once-decent planet can't happen soon enough for us.

Text Wrap-Up Of Glibertarian Privatization

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Sandy Fonzo hadn’t planned on confronting the Pennsylvania judge whom she blames for robbing her late son of his chance at a happy, productive life.

Her emotional, obscenity-laced outburst last week — caught on video and spread over the Internet — has come to symbolize the anger felt by parents whose children were railroaded by Mark Ciavarella, the former Luzerne County judge convicted Friday of racketeering in a $2.8 million “kids for cash” plot to send youth offenders to for-profit detention centers.

Fonzo’s son was 17 and an all-star wrestler with a chance at a college scholarship when he landed in Ciavarella’s courtroom on a minor drug paraphernalia charge. Though the teen, Edward Kenzakoski, had no prior criminal record, he spent months at the private lockups and a wilderness camp and missed his senior year of high school.

Kenzakoski emerged an angry, bitter and depressed young man. He committed suicide last June at the age of 23.

“He was just never the same. He couldn’t recover,” Fonzo said Tuesday. “He wanted to go on with his life, but he was just hurt. He was affected so deeply, more than anyone knew.”

Fonzo was at work Friday when friends started texting her about the verdict in Ciavarella’s federal racketeering trial — guilty on 12 of 39 counts. She rushed to the courthouse because she had heard that Ciavarella was going to be taken out in handcuffs.

Instead, the disgraced judge was allowed to remain free pending sentencing. Ciavarella and his lawyers walked out onto the courthouse steps on a brilliant, unseasonably warm day and declared victory.

“He never took a kickback, he never took a bribe. … This is not a ‘cash for kids’ case, and we hope that someone starts getting the message,” said Ciavarella’s attorney, Al Flora, referring to the fact that jurors had acquitted his client of many of the charges.

Fonzo, who had been standing in the media scrum, lost it.

“My kid’s not here anymore!” she screamed. “He’s dead! Because of him! He ruined my fucking life! I’d like him to go to hell and rot there forever! Do you remember me? Do you remember me? Do you remember my son, an all-star wrestler? He’s gone. He shot himself in the heart. You scumbag!”

Ciavarella kept his back to Fonzo as she yelled, glancing at her only when she tapped him on the shoulder. Then he turned his back again and walked down the steps.

“I don’t know that lady,” he told reporters. “I don’t know what the facts and circumstances are concerning her son.”

Fonzo said Tuesday that she couldn’t help but lash out.

“They were all having a wonderful day and they thought they had a victory. My son’s not here, and (Ciavarella is) on his way out and it’s a beautiful day and he’s going to enjoy it with his family,” she recalled. “I just had enough of them and I just couldn’t control myself.”

Prosecutors alleged that Ciavarella and a second judge took more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from their owner.

Ciavarella sent youth offenders to the private lockups while he was taking payments, ordering detention for minor offenses and routinely depriving juveniles of basic legal protections, including the right to counsel, according to a government panel that investigated the scandal. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella.

Fonzo said it galled her that Ciavarella continued to deny responsibility even after his conviction. The dramatic, disturbing video of her confrontation with the judge has sparked the interest of several national media outlets. She’s scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Today” show.

“The pain was just raw,” she said. “Even if he didn’t think he was to blame, wouldn’t you turn around and just say, I’m sorry for your pain? … He wouldn’t even look at me until I tapped his shoulder.”

Marsha Levick, co-founder and chief counsel of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which blew the whistle on Ciavarella’s harsh treatment of juveniles years before he was charged, said virtually no other judge would have ordered Fonzo’s son to be locked up on such a minor charge.

She said her outburst gave voice to the families hurt by Ciavarella.

“Her personal story tells everybody else what happened in ways that lawyers can’t,” said Levick, whose firm represents Fonzo and other parents and children in a civil lawsuit against Ciavarella. “It was this horrible, gut-wrenching expression of grief.”

Fonzo said she’s been inundated with supportive messages from around the country. She hopes to rally hundreds to show up at Ciavarella’s sentencing.

“If I could get all the kids, all the families, all the friends, everybody affected, and have hundreds of people wrap around that whole courthouse and have Ciavarella have to walk through us and see all these faces and hear the voices of what he’s done, maybe that’ll be an impact on his sentencing,” she said.

Maybe former judge Ciavarella can be sentenced to a few hrs. in a juvenile facility w/ some of the youth he sentenced for money. If not, we're available.

Anecdotes: The Dream Is Over

As we all know, personal stories are sheer bunk.

A 46-year-old teacher in Charlotte, Vt., who has been unable to find a full-time job and is weighed down with debt, wrote to his U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders:

“I am financially ruined. I find myself depressed and demoralized and my confidence is shattered. Worst of all, as I hear more and more talk about deficit reduction and further layoffs, I have the agonizing feeling that the worst may not be behind us.”

[...]

“We are the first generation to leave our kids worse off than we were. How did this happen? Why is there such a wide distance between the rich and the middle class and the poor? What happened to the middle class? We did not buy boats or fancy cars or diamonds. Why was it possible to change the economy from one that was based on what we made and grew and serviced to a paper economy that disappeared?”

A woman with two teenagers told the senator about her husband, a building contractor for many years, who has been unable to find work in the downturn:

“I see my husband, capable and experienced, now really struggling with depression and trying to reinvent his profession at age 51. I feel this recession is leaving us, once perhaps a middle-class couple, now suddenly thrust into the lower-middle-class world without loads of options except to try and find more and more smaller jobs to fill in some of the financial gaps we feel day to day.

“All we want to do is work hard and pay our bills. We’re just not sure even that part of the American Dream is still possible anymore.”

[...]

A 26-year-old man who emerged from college with big dreams wrote: “I had hoped to be able to support not just myself by this point, but to be able to think about settling down and starting a family. My family always told me that an education was the ticket to success, but all my education seems to have done in this landscape is make it impossible to pull myself out of debt and begin a successful career.”

How bad have things become? According to the National Employment Law Project, a trend is growing among employers to not even consider the applications of the unemployed for jobs that become available. Among examples offered by the project were a phone manufacturer that posted a job announcement with the message: “No Unemployed Candidate Will Be Considered At All,” and a Texas electronics company that announced online that it would “not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason.”

This is the environment that is giving rise to the worker protests in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere. The ferment is not just about public employees and their unions. Researchers at Rutgers University found last year that more than 70 percent of respondents to a national survey had either lost a job, or had a relative or close friend who had lost a job. That is beyond ominous. The great promise of the United States, its primary offering to its citizens and the world, is at grave risk.

A couple facing foreclosure in Barre, Mass., wrote to Senator Sanders: “We are now at our wits end and in dire straits. Our parents have since left this world and with no place to go, what are we to do and where are we to go?” They pray to God, they said, that they will not end up living in their car in the cold.

Yeah, your God's gonna be a big fucking help, you stupid sheep.

We really can't decide if the wealthy & powerful & their evil are worse than the stupidity & deliberate ignorance/denial of the brain-dead sheep who've been taking it in the ass from the wealthy & powerful, over & over, until it was too fucking late.

Just die already, every last one of you.

Open Warning

If our Social Security is cut off by a Republican shutdown of the government & we find ourselves on the street again (believe you us, by that point we'll have nothing to lose) we will bloody damn well (literally) cut off the nuts off one of these nine shitheads. (As Scott Brown is a liar, we may settle for cutting off his tongue & feeding it to him.)

It being entirely possible that drooling assholes from Orange County would vote to defund us, we may not have to go to as far as Illinois or Texas to find targets for the administration of justice.

Federal authoritiesFucking pigs attempting to protect these bastards are invited to come on over & talk about this.

Another potential target. The hell w/ potential, Rep. Huizenga needs some facts beaten into him.

File under: "Are we truly capable of murder? Try us & find out, bitchezzz!!"

"Jesus" Responsible For American Deaths

Bogus religious leader "Jesus" lured four Americans to their deaths by telling them to go to the other side of the world & shove Bibles down the throats of the people there from the safety (HAH!) of their yacht, & then letting them be killed by pirates.

The Quest was the home of Jean and Scott Adam, a couple from California who had been sailing around the world since December 2004 with a yacht full of Bibles. The two other Americans on board were Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, of Seattle, Wash.

Adam, in his mid-60s, had been an associate producer in Hollywood when he turned in a spiritual direction and enrolled in the seminary a decade ago, said Robert K. Johnston, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and a friend of Adam's.

"He decided he could take his pension, and he wanted to serve God and humankind," he said.

Please, do not be taken in by so-called spirituality & religion, especially when it involves forcing your bullshit on someone else. It never ends well.

Snap, Crackle, Poop

Located by DOC40.

Trailer Time

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She's Found The Awful Truth

Home-Schooling Report: They Let Blake Griffin Drive?

How is home-schooling working out for America's home-schooled youth? Well, they can't find their way to the grocery store is how it's working out. Of course, you've got to figure that parents who decided on home-schooling probably didn't produce the brightest home-schooling test subjects.

"I wanted to do everything that my dad and my brother did," says Griffin, who, along with his brother, was home-schooled by their mother until seventh grade. So with them being involved in basketball so much, that just came naturally to me. And I grew to love it.

"Well, I always loved it," he quickly adds, grinning. "But I just grew to love it more."

See? Inability to think for oneself or to do anything but conform. (Actually, that's a head start on the results home-schoolers & most human resources people are looking for.) Fortunately, it makes no fucking difference whatsoever, because there will always be a robot around to help. Too damn bad Asian wage-slaves are making all the 'Tard-Minders®; we'd imagine the market will only get bigger, as more morons populate the planet.

It gave him time to acclimate to his new city, which Griffin first found so large and unwieldy that he needed his GPS to get to the grocery store

Can't that asteroid get here before 2032 or whenever? Even for an old person (time passes like nothing) that's a long wait; we might even miss it.

(Full disclosure: This reporter was home-schooled for several yrs., & it didn't seem to hurt us none. 'Cept fer turnin' us into a rabid, unsocialized, America-hatin' maniac.)

Useless Gov't. Agencies That Don't Work

The USGS. Worthless, and it gives away information, to foreigners, yet!

Shallow quakes cause more damage

Dale Grant from the US Geological Survey explains why the damage of today's Christchurch quake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, is so much greater than that of last year's 7.0 quake.

Don't them Aussies have their own?

America's Baby Killers Bitch & Moan

Hurt feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel-ings from people who physically hurt others:

Defense leaders fear military-civilian 'disconnect'

Oh, what a shame, Americans just don't appreciate murder done in their name. As in:FUCK THE TROOPS!!

I Ain't Broke But I'm Better Than Bent

The Good, The Burt & The Ugly

We read the first line ("There are times when I find myself thinking that all of America’s loons are on the far left, but then something like CPAC takes place.") & were ready for laughs until we clicked & saw it was typed by Burt Prelutsky, whose new full-time home is Joseph Farah's hive of birtherism & selling survival products to those a-feared the end times is a-comin', WND.

Intentional humor, then. Knowing it was at The DC we were going to be looking for admissions along the "While these people are right, they probably shouldn't make such a big deal out of it 'cause it sounds weird to, like, informed people" line, but now it's Burt behind the keyboard, we must steel ourself for attempts at humor one could expect from someone w/ a resume that includes "Dragnet," "McMillan & Wife," "Mary Tyler Moore," "Rhoda,""MASH," "Bob Newhart," "Family Ties," "Dr. Quinn" and "Diagnosis Murder."

OK, here we go. If we tug on the line, pull us up immediately!!

So far, nothing more amusing than a Henry Wallace reference.

But then Burt, offended by Paulistas booing war criminals, brings it, as the kids say. Brings it to the 1950s.

Frankly, outside of Texas’s 14th congressional district and CPAC, the only other competition Ron Paul could ever hope to win is the Mr. Magoo look-alike contest.

Sadly, after deciding Ron Paul was the only thing nutty about CPAC, Burt lost the premise of his opening sentence, & went on for over half his column to compare two giants of the 19th century, J.D. Rockefeller & Karl Marx, because this comparison has never previously been made.*

We're probably being crueler than necessary here, & it's our own fault for expecting the entire piece to be about CPAC loons, when it's more along the lines of Mr. P. asking himself "Do I have enough crap for two pages worth at TheDC, where Tucker likes two-page & more items that increase his page count?"

The clue being the stand-up transitions:

Speaking of crazy people, in case you didn’t hear about it

&

The other day, I found myself thinking

That can be an awful surprise.

*In truth, we think it has, & by Mr. Prelutsky; nagonna type the phrases necessary to confirm or deny it.