Palin on Crack

I believe this is called going ass on ass.

Seep Thought

The Exxon Valdez accident is now officially a very minor disaster.

Good God.

Sen. Ben Nelson: "I Know About the Holograms"

It doesn't surprise or bother me that someone might never have used an ATM before—I'm sure lots of people haven't—although it is a little odd that a senator wouldn't have. (He says he has a credit card—has he never been out of town and needed cash?) But "the holograms"? That's just too funny to pass up.

I think "I Know About the Holograms" needs to be added to the Balloon Juice Lexicon. I've written up a definition, if I'm ever lucky enough to get it in:

"I Know About the Holograms" - A derisive phrase used to mock people bizarrely out of touch with what 99.99% of us would call "the real world," including the man who actually said it, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb). In a discussion about ATM fees, Nelson had just disclosed that he wasn't familiar with them—because he had never used an ATM before. As a way of defending himself for being so out of touch, Nelson said, "I know about the holograms." He meant "bar codes," which made his being out of touch even farther—and more hilariously—out of touch.

If You Never Understood Why "Tort Reform" Was Bad...

...then BP and the Gulf oil spill is the perfect illustration.

Supporters of "Tort Reform" want huge corporations, one's just like BP, that cause enormous destruction and suffering to never have to pay their fair share for that destruction and suffering. They want those corporations to be able to behave as recklessly as they like in their pursuit of profits, and never have to pay the price when that recklessness has the expectable results.

It is that simple.

In 1990 Congress passed a law that (among other good things) put a $75 million cap on economic costs caused by oil spills. That means that if this spill goes on for, say, three months, or six months, or a year, and ends up costing Gulf communities and businesses $100 billion—BP won't have to pay for that damage. They, by federal law, would only have to pay $75 million.

This is exactly what supporters of "Tort Reform" want to do. They want to cap damages that huge, reckless corporations pay when their recklessness has expected disastrous results.

It's like if Joe "Drunk Driver" Johnson got a cap of $100 on automobile accident damages. That is exactly what "Tort Reform" is.

Terrorist Crashes Muslim Boobs Into Las Vegas Resort

Ohhh, dear:

With two U.S. flags in front of the stage inside a Dearborn restaurant, Arab Americans cheered, danced, and sang into the night Sunday for Rima Fakih of Dearborn—crowned Miss USA in Las Vegas.

I think Glenn Beck may explode on TV tonight.

Look in the Dictionary Under "Unchristian"

And you might be surprised to find that it it actually is a word.

You might also find this:

Catholic school refuses admittance to an eight-year-old boy because his parents are lesbians.

A Roman Catholic school in Massachusetts has “withdrawn its acceptance of an 8-year-old boy with lesbian parents, saying their relationship was ‘in discord’ with church teachings.” “I’m accustomed to discrimination, I suppose, at my age and my experience as a gay woman,” one of the boy’s mothers said. “But I didn’t expect it against my child.”

I Wasn't Sleeping - I had "Light Burn"

Holy crap, this is funny.

• Someone says Senator Kit Bond fell asleep during an intelligence briefing.

• Bond denies it, yad yada.

• Someone asks Senator Orrin Hatch about it. He says that the lights in the briefing room are so bright that sometimes “you have to rest your eyes for a bit; you get light burn.”

You get "light burn." On your eyes. So you have to close them sometimes. Which is why people can think you're sleeping.

Where We Are As A Country, Con't

You can now be attacked, publicly, via an ad on the TV, for believing in science.

[said with truckloads of incredulity] Bradley Byrne...said evolution best explains the origins of life?

Worse: Byrne is fighting back against the "utter lies" that he believes in science:

As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school textbooks. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.

This has been another edition of Where We Are As A Country.

Where We Are As A Country

It is now considered normal and thoughtful and generally okay for a longtime, respected senator to hope that an American citizen under arrest was not read his rights as an American citizen. That actually scores points for you among significant sectors of our country. What's next? John McCain saying it would be a “serious mistake” if police got a warrant for his arrest? Or it would be a "serious mistake" if they police followed any rules at all in apprehending him? Would that score points for him, too?

This has been another edition of Where We Are As A Country.

May 8: Free John McCutcheon Concert in Flint, Michigan

Wow. Wish I could be there. His Web site is here. And here's a song:

Rock the Casbah

I don't know which is funnier: the armadillo, the oil well, or the line "He thinks it's not kosher!"

April 22, 2010

* Socialists Say "Stop Calling Obama a Socialist!" Someone tell the teabaggers. (via)

* Republicans trying to build a time machine.

* Stopping rapists, burglars, muggers, and purse snatchers will hurt America.

* The solution to every problem in America: Start over!

* Worst Defense of a Book Ever, summarized: "Yeah, what he wrote might not be true, but it's true-ish!" ( I shit you not.)

Music History

If for little more than its value to me historically, and the challenge it will offer my fading powers of memory, I'm going to try and see how many concerts I can remember seeing in my life, all the way back to the very first - Rush, in, I think, 1978, at the age of 15. (Actually Rush was the first big act I saw. There were possibly earlier ones, small acts in bars. Yes, I went to bars before I was 15. Sue me. I know I saw April Wine, I think in a long gone bar called The Grapevine in Clarence, New York, and possibly in 1977. I'm just not sure.) And I'll try to find YouTube video of each act. Okay, we're off.

Rush: This site has the history of every Rush concert, along with their opening acts. Hilarious. It tells me that I may have actually seen them at Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium on the "Farewell to Kings" tour in November 1977, when I was 14, as the opening acts listed, UFO and Blue Oyster Cult, I know I've seen. Either that it was January 1979 on the Hemispheres tour at War Memorial. The opening act, Starz, does not sound familiar at all. In any case I went with friends, we smoked a lot of weed, it's all very blurry.

Here's a 1978 video from a song I haven't thought about in decades. But I was very into it back then. Very deep, don't ya know. (And it's actually a very good video of a live practice before a show.)

Oil Rig Explodes in Gulf [updtd]

Off Louisiana, 12 missing.



Update: It has now sunk.

"The DoD Put a Microchip in My Vaginal-Rectum Area"

When you play with CrazyStupid, CrazyStupid bites you in the ass sometimes:

The Georgia House Judiciary Committee took up a bill last week that would "prohibit requiring a person to be implanted with a microchip," and would make violating the ban a misdemeanor. According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one exchange from the hearing could have been ripped right from Dr. Strangelove.[...]

"Ma'am, did you say you have a microchip?" state Rep. Tom Weldon (R) asked the woman.

"Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area," she replied.

No one laughed. [...]

“And who in the federal government implanted it?” Willard asked.

“The Department of Defense.”

The worst part - or the best, depending on how much you appreciate the special kind of insanity that is the human race - is that, after hearing testimony that should have been evidence that they were being stupid and crazy at the same time, they passed the bill. Take that, Department of Defense!

Go Forth And Teabag No More!

Fuhhhny:

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

One down, a few thousand to go. Maybe then they'll get them off the tv.

Life is a Carnival

I watched Bill Murray's 1996 film Larger Than Life last night. Sometimes very funny, not great, but Matthew McConnaughey makes a surprisingly fun appearance as a nutball trucker. But even that kind of reminded me of Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys, which came out just a year earlier.

But the thing about it was that the soundtrack included regular forays into The Band's "Life is a Carnival." Can't go wrong with that. This recording is from 1976—and season two of Saturday Night Live.

47% of Americans Pay No Taxes!!!

Only rich people pay taxes! We should stop demonizing them, because they work so hard—unlike us—and take care of us poor, lazy bastards!

Or not:

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

Do Modern Republicans know that there income tax is not the only kind of federal tax?

Chinese Coal Ship Damages 1km of Great Barrier Reef

What a monumental disaster:

The Australian authorities have said a Chinese bulk carrier which ran aground off Queensland has caused widespread damage to the famed Great Barrier Reef.

The cleanup is likely to be the biggest operation ever undertaken there.

The Shen Neng 1 was refloated on Monday night, in a salvage operation brought forward because of the threat of bad weather and heavy seas.

The Australian government has indicated that a prosecution will follow because the ship ran aground in a no-go zone.

Here's a map made by someone on Google Earth of the route the ship was supposed to be taking, and the route it did. It was headed north, between the mainland and the reef, when it suddenly headed west, straight through the reef. Authorities think the skipper may have been trying to save time. He and his crew have been arrested.

On top of the physical damage the 755-foot ship did, besides the tons of oil spilled on the delicate reef, authorities are afraid that paint from the ship's hull - which is toxic and meant to stop marine life from growing on the hull - was rubbed off the ship, "because it has immediately started killing off corals in the vicinity."

Photos here.

Poland

Just one of the many people lost in today's tragedy:

Anna Walentynowicz (August 13, 1929 – April 10, 2010) was a Polish free trade union activist. Her firing in August 1980 was the event that led to the strike in the Gdansk Shipyard that paralyzed the Baltic coast and led to the giant wave of strikes in Poland and eventually the creation of Solidarity, of which she became a prominent member. By September nearly a million workers were on strike in support of the twenty one demands, making it the largest strike ever.

Can you imagine? Just terrible.