God's Plan: Rape your Daughters, Make Them Have Your Kids

We live in a time when absolute lunacy is shockingly popular.

Confederate Yankee Gets Ridiculously Pawned By One of His Fans

The doofus of the blog world has a post up on the non-extension of unemployment benefits, highlighted by this:

By stopping unemployment benefits, the Senate will force those lazy Americans enjoying "funemployment" to get off their backsides and get back to work.

He gets this in his comments. It's longish, but worth every word:

I have read and enjoyed your blog for a couple of years. I am very conservative and always have been, but I have to say your comments on this issue are short-sighted, callous and deeply hurtful. I am staunchly for the private sector free enterprise capitalist way of life and hate what this current administration is doing to our economy, but I don’t have a great deal of hope it will get better until they are voted out of office. I thought I would put a face on this for you to perhaps enlighten you to what it is like to be one of those currently unemployed. I realize there are a percentage of unemployed workers who abuse the system, but the majority of unemployed workers are probably similar to me. I just turned 61 and I have worked without interruption for 39 years. I have been out of work since November 2008. My job was eliminated. My company was one of the large investment banks that no longer exist. I spent two consecutive 18 year employment turns: One with a large corporation that is about to go bankrupt after over 100 years in business and 18 years with this bank. My retirement was virtually wiped out when the bank went under and what was left I had to use to attempt to remain solvent through last year while I continued to seek employment. I have applied to every sector, public and private that I could think of and have looked out of state for jobs paying 75% less than what I earned before. I have had four interviews in the 20 months I’ve been looking. I’ve encountered endless examples of age discrimination and am vying with kids right out of school for the same job. Do you think I can get a job flipping burgers or working at Home Depot? Guess again. When hiring managers see my experience (I am a former Managing Director) they promptly move on to the 1-5 year experience range category. I’m not eligible for social security for another year; my husband who is 61 is not eligible and is disabled. We no longer have health insurance. My severance ended in December of last year and I exhausted all my savings until I could no longer pay my mortgage and the majority of my bills with the $1,600 a month I get from New York State. As a consequence we are facing foreclosure and bankruptcy and I have four weeks of unemployment checks left; the proposed extension would buy me a little more time until hopefully I can get a job. I have seriously contemplated suicide; perhaps you think I am adding this for melodrama - I am not. I have one child who is 25 and struggling in his first job to make ends meet; we tell him he is blessed to have a job and he alone prevents me from completely giving up. I remind those of you who would brand me a social pariah and leech that I paid far more into the unemployment insurance system than I am getting out of it, I hate my situation and find it unbearable and I am deeply ashamed to be in this position. I am happy for all of you who have jobs but you need to understand that these unemployment checks barely pay the necessary utility bills, gas and feed one’s family in the majority of cases. Please don’t be so quick to judge those of us who are good honest people who have worked hard all our lives and lost everything we had to show for it through no fault of our own and put us with the minority of losers who abuse the system.

Joe Barton is a Lying Coward

He has now tried to defend his shameful apology to BP, the company that not only put greed over safety and caused the horrible disaster now ongoing in the Gulf - but also killed 11 men in doing so:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) featured an article on his own website Wednesday morning, in which a conservative author defends the Texas Republican for apologizing to BP for the "shakedown" it received from the Obama White House.

Barton apologizes to those murdering bastards, realizes he's done something stupid and revealing, apologizes for his apology - as if that would make his apology any less revealing - and now wants to go back and kiss some murdering ass again. This man does not have an original thought in his head, or an honest or courageous bone in his body. What a disgrace.

* He's taken the article down. Another gutless move.

General Who?

Civilian leadership of the military is a subject I don't know mountains about, but something I find fascinating. (How much of a reality it is when the Pentagon budget is more than $500 billion is separate issue.) And some smart people are saying that as of today civilian leadership requires civilian leadership.

And from that first link, this may not sound like it's from 1951:

The crisis exploded when a legendary general whose reputation overshadowed the president's, a general who was not willing to settle for stalemate after suffering a shocking defeat at the end of a fabled career, would not cease public disagreement with American policy and strategy.

BP, We're Sorry We Got Our Gulf in Your Oil!

Unbefreakinglievable:

WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington, apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday morning for the "political pressure" his company is facing.

Barton condemned the White House's handling of a meeting Wednesday with BP officials, in which President Barack Obama pushed the company to create a $20 billion escrow account for damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The congressman called the account a "slush fund."

"Apologized to BP."

Beyond comprehension.

A Lede For the Ages

GULF SHORES, Ala. — Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

You Know Who Else Liked Creationism?

The Russians, that's who:

A senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church called for the end to the "monopoly of Darwinism" in Russian schools during a recent talk in Moscow, according to Reuters (June 9, 2010). "Darwin's theory remains a theory," Hilarion Alfeyev, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and a permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow, was quoted as saying. "This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Children already know other theories. It's called "make believe."

Baby foxes under the house

I've got a family of foxes under the room where I sit right now. Little tiny baby foxes comeout to play right under my window:

Professional Crybaby John Boehner Wants an Apology

Quick, get a hanky or he'll cry his tan off.

"...then he admitted that he could not see anything."

Horrifying story from Mt. Everest:

As the team descended, Mr Kinloch's guides noticed that he seemed to lose co-ordination. He would slip and stumble, then resume walking normally. After an hour, he made a surprising request to the team leader, David O'Brien, to be shown how to get down the ladders. At first he said he was having difficulty seeing, then he admitted that he could not see anything.

It took four hours for Mr O'Brien and a sherpa to help the stricken climber down to Mushroom Rock, barely 1,000ft below the summit. Two more sherpas arrived and for the next eight hours they all struggled to bring Mr Kinloch,28, down the mountain, administering drugs and oxygen. But they were now dangerously close to needing rescue themselves, and had to abandon him and struggled back into camp at 5.30am, exhausted and suffering from hypothermia and frostbite.

RIP Peter Kinloch.

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.

John Cowan and Sam Bush

Don't Cross the Streams!

Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin will be appearing together. In one place. Together.

Please, I beg. That much crazystupid in one locale might be more than our poor universe can take.

P.S. Don't cross the streams, for the three of you who didn't get it.

Mercy!

Mark Buehrle, this is your sick:

Caterpillar Wants Caterpillar Profits Boost Reform

I heard on NPR this morning that the billionaires who run Caterpillar are complaining that the health care reform law that just passed will cost them $100 million - and they say they may have to cut retiree benefits!

Oh no! We better repeal that law now!

Hold on a sec. Let's take a look at this:

• Caterpillar has been getting free money from the government - from us - to pay for prescription drugs:

When Congress and President George W. Bush enacted a prescription drug plan for seniors in 2003, the legislation encouraged companies to continue providing prescription coverage to retirees, instead of shifting retirees to Medicare Part D, by having the government give those companies large subsidies for each retiree — and also allowing them to deduct those subsidies from their income taxes.

• Caterpillar got free money - and they got to deduct that money from their taxes - costing us even more money.

• The health care reform law says, "That's stupid," and now Caterpillar and other companies will still get the free money, but they don't get to deduct it from their taxes anymore.

• For that Caterpillar is threatening to cut retiree drug benefits altogether.

• Hey Caterpillar: F*ck You.

Rep. Cantor "Directly Threatened" By Someone Who Doesn't Know He Exists

You lie!

P.S. Minnesota Palin eats more paste.

Sarah Palin Thinks Killing Cops is Funny

A little less than a year ago a man who was afraid of Barack Obama - because of people who irrationally and irresponsibly stoked fears of Barack Obama, including Sarah Palin - shot and killed three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers.

What are we supposd to take from Palin's continued use of violent rhetoric but that she doesn't give a goddamn for those officers' lives? Or for anyone else threatened, harmed, or murdered by people inspired by such rhetoric? What a horrible, despicable person.

* And one of the people Palin put crosshairs on: Tom Periello.

• And it gets worse.

L.A. Freeway

Mr. Guy Clark.

Pack up all your dishes.
Make note of all good wishes.
Say goodbye to the landlord for me.
That son of a bitch has always bored me.
Throw out them LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers.
Adios to all this concrete.
Gonna get me some dirt road back street

Chorus
If I can just get off of this LA freeway
Without getting killed or caught
I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke
For some land that I ain't bought bought bought

Here's to you old skinny Dennis
Only one I think I will miss
I can hear that old bass singing
Sweet and low like a gift you're bringin'
Play it for me just one more time now
Got to give it all we can now
I beleive everything your saying
Just keep on, keep on playing

Chorus

And you put the pink card in the mailbox
Leave the key in the old front door lock
They will find it likely as not
I'm sure there's somethin' we have forgot
Oh Susanna, don't you cry, babe
Love's a gift that's surely handmade
We've got something to believe in
Dontcha' think it's time we're leavin'

Chorus

Repeat 1/2 of verse 1

Death Paneling

I'm thinking about getting some death paneling in my living room. Should go great with all my Che posters.

Tea Partiers: Partying Like it's 1969 [updtd]

As I watched coverage last night of Tea Partiers doing disorganized loud things somewhere I figured out what's really going on here: These folks, most of them up there in years, are reliving the 1960s and 70s that they didn't live at the time. They're carrying signs, staging protests, shouting slogans in unison - they're letting their Freak Flags fly. These are the folks that really wanted to wear the clothes, grow their hair, do the drugs, have the hot hippy sex—but they were insecure. They were afraid. They felt silly. And the 1960s and 70s passed them by. And they've always been a little mad about that. A little resentful. They've always been a little Rush Limbaugh inside: They could have been cool, but nobody let them. And now they've got another chance, and they're not going to let it pass them by again. So they're going to get out there, and they are really going to FREAK IT UP.

Except it's not against war, or for civil rights, or for cleaner air, or for peace on Earth. It's against improvements in American health care.

Far out, man.

Update: Too damn funny. Tea partiers to hold Conservative Woodstock. Was I right or was I right?

Holy crap, Sarah Palin commented on my blog post

Yesterday I put up a post titled, "So, Sarah Palin, how's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?" Today I find this in my comments:

Anonymous said...

Understandably your article helped me truly much in my college assignment. Hats incorrect to you send, choice look progressive in behalf of more interdependent articles soon as its united of my favourite subject-matter to read.

I know Sarah Palin-speak when I see it. Thank you, Sarah, thank you. I'll never wash this comment again.

So, Sarah Palin, how's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?

And, American People, don't forget that they warned you: Soylent Green is your grandparents who were murdered personally by Barack HUSSEIN Obama via his communistic DEATH PANELS.

...grandma got run over by a health care...

Anti-health care reform junkies freaking out

THERE ARE HEALTH CARE COCKROACHES CRAWLING ALL OVER MY SKIN!!!

The St. Louis Tea Party Coalition will hold a candlelight protest tonight ouside Russ Carnahan’s office for the millions of elderly patients who will die under Obamacare.

You'd think something called "Death Panels!" could, like, die.

Deep Thought

If so many American pundits and politicians didn't have the very bizarre need to say things like "The U.S. has the best health care system in the world!" we might actually end up with a health care system that doesn't suck.

Pearl Jam: Black

It's weird to have a song in your head that you can't actually understand the words to.



P.S. This is a really good video and recording.

Why don't Republicans want to lower the deficit?

The health care bill LOWERS the deficit by more than $1 trillion in 20 years. It saves money. It reduces spending. It costs less. It's fiscally responsible.

That's good. Right? isn't it what Republicans constantly scream about - fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction?

Obligatory chart that should make everyone who votes Republican because of "fiscal responsibility" never do it again (click to enlarge):

Good God

How the Catholic Church still exists at all is completely beyond me.

Cardinal Sean Brady has said he was at meetings in 1975 where two abused children signed vows of silence over complaints against Fr Brendan Smyth. [...]

Smyth's child abusing continued for many years after 1975.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

Meat thermometer-large popcorn day at the theater?

Or: Don't bring a neck to a meat thermometer fight. Or something.

Aztec Two Step: Prisoner

Lordy, didn't know these guys* were still doing their thing. So good. (*Music plays automatically at their site.)

A Question: Does Wolf Blitzer have a boss at CNN? [updtd]

Is there anyone there who watches what he does, to see if he's doing what might be called really awful, bad, terrible, offensive, monumentally shitty journalism? Because I swear to god, it sometimes seems like he could one day rape a baby goat on his show, and then do it every day for the next week. Nobody at CNN seems to care about anything he does.

It's not the first time that Blitzer has made it clear that he has either no respect for the kind of law that went into the making of the U.S. Constitution, or that he is simply much more stupid than people would assume.

Update: Wolf regrets the chyron . Great.

Orrin Opens His Hatch

And out falls a lie.