Downtown Dave's World-at-Large

Stop Calling It "Right to Work."

2012-01-16T08:40:00.000-06:00

Proud Indiana union teacher here, enjoying a day off to celebrate the Man and his Mission. I am not acting in any kind of official capacity, however, with this post.

Last year, Indiana union teachers were specifically targeted by Governor Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels in yet another effort to kneecap public employee unions, and public education in general. This unfortunately successful effort was aimed at taking the teachers out of teaching and education policy, and furthering Governor Big Jerk's "I hate public employee" credentials for a future Presidential run, possibly 2016.

Luckily, last year's attempt to push the so-called "Right to Work" legislation failed. But fear not, teacher-hating RepubliCons. Because this year, the horribly-named "Right to Work" legislation is back . . . and it's very likely to pass.

This brings me to my main thrust of this post. Nomenclature matters. Framing matters, and we really . . . . REALLY . . . need to stop calling this kind of union-busting legislation and/or law "Right to Work." This name implies that somehow, when no such law is in place, workers are going to be denied the ability to maintain or hold a job because big, mean, unions are barring the front door to the plant, or warehouse, or school, or whatever. It's as if the caricatured "union thugs" or the "Mittster's union stooges" are somehow preventing ANYONE from having a job. That's just not the case.

Let's review.

Current law in states that DON'T have what I call "Free Rider" laws - a.k.a "Right to Work - allows unions to collect dues from non-members, because under Federal law, all workers are covered by a union-negotiated contract, whether they are union members or not.

The point here is that if you want the benefits of membership - like higher wages, better benefits, more say in your work conditions and hours, due process in disciplinary and dismissal procedures, etc. - you're SHOULD to have to pay for them, because they come at a cost. If you're going to get the benefits of a union-negotiated contract, you will also have to pay the costs of it. That's how it is in Indiana right now . . . for now.

Proponents of "Free Rider" legislation say that workers should be able to get all the benefits of a union contract, and SHOULDN'T have to pay for it, if they choose not.
Think about it under "Free Rider" laws - there is basically NO ECONOMIC DOWNSIDE to refusing to join the union. Sure your coworkers may look at you a little funny, but basically, you get the benefits without a single dollar taken from your paycheck.

Is it any wonder unions are opposed to free rider laws?

The so-called "Right to Work" meme has been pretty darn powerful, and it makes sense. If people don't know the facts, or don't follow labor issues closely - I mean who WOULDN'T support a generic, un-nuanced "Right to Work?" Most of us would probably agree that everyone OUGHT to have the "right to work" in a generic, non-union busting sense.

It's not just RepubliCons and the entire mainstream media referring to these union-busting laws as "Right to Work." The Wrong Wing has so totally dominated the framing of this argument, that many progressive websites routinely refer to anti-union or "Free Rider" laws as "Right to Work."

We need to do better at policing ourselves and rejecting this ridiculous wrong-wing framing.

Everyone has a "right to work" as long as they are old enough and meet a few other requirements, depending on the situation. What everyone DOESN'T have is a right to union representation, for free.

I'm calling it "Free Rider" legislation. You can call it what you want.

SynchroniCity's 10th Annual Xmas Tree Burn!

2012-01-15T12:45:00.003-06:00

SynchroniCity's
10th ANNUAL XMAS TREE BURN
Saturday, February 4th
All Day & Night
Bridgman, MI
$25 suggested donation if you use the van service to the Super 8 Motel
$15 if you don't

Our usual Bridgman, MI location is roughly an hour and a half from the city. Email downtowndave23 AT gmail DOT com for location details.

For ten years or so, and counting, your friends at Synchro have been happy to host the Annual Xmas Tree Burn!

After the last tree has been torched, we're encouraging everyone to join us at a local Super 8 motel in Sawyer, MI, and we'll provide a comprehensive local van service to and from it. We absolutely insist that you do not drink and drive, and the van service should help you in that. TIP THE DRIVER! The van service is for everyone who uses the hotel. Mention the Xmas Tree Burn to Prakash Patel or his employees at the Super 8 Motel, and you'll get a discount!

12850 Super Drive
I94 Exit 12 Sawyer Road
Sawyer, MI 49125 US
269-426-8300
"http://www.super8.com/Super8/control/Bookin/property_info?propertyId=13835"

THIS IS YOUR SURVIVAL GUIDE - SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK:

COST
The expenses related to this event are considerable, including plenty of beer, porto-johns, truck rental for hauling LOADS of trees, transportation of said trees, and the van service to and from the Super 8. We won't be turning people away, but we are asking everyone to pitch-in $25, or whatever they can. Even if you don't think you'll be using the van service to and from the hotel, please consider donating $15. We REALLY NEED people to pony up something for this event - otherwise we won't be able to do it anymore!

If you haven't already, consider Paypalling the funds for all of your participants topocketbook@synchroni-city.org. (Don't forget the dash between 'Synchroni' and 'city.org!') Or you can just pay cash at the event.

FOOD& DRINK
Delicious beer will be provided. The rest is BYO.

PARTICIPATE
Bring an Xmas tree to torch! Bring something to drink! If you want to bring food, contact me!

BRING YOUR BACK.
We've been saying for years that this event is based on your participation, and this year we mean it. EVERY PARTICIPANT will be asked to haul a tree or two from the front of our hostess's property to the backlot, where the magic happens.

SynchroniCity is officially BEGGING anyone and everyone to help us in creating our fiery sculpture. Show up early enough on Saturday, 2.4.12 to help with our build. We'll be there as soon as we can drag ourselves out there in the morning, probably before noon. Email me for details.

Synchronicity members will be providing some food. There may be some sort of "food theme" this year. Please hit me up if you're interested in bringing something!

We will also need some help with the cleanup the next day!

For licensing and weather-related reasons, camping is not an option for this event.

Please dress warmly and be safe at the Xmas Tree Burn. Plan for the worst. Covering your head, wearing long underwear, several layers of socks, and covering your neck are all absolute requirements. And HAVE GALOSHES READY TO GO!

If you have questions, I first suggest that you read the survival guide again. If your question is still unanswered, you can email me at downtowndave23 AT gmail DOT com.

Uh Oh!

2012-01-11T14:01:00.005-06:00

From the fine folks at ThinkProgress.org

Gov. Walker Accused Of Over 1,000 Violations Of Campaign Finance Law, Could Face $557,500 Fine

By Scott Keyes on Jan 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm

"Wisconsin law requires gubernatorial campaigns to disclose information about contributors who give more than $100. Again and again, Walker appears to have skirted that requirement.

One Wisconsin Now examined the Walker for Governor’s finance records and found 1,115 instances where the campaign received contributions of more than $100 but did not properly disclose who gave the money. In total, “Walker has improperly reported well over $500,000 in contributions from inside and outside of Wisconsin,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. According to the group, which has filed a complaint with the state Government Accountability Board, Walker’s violations could result in a fine of $557,500

(bold and italics mine)

Ooopsa daisy! It looks like Wisconsin Governor Scott "Scumbucket" Walker allegedly made a teeny little oversight in reporting his campaign contribution. Okay maybe twice, or three times.

Okay a thousand times.

Okay eleven hundred times.

Plus fifteen.

Luckily these teensy weensy little infractions are surely no big deal, right Governor Scumbucket? What?- YOU never forget to follow campaign law drafted in your home state ~~once or twice~~ a thousand or eleven hundred times? Sheesh!!!!

But so what, really, right Governor Scumbucket? It's just a little bit of unreported campaign income violating state law. So what if its . . . okay it's over half a million dollars.

Still no big deal in my opinion. Hell in the post-Citizens United America, half a million dollars really IS a pretty small amount of money.

Kidding aside, I have no idea if these allegations will "have legs," but if they turn out to be true, and are provable, Governor Scumbucket could be facing $557,000 in fines. YIKES!

No doubt this will make the upcoming recall election even MORE interesting than it already is!

This is House Music.

2012-01-05T10:28:00.000-06:00

'Nuff said. This is Soul Cola.

Poor, Sad, Rick Perry, and His Poor, Sad, Leathery Jawline

2012-01-04T08:04:00.012-06:00

Well, this is delicious:

Perry to return to Texas to reassess candidacy

By Ashley Killough, CNN

(CNN) -- Following a disappointing projected fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he'll return to Texas on Wednesday to reassess his candidacy.

"With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," he told supporters late Tuesday night at his Iowa headquarters in West Des Moines. . .

"We have been told to hold until we hear from Austin," said a Perry source in South Carolina, where the candidate was preparing to launch an aggressive statewide bus tour on Wednesday. "It looks like he is not coming this week. He has definitely canceled his plans."

(bold & italics mine)

UPDATE:
And of course, just like that, he appears to be back on! I can't wait for more!!

At the risk of engaging in Schadenfreude, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! It couldn't happen to a bigger asshole. With all due respect to the many fine folks down in Texas, it's apparent that being elected the Mayor of HeeHaw is no longer an automatic elevator straight to the top of the RepubliCon ticket, not even in the far-right Iowa Caucuses.

Gub'ner Perry's decline in the GOoPer primary hasn't been sudden, but watching this charlatan waddle back to Texas with his prehensile tail hung between his legs, to "re-assess his candidacy," instead of making a planned trip to South Carolina, really was worth the long build up. I know, I know, I know; it's too soon to enjoy the Gub'ner's Pop-Shot - when he officially withdraws his candidacy. But usually, when pols announce re-assessment, it means they are trying to find a way to gracefully exit.

I don't know if Perry can do anything gracefully, other than his hair, but exit he most likely will.

If you can stomach it, watch the video on the CNN link above, and be disgusted. At around the 2.30 second mark, when he reads aloud a letter he'd recieved in which the writer - no doubt some inbred, hilljack, fuckmace moron - states:

"Today I saw you [Gub'nor Perry] for the first time in Perry, Iowa. I know you are a good man. But I never realized what a great man you were.

As if to say, "See? See? This guy says I'm not just good but GREAT!!!!" Oh it's kinda disgusting, but it tickled my Schadenfreude nerve just a little, to be sure, watching this ignorant hick-turned-slimebag pol try to save face in front of his family and campaign staff.

Perry's campaign was filled with low-lights, including this despicable video, a high-volume, high-pitched homophobic dog-whistle, which received over 733,000 dislikes on YouTube, compared to just 24,000 likes . . . . because this moron's campaign staff didn't know you could turn off like/dislike on YouTube. And, as much as we might like to, who can forget this rambling, half-cocked, possibly drunken speech in New Hampshire, or the infamous Ooops! moment, when the Gub'nor couldn't remember one of the Federal Departments he was absolutely certain he wanted to abolish . . . out of three. Priceless!

I don't know what it says about America that this man actually had a shot at the Presidency, or that he's the longest-serving Governor in the country, in charge of one of our largest states. But perhaps there is a glimmer of sanity in this nation somewhere, after all . . . even in the GOoP's Iowa Caucuses.

Obama = GOP?

2011-12-22T17:10:00.006-06:00

Obama has been corporatist, but I wouldn't go that far as saying Barry-0 is just as bad as a RepubliCon.

I still contend that there is a meaningful difference between having a very modestly progressive President (or a Congress) as opposed to full-on neo-fascist, neo-feudal theocracy embodied by the truly insane Right Wing in this country. It will continue to be very difficult to convince me that Obama = GOP. In fact, with the way the GOoPers havebeen trending lately in their blithe march towards theo-fascist neo-feudalism, I think the importance of having a "side of the coin that faces reality" active in the System has been absolutely critical.

Jesus! Somebody in SOME kind of position of power has to be able to at least slow things down in the ill-fated buffalo towards Annihilation Falls! I would suggest that Obama has at least tried in some areas.

Now whether Obama has had any success in this?- reasonable people might quibble. But we've withdrawn from Iraq, the President has at least talked about drawing down in Afghanistan, and some DISCUSSIONS about the economy.

Has he in any way really tackled the whole: "will there be methane-free, breathable air in 1,000 years, or won't there be-" question? No.

The fact is these horrors have a built-in momentum that doesn't just stop on a dime. It took years for Hitler to rise as a political figure and engage in WWII and the accompanying Holocaust. I agree that Obama's shortcomings may well be more defining, in the long run. But I also wonder what, exactly, this one guy, about four years out of being a state senator was supposed to do, exactly?

As a small and tasty little morsel, I give you House Speaker John Boehner, just a couple of hours ago, referring to his caucus's decision to block a tax cut on the middle class for reasons of sheer obstinacy:

"It may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world."

No shit, Speaker Boner, really?

SynchroniCity's 10th Annual SantaKong Whiskey Santa Rampage - 12.17

2011-11-21T15:52:00.003-06:00

Ho Ho Ho Santa!

It's that time of year again! SynchroniCity's annual SantaKong is December 17th, 2011!!!

WHO: You.

WHAT: SantaKong is Chicago's oldest and most heralded Whiskey Santa Rampage. Although you do not need to be Santa, you are required to have a costume that represents your holiday spirit. Examples from the past are; santa, reindeer, trees, winter pagans, winter vikings, presents, dreidels, elves (both evil and nice), etc., etc. You will get a long bus tour with drinks on the bus included in your payment. We will be making many stops around town spreading are special brand of cheer through out. These stops will include Quencher's, the Santa's Village at the Daley Plaza, Macy's, Small Bar, the ABC News filming window, the Billy Goat Tavern, and more!

WHEN: Saturday, December 17th.

WHERE: We are slated to start at Quencher's Bar, located at 2401 N. Western Avenue, as we have in year's past.

WHY: Whiskey, Beer, Xmas Cheer, Friends, Mayhem, and FUN FUN FUN!

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE? Tickets for this event typically are $30. You must Paypal pocketbook@synchroni-city.org to guarantee your participation. Some cash participants will likely be allowed on our buses the day of the event, but once we're filled up, we will have to start sending people away.

SCHEDULE?
4:00 P.M. - 5:00 P.M. Quenchers - 2401 N. Western Ave - Check in and pictures OVER Santas Lap at
5:15 P.M. - 6:15 P.M. Small Bar on Fullerton - 1415 W. Fullerton
6:45 P.M. - 8:30 P.M. Karaoke - location TBA - STAY TUNED
8:30 P.M. - 10:00 PM. Maceys & Santa's Village @ Daley Plaza Downtown
10:00 P.M. - NEWS FLASH - RAMPAGING SANTAS OUTSIDE ABC STUDIOS!
10:15 P.M. - 11:30 P.M. Billy Goat Tavern - 430 N Michigan Ave # 1
11:30 P.M. - Back to Quenchers for DJ Music and Fun!

Some FAQ's will also be forthcoming shortly! If you have questions please feel free to contact me at this email address! downtowndave23 AT gmail DOT com.

In all good hoishness,

Downtown the Disco Elf
http://www.facebook.com/groups/synchoni.city/

The Speakeasy Players Occupy the Speakeasy! This Friday 11.4

2011-11-02T19:11:00.004-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out for Season Ten's opening night! What a blast!

The Speakeasy Happy Hour Club Presents:

THE SPEAKEASY PLAYERS
Deep. Dish. Improv. Comedy.

This Friday - November 4th
8:30 P.M.
@ The Green Door Tavern's Speakeasy Cabaret
678 N. Orleans -

Hey All!

The Speakeasy Players are thrilled to commence our TENTH SEASON down at the Speakeasy Cabaret. Expect great food, friends, great drink specials, and above average improv comedy at one of the most historic bars and venues in downtown Chicago.

Join Dave Reidy, Brenda Lee Johnson, Jim Sharp and yours truly, Downtown Dave of course, as we entertain with the deep dish improv comedy that has made us at least locally famous in the Northwest Loop area. And there's no denying the delicious treats and drink specials of one of Chicago's most historic bars, the Green Door Tavern.

Join us!

Downtown Dave

Just amazing music.

2011-11-01T19:17:00.004-05:00

This incredible take on Earle Hagan's "Harlem Nocturne" is, in my opinion, the most soulfully definitive version of the song EVER, even though the YouTube version cuts off the final verse.

My thoughts are that Jacquet's artistry is effing amazing throughout. Love this song. Love this version - again this is the definitive one, in my opinion. This familiar tune just bristles with his phrasing, which is once again impeccable. I don't know who the trumpeter is, but that Musician also rates a capital M. And I will try to find out quickly this person's name, and put it in the comments, although a few cursory searches haven't helped much.

NONE of the "big band" versions of this tune, and there are many, capture the intimacy of this melody in the way that Illinois Jacquet does with a small combo. It's a wonder to me that Hagan originally pictured this as a large group tune; wonderfully crazy, considering how amazing Harlem Nocturne is, when just boiled down to its basic parts: a simple melody that sizzles at first with a kind of swing that takes you to a very specific time and place . . . and then enjoys its stay with a bridge that just keeps on spilling new ideas . . . and then returns deliciously to its bluesy roots.

Engh. Words fail to do it justice. Listen and Enjoy.

A little jolt of truth:

2011-09-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Effin tasty music.

2011-09-17T11:48:00.005-05:00

I stumbled across this producer while on a light-hearted swing through what YouTube has to say about Deep House.

I have no idea who Nebraska is, or where s/he or they're from. (Omaha? Lincoln? Grand Island?) But I love it!

I would describe this stuff as a kind of easy-rolling, deep, jazzy, smoothed out, and melodic house, at relatively slow tempo, with a few breaks thrown in to liven things up a bit. It reminds me of some of the jazzy-style house that was coming out of Paris around eight or nine years ago, and I always ate that stuff up. Given the name, French for "a ward or neighborhood," I wonder if it might not be of French origin.

I don't know if this track would light up a truly jacked dance-floor necessarily, although I suspect it could kinda get things going at the beginning of a set.

My students would call this elevator music, and I suspect at least one or two of my dj buddies might say the same. But my students can be forgiven, and as for the rest, chalk it up to taste.

Smoothed out, jazzy cuts are near and dear to my heart.

Darth Cheney to America, the World: Fuck all y'all!

2011-09-07T18:48:00.012-05:00

Well, if you've had your eyes open at least twice or thrice in the last ten years, the following headline and lede should come as zero surprise to you:

Cheney: No regrets

By: CNN's Ashley Killough

(CNN) – When talking about his eight years as vice president, Dick Cheney said he had no regrets from his time working as former President George W. Bush's right-hand man.

"And I'm not inclined to make any mea culpas," Cheney told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview to air on the "Situation Room" Tuesday.

Cheney had an instrumental role in the decision to send troops to Iraq nearly two years after 9/11. Widespread doubts emerged about the government's initial reason for going to war: suspicions that the country had links to terrorist cells and was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

When asked if the current fatality count of more than 4,000 troops in Iraq, coupled with the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war, made it a worthy endeavor, Cheney said "yes." . . . .

The full blog post is available here.

Jesus Christ.

I wonder if this dingleberry ever sat down with the family of someone who died in Iraq. I rather doubt it.

Look, no one will ever confuse Darth Cheney for the self-reflective "I'm-my-own-worst-critic" type, but even by the standards of someone furiously digging up Satan himself from the deepest trenches of hell, this interview is an even further debasement of unimaginably repugnant proportions. As if to say, "Look what an irredeemable asshole I can be," this pus-filled boil on the taint of humanity gives Wolf Blitzer "the Full Cheney." By that, I mean we are brought into the most fetid, shit-strewn runnels in the deepest crevices of the offal-parts of human existence.

Note that even the uber-corporate toady, Wolf Blitzer (who was practically coming in his pants during the run-up to the War on Iraq, and who STILL MANAGED to fluff the Dark One as a kind of "vintage Cheney" during the write-up, as if that was something that anyone wanted to see) elicited the following remarks, possibly in a likely-to-fail effort to make "news" of the fact that:

"Hey, the former Veep's a real piece o' shit!"

I find it interesting that the headline on Blitzer's more personal blog, which is buried more quickly on CNN's web page, was less forgiving than the headline that was ultimatley frontpaged on the site.

Cheney refuses to admit any mistakes as vice president

For the who are strong of soul, here are a few choice bits of this nauseating interview. Have a mop and bucket ready. You're going to want to puke.

"He strongly defended his record on every single controversial issue I raised with him: the nearly $1 trillion TARP economic bailout package that the Bush administration pushed through Congress during its final weeks; the decision to invade Iraq even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11; the failure to kill Osama bin Laden when he was cornered in Tora Bora shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan; and the failure to take any steps in the summer of 2001 when he and President George W. Bush were warned that al Qaeda was planning to attack Americans in the United States."

I'm gonna go hork now. Please give me a minute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Okay I'm back.

Can you handle some more?

I [Blitzer] pointed out to the former vice president that everyone makes mistakes, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting mistakes. We are, after all, only human. No one is perfect.

But he refused to budge. “I'm proud of the policies we put in place. I think they did the job we intended for them to do. And I'm not inclined to make any mea culpas,”"

You're allowed to both puke and have flaming diarrhea - simultaneously, if necessary - at this point. You're only human after all. Take your time. I'll wait . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . . .

Here's some more:

"When I asked him if he had any regrets in Iraq, he said, “I think we made exactly the right decisions.”

Purge it people. Purge it now. It's finger down the throat time, and you know it.

The odd thing here is that, as much as I've wallowed in the shit-strewn sphincters of the discourse with this post, Darth Cheney himself, with his soft, snake-tongued voice and his beady little stare, is actually more offensive than the basest insults I can throw at the guy.

I've always said that I picture Darth Cheney as more of a psychopath than a sociopath, because supposedly sociopaths know that what they're doing is wrong and do it anyway, whereas psychopaths appear to have no awareness of such things, and no remorse. This nauseating interview, and the article to which it lead, only reinforces that belief.

Psychopath Dick Cheney probably sleeps perfectly soundly at night; whereas I suspect that occasionally some really stupid demons may keep George W. awake at night, even as monstrously moronic as they may be.

There was a time in my life when I considered a devil-may-care attitude that rebels against public opinion as worth emulating. I once considered it bold and trend-setting to say: "I don't care what people think." But as Cheney apparently makes crystal-clear in his new book, In My Time "not giving a shit about what all y'all think" ain't exactly what you're looking for in leadership skills for a democracy. Such a perspective may not be such a bad thing from a friend, collaborator, or fellow artist in some cases. But nah, it's not really what you're looking for at the highest levels of an elected leadership . . . they're pretty much supposed to care what giant swaths of the population thinks.

Cheney's book will be coming out soon and it looks like he's going to be crawling out from the lowest depths of Hell's sewer a lot in the next few weeks. If nothing else, it should give us all a healthy reminder of what happens when the rich and powerful are allowed to run amok in a self-aggrandizing binge of war, torture, and greed.

Here's hoping that Darth Cheney's re-emergence from his undisclosed location will remind Americans what the GOoPers are all about, as we sail toward the rough waters of the 2012 elections.

Rick Perry and His Leathery Jawline

2011-08-26T18:42:00.004-05:00

Rick Perry: Below Average Student, Fevered Egomaniac

It's Bush Part Deuce

Possum's Gulch TX - August 12th, 2011 - Fevered egomaniac Governor Rick Perry (R - Texas), along with his perfect hair and leathery jawline, have officially jumped into the GOoPer Presidential Field, joining fellow below average students Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum. Perry recently appeared with his hair and jawline in Possum's Gulch, a wealthy Houston suburb, proclaiming his readiness to be the next President of the nation from which he has also, as Governor of Texas, threatened to secede. He then vaguely threatened to kick Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's ass.

Another faux aw-shuxity moron who pretends to be an average guy, although he is quite wealthy and routinely wears ten thousand dollar Armani pinstripe suits, Perry is now considered by many to have the best chance to unite the redneck uprising known as the Tea Party movement, and the billionaire class for whom the GOoP has always slaved tirelessly. Although some of the Bushies have been lobbying rhetorical bombs at Perry, possibly due their Yankee old-blood roots' disdain for anyone not themselves, it's not hard to see Perry has a poor-man's George Bush: a long serving Texas governor who loves to campaign but hates to govern; a below average student who talks like your boozy old uncle who won't get out of your ear; a fucking moron who screwed over his own state and argues against the few things that helped provide some level of safety to Texas' economy, like stringent lending regulations at the state-level, and federal stimulus spending . . . which he used to balance Texas' $25,000,000,000.00 budget short fall - that's $25 billion.

I mean who better to pick up the rein's of the GOoPers' final march to fascism than the very man who succeeded Bush as Texas governor? I for one embrace our next Right Wing Caligula.

Blech! There's pee in my coffee.

2011-04-22T10:11:00.004-05:00

Well, cue the right wing glee machine, because I have lost most of my collective bargaining rights.

Today, the Indiana Senate concurred with the House version of Senate Bill 575.

It now goes to Governor Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels for his swift signature, and rests as law of the land.

This is a huge loss for teachers here in Indiana. As I've been saying for some time the victory parties regarding union labor and public education in the Hoosier state were quite premature. In concurring with the House Version of this bill, the Indiana Senate approved measures that would:

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies

* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool

* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits

* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

* eliminate current contractual reduction-in-force processes

* eliminate contractual grievance procedures except in cases related to wages and wage related benefits.

I added the bold for the two worst elements of this bill. Do the parts in bold sound familiar?

They should, if you've been following the labor struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio.

I'm lucky in that my own local union was able to negotiate a two-year extension on my contract, and in that our union has a pretty good working relationship with the administration and the school board. Other locals were not so lucky, and will now see huge chunks of their contract left entirely to the mercy of the local administration and school boards.

But, after our contract expires in two years, if our school board decided to extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, guess what they can do?

Why, extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, of course!!

And if the locals don't like that? They can get bent, as far as the state GOP is concerned.

This is a sad day for teachers in Indiana.

B.U.R.N.'s Burlesque Bake Sale

2011-04-02T13:22:00.012-05:00

B.U.R.N. NfP and Downtown Dave present:
The 2nd Annual
Burlesque Bake Sale
Music. Shtick. Pasties. Pastries.
Saturday, May 7th
7:30 P.M. - $10 requested donation
@ The Speakeasy Cabaret
Basement - Green Door Tavern
678 N. Orleans
$5 w/baked good or
B.U.R.N. Donor pack.

Hey Heyee!

It's that time of year again!

Last year's Burlesque Bake Sale demanded a repeat performance, and on Saturday, May 7th, your Burning Man Chicago community presents round two. Support B.U.R.N.'s continuing efforts to fund local artists and free expression with this great night of food and entertainment, all at one of Chicago's most historic bars and venues: The Speakeasy at the Green Door Tavern.

All proceeds will go to support the Bold Urban Renaissance Network NfP, which has given out nearly $5,000.00 in art grants since 2008.

Learn more here.

Our performance line-up is full. To confirm that you want to participate by bringing a baked good for auction, contact your host: downtowndave23ATgmailDOTcom.

See you there!

Downtown Dave for
B.U.R.N. Events Comm.

GOoPers to You: Piss off.

2011-03-16T14:57:00.003-05:00

A stunning look at the class war being perpetuated by the GOoPers at in states across the country. This is just a brief taste of how the GOP is planning balancing their budget shortfalls on the backs of the poor and middle class, :

REPORT: In 12 States, GOP Plans To Slash Corporate Taxes While Increasing Burden on Working Families

ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record budget shortfalls onto middle-class Americans, while simultaneously doling out tax cuts to corporations. While progressive governors have proposed raising revenue from those who can afford it, alongside painful cuts to programs, Republican governors have unveiled budgets that cut taxes for corporations and raise them on the middle-class and working poor. In this report, ThinkProgress evaluates the priorities conservatives have set in twelve states:
MICHIGAN: Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R) budget would make Michigan’s already regressive tax system even more unfair for the state’s poorest residents. The plan cuts taxes on business by more than 86 percent while slashing $1.2 billion in funding for “schools, universities, local governments and other areas.” Snyder also wants to raise personal taxes by 30 percent — an increase that will fall disproportionately on Michigan’s lowest income residents. . . .

ARIZONA: Last October, as she ignored 26 other possible funding solutions, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) implemented painful cuts to the state’s Medicaid program, which resulted in 2 deaths and left 98 Arizonians waiting for transplant funding. After months of protests, Brewer finally agreed to set aside $151 million in an “uncompensated-care pool to pay health-care providers for ‘life-saving’ procedures, including transplants.” However, House Republicans refused to restore funding for organ transplants because, as House Appropriations Committee chair Jon Kavanagh (R) said, “not enough lives would be saved to warrant restoring millions in budget cuts.” Then, while peoples’ lives were in danger, Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses that will cost the state $538 million.

This is just a taste of the horrific shit that GOoPers have been trying to pull, in the name of balancing their budgets, oh and by the way PAYING FOR ENORMOUS TAX CUTS TO HUGE CORPORATIONS. And these are just a couple of the most effed up examples!!!!

Are you a huge corporation? Sweet!?!?! It's Happy Days!!! You can laugh all the way the bank, cuz the good times are rollin!

Are you an average or even a poor family!?!?! Oh dear. It appears your tax burden is going to go through the roof. Times are tight you know. We all have to tighten our belts. And by "We all," we mean you, and nobody else.

Destroy Everything: Nihilists on the Right

2011-03-03T19:55:00.000-06:00

So I'm a politics dork . . . like a really, really big politics dork. I can hear your jaw hitting the keyboard is stricken disbelief.

A whuh?!? Can it possibly be true?

Yes, I hear you asking that, and I can see your drop-jawed, dumbfounded look of woozy shock right through this monitor. Pick your jaw off your keyboard, and brace yourself, because it really is true.

I'm a politics dork, and I'm okay with that.

Anyway, one of the functions of a politics dork is that I moderate an old-fashioned Motet forum or "world wide web chat room" (remember those?) - called the New Cafe Politics Forum. The forum is old and only has around 20 or so participants who "chat" with any regularity, but I still go back to it because it's one of the few places I get to interact on-line with real, honest-to-God right wing nutjobs. And no one can ban me . . . because I'm the moderator.

At any rate, during a discussion not long ago in our "Is the Reagan Reich on the Verge of Collapse?" thread, we got off-topic, as we often do, and came to a discussion about public education. We were discussing the advisability of private school vouchers paid for by taxpayers . . . an idea so stupid that even the Wrong Wingers in Indiana seem to have understood that it can't work. But don't get me started, this post isn't about vouchers.

"We know Dave," you're saying, "so far it doesn't seem to be about much of anything."

It was during this discussion about vouchers that one of our looniest loons at the NewCafe, a god-awful, evil right wing wacko who goes by "Liz"-almost certainly a pseudonym- made this comment:

Get rid of all public schools and put competitive private schools in their place. WE will all save money and the kids will actually learn something.

Now I read "Liz's" completely lunatic comments and was about to come up with some pithy response, or ignore it . . . when I was struck by something that made me do a double-take.

I was like:

Wait a minute, did this crazy bitch just advocate dismantling all public schools in their entirety? WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!

So I looked back again, as you can now, and see:

Nope, she ain't kiddin. She means it - we should dismantle all public schools. So I was thinking to myself:

Does this completely insane teabagger have any fucking clue of what she's actually implying?

And of course, she doesn't. She doesn't know what it would mean to lay-off hundreds of thousands of teachers nationwide and push them all into religious or other private schools. She has no fucking clue that huge swaths of the population can't afford private schools; that private schools are more expensive than public schools; nor is she, nor could she ever be aware of every other relevant fact that would illuminate how utterly schizoid an idea like "eliminating public education" is . . . to say nothing of the fact that it's illegal. The simple fact that just about anyone with a High School diploma can teach at a private school never entered her mind. And surely "Liz" either doesn't know or doesn't care about the fact that millions of children would likely be cut out of schooling altogether.

(If you're lucky enough not to know this "Liz" person as an online persona, you'll just have to trust me. She really doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.)

Now this was just one small spark of a comment in an ongoing volcano of crazy, but it got me thinking.

How the hell did we get to the point that advocating for totally dismantling public schools - a nihilistic "burn it to the ground" approach that would obviously solve nothing - can be considered by some to be a perfectly reasonable and rational approach to the discourse on education?

You'll note in the screen shot provided that her right wing friend, "Senator Lampoon," doesn't even bat an eye, or in any way attempt to back away from "Liz's" ridiculous, insane suggestion.

Nope, this kind of nihilism is simply par for the course now in ~~Tea Party~~ Hard Right GOoPer circles. And then it hit me again, and again in fact.

IT'S NOT JUST EDUCATION OVER WHICH THESE TEABAGGERS HAVE GONE COMPLETELY NIHILISTIC!!

Enter State Senator Jane Cunningham, who may or may not be some sort of teahadist right wing muppet, from St. Louis County, Missouri. This insane person sponsored a bill in the Missouri State Senate, referred to as SB 222:

SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ.

Well gosharoonies, it kinda sounds like State Senator Muppet is proposing that Missouri eliminate all child labor laws! But that couldn't possibly be-WAIT HOLY SHIT!

SHE IS PROPOSING TO ELIMINATE ALL CHILD LABOR LAWS!!!

Good news, Timmy! You don't have to go to school today, because today you'll be making dresses at Uncle Billy's Garment Factory!!

YAYEEE!!!!

I don't know what's more frightening about these nihilistic proposals . . . the initial Jesus Fucking Christ shock of "Are these people for real?-" or the creeping nausea and disgust that comes with the understanding that "Yes, they are for real."

Oh but I'm not being fair. Some crazy lady on a small, out of the way chat-room and one virtually anonymous State Senator from Missouri does not a "trend" make.

But wait, there's more!

Newly minted ~~teabagger~~ Hard Right GOP Senator Mike Lee (R - UT) recently opined that federal child labor laws are unconstitutional:

ThinkProgress

. . . . In that case, the Supreme Court acknowledged something very interesting — that, as reprehensible as child labor is, and as much as it ought to be abandoned — that’s something that has to be done by state legislators, not by Members of Congress. [...]

This may sound harsh, but it was designed to be that way. It was designed to be a little bit harsh.

Uh, yeah, Senator Insaniac. I guess you're right, I guess I would agree that suggesting that laws against child labor are unconstitutional is "a little bit harsh. . . " ummm . . . except for that "little bit" part. That's the part with which I might take issue, as saying that federal laws against child labor are unconstitutional isn't "a little bit harsh," it's completely fucking insane.

So if Senator Mike Lee - (Teabagger, UT) says that the Feds shouldn't be messing around with child labor laws, and State Legislators like Senator Jane Cunningham - (Batshit Nuts, MO) want to repeal STATE child labor laws . . . ummm . . . . who exactly should be responsible for ensuring that children aren't working as slave laborers for pennies a day? After all, these are the very people who have made it a fairly mainstream RepubliCon opinion that the minimum wage should be abolished! But lemme guess, Senators Lee and Cunningham aren't exactly running to sign up their children for a non-minimum wage job. I would be willing to bet that's something they had more in mind for other people's kids.

But it doesn't even stop there!

Meet Maniac Judson Philips. This maniac is the President of the Tea Party Nation, one of the largest organizations in the disparate web of crazy known as the Tea Party. It was the Tea Party Nation that recently organized the National Tea Party Convention and paid Sarah Palin $100,000.00 to speak. I ain't shitting you, this Maniac, Judson Phillips, recently came out in favor of returning to the days when only landowners could vote:

"The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who got the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you automatically got to vote. Some of their restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of them was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community."

Talk about tearing down one of the bedrock principles of democracy! This is weird for me because I had always been told that even if you're not rich, you still get to participate in a democracy, which is what makes is a democracy and not a plutocracy or oligarchy.

But this really is just a taste of the Right Wing train of nihilism.

Some nihilist nutbags in South Dakota got together and decided to propose mandatory gun ownership.

John Yoo, of all the torture-approving assholes, recently opined in the National Review regarding the Teahadist movement to repeal the 17th amendment, which provided for the direct election of Senators:

There’s a lot of truth to the argument that the enactment of the 17th Amendment undermined federalism. State legislatures have a greater institutional incentive to protect federalism than do the people of a state. The people of a state may want to expand federal program spending in order to get their share of tax revenues, even at the expense of greater national power over issues reserved to the states.

It's a convoluted argument of which I can make no sense . . . kinda like legalizing torture.

Senators Diaper Dave Vitter (R-LA) and Prodigal Rand Paul (R-KY), apparently to show that they really do hate the Mexicans, have proposed ending birthright citizenship, a very old and uniquely American legal tradition that was enacted in the 14th Amendment back in 1868. Apparently for Paul, coming out against the Civil Rights act just wasn't going far enough.

IMPORTANT POINT: Can you imagine any of this craziness making it into mainstream political discourse just five years ago?

These people don't just want to go back to the 1950's, they want to go back to the 1850's if not the 1550's! Shit like this makes the union-busting efforts of Governor Scott Walker - WI, Mitch Daniels - IN, John Kasich - OH, and Chris Christie - NJ, look like pleasant jaunts through the Rightwingistan Park.

In their nihilistic drive to destroy anything and everything that might counter their ideology, the ~~Tea Partiers~~ Hard Right RepubliCons are willing to abolish or destroy whatever sacred principles, redeeming qualities, or binding values might hold Americans together. This is what we're up against folks . . . . people who no longer believe there is any such thing as "too far;" who want to abolish, repeal, or destroy anything and anyone that counters their narrow viewpoint of the world.

And this is why political dorks like me pay attention to this stuff, so that hopefully, we can keep ourselves and those around us informed what exactly these insane fucking know-nothing right wing jagbags have in store for America, if they get their way.

Yet Another Family Values RepubliCon!!!

2011-03-03T19:54:00.002-06:00

Republican House member resigns over 'profound mistakes'

Washington (CNN) -- Republican Rep. Christopher Lee of New York resigned his House seat Wednesday after a report that the married congressman had tried to meet a woman on Craigslist.

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of Western New York," Lee said in a statement posted on his website. "I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness."

The statement said that "the challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

Ahem.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

At least this idiot had the moral intellect to do the right thing after going so very very wrong, and resign. Apparently Lee defined himself as a person who was "fit and classy" in his want ad. As you can see from the picture, for a guy his age, he is pretty fit.

Classy though?

Not so much.

My Place

2011-03-03T19:45:00.005-06:00

Indiana: They're going for the jugular of the teachers' unions

2011-02-01T10:30:00.002-06:00

TEACHERS: GOV. DANIELS SPEECH WAS A "SLAP IN THE FACE"

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - Indiana's NewsCenter met with area teachers after they watched Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' State of the State Address.

More than half of the Daniels' 30 minute speech centered on education.

. . . One teacher's initial reaction was the speech was "slap in the face" to her decades of hard work.

Unless you've been living in a Gulf of Mexico oil slick for the last six months, you're probably aware that in the GOP's ongoing struggle to destroy what was once quaintly known as the middle class, the latest gambit has been to blame any and all of everything that goes wrong on public sector unions, regardless of evidence.

Well New York City isn't the only place where this is going on. Here in the Midwest, we find Governor Mitch Daniels and the state's GOP-controlled legislature going rather bananas all over the Indiana State Teachers' Association. And unlike the trumped up "work stoppage" charges that look like they'll never go anywhere in New York, and have only made the jagbag who came up with the story look stupid, Governor Mitch and his buddies down in the Hoosier State appear quite likely to succeed in their attempts to deal a death-blow to a union. Here's what the GOP has dreamed up in a their fevered brains for the good teachers in my old home state.

House Bill 1337 contains provisions that would . . .

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies
* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool
* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits
* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

Wow. That's pretty draconian, considering that all of these are things that unions here have been bargaining over for years. This guy sure seems to hate him some union teachers.

The Senate Version of this bill, SB 575, is similar. . . a long list of things that are stricken from bargaining. Both of these bills have passed out of committee. Quite simply, what they're trying to do is put strict limits over what the union can actually negotiate, and it's wages and wage-related benefits, and THAT'S IT. Everything else has been pulled unilaterally "off the table." That's not negotiating, that's dictating. Under these new laws, members of the teachers unions would have no recourse regarding termination, no say in the length of their work week, no say at all in ANYTHING outside of wages. But wait, it gets better . . . meaning worse.

Governor Mitch, whose administration, by the way, slashed education by $300,000,000.00 last year (that's $300 million if you don't like counting zeroes) has also been going around promoting charter schools like they're the new cure for our supposedly "failing" schools. There IS precious little evidence that your average charter school does any better than standard public education. Charter schools are far more likely to be non-union than public school, though. As an added bonus, charter schools, because they are generally selective, get to exclude lower-performing students.

The Governor believes, quite whole-heartedly, in fact, that public school systems should GIVE AWAY unused buildings to charter schools. From SchoolsMatter.org

"If any school district in this state is sitting on perfectly useful school buildings that it isn't using and doesn't have any prospect of needing, people say, 'Well, they should have to sell them. They refuse to sell them; they should have to sell them'," Daniels said. "Sell them? Hell, they should give them away. The public already paid for them once."

How's that for a smart business maneuver from this supposedly business-minded Governor?-giving a way public property for free!?

So to go over the checklist:

1) Gut the teachers unions right to bargain? Check.
2) Strengthen non-union schools that have proven to do better than public schools approximately 17% of the time? Check.
3) Funnel public money to private entities that are actually less accountable to the general public? Check.
4) Further starve public schools and dump them with students who struggle? Check.

Yep, this angry wind continues to roar across the prairie toward union teachers and public education in Indiana, generally. But you guessed it, there's more.

In his State of the State speech recently, Mitch Daniels proposed vouchers that would take public tax money and give it to private schools in the name of "school choice." In many cases that money would go to his fundamentalist friends, who run the burgeoning number of "Christian academies" that are springing up all over the country. This proposal brought a glowing review from the fine minds at the Heritage Foundation, who claimed that Daniels had "put the Hoosier State on the school choice map."

What happens to public school districts and public school teachers all across Indiana, which are already on hard times financially, and which will inevitably be tasked with educating those who don't want to attend John Q. Associate's Degree's Fundamentalist School of Christian Light and Dismissing Evolution; or those just don't get lucky enough to have a voucher? Well they'll just have to make due with less . . .

In Indiana, Contact Your Reps

It can't just be the unions fighting these attacks on public schools and public school unions. Everyone has got to fight back against this. We simply cannot let this stand unchallenged, or the Mitch Model for destroying public education swill be repeated in many other locations.

And this guy's thinking about being President?

SynchroniCity's 10th Annual Xmas Tree Burn

2011-01-21T15:47:00.003-06:00

SynchroniCity's
10th ANNUAL XMAS TREE BURN
Saturday, January 29th
All Day& Night
Bridgman, MI
$20 suggested donation if you use the van service to the Super 8 Motel
$15 if you don't
Our usual Bridgman, MI location is roughly an hour and a half from the city.

Three years ago, the infamous Freezer Brrrn '08 brought the hardest core hell-hounds out to the frozen tundra, enduring sub-zero temperatures and blazing hot fire alike.

Two years ago, a huge snowstorm followed by remarkable 65 degree temperatures found well over a hundred participants sloshing through six inch mud at the notorious Thaw Burn of '09 . . . a.k.a. the Mud Burn.

Last year's Snow Burn had perfect winter-time weather - you know - the teens and twenties. Who knows what this year's Xmas Tree Burn will bring us? There's only one way to find out. We invite you to join us as we do it all over again - your 10th Annual Xmas Tree Burn!

This is an all-day event, and there will be van service to and from a nearby hotel. A $20 donation is requested via Paypal pocketbook@synchroni-city.org. (Don't forget the dash between 'synchroni' and 'city.org!') This donation will cover the costs of a couple of kegs, porto-potties, and the considerable expense of transporting hundreds of Xmas trees to our location! You may donate just $15 if you're not using the van service. If you've already paid - thank you!

The trees will be torched a little while after sun-down. This is a leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out event. Bring a cup!

Of course, we ask that you comply will all relevant laws, and respect our fabulous hostess's wishes in all cases. This event is based on your participation. Help us work on this event, or bring something to torch, to drink, or to share with the world.

THIS IS YOUR SURVIVAL GUIDE - SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK:

COST
The expenses related to this event are considerable, including plenty of beer, porto-johns, truck rental for hauling LOADS of trees, transportation of said trees, and the van service to and from the Super 8. We won't be turning people away, but we are asking everyone to pitch-in $20, or whatever they can. Even if you don't think you'll be using the van service to and from the hotel, please consider donating $15. We REALLY NEED people to pony up something for this event - otherwise we won't be able to do it anymore!

If you haven't already, consider Paypalling the funds for all of your participants to pocketbook@synchroni-city.org. (Don't forget the dash between 'Synchroni' and 'city.org') Or you can just pay cash at the event.

FOOD & DRINK
Delicious beer will be provided. The rest is BYO.

PARTICIPATE
Bring an Xmas tree to torch! Bring something to drink! If you want to bring food, contact me!

BRING YOUR BACK.
We've been saying for years that this event is based on your participation, and this year we mean it. EVERY PARTICIPANT will be asked to haul a tree or two from the front of our hostess's property to the backlot, where the magic happens.

SynchroniCity is officially BEGGING anyone and everyone to help us in creating our fiery sculpture. Show up early enough on Saturday, 1/29/10 to help with our build. We'll be there as soon as we can drag ourselves out there in the morning, probably before noon. Email me for details.

Synchronicity members will be providing some food. There may be some sort of "food theme" this year. Please hit me up if you're interested in bringing something! We're hoping to avoid the usual catastrophic mess that into which our "pot lucks" in years past have inevitably devolved.

We will also need some help with the cleanup the next day!

ACCOMMODATIONS
After the last tree has been torched, we're encouraging everyone to join us at a local Super 8 motel in Sawyer, MI, and we'll provide a comprehensive local van service to and from it. We absolutely insist that you do not drink and drive, and the van service should help you in that. TIP THE DRIVER! The van service is for everyone, but we will not get a hotel room for you. Book your room, NOW!

12850 Super Drive
I94 Exit 12 Sawyer Road
Sawyer, MI 49125 US
269-426-8300
Super 8 Website

For licensing and weather-related reasons, camping is not an option
for this event.

Please dress warmly and be safe at the Xmas Tree Burn. Plan for the worst. Covering your head, wearing long underwear, several layers of socks, and covering your neck are all absolute requirements. And HAVE GALOSHES READY TO GO!

If you have questions, I first suggest that you read the survival guide again. If your question is still unanswered, you can email me at this address.

downtowndave23@gmail.com

Can't wait to see you!

Downtown Dave
for
SynchroniCity

Now This is What I'm Talking About!

2011-01-06T17:28:00.004-06:00

Massive solar plant in Mojave Desert the first of its kind on federal land

The LA Times

"Las Vegas-bound travelers nearing the Nevada border rarely take notice of the vast, empty stretch of the Mojave Desert surrounding them. But that may soon change. On Wednesday, ground is to be broken for a massive solar thermal plant spanning about 3,600 acres and involving 346,000 mirrors, each about the size of a billboard.

Not only will the plant be highly visible to travelers on I-15, it also will be closely watched — and probably copied — by solar developers. Many developers are angling to start their solar projects by the end of the year, when a federal program that could cover up to 30% of the construction costs is due to expire.

The nearly $2-billion project is the first of its kind to be built on federal land and also the first to have slogged through myriad environmental, financial and technical issues that future solar projects are likely to face as well."

Jesus. Just $2,000,000,000.00 little dollars? How come we aren't already building like forty of these already? $2 billion is NOTHING!-scarcely a drop in the bucket compared to the kinds of money the federal government pisses away on illegal wars and cover-ups for corporate finance! If we kept building solar fields like this array in California, we could power the entire nation cleanly and affordably - no doubt about it.

And will projects like this see any more funding in the near future?!? Not if the Republicans can help it.

"Can't afford it, don'tcha know? Now's the time to build anything, or invest in infrastructure to create jobs. Deficits and what-hoo. No, now's just not the right time to be investing in America.

From New Jersey to Ohio to the House of Representative in the person of your new Speaker John Boner, RepubliCons across the country are busy fighting against jobs, while in one of the bluest states in the nation, Californians are spending a few billions dollars to invest in a huge source of clean energy, creating jobs in a place I bet there aren't a ton of them.

Hmmm, which is a better message to send the world and our own people?- that America is worth investing in and can build great things?-or that America is not a safe investment at this time, and probably shouldn't be trying to build more things?

Why not kill three birds with one stone?

1) Create jobs
2) Contribute to a cleaner future
3) And get us off of foreign oil?

BEARS! A Steven Colbert Spoof Gone Real!

2011-01-04T19:41:00.003-06:00

Like some spoof of a Steven Colbert spoof, this asshole from the American Family Association, last seen warning that the moment of Don't Ask Don't Tell's repeal was "the instant the United States sealed its own demise", has finally taken a bold stand on the all-important "Should We Be Shooting Grizzlies or Shouldn't We Now?" Question.

Point and laugh at this conservative moron, Bryan Fischer.

From Rightly Concerned, A Project of the American Family Association

A hot dog on two legs - time for open season on
Yellowstone grizzlies

By Bryan "Remarkably Big Asshole" Fischer

"One human being is worth more than an infinite number of grizzly bears. Another way to put it is that there is no number of live grizzlies worth one dead human being. If it’s a choice between grizzlies and humans, the grizzlies have to go. And it’s time. . .

In a piece in the LA Times which exudes far more compassion for live bears than dead people, writer Julie Cart wrings her hands over the 48 grizzlies that have died this year in the Yellowstone region this year, on top of the 52 which died last year . . .

. . . It’s not until the fifth paragraph that we get the first mention of a human fatality. And it’s only in passing, in words from a man who lost a friend to a grizzly and naturally blames people, apparently including his own botanist friend:

'A grizzly is a top-level carnivore; at times he will act like one," said Chuck Neal, author of "Grizzlies in the Mist," who lost a botanist friend to a grizzly attack this year. "People are a readily available source of high-quality protein. We eat too much and exercise too little. We're like a hot dog on two legs.'"

Wait a minute. Is this total jagbag going to write a whole Op Ed about how important it is that we kill grizzly bears?

Oh yeah. He is.

But that's apparently not hilarious enough. Need more? Here it is.

"Then comes this hilariously frightening paragraph, in which “experts” are “shocked” - shocked, I tell you - that grizzlies like to eat people:

"The two bear attacks that resulted in human fatalities shocked experts, who were at a loss, especially, to explain the predatory behavior of the sow and her three cubs. But an investigative report that included a necropsy of the female bear may have provided the answer: the bears were simply hungry.”

I mean, really, who in their right mind would even think that bears might eat people because they are a food source? Sure never occurred to me. And these are our “experts.” Criminently.

God makes it clear in Scripture that deaths of people and livestock at the hands of savage beasts is a sign that the land is under a curse. The tragic thing here is that we are bringing this curse upon ourselves."

bold mine

What? Wait, the bear attacks are taking place because God is cursing us? We brought it on ourselves? Uhhhh, am I candid camera? WTF are you talking about dude?

Oh wait! I get it. Why yes, it all makes perfect sense now. The Lord hath ordained that we be smitten by bears, probably due to our gays-in-the-military-allowing sinfulness.

Nevermind if taking rifle-shots at a curse from the Lord is such a good idea, or whether it might just invoke his Holy Vengeance and compound our sin.

That is probably a stupid question, I'm sure.

"Criminently?"

You know what? Nevermind. Please let's not go explaining it.

Waaaaaooow: We is left-wing as heeeeeyyylll!

2011-01-04T09:55:00.009-06:00

Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters via YahooNews) – Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday.

President Barack Obama last month signed into law a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millions of Americans, including the wealthiest, in a compromise with Republicans. . . ."

Well this is kind of a fun headline to read. But again, I find it a bit on the subtle side of things. Perhaps a more eye-catching headline might read:

Poll: Holy Shitballs! Who let all these left wingers in?

or perhaps

Poll: MMMMYeah . . . . about that whole 'center-right nation' thing

Reuters continues:

Republicans, who this week take control of the House of Representatives, want to extend all Bush-era tax cuts "permanently" for the middle class and wealthier Americans. They are also demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion deficit.

(bold mine)

I just found that last bit a little too rich for my blood, given that:

GOP won't count cost of [health care reform] repeal

Politico

House Republicans plan to use a special exception in their budget rules to repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul without paying for it – technically, at least.

The ~~Congressional~~ Communistical Budget Office said last year that the health care reform law and its accompanying reconciliation law would reduce the deficit by $143 billion through 2019. That figure is widely disputed and Republicans argue the law would actually increase the deficit. Still, since Republicans’ new rules to govern the House require that nearly all proposed legislation is fully paid for, the new House leaders have exempted repeal of the health care overhaul from such requirements."

F'ilarious! You gotta give these assholes some credit for balls. You know? They go around shrieking about the deficit. The Deficit, I tell ya! The Deficit with the . . . And THE DEFICIT!!!

But the first time the Democrats pass a bill improving access to health care that actually cuts the long term deficit by $143,000,000,000.00, the 'Cons have to EXEMPT it from their special rules about deficit-reduction?!?

And why?!? Why you ask?

Because deficit-reduction is bad, if a Democrat done did it. Total. Fucking. Facepalm. (Not that their pathetic attempts to "repeal Obamacare" will ever pass, but that's for a different entry.)

But thank you Politico for noting that the CBO's numbers are "widely disputed." Of course, a more uhhhhhhh "nuanced" take on the CBO's numbers might have noted that the CBO's numbers are "widely disputed by the GOP's right wing," but I guess we can quibble, eh? And let's not forget that while it's no surprise there for Politico, which beatifies the 'Cons desire to "extend all Bush-era tax cuts "permanently" for the middle class and wealthier Americans," (italics mine) those of us who have memories that go back further than one week will recall that it was really the tax cuts for the Very Rich over which the GOoPers were willing to "take a hostage" i.e. the entire rest of the Democratic Agenda back in December 2010. These assholes GOT their vote on tax cuts just for the middle class, and THEY SAID NO.

Was that just a month ago? Boy it seems like forever, don't it?- especially if you're a part of our myopic media, which appears to literally be born-anew, like a screaming infant every single morning at 6:00 A.M. There is no yesterday; there can be no last week; there sure as hell wasn't any last month; and they've never even heard of last year.

Anyway, back to our original, more cheery topic about how left-wing America really is these days. The 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll goes on to note that:

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.

61% want to tax the rich to address the deficit?!?!? God-damn! We is left-wing was heeeeeeeeyyyyyyllll!!

"Well, okay, taxing the rich won that round," I can hear my conservative friends saying, "But surely gutting health care for seniors and food stamps for poor kids is next on the list, right? I mean it's gotta be up there somewhere. Why it's not a good day if I can't cut health care for seniors and basic necessities for poor kids. Probably that came in a close second."

Number two on the list?

The next most popular way -- chosen by 20 percent -- was to cut defense spending.

I can just taste the vomity tingle of our right wing friends' collective coffees coming blurgling back up their throats. It's almost sweet. I mean effin-a we are some straight up communists around here or something!

But don't you worry worry, right wing 'Merka, your budget priorities still made the poll, it's just that they're a teensy bit further down the list:

Four percent would cut the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly, and three percent would cut the Social Security retirement program, the poll showed.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

[deep breath]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

[Sigh] Ooooooohhhh!

Good To Know

2010-12-31T15:25:00.029-06:00

The rich are much richer than you and me

No shit, really? Thank you CNN! Boy that's a swell effin headline to read! But I think it's just a teensy bit too subtle. Why not just run a headline that says:

"God-damn! Y'all Some Broke-ass Motherfu@&ers"-?

Or how about this:

"Your Teacher's Salary Ain't Shit"-?

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The gap between the rich and the middle class is larger than it has ever been due to the bursting of the housing bubble.

The richest 1% of U.S. households had a net worth 225 times greater than that of the average American household in 2009, according to analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. That's up from the previous record of 190 times greater, which was set in 2004.

The widening gap came even as wealthy households' average net worth tumbled 27% -- to about $14 million -- between 2007 to 2009. That's the first time that they suffered a decline since the three-year period of 1992 to 1995.

Meanwhile, the average family's net worth plunged 41% -- to just $62,200 -- from 2007 to 2009, according to EPI's calculations."

* bold & italics mine

At first I was all: "Well at least some of those rich fu@&s are taking a hit too - 27%!"

Then I saw that the average family's net worth fell 41% between 2007 & 2009. 41%!?!?!?!

Now I'm like "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn! We are broke as heeeeeeyellll!!!"

Now our right wing friends will no doubt place the blame squarely on President Obama, even though he wasn't President until January of 2009. Some of the less myopic of the bunch will have the intellectual honesty to blame only the Democratic Congress between 2007 & 2009.

Thankfully we're not all such morons, and a great many of us know EXACTLY which party (predominantly) and which President (until about a week and a half ago) is responsible for these "Holy Shit! You're Broke!" headlines. This is the long-term upshot of about thirty years of economic policy geared towards making sure the richest of the rich get theirs first, and telling the rest of us to "get in where we fit in." Ever since Reagan and his advisers dreamed up 'trickle-down' economics in a Singapore opium den, real wages in this country have been stagnant and in fact, since the Bush era, have declined. (That's 20 years of RepubliCon Presidencies and 10 years of Dems if you're keeping count.)

But I have to thank the good people at CNN for linking to this headline right there at the bottom of the story. (I included a screen shot cuz I know they change these pages up pretty often.)
First of all, CNN, thank you for calling it "the death tax." Sure we called the tax on wealth passed down from parents to children "the Estate Tax" for the first 220 years or so of its existence, but I wasn't sure exactly if the conversion to Orwellian Newspeak had been completed. Tonight I can ring in the New Year sleeping more easily knowing that that battle, at least, has been lost. So from here on out we'll call the tax that some of our earliest founding fathers put into law to mitigate the accumulation of wealth into an American aristocracy "the death tax."

Hmm, now that I've been told that "The rich are much richer than you and me," I wonder if I could find a story about billionaires getting away with not paying their taxes. Boy that would really bring in my New Year with a satisfying "Pop!-" like the cork shooting off the champagne bottle I put on my high-interest credit card. Y voila!

5 billionaires who skated on a death tax

Tally up the lost estate taxes from the superwealthy who passed away this year, and that's about $9.9 billion that Uncle Sam missed out on.

And heyeee!! You can click on through the pics of these old dead white-folks and pick out which likeness of Monty Burns you like the best! It's like baseball cards for rich tax cheats! As a long time baseball fan I had to go with Steinbrenner, although I was intrigued by the the "mystery woman," Mary Cargill, the deceased heiress to the agriculture fortune.

I want to thank CNN and Fortune Magazine for helping me make a point for me. Every time we start talking about the income gap in this country - you can set your watch by it - some smug right wing bastard trots out the old Ayn Rand canard and says:

"Well rich people have more money because they're smarter and they worked harder."

Thus did a rhetorical turd drop into your discursive cocktail. Now there are exceptions to every rule, but in general, this is just a blatant lie. Rich people aren't rich because they worked harder, or are smarter. THEY'RE RICH BECAUSE THEIR PARENTS WERE RICH. Think of the rich people you know in your life. How many of them had rich parents? That's right . . . just about all of 'em, eh? This, "oh the rich are just better people" canard needs to die. "Canard" incidentally is also French for "duck," so I'm thinking just grabbin it by the neck and bashing it against a wall will do. Let's call that wall "reality," shall we? Okay. Let's do that together.

And if you want to follow me even further down this li'l rabbit hole of mine, I'll just HAVE to show you another screenshot.
Just check the headlines on that sidebar over there!

Rich make out in tax deal

The tax deal's biggest losers

And who, oh who could it be who doesn't fare so well under this saucy "compromise" worked up by President Obama and the GOoPer Senate leadership? Why it's your broke ass of course!

It's easy to declare the winners in the new tax bill, but let's not forget the unluckiest of them all -- those who have been jobless for 99 weeks.

Boy are we livin in some surreal effin times or what folks?-when it's up to Fortune Magazine to remind us that we've got people who haven't been able to find work in 99 weeks?!?!

No doubt our right wing friends will cluck and and pooh-pooh and say: "Well why don't they just get a job already?" . . . these smug self-righteous pricks. Ooops! There are six available workers for every job opening in the country!!!!

"Well why don't they just split a job six ways?"

See, this is why we need a robust union movement, and the decline of unions has been such a disaster for the country. (Proud dues-payer here, by the way.) Back during the Communistic Eisenhower era, the richest Americans paid 90% of their wealth into the general coffers!

90%!!!!

And around 35% of the American workforce was unionized. It was one of the longest and most productive periods in American history. And the so-called "Economy," was not "so-called" at all, because - to vastly greater degree than it does now - it worked for everyone, and a much higher percentage of Americans were able to find meaningful work.

The rich fu@&s are obviously doing fine. They always will be. Clearly, these folks can take care of themselves, because they make the rules in this economy, and can hire high-priced attorneys so that they actually DIE before they pay the DEATH TAX! The average people, on the other hand - you know, folks like you and I - can only fend for ourselves by banding together. Money is a unit of human power, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. Luckily it's not the ONLY unit of human power.

Only by working together can Americans reclaim our dream. The 2%ers at the top will never hand it over willingly. Their attitude has been made manifest over the past thirty years of Reaganomics:

We got ours, so screw you.

Why Obama Could Never Be FDR

2010-12-22T20:33:00.011-06:00

Although they emerged into the Presidency seventy-six years apart, at first glance, the similarities are there: two cosmopolitan Presidents from large cities coming to power in the midst of widespread economic catastrophe, on the heels of deeply unpopular, corporatist RepubliCon predecessors. Surely President Obama's tenure will be judged by some of the same historical precedents set up by FDR, right? Both needed to create jobs, move the country out of economic malaise, and rebuild a sense of American unity that had been deeply damaged on the heels of long-term conservative and corporate dominance alluded to in the term "gilded age."

Forgetting, for the purposes of this post, whether or not Obama actually WANTS to be the new FDR - a question upon which I believe the jury is still somewhat "out" - I will gingerly propose here that there is no way on God's green earth that Barack Obama could ever be the next Franklin Roosevelt, even if he put the entire power of his considerable will and intellect into working towards this wild fantasy.

And why not? Well basically I don't think comparisons between the two are fair, and here's the crux of the issue. President Obama is a black man from lower-middle class background. And FDR was a white man from a rich and powerful family.

No I didn't turn racist overnight. I don't believe that a black President is less capable of enacting transformational change, or less capable of governing in hard times. The facts here have nothing to do with capacity, and everything to do with the tenacity and sheer vehemence of the opposition.

The second President Roosevelt was a rich white man from a patrician family . . . a man whose uncle had served as President, a man as familiar to the upper crust of the American power elite as was the practice of keeping servants and second homes upstate, and personal ownership of vast swaths of capital and real estate. The simple fact is that Obama has none of these advantages. When Roosevelt became President in 1932 after his stint as Governor of America's most populous state at the time, New York, the American power elite had been dealing, for better or for worse, with Roosevelts for forty years already, if not much longer. His paternal Grandfather, Warren Delano II, was directly related to Pilgrims who had come on The Mayflower; and his paternal grandmother, Sara Ann Delano, was a cousin of President James Monroe's wife. And need we even mention FDR's swashbuckling uncle, Teddy, who became the first Roosevelt president in 1901?

Comparing the performance of Barack Obama to FDR is like comparing the college performance of an academically high-end kid from the inner city to the an equally academically high-end kid from the wealthiest suburb in America. Sure, they may both be academically high-end, but one has been given every advantage in life, and one has been given every disadvantage.

FDR NEVER faced the shrieking racism of America's institutionalized reactionaries. Sure there were the Father Coughlins of FDR's day, but even the most outrageous of FDR's critics, as far as I'm aware, never questioned whether or not FDR was legally qualified to serve as President, as the thinly-veiled racists in Obama's opposition have repeatedly been known to do with their seemingly ENDLESS demands for the the "original birth certificate . . ." an item which by the way, roughly 95 out of 100 Americans, including yours truly, probably do not have laying around the house. (In fact, given their set-your-watch-by-it penchant for rank hypocrisy, I'd be willing to personally guarantee that 99% (not 95%) of the Tea Party hate-mongers demanding to see the President's original, paper-copy birth certificate don't have theirs either.)

With their shady insinuations that Obama is a Muslim, and their vague allusions to the President's Kenyan father, his "anti-colonialist leanings" - as if anti-colonialism were such a bad thing - the President's many enemies have used their propagandists at Fox News to propagate outrageous lies, smears, and misinformation that a white man from a rich family would NEVER have had to endure. Indeed, we can safely assume that FDR - having dealt and perhaps dined with wealthy corporatists his entire life - probably spoke their language, knew their customs, could talk yachting if necessary, etc. While FDR was a good man with great intentions who was able to use his family name and his inherent connections to the power elite to propel himself to the Presidency, Barack Obama simply had none of these advantages.

Now as I am not a professional historian, this gets to a realm of some speculation; but once President, it's quite rational to suppose that FDR may have been able to cajole and coax his opposition along in a way that President Obama could never hope to do. FDR spoke the language and knew the customs of wealthy corporatists . . . he may have known some of his opponents as equals for his entire life. Can the same really be said for President Obama?

No, these two men are coming from entirely different circumstances, and comparing the two Presidencies is unfair. Dealing with the mega-wealthy power elite is an entirely different matter when you're one of them. You can't expect an average citizen, no matter how talented, no matter how eloquent or intelligent - and a black man, no less, whose powerful opposition practically owns the media and is running a despicably racist, nationwide smear campaign - to be able to affect meaningful progressive change in the same way that a well-meaning millionaire from an ultra-powerful family can. Our top-down society simply doesn't work that way.

So where does that leave us? With diminished expectations I suppose . . . but then . . . what else is new? We live in an era of diminished expectations. I suppose we can only hope that the President's heart is in the right place and that, to the maximum extent possible, he's trying to wring progressive droplets out of this incredibly difficult situation. With the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the attempt to pass the DREAM Act, the success of the new START Nuclear Arms reduction treaty, and the recent passage of the 9-11 First Responders' Health Care bill, I guess there is some reason to hope.

But only history will tell us if Obama is really going to be able to live up to even a fraction of kind the of transformational change he spoke of . . . the odds against this are of course impossibly high. But looking for an FDR-type of sea change out of this President . . . well I just don't think it's fair, or logical.

Gays in the Military: Cue the Wrong-wing Freakout in 3-2-FUN!!!!

2010-12-19T20:37:00.006-06:00

I told you in my very last post that this was going to be fun! (It's near the bottom.) And here comes the Wrong-Wing Freakout over the end of Don't Ask Don't Tell!

Benedict Arnold Republicans Destroy Military and our National Security

From those Fun-Loving GOoPers at the American Family Association's "Rightly Concerned"

By Bryan Fischer

We are now stuck with sexual deviants serving openly in the U.S. military because of turncoat Republican senators. (Dictionary definition of “deviant”: “departing from usual or accepted standards, esp. in social or sexual behavior.” “Deviant” is not name calling, it is truth-telling.) . . . .

Yep, it took this asshole all of one sentence to make it clear that he believes that homosexuals are "deviants," and to quote the dictionary to back up this claim. But it gets better. Did you know that other nations allow gays in their militaries specifically because they are planning on having the USA bail them out?

The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours.

They knew they could count on the strength, might, power, and cohesion of the U.S. military to intervene whenever and wherever necessary to pull their fannies out of the fire and squash the forces of tyranny wherever they raised their ugly heads around the world.

Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all. . . .

Wow. Our army will be feminized and neutered beyond repair? Jeepers too bad, eh? Our macho-beyond-belief military was so masculine that having gay people in it will actually destroy it forever. So I guess having a Harley-ridin butch lesbian serve in the military will feminize it? Go figure.

But it gets better. Our nation is apparently DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!

This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that?

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.
It won’t happen overnight, but happen it will.

Strong young males? Virile, young men? Who talks like that? Methinks this prick, Bryan Fischer, doth protest too much.

And seriously, this is "the instant the United States sealed its own demise?"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Uh yeah, the Bush-engineered bank bailout was more what I was thinking, but if you want to push it a year or two and blame the gays in the military, sure I guess we can quibble.

You know, I just knew that if I hunted down a picture of this asshole it would be hilarious. And guess what? It was:

Who is this asshole? Ned Flanders's gay uncle? What a douchebag. Gotta love the macho-macho perfectly coiffed white hair and Christmasy sweater. Nothing says "No I most certainly am NOT gay. I'm not gay I'm not gay damnit!" than a look like that, and lots of kvetching about "virile young males."

Too funny!

Some welcome good news.

2010-12-18T19:22:00.005-06:00

For lefties like me, the last few months have been pretty demoralizing. From the debut of our new Citizens' United-enabled right wing majority in the People's House of Congress, and the startling speed with which monstrous, corporate-backed interest groups were able to officially purchase our election process with obvious results on November 6th; to the politically inept and dangerous precedent set by the President's total capitulation to the GOoPers' insane, budget-busting obsession with tax cuts for millionaires, it's been a tough haul.

That's why news like this is a very welcome relief for progressives*, an overdue but welcome victory.

Senate votes to repeal ban on gays openly serving in military

"Washington (CNN) -- The military's prohibition of openly gay people serving within its ranks is one step closer to ending, after the Senate voted Saturday to repeal the armed forces' "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Eight Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut joined the chamber's Democrats to back the legislation, which passed around 3 p.m. by a 65-31 margin. The bill needed a simple majority -- meaning support from 51 of the Senate's 100 members -- to pass. . . .

"Gay and lesbian service members -- brave Americans who enable our freedoms -- will no longer have to hide who they are," [President]Obama said in an e-mailed statement to supporters. "The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, in a statement, that he'll "approach this process deliberately, (making changes) only after careful consultation with the military service chiefs and our combatant commanders."

Clifford Stanley, a retired Marine and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, will "immediately proceed" to execute the Pentagon's plan, Gates said."

The end of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" puts a final nail into the coffin of the idea that one's sexual preference affects one's ability to not just serve the country, but to do any job, really. This is good news not just for boys who like boys and girls who like girls, but to anyone who has ever been discriminated against, for any reason. Although the media response to this Friday-evening news dump story (so far) hasn't fully picked up steam, I'm guessing that it'll be fun watching the response of the reactionaries wigging out, the self-righteous pricks. No doubt the heads of right-wingers will be exploding all across the airwaves on Monday. And that's always a fun thing.

For a fascinating look at the history of the movement that finally achieved this victory you can go here. I never thought I'd be thanking Senator Joseph "Sanctimonious Prick" Lieberman for anything ever again. But I will say that on this one, along with Former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reed, and President Obama, Lieberman was among the main backers of the repeal effort, so give credit where credit is due.

After all the disappointment of the last couple of months, this is something about which to genuinely cheer: a legitimate, and long-overdue victory for civil rights.

* You know, the compassion-for-fellow-your-fellow-human-beings people.

Total. Fucking. Facepalm.

2010-12-02T11:07:00.006-06:00

Obama tells Republicans he should have worked more with them

Washington (CNN) -- "A political summit between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders Tuesday yielded further talks on how to extend Bush-era tax breaks scheduled to expire at the end of the year, as well as an acknowledgement from Obama that he needs to reach out more to Republicans.

The meeting, dubbed by some the "Slurpee summit" for a campaign dig by Obama at congressional Republicans, involved the president and leaders of both parties from the House and Senate. It came in the aftermath of the November midterm election in which Republicans took control of the House and gained six seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Originally proposed by Obama as a half-day event that could extend into dinner, the meeting was postponed once by Republican leaders and ended up lasting about two hours. Afterward, Obama and Republican leaders said they wanted to work together, but they also made clear that sharp differences exist on major issues."

(Italics/Bold mine)

Oh my god. I mean, just . . . oh my fucking God. Speechless here. How could President Obama possibly, under any circumstances, think that he needed to reach out more to the RepubliCons?

Don't get me wrong. I understand that the President is facing shrieking racism and an army of stupid, hilljack, cracker, ignorant, redneck, inbred, fucking morons with way too much money and media play, in an environment where ANY Democrat was going to be subjugated to a wholly unfair playing field. I get that it's a challenge, okay? But this headline made me want to literally retch my digestive tract, in its entirety, up my esophagus, and out of my mouth.

I mean, he already allowed his signature legislation, the Health Care "Reform" package, to be stripped away of its best ideas, and replaced with corporate-friendly giveaways to insurance companies! The American people don't give two turds in a rat's butt about "bipartisanship" because they're too busy trying to avoid homelessness due to foreclosure and joblessness. The President didn't need to "reach out across the aisle" more. He needed to FIGHT THESE EVIL FUCKS AND SEND THEM WHIMPERING HOME TO MOMMY. Instead, he decided that the thing to do was try to get the GOoPers to be nice to him by fucking over the American people. And look what it got him - a bunch of wild-eyed neanderthals throwing their feces on him and pissing on his shoes (which was always gonna happen anyway) AND the added bonus of a real electoral shellacking.

Reach out more to the RepubliCons?!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? This is basically Barry-O's way of saying:

Well, sure the GOoPers were fucking me in the ass with a spiky dildo . . . but I think problem is that I just wasn't using enough lube.

If someone doesn't get into the President's ear and soon; if this continues to be the pattern from Barry-O, I'm sorry, but we are FUCKED as a country. The 'Cons in Congress are going to do everything they can to continue to block any progress on the so-called Economy, and if people don't have appreciably more jobs in 2012 then Obama is a sure-fire one-termer. Even Sarah Palin could beat the President under the present circumstances, if the President doesn't learn how to man up, take the spiky dildo out of his bunghole, and FIGHT THESE ASSHOLES.

Sweet. Throw the bankers in jail.

2010-11-20T16:11:00.006-06:00

US to Lift Lid on 'Pervasive' Insider Trading: Report

From CNBC via Reuters

U.S. officials are preparing insider trading charges against a host of financial players, including investment bankers and hedge fund managers, The Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The charges could surpass any previous investigations on Wall Street, and examine whether certain players garnered tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits, the newspaper said in its Saturday edition.

The investigations could expose "a culture of pervasive insider trading in U.S. financial markets," especially in ways private information is transmitted to traders through connected insiders, the newspaper said, citing federal authorities. Wall Street has been abuzz for weeks about federal authorities filing another big insider trading case that might compare to last year's Galleon case.

This is great news. My basic take on the Big Banks, is: "let 'em fail," and my basic take on those who committed grand-scale fraud and theft i.e. Big Finance insiders and Hedge Fund Managers is: "let 'em rot in prison. And if someone wants to shank these old rich fucks . . . well . . . people get shanked in prison sometimes. Shit happens."

I can only hope there is something to this story. Exposing the Bangksters for what they are is going to be an absolutely critical element in moving this country forward and preventing the revved-up and rarin-to-go Right Wing machine from taking us full-speed ahead down the Hitler Highway. Fascism thrives on desperation and mis-placed anger. If people actually started to get wind of how truly, madly, and deeply the Big Bankgsters have gang-raped this nation and its people, perhaps they will finally be able to take some of that righteous-but-misplaced anger that is currently being leveled at our increasingly Carter-esque looking President and "the Gubmint," and focus it back where it belongs: on Big Banks and Big Corporations that have hijacked our so-called economy, aided and abetted by the Bushies, of course.

This is good news, folks.

RepubliCon "Governance"

2010-10-07T23:06:00.005-05:00

I only do this once in awhile, but this is a definite exception. Read this diary by Roatti at DailyKos and learn how RepubliCons "Govern."

The level of facepalm emanating from the state of New Jersey right now must be almost majestic to behold.

I mean there you have it, crystal clear: RepubliCons hate you, your job, your commute to New York City, and the $3,000,000,000.00 the feds were going to chip in toward the local economy.

Fuck you New Jersey. I'm your Governor! Meeehgnghgn! Gotta love the arrogant-lookin mug on that grandstanding fuckface, Governor Christie. If that's not a man with a deep, dark secret, then I don't know who is.

DICK!!

:-\

Chicago's Decompression 2010: Little Playa on the Prairie

2010-10-03T09:30:00.008-05:00

Your Burning Man Chicago Community Presents:

CHICAGO DECOMPRESSION 2010: Little Playa on the Prairie
Saturday, November 6th, 2010
2:00 P.M. - 3:00 A.M.
East Bank Storage - 5th Floor
1200 W. 35th Street @ Racine, Chicago, IL

-$15 suggested pre-sale contributions - here
-$20 suggested contribution at the door, if you're in pioneer or playa-gear
-$25 suggested contribution at the door, if you're in street clothes
-Participants 12 and under will not be asked for a contribution.
-Everyone else will be asked for a donation - even organizers, artists and volunteers who spend dozens of hours on the event!

You're beyond welcome to join your friends in Chicago's Burning Man Community for Decompression 2010 (Little Playa on the Prairie). This B.U.R.N. NFP-sponsored community event brings the open-hearted energy and creative spirit of the Burning Man Project to our great city for thirteen magical hours.

On Saturday, November 6th you and hundreds of your closest friends will create your version of Black Rock City on the 5th floor of the East Bank Storage facility, a Bridgeport storage, studio, and event space that's booked and confirmed to give us 15,000+ square feet in which to play! This community-arts event will be - as always - for you, and by you, complete with music, art installations, food, friends, family and FUN!

This year's theme is Little Playa on the Prairie. Think bonnets, top hats, pioneers and covered wagons. This is the Land of Lincoln y'all, the Prairie State, so we're going back in time to the days of our homeboy Abe Lincoln, a time when Chicago was just an up-and-coming little burgh bridging the East Coast with the Western states.

This event will be conducted in accordance with the Ten Principles of the Burning Man Regional Network. Full financial reports will be available to this community after Decompression is over.

Wanna help? GREAT! Email your Volunteer Co-ordinator and Decompression Co-Lead, Krueger, at kruegers.time@gmail.com, or just go here and tell us you're interested in helping out with Decomp in the last box.

Artists of all media! Bring out what you got! Contact Elysia Lock, our Art Curation Team Lead at elysialock@gmail.com.

The next walk-through of your location for Decompression 2010: Little Playa on the Prairie is this Saturday afternoon - 10.9.10. Email Decompression Co-Lead Downtown Dave at downtowndave23@gmail.com for details.

More information on getting to and from Decompression is available here. Still more information will be forthcoming.

Incidentally, I personally will be Team Lead for the DPW Cleanup/Leave No Trace team. If being a Hero of America and doing a thankless job with awesome people is your bag, hit me up at the email below.

See you at your Burning Man Chicago Community's Decompression 2010!

B.U.R.N. Events Committee
http://www.boldurban.org/events
downtowndave23@gmail.com
kruegers.time@gmail.com

PS: Here are some pics of the spot to get you excited!

Don't Like Unions? - You'd Better Be Working Right Now

2010-09-06T16:27:00.002-05:00

For money, I teach at a public high school, and as you may imagine, I'm a union-member.

It's been a sweet-tastic Labor Day, and Labor Day weekend. I just got back home to 35th street from the Ohio Street Beach. Me oh my what a fine day to be biking around this fine town. This morning I took my dog out for a great long walk around one of our glorious public parks.

Boy howdy, I love me some Labor Day . . . the weekend too, in general.

You see, I enjoy Labor Day weekend, and weekends in general guilt-free. My local, state and national chapters get their little pittance out of me every month and I go to the meetings and such. So when I'm doing something like partying all Friday night with friends new and old, I know that I'm just reaping one of many benefits that a movement which I actively support and promote confers upon me - the weekend. When I'm spending my Saturday pedaling around this great city of mine and enjoying the company of the people I love, and not worrying too much about work stuff, I can do so without that whole "being a huge hypocrite" thing because I support organized labor and always have.

What scalds my gonads, though, is right wingers who rail against unions, but then utilize all the benefits for which union labor fought for decades and decades, like you know, Labor Day, the weekend, the eight hour work day, the end of child labor, jobs with health insurance, stuff like that.

So when all you right wingers out there who feel like bitching and moaning about "union thugs" and "labor racketeers," at the same time want to fire up your grills all weekend and USE the benefits the Labor Movement has reaped, well it makes me want to choke on a delicious chicken bone, you know, the kind of thing you might be eating at a BBQ on Labor Day Weekend, . . . . because you people are hypocrites. Excuse me, . . . Hypocrites. You hate unions so much? It's 4:10 Central Time so if you're with me in that particular time zone, you'd better be working right now bucko . . . the last time I checked the traditional work day ends at 5:00, not 4:00. In fact, you really ought to have been working yesterday or at least Saturday. The weekend - a time for family and/or leisure activities - was a benefit that many many people in the workforce can enjoy thanks to the efforts of Organized Labor. So if you're so anti-union, unless you want to be ranked among the basest kind of hypocrites, you really should have worked all weekend.

Furthermore, although I do have to get up pretty early, I can relax unhypocritically when my eight-hour workday officially ends at 3:00, and then get on to the rest of my life in good conscience, what with the whole "supporting the labor movement as an active member" - although I generally stick around until 4:00. Right wingers who despise the Organized Labor and all it stands for, well the way I see it, they ought to put up or shut up. If they ain't puttin in at least nine or ten hour days, workin weekends, and sure as shit heading into the office on Labor Day, why that would sort of make them hypocrites, except not "sort of," but actually.

Put up or shut up right wingers. If you're grilling right now, you'd better put the tongs down and get to the office.

Cheers!

2010-08-30T19:54:00.016-05:00

Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?

Time Magazine.com By John Cloud Monday, Aug. 30, 2010

"One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems."

First reaction:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]

Second reaction: It's like God is fucking with the teetotalers

More well-being and fun-isticity to be found as I repeat the first sentence in all its succinct joy:

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do.

Keywords here in my own boldface: consistent finding.

Third reaction:

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]

That's a scientific fact, baby; a consistent finding, in fact. Hittin the booze consistently not only improves the quality of your life, as we already knew, but also the quantity of it! And you're more loaded during that time, so hey! You're havin' more fun! And pass the vodka my way, will ya?

Now why does drinking make you live longer? Seems counter-intuitive, don't it? Everyone is stupider when they're drunk, and more likely to bad decisions. I don't think that's up for argument. And of course drinking is bad for your liver, your kidneys, and urinary system generally, your brain stem, and other vital functions. So what gives?

Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

I just love it that sociability is linked to overall health. Guess what? It turns out it IS better to hang out with people, even if you ARE drankin! Who knew? So the next time some prim and proper killjoy wants to rain on your fun with their "Well you know, I don't drink" ATTITUDE . . . you can just tell 'em:

"Okay. That's fine. I'll be sure to toast you at your funeral."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! [deep breath]

Fuck you, Glenn Beck.

2010-08-28T10:17:00.013-05:00

That's right Glenn Beck, you pus-filled tumor on the sphincter of humanity, fuck you right in the eye. Eat a dick. Go to hell. You can rot now, or rot later . . . on second thought, the sooner the better.

That said, if you haven't heard about Fox News' "personality" Glenn Beck's currently successful attempt to once again prove that he's the very gaping Maw of the World's Largest Asshole, you might count yourself among the lucky, for keeping your spirit unsullied by ugly things.

For me, just knowing that this piece of shit in shoes, Glenn Beck, is dropping his particular brand of turd-bombs into our collective consciousness at the Lincoln Memorial - on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.'s transcendent "I Have a Dream" speech no less - claiming to be "Restoring Honor" and "taking the country back" for his racist and ignorant Tea Party audience; well, that's enough to make me wish that the kidney stones that I know are accruing in my gut would attempt to pass more quickly, so that I could have something more pleasant upon which to focus my attentions. Hell I'd rather shit blood than watch the Maw - flanked by Sarah Failin', of course - peddling his hateful slurry of paranoid vitriol on his little army of inbred hilljacks.

Nope, if you haven't heard what that scumfuck is doing at the Lincoln Memorial today, just read no further and go about your day knowing that Thank God Almighty, the sun can still shine, as it does here in Chicago.

The NY Times' Bob Herbert takes down the World's Largest Asshole with two things the self-obsessed dickbag himself, Glenn Beck, could never muster in his wildest fantasies: dignity and intellect.

America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure. On the anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington he will stand in the shadows of giants — Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who do you think is more representative of this nation?

Consider a brief sampling of their rhetoric.

Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

King: “Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.”

Beck: “I think the president is a racist.”

This article is, like I said, fairly dignified and intelligent in tone. Bob Herbert seems to be a pretty restrained fellow, I guess, although he allowed himself to admit that "[Beck] makes you want to take a shower." I agree. Glenn Beck does make me want to take a shower. But whereas Bob Herbert leaves it at that, I'd add that the thought of Beck and Sarah Failin' spreading their Diarrhea-of-the-Human-Consciousness at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech" makes me want to take a shower . . . because I always want to take a shower when I've been puking and shitting blood all over myself, while passing kidney stones.

Herbert's treatment of Beck's disgusting homage to both himself and to the embittered assholes who are keeping this country from turning the corner toward the 21st Century was thoughtful and quite forgiving, in my opinion. I won't claim that this blog post represents the more charitable and dignified wing of responses to Glenn Beck's . . . . what do I call it? . . . blasphemy* (I guess).

Nope. Not going for dignified and intellectual with this one. I think I've made my point clear. Pretty much, Glenn Beck's pathetic and self-centered "taking a piss" on what still remains as good and decent in this human family, called America; makes me want to puke and shit blood while passing kidney stones . . . because it's actually preferable to witnessing the event itself. That's pretty much my thesis here, and I'm stickin' to it. The Very Gaping Maw of the World's Largest Asshole, Glenn Beck, took me to this dark place of our collective consciousness, and this is my response, now that I'm here.

I'd add furthermore, that, you know . . . as a person who is aware of the Event in Question, and as someone who will probably hear a lot more about it on the Internet over the next few days, I actually hope to puke and shit blood while passing kidney stones. At least at that point I'll feel like something cathartic has happened, like something major has been expunged from the system. As the good folks at MoveOn.org have noted:

The reality is that the next day—and five days a week from there on out—Beck will be back on Fox News, speaking to millions and spreading hate, lies, and fear, as he does every week.

No catharsis there. And no expunging. Just hours and hours . . . more of the same dookie-butter mixed with blood, and more kidney stones too. Sadly, due to Media's Right Wing echo chamber, through which anything that Rupert Murdoch and Robert Ailes promote as "news" becomes, in fact, "News" on every channel, the unfortunate result of Beck and Sarah Failin's little pep session to their redneck, willfully-ignorant audience is likely to be a BUMP in Beck's ratings this week.

Turn Off Fox.

But aside from turning it off, which most of us already have, there's nothing we can do about that. Stupid is, indeed, as stupid does. And embittered racist turns out to be, also, as embittered racist does. So let's just deal with the basics here, shall we?

Glenn Beck's nauseating turd-pile of an event today makes me want to shit and puke blood while passing kidney stones.

By keeping it simple, we can get a clear message across.

Hey Glenn Beck, Sarah Failin', I got something for you:

:-\

* Yeah, 'blasphemy' is the word for what the World's Largest Asshole is accomplishing today.

It's time to end the filibuster in the Senate.

2010-08-17T21:39:00.005-05:00

The filibuster made sense when there was a rational opposition and a relatively small amount of bills were effectively filibustered.

Now, every single initiative that comes from our elected majority is effectively killed, or grossly emasculated by the threat of the filibuster in our venerated "House of Lords," or "UPPER HOUSE of Congress," the U.S. Senate. The American people have spoken over the last two elections. If the Minority Party cannot look to the filibuster responsibly . . . there is nothing in the Constitution that enshrines their right to it.

The campaign to end the filibuster has begun! Take action by following this link.

The Search For Life On Mars Gets Interesting

2010-08-07T08:35:00.003-05:00

Okay this is just cool. There's a lot of more science-geek stuff in this article but I'm gonna try and stick to the goods:

Future direction of Martian Exploration

By Dr. Adrian Brown - Planetary Research Scientist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute

The last two months have witnessed several extremely important events with respect to future Mars Exploration. . . .

. . . I recently had the privilege of being the lead author on a scientific paper expanding on the carbonate discovery by Ehlmann et al. My co-authors were a group of NASA-sponsored researchers from around the US (SETI Institute, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, and Desert Research Institute) and in Brazil (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo). . . . The primary message of the paper is that we have found a location on Mars which is very similar to an ancient part of the Earth that is known to have been inhabited. The best evidence of early life on Earth is found in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The Pilbara rocks are 3.5 billion years old and those rocks have wavy forms called "stromatolites" which indicate life was present at that time. Our research on these rocks using infrared spectroscopy gave us confidence we could recognize similar rocks on Mars.

Now, using an instrument called the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) run by Johns Hopkins University, we have investigated the Nili Fossae region further, and found intriguing similarities between the chemistry and mineralogy of the Pilbara and the Nili Fossae rocks. Both locations are similar in age; both contain abundant carbonate and accompanying minerals (such as talc). This indicates to my co-authors and I that they formed under similar conditions (in the presence of neutral, warm waters with lots of minerals to feed upon) meaning that when the rocks formed at Nili Fossae, about 3.9 billion years ago, this region on Mars was habitable.

The question that remains now is - we know Mars was habitable, but was it inhabited by life? The conditions were right, but did life take advantage of them? To borrow a metaphor, "The table was set, but did Martian microbes come to the party?"

I love stuff like this. The basic jist here is that the successful-beyond-all-expectations Mars Spirit mission has ended, and one of the big discoveries was carbonate - a mineral which on earth is affiliated with living microbes!

I love stuff like this. Wouldn't it be awesome if we took all that money and technology we waste on weapons and used it to explore the universe? The Mars Rovers were extremely successful, capturing thousands of images of the red planet and spiriting them back here. Now that's a billion dollar project I can get behind.

Sigh. Not to get all jingoistic, but remember when America, as a nation, could actually DO SOMETHING?

Sometimes a good graph says it all.

2010-07-20T11:38:00.003-05:00

Next time you hear some ass-wipe blowhard RepubliCon pitching a bitch about the god-damned deficit . . . should be sometime in the next fifteen seconds if you're watching TV, driving down the highway, on the internet, or listening to the radio . . . just think of this graph and picture that ass-wipe blowhard being ruthlessly wedgied and pilloried by a giant Shame-creature. But of course these scum have no shame, so they have no problem trying to cut off unemployment benefits to the poor while defending the Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans.

Pathetic.

:-\

I dub thee: The White Hots

2010-07-16T08:44:00.008-05:00

Lakes of Fire 2010 (A Spaced Oddity) has come and gone, and at the risk of offending some of my more hippie friends, who often think that sports in general are trite and gauche - I have to admit that one of the best moments of the event for me took place on Saturday afternoon, talking to a certain Mike from Chicago whom I'd never met before.

You see, somehow Mike and I got on to the subject the White Sox, who, for most of the first three months of the season, were looking seriously craptastic. Our vaunted "best starting pitching in baseball" was looking like anything but, and as seems to usually be the case over the last few years (with the noted exception of Pauliewood Paul Konerko) the hitting appeared to directly linked to the temperatures . . . as long as the temps remained below 85, the collective batting averages remained below .250. Mike and I got to talking and I was a little struck when he said: "How 'bout those Sox man, can you believe it?"

Now you gotta understand, the week before Lakes of Fire, I was in full-scale Organizer/Info-bot/Production mode. Sports had been the very last thing on my mind, and of course I was at the event for six days, so I was getting NO updates whatsoever. I was clueless. My response to Mike was something like: "Yeah, it's been pretty shitty, hasn't it?"

Mike was the one to hip me to what the hell was going on. He says: "Didn't you know they've won eleven in a row?"

I'm like Moe from that one Simpsons episode: "A-whaaaaah?"

Sure enough . . . the White Hots are the hottest team in baseball right now. They won eleven in a row. They're 26-5 in their last 31 games, and now they've put together another win streak of nine games!!

White Sox pick up right where they left off

Offense supports Danks as Chicago gains half-game in Central

MLB.com

MINNEAPOLIS -- Thursday's 8-7 White Sox victory at Target Field came down to a simple case of the South Siders beating the Twins at a style of play they have made famous.

Despite John Danks getting touched up for six two-out runs in the second inning, the White Sox (50-38) were able to back up their starter via 14 hits, four successful hit-and-run situations and three sacrifice flies, not to mention a handful of slick plays in the field. . .

At this stage during the White Sox amazing 26-5 run over their past 31 games, pretty much everything they do qualifies as fun. Two runs in the first and two runs in the second off of Minnesota starter Kevin Slowey gave the White Sox a 4-0 lead, with Alex Rios delivering two sacrifice flies and Gordon Beckham launching his fourth home run of the season.

So what changed? My theory is this. Around June 10th or 11th, just before the White Sox became the White Hots, Manager Ozzie Guillen and GM Kenny Williams had ANOTHER mighty public spat. The team was doing poorly, and once again, Sox fans were treated to headlines of our loose cannon manager and his smooth-operator boss getting "heated." I think that these little spectacles, which at least some sports reporters have openly suggested could be scripted, take the public pressures off of the players who are underperforming, and shift it to the management. With some of the public heat taken off of a guy like, say, Gavin Floyd, a starting pitcher who has seriously turned it around after a piss-poor start, the players can relax and start doing what they're supposed to be doing. I don't necessarily know if I agree with The Rock Report's speculations that these feuds are purposefully enacted to achieve this, nor do I particularly believe that Ozzie Guillen needs any "scripting" or coaxing to be his irascible, bellicose, straight-from-the-gut self. But scripted or not, I think these public blow-ups at the management level take some of the heat off the players, and that can be a very good thing, especially when a team is struggling.

So White Sox? I dub thee the White Hots! Let's grab them Twins by the next and shake 'em until they stop moving!!!

Downtown Dave presents The Speakeasy Cabaret

2010-06-16T11:30:00.002-05:00

THREE QUESTIONS:

1) Do you like to soak your feet in warm buckets of joy and laughter?

2) Do you lavish in the thrill of smothering yourself with gobs of congealed happiness?

3) And are you gonna be at Lakes of Fire?

If the answer to Question #3 is yes; AND if the answer to at least one of the first two questions is anything other than an emphatic no; then you really need to take yourself to the Firetown Stage at 6:45 on Friday, at Lakes of Fire.

That's where Downtown Dave & his Friends from the Speakeasy Cabaret will be spooning out heaping helpings of emulsified smiles and sugar-sauce all over your sweet asses.

And honey, it's gonna be glorious.

The Louisville Courier-Journal: Rand Paul not a certified ophthalmologiset

2010-06-15T10:35:00.003-05:00

Joseph Gerth of the The Louisville Courier-Journal:

Rand Paul's Ophthalmology Certification not Recognized by National Clearinghouse

"U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul says he is a "board-certified" ophthalmologist -- even though the national clearinghouse for such certifications says he hasn't been for the past five years. Rand Paul, who practices in Bowling Green, says he is certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology, a group that he incorporated in 1999 and that he heads.

But that entity is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, which works with the American Medical Association to approve such specialty boards.

Lori Boukas, a spokeswoman for the American Board of Medical Specialties, said her organization considers certifications to be valid only if they are done by the 24 groups that have its approval and that of the AMA."

This could make for an interesting story. To be clear, Paul is licensed to practice medicine in Kentucky, but the national body that certifies ophthalmologists does not recognize Rand Paul's certification to specialize in ophthalmology. More from the Joseph Gerth of the The Louisville Courier-Journal:

The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure does not verify doctors' specialty training and instead directs people to the American Board of Medical Specialties to determine if a doctor is board-certified. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recognizes board certification only by the American Board of Ophthalmology.

In an interview with The Courier-Journal shortly before the May 18 Republican primary, which he won, Paul said he was certified by both ophthalmological boards. . .

A spokesman subsequently said that Paul misspoke because the question was unclear and he acknowledged his certification by the American Board had lapsed.

There is no indication that Paul isn't qualified to practice ophthalmology, which he has done in Bowling Green since moving to Kentucky in 1993.

He is a 1988 graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine and has been licensed to practice in Kentucky since 1993. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure has never sanctioned Paul, according to its website, and he has medical privileges at two Bowling Green hospitals.

Okay, the guy has a medical license, he's just not actually certified to practice ophthalmology by the only national board that recognizes ophthalmology certifications.

Oops. Oh dear dear dear Dr. Paul. We've been somewhat naughty, haven't we Dr. Paul?

Jeez ol' Pete! I don't think this looks good at all! Aren't specialists supposed to be certified by the national organizations that certify these things, as opposed to official-sounding organizations they've set up themselves? By Paul's logic I could be performing brain surgery next week, as long as I can set an official-sounding Board to certify that I'm a specialist and name myself an expert in cranial fractulations! New career, here I come!

The always reliable Joe Conason provides some interesting filling-in-of-the-details at Salon.com.

Dr. Paul: Not board-certified, but self-certified

Asked by a Louisville reporter when he would explain his dubious certification, Rand Paul said: "Uh ... never"

According to an amusing story in today's Louisville Courier-Journal, the Kentucky Republican Senate candidate bills himself as a "board-certified" physician even though he is not actually certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology -- the only recognized body that certifies doctors in his specialty.

Paul's only certification was provided instead by something called the National Board of Ophthalmology, which is very convenient because he operates that organization himself. As the Courier-Journal explains drily, the American Board of Ophthalmology, which maintains a fully staffed headquarters in Philadelphia, has existed for roughly a century and currently lists about 16,000 doctors on its rolls. (Most hospitals and insurance companies strongly prefer doctors who are board-certified because certification indicates that they have kept up with changes in technology, best practices and so on.) The National Board of Ophthalmology has existed since 1999, when Paul "founded" it, lists no more than seven doctors, and its address is a post-office box in Bowling Green, Ky. He had claimed to be certified by both boards, but Courier-Journal reporter Joseph Gerth quickly discovered that claim was false.

You know what? This is just too hilarious. This ought to give Jack Conway a little something else to run-on.

Smarty-pants Dr. Paul and his people "forgot" that Paul wasn't actually, you know, certified by the national governing body that certifies ophthalmologists. Just a mis-statement? I call bullshit.

I mean how the eff are you going to represent yourself as an ophthalmologist when your certification comes from an organization you set up yourself, and not the American Board of Ophthalmology? That is some weak-ass tea if you ask me.

Pathetic.

:-\

There is something not right about this.

2010-06-10T20:49:00.004-05:00

Somethin' funny is goin' on here and it's pretty obvious that there's some serious shenanigans. South Carolina may well be one of the most RepubliCon states in the country, and this? This just LOOKS like foul-play.

From the Huffington Post.

Alvin Greene UPSET: Mystery Man Stuns In South Carolina Senate Primary

By SEANNA ADCOX

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — An unemployed military veteran who raised no funds and put up no campaign website shocked South Carolina's Democratic Party leadership by capturing the nomination Tuesday to face Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in November.

With nearly all precincts reporting, Alvin Greene, 32, commanded 59 percent of the vote against 41 percent for former four-term state lawmaker Vic Rawl, 64, who had raised about $186,000 and had to abruptly scrap a late-week fundraiser for the fall.

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler said voters unfamiliar with either candidate may have voted alphabetically for Greene over Rawl. "As far as I know, he never showed up at anything. Vic Rawl has been campaigning everywhere from the time he filed," she said."

Hmm, this makes categorically no sense. Let me guess, South Carolina uses electronic voting? Oh right. They do. Is the Secretary of State, the person who runs elections in South Carolina, a RepubliCon? Oh right. He is. Yeah this doesn't add up. This is too blatant.

Rachel and Olbermann have been covering this tonight on MSNBC, and with good reason. This stinks.

To quote House Whip Jim Clybourn, who is from South Carolina and does not even know who the hell he is: "There's some real shenanigans going on in the Democratic primary here in South Carolina."

Just who the hell does CNN think they're kidding with this shit?

2010-04-30T15:25:00.012-05:00

From the geniuses at CNN.

Some Hispanic Americans hope law deters illegal immigration

Phoenix, Arizona (CNN) -- Sue Schwartz says she's been called a racist so many times she doesn't mind the label anymore. If wanting immigrants to enter the country legally, like her great-grandparents from Mexico, and obey the laws of the land makes her racist, then so be it, she says firmly.

"I'm getting to the point I wear it with pride," says Schwartz, a lifelong Arizonan who has warily watched the growth of the illegal immigrant population in the state over the course of her life. About 500,000 unauthorized immigrants were believed to live in Arizona in 2008, and 11.9 million nationwide, up from 3.5 million nationwide in 1990, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report published in 2009.

This year, the tide is finally turning in her favor, she says, with the passage of SB 1070, aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. The new law requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there is reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally.

So as the title implies, I think the relevant question here, is just who the hell does CNN think they're kidding with this shit? With article after article after article repeatedly showing that the Latino community - both in Arizona, and nationwide - is quickly and understandably mobilizing against this racist travesty of law, which not only allows, but actually requires law enforcement officers to demand papers from ANYONE they even SUSPECT might be an illegal immigrant; I would like CNN to tell us why the fuck it is, exactly, that they felt the need to troll Arizona for someone who is, in all probability, one of the only people of Hispanic descent in the entire state who actually supports this race-baiting, hateful debacle, SB 1070. I mean who the fuck edited this pathetic, racist horse-shit? Did they dig up the corpse of Lou Dobbs's career and give him one last shot? Is Emanuella Grinberg, the woman apparently responsible for this fucking insult to the intelligence of everyone on any side of this issue, one of Dobbs's little toadie underlings?

I mean all across the country, we're seeing headlines like "Hispanic Community Mobilizing Massive Protests," "Boycotts of Arizona Already Underway," "Latinos Condemn Republican Legislature in Arizona . . . . " but the geniuses at CNN feel the need to gin up a couple people - the main character being a fourth-generation Mexican-American, by the way - and make it "news" that "Some Latinos Embrace Racist Law." Not only that, this so-called "news" has been their LEAD STORY FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING DAY!

How fucking stupid do these assholes think we are? Couldn't they have at least been honest, and interviewed J.D. Hayworth - the fringe-right teabagger who's running for John McCain's Senate seat this year because finds McCain to be too liberal; or the execrable Russel Pearce - the proudly racist State Senator in Arizona who wrote this god-damned disaster - when they needed someone to speak up in favor of this piece of shit of a bill? Trying to pretend that "Some Hispanic Americans" support this complete garbage is just insulting to our collective intelligence . . . even to those who might support this racist horse-shit!

I mean thousands families all across Arizona are about to be broken up, because of this patently unjust notion that existing here in the so-called "Land of the Free" without signing the right paperwork makes your very being "illegal." And ANYONE of Hispanic descent in Arizona - which is a pretty large number of people, considering that Arizona's entire southern border is with Mexico - now has to fear incarceration if they don't happen to be carrying their BIRTH CERTIFICATE with them.

And it doesn't stop there. Have you been to Arizona? Do you know how much the sun shines down there?- in the desert? Well let me tell you something folks, I've had family in Tucson my entire life. They don't call it a desert because it's cloudy a lot. The sun shines every fucking day. Even a pure-blooded Norwegian could end up looking like a Jorge Martinez if they live down there long enough. The police, instead of going after real criminals, are being asked to stop and give inquisition to ANYONE they "think" might "look suspicious."

But here's CNN's take on it: "Hey! We found a few Hispanic-Americans who support this racist law! See? "Some Hispanics" are in favor deporting their own families!" No wonder CNN's ratings have been plummeting.

Hey dumbfucks at CNN, let me clue you in to a little reality here. The in-bred morons who want their news filtered through an extreme-right lens will get it from Fox. You will never out right-wing Fox News. It's no wonder your rating are in free fall. Fox's ratings are also dropping like the IQ of a glue-huffing teabagger on a five year binge, because people are just sick of that shit. And your attempts to mimic Fox news are not only despicable and immoral, it's just not going to work!

But hey, on the other hand, I guess CNN should be congratulated. Perhaps it IS newsworthy that they managed to find three Hispanic-Americans - however distantly-related to their Mexican ancestors - who actually supports this racist debacle. Maybe that IS something.

:-\

FRI 4.16::B.U.R.N.'s 1st Annual Burlesque Bake Sale

2010-04-07T08:49:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone!

B.U.R.N. NFP, Downtown Dave, and Knock Knock Hot Spot are proud to present:

The First Annual Burlesque Bake Sale
Friday, April 16th - 7:30 PM - 11:00 PM
@ The Speakeasy Cabaret
in the basement of the Green Door Tavern
678 N. Orleans
$10 / $5 with a baked good

The Burlesque Bake Sale, an evening of classic cabaret entertainment, will feature the fabulous women of Knock Knock Hot Spot, Chicago's hippest burlesque outfit; the not-fully-dressed delights of Dollface, Soundwave Surfer, Laila Ruangpan, and others; as well as the ukulele of Weston Rose. Music and attempts at humor will be provided by Downtown Dave. All proceeds will go to the Bold Urban Renaissance Network, NFP, Chicago's official Burning Man not-for-profit-organization.

This show begins at 7:30 and goes straight through until 11:00, but don't worry! You can come early and leave early, or come late! Our doors will be open for the whole night! The Green Door Tavern has excellent pub grub and great specials, so make an evening of it! You'll be glad you did, and you'll be supporting B.U.R.N.'s continuing efforts to give out art grants, support our collective values, and build a cohesive Burning Man Chicago!

Anyone in our community is beyond welcome to be a part of this event. If you'd think you'd like to perform, contact Downtown Dave at downtowndave23@gmail.com. If you want to bring a baked good for sale, contact our Bake Sale Co-ordinator Skorch at monica.storch@gmail.com!

Hope to see you there!

http://www.burningmanchicago.org
http://www.downtowndavesworldatlarge.blogspot.com
http://www.knockknockhotspot.com
http://www.greendoorchicago.com

The Video

2010-04-06T13:01:00.004-05:00

Well here it is. The check-your-illusions-at-the-door gut check of Bush's Glorious War on Iraq. Take a good look, America. Here is just one of our two terrific wars.

It's really got everything. The Hellish deeds themselves, including "lighting up" a van coming to recover the wounded from the first attack, which was on a bunch of casual-looking folks, one of whom may or may not have had weapons . . . or cameras. Then of course this version has the cover-up. The lie. Yep. This is "The Video." It's got it all summed up in one fell swoop; a tragitastrobacle par excellence, our disastrous War on Iraq.

Thank you Wikileaks.org. Your courage is a beacon of hope.

Final Thoughts on the Health Care "Reform" "Debate"

2010-03-27T09:48:00.016-05:00

At long last, there seems to be some procedural and ritual closure to this epic health care "reform" "debate." As a firm believer in single-payer universal coverage or at least a public option, watching the first and second best ideas out there get sold completely down the river by Democratic incompetence and corporate firepower was bone-chilling and nauseating in the extreme, once again proving the virtues, values, and even valors of cynicism in all things.

However, I have to admit, I am happy that the Democrats passed a bill that's going to make it easier for millions of Americans to get coverage. That was no mean feat with the shrieking right wing and the big-dollar corporate insurance lobbyists fighting tooth, claw, and nail against even the most modest reforms. And it looks like what we've got is pretty sweeping, to say the least. 32,000,000 more people with insurance and it's supposed to save money! Speaking as someone who lived most of his adult life without coverage himself, and as someone who can safely say that 20-30% of his closest friends don't have coverage as of this date, I can't help but think that this is a step in the right direction. Still though, there are smart people out there who believe that this entire thing could be a "cruel hoax." And remember, cynicism can be a type of wisdom.

At any rate, the moment that really spoke to me personally was watching Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) go Teabagger on the floor of the people's house of congress. Watch and be amazed as this braying jackass shouts "Hell no you can't!" on the house floor, looking like he just shat blood.

When I saw Boehner's speech live, I was appalled and a little frightened. But in retrospect, I can see now that any time Boehner is shitting blood, it's probably a good thing. So now I'm seeing things in a much more sun-shiney way!

MINORITY LEADER BONER: "HELL NO YOU CAN'T!!!

DtD: "Well Boner, you appear to have been wrong again."

Watch the video above and contrast this poopy-pants moron with the Speaker of the House. You just gotta love Speaker Nancy Pelosi's performance throughout this drama. She is one classy lady and I'll tell you what, her ovaries could kick the shit out of yours, in a heartbeat.

Nancy, I know you're happily married and all that, but you know, if you ever need a little extra exercise, you know some side action, I just want you to know that I'm available. You know where to find me, Madam Speaker, seriously.

I'm a teacher by trade Madam, and I would just love to give you some extra credit . . . . anyway I talk too much, not feelin it? Okay.

So yeah, it's a good week to be an American! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the sweet smell of RepubliCons shitting blood.

Mmmmm. I love it. Smells great!

That sweet sweet smell of failure . . . right wing failure. It just warms the heart of my cockles.

:-\

It's time to torch some trees.

2010-01-23T17:04:00.002-06:00

SYNCHRONICITY'S 9th ANNUAL XMAS TREE BURN!

Saturday, February 20th
-All Day & Night
-Location details will be sent to those who Paypal $15
pocketbook@synchronicity.org, or who RSVP to dave_h@illmeasures.com .
-Our familiar location is roughly an hour and a half from the city

Two years ago, the infamous Freezer Brrrn '08 brought the hardest core hell-hounds out to the frozen tundra, enduring sub-zero temperatures and blazing hot fire alike.

Last year, a huge snowstorm followed by remarkable 65 degree temperatures found over 120 participants sloshing through six inch mud at the notorious Thaw Burn of '09 . . . a.k.a. the Mud Burn.

This year, we invite you to join us as we do it all over again - your 9th Annual Xmas Tree Burn!

This year's Xmas Tree Burn will take place at our familiar location on Saturday, February 20, 2010. This is an all-day event, with a van service to and from a nearby hotel. Location details will be sent to those who use the Paypal option or who RSVP. A $15 donation is requested via paypal to pocketbook@synchroni-city.org.

Or you can give at the event, and R.S.V.P. to dave_h@illmeasures.com

We need your help - DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE!

Save it, and bring it to Quencher's Bar at Fullerton & Western on any Saturday between now and the February 13th - or email dave_h@illmeasures.com for details.

The nearby Super 8 Motel in Sawyer, Michigan can be contacted at (269)426.8300 or Super8sawyer@yahoo.com.

Get concerned. Get involved. This is some serious shit.

2010-01-23T16:24:00.006-06:00

The Supreme Court, in one ruling, has issued two enormous blows to a citizen-ruled democracy.

Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit

By ADAM LIPTAK of The New York Times
Published: January 21, 2010

"WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big bus"

This is some heart-attack serious shit, folks. In one 5-4 blow for the conservative and corporate majority, the Roberts Court has:

1) given yet another clear nod of support to this ridiculous notion that for-profit corporations are legally equivalent to human citizens with certain basic rights . . . a move which, to be honest, is filled with judicial precedent in this country. But even worse . . .

2) . . . the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates for corporations to spend as much as they fucking please on any and all elections. This overturns nearly a century of judicial precedent! Corporations are now free to spend tens of millions of dollars on specific candidates who they believe will represent their interests. Another take.

The Supreme Court Just Handed Anyone, Including bin Laden or the Chinese Govt., Control of Our Democracy

The Court's decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think: Manchurian candidates.

By Greg Palast, AlterNet. Posted January 22, 2010.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President. The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers, will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that's already happened: we have been snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and "bundling" of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers.

I'm losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.

Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA. But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias."

This is a goddamned disaster. Not only are we again told that ExxonMobile has the same rights as you, me, or my kid brother . . . now we are told they should be allowed to spend their billion$ of billion$ of dollars buying into the political process. I mean they already do this, sure . . . but now they can do it openly and without restriction.

A time-limited response from the Rude Pundit.

Hooray.

Synchronicity's 8th Annual SantaKong

2009-12-06T12:01:00.001-06:00

BASICS:
Synchronicity's 8th Annual SantaKong begins at 2:00 PM Saturday - December 12th, 2009 at Quencher's bar. Quencher's is located at 2401 N. Western Avenue, on the corner of Fullerton & Western. This year the Kong will be using cheaper school buses, as opposed to trolleys from years past. This enables everyone to get jolly for nearly twice as long, without breaking the bank. Everyone will spend the first hour at Quencher's decorating and festi-fying the buses. (Oh and drinking.) Please bring Christmas decorations and other Holiday swag to make our school buses as obnoxiously cheer-tastic as possible.

YOU MUST WEAR A SANTA OR OTHER HOLIDAY-THEMED OUTFIT. IF YOU DON'T DRESS UP FOR SANTAKONG - YOU ARE LAME!

As usual, your $26 payment covers a massive quantity of beer and whiskey, which will be festively available at any and all times we are on the buses. You are still welcome, of course, to bring your own alcohol. In fact it's kind of a tradition.

The Bus departs from Quencher's at 3:00, and will return to the Quencher's neighborhood at approximately 11:00-11:30 P.M.

FAQ's:

WHAT IF I CAN'T BE AT QUENCHERS BY 3:00?
No worries, you can also plan on meeting up with us at The Twisted Spoke (501 N Ogden Ave) for our 4:30 departure.

If that doesn't work out for you, please look for us at the corner of Lincoln, Halsted and Fullerton for our 6:00 departure from there. If you miss us at there, you'll have to give us a call.

HOW DOES THIS WHOLE THING WORK NOW, EXACTLY?
The buses provide you and your Santa friends with safe and sober transportation from bar to bar around the great city of Chicago. Intermittently you'll be bringing your unique brand of cheerful revelry to public settings like Daley Plaza, Macy's, the Billy Goat Tavern, Emmitt's, and even an Ice Skating Rink!

DO I REALLY HAVE TO WEAR A COSTUME?
Yes.

I DON'T DO PAYPAL . . . . CAN I STILL KONG OUT?
Maybe.

We will be taking some cash payments on the day of the event. However, an RSVP is strongly suggested, and there is limited space on our buses. If you do not Paypal us in advance, Synchronicity cannot guarantee you a spot on our buses. We strongly recommend you Paypal us your $26 in advance to guarantee your spot. Setting up a Paypal account is easy and free. All you need is a bank account and an email address, and you can both send and RECEIVE money.

ANYTHING GOES ON THE BUSES, RIGHT?
No, no and no. You must obey all state and local laws while participating in SantaKong. That means you may NOT use illicit substances on the buses . . . not even weed. Without the humor and good graces of our friendly drivers - we have no SantaKong. Please do not put our driver's jobs or the event's future in jeopardy. Obey all state and local laws while you're on the bus.

WHAT IF I'M TOO WASTED TO DRIVE HOME?
Luckily, Quenchers has the advantage of being located close to several cheap CTA options, such as the Western Bus the Fullerton Bus, and the Blue Line, all three of which run on a 24-hour schedule. Also, cabs are everywhere in that neighborhood. PLEASE DO NOT PLAN ON DRIVING HOME FROM SANTAKONG. Your friends may be sad that you got splattered all over the Dan Ryan, but they'll also be pissed off that your stupidity ruined a perfectly good SantaKong.

I HAVE A QUESTION YOU HAVEN'T ADDRESSED:
No problem. Email me at dave_h@illmeasures.com

Downtown the Disco Elf
for
Synchronicity

http://www.Synchroni-City.org

The Vegans aren't going to like this.

2009-11-21T14:51:00.006-06:00

The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted November 21, 2009.

Vegetarians aren't the only ones who should be concerned; there's soy in just about everything you eat these days -- including hamburgers, mac 'n cheese and salad dressing.

" . . . soy's glory days may be coming to an end. New research is questioning its health benefits and even pointing out some potential risks. Although definitive evidence may be many years down the road, the American Heart Association has quietly withdrawn its support. And some groups are waging an all-out war, warning that soy can lead to certain kinds of cancers, lowered testosterone levels, and early-onset puberty in girls.

Most of the soy eaten today is also genetically modified, which may pose another set of health risks. The environmental implications of soy production, including massive deforestation, increased use of pesticides and threats to water and soil, are providing more fodder for soy's detractors. . .

A study in the British medical journal Lancet in 1996 warned of the effects of soy in infant formula. The study found babies had levels of isoflavones that were five to 10 times higher than women taking soy supplements for menopause. The effects in girls could be early-onset puberty, obesity, breast and reproductive cancers. Boys could face testicular cancer, undescended testicles and infertility. Additionally, O'Brien says, a 2003 British study conducted by Gideon Lack of St. Mary's Hospital at Imperial College London followed 14,000 children from the womb through age 6 and found that kids who had been given soy formula as infants seemed almost three times as likely to develop a peanut allergy later on."

Doesn't it seem like every week there's some "news" story in which we learn that some previously be-knighted health food item isn't all that healthy after all?- or that in order for health-conscious eaters to enjoy their pristine palatable, little children in Laos have to be forced into back-breaking labor? As a fairly care-free omnivore I read stories like this with some bemusement.

[Sigh.] Folks, it's become manifestly clear that ingesting anything whatsoever is a risky proposition, either nutritionally, or for the global environment.

There is no such thing as any food that is 100% good for you, and 100% guilt-free. If you are one of the "food purity" people who only eats "health food" I've got news for you, and so does Tara Lohan at Alternet.org. Even your SOYBURGERS turn out to have some health risks.

While it's fine and well to be mindful of what you're putting in your body, I think people who think that they're "eating healthy" or eating without guilt are kidding themselves. All food has risks. All food has negative consequences for the environment in some way.

My advice? Enjoy what you eat, knowing full well that it's probably killing you slowly. Some of these health nuts seem to think that eating the right foods will make them fucking immortal.

Personally, I think I'm gonna have tater tots and about ten beers this evening. I may not live forever, but I'm certainly going to enjoy being alive, and eating and drinking what I damn well please. I'm not huge fan of tofu, but I enjoy it once in awhile, especially when it's pressed and fried. My hunch is that from here on out, it might even taste a little better!

GOoPer-Poopers: America-hating Cowards

2009-11-15T06:42:00.023-06:00

So a few days ago Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged "mastermind" of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, was going to face trial in New York City federal courtroom. From the New York Times:

Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a decision that ignited a sharp political debate but took a step toward resolving one of the most pressing terrorism detention issues.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., could mean one of the highest-profile and highest-security terrorism trials in history would be set just blocks from where hijackers for Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Mr. Holder said he would instruct prosecutors to seek death sentences for Mr. Mohammed and four accused Sept. 11 co-conspirators who would be tried alongside him.

Now reasonable people might disagree over capital punishment. (I'm not a fan.) But if any case warranted invoking it, I would think that seeking death in a U.S. court of law for someone who helped coordinate an attack on this country that violently ended nearly 3,000 American lives, and ruined legions of others, would be relatively non-controversial.

Of course pants-pissing Republicans have other ideas.

First of all, the GOoPers are positively agog because the Obama administration did something . . . anything.

Second, isn't Eric Holder black? A black Attorney General?!?! They're not sure about "that one."

Furthermore, Republicans claim that this move is soiling their drawers because apparently, they're worried that putting a guy like Mohammed on trial, and sentencing him to death, would somehow damage national security . . . an argument so rusted, so moldy, and so reeking of decay that it collapses into obscurity the second it's uttered. (From the same link):

“We should not be increasing the danger of another terrorist strike against Americans at home and abroad,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York.

Now let's be honest . . . nobody knows what the fuck this moron, Representative King, is talking about. I suppose we are to take it as a matter of faith that somehow, putting alleged terrorists on trial hurts national security. In spite of the fact that no one has a fucking clue what he's talking about, "Representative" King was apparently unmoved to elaborate any further. And this jagbag isn't alone! Just ask Senate Minority Leader Douchebag (R - KY):

“Our past experiences with terror trials in civilian courts have clearly been shown to undermine our national security,” [Mitch McConnell] added.

The senator for Kentucky argued that if convicted and imprisoned in the United States, the Guantanamo detainees would have the right to remain in the country upon their release.

Now folks, if you actually believe that the United States government is going to release Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into the general population, and you are currently wetting your pants because you're afraid of the big bad terrorists, please do us all a favor: kill yourself.

I'm serious. Eat some fucking lead. Have a cyanide cocktail. Drive of a cliff. Get you a rope and find you a tree . . . whatever needs to happen. You are a fucking moron, and a pathetic coward, and this nation and this planet would be better off without you. I'm not joking. Take a deep breath, and make it your last. (If you've spawned, you might think about taking out your children too.) Oh right. You're a coward. And at the very least suicide takes some fucking gonads, and you have none.

One might think that the so-called "patriots" - who are so into America that they get stiff-peckered every time they hear the national anthem at a football game, and who come in buckets of red* white & blue** at the "home of the brave" crescendo - would have a little faith in our criminal justice system. After all, these are the same scum who generally support life imprisonment without parole for adolescents, and locking up potheads for twenty years at a time. They don't seem to have much of a problem with the criminal justice system when it comes to destroying the lives of black and brown Americans for non-violent offenses. What's more, aren't these the assholes who just one year ago - when President George W. Bush's "administration" was still in power - were routinely telling Americans that questioning any governmental function was akin to treason? I mean, don't they have any faith in our so-called "Justice System?" Gosharoonies. I guess they must be traitors.

Apparently the GOoPers' blind faith in the inherent benevolence of any and all incarceration doesn't extend to imprisoning alleged terrorists in US prisons. Perhaps Islamic terrorists are the wrong kind of brown people.

There are two ways to look at why RepubliCons are poopy-pantsed over the prospect of trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others in a court-of-law. Either they're actually so stupid and cowardly that they really are afraid that somehow, for whatever reason, trying alleged terrorists is going to damage national security and fan the flames of terrorism. . . something that we must understand the Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan never ever did, by the way; or perhaps there's something else going on here.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and gingerly suggest that maybe they don't want a courtroom trial for the likes of Mohammed because they know that in such a trial, his lawyers might argue that the man was waterboarded 183 times; and that waterboarding is torture; and that therefore some of the evidence against him is inadmissible. (I don't usually link to Fox News, but you gotta check out this link. Dig the . . . ahem . . . tortured logic of the Fauxies as they try to back up a headline that reads: "Despite Reports, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times".)

Maybe, just maybe, leading RepubliCons don't really want a whole big national discussion about who tortured whom and when; because you know the whole "why are we torturing people" question makes them a little uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I'm the FIRST ONE to assume that leading Republicans are stupid cowards. But let's not forget the venality and blood-lust either. I'd say it's possible, just possible - call it 95% possible - that RepubliCons can't stand the idea of the likes of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed going to trial because it would understandably be a huge media spectacle, and because the issue of "who tortured whom" would again rise to the surface of the national conversation. As far as these soul-less scumbags are considered, the status quo is just fine - torturing alleged terrorists in far-off countries and trying them at distant military outposts if they ever go to trial at all. Letting these people die in prison of old-age without ever facing justice is a keen option, as far as these guys are concerned.

You know, Americans are far from perfect. We've got our ups and downs, just like any other nation. But as a whole - and thank God at long last - I don't think we're very comfortable with the idea of torturing people . . . not even terrorists or alleged terrorists. These GOoPer-poopers can wax cowardly all they want about their phantom "threats to national security." It's crystal clear these people don't want a spotlight shone on the torture they enabled for much of the Bush Administration.

And thank God again (and I'm agnostic) for people like Representative Jerrold Nadler - (D - NY), who has really been proving himself to be one of the good guys lately:

“New York is not afraid of terrorists,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, adding, “Any suggestion that our prosecutors and our law enforcement personnel are not up to the task of safely holding and successfully prosecuting terrorists on American soil is insulting and untrue.”

*Yep - that's blood.

**No idea what the blue is. This rant wasn't totally thought through, I'll admit it.

Secretary of "Education" Arne Duncan: Dumbfuck

2009-10-22T08:08:00.011-05:00

Duncan to call for change in teachers' education

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is expected to push for reforms in how teachers are taught when he speaks at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York on Thursday.

According to advanced quotes released by the U.S. Department of Education, he will say that "schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom." He will call for a "revolutionary" change in teacher preparation programs.

Duncan estimates that about 200,000 new teachers will enter U.S. school systems annually."

Hey Dumbfuck:

You, with the ever-so-serious look on your face and your respectable quaff of neatly greyed hair. Yeah . . . you . . . dumbfuck.

The problem with our school systems isn't that the universities are doing a poor job preparing teachers. The problem is that teachers and administrators don't run schools on the state or national level in any way shape or form. When we run the army, we call a general. When we run the Justice Department, we call a lawyer. When we run the educational system, we call a politician . . . like you . . . dumbfuck.

See, the funny thing about you Arne, is that you've never been a teacher, or a building supervisor in your life.

Not even once.

So even though I am pretty new to being a teacher . . . I feel that I have just a little more real-world experience in education than you do . . . you dumbfuck. The other problem with you, Arne, is that you built your whole career in Chicago on corporatizing schools, warping education into a for-profit process with lots and lots of non-union shops. Oh and closing schools . . . glad to see that you're proud enough of that to go ahead and list it as one of your accomplishments. So sure we've got some technically new schools . . but the exact benefits of our shiny new corporate charter schools here in Chicago are murky to say the least. And the benefits of closing down all those other schools are completely unknown. We've got bizarre new scenarios where two or three separate "schools" all share one building that used to be just one school . . . the whole thing makes no sense whatsoever.

But hey! Millions upon millions of tax dollars were spent, union jobs were eliminated and then replaced with non-union jobs,

Thanks for that, you dumbfuck.

Hey speaking of dumbfucks, Arne. Here's one of your colleagues, and probably close friends, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennet. If the two of you aren't acquainted, then you should be introduce. Why I'll bet the two of you would get along famously . . . after all, you're both dumbfucks.

Now Bennett is one-up on you, Arne. He spent all of 17 months as a building supervisor. Apparently that was enough for him, so now he's got some grand ideas on how to fix Indiana's schools. Like you, Arne, this jagbag has decided that what's really ailing our schools is that the universities aren't really giving teachers what they need, and that teacher education requirements should be different. But he's willing to take an even further step into jagoffishness . . . he's going to tell us that our licensing requirements should be less "burdensome."

This moron's plan is to:

"Eliminate burdensome requirements for new teachers and replace them with a better program. Under current regulations, beginning teachers are required to create teaching portfolios and participate in a teacher-mentor program to move from the initial practitioner license to a proficient practitioner license."

As if anyone in an actual school setting believes that what's ailing our schools is that "the licensing requirements are too burdensome." Yes! Finally we have it pure gold that is capital-E Education capital-R Reform! Oh sweet Jesus! Thank you lord in heaven! It was the teacher's portfolio requirement that was really tanking the whole system!

YES! Let's just shuffle the way we fill out our paperwork!!!! See if something statistically relevant pops out! This has never been tried before!

Perhaps you, Arne ~~Duncan~~ Dumbfuck and your ol' pal from next door, Tony "Big Jagoff" Bennett, can find more ways for us to shuffle the ~~deck chairs~~ the paperwork on this titanic ship of education! Maybe one day we'll stumble upon something that might have worked if we hadn't cancelled the program after six months! It'll be grand!

But whatever we do . . . let's not put teachers and building administrators in charge of our schools.

Because that will never work.

*Thank you Getty Images!

It's the Swell-Time Cabaret!

2009-10-03T10:44:00.006-05:00

Holy Smokes!

It's once again time for the Swell-Time Cabaret!

The concept is simple: Pasties. Shtick. Honky Tonk. Music.

Join the fabulous burlesque of the Knock Knock Hot Spot, the honktified sounds of Indiana Bandana, and yours truly, Downtown Dave, for an evening of old-timey cabaret at the most unique little venue in Chicago - the Speakeasy Cabaret!

The Swell-time Cabaret takes you back to a time when whiskey was whiskey, beer was beer, women were women, men were men, and white people had rhythm.

Man that was a long time ago!

In addition to fantastic entertainment, the historic Green Door Tavern features delicious food, great drink specials and friendly folks. Try the portobello mushroom fries - they're to die for!

Friday, October 16th
8:30ish ::: $10
@ the Speakeasy Cabaret
in the basement of
the Green Door Tavern
678 N. Orleans

Green Door Tavern

Knock Knock Hot Spot

Indiana Bandana

Police Go Crazy Attacking Protesters at the G-20 in Pittsburgh

2009-09-28T18:34:00.002-05:00

Chicago Burning Man Decompression 09

2009-09-17T20:39:00.001-05:00

Hey Chicago Burners:

Your B.U.R.N. Steering Committee is thrilled to invite you to the Official Decompression 2009 at Thatcher Woods in River Forest, IL, near Chicago's west side. Next weekend we're all having a picnic, and you're beyond invited!

WHO: YOU

WHAT: Chicago's only Official 2009 Burning Man Decompression

WHERE: Thatcher Woods, located near Chicago's West Side - 8020 W. Chicago Ave - River Forest, IL
"http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=8020+west+chicago+avenue+river+forest,+il&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.197599,56.513672&ie=UTF8&ll=41.896176,-87.827196&spn=0.014758,0.027595&z=15&iwloc=A"

WHEN: 10:00 AM to roughly 6:00 PM on Saturday, September 26th

WHY: Friends. The Sextathalon and other things that are fun. Music. Drinks. FOOD.

BRING: $10 donation, food (and lots of it) for yourselves and your friends, sunscreen, umbrellas & ponchos, anything you need to eat in the great outdoors, a picnic blanket, a picnic basket, your friends, more food, your volunteerism and enthusiasm, outdoor games like frisbee, more food, hackey sack, kickball, etc., bacon, coffee, pictures of Burning Man 2009, a team of two or four people to run the first ever Sextathalon, and costumes to run it in!

Frequently Asked Questions below.

More info to come.

xo,

Downtown Dave

FAQ's:

SO WHAT'S GOIN' ON HERE, EXACTLY?
This year's Decomp will be a smorgasbord of food, drink, and fun featuring yourselves, your friends, and your lovely families! The main idea here is to have a fantastic picnic, an awesome Miniature Chiditarod - the Sextathalon, and a bunch of participatory games you can take part in. You make it happen, we all enjoy each others' company, leave no trace, all-inclusive etc.

HOW CAN I HELP?
Organizers need volunteers for setup, cleanup, and for running and judging the very first ever Sextathalon during the event.

The Sextathalon will require judges, timekeepers, and a willingness to both dispense and receive PBR.

Bring food to and drinks to give away and enjoy yourself! Picnic blankets are a must.

Finally, we're looking for volunteers with vans to soberly take heads to and from the Metra, and possibly the Green Line.

$10? A WHUH?
We're not turning people away, but please try to give something to the cause. We'll have porto-johns, a fantastic space, a sound system, food & drinks, etc. Get a wristband and help build this up.

SEXTATHALON: WHO DAT WITH THE WHAT NOW?
The Sextathalon is exactly what the name implies: a six-part race that you can take part in. At around 3:30 PM, teams of four, two, and one will compete for an array of fancy prizes including a six-pack of PBR for all 21+ participants. You will experience the Obstacle Course, the Circle of Fury, the Sack Races, the Chug of Love, the Divine Conception, and the Three-Legged Triage.

Get your team of two or three together. Then dress up & join up. It's free. It's fun. And you can win PBR!

More to come.

WHAT SHOULD I LEAVE AT HOME?
Glass
All pets
Your MOOP
Illegal substances
Weapons or fireworks

I AIN'T DRIVIN, HOW DO I GET THERE?
Take the Metra Union Pacific Line from Ogilvie Downtown toward Elburn. Get off at River Forest.

Trains leave at approximately 8:30, 10:30, 12:30 and 2:30. Ir's just a 20 minute ride. Our site is just a short half-mile from the River Forest stop.
"http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&f=d&sll=41.812267,-87.837067&sspn=0.732868,1.450195&saddr=1+N.+State+St,++Chicago,+IL&daddr=8020+West++Chicago+Avenue,+River+Forest,+IL&ttype=dep&date=9%2F15%2F2009&time=8:47+PM&dirflg=r&ll=41.901766,-87.73407&spn=0.233555,0.441513&z=11&start=0"

"http://www.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Ogilvie+Transportation+Center&daddr=8020+West++Chicago+Avenue,+River+Forest,+IL&hl=en&geocode=FUIUfwIdHrfG-ikXo5QFxywOiDFQWb2DVJ6csQ%3B&mra=pe&mrcr=0&dirflg=r&date=9%2F15%2F2009&time=8:57+PM&ttype=dep&noexp=0&noal=0&sort=&tline=&sll=41.888258,-87.733749&sspn=0.116803,0.220757&ie=UTF8&ll=41.887966,-87.733727&spn=0.116803,0.220757&z=12&start=0"

Returning trains are at 3:15, 5:15 and 7:15.

Alternatively, you can take the Green Line.

More to come.

Ok, this is just cool.

2009-08-22T08:39:00.004-05:00

From Discovery News

To Distract Predators, a Sea Worm Says “Bombs Away!”

In the depths of the Pacific Ocean, several never-before-seen species of worm have been found that have a remarkable defense mechanism. Take, for example, the newly named species Swima bombiviridis. Thousands of meters below the sea, a tiny worm wriggles through the darkness, its dozens of paddle-shaped bristles moving in beautiful coordination. Suddenly, a hungry predator appears. The worm releases a glowing green sac, and the fish homes in on this bright new trophy. By the time the fish realizes the sac is no meal, the worm is long gone.Of the seven new species described in a paper in Science, five drop luminescent “bombs” that researchers think distract their predators, allowing the worms enough time to wriggle away backward. . . . The worms’ bombing operations haven’t yet been observed in their natural environment, because the bright lights needed to take pictures or video obscure the glow of the bombs. But when the worms were captured and prodded in a dark laboratory, the worms released one or two of these spheres, which burst into bright green light for seconds before fading.The worms were first sighted by a remote control research vehicle that was cruising along the seafloor off the coast of California, and the critters have now been found off the western coast of North America from Oregon to Mexico, as well as in the waters around the Philippines. They appear to be rather common at depths ranging from 6,000 to 12,500 feet, says lead researcher Karen Osborn, but haven’t been detected before because of the difficulty of researching the briny abyss. Says Osborn: “This group of really fantastic animals emphasises just how much we have to learn about deep sea organisms and deep sea biodiversity.”

Ma nature is totally awesome. These little wormies drop decoy bombs that distract predators with green light just long enough for them to escape! It took the US Department of Defense billion$ of dollar$ and millenia of man-hours to put together the same technology that these little creatures at the bottom of the Pacific can do with a brain about the size of the tip of pencil. I will never cease to be amazed by the survival techniques that lowly little creatures like worms can employ to stay alive.

Jesus Christ, these people are stupid.

2009-08-09T08:17:00.004-05:00

From Politico.com.

Palin calls Dems healthcare plan "evil," cites threat to Trig

Describing Democratic healthcare plans as "evil," Sarah Palin is warning that the proposals being debated in Washington could threaten the life of Trig, her Down Syndrome infant boy.

Palin, in her first policy statement since resigning as Alaska governor, wrote on her Facebook page Friday afternoon that the sick, elderly and disabled would suffer should healthcare be rationed, as conservatives claim it will with a public option.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," Palin wrote. "Such a system is downright evil."

Mt. Palin, that very-active Alaskan volcano of stupid, continues to belch out jet black clouds of complete fucking lunacy, and frothy streams of liquid hot magma-like moronica. And she's not alone.

Witness the guy at Detroit-area Democratic Congressman John Dingell's Town Hall last week . . . a guy rolls up his wheelchair-bound son, who has cerebral palsy, and insists that under Obama's health care plan, his son would receive NO HEALTH CARE WHATSOEVER.

Dingell's response was a little tepid for my tastes, but you can understand why someone might be a little on the defensive after such a blistering stream of idiotic blather. Dingell is the longest-serving Democrat in Congress, and he helped WRITE the bill that came out of the House HELP Committee (I think it was that one) . . . so what do these jagbags do? They chant: "Read the Bill! Read the Bill! Read the Bill!"

Do they know that there are actually five bills being passed around Congress right now?

No they don't.

All they know is that Democratic plans to offer a public insurance option will euthanize the handicapped and the elderly.Seriously though, this is how they're going to try to kill any progress on health care, and especially the Public Option. This is how health care "reform," even in the tepid, moderate version currently supported by President Obama, is to be taken out. They will sully the debate with outrageous nonsense, whip up their tiny-but-vocal (and certainly insane) Teabagging base into a frenzy of lunatic rage, and send them out to "inform" Americans that Democrats, and in particular President Obama, want to kill little retarded children. And Fox News, will cover it as a valid perspective . . . and thus will all momentum be lost.

Sigh. . . what is happening here in this country?

It's the Swell-Time Cabaret!

2009-07-31T09:41:00.002-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out last night! Another kick-ass crowd, and another great evening. Mad props to talented women and men of Knock Knock Hot Spot!

Mark your calendars folks, because the next evening of The Swell-Time Cabaret is next Friday, August 7th, 2009!

This show's concept is simple: Pasties. Shtick. Blues. Music.

Featuring the fabulous talents of the women of Knock Knock Hot Spot, the Swell-Time Cabaret takes you back to a time when burlesque was burlesque; a time when the blues was the blues; a time when the beer and whiskey flowed like music to drown your sorrows away. Oh and polio. They had that back then, too.

The next installation of the Swell-Time Cabaret is blues-themed, and starts at 8:30ish on Friday, the 7th of August. The Swell-Time Cabaret is located at the Speakeasy, in the basement of the historic Green Door Tavern. One of Chicago's most historic bars, the Green Door features great drink specials to compliment their already reasonable prices, and some of the best pub grub you'll find in the city.

The Green Door is located at 678 N. Orleans, on the corner of Huron and Orleans, just north of downtown, and just a couple of blocks from the Chicago Brown Line Stop.

"http://www.greendoorchicago.com"

Hope to see you there!

This is Health Care "reform."

2009-07-30T10:17:00.002-05:00

A blistering take on the Health Care "debate" by ANKOSS @ Docudharma.

This is a quick read and right on the money.

Some really insightful comments as well.

Headline of the Year!

2009-07-18T11:29:00.008-05:00

From CNet.

EATR creators: Our robots won't eat corpses

"For those of you who have been asleep since Tuesday, the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR, is a steam-powered robot being developed for military purposes. Its claim to fame is that it can "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically based energy sources). . .

The important message concludes with the words of Harry Schoell, the CEO of Cyclone Power Technologies (The EATR project is a joint venture between Robotic Technology and Cyclone Power Technologies):

"We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission. We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.""

Well that's a shitty day for your average CEO of a Defense-Industry robotics company . . . the day you have to clarify that no, your new project down at R & D isn't a hungry corpse-eater that feasts on the flesh of the dead. It was nice of Harry to mention that he "completely [understood] the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population" though. It's good to know that our concerns are being taken seriously.

We don't have to worry folks, these are categorically NOT those zombie robots you've been hearing about.

What a crazy crazy world we live in. It it weren't so frightening, it'd be absolutely hilarious.

CNN takes the time to remind us that "everyone does it."

2009-07-14T09:38:00.009-05:00

CNN

Political sex scandals a nonpartisan affair

"(CNN) -- If there's one thing Democrats and Republicans have in common, it's sex scandals.

No matter which party the philanderer belongs to, the public wants all the juicy details, as evidenced most recently by the public's fascination with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's Argentine travels.

"That's just prurience," said Sally Quinn, a longtime Washington journalist and columnist. She's married to former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee. "Sex sells and everybody's interested in sex, so when there's a sex scandal, it's got everything -- you're talking about sex, you're talking about power, and in a lot of cases, money is involved. You are talking about how the mighty have fallen," she said."

Gosh. Thanks CNN. Thank you so much for reminding me . . . because you see, with all of the hoopla surrounding South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford - (R) and Nevada Senator John Ensign - (R), I had plum forgotten that Democrats were capable of human infidelities as well. Thank you CNN, for reminding us at this important time - when it seems like most of the sex scandals are emerging out of RepubliCon tighty-whitey underpants - that "Gosh, the Dems do it too."

What scalds my 'nads about an article like this is that it bears great resemblance to a long-used, and highly effective tactic of the RepubliCon Right. Anytime that a Democrat is caught in a corruption sting, or in an extra-marital affair, the entire Right Wing media-sphere goes absolutely apeshit, demanding resignations, criminal prosecutions, disgrace, humiliation, execution, whatever has to happen for the 'Cons to get a political leg up. When it's a Dem who done wrong, it's all personal responsibility, and failure to live up to one's moral code, and swift resignations. But when a Republican like, say, Diaper Dave Vitter, or Ensign, or Mark Foley or Sanford, gets caught with his pants down, then the 'Cons take on the same exact argument that this CNN headline screams: "Well jeepers, they all do it. The whole durn system is corrupt." No personal responsibility for moral failures, usually no resignations, and no prosecutions. If it's a RepubliCon who did the deed, it's not a personal failure of morality, you see - it's the whole corrupt vibe in Washington DC that was to blame for it. Heck, they all do it!

Nevermind that the CNN article doesn't mention John Ensign - a Republican Senator whose explosive extramarital affair and potential blackmail story has been plastered all over the News - in single paragraph. Nope. The word "Ensign" doesn't appear in the article even once. Instead, CNN invokes Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, some dude named Wilbur Mills, Eliot Spitzer, and President Kennedy, all Democrats. On the RepubliCon side, to be fair, the article mentions Sanford, President Nixon, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. But ONLY Democratic affairs such Mills' and Hart's are explained in detail. No Republican affairs are given the same treatment.

And of course, let's not forget which Party is waaaaaaay more likely to be going around campaigning on its perfect moral righteousness. You don't hear a lot of Democrats toting the Family Values line, and telling constituents: "My personal ethics are superior to my opponent's" in the same way that Republicans have been doing for years. Personally, I think private indiscretions ought to be left up to the families to resolve, and shouldn't affect a pol's ability to do his/her job, unless the private mistakes have crossed the line into affecting the public good, as appears to be the case in Sanford's affair. Nevertheless, I'd say when you're self-righteously proclaiming your mighty public purity to the entire world, you open yourself to a bit more criticism when you can't keep it in your pants.

The point here is NOT that Democrats are more true to their spouses . . . obviously. The point is that the Right has a long history of condemning Democrats when they have private indiscretions, calling for their heads, and chastising them for immorality. But when Republicans do the exact same thing, the oft-repeated mantra is that "well they all do it." Nothing about personal responsiblity . . . usually few or faint calls for resignation either. And now, with the Ensign and Sanford scandals burning up the Internet and the traditional media, CNN seems to be doing the exact same thing.

Sheesh.

Hasta la pasta, Governor Failin'

2009-07-04T11:13:00.009-05:00

Governor Palin's rambling, incoherent resignation speech was embarrassing for me to watch. As she invoked the troops, her family, the game of basketball, a refrigerator magnet, General MacArthur, and - literally - "how much she loves her job"; I was left with the impression that Alaskans must not be getting enough oxygen up there, to elect this moron to any office at any point.

How is it that the people listening to her awful, embarrassing, nonsensical quote "speech" unquote - live and in-person - found the sense of decorum to applaud at the end? It was stunning, to me, to hear the clapping at the end. But not all did. I noticed that during the pan to the audience, one honest older gent just shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground . . . a wisp of sanity behind the beaming Nordic faces on the lunatics, clapping politely.

More than ever, I actually felt a little sorry for Sarah. I mean here she is, on a national media platform, being once again exposed in all her radiant incompetence and outright lunacy, having another spat of verbal diarrhea live on CNN. I'll give her this. She shot from the gut. Oh it was a big ol' shootin'-from-the-gut kind o' stupid, indeed. Governor Failin's speech was gut-shot all over! Not being Sarah's biggest fan, at first I thought it was funny, but the humor was lost after about 2 minutes, and the whole speech took on a sad, pathetic overtone; the wan sun casting a not-quite-bright-enough light on one of America's dimmest political bulbs.

At one point, these words emerged together from the frothy melange a stupide: " . . . . our resources should be our priorities with time and resources. . . "

Yes, Sarah. Our resources should indeed be our priorities with time and resources. You hit that one right on the money, baby.

Hard to say whether she'll be back for a Presidential run in 2012 - the immediate rumor per Andrea Mitchell was that Governor Failin' is out of politics for good, although her spokeswoman . . . who . . . really ought to be doing most of the heavy lifting for Good Sarah . . . said that the speech was "fightin' words." Not sure that's exactly what I gathered from it but hey, let's quibble.

As to why this sudden "not politics as usual" move? Well the Governor claimed it was a family decision. In fact her description of the vote - i.e. "four yeahs and one hell yeah" - reflected the best Sarah's speech had to offer. To be fair, she also blamed the media - which was real unpredictable, lemme tell ya - gave some nonsense about not wanting to be a lame duck, and yadda yadda yadda. Personally, I think that two years into her first term as a small-state Governor, roughly 10 months into her semi-permanent stint as a national punchline, and about eleven months into the criminal investigation that may still bring down her image (if such a thing is indeed possible) it appears more and more that Sarah Palin just couldn't take the heat of being national media figure . . . at least not at this go-round. She was, is, and will be forever be a HORRIBLE choice for Vice-President, the Presidency, the Governorship of Alaska, the Mayoralty of Wasilla, and any and all public office. Nope, Sarah Palin is a Certified Bimbo of the highest order, with all the ugly connotations the term entails. So on THAT score, I was happy to see her go.

The speech itself however, took me to a sad place that forces me to re-evaluate my previously esteemed opinions. Alaska, I sincerely think less of you for electing this lady to your highest office. What the fuck were you thinking you stupid, inbred rednecks? This is the highest office in your state, not the Timber Queen at the Pumpkin Festival.

Get it together.

Oh, this is rich!

2009-07-02T09:42:00.004-05:00

Bennett: Sanford needs to stop 'embarrassing himself'

(CNN) – Mark Sanford is "embarrassing himself" and needs to resign as governor of South Carolina, conservative talk radio host and CNN contributor Bill Bennett said Thursday on CNN's American Morning.

Bennett, the latest high profile conservative to call for Sanford's ouster, said it's time for the onetime Republican rising star to ditch politics and focus solely on getting his life back in order.

"I know Mark Sanford. I know him quite well," Bennett said. "He needs to get his life back in order, his marriage back in order. He is embarrassing himself.""

Sanford needs to "stop embarrassing himself." Really? Really? Is THAT what he needs to do, Bill Bennett?

I guess when you're talking about embarrassment, it's probably always better to stick with the experts. I mean, who better to give moralizing lectures on who's an embarrassment and who isn't, than a guy who LITERALLY wrote a book called: "The Book of Virtues" at roughly the same time period that he was losing MILLIONS OF DOLLARS gambling? And this has got to be money shot:

"We have other people," he said. "We have other people who are not only fiscally interesting and sound but also can keep their lives together."

People who can "keep their lives together" eh? People who can keep their lives together? Would part of that whole "keeping your life together" process include shitting out millions of dollars at the craps table?

Bill Bennett . . . shut the fuck up. It ain't up to YOU to decide who's "got their life together" and who hasn't, you moralizing, self-righteous hypocrite.

Lakes of Fire 2009

2009-06-18T19:37:00.001-05:00

Friends, Freaks, Oddballs and Odd-birds:

Great Lakes Experimental Arts, Inc., is totally stoked to announce that tickets for the inaugural Lakes of Fire, Great Lakes Regional Burn event will go on sale on Thursday May 7 at 11:00 AM CST / Noon EST. Please recall that you must purchase your tickets on-line, through the link on our website. "http://www.lakesoffire.org/tickets/" There will be absolutely no ticket sales, whatsoever, at the gate . . . as in zero.

The first 200 tickets will be sold for $35, and the remaining 800 will go for $40. We expect this event to sell-out, so don't delay! Everyone 13 and older must purchase a ticket, 12 and under are free. Lakes of Fire has a hard limit on how many participants we're accepting for this event. If you happen to be the 1,001st person to try and get tickets, you will simply be out of luck. And that's no fun at all. Tickets will remain on sale until 1,000 are sold OR 5:00 PM Saturday June 13, whichever comes first.

The Great Lakes area's official Burning Man Regional event, Lakes of Fire is a private event on private land, seeking to bring the artistry and energy of Black Rock City to the upper Midwest, and Ontario. Our site is in beautiful southwest Michigan, USA just about 10 miles outside South Haven. We are approximately 2 hours by car from Chicago, 3.5 hours from Detroit, 4 hours from Indianapolis or Milwaukee, and about 7 hours from Toronto. Specific location details will be sent to those who purchase tickets. Here are our gate hours:

GATE ENTRY:
Thursday – June 25th, 2009
12:00 Noon Gate Opens – 12:00 Midnight – Gate closes.

Friday – June 26th, 2009
8:00 AM – 12:00 Midnight – Gate does not close!

Saturday – June 27th, 2009
12:00 Midnight – 6:00 PM – Gate closes.

Participants only! No spectators please. You must be on site by 6:00 PM Saturday June 27 to participate in Lakes of Fire. No admittance will be allowed after this time.

EXODUS: Sunday – June 28th, 2009
All participants except for volunteer organizers, DPW, and Earth Guardians must be exiting the property at 2:00 P.M. No exceptions.

You can find more details and important information about this event here.

It's critical that you read our Survival Guide as well. You can find it on-line by clicking on this link. This important information really is there to help you. Please read through it thoroughly.

VOLUNTEERING:
Lakes of Fire is a 100% volunteer-run event. That means we need help with Set-up & Placement, DPW, Rangering, Medical/EMT, Parking, Greeters & Gate, Earth Guardians, Effigy, Fire performance and more! So if you want to be a superstar, a rock star and a superhero all at one time-- you can help us pull off this wonderful zygote of a festival, and make the first Lakes of Fire an event we can all be proud of.

Signing up is easy! Just fill out this handy-dandy digital form of wonder. You can check out this link on our website too.

Questions? e-mail Breedlove our wonderful Volunteer Coordinator: breedlove@lakesoffire.org

See you at Lakes of Fire!

The Swell-Time Cabaret!

2009-06-08T21:00:00.001-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out Friday night, especially the fabulous women of Knock Knock Hot Spot.

What a blast!

Grab a martini, settle back, tune in, and lounge out for the second installment of the Swell-Time Cabaret. Hosted by Downtown Dave, this evening of lounge exotica will feature the fabulous talents of the women of VarieTease Cabaret, Chicago's leading burlesque outfit. Get hip folks. This is gonna be a swingin' good time.

Friday, June 5th
8:30ish - $10
678 N. Orleans
The Speakeasy Cabaret
@ the Green Door Tavern.

The historic Green Door Tavern has outstanding pub grub, and great drink specials, so come early for dinner, and stay for sizzling entertainment and one of the most unique little venues in Chicago.

Hope to see you there!

The Downside to RepubliCon Self-Immolation

2009-06-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

I certainly agree with the jist of Something The Dog Said's currently front-paged essay at DocuDharma, which suggests that the grand OLD ?Party? is sucking itself into a black hole of self-immolation, at least on the national level, and will not be back to relevance and serious competition until at lesaet 2014. Their base won't support anyone who has the slightest chance of getting elected outside of the South and/or the Mormon belt out West; and they despise moderates who might ostensibly have a shot at it.

While in certain way, this of course fills me with glee, I think there's potential downsides that need to be addressed as well.

I don't know, it's hard for me to see ANY light at the end of the tunnel for the Rad Right, at this point. Their leaders in the House and Senate, and in Statehouses across the country, for the most part, seem pretty comfy where they're at, and wary of "rocking the boat" against the increasingly isolated far-right base. They know that they're going to be re-elected because all that's left at this point are the most conservative districts and states in the country. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are basically just political museum oddities - the last surviving Moderate Republicans.

Will the GOoP EVER realize that extreme rightism isn't what the country wants? And if they do, will their base be willing to suck it up and accept some level of moderation? I'm not so sure.

What's worrisome that is that we're now dealing with a desperate movement, one which has fallen mighty quickly from the highest heights of political strength, and is now splattering all across the political pavement. The movement is alive, but the political equation has moved to such a degree that this conservative movement is unlikely to be politically viable, on a national level, for the foreseeable future. Desperate movements, who feel they have no electoral options left, are not known for making rational decisions, and accepting defeat at the ballot box.

I'm afraid these rumblings of secession, and that violent outbursts like the one that killed Dr. Tiller, are only going to increase. They're starting to realize they can't win at the ballot box. And without electoral options, violence and extremist "solutions" may be the options they feel they have left.

It's troubling.

Petraeus calls for Gitmo to be closed

2009-05-30T09:22:00.005-05:00

BWU-OH!

Gen. Petraeus: US violated Geneva Convention, the court of law could try terrorists: we made mistakes after 9/11: Close Gitmo

"Gen. Petraeus joined FOX News and Martha MacCallum today and gave a blockbuster interview, but probably not the one Fox expected. Once again, he called for the responsible closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also said that mistakes were made after 9/11 and that the Army Field Manual is all that we need to use to interrogate prisoners. In addition, he said that we have to have faith in our judicial system and we should try the Khalid Sheikh Muhammads in a court of law.

Martha tried to give him the ticking time bomb scenario to justify torture and he really didn't bite. He did say maybe an Executive Order could be appropriate, but that it really wasn't necessary. Petraeus repudiated pretty much most of what Limbaugh Republicans and the Rove/Newt/Cheney Party have been saying
(rush transcript)

MacCallum: Where do you think those people should go?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, it's not for a soldier to say. What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in
that regard. "

The 'Cons aren't gonna like this. Petraeus strikes me as a careerist first and foremost. If the administration is pushing "de Surge" then by golly he's gonna be all for "de Surge." If the administration wants Gitmo closed then you can bet that Petraeus is going to be falling over himself pimping the necessity of closing Gitmo.

It may be for the wrong reasons, but it's nice to see Petraeus saying some of the right things.

The Parade of Horrors Continues

2009-05-28T09:57:00.004-05:00

As if the nightmarish stories and sickening pictures we've heard and seen from Abu Ghraib thus far haven't been nauseating enough, it has now emerged that the long-rumored photographs depicting acts of sexual abuse and outright rape appear to be the real deal, and not just rumors.

From London's The Telegraph:

Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged

"At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq."

I'd suggest that you read the whole article if you've got a strong stomach.

I can't say that any new revelations about prisoner abuse in Iraq are particularly surprising to me, although the thought of American forces raping Iraqi detainees in my name, with the aid of my tax dollars, is nauseating in the extreme. But given the recent controversy over whether or not to release the images - one in which President Obama did a complete 180 from his original stance, and decided to withhold the graphic photos - it's beyond dispiriting to be reminded of THIS particular element of the President's explanation:

“I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

OK, if there's any truth to this article at all, then President Obama is a bald-faced liar. There is no conceivable way that images of rape and sexual abuse could be even theoretically described as "not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

Another stomach churning morning of existential nausea, here in America.

Thesis: Conservatives will lose the Great Plains next

2009-05-24T10:47:00.009-05:00

It's already happened in the Northeast, and the Pacific Coast. The process is well under way in the Great Lakes region, the mid-Atlantic region, and the Mountain West (excluding the Mormon Belt) . . . yep, except for the South, Americans are turning against conservative values like homophobia, intolerance, and racism in huge numbers, as the overwhelming majorities that Democrats have won in 2006 & 2008, and the overwhelming popularity of President Obama show.

I submit to you that there is area of the US which has only just begun to change though - and that would be the Great Plains states - North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas - as well as Montana, which I'm including in this analysis. It's already been widely reported here, here and elsewhere that RepubliCon strength is overwhelmingly over-represented in the South - defined as the 11 states of the confederacy plus Oklahoma and Kentucky in the first hyperlink from the National Journal. DailyKos blogger Steve Singiser notes in that second link that:

At the Congressional level, the disparities are, if possible, even more stark. In the United States Senate, Republicans control 19 of the 26 seats in the South. Outside the South, Democrats control 53 seats. The GOP controls just 21 seats outside of the South.

What this means, in a nutshell, is that outside of the South, Democrats come very close to controlling three-quarters of the seats in the United States Senate.

The other major area of RepubliCon strength is the Mormon Belt:

Nonetheless, if you look at the Election Map from 2008, you'll see that Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas, all areas well outside the West's Mormon Belt, STILL went for John McCain at the Presidential level. Nebraska and Kansas lead the charge, going for McCain by 57% & 56%, respectively, and Montana served as the rear - going to McCain by just 49% to 47%. My main point here is that like the Great Lakes states, the Great Plains states (and Montana) are beginning to change their tune as well.

Although only two of these five states have Democratic governors, and they've been reliably Republican at the Presidential level for quite some time, the senate Representation of these five states is 60% Democratic. I'd submit that these states have a lot more in common with reliably Democratic states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, than they do with places like Oklahoma, Wyoming, Mississippi, and Utah.

South Dakota, for example, voted down an abortion ban by 55%-44% in both 2006 AND 2008. Meanwhile Kansas RepubliCons endured a rash of party-defections over the last few years, as the remaining moderate conservatives found that they had less and less of a home in the screamingly insane Republican Party. Current Governor Mark Parkinson, who took over after the wildly popular Governor Kathleen Sebelius accepted the top spot at the Dept. of Health and Human Services, is a former Chairman of the Kansas GOP, and was quoted as saying:

“I decided I’d rather spend time building great universities than wondering if Charles Darwin was right.”

Amen brother.

Check that electoral map again, and take a look at Nebraska. See that little blue blip? Yep. That's an electoral vote. Nebraska's electoral votes are generated proportionally, not in a winner take all system. Obama's victory there was the first time in 44 years than a Democrat had won ANY of Nebraska's electoral votes. In 2008, North Dakota unfortunately passed a gay marriage ban by over 70%, but a similar measure in South Dakota squeaked by with just 52% of the vote. Using the slogan "Good neighbors don't discriminate," backers of marriage equality were able to mount a serious opposition to banning gay marriage. As Daily Kos's Steve Singiser notes in this awesome article:

The political trinity that seems to define Republican social conservatism is "God, guns, and gays." Somewhere along the line, the Republican Party grew convinced that social conservatism along those lines was the ticket not only to locking down the South, but winning over middle-class voters elsewhere.

It worked in the South, where even Democratic candidates at the federal level feel the need to toe the line on the trinity listed above. But, nationally, their decision to put social issues at the top of the list in terms of issue-based talking points has been disastrous.

It is not that America necessarily is in solid dissent with the GOP on these issues. Indeed, on issues like gun rights, gay rights, and abortion, the GOP position could either be classified as the narrow majority position or a significant minority position.

Finally, you can take a look at Montana. Montana has a popular Democratic governor and two Democratic Senators. Governor Schweitzer, a former rancher, has been widely hailed as the model of a new type of Western progressive. I'm willing to predict that Montana will go for Obama in 2012, barring some huge political earthquake, which could very well happen.

The point here is that the RepubliCons have already lost the Northeast and the Pacific Coast, much of the Great Lakes and mid-Atlantic regions, and the non-Mormon Belt sections of the Mountain West. I think it's safe to suggest that the Great Plains states and Montana may well be the next dominoes to fall. There are encouraging trends that show that rock-rigid conservative values will not play well in these areas, in the long haul. And that's good for the country. Obviously these states are small and rural, but put together, the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska and Montana amount to 20 electoral votes in a Presidential contest - the equivalent of the state of Ohio, and more than Michigan. If Democrats can start to seriously contest these states, we may be well on our way to further marginalizing the regional base of the RepubliCon Party to the South, and the Mormon Belt.

The even better news is that, particularly in the South, there are states where the Dems have been chipping away with some success as well . . . . Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida - all parts of the Confederacy - went for Obama of course, and both North Carolina and Virginia elected Democratic Senators. And all of Arkansas' statewide office-holders are Democrats.

We can quibble over whether or not the Democrats are ever going to be enable to enact a truly progressive agenda or not in the long term . . . I think the jury is still terrifically "out" on that question. But I'll bet we can agree that the RepubliCons certainly WON'T be enacting a truly progressive agenda in any way shape or form, so watching them commence to flopping about like a proverbial fish on land in the Great Plains, as well as in all of these other swaths of America, is both fun and edifying.

Some thoughts on the Pelosi controversy

2009-05-16T21:31:00.004-05:00

This take on the current Pelosi kerfluffle really sums it up nicely. Pelosi says the CIA mislead her, and left out key details in their so-called "briefing" on torture.

The media jumps all over Pelosi, blaming her for looking the other way on torture - in a way that it has NEVER gone after the Republicans under whose administration the torture was actually enacted. Meanwhile, the CIA's story, which the CIA itself admits may not be 100% accurate, is understood be God's own truth, because of course, the CIA has no reason whatsoever to errrm, "shade the truth" at all in this matter.

--------

{Currents.1797.2261}: {taurusink} Sat, 16 May 2009 16:02:59 EDT (1 line)

Bingo!

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{Currents.1797.2262}: {doorman} Sat, 16 May 2009 17:46:07 EDT (10 lines)

Pelosi may be bullshit.. Would not surprize me in the least.

But for Rove to point a finger is like Hitler condemning antisemitism.

Fuck him and the horses he rode in on. including Bush, Cheney, Wolfy,
Feith, Yoo, Rumsfeld, Negroponte, Ahbransom, and a whole stable of
other neocon freaks that brought about the very end of American
goodness in the world.

Fu7ck them all. They most certainly have fucked us.

--------

{Currents.1797.2263}: {YOURS TRULY} Sat, 16 May 2009 20:30:03 EDT (HTML)

Pelosi is bullshit . . . but not as much on this particular issue.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and this may be Pelosi's turn to be the stopped clock. Don't get me wrong, I think Speaker Pelosi is a weak leader, more in the "follower model," much like her counterpart int the Senate, Senator Reid. But the actual known facts on this case suggest that the CIA is doing CYA-job on the US Congress and the American people, and trying to demand of the People's House of Congress "Why didn't you stop us?"

This a perfect case of corporate media sensationalism overcoming the stated facts of the situation. Nevermind that other Congressional over-seers have reported that the CIA withheld crucial information to them, as well. Nevermind that the traditional media has pursued Ms. Pelosi with 10x the vigor with which they pursued George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld over issues of ENACTING THE VERY TORTURES AT THE CENTER OF THE CONTROVERSY.

Of course, it's somehow Speaker Pelosi's fault for not stopping it. But let's just forget about Dick Cheney, and George W., and Karl Rove, and Don Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzalez, and Douglas Feith. What a fucking joke.

Interesting though, how the whole controversy has exposed the connection between American corporate media, and the CIA. In terms of sheer groveling and doing exactly what its told, the corporate media has done grand job of ignoring the actual facts of this situation, and focusing upon planted, CIA spin . . . I mean literally.

Deep Dish!!

2009-05-13T15:16:00.003-05:00

Just another Wednesday at home with Jazzy!

Unemployment has its benefits!

Tragistastrobaculous

2009-05-11T09:49:00.002-05:00

Via MSNBC

U.S. service member kills 4 fellow troops in Iraq

NBC: ‘Stressed out’ soldier kills self after attack at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty

BAGHDAD - A U.S. service member opened fire on fellow members of the military, killing four and wounding several others, at the main U.S. base in Baghdad, officials told NBC News on Monday.

NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported the assailant took his own life after the violent outburst. The attacker was described as a "stressed out" U.S. soldier.

The military said in a statement that the shooting occurred about 2 p.m. at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport."

More disastrous news from Iraq.

Who dat with the what now?!?

Oh riiiiiiight!!

That whole tragitastrobacle. Dag, with all big news about Manny Ramirez, weh-heck I'd plum forgotten about all that mess!

The Speakeasy Players @ The Speakeasy Cabaret

2009-04-30T22:28:00.005-05:00

Happy Mayday!

More fun stuff down at the Speakeasy tonight.

Join the Speakeasy Players for an evening of improvised comedy at one of the most historic little stages in Chicago.

Friday, May 1st
8:30ish
678 N. Orleans
@ The Green Door Tavern
$5

From September to May, the Speakeasy Players delight and entertain you on the first Friday of every month in an incredibly unique venue that literally was a Speakeasy in the 1930's! This Friday, Mayday, will be no different. Join Dave Reidy, Anthony Farinas, Laura Donovan, Aaron Walters, John Beck, Carrie Beck, and yours truly, Downtown Dave, for an evening of comedy and delicious beer at one of Chicago's most historic bars.

This is the Speakeasy Players last show for this year's season. Come check it out! The Green Door has outstanding pub grub and great drink specials.

Hope to see you there!

WTF CNN?!?! What are you really getting at?

2009-04-21T10:35:00.006-05:00

With all the talk about prosecuting torturers from the Bush "administration" these days, is there some reason that I'm not aware of that CNN.com would choose to run this as their lead headline?

Nazi victim: Pursuing war criminals not worth it

"LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- For 65 years, Elisabeth Mann has carried with her the pain only a Holocaust survivor can know. The only one in her Hungarian Jewish family to make it out of the Nazi death camps, life for a long time felt like punishment . . . .

. . . Given the horrors she's lived and witnessed, one might think Mann, now in her 80s, would be among those demanding that Nazi war criminals be brought to justice. And yet she's uncomfortable with the ongoing attempts to deport to Germany for trial John Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old Cleveland, Ohio, man allegedly linked to mass killings at Sobibor, a death camp in Poland.

Demjanjuk insists it wasn't him. The pursuit of him -- and of suspects like him -- isn't one Mann supports. She said she never wanted revenge, because "I did not want to be like them."

Mann doesn't think going after war criminals now is worth the cost and energy, nor does she think the legal process will make a difference to such men who've already lived a full life."

Lemme get this straight.

Less than a week after President Obama releases some disturbing and damning memos issued by the Bushies' Department of "Justice," EXPLICITLY AUTHORIZING waterboarding and confining detainees in boxes filled with insects, memos which indicated that one "high value" detainee was waterboarded 183 times in one month, CNN uses the occasion of World Holocaust Memorial Day to run a lead story that basically says: "Well this victim of Nazi death camps doesn't think prosecuting her abusers is worth it." Nevermind international law and the Geneva Conventions. No need to offer any mention whatsoever of the explosive information contained in the memos released last week.

Nope, let's just run a story that says: "prosecuting torturers isn't worth the time and effort. See this Holocaust survivor says so herself!" I don't know if the publishers and editors over at CNN are trying to send us a message here, and to be fair, prosecuting former concentration camp officers (whose crimes were committed 65 years ago) isn't a perfect analogy for prosecuting Bush "administration" officers who committed their atrocities during the shameful reign of our previous president. But let's just say that, to my ears, a message is being received. And it's a pretty straightforward one:

"Let it go, don't bother prosecuting torturers. It ain't worth it."

With all due respect to Ms. Mann, and her struggles, her tortured logic here, pun intended, is problematic in and of itself. "There's no use prosecuting those who have no souls?" I'm sorry, but I think we ought to allow the courts to worry about justice, and God to worry about the souls of those who commit atrocities.

This is the sort of "coverage" of the Holocaust Memorial Day I could definitely do without.

The Employee Free Choice Act

2009-04-18T10:07:00.004-05:00

Short Term Bad News. Long Term Lookin' Better.

I have to admit it, I'm not terrifically optimistic about Employee Free Choice Act making it through the Senate . . . at least not before election 2010. The RepubliCons are absolutely in lock-step on this one. Even soon-to-be former Senator Arlen Specter of (R - Pennsylvania), who co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act when it was originally introduced in Congress, has stated that he wouldn't vote for cloture on the bill. He's trying to shore up his right flank. The Democrats do not have the 60th vote to beat a filibuster.

Specter is desperately afraid of losing his seat in the Senate, but he's made the exact wrong move here, although politically, he's rather backed into a corner anyway. Former Rep. Pat Toomey - fresh off a stint as head of the ultra-right anti-tax organization, Club For Growth - came within 1 or 2 percentage points of beating Specter in 2004, and has announced his intention to run again. Back in '04,
Soon-to-be Former Sen. Specter had the support of organized labor. Since that election, something like 280,000 Pennsylvanians have either switched to the Democrats, or simply left the Republican Party to become independents. These people are center-rightish voters who have left the 'Cons because the national party has moved so far off the right wing chart that it no longer appears on paper, but can only be found in some distant quasi-visual dimension of alternate reality. These center-right voters cannot vote in a Republican primary, because in Pennsylvania these elections are open only to party members.

Without the support of organized labor, which he just tossed under the bus in an effort to appeal to the increasingly conservative rump of the Republican caucus, no way does Soon-to-be Former Senator Arlen Specter make it through the primary. And Toomey will get slaughtered in the General Election. He is waaaay to right wing for Pennsylvania. This is almost a guaranteed pickup for the Dems in 2010.

Pennsylvania, or North Carolina, or possibly Ohio, could very well provide that key 60th vote on the issue, but not until 2010. The only Democrat who's really in trouble in the Senate on 2010 is Chris Dodd, so taking two out of those three states may be key for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Swell-Time Speakeasy Cabaret!

2009-04-15T20:22:00.002-05:00

Huge, mega, enormous thanks to everyone who came out last night. We had a great crowd, a great vibe, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I know I did. Can't wait to come back for round two!!! Super Big-Ups to the women of Varietease Cabaret, and the inimitable Valois Family Flatpickers. What a show!

Downtown Dave presents:
The Swell-Time Speakeasy Cabaret
Pasties. Shtick. Flatpickin. Music.

Friday, April 17th, 2009
8:30ish - - - $10
678 N. Orleans
@ the Green Door Tavern

Featuring Special Guests:
VarieTease Cabaret - Chicago's finest burlesque and striptease
http://www.myspace.com/varieteasecabaret

and

The Valois Family Flatpickers - a band that puts the old-timey back in old-timey
http://www.myspace.com/valoisfamilyflatpickers

I teabagged with hundreds today on the streets of Chicago.

2009-04-15T17:54:00.011-05:00

So, my "just the facts" version of the events Jasmine and I witnessed at Chicago's Tax Day Tea Party can be found here. In this post I'll attempt to process more deeply my feelings and opinions on what I witnessed today.

I left the day's protest with mixed emotions.

One thing that struck me about the event was the overwhelming demographic homogeneity of the Tax Day Tea Party. We were there for at least forty-five minutes before a single person of color, besides the lovely Jasmine Harris, could be spotted in the crowd. A lily-white crowd of this size is virtually unheard-of in Chicago, anywhere. It was crystal clear to me this movement, or whatever you want to call it, did not represent wide swaths of Chicagoans. We finally did find an African American woman holding up a protest sign. Jasmine talked to her in-depth, while I was being interviewed by someone over at foundingbloggers.com - a site whose creators were pleasant enough to me, but which is obviously rather right wing. A woman in her middle-forties I would guess, she seemed pleasant enough, but espoused fairly doctrinaire conservative positions for low taxation, low deficits, and her particular dismay that Obama and the Democrats have allowed the private school voucher program in Washington DC to expire. I didn't really get into the argument that . . . "well . . . that program uses tax dollars," which is apparently so taboo to most of the people there. I wasn't looking for conflict. But we went back and forth a bit - ladies and gentleman - I have discovered a black McCain voter in Chicago! That ought to be worth something in and of itself, for they are as rare as diamonds . . . although not as precious.

Not all of the protesters were doctrinaire Republican conservatives. I would guess that about 30-40% of the placards and signs espoused abolishing the IRS and/or the Federal Reserve, or supporting Ron Paul . . . the calling cards of libertarians. The largest single banner I saw was protesting war and military expenditures, and had been unfurled by the American Society of Friends (the Quakers.) As noted in my straight dope report, several speakers and many of the signs assigned some blame to the Republicans, and/or George Bush. And while the speakers who included Bush & the 'Cons as targets of their anger received a somewhat more muted response, there didn't seem to be much hostility to them either. Everyone hates Bush, and the Republicans these days, it seems.

The problem, of course, with all this anti-tax anger, is that it's just the same old shit that Republicans and conservatives have been regurgitating for the last 30 years, and the same old opaque, clear-as-mud logic. Like the African American woman I talked to - who saw no disconnect between her intense hatred of taxes, and her intense anger that the private school voucher program in Washington DC had expired (a program which, by the way, was paid for with tax dollars) - most of the speakers and ideologies on display in this event were logically moving in opposite directions. These people hate taxes, but they also hate deficits. Nevermind that higher taxes are a cure for high deficits. They want them both gone. They hate taxes, but - with notable the exceptions of the Quakers and some of the libertarians - they believe that the military budget is sacrosanct and should never be cut in any way shape or form. Nevermind that our military budget amounts to roughly 51% of our entire national expenditures - the cuts must come ONLY in domestic programs, i.e. investments in our own people. They despise social safety nets, and I guess would be happier if millions of Americans simply starved, or had to turn to criminal activity to support themselves. This is Christian? This is the same old selfish, tax-me-never, right wing ideology that the Republicans have been using for the last 30 years. It worked pretty well for most of that time . . . but I'm not sure it's working anymore. They went back to this well in 2006 and 2008, and it more or less appears to have run dry.

Of course there was the same old lack of correct information. One woman was walking through the crowd claiming, both on her placard, and verbally, that the Cap and Trade program on greenhouse gases would cost the average taxpayer $300.00/month. This is total nonsense of course. I believe the Congressional Budget Office's estimate is at approximately $31/year. One of the speakers was so wrong that I wondered just what the hell he was talking about. If memory serves it was Jim Calomino of the Illinois Chapter of Americans for Prosperity who complained that Obama's budget would raise taxes by $1,500,000,000.00 ($1.5 B). I thought that I'd heard him wrong, but no, he tossed the words "one point five billion dollars" around several times. Doesn't he realize that even if that were true- it's complete chump change in the grand scheme of things? Given some of the apocalyptic signs and grab-your-guns rhetoric I saw today, I would have thought these people would be THRILLED that Obama's budget would raise taxes by a mere $1.5 billion.

Then there was the violent imagery. From the flag with the AK-47 on it, with a caption that read "Come and take it;" to the placard I saw with eye-patched images of Obama, Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and a caption that said: "We shot the wrong pirates;" to the predictable: "The tree of liberty must be watered with revolution," it seems like the anti-Obama people just can't help themselves. Just 10 weeks into the Obama administration, they're depicting him as Hitler, and notably proclaiming that "Taxpayers are the Jews in Obama's Ovens." This sort of violent hatemongering is protected by free speech, but that doesn't mean it can't be dangerous. Just ask the families of the three policemen in Pittsburgh who were recently the victims of a violent rampage that appears to have been motivated by extreme right wing views. Don't get me wrong - most of the participants I witnessed today were friendly, and excited, even if they were very right wing. But if it flips the wrong switch on unstable minds, the image of Obama-as-Hitler could be another brick along the road to violence.

That said, one of the things that impressed me about this protest was how I often basically agreed with the signs, and ideas that some of the protesters were espousing. In particular, I think that anger over the big bank bailouts, which have been perpetrated by both the Bush and the Obama administrations, have transcended the left/right dichotomy. Many lefties I know, and obviously a lot of righties, are absolutely livid that our nation's largest financial institutions - which, more than any other culprits, have unarguably led us into the financial mess in which we now find ourselves flailing about hopelessly - are getting hundreds of billions of American tax dollars so that they might stay afloat. Like most protests on the left that I've seen, there was no single message to be taken away from the Tax Day Tea Party here in Chicago today. But one of the major frustrations vented by both the speakers and the regular participants was one of extreme anger over the bailouts that major financial corporations have received in the last several months. Railing against AIG, Bank of America, Citi Bank, GE, GM, and Goldman Sachs, sections of one of the speaker's tirades could have easily been transplanted to a left-wing protest of corporate dominance in American politics. Anger at the bailouts seems to have come full circle. (I'm also something of a believer in the virtues of abolishing the Fed, and returning our nation's monetary policy to the people, not some "quasi-governmental" private company.)

One final thing I noticed was the relative dearth of police officers. I don't know if politics had something to do with it, or the size of the protest or what, but during the anti-war protests I've attended, both much larger and somewhat smaller, literally hundreds of police have lined the streets and surrounded the event. On this occasion, maybe three or four dozen police officers were in groups around the protest. Perhaps the powers-that-be feel more comfortable when reliably right wing citizens are taking to the street, or perhaps there was some other reason I'm not aware of. But the distinct lack of police presence did make me nervous at first, seeing that I was one of the few people not chanting "USA! USA!," and that I was taking notes on my notepad as though I were a journalist, and the fact that my girlfriend was one of the remarkably few black people at the event at all.

Ultimately, although there was a little bit of a kerfluffle when a group of several dozen protesters surrounded and taunted a CNN reporter, shouting "CNN go home*"; the protest ended peacefully, and Jasmine and I gathered up our bikes and headed home. Even though I definitely disagreed with about 90% of what these people were on about, I have to say that even when I talked frankly to those didn't share my views, I was treated with respect and a generally friendly demeanor. Though some of the violent imagery was a little disturbing, and chanting "USA! USA!" ain't really my bag, the individuals I interacted with themselves, including the guys who interviewed me for their Right-leaning website - were nothing but friendly to me. Though I doubt the teabaggers will really get their wish, and I'm somewhat skeptical of the efficacy of protest politics generally, it was cool to see a bunch of American citizens taking to the streets to defend their beliefs, no matter how asinine and fucked-up I believed them to be.

* Yes, some of these people really believe that CNN is "communist."

Tax Day Tea Party 2009

2009-04-15T17:36:00.008-05:00

This is my report to the Huffington Post. It's "just the facts" for now. I have a lot more to say, and I'll add my opinions of the whole affair in a little bit.

An estimated 1,200-1,500 participants turned out on an overcast, cool afternoon for the Tax Day Tea Party held at Kluczynski Federal Building Plaza, on 230 S. Dearborn in downtown Chicago. The crowd was overwhelmingly Caucasian, with a few Asians, African-Americans, and Latinos interspersed, and included participants of virtually every age group. Though the general thrust of the event was to protest what organizers perceive to be oppressive taxation, a wide variety of anti-socialist, anti-bailout, anti-Obama, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-illegal immigrant and pro-2nd amendment views were evident among the participants. Several dozen police officers watched from the perimeter of the crowd.

Protesters held signs that read "Barney Frank: America's Whore," "Why blame Obama? It's the Fed's Fault," and "English Unites America." Many signs equated the Obama Administration's policies with socialism, or Obama himself with Adolph Hitler. Another displayed pictures of Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama with eye-patches on their right eyes, and a caption that read "We shot the wrong pirates." A flag waved by one protester displayed a silhouette of an assault
rifle, with the caption "Come and take it." One man held up a sign that read "American Taxpayers are the Jews in Obama's Oven." A large percentage of the signs expressed a need for abolishing the Federal Reserve, or the IRS, or to eliminate "pork barrel" earmarks from federal government spending. Some protesters denoted Republican policies as part of the problem too, carrying signs that read "Real conservatives don't get their talking points from Fox News," and "Republicans suck, too."

The protest was kicked off by Chicago-area radio personality Eric Mancow. Mancow energized the crowd telling them: "This is where the angels and the devils fight . . . . I don't care what you believe in . . . I'm a Christian, I'm American and I'm proud of it." He went on to address those whom he perceived to be counter-demonstrators from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) saying: "Hi ACORN. You are morally bankrupt organization . . . . I'll keep my God and my guns thank you very much." Joe Calomino, director of the Illinois chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a national organization devoted to "limited government and free markets" with chapters in 23 states, was the second speaker. A well-dressed man probably in mid-forties, Calomino noted that: "This is about the grass roots." He then asked protesters to get out their cell phones, and gave out the number of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D), so that participants could immediately register their dismay at a proposed income tax increase that has become a hot topic Illinois. While on his cell phone during this brief interlude in Calomino's speech, one man was heard to say, presumably to Governor Quinn's staff or answering service: " . . . help us get Bill Ayers out of retirement so he can bomb Obama's White House." Many dozens of others were somewhat frustrated in their efforts to contact Governor Quinn, as the lines were apparently tied up.

Other speakers noted that Bush administration policies were also to blame for the expanding deficits, and although there was a more muted response to criticism of President Obama's predecessor, there was little open hostility to the critique. Another speaker noted angrily: "You want to help a deserving needy homeowner? Write a god-damned check yourself." At the end of the rally a CNN reporter and her crew was loudly taunted by a group of several dozen protesters accusing the network of being the "Communist News Network," and chanting of "Go Home CNN." The crowds dispersed at around 2:15.

Lockdown USA: Our Bloated Penal System

2009-04-14T10:27:00.003-05:00

Prison Nation

David C. Fathi Director, US Program, Human Rights Watch - The Huffington Post

"It's become a depressingly predictable event. Every few months, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a branch of the US Department of Justice, releases new figures showing that the US prison and jail population has grown yet again and has reached a new all-time high. The latest statistics, released last week, show that as of June 30, 2008, more than 2.3 million people were behind bars in this country -- an increase of almost 20 percent just since 2000. This gives the United States an incarceration rate of 762 per 100,000 residents - the highest rate in the world, dwarfing those of other democracies like Great Britain (152 per 100,000), Canada (116), and Japan (63).

Of course incarceration doesn't affect everyone equally. Black men in the United States are 6.6 times more likely than white men to be incarcerated. More than 10 percent of all black males ages 25 to 39 were in prison or jail as of June 30, 2008. And a 2006 BJS study showed that prisons and jails have become the new asylums, with more than half of all prisoners suffering from mental health problems like major depression and psychotic disorders.

It wasn't always like this. For much of the 20th century, the US incarceration rate remained fairly stable. It began to climb sharply in the late 1970s, as a result of policy changes like mandatory minimum sentencing and the widespread abolition of parole. In the 1980s and 1990s, the "war on drugs" and "three strikes" laws fueled further growth. More people were going to prison, and staying there for longer periods of time. By 2004, the incarcerated population was six times what it had been in 1972."

2,300,000 people in our nation's prisons. That's more people than live in all of Utah, or Nevada, or New Mexico, or West Virginia. Take the Dakotas, toss in Vermont and Wyoming, and you'd have just about the same number of people. In fact, there are more people living on lockdown in the USofA than there are living in 15 of our 50 states. And of course minorities, who equally more likely to be victims of crimes, bear the overwhelming brunt of these incarceration rates.

This is wrong wrong wrong. And there's a very simple solution, folks. We need to stop locking up potheads and other non-violent drug abusers. It's really that simple. People should be going to jail for non-violent offenses other than stealing, which is, arguably, a violent act.

We lock more people than China! And that's not even per capita. In REAL NUMBERS - we lock up more people than a repressive totalitarian state more than three times our size.

It's time to drive a stake through the heart of our prison-industrial complex. Thank god for people like Senator Jim Webb who is actually trying to do something about this.

Turdblossoms Bloom in Spring

2009-04-11T09:30:00.006-05:00

Jesus K Riste?!?!

Project much, Turblossom?

Rove calls Biden a 'serial exaggerator' and a 'liar'

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Karl Rove fired the latest volley in the increasingly brutal war of words between Joe Biden and former Bush administration officials, calling the vice president a “serial exaggerator” and a “liar” over recent comments to CNN about former President Bush.

“He’s a serial exaggerator. If I was being unkind I’d say he’s a liar, but it is a habit he ought to drop,” Rove, who also called Biden a “blowhard,” told FOX News Thursday night.

On Tuesday, the vice president criticized his predecessor Dick Cheney's recent comments about some of the Obama administration's foreign policy decisions. He also told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Gloria Borger that former President Bush had described himself as a leader during a private Oval Office meeting, and Biden had replied: “Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.”

I don't know what's more frightening, the fact that Karl Rove hasn't been locked up in a federal penitentiary, or the fact that his "opinions" on Vice-President Biden, the Obama Presidency, or anything related to the national political scene are given a global platform by the likes of CNN and Time Magazine. Like Darth Cheney, Turdblossom has reverse credibility, i.e., whatever he says can be automatically understood to be a lie, or not worthy of being believed. Sorry Karl Rove, but your thoughts on who's a 'blowhard,' or a 'serial liar,' are like a turd in my morning coffee, except less immediately relevant.

Gotta love the picture though. This picture of a sweaty, pasty-skinned, pig-faced asshole, wagging his Church-Lady finger of opprobrium while his stray hairs glisten up from his fat, bald-faced lying forehead is the perfect image of all that Herr Turdblossom represents.

Thank you Getty Images!!!!

President Obama's Grade So Far

2009-04-10T08:11:00.001-05:00

Thus far in to Obama's Presidency, I have been both pleasantly surprised and deeply depressed . . . depending on the day, and on the headlines. Even if it doesn't pass, I'm glad to see that the President is pushing the Employee Free Choice Act. I think that the stimulus package was too small, but a necessary start to jump start the Economy. It is wonderful to see a President that isn't reviled world-wide, and I'm glad that he's more-or-less kept his promise to get the ball rolling on getting us the hell out of Iraq. More and more Americans are saying this country is on the right track - and that's a very good thing. Guantanamo is in the process of closing, and according to the new CIA chief John Podesta, we are no longer "rendering" prisoners in black sites world-wide. All of this is extraordinarily good news, in my opinion.

On the other hand, although I'm not surprised by it, I think the President is following exactly the wrong path in Afghanistan. We should be looking at trying to extricate ourselves from that disaster in the same way we're looking at trying to extricate ourselves from the tragitastrobacle in Iraq. There are no military solutions there, any more, if there ever were. It's time for the diplomatic corps to take over. I've also been pretty pissed off about the plan for dealing with our nations "leading" financial "institutions." I don't buy all this hogwash that if BofA and Citi, and Goldman Sachs were to fail, it would be the end of the world. I think that in a capitalist system, businesses that make colossal blunders ought to be allowed to fail. It appears that Geithner, Summers et al, are neo-liberal Wall Street shills who care more about their billionaire friends than the American people. I find the idea of creating some sort of government-run hedge fund to deal with the so-called "toxic assets," one which would be insured by the US taxpayers, to be extremely problematic. These banks ought to be nationalized, broken up, and sold off. Finally, I've been beyond distressed by some of the stuff coming from the DOJ lately. It appears that, for whatever reason, the Obama Administration is upholding the Executive's right to wiretap, eavesdrop, and collect people's personal electronic communications without warrants, and that in fact they may be attempting to expand those powers.

Overall grade - C+.

" . . . the Democrats have a tar baby on their hands."

2009-04-01T23:12:00.002-05:00

Oh dear.

'Tar baby?'

That's a rather unfortunate turn of phrase, Rep. Ginny Foxx (R - NC):

" . . . [best?] way to describe to people. The Democrats have a tar baby on their hands, and they can't get away from it."

While folks can quibble over whether or not the term 'tar baby' is racist per se . . . I think it's problematic when directed at a black person, but is arguably less so when addressed toward legislation, an idea, or an approach to the problem, etc. . . . this sort of racially-tinged language is the kind of thing that a stupid and/or racist person can't help but spewing, thoughtlessly, maliciously, or otherwise.

A smarter and/or less racist politician, however - one who had two or more brain cells to rub together - and who wanted to avoid a potentially damaging uhhhhhhh . . . . firestorm - might try to refrain from introducing 'tar baby' imagery onto a debate over HR 1664 on Executive Compensation, especially at a time when our first black President, a Democrat, is less that 100 days into his newly minted Presidency.

To be clear, I wouldn't automatically suggest that Rep. Ginny Foxx (R - NC) is racist, although others might. No, I wouldn't suggest that Ginny Foxx is racist automatically, although my girlfriend Jasmine, my trusted resource on these matters, immediately cringed at the term, and said something to the effect of "hell yeah 'tar baby' is racist." Because the context isn't all there on YouTube, and because the comment occurred in a discussion about TARP, not about a person or about Barack Obama, and because it's quite possible that Representative Ginny Foxx (R-NC) is just stupid, and not actively racist, I'm quite comfortable saying that her comments today were not racist per se.

No folks. Ginny Foxx's comment wasn't necessarily racist . . . just really stupid. These are the sort of things that people who try think before they speak when it comes to . . . you know . . . speechifying on the floor of the Peoples' House of Congress, tend to avoid. But I wouldn't assume that the pasty ol' windbag known as Representative Virgina "Ginny" Foxx, Republican of North Carolina's 5th District, necessarily "thinks" before she speaks.

Yet again, the fine line between stupidity, and sheer racism, is grayed to a fine shade of fuzzy by our conservative Southern friends.

Republicans Has a Sad

2009-03-27T11:40:00.007-05:00

Oh dear dear dear!

It appears that while Michael Steele, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the RepubliCons' loud-mouth "leadership" were making public appearances, yammering away on their Big Media platforms, bashing Obama for using a teleprompter, and generally providing a warm and safe hovel for the basest and most vile instincts known to upright mammals, Democratic leaders were doing something entirely different . . . you know, the "winning elections" thing.

And now even the conservative corporate media can't gussy up this degree of f'ugly . . . CNN reports that Scott Murphy is now polling ahead of Jim Tedisco for New York's 20th district.

Poll shows Democrat has edge in NY 20

"(CNN) – Four days before a crucial special election for a House seat, a new poll suggests the Democrat in the race is gaining momentum.

A Siena College Research Institute poll of likely voters in New York's 20th congressional district indicates that Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin. That's a switch from two weeks ago, when Tedisco had a four point lead in a Siena poll and from one month ago, when Tedisco led by 12 points."

A month ago, Jim "It takes me several weeks to make the wrong decision about the stimulus bill" Tedisco was up by 12 points in polling regarding the replacement of Sen. Kristen Gillibrand's old seat in New York's 20th district. Heck, I seem to recall that before that, Tedisco was polling 15-20 points ahead of Scott Murphy . . . which makes perfect sense because upstate New York is redneck as all fuck. I'm not a local, but my brother used to live in the area, and we are talking One. Room. Schoolhouses. (Literally.)

The district, hitherto, has been a deeply conservative one, held by RepubliCons for many many years. And when then-Representative Gillibrand got "the call" from Gov. Paterson to leave her district behind and serve in the Senate, most observers, quite rationally, believed that the seat would again swing Republican. Tedisco had a huge name-recognition advantage, and it was kind of a given that he'd probably run the table during the campaign.

Gosharoonies. Now it doesn't appear that Tedisco is running the table at all. Perhaps the tables have turned, and are now running him. This speaks to a problem that the RepubliCons have these days. Their most well-known "leaders" are not politicians at all, but professional bloviators like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Newt Gingrich. These guys make millions going on TV, shrieking about dictatorships, teleprompters, or whatever else gets stuck up their asses while they're heckling and cat-calling from their seats in grandstand. While this pastime has been terrifically lucrative for them personally, it appears that it doesn't actually help the 'Cons much in the political arena . . . you know, the "winning elections" thing. Or at least, it doesn't help them win elections any more.

These people own the corporate media, and they STILL can't help but face reality: Scott Murphy, over the course of about six weeks, has erased a 15-20 point polling deficit, and now leads in a race which, by all accounts, the Republican automatically has a huuuuuuuuge advantage. While Newt Gingrich demagogued over his paranoid delusions of an Obama "dictatorship," and Michael Steele tried the most brazen public CYA-job in history, the DNC quietly, and professionally, bought up some airtime, linked Murphy with the highly popular President, and eviscerated a huge polling deficit.

For my part, I say good luck with the current strategy, GOoPers. Please stay the course. It's working! Ha ha!

But in all seriousness, I'm afraid the RepubliCons more of these precious moments ahead of them:

AIG: Using your bailout $ to sue the Goverment

2009-03-21T10:02:00.002-05:00

Your bailout dollars at work:

A.I.G. SUES GOVERNMENT FOR RETURN OF $306 MILLION IN TAX PAYMENTS

The New York Times

"While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

A.I.G. sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles and other offshore havens.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that A.I.G. is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the Internal Revenue Service last year."

AIG is using our bailout money to sue the government for a larger tax refund. And it is legally entitled to do so.

Biggest. Clusterfuck. Ever. Seriously, if anyone ever had any doubt that reality has trumped satire, this is it. You can't make shit like this up. Talk about truth being stranger than fiction!

What exactly our Amba$$ador to the Ma$ter$ of the Univer$e, Timothy Geithner, and our deer-in-the-headlights Congress going to do about this? US taxpayers now own 80% for the so-called "American International Group," but apparently the remaining 20% wants to sue the larger shareholders, to get back some tax money.

Another unbe-fucking-lievable wrinkle in the Cratering Clusterfuck that is the AIG scandal.

A rare, fascinating look at the decline of Christian Evangelicalism . . . . from within the movement

2009-03-20T10:14:00.007-05:00

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

By Michael Spencer, Christian Science Monitor via Alternet. Posted March 20, 2009.

A "postevangelical" predicts the coming of an anti-Christian era that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment.

"We are on the verge -- within 10 years -- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. . . .

. . .

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society. The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith."

So, I don't know who Michael Spencer is, or what exactly constitutes his connection to the evangelical Christian movement, but this is not the first I've seen or heard of the imminent collapse of the Christian Conservative movement. The Christian Coalition, for example, reached its most culturally juggernautical years, its summit of influence and membership, in the mid-'90's, and stories of its long and precipitous decline can be found here, here, and here on pdf. Hell, the Christian Coalition's former national leader, the execrably smarmy Ralph Reed, couldn't even get through a Republican Primary for the highly rated office of Georgia Lieutenant Governor, and that was back in 2006.

But one organization gone South (figuratively, I suppose) does not an entire Christian Wrong make. It's hard to argue that the Christian Wrong is collapsing just two months removed from the denouement of its most monumental and relevant political accomplishments - the "election" and "re-election" of George W. Bush . . . unless you're an insider who really knows the movement, and where it's headed. That's why this article from Michael Spencer is so fascinating, and frankly, to an avowed agnostic secularist, so encouraging. The Christian-Science Monitor (via Alternet in this case) has given us an insiders' take on the very real, and possibly-quite imminent demise of the Christian conservative movement.

What's even more mind-blowing to those of us who've been watching the Christian Wrong for years, is that Spencer seems to show a genuine sense of responsibility and remorse for the path that evangelical Christianity has taken over the last several decades. Rather than predictably blaming "the liberals," "the secular humanists," "Hollywood," or "teh gays," Spencer wags the Church Lady-like finger of blame squarely at the movement itself:

Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

I don't know where the CSM found this guy, but apparently there is an occasional flicker of brain cells still firing synapses within the Christian conservative movement, and for finding that flicker, and publishing it, I think they ought to win a Nobel Prize. Or a Pulitzer. Can't we give them both? Spencer has actually taken an honest assessment of the Christian Wrong's mis-steps and mistakes - ethically, spiritually, and tactically - and concluded what we already know: there is something deeply wrong about evangelical Christianity in America. From there, he moves on to a realistic look at the long-term prospects for right wing "Christianity" in America, and fires this off, as the opening salvo in his last section:

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral.

I believe I speak for tens of millions in saying that I'm ready to help dig the grave.

Most. Awesome. Ever.

2009-03-18T15:06:00.000-05:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

A long term plan for getting the hell off this planet . . . 2.0

2009-03-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

I am eating this stuff up!

Kepler Rises

From DailyKos' resident science buff, DarkSyde

Mankind's most ambitious mission to find habitable planets orbiting distant stars roared into the night sky from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Friday evening at 10:49 PM. Perched atop the Delta II rocket is a revolutionary observatory designed to detect earth-like planets thousands of light-years away. NASA's newest mission is appropriately named after one the most influential pioneers of modern planetary astronomy, Johannes Kepler. . . .

. . . Kepler is basically a horrendously accurate photometer married to a powerful wide view telescope that will trail the earth in deep space, undeterred by earth's shadow, designed to detect minute changes in stellar brightness as planets cross in front of a parent star. The accuracy of Kepler's photometer is so sensitive that it could detect a moth fluttering in front of a searchlight from hundreds of miles away. Only a tiny fraction of exosolar systems are likely to align in such a way that one or more planets conveniently eclipses its sun from our local perspective, but Kepler can look at one-hundred thousand stars at once!

The instrument should be able to detect the transit of smaller, more earthlike worlds along with their larger siblings, and hopefully produce a fair estimate on their size and mass. Future space and earth-based observatories will build on Kepler's results to obtain spectra, and maybe one day the first ever direct images, revealing the atmospheric and surface composition of some of these new planets.

This is effin schweet! Next step in my plan? Slash the military budget by about 90%, and then re-direct them rockets and lasers and stuff toward efforts to explore Enceladus, a watery moon of Jupiter.

Exploring the universe . . . sure beats blowing each other to smithereens.

Some serious food for thought.

2009-03-06T10:46:00.003-06:00

Check out that long-term trendline there and you may get an idea of how far the Dow Jones has yet to sink.

Big Fat Idiot Provides Big Fat Political Protection

2009-03-05T11:41:00.002-06:00

Like a behemoth "oliphaunt" out of Tolkien's The Return of the King, the fearsomely bloated bulk of Rush Limbaugh has once again glommed its way into our nation's collective consciousness, with his mighty public pinings that the President's policies should fail.

Unlike in the past however, President Obama and the Democrats have played the Big Fat Idiot's renewed publicity masterfully, in more ways than one . . . including at least one Big Fat Way that has not been thoroughly explored yet.

Rather than cower in fear and try to appease the off-the-charts mouth breathers who represent Limbaugh's listenership, the Obama administration has confronted the Big Fat Idiot head on, and made a public pitch to portray His Bloatedness as the "energy and intellect* of the GOoP." Of course, progressive lefties like me all agree that painting the Big Fat Idiot as the titular leader of the RepubliCon Party makes perfect sense.

Why?-because Limbaugh represents only the furthest right-fringes of the conservative movement. He's not interested in getting more RepubliCons elected, he's only interested in his market share. That's it. And the more Limbaugh is viewed as the face and gaping maw of the RepubliCon Party, the more the moderates and independents who helped put Barack Obama over the top in 2008 will flee from the regional rump of the Old (grand?) Party. This has been well-hashed out in the traditional media, and should come as news to no one.

The potential downside here, as has been most thoroughly speculated upon by some Very Concerned pundits in the corporate media, is that the Democrats may just be making Limbaugh even more famous, i.e. giving him an even larger audience. But is this really such an issue? Is there anyone (ahem) left in the far-right fringes of the conservative movement who DOESN'T listen to the Big Fat Idiot? And if so, was there EVER a snowflake's chance in hell that these folks would ever vote for Obama, or any other Democrat? I think not. The so-called downside here's a phantom in the imaginations of some Very Concerned pundits who would probably kill their own mothers to have the name recognition of His Bloatedness.

So what's new in this analysis?

I submit to you that focusing the media attention on Limbaugh - whose desire to see Obama fail was specifically economic in context - provides the President with some much-needed political cover.

A-dub-ada-dub-ada-dub-aba - whuh?

It's pretty simple. It's been well established that opposing the President's economic initiatives is a no-brainer, politically, for the RepubliCons. If these policies work, the President and the Democrats will get the credit for reviving the economy. If they don't work, the GOoPers can say: "See we told you so, and we opposed these policies!" Pretty straightforward right? Right.

But making Limbaugh the bloated, sweaty face of the RepubliCon Party turns out to be an especially masterful stroke if the President's economic policies fail. Why?-because if the economy DOESN'T turn around, then President Obama and the Democrats can say:

"Look, Limbaugh and the RepubliCons wanted these policies to fail, and watered them down every step of the way to make sure they failed. Without the support of at least a couple Republicans in the Senate, and the Blue Dog Democrats in the House, we can't pass ANYTHING through Congress. We had to water-down our own proposals to get the votes! It's not our fault the economy still hasn't turned around. It's the Party of Failure's fault for forcing us to water-down our economic initiatives, so that they could achieve their political goals."

Political cover folks, in the entirely likely event that the so-called 'economy" hasn't turned the corner by 2010, or even 2012. And aside from the positives found from a narrative standpoint, such a story also retains the added bonus of being ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

So making Limbaugh the face of the RepubliCon Party turns out not only to improve the Democrats' and the President's standings among moderates and independents, who want nothing to do with far-right ideologues like the Big Fat Idiot; it also provides some much-needed political cover should their economic initiatives fail to turn around the economy in the near future, i.e. "We had to water-down our proposals as a sop to the Party of Failure."

There's some big brains there in Democratic Party these days - a refreshing change from the "Administration" to which we've most recently been treated.

Ain't it nice to have the Smart-Asses in charge, instead of the Dumb-Asses?*

*Hee hee! "Intellect"

A sane Republican?!?!

2009-03-01T15:08:00.007-06:00

Huntsman takes aim at GOP

Politico

"There was at least one 2012 presidential contender missing from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this weekend, traditionally a testing ground for any Republican even remotely considering a White House bid. That could be in part because Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. risked getting booed off the stage for some of his views.

Largely under the radar of the national media and even out of sight of many in his own party, Huntsman, 48, is emerging as an articulate, unapologetic and unlikely spokesman for a new brand of Republicanism, one that seems out of vogue at a time when many in the GOP attribute their fall from power to a deviation from right-wing orthodoxy. . .

The party needs to be more intellectually rigorous, and to compete for the votes of the young, the elites and minorities, he said in an interview with POLITICO. To do so, the GOP needs to tack toward the middle on environment, gay rights and immigration. And, yes, Ronald Reagan is to be admired – but as much for his oft-overlooked pragmatism as for his conservative principles."

Ruh roh! Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. This guy Hunstman is a Republican from Utah. . . . but he doesn't sound like he's completely bat-shit insane!!!! A-dub-a-da-dub-a-da-dub-a-da-dub-a-da! Whuh!?!?!?

I doubt I'd agree with him on most of the issues, but honestly, there IS a template out there for rational conservative out there. No doubt people in the Limbaugh-loving wing of the GOoPer base will try to shout down anything that a guy like Huntsman, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, or the two distinguished women from Maine have to say. It probably won't be until 2012 or 2014 that moderate Republicans can mount a serious challenge to the Completely Nuts Caucus of the RepubliCon Party, but hopefully one day we can have two parties that actually give a shit about people, rather than about 2/3rd of one party (the Dems), and approximately 1/20th of another.

Here in Cook County Illinois, I've been treated to what happens when one party - even one I mostly agree with - runs everything. I give you Rod Blagojevich, and Mayor Dick Daley. Believe it or not, I actually vote Republican in local elections here in Chicago when there's no Green running, not because I necessarily agree with them on the issues, but because the Chicago Democratic machine represents about the worst that Democratic politics have to offer.

Although I'm definitely pro-choice, I've always thought that reasonable people could disagree over the issue of abortion - the cultural issue that singularly defines and galvanizes the Christian Right. Regardless of how well or how terribly the Right lives up to its ideals, an ideology of keeping government small, balancing the books, and keeping taxes low is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. America needs dialogue - and as the example of Illinois shows, one party rule is not the answer to anything. But until rational conservatives like Hunstman have a place to make their voices heard nationally, I don't think the Republicans ought to be trusted as a loyal opposition in any way, shape or form.

"All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom . . ."

2009-02-27T13:26:00.007-06:00

Oh dear dear dear. It appears that Team Coleman's lawyers have been naughty, and that their case may be in very deep doody! From Talking Points Memo:

Secret Coleman-Lawyer Emails Reveal Intentional Hiding of Witness - Franken Camp Wants Double-Count Claim Thrown Out

"All hell just broke loose in the Minnesota courtroom, with Al Franken's lawyers catching Team Coleman in the act of yet more concealing of evidence -- and they've now made a motion to totally strike the Coleman camp's claims about double-counting of ballots, which the Coleman camp has hoped to use to subtract over 100 votes from Franken's lead.

You might remember that on Wednesday, the Coleman team was caught having withheld notes given to them in early January by Pamela Howell, a Republican election worker in Minneapolis. (Note: Minnesota precinct workers are selected by partisan identification, and then buddied up across party lines to keep it running smoothly and honestly.) The court then struck the witness' testimony, relating to double-counting of votes -- but then turned around yesterday and reversed themselves, after the Coleman team said it had been an honest oversight -- that there was no bad faith involved. . . .

This morning, Franken lawyer David Lillehaug was restarting his cross-examination of Howell, and inquired as to whether there had been any further communications between herself and Coleman. The answer was yes -- and Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble then had to cough up some private e-mails he'd sent to Howell in early January.

"Pam, the legal team and campaign have made a strategic litigation decision to hold off from having you sign and us file your affidavit at this time," Trimble (or possibly his assistant, Matt Hapooja) wrote on January 6, "to avoid tying you down to any particular testimony and to avoid having to disclose your name and statement."

So, I'm no lawyer but suffice to say that this doesn't look very good for Former Sen. Norm "Big Asshole" Coleman and his crack legal team. Intentionally hiding witnesses? Gosharoonies, I don't think that's allowed!

Oh dear dear dear.

At any rate, Team Big Asshole tried to claim that this was an honest mistake. In typical RepubliCon fashion, one of Team Coleman's lead lawyers, Tony Trimble, suggested that one of his employees was to blame, and made the all-too-familiar "We weren't tryin to do no wrong it's just that we ain't all that smart" defense. It's incompetence, not malfeasance.

Riiiiight.

Musta been kinda uncomfortable for Team Coleman when another of his lead lawyers, Joe Friedberg, then . . . .

"got up to mount a defense -- and totally threw Trimble, Hapooja, and fellow lawyer James Langdon under the bus. He said he'd asked them on Wednesday if there were other things going on, and he didn't know about it: "I can tell you that if I'd have known these things existed, I would have disclosed them."

Naughty, awful, spiteful Team Coleman!

They have been very bad. A ruling hasn't been issued yet, but the upshot here is that Team Franken is now demanding that the entire double-count claim be thrown out . . .

. . . apparently the good people of Minnesota have already made their ruling about Former Senator Norm Coleman.

Hasta la pasta, jerkoff!