FIRST DRAFT

Saturday Night Music: Burning Down The House

Once upon a time there was an art rock band that had a few big hits. This is one of them:

 

Saturday bonus Obsession - Wile E. Bibi edition

 

Hi all - the marvelous Ms. Athenae gave me permisso to do a Saturday Special.

Whuffo whuffo?

This:

Bibi Shows the UN a Bomb

 Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | September 27, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 4:36:35 PM by Kaslin

RUSH: Benjamin Netanyahu is delivering his speech at the United Nations General Assembly. I just tuned into a bit of it here during the break, and it's awesome. It's very, very well done. It's an exceptional speech, all about Iran's nuclear weapons and how they differ from the Soviets, for example, in having nuclear weapons and why.

 BREAK TRANSCRIPT

 RUSH: Benjamin Netanyahu, who may be the closest thing we have to a Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher today, Benjamin Netanyahu is at the United Nations. He's giving a great speech, and he's now using a visual aid. He's got a picture of a bomb, a circular bomb with a fuse coming out of the top, and he's explaining where Iran is. No interpreter needed for this. He is explaining to the dictators at the UN how it all works. It's fabulous. (laughing) It is great. I've never seen this. I've never seen a visual aid at a United Nations General Assembly major address like this.

 

 

Neither have I.

 Here's a tweet from a journalist, Chris Hayes: "Bibi veering into self-parody with a drawing of a bomb with a lit fuse." So the media's making fun of Netanyahu for his visual aid of the bomb, that he's veering into self-parody. And actually, he's just trying to explain to the essence of a bunch of second graders in this room what he's talking about.

END TRANSCRIPT

To: Kaslin

Someone needs to Photoshop a birth certificate for this man saying he was born here. Then he can run for President.

5 posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 4:40:53 PM by wolfpat (Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. -- Cicero)

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To: moehoward

A handsome fellow then and now!

 Guess that makes me a BibiChick!

12 posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 5:06:35 PM by hummingbird (Pray without ceasing. Pray for peace.)

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To: verum ago

Bibi: I think he is pretty badass, too. And, he is the closest we have come to a statesman in quite a while.

14 posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 5:11:39 PM by hummingbird (Pray without ceasing. Pray for peace.)

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To: moehoward

*Swoon*

23 posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:31:18 PM by MS.BEHAVIN (Women who behave rarely make history)

Of course, one Freeper always has to spoil everything:

To: Kaslin

I thought the choice of graphic was awful. He’s talking about nuclear weapons and he shows a drawing of an 18th century bomb. Blah. A mushroom cloud would have been more appropriate. This was a lost opportunity...the graphic is the only thing that will be remembered as a representation of that speech by 99.9% of people.

22 posted on Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:05:38 PM by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)

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Ya think?

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Thank god the Freeperati were right again.

EVERYONE's talking about "red lines" this week.

Heh.

---

Weekend Question Thread

Best party you've ever been to? 

A. 

Requiem for the Picayune: the Rising Tide 7 Media Panel

The estimable Jason Berry aka Ashe Dambala filmed the Rising Tide conference for the second year in a row. He did double duty as one of my panelists this time around. It was the end of a long day and everyone, myself included, was exhausted. The mood in the room was positively funereal. I looked at the audience and saw a section of former and soon-to-be-former Picayune-ites and decided to play it straight for once. I had a few puns and zingers planned but had to file them away for future use. Tone is everything when you're performing in public so I had to shackle Shecky.

My goal as moderator was to get NOLA.com's James O'Byrne on the record with the paper's position. I'd promised him fair treatment and I believe I kept my word. One of the puns I discarded was a play on the similarity of his last name to the leader of one of my all-time favorite bands. I saved it just for y'all: O'Byrning Down The House. It's what Advance publication has done to the Times-Picayune, after all.

At the party the night before the conference I had a long chat with former TP photog John McCusker. His take: the Times Picayune as we knew it, is already dead, the formal interment will be Monday, October 1st but the spirit left the body the day of the great bloodbath in the newsroom earlier this summer.

Back to the panel. I made a new friend, laid off Picayune reporter, Katy Reckdahl, who stole the show with her insightful comments and keen analysis. As I said before, I wasn't really on my game. I even passed up a straight line from my friend Clay who asked the last question of the panel. I usually never pass up straight lines but this time I did. There's nothing funny about the demise of a local institution and 200 people being fired. Sounds Romneyesque, doesn't it?

I mentioned the funereal atmosphere. Since it's New Orleans, you might think that it would be a jazz funeral. Nope. It felt like one of those funerals that has you poleaxed because it was for someone who died way too young. I recall being at the funeral of an elderly in-law who was born cranky and stayed that way until her death in her Nineties. My brother-in-law turned to me and said "that was the period at the end of the sentence." He was talking about his Grandmother but he was absolutely right.

The death of our daily paper merits stronger punctuation than a period but since I don't believe in exclamation points, I am somewhat at a loss. Suffice it to say that the death of the Picayune we used to know feels like a crushing blow because of how important the paper and its staff were to all of us after Katrina and the Federal Flood.The reporters and staff at the Times-Pic were like soldiers who became a family because of shared circumstances and, yes, suffering.They became a part of the community's extended family as well. That's why this hurts us so much.

My primary lament is not for the *form* of the paper but for the way its institutional memory has been erased by rich cocksuckers from New Jersey and their local henchmen. If I thought they could be shamed, I'd give it a shot but shameless is as shameless does. Uh oh, I sound like Forrest Fucking Gump.The suits have erased the institutional memory of their own news organization by discarding talented people like my friend, Stephanie Grace, whose insightful political columns I already miss.

Okay before I get even more maudlin and morose, it's time to pour a shot of Jamesons,  toast the end of an era and cue up the media panel:

Rising Tide 7 - Black and White and Red All Over from Jason Berry on Vimeo.

 

Friday Ferretblogging

In which Riot photobombs the nice portrait of Bucky I had going on: 

A. 

Love of My Life

I had this post worked out in my head for weeks. I had it built until about four hours ago when someone decided that "Hey, when we say something is due on X day, that means whenever, right?"

The concept was simple: This summer, The Missus, The Midget and I went to the Wisconsin Dells for a summer get away. One of the things we did was the rather campy tourist trap thing known as "The Dells Mining Company." They sell you a giant bucket of sludge with raw gems in it and then try to get you to up the ante by getting a few of those things turned into polished gems and jewelry.

The Midget pulled a lump out of her sifting bin and stared at it with a scrunched up face. "It looks like a meatball!" she said as she rolled the round rock in her hand. She was happy to have it and planned to keep it.

The lady at the counter told us it was a garnet, which sent my wife's eyes a'sparkling. She has always loved garnets, so much so, she has forsaken her actual birthstone and adopted the red gems as her own. After a bit of back and forth, we agreed to have a couple stones cut from the raw rock. It would take 6-8 weeks and they'd be mailed to us.

I hatched a plan in my head to ferry away the stones from the mail, have them put into some nice earrings and have them for her on our anniversary, which is today.The lady at the jewelry store swore that it would be no problem to have these by the 28th, or even a day earlier. She told me to come back on the 27th and everything would be fine. We chatted a bit about how these stones came to be and what it took to get them there. How it was that something so big and lumpy and non-descript could be polished and shaped into something so worthwhile.

Then, I started thinking about my post. I wanted to do the perfect metaphor post. It was a lead-pipe cinch.

If you knew me back when I met her, you'd know that I was probably the least likely person on Earth to land my wife. I was rough, crude and off-putting. In other words, pretty much like now, but imagine it magnified. It took about a dozen stops and starts, a "OK Fuck It" move to Missouri, about $600,000 in long-distance charges, a midnight run away from Wisconsin with nothing but 10 sweaters and a broken coffee pot, a shaming moment from our parents, a series of epic misfortunes and 18 months of eating Ramen so we could save enough money to do our wedding the way we wanted to, but we got here.

However, my wife isn't great for these reasons. She's great because she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. She rubbed away the dirt, cut away the crap and tried to polish me up so that I could see what she saw, and maybe other people could, too.

Over the past 10 years, we have worked the problems we faced, we have found our way and we have done it because of her. She took the initiative to give me one more phone call after I was in the "I'm not talking about her anymore" phase. She realized that we fit together, even if neither of us really saw how at that point. She cut the gem, whatever it was, from the heart of the mess and shined it.

So, here I was today with this post that had info about gem cutting and jewelry making and this wonderful metaphor of life. It was done and waiting for the earrings to arrive. The closing was going to be tonight when I gave them to her at dinner.

I stopped by to pick them up, only to get a blank stare from the woman at the counter. Turns out, that instead of putting "Due Date 9/27" on the package, she needed to put "Due Date 9/27 RUSH" on the package. Apparently that's the difference between having earrings for my wife and not.

The woman who sold them to me was apologetic. The owner was apoplectic.

I offered to drive to the goldsmith's and pick them up. They balked. I guess telling a random guy where a shit ton of gold has been sent isn't a good business plan.

I then offered to meet the goldsmith at a coffee house or a freeway exit ramp or something. No dice.

I told them if they didn't want to have me drive to the goldsmith, I'd pay for the gas for them to drive out there. That apparently didn't work either.

They told me they'd call me in an hour but they'd work it out. Turns out, that meant that the earrings weren't done, but they would be done and they'd be happy to give me a pair of earrings to "present" to my wife as a symbol of what was coming.

Right. Because nothing says, "Happy Anniversary" like saying, "Here are some great earrings, but they're not actually yours."

Like so much of everything else that happened to us leading up to that wedding, this wasn't going to be easy.

In July of that year, her grandfather died.

In August of that year, my dad's mom died. I still have the invitation response card she sent back to us in June. "If the good Lord is willing," she wrote on the back of the card. "I'll be there!"

Two weeks before my wedding, my uncle died

My grandmother (mom's mom) was the reason we were ever able to make that leap of faith and run away from everything and cling to each other. She was so goddamned stubborn that she swore cancer wouldn't take her before she saw us wed.

After we opened gifts that following morning, I drove her home and hugged her goodbye. When we left her house, a sadness came over me.

"What's wrong?" my bride asked.

"I can't say for sure," I began. "But I have this horrible feeling I just said goodbye to my grandmother for the last time."

I was right. Three weeks later, she was gone.

I was pondering this when the phone rang. It was the jewelry store. No hope of getting them until Monday. The goldsmith sent a picture for me and the jewelry store sent along a gift card as an apology.

I stopped for a minute, thinking I should be really pissed off. I smiled instead and said, "Thanks for trying. I'll pick the stuff up this afternoon."

Maybe it wasn't the gem that typified who we were. Maybe it was the process.

We improvise, we adapt, we overcome. We try, we fail, we forgive. We love and we cherish.

And we also love to tell stories.

We can add this one to the pile of them we built together over the past 10 years.

Today on shit Mitt says

This time around he tries to lead a chant and nobody follows:

Friday Catblogging: Della the bad ass

Della Street is not allowed on the kitchen counter. Does she give a shit? Hell, no.

Thursday Night Music: As Soon As The Tide Comes In

I'm planning to write and post about Rising Tide 7 at some point but this song will have to suffice until I get around to it. I've had it in my head since Saturday:

 

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Gotta hand it to you

A belated PFT post that is, more or less, a one-off joke. So it goes.

Living in the Crash Position

I wrote this, about Laura Roslin and Galactica: 

What's the hardest thing to do after a loss? Trust, again. Hear the phone ring and know it's not a crisis siren, hear the love in someone's voice and know he's not going to die. Fracking getting up in the morning, with all it entails; you'd like to stay mired in your fear and your anger and your very special alone-ness for all of time, but contact is inevitable, leading to information bleed. We have to start over. We have to keep moving. We have to meet each other and change and push and love each other. We don't know any other way to do this. We don't have any other choices. And so she steps forward, into his arms.

And Doc wrote this, about bullying and being bullied: 

He probably found solace in being good at something and eventually realizing that being able to throw a ball for a high school team wasn’t the end all and be all of life. He left high school, left college and began to find himself in a world where different was embraced. He was chosen for a show that celebrates that in its own way and allowed him to create his own power.

The first chance he got to take his skill and his power and give some hope to someone else, he turned into a bully.

I went to my 10th high school reunion a few years ago. I wasn't the most picked-on kid in school, but I certainly wasn't the least, either. I was awkward and over-eager and didn't quite understand how social cues (or fashion) worked for a long time. I always said the wrong thing, too loudly. I always hung around too long. And I had frizzy hair and buck teeth that could open a soda bottle, and kids are assholes, really. 

And even after I had friends, and was making professional progress, and had a life, I still felt a little bit like an underdog all the time, and pushed too hard all the time, and was afraid of failure all the time, and figured it was just a matter of time until the people who liked me realized I was a loser and dumped me for somebody cooler or more fun. These aren't THE WORST PROBLEMS EVAR, like I was born white in America so let's all calm down, but they were things I noticed I was doing as a result of what had happened to me. 

So I went to my 10th reunion intending to be all IMMA SHOW YOU PEOPLE, with my kickass husband and my stories about how I was doing exactly what I said I was gonna do when I lit out of town like my ass was on fire. And I looked around the room, and realized that everybody in that room had been trying to do the best they ever could, and some of us really screwed it up. Some of us had been bullies and some of us had been bullied and some of us had been weak and looked the other way, and absolutely nobody gave a shit about any of our excuses or reasons but us. 

The most pernicious thing about bullying is that the minute you think about it, you're alone with it, with something that happened to you that didn't have to happen, and you have to take that in. As long as you're passing it on, it's just how kids are and it's necessary for their emotional growth and blah blah blah all the shit we throw out there to perpetuate the cycle. 

You have to stop and let it hit you: something happened to you that you couldn't control, that wasn't right, that wasn't your fault. And that you have to be okay with now, in order to get up out of the crash position, and know that when someone offers a hand to you they're not going to turn around and slap you with it a second later. That's the hardest thing in the world to do, because it's the easiest, because it's up to you. 

A. 

Meet the Poll Sample Truthers

From Album4

They'll never let reality get in the way of of a good wingnut fantasy...but if it does, well...that's what whining is for.

Malaka Of The Week: Scott Brown

Dear MSM:

Please stop telling us that Mass. Senator Scott Brown is a mainstream moderate when he's really a main street malaka. His campaign reminds Joan Walsh of Jesse Helms in 1984. A pretty darn good analogy since that was a despicable campaign run by an odious candidate against an honorable and decent one. It reminds me more of Poppy Bush's endlessly trivial and loathsome campaign against my hapless countryman, Michael Dukakis. The good news is that Elizabeth Warren is no Dukakis and that it's 2012, not 1984. Here's hoping that it's the last gasp of Helmsville, Thurmondia and Nixonland...

I assume you know what I'm talking about but let me back track and describe it a bit more fully Senator Beefcake's malakatude. (Btw, I'm living up to our blog's name and motto and letting it rip. Watch out: anything can happen.) It's the whole "she don't look like no Injun to me" thing. It's pure Nixonian bile and bigotry, and straight out of Bush 41's pursuit of trivia campaign. I halfway expect to see Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance evoked on the trail as Brown squawks about the, uh, squaw. No, he hasn't called her that. YET. Hey, at least he'll be "respectful" and call her Perfesser...

The thing that really set me off was the video of Brown's staffers doing the tomahawk chop whilst publicly mocking Ms. Warren. My Florida State Seminole fan buddies, Christy and Cait, are outraged at this appropriation of their fangirl silliness by stupid yankee frat boys. Sorry, y'all, I couldn't help slipping that in. Anyhoo, here are some bozos on the public payroll acting stupid in public:

 

Hey, at least the Warren and Brown folks agree that the Yankees suck as do I. Anyone up for a rousing chant of  Dodgers suck? Go, Giants but I digress. Time to start a new paragraph.

Brown's fixation on the "Indian heritage" story is ludicrous. I take Ms. Warren at her word that it was a family story and she never checked it out. There are a few stories like that in my own family. My father insisted that my mother was related to Fighting Bob LaFollette and she neither confirmed not denied it. I checked on the internets and it wasn't so. Guess that disqualifies me from running for the Senate against some lame ass douchebag in a borrowed pickup truck...

Josh Marshall has had a good time mocking Brown's presumption that he knows an Native American when he sees one or is that the only good one is... Never mind, we'll skip Gen. Sheridan...

The current President of the Cherokee Nation is not amused by Brown's bold-n-barefaced malakatude. Bill John Baker has asked Brown to shut the fuck up and channel Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse or even Billy Jack. Please forgive the Joe Don Baker joke, Mr. President, but sometimes I cannot help myself.

I think Scott Brown and his sub-moronic frat boy staffers should be obliged to listen to Indian Reservation (Cherokee People) by Paul Revere and the Raiders on their iPods with the volume cranked up until their hearing is as bad as mine or Pete Townshend's. Now where the hell did I put my trumpet horn hearing aid? Btw, I like the tune, the torture lies in listening to it on ear buds at Metallica concert level volume. Then, Senator Malaka and his idiot staffers can stick the ear buds up their asses. Ah, that felt good, even that epic thesis sentence. I promise never to do that again...

Anyway, I guess I made my point with this rant. It sure felt fucking good to go the whole Adrastos of a Wednesday evening.

Finally, fuck you, Senator Malaka and your insipidly anti-intellectual campaign. The good news is that the head of the GOP ticket is 26 points behind in Mass. Fuck you sideways, Scotty, boyo, the Mittbot is takin' you down...

Happy Democrat Photo: Feel the Tammy-mentum!

AP photo via Politico. I know. I feel dirty, too. 

My favorite Democrat is opening up a can of whoopass on Thompson: 

Already down almost 10 points in the PollTracker Average, Tommy Thompson has now shown up in a video from a Tea Party meeting in June bragging that who better than him to “do away with the Medicare and Medicaid”.

A. 

 

Booty. Called.

Republicans were never going to dump Akin, not really. Sure, they made a show of abhorring what he said, but in the end, he's still not a Damnable Liberal, and so the 27 percent of people who'd vote for a syphillitic hamster if it had an R shaved into its fur will turn out, and the bright lights of the party will support him, and all will be as it was. 

A. 

Quote of the day

It comes from former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard who yesterday pled guilty to a shitload of felony corruption charges:

"At 23 years old I came into politics as a dragon slayer. At 63 years old I'm going out as a dragon."

Broussard is best known nationally for having wept on Meet The Press during the post-Katrina clusterfuck/fog of war period.

Obama Single-Handedly Surrenders America to Radical Islam

Quoth Zombie Andrew Breitbart: 

Obama left precious little time to address the civil war in Syria or the threat of a nuclear Iran. He gave several pages to assuaging the feelings of radical Muslims angry about a YouTube video; he provided a few sentences to the question of what to do about a nuclear-armed Iran, saying only that "time is not unlimited" for talks.

Yes. What he should have done was tell people to make stupid fucking YouTube videos in attention-seeking maneuvers. For free speech. 

I am just about done equating people waving their e-penises around with First Amendment martyrs. There is a vast difference between standing up for one's rights in the face of actual persecution, and deliberately setting shit on fire so as to complain about the amount of time it takes for someone to sound the alarm. 

Are people allowed to draw stupid cartoons of Muhammed and make offensive videos? Sure. But it's entirely possible to separate "allowed" from "the president of the United States needs to encourage it from the podium at the UN or else he hates the freedomz." 

A. 

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Coffee and Spaghetti Talk

Nucky Thompson has gone full gangster in Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire. That means that he's insulating himself from day-to-day bootleg sales. It's causing him all sorts of problems with the man on the right above, Gyp Rosetti. You know, the guy who called him a "fucking bread stick in a bow tie." Gyp is now obliged to buy booze via Arnold Rothstein. Gyp is not amused and he's one scary motherfucker when he's not amused. 

Okey doke, on to this week's random and discursive comments on episode 2, Coffee and Spaghetti:

Eli's Coming (Home) Nucky's feckless and rather dim brother got out of jail and immediately fell prey to the insulation-no, not pink fiberglass-campaign. He was met by the Jewish gangster with the Irish name, Mickey Doyle, and not his big brother. Eli was not amused. He's also gone to work for Doyle and his annoying laugh. Eli is a ticking time bomb and his first eruption could involve putting a bullet through Doyle's derby...

Chalky's Back and Badder Than Ever: We see Chalky presiding in his roadhouse/speakeasy. He meets the squeaky clean, and terribly boring, med student that wants to to wed his daughter. Chalky, a hustler to his core, green lights the notion, seeing in it a chance for his family to rise. His daughter would rather marry a tough guy like her dear old dad. Conflict ensues.

In the best scene of the season so far, we learn that Dr. Dull is in touch with his inner hard ass. He gets into it with a thug at Chalky's joint who slashes the Doctor wannabe's face with a switchblade. After Chalk's lackey beats the attacker down, Dr. Dull insists on doctoring his assailant. Chalky was impressed. I was too. He may be one of DuBois' "talented tenth" but he got game as the kids would say. Not then but now...

Nucky's new nookie: Our anti-hero has a cute and adorable new show girl. She sort of a cross between Margaret and his former show girl mistress; you know, the one that got knocked up by Agent Van Weirdo. The Nuckster and Margaret seem to be living separate lives after she gave away part of his fortune to the Catholic Church. There are more hints that she and Owen the IRA dude may hook up again. I hope he doesn't wear his gat to bed...

Gypped:  My new favorite character brings an air of menace to everything he does and says. I was afraid that he was going to stick an icepick through the gas station attendant's head during their brief chat. He did not but he brings that Sonny Corleone vibe to BE and that's a good thing.

I got a kick out of Gyp's ordering spag and meatballs at that Anglo diner in North Jersey. Guess it wasn't too bad since he didn't spit it out. He did, however, spit out and return Nucky's booze shipment to Rothstein. Mr. Thompson will rue the day he fucked with the Gypper...

Like some other HBO dramas (Treme and Game of Thrones spring to mind) there's sometimes too much going on in Boardwalk Empire. There are a few too many characters BUT unlike Treme there aren't any I'd flush down the terlet along with the fish from the opening moments of the episode. I wouldn't say the same about Fake Davis and his unmagical musical misery (for the tourists) tour. A sombrero? Really, dude?

Your Hermetically Sealed Republican Party

Have you heard the latest? Republicans have decided that the LAMEstream LIEberal media is in the tank for NObama because there's no way those polls showing the Kenyan usurper in the lead could possibly be right, so they've developed their own polls which -- shocker! -- show Mitt Romney with an insurmountable lead. I know, what are the odds, right? 

Isn't that just typical? Whenever reality contradicts conservative ideology, it's always the reality that's wrong, and the conservative solution is always to create their own version of whatever so-called "liberal" thing vexes them at the moment. It must be exhausting creating your own alternate reality: your own news network, your own Bible, your own science and history, and on, and on. Expensive, too. But there you have it.

Last week Mistermix over at Balloon Juice observed:

...the Romney campaign is what you get when your incubator is Fox News.

Y'know, I'd never seen it stated quite so bluntly before. I smacked my forehead and went, "Duh! Of course!" And so I'd like to take this moment to thank Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh and all the rest for effectively killing the Republican Party as we know it. By creating this alternate reality hermetically sealed against anything dangerous like, y'know, facts, they've effectively cut themselves off from any political party's oxygen supply: reality.

Jonathan Bernstein put it better than I ever could:

The truth is that Romney is constantly constrained by what conservatives want him to do and by what they believe. Furthermore, what they want is generally unpopular, and what they believe is far too often simply cut off from the reality that the rest of the nation lives in.

So Romney cannot have a coherent foreign policy because what his voters want to hear is that Barack Obama sympathizes with terrorists. Most Americans, meanwhile, think of Obama as the guy who took out bin Laden. Romney cannot have a sensible tax policy because conservatives insist that he promote large, self-funding tax cuts for the rich. Most of the nation, however, supports raising taxes on the rich, and reality insists that cutting taxes also reduces revenues. Also, Romney didn’t invent the 47 percent nonsense; whether he truly believes it or not, he was simply parroting back what his voters have been hearing for years from Rush Limbaugh and others like him.

Somewhere back in the 80s and 90s a bunch of conservatives got together in a smoke-filled room and decided if they didn't like what the "LIEberal establishment" was doing in the news media, the entertainment media, at the nation's universities and science laboratories, economic policy think tanks, etc., they'd use their vast wealth to make their own. That was deemed such a good idea that over the years it's grown to some ludicrous extremes like Andy Schlafly's Conservative Bible Project, for example. Or, think the AARP is too liberal with their Medicare-loving, Social Security-supporting enabling of life on the taxpayer teet? Welcome to AMAC, the right-wing version. Or the 60 Plus Association. Or, um, the ASA.

Anything deemed "liberal" by conservatives now has its right-wing counterpart, catering exclusively to right-wingers. The results have been predictable: a core group of intractable true believers increasingly cut off from the rest of the electorate.

Ghettos are never a good idea, but when a political movement willfully and intentionally separates itself from the people at large -- the very people it needs to reach if it's going to continue to exist -- it has become irrelevant.

Porkmageddon?

Someone else already used the term Porkocalypse so I had to root about for my own pun. It sucks in either event:

Might want to get your fill of ham this year, because "a world shortage of pork and bacon next year is now unavoidable," according to an industry trade group.

Blame the drought conditions that blazed through the corn and soybean crop this year. Less feed led to herds declining across the European Union “at a significant rate,” according to the National Pig Assn. in Britain.

And the trend “is being mirrored around the world,” according to a release (hat tip to the Financial Times).

In the second half of next year, the number of slaughtered pigs could fall 10%, doubling the price of European pork, according to the release.

The trade group urged supermarkets to pay pig farmers a fair price for the meat to help cover the drought-related losses.

In U.S. warehouses, pork supply soared to a record last month, rising 31% to 580.8 million pounds at the end of August from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The surge came as farmers scaled down their herds as feeding the animals became increasingly expensive.

In July, global food prices leaped 10% from the month before, according to the World Bank. Maize and wheat jumped 25% while soybeans rose 17%.

What will porkaholics and baconphiles do? Is this the revenge of the vegans? Nah, it's that "non-existent" climate change thing...

Jeez, I feel like Les Fucking Nessman. Hmm, I wonder if they're still awarding the Silver Sow award?

Today In Scab History

What in the ever-loving fuck was that.  Just--what was that?

Matt Lauer Is a Sexist Douchebag

Well, the Today Show finally did it. They finally broke me. I actually yelled SHUT UP at the TV in the waiting room of my doctor's office:

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I think my favorite part, aside from how he asks her to talk about sex with her husband and then shames her for talking about it ("I'm blushing, I'm blushing") is when he basically asks why she didn't quit the Olympics because she knew she had had sex and therefore might be pregnant. 

Lauer asked whether the couple considered perhaps waiting to try to expand their family until after the Olympics. With a laugh, Walsh Jennings replied that restraint "only lasts so long.”

“I just felt like it would take me a while this time to get pregnant for some reason,” she said. “So a month before, we’re like, ‘Should we start trying?’ I had never experienced morning sickness. We were in Gstaad, Switzerland, one of my favorite places, our favorite places, in the world ...  we decided just to get going on the process.”

“Apprently we’re very fertile,” she said before covering her eyes with embarrassment.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s chief medical editor, says competing at the games did not increase Walsh Jennings’ risk of pregnancy complications.

“The risk that she put to herself and fetus was zero to none,” she said.

Five weeks into a pregnancy, fetuses are tiny, well protected and “very, very, very hearty[sic],” Snyderman says.

“The embryo is microscopic. It’s just implanted in the lining of the uterus,” Snyderman says. “It would take an act of God to dislodge it, not a bump on the tummy, not a dive.”

Well thank God NBC's "chief medical editor" (please tell me there isn't more than one "medical editor" because I've been told journalism is in trouble financially) weighed in to tell us that this woman and her doctor and her husband made a smart decision, because otherwise I'm sure we'd have some fucking busybody in the comments second-guessing her every move OH WAIT: 

ill never understand the concept of "trying" to have a baby. it's not like you build up enough sperm and suddenly it happens. it can happen the first day you try. good for her, but she shouldve waited until after the olympics to "try". glad the baby is healthy.

Someone please explain the male and female reproductive systems to this idiot. And take away his/her car keys. I don't need anybody that stupid on the road with me. 

I mean, how dare she win a gold medal while carrying a baby! Sit at home and sip weak decaf tea and watch soap operas while you're knocked up, ladies! Don't work or drive or walk too fast. Don't do anything but eat and sleep! After all, you're pregnant, so you're done accomplishing things now! If you need achievement, try living through your husband's and kids' accomplishments. That never goes badly. 

A. 

Check out my lizard...

 

This is what I get for assuming you all are broke like me. :)

I had planned a tasteful "Sticky Fingers" cover shot, but since it was hard... Uh... difficult to get my lizard to cooperate, we had to go with the handful shot.

In any case, this is Archer, a baby leopard gecko that I fell in love with. Always wanted a gecko for a pet and The Missus finally convinced me to give this a shot. He's usually decent about "hand time" and he's a hell of a lot of fun to watch run around. He'll climb all over you if you let him. I have yet to get salmonella.

Seriously, thank you all for donating to this fun little place we all call home. If I could think of something to do with him next year for this that wouldn't get me bitten, I'd probably agree to it for the fundraising trick.

Archer don't do hipster glasses.

Doc.

The Kids Are Alright

Go you, Daily Princetonian. 

We are firmly against “quote approval” and do not practice such a policy. When I refer to “quote review,” that is a non-binding courtesy we provide to sources in limited circumstances. If they provided factual information that they later found to be wrong (eg “I said five but I meant six”), that is the only instance in which we would consider replacing a quote. If there’s a question of whether the quote was transcribed accurately, that would be addressed then as well. This happens entirely at the discretion of the editors.

To be clear, if a source said it, a source said it. We don’t do revisionist interviewing.

Showing the supposed pros how it's done.

 A. 

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - The 47% Solution edition

 

Good morning, gentle people - I was going to do a "putrid potporri" edition, but as the wheels comtinue to come off the crazy train (how's that for mixing your metaphors?), some current events have the Freeperati more stirred up than a bad martini.

Into your suits, everyone Southern Beale, please check the containment seals, because I'm about to open up a drum of I feel so inar-inar-inar-inar-inar-inar--tic-u-late!

 

Ryan: Romney was 'obviously inarticulate' in fundraiser comments http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/ryan-romney-was-obviously-inarticulate-in-fundraiser-135955.html?hp=r1 ^

Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:31:34 AM by timlot

Asked what he thought of Romney's remarks, Ryan told the Nevada station: "He was obviously inarticulate in making this point." Ryan went on to say the point the Republicans are making is that, under the Obama economy, government dependency is up and economic stagnation is up.

Asked if he thought Romney regrets the remarks, Ryan says he thinks Romney would have said it differently, adding, "that's for sure."

1 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:31:38 AM by timlot

Oh, my.

To: timlot

STOP APOLOGIZING, MAN UP AND STAND BY YOUR COMMENTS, DAMMIT!

2 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:33:13 AM by NRA1995 (I'll cling to my religion, cigars and guns till they're pried from my cold dead fingers!)

I'm sorry - couldn't hear that.  Could you type a bit louder, please?

To: timlot

How to take a GREAT speech line and stomp it into the ground until dead 101!

4 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:37:14 AM by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)

Yes, boys and girls - the Freeperati think that Mitten's blurting out of the wingnut "victims" screed was a good speech. They've become pretty much untethered from reality at this point.

Their grip was always tenuous, but now not only do they discount everything outside The Bubble, but have forgotten that anything outside The Bubble exists. Their world is complete.

To: timlot

Prime material for a Campaign ad.

5 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:47:37 AM by HotKat (Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason. Mark Twain)

That's pretty much what I was thinking.

To: timlot

Paul Ryan said WHAT??

 

What is WRONG with so many Conservatives when it comes to just OPENLY EMBRACING and DEFENDING Limited Government and a free market for free people?

They need to just DO it, and stop being such pusillanimous WIMPS!

7 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 6:50:10 AM by NH Liberty ("For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus..." [1 Timothy 2:5])

.

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To: txrangerette

I am a moocher. I don't pay income tax.

Because my social security benefits are not taxable and the earned interest income off my savings are below taxable levels, I don't pay taxes.

There are a lot of retired people who don't pay income tax or pay a relatively small amount of income tax on interest income who will be in a world of hurt when Romney and the GOP start taxing SS benefits.

17 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 7:25:02 AM by Ben Ficklin

.

To: timlot

” - - - Ryan says he thinks Romney would have said it differently, adding, “that’s for sure.” - - - “

The election-winning topic of Marxist Redistribution of Wealth has been delivered to you on a Silver Platter by David Corn of the Liberal Agenda Media, and you Ryan, choose to stab Romney in the back?

The Liberal Agenda Media spent all day yesterday telling their Liberal audiences that 47 % of Voters pay NO Personal Federal Income taxes. What a great promotion they performed for us Conservatives, and you stab Romney in the back?

Get on board the Smack-Down Express, Ryan, or shut your mouth!

30 posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 9:25:29 AM by Graewoulf ((Traitor John Roberts' Obama"care" violates Sherman Anti-Trust Law, AND the U.S. Constitution.))

 

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More after the linky thingy..

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Deep Treme Thought

Not the neighborhood, the HBO show. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the Season 3 premiere. What was up with the celebrity chef dinner? It seemed gratuitous to me. Hope the show's staff got some decent eats out of it.

I'm sticking with the show but the short scenes and choppy editing style have got me calling it "short attention span theatre," and that's not a compliment.

That is all.

WHO IS ADVISING THIS GUY???!?

Did Shrum switch sides or something? 

The former Massachusetts governor and his wife, Ann, could have claimed more in deductions, the trustee of Romney's blind trust said when the candidate's 2011 tax returns were released.

But, Brad Malt acknowledged, the couple "limited their deductions of charitable contributions to conform to the governor's statement in August, based on the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13 percent in income taxes in each of the last 10 years."

In other words, the governor made some shit up, and then we had to make it true. Not unusual in politics or life, but YOU DON'T EVER SAY THAT OUT LOUD. I know that, and my extensive experience in crisis PR consists of drunk dinner conversations with people who teach this stuff. 

I have never seen anything this inept in my entire life. It is so inept I am starting to go to the eleven-dimensional-chess place, where I start fearing this is all part of some secret evil plan because they cannot be this bad.

I mean, they're Republicans. They've been beating us blind for decades. All of a sudden it just all falls apart? I laugh and laugh and then a voice in the back of my head says don't laugh too loud, something big must be coming down the pipe because this can't be all there is, just this fucking assclown and this team of assclowns. I have seen better managed candidates for school board. 

A. 

Sunday Morning Video: Peter Gabriel Live in 1986

Here's Gabriel's brilliant set from the final show of the Conspiracy of Hope tour at Giants Stadium in Joisey: