Another married straight parent in Florida kills her kids

We always hear that gays can't marry because of the harm it will do to children (although marriage and adoption/child rearing are different things conflated by the homophobe crowd), but it's seems that it's always straight people that are torturing and murdering their kids.

Conservative says Tea Partyers are "irrational" and "ignorant"

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/01/05/bruce_bartlett_on_tea_party_monumental_insanity/index.html

Bruce Bartlett is a historian whose résumé includes stints as a domestic policy advisor during the Reagan administration and a Treasury official under George H.W. Bush. 

Money Quote: The problem is that the Tea Partyers are nuts. That is my point. They are irrational, they are ignorant, they don't know anything about financial markets and they think that they are standing up for God and the balanced budget.

OK, I'll stop

(hey, you see George Will said Sarah Palin is unelectable?)

ok, stopping for real.  

How you like Scott Brown now, right wingers?

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/us_senate/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/12/18/dont_ask_dont_tell_repealed

I remember hearing his election was a watershed moment for turning back progress (or progressives as you call them) but it looks like America will join the rest of our allies in letting gays serve openly in the military instead of in secret. 

Rollins has problems with Palin too...boy they're coming out of the woodwork now

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/01/rollins.palin/index.html?hpt=T2

 Ed Rollins, .... He was White House political director for President Ronald Reagan and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Taking our ball and going home or We really aren't serious about all the deficit reduction talk that got us elected

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_go_co/us_democrats_lame_duck_politics




So, these tax cuts that have been in place for years didn't stop 10% unemployment and the worst recession since the 1930s, what proof is there that extending them won't prolong a shitty economy, it didn't prevent one.

A middle finger from Jesus

It's clear that Palin can't even teach the slightest amount of decorum to her own children (oh yeah, and stop them from getting pregnant when they're 16 and living under her roof) but she's going to tell America how to live (Why is the right so ok with a Palin being an unwed teenage mother, they hate that stuff when it's poor people or minorites). See the other daughter's anti-gay rants on Facebook from last week. Clearly they stay on message when there are handlers around for People Magazine interviews, but off the cuff the reality comes out.


CLASSY

Just like Jesus said:

Palin, 20, the daughter of conservative politician Sarah Palin who reached the finals despite get low judges' scores for six weeks, said on Wednesday that prayer had got her through the controversy, which included an anthrax scare on the set.

"It is faith that got me through this and just praying all the time and just relying on God and knowing that He is on our side and we'll get through this," Palin told People magazine.

But in a comment on Tuesday's broadcast, Palin said winning the contest and the glitzy mirrorball trophy "would be a great middle finger to all the people who hate my mom and me."

The Queen of the Tea Party holds court on our North Korean "allies"

This woman wants to be President, (even though she's afraid of Katie Curic...imagine how scared she'd be of someone like Putin)


These words are sheer genius...thanks for the insight (even if she can't form a complete sentence)...I guess this is all Bush's fault...he had 8 years and did NOTHING about N Korea, right?

Sarah Palin is asked by Glenn Beck on his radio show what we should do about the current North Korea crisis:

“Well, North Korea, this is stemming from I think, a greater problem when we’re all, you know, sittin’ around askin’, ‘Oh, no, what are we gonna do,’ and we’re not having a lotta faith that the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is North Korea is gonna do, so this speaks to a bigger picture that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy, but obviously some stand with our North Korean allies we’re bound to by freedom; we’re also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies. And to my North Korea, well, we’re not gonna reward bad behavior and we’re not gonna walk away and we do need to press China to do more to improve pressure on North Korea.”

As the Tea Party begins it's journey toward continued irrelevance

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/17/how-gm-ipo-proves-the-tea-party-wrong.html





http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/17/5483303-ap-calls-it-for-murkowski

Rubio just another GOPer

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/11/14/20101114rubio1114.html

 

The other day, when I pointed out the utter failure of most big name Tea Partiers on election day, my old Bushie buddy, who now fancies himself a tea partier, he claimed Rubio was a signature win.  This article makes the point I attempted to make, but much better. 

Juan William doesn't know what "censorship" is?

Juan (who's had the quickest most lucrative firing in the history of broadcasting) claims that his firing by NPR was censorship.  Shouldn't a journalist know what censorship is?  Saying things that piss of your employer causing them to fire you is THE FREE MARKET, it's not censorship.  His words weren't censored by a government he was fired for saying something stupid "I think all Muslims are terrorists".  That's dumb and probably not something a person should say if they want to keep their journalism job.

But the Fox Right Wing Nuts are having a field day, but I wonder why when they were screaming for Helen Thomas to be fired for commenting on the foreign policy of a country (remember she never said "Jews scare me", she spoke about Israel's foreign policy) they didn't care about free speech then?  Why silent when Rick Sanchez was fired?  When  Peter Arnett was fired for speaking out against the Iraq war...they didn't care then.

It seems to me that the Fox/Right Wing/GOP stance is Free Speech only applies to saying shitty things about Muslims.  But you damn well not say anything bad about Israel or a Republican politician.

Freakin hypocrites.

The best the GOP has to offer?

This is the best the GOP has to offer? You'd think the Republican nominee for Senate would be at least casually familiar with the 1st Amendment, especially when she's always wrapping herself up in the document.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miwSljJAzqg&feature=player_embedded

Seriously, what is it with the "tea party" candidates. Paladino in NY. You've got the fake Doctor in Rand Paul, The Thug up in Alaska using the military to detain American Journalists on American Soil at public events, California's tough on immigration candidate who employs illegal immigrants, crazy lady in Nevada and the most sad of all, O'Donnell in DE.

Seriously is the the best the GOP has to offer? This group of clowns will be the further undoing of the GOP. At least Rove had the balls to say that about O'Donnell. No Republican can think this is good for the Party.

My (humble) review of "Let the Great World Spin" Colum McCann

I'll start by saying I don't feel qualified to "review" a book like this, don't have the training, the education or well-read enough. I don't even read a lot of Modern fiction, but I've read everything McCann has published, except "Zoli". So, I'm very much a fan of his writing.


Also, I think many of us like to believe we have a book or two in us, especially when you see what passes for writing these days and even more so when you know who gets book deals. I know I've thought, "Maybe I could do this", but then you read a book like "Let the Great World Spin" and realize "I could never do THIS". It's just so well done that it makes you not want to attempt it because you know you could never achieve something like this even if I had the discipline to start and finish the effort.

This book is extremely well-written as are McCann's other books. I've always loved his descriptions of everyday things and scenes, he does in a way that make images so vivid and real but without cliche and in such a manner that you've heard before.

What captured me most about this book was the creative and inventive story-telling. Sometimes the genius of the story-telling made me pause and I had to leave the narrative to contemplete the brilliance of the ideas within the story. To sit up and say "jesus, that's brilliant". I loved the characters, even when I didn't "like" the characters.

It is one of those books where you wish there was more because you enjoyed the journey so much you don't want it to end.

Why I'm still not buying a Kindle

Recently read an article complaining about prices for new eBooks and how publishers had become greedy and were running the risk of putting off adoption. This is a great example.

An electronically delivered eBook costs next to NOTHING to produce, no printing costs, no transportation, virtually zero storage costs (probably less than a penny for server storage space maybe???), yet this book is only 80 cents less than the hardcover book. A book I could later sell and even if I only got a $1 for it I come out ahead.

I don’t buy the idea that I’m going to pay for the privilege of carrying around a Kindle instead of a real book, even if I can carry 25 books on it (how many books do people read at a time anyway?).

Until publishers get less greedy, out of principle I could very well put off my purchase of a Kindle

Cover Songs

I think I rant about this from time to time, but it's apparently important to me.  COVER SONGS.  I love a great cover song and I've been putting together some rules about music in general (10 year statute of limitations for ALL bands for example) for the folks at work, but the Cover song rule is easy. 

MAKE YOUR VERSION OF THE SONG YOUR OWN.

This was brought home most recently in the course of a day in listening to Sirius in the truck.  Exhibit A- Devo's version of "Satisfaction".  Not my favorite cover song, but I"m not a big Devo Devotee (ha) but that song is their own.  it is the epitome of a great cover song.  They made a Stones Classic into their own.  It's recognizable which is part of it, but making it their own ...damn it it sounds like a Devo song.  You know it's Devo, not jsut from the voice, but the whole sound.

Exhibit B- 10,000 Maniacs Doing "Because the night" a near note for note cover indistinguishable from the Patti Smith version.  WHY FREAKING BOTHER?  Is it to prove you can read music and simulate the exact notes and sounds of another artist...NO ONE CARES.  In fact, this version of the song has made hate 10kM since the time I first heard it.  You wanna hear exact copies go listen to Mini Kiss. 

Other great covers that come to mind, that fit my rule above.  Anthrax doing "London" (The Smiths),  "Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson (Eurythmics), Johnny Cash doing "Hurt" , and pretty much any cover song that Dwight Yoakam ever did. And "All along the Watchtower" by Jimi goes without saying (yet, there I said it).

So damn it "artists" don't show us how you can copy another's song exactly, do something with it.  Hell if I was a record company executive I'd never let some of that crap get released...too lazy and a waste of vinyl.

Fox's lies reverberate through ill-informed masses

from a tweet @markos 1/3 think Obama raised taxes. 50% think they stayed the same, only 8% think taxes have gone down. Only 8% are right. http://is.gd/fctct

Change in plans for the right wing fringe...and a chance to give Beck/Palin even more money

Now that the book burning is called off, you can give some more money to multi-millionaires,Beck and Palin as they profit off the deaths of 3000 Americans.


Again, they have MORE than the right to do this, but it's pretty crass and shows what Palin and Beck are really about. Selling the fear they generate to make even more money. Classy. These are the leaders of your party. Good show.


Palin, Beck team up on 9/11 event

(CNN) - After a wildly successful rally on the National Mall, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are teaming up again - but this time for a cost.

The two conservative rock-stars are set to appear together in Alaska on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in an event that costs a minimum of $65 to attend.

"We can count on Glenn to make the night interesting and inspiring, and I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will 'never forget,'" said Palin on her Facebook page earlier this week. "Hope to see you there!"

But in sharp contrast to the free event in Washington last month, tickets to this latest Palin-Beck affair run as high as $225 – a price tag that some Democrats are making hay about given the somber timing of the event.

But Christopher Cox, the Anchorage-based promoter of the event, told the Anchorage Daily News the date is purely coincidental and was originally scheduled for a week earlier.

Trying to figure this out

So according to the right wing fringe, Obama is a Muslim, but 2 years ago he was unfit to be President because of his 20 year relationship with a "crazy, racist" Christian minister.

He's also an idiot, who can't form a sentence without a teleprompter, but he also orchestrated the downfall of Capitalism and the American Republic and instituted an entire new economic system of Socialism in 18 months.

I wish the right wing fringe would stick to a narrative longer than a few minutes. I know it's not confusing to the mental midgets that comprise the unruly mob, but for anyone with a brain it seems a bit disingenuous. Kudos to the puppet masters at Fox for knowing that facts and consistency don't matter in riling up the masses so they have no qualms about being inconsistent...they know their audience isn't that bright.

the Palin/Beck/Gingrich army

i wonder if those on the far right will continue stoking the Anti-islam fires until someone gets murdered. Palin, Newt and the rest should be proud that they can bring out this behavior in their minions.

Sad day in America

While we all know that far right fringe that is running the GOP these days has long since abandondend any sort of adherence to the Constitution (save Amendment #2), but it was shocking to see the hatred expressed over weekend in NYC by the anti-Islamic groups (anti-freedom is more like it). Did it not remind you of protests in the south in the late 1950s? Those times in the fifties are looked back on with shame by most Americans and this anti-muslim/intolerance/abondonment of Bill of Rights rhetoric will also be a source of shame in years to come. But for now, it seems ok that that's even more shameful (Did you know...Gov. Faubus was included among the "Ten Men in the World Most Admired by Americans", according to the Gallup Poll for 1958...per Wikipedia).

Sarah Palin and her ilk will be looked on with the same shame in coming years. Shame on her and shame on Fox news for stirring up this hatred of all Muslims...Shame. Our forefathers, the real Tea Party, are rolling over in their graves right now at this dispicable use of their cause and their name to justify this intolerance.

If only reality was part of the right wing's knowledge base

I know the basic fundamentals of the issue are not known to the right wing nuts, so I thought I do him the service that Sarah Palin’s Facebook posts and Glenn Beck aren’t doing.

Prayers have been going on at this site for nearly a year…

and

The "Ground Zero Mosque" that we have been and will be hearing so much about is not exactly a mosque, nor is it at Ground Zero. Here's why: you can't see Ground Zero -- the former site of the World Trade Center -- from the future site of the Cordoba House.

From 45 Park Place, the former Burlington Coat Factory building that will make way for the Cordoba House, it's two blocks, around a corner, to get to the WTC site. Park Place doesn't lie between the construction site and any mass transit stations, so you would need to go out of your way to have it offend you.

In addition, the building planned for 45 Park Place is a cultural center with a prayer room -- not a single-purpose house of worship for Muslims, which is probably what we should reserve the word "mosque" for. As Haberman also explains, "That it may even be called a mosque is debatable. It is designed as a multi-use complex with a space set aside for prayer -- no minarets, no muezzin calls to prayer blaring onto Park Place."
The 92nd Street Y, on which the Cordoba House is explicitly modeled, has a whole host of Jewish events take place inside of it, but no one calls it a synagogue. There's no good reason why Cordoba House should be misleadingly called a "mosque." I've been guilty of using this word too, in conversation and in writing, but it's inaccurate. Muslims already read the Quran and pray at 45 Park Place, but that does not and will not turn it into a "mosque."
There's one more catch for the opponents of the so-called Ground Zero mosque: by the same logical leap you can call the Cordoba Center a "mosque," you can also call Ground Zero as it already exists a giant, open-air mosque. Muslim prayers are already taking place right on the edge of the construction site, and not for world domination. Families are going there to pray -- for the souls of the dozens of innocent Muslim victims who died on September 11.