Sunday, May 31, 2009

Oh, Gee-Zus Key-Rist


I just got home for the Village Inn Restaurant. There was a very small group of "bikers" wearing their colors featuring a large Christian cross and the legend, "Believers, D.M. Iowa M.B." The "M.B." I'm given to understand means "Motorcycle Brotherhood" as opposed to the usual "One Percenter's" M.C. or motorcycle club. So I concluded these were "Christian" bikers.

It gives one pause to wonder, what model Harley would Jesus ride?

Wing Nut direct mail king sez: Obama a "socialist"

Here's the May 20, 2009 email update from the godfather of wing nutty, direct mail stupidity, Richard Viguerie:

91% of Conservatives Believe Obama is a Socialist, Marxist, Communist or Fascist

MANASSAS, VA -- An online poll by the ConservativeHQ.com

Web site found that 91 percent of 1,848 self-identified conservatives believe President Obama is a socialist (46 percent), Marxist (24 percent), communist (11 percent), or fascist (10 percent).

Only 7 percent considered him to be a liberal (5 percent), or a progressive (2 percent).

Richard Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, commented on the results:

"While this is not a scientific poll of conservatives, it is a meaningful indicator that most conservatives (the GOP base) see Obama as a dangerous radical.

"Rather than Americans coming together as a result of the election, it appears that America is becoming much more polarized.

"Because so many conservatives see President Obama as a radical leftist, Republican politicians will be under pressure to step up their criticism of President Obama and the Democrats who are closely cooperating with him.

"It will also make compromise more difficult for GOP officials. Any Republican who wants to be a national leader will feel obligated to view Obama as the vast majority of the GOP base sees him."

The poll, conducted from May 12 through May 19, asked, "How Would You Describe President Obama's Political Philosophy?" The complete results* from conservatives were:

* Socialist 46% (842)
* Marxist 24% (437)
* Communist 11% (200)
* Fascist 10% (193)
* Liberal 5% (87)
* Progressive 2% (41)
* Moderate 1% (24)
* Other 0% (9)
* Populist 0% (8)
* Conservative 0% (7)
* Libertarian 0% (0)

* Percentages may not add to 100% because of rounding)

Additional information is available on the poll results at the ConservativeHQ.com Web site at http://www.ConservativeHQ.com/active-polls/

NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine), one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times ), and one of 2008's "top 25 influencers" among Republicans (NewsMax magazine). He is the author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.


I really don't know how much further to the "right" idiots like Viguerie want to go? Attlia the Hun? The "divine right of kings?" Gather-hunter tribes?

And why do Republicans need ...to step up their criticism of President Obama and the Democrats who are closely cooperating with him[?] Fuck there are plenty of Democrats who've already stabbed President Oreo, and the rest of the country, in the back. Moreover Obama's shown on a couple of occasions that in reality he is nothing more than your typical, run-of-the-mill, centrist, milquetoast Democrat. So what's to complaint, wing nuts?

Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Department of You Get What You Pay For

In an effort to save the taxpayer some money the Des Moines City Council in its infinite wisdom "privatized" the groundskeeping duties of the city parks to one A + Lawn and Landscape. Reports Jason Pulliam in the May 30, 2009 edition of The Des Moines Register:
City officials say lackluster groundskeeping over the Memorial Day weekend will prompt them to issue refunds to people who rented shelters at a south-side Des Moines park.

The City Council earlier this year voted unanimously to privatize mowing and custodial services at 73 public parks as part of a larger plan to save taxpayers about $3.3 million a year. But the appearance of Ewing Park, 5300 Indianola Ave., and some others has not measured up.

The privatization of mowing and custodial services was a key piece of a plan to save taxpayer money and help address a tight city budget. Parks department personnel made up the bulk of 88 employees who lost their jobs to help fill a roughly $7.5 million hole in the 2009-10 budget. Some of the employees were rehired after the parks department restructured.


Said moronic Better Business Bureau chief and Des Moines city councilmember-at-large, Chris Coleman: "It can be frustrating, but I haven't heard any complaints, and I'm not going to overreact and say this is some way related to the privatization[.]"

Yeah, right, Chris.

California, government as good as its people, part 2

At one time I though a Southern state like Mississippi or Alabama was the stupidest state in the USA. Then I was sure Texas was. Now I'm convinced California is.
Before this state’s May 19 vote on five initiatives intended to solve the state’s chronic fiscal difficulties, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — in person on the stump and via TV ad blitzes up and down the state — told voters that if the measures did not pass, the resulting budget cuts would be “draconian.”

In the days after the measures went down in flames, the announcements have come rapid fire, and various constituencies are reeling — calling the cuts “beyond draconian.”

Some 235,000 state workers will have to take a 5 percent pay cut. Of the state’s 279 state parks, 200 will be closed. Schwarzenegger’s plan to dismantle the Cal Grant program — considered one of the nation’s best programs to help poorer students cover full fees or tuition at public colleges — would make California the first US state to eliminate student financial aid while raising tuition.
Christian Science Monitor, May 30, 2009


There's more. Reports the LA Times:
Schools would be hit by $680 million in new cuts to classrooms and by $315 million in cuts for transportation. The state's social safety net would lose $1 billion more in funding for the poor, disabled and aged. Cities and counties would lose an additional $242 million in transportation funding.

Schwarzenegger would save $100 million by suspending laws requiring the state to pay for a variety of local government services, including offering absentee ballots before elections, resolving child custody problems, investigating deaths at mental hospitals, posting safety signs on beaches, collecting DNA samples from bodies, caring for abandoned pets and many more.

State workers, already under orders to take two unpaid days off each month, would also receive a 5% wage cut, saving the state an additional $470 million, as part of Schwarzenegger's new plan.

Mirroring that proposal, the University of California, long besieged by controversy over its high executive salaries, announced 5% pay cuts for about 30 top administrators in the wake of the governor's plans to slash higher education funding. Many of them earn more than $300,000 a year.
LATimes.com, May 30, 2009


So, O.K., being a smug Iowan I didn't follow this story very closely. I've been led to believe, though, turn out for the May 19 special election was low leaving the field open for the heirs of anti-tax demigod Howard Jarvis.

To be honest no one with half a brain willingly raises a tax on himself*...that's why you elect politicians, so you have some one to blame for raising your tax. But, given the nature of our "free market" economy and it's built-in inflationary tendencies, if one wishes to enjoy the services that only an organized political entity can provide it is necessary to raise taxes once in awhile. And the only way to keep that equitable is through a progressive tax system. Well ever since the 16th Amendment went into effect reactionaries have been, successfully I might add, rolling back the only fair system of public taxation ever invented by man.

So what we witness in California is the end result of years and years of anti-tax propaganda whereby the good citizens of the "seventh largest economy in the world"** have just fucked themselves royally.

*The "smart" citizens of the State of Iowa now have the privilege, through the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) , to raise the regressive sales tax a penny, "only for a limited number of years (lol)," on themselves.

**According to the California Department of Finance as of 2003

Friday, May 29, 2009

Libertarians dream of seagoing "Sea World"

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! Alternet.org posted a really funny article by Brad Reed headlined, Seasteading: Libertarians Set to Launch a (Wet) Dream of 'Freedom' in International Waters.


Imagine a group of egoistical, coordinator class* assholes on a platform at least 200 miles from any recognized, national shoreline setting up their own philosopher king and queen republic.


It begs the obvious question: Who'll take out the trash? I mean, here in collectivistland isn't that why coordinator class libertarians hire illegal immigrants?


* a tip o'the spoon to Eric Patton for his definition of a pervasive, though little studied, class.

Stirring the pot when it doesn't need stirring

The Senate confirmation hearings have not even begun and already I'm experiencing "Sonia Sotomayor ethnicity" fatigue. I mean why should it make any difference if President Oreo's initial nominee for the United States Supreme Court is "Latina" or not and will it effect her decision making?


Of course it will but what the fuck! I'm sure Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr's decisions are influenced by the fact that he grew up a white boy in a managerial/coordinator class household in an affluent, small Indiana town on Lake Michigan.


So CNN this morning asked the musical question:Sotomayor nomination: Is it about ethnicity? To their credit CNN reporter Rachel Rodriguez ends the news story by asking "Are we focusing too much on her ethnic background rather than her judicial history and qualifications?" By that I think she must mean the mainstream media as I don't give a flying fuck.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Karl Rove on Ivy League grads

Shitstorm alert! Top Obama donors get ambassadorships

Batten down the hatches, boys and girls! President Oreo has just named the top three contributors to his successful presidential campaign to the ambassadorships of the United Kingdom, France and Japan!

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Three of President Obama's top fundraisers are getting plum jobs as United States ambassadors.

Among the 12 ambassadors named last night by the White House, three -- Charles Rivkin, Louis Susman and John Roos -- were so-called "bundlers" for candidate Obama.

Rivkin (named ambassador to France) and Roos (named ambassador to Japan) both raised $500,000 or more for Obama, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
MSNBC.com

Oh, fuck! Has anything like this ever happened before??!!!

Bush’s patronage appointments to ambassador exceed father’s, Clinton’s
Posted on June 25, 2007 by Dr. Denny

During the presidency of George W. Bush, nearly four out of every 10 of his nominees for ambassador have been “non-career appointees” — or what many would consider “political” appointees. Neither his father nor President Clinton had such a high percentage.

President Bush’s 36 percent rate exceeds the 29 percent of President Clinton’s ambassadorial nominees who were non-career appointees. During George Herbert Walker Bush’s presidency, about 31 percent were non-career appointees.

Many of George W. Bush’s nominees have been significant donors to his election campaigns or have personal and political connections to the president.
Scholars & Rogues.wordpress.com

Is everybody in Alabama this stupid or only Sessions?

Jesus Christ, is everybody in Alabama this stupid or only U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions?

The Senate Republican who is charged with grilling Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor during her confirmation hearings told USA TODAY's Matt Kelley this morning that she needs to explain a 2001 speech in which she said a "wise Latina woman" might make better judicial decisions than a white man.

"The American people need an answer before she goes on the bench as to exactly what she meant by that," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

"It's on its face a troubling statement," Sessions continued. "It goes against the idea of color-blind justice -- blind justice, not just color-blind justice."
USAToday.com, May 28, 2009

To it's credit the USAToday article linked to the original 2001 speech

...Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

Keith Olbermann and his guest Eugene Robinson busted this canard on Countdown last night. I guess the stupid Sessions didn't get the memo.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

California, government as good as its people

It should come as no surprise that the California Supreme Court in its ruling on Proposition 8--a voter initiated, voter approved amendment to the state constitution codifying marriage between a man and a woman as the only legally recognized state of matrimony thereby cutting the so-called LGBT community out of the marrying business--handed down a decision yesterday guaranteed to please no one and solve nothing.

In their infinite wisdom the California Supreme Court justices decided to keep Proposition 8's constitutional limitation of marriage while recognizing the legitimacy of the 18,000 lesbos and queers who had the foresight to get "married" before last November's election. So of course the religious right is disappointed that the state can't tear up the marriage licenses of those 18,000 same married carpet-munchers and fags while the rest of California's unmarried dykes and fairies have their tits in an uproar because they can't legally march down the wedding aisle.

A base of what ails California is one of the late Nineteenth-early Twentieth Century Republican progressive and Democratic populists' best ideas gone very, very wrong, direct public initiative and referendum. From its inception in 1912 until 1978, Californians wisely used their initiative and referendum sparingly and only in the face of general legislative incompetence.
Proposition 13 changed this pattern.

The success of Proposition 13 marked the beginning of a new trend. The initiative was no longer viewed as a means to correct the Legislature. Rather, it became an instrument to govern. Between 1982 and 1988, voters passed 22 measures. In the 1990s, they passed 24 more. In the 20 years since Proposition 13, Californians passed more initiatives than in the preceding 6 1/2 decades.

Many of these measures further limited the Legislature's ability to govern.

The initiative remains popular among all segments of the California electorate. Liberals are still wedded to the dream of popular sovereignty, and once-skeptical conservatives embrace it as a way to remove many issues from the jurisdiction of elected officials.

In truth, the initiative has, in effect, strangled the republic and made California less governable.
Why the California Initiative System is Undermining Democracy, By Jules Tygiel, HNN.us, October 31, 2005


Since California's initiative and referendum system are only as good as its citizens one wonders how many heterosexual, serial monogamous "Christians" voted for Prop 8 to keep the "light-in-the-loafers" crowd out of the state's overworked divorce courts? Then again, how many of California's minority citizens, victims of past and on-going racial discrimination, voted for Prop 8 because homosexuality is taboo in "their" community (RuPaul, ain't gay, he just dresses that way!)

With the passage of Proposition 8 Californian got what they deserved.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A little bit about a lot of things


First up in America's hit parade of stupidity is 13-year old Daniel Hauser and his mother Colleen who ran away from Minnesota last week because the poor little flower just couldn't stand any more chemotherapy. I guess the poor little bastard couldn't take anymore puking and hair loss so it was off to Mexico for some herbal enemas while U.S. authorities spend a bazillion bucks trying to drag the little s.o.b. and his goofy mom back to Minnesota.

Let me clue you in, folks in Minnesota law enforcement, if the kid's parents want to kill their kid with herbal teas, let them.


Let us now move on to our president. Over the weekend the lapdog media (MSM) widely reported that President Oreo was under no pressure to appoint a woman, replacing retiring centrist and life-long milquetoast, David Souter, to the Supreme Court. So this morning the MSM is all gaga over Oreo's pick, a Puerto Rican-born, New York woman,Sonia Sotomayor.


It can only get better if she's a lesbian-Catholic who is for on-demand abortion and the confiscation of all firearms. At least the reactionaries would have something legitimate to bitch about. It'd even be better if on the first first Monday in October she rolls up a copy of the U.S. Constitution and sticks it up Scalia's ass! But that ain't gonna happen. What we are in for is a long, hot summer of idiot Republicans smearing the poor dumb bitch while the feckless Democrats, her allies, mince around like a bunch of sugarplum fairies. Oh, she'll be confirmed but Sotomayor will most likely be President Oreo's Clarence Thomas, though with better hygiene (no pubes on the Coke can.)


What other really stupid things can I bitch about? Oh! How about this letter-to-the-editor of in today's edition of The Des Moines Register:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is smart, articulate and knows his stuff. I still remember the two vice-presidential debates in which he participated. With his straight forward, quick witted, no-nonsense debating style, he easily won those debates with opponents Joe Lieberman and John Edwards. The fact that the main-stream media scored it different is proof of its bias and fears.

Now Cheney is taking on President Barack Obama. A review of the two speeches last week that has people abuzz reveals the former vice president is someone who can still maintain command of an audience with articulate oratory while the president is aloof and naïve and has to rely on teleprompters to be effective. I scored it Cheney 1 and Obama 0.

As a Republican, it’s our misfortune that Cheney never ran for president. He would have been a great one. Thank God, though, he’s still center stage in the public debate surrounding national security and the issues that confront us today. Right now, America can use a man with Cheney’s talents. He speaks truth to idiots.

— Jeff Jorgensen, Treynor

hmmm...Is Mr. Jorgensen referring to himself in his concluding sentence? That's enough stupidity for one day.

Monday, May 25, 2009

I seen some stupid things but...

So yesterday I go with the old man to decorate his parents' and grandmother's graves in Indianola, Iowa. Afterwards we stop at a local roadside cafe, which has been there for what must be a thousand years though I've never eaten there, for lunch (which, by the way, was excellent if you have a hankering for a deep-fat fried pork tenderloin and onion rings.)

Anyway there was a group of people in their motorcycle togs and on a nice day that's no big deal.

However I did notice one of the ladies in the group was coving her head with a stylish American-flag design "do-rag." This led me to conclude she was undergoing cancer chemo-therapy as she was hairless, the portions of her body that the public could see at any rate. Really nothing out of the ordinary here.

Bear in mind, Iowa's a good place to go organ harvesting in the summer. We have a strong lobby of rugged individualists who successfully make the claim that wearing a helmet when riding one's motorcycle at 40-miles over the posted 65 miles per hour speed limit on primary two-line highways is an infringement of their First Amendment rights. So nary a helmet was in sight as the group of Harley-Davidson-licensed, official sportswear clad folks mounted their gasoline-fueled steeds to ride off into...the rest of the afternoon.

I seen some stupid things but here was a lady fighting a life-threatening disease and the only thing between her head and the hard, hard pavement of U.S. Highway 65-69 was an American flag do-rag.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Shitstorm clouds loom over Iran

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran could be within one to three years from developing a nuclear weapon and time is running out for diplomacy to defuse the problem, the top U.S. military officer said on Sunday.

The United States and other Western powers are concerned that Iran could combine elements of its uranium enrichment and missile programs to create a nuclear weapon, although Tehran denies it intends to do this.
Reuters.com Iran within 3 years of nuke: U.S. military chief, by Alan Elsner, May 24, 2009


Oh, crap! Iran could, maybe, have a nuke in one year...or three...it depends.

Please, everybody cut the crap, because it's the worst kept secret in the world that Israel has had nuclear bombs since the Sixties. In fact one-eyed Israeli defense minister Moshe Dyan was so shook at the early success of Egypt and Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War that he contemplated nuking both of them.

Here's what the Federation of American Scientista says in the introduction of an essay on Israel's nuclear capability:
Israel has not confirmed that it has nuclear weapons and officially maintains that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Yet the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is a "public secret" by now due to the declassification of large numbers of formerly highly classified US government documents which show that the United States by 1975 was convinced that Israel had nuclear weapons.


Here's old ET's common sense solution to this Middle Eastern nuclear conundrum: Force Israel into fessing up that it indeed possesses nukes, then proceed with disarmament talks between them and the other nuclear power(s) in the region, Pakistan and Iran. The U.S. could step up and unilaterally get rid of a few of our old, out-dated nuclear warheads as a gesture of good faith and example. Simple, no?

Unfortunately, the dumb fuckers who run this world will never let that happen.

It's been a long time since I posted anything

And, as of right now, I'm not in the mood to write. I've hit one of my periodic writer's blocks plus the fact that others are more eloquently saying what I am thinking.

But, the other day I changed my Internet browser homepage because the editorial content was utterly ridiculous. It seems that the editor of BuzzFlash.com took exception with a bit of fluff posted at The Huffingpost.com.

I'm not going to rehash the topic, suffice it to say, however, it was a prime example of where the "ideologically" pure left and the reactionary right agree, the further shores of politics and all that. In fact it is distressing how the reactionary right and the ideologically pure left agree on so many topics, though attacking from different angles.

The biggest bugbear of both the ideologically pure left and the reactionary right is pornography.

I've little interest in pornography, though I will admit to enjoying photographs and printings of nubile young, and the occasion not so young, women in various stages of undress. A predilection that indicates I am a fairly "normal" heterosexual male.

But it was a fairly innocent, albeit stupid, bit of fluff on celebrity "boob jobs" posted at The Huffington Post.com which got BluzzFlash.com's panties in a bunch. To which I say, so what.

From now on I will keep my eyes and ears peeled for the further shores of politics.