Friday, April 29, 2011

Qaddafi And Trump - Twins Separated At Birth? 500 New Saints

Paul Krugman
David Ignatius
Jack Germond
"The Libyan government says Moammar Qaddhafi is still in 'high spirits,' even though his compound was destroyed this week. Most people would be devastated, but here's the thing — he's insane." – Jimmy Fallon
"A new poll shows that President Obama's approval rating is down to 41 percent. A lot of people that voted for him now say they liked him a lot better when he was a Democrat." – Jay Leno
"President Obama released his long-form birth certificate yesterday. So we found the birth certificate. Now it's on to bin Laden." – David Letterman


Why Russians Don't Smile By Michael Bohm:
"It is a primitive stereotype and myth that Russians are doomed to be gloomy and morose. The problem has little to do with Dostoevsky, the cold climate or lack of sunlight and much more to do with the rampant corruption, lawlessness, weak civil society and low level of freedom"...


Moammar Qaddafi and Donald Trump - twins separated at birth? People have been very forthright, calling out Donald's BS statements, yet they ignore Paul Ryan's health bill and anything generated by Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Rush can do no wrong because he will get you by making disparaging remarks for hours on end on his radio show. I thought Al Franken might take him on when he had a radio show, but then he lost his sense of humor and got elected to Congress; see what can happen if you cross Rush... Nobody takes him to task whenever he makes statements like these:

"We need this in perspective. Obama never had a birth certificate problem. He has a spending problem. He has a redistribution of wealth problem. He has a socialism problem."

"Is there anybody in our field who would refer to Obama as a disaster? No. They are petrified. But what they will do is say, 'I think the president's policies are taking the country in the wrong direction.' Yeah, that and a wet noodle will get you some fried rice."

"Trump started out his press conference by saying, 'This is the proudest day of my life, look what I did, only I was able to do this.' For a while I thought, 'My gosh, I'm watching myself here!'"

"Frankly, folks, when you get down to brass tacks, getting rid of Obama -- throwing him out of the Oval Office and ending his regime -- has to be priority number one. It must be! And he is eminently beatable."

"You want to talk about silliness? Obama just turned the White House communications into a circus, if you ask me. The country's going to hell in a hand basket, and he's responded to Trump more directly than he's responded to Paul Ryan or John Boehner."

"The two things about this birth certificate that really shocked me the most are, one, that Obama was born at all -- I thought it was a miraculous conception -- and two, that his parents were actually mortals."

"Fearless, core beliefs are such that you don't need to read a memo before you go out and make a speech, that you don't need a teleprompter. You believe it. You believe it to the point where every media event is an education opportunity."

"If you're a columnist at the New York Times and you actually write that you are mesmerized by the crease in some politician's slacks, and then you say that because of that crease he's going to be a damn good president, I submit you are a fool and the essence of star-screwer. But that's David Brooks."

Folks either love or hate Rush. They either revel in his mean remarks and hang on to every word, or they are offended by what he says. It's not even what he has to say, ratheer the way he says it, and he has gotten a lot meaner since he weaned himself off of Oxycontin. Myself, I'd love to be in the studio with him as a counterweight to what he says. I usually mutter to myself the whole time I listen to him, so why not get paid for it? Maybe that can be my next project on the Internet, takiing apart each broadcast and putting it on youtube or itunes...

But I get tired of the constant negative language and imagery. Maybe that's what set off the tea party folks , getting pissed off from listening to too much Limbaugh and  Mike Rosen and Michael Savage and Mark Levine and Sean Hannity and whomever else you have on your local stations. The mind can only take so much negativity before it has a meltdown and has to get away. so the anger expressed by the tea party comes from having to get away and act out all of the negativity and anger they absorbed from their shock jocks, listening to toxic radio...



The negative spin from Israel over Egypt's attempts at reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas has gone into overdrive. No no no no Egyptians, you must do as we say and not think on your own! Look, even the bobble-headed US State Dept agrees, see them nodding?.. That Egypt is taking a more humanitarian view of their treaties should come as no surprise, it's what happens after a rebellion over regaining their own rights, of course they are going to treat others similarly. In fact, that's why they were so successfull in getting Hamas to come to an agreement - they treated them with respect.

"The deal between the Palestinian factions capitalized on the forces unleashed around the region by Egypt’s revolution. In its aftermath, Hamas found its main sponsor, the Assad government of Syria, shaken by its own popular protest movement, while the Fatah government in the West Bank faced throngs of young people adapting the chants of the Egyptian uprising to the cause of Palestinian unity.


Egypt had laid out a proposal virtually identical to the current deal for both sides as early as 2009, several participants from all sides said. But the turning point came in late March, about six weeks after the revolution. For the first time in years of talks the Hamas leaders were invited to the headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead of merely meeting at a hotel or the intelligence agency — a signal that Egypt was now prepared to treat Hamas as a diplomatic partner rather than a security risk.


They also met with Egypt’s interim head of state, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mr. Mubarak’s longtime defense minister. “When I was invited to the meeting in the Foreign Ministry, that was something different, and this is what the agreement grew out of,” said Taher Nounou of Hamas. “We definitely felt that there was more openness from the new Egyptian leadership.” Foreign Minister Nabil el-Araby told the Palestinians that “he doesn’t want to talk about the ‘peace process’ any more, he wants to talk about the peace,” Ambassador Bakhoum said."

Egypt also wants to open up the border crossing, so that it isn't so punitive for the people living in Gaza, and they have approached Israel on changing that policy. Israel wants the status quo, where it can manipulated two sides against each other, creating dissension instead of an economy. As it is now, Fatah won't sit down with Israel until Israel stops building on their land, and Israel won't sit down with Hamas until Hamas recognizes Israel's right to be where it is. In order for a real peace to be negotiated, all three factions are going to have to sit down and hash things out, so, in reality, this is a very good first step in that direction.

The other problem is Egypt's wanting to normalize relations with Iran, no longer ignoring the 800 lb guerilla in the room. Every other nation in the world has relations with Iran except for the US and Israel. If Egypt and every other Middle Eastern nation can start going into Iran on a daily basis, it can only affect Iran for the better. Now, if we can only get those Europeans to stop being so anti-jihabic, a phrase I just coined and you have permission to use it...

Wow! Jihab Barbie

It turns out that Pope John Paul 11 and our current Nazi Pope are total Saint sluts, canonizing over 500 new saints so far between them. Now, Pope Benedict even wants to make John Paul into a Saint, even manufacturing a miracle, as told by the NY Times: “This beatification is different because this pope is different. He’s a man with a role in history, not just in church history,” said Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a liberal Catholic group and a biographer of John Paul who testified in his favor in the beatification process. “The seal of sainthood doesn’t close the debate on history,” he added. “In a certain sense, for many Catholics he’s already a saint, even without beatification and, let’s be honest, even without a miracle.”


Saint-making is intensely political. The impulse must arise from the faithful, but ultimately most saints’ causes are championed by religious groups with the organizational skills, and fund-raising, to keep their causes alive. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and head of the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, Pope Benedict in 1989 criticized this tendency, saying there had been too many beatifications of marginal figures.


But John Paul was an avid saint-maker who loosened the rules to make the process easier. He beatified more than 1,300 people and canonized 482 saints. Since 2005, Benedict has beatified 790 people and canonized 34 saints.


For John Paul to be beatified, a Vatican committee had to rule that he had performed a miracle. (To advance to sainthood, he needs an additional miracle.) In the proceedings, doctors and experts testified that a French nun had been miraculously cured from Parkinson’s disease after praying to John Paul. Their testimony was then notarized, and the committee certified the miracle."

No wonder this world is so much tougher, when people don't even know who to pray to anymore. Late at night as I lay me down to sleep, I just want to feel a little bit cheerful:

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.



Thursday, April 28, 2011

Birth, The Long Form, Fatah And Hamas Kiss And Make Up

Victor Kotsev
Nicholas Kristoff
Dana Milbank
"A study found Americans spend $1.2 trillion every year on stuff they don’t need. Or as Republicans call it, health care." – Jimmy Fallon
"They have to put Trump on every program, spewing his crazy ideas, because his poll numbers are so high. And his poll numbers are so high because they put him on every program, spewing his crazy ideas." – Jon Stewart
"Donald Trump says he's President Obama's worst nightmare. That's not true. Having to make a decision is Obama's worst nightmare." – Jay Leno


Top Ten Surprises On Barack Obama's Birth Certificate

10.Was born at a luau
9.Parents crossed out original choice for first name, "Gary"
8.Is a triplet, born with sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley Obama
7.Also released as an audiobook read by John Lithgow
6.It's covered in poi stains
5.Claims he's a baby when Obama is clearly an adult -- It's a forgery!
4.Under "Conspiracy"? They checked "No"
3.Document notarized by Magnum P.I.
2.Note reads "To be released only at the request of crazy-haired blowhard billionaires"
1.Fine print at bottom: Not an actual birth certificate


Barack Obama went on television yesterday to show reporters his long form birth certificate from Hawaii, supposedly to shut up Donald Trump. Instead of eating crow, Mr Trump loudly took credit for helping to solve the birth certificate debate, and in the next breath wondered how Mr Obama ever got into Harvard... If 15 states are trying to pass birther bills, where candidates have to prove that they were born in the USA, then shouldn't it be that the candidate's wife also should have been born in the US?

The birther phenomena, besides being a magnet for seriously disturbed and ignorant individuals, was a planned guerilla political tactic designed to puncture Barack Obama's legitimacy and authority as president. Just like the town hall protests, and the protests during John McCain rallies, it has its roots in both the minds of some Southern good-old boys, Karl Rove, and Grover Nordquist, who, in his college days, was enamored with Communism and their political tactics. Nordquist updated these tactics for modern times and people like Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour provided the white racist overtones.

Another argument being thrown at Obama like feces from a monkey, is that he has a radical, left-wing, Socialistic agenda, notably to be found in Obamacare, which is full of such horrendous ideas that many states are wanting to opt out of the system. Nothing of course, is farther from the truth, especially noted by members of the left-wing. Obama is a middle of the roader, sometimes liberal, and many times leaning conservatively. He is enamored by all things military, and supports clandestine operations and the hiring of mercenaries, the use of drones... I don't know why, that everyone who works in Washington, sooner or later imagines themselves as Mitch Rapp, taking no prisoners and yelling at Congressmen, you dismissive little pricks...

But still, the feces get thrown... The intensity of these attacks bother me, because they seem like their authors are about to jump through the newspaper and attack me, mouth foaming and eyes gleaming like Charlie Sheen... This morning, Mike Rosen, who is a local Rush Limbaugh wannabee, transcribed one of his radio shows into a column for the Denver Post, saying: "The Obama administration and its "czars," demagogic Democrats in Congress, progressive activists, media liberals, obstructionist labor unions and corrupt business executives seeking government favors all seem to have stepped right out of the pages of "Atlas Shrugged." They echo the language and agenda of Rand's 1950s villains, waging class warfare and inciting the masses to hobble the productive and loot the rich.


They vilify the very notion of competition as unkind and unfair to those who can't compete. Profits are evil. Individual excellence is penalized and subordinated to the interests of the collective. Dependence is rewarded. And risk-taking is deemed too hazardous to public safety..." This feels like Mike used a template supplied by Mr Nordquist and he merely had to fill in the blanks, down to the Orwellian imagery, like a good little clone... You are to hate the government employees, because they are "demagogic," "progressive," "obstructionist," and "corrupt," whose sole job it is to "incite the masses to hobble the productive and loot the rich." Helluva way to make a paycheck. Mike is one of those people who is too busy coming up with negative things to say, so that you can never have an actual conversation with him, unless you can bully him into submission. Come to think of it, it's also the same way to handle an out of control Donald Trump...

And still, there's no jobs. Colorado lost the most jobs in the last few years, and it looks like we are still spiraling downhill. Now that Pueblo nixed building that nuclear reactor facility, there's not much construction jobs happening, and you can't make a living filling in pot holes. We screw around over budget cuts that make no sense, that have nothing to do getting people back at work. 45,000 people die each year because they didn't get to a doctor in time. I almost died a couple of weeks ago, so I can attest to this. As we get more hopeless, we will see more petty theft, bank robberies, house invasions, and domestic violence, as our options get fewer, and their is no hiding place left... Or, as Bruce Springsteen said:

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

Born in the U.S.A...



Barack Obama announced his new security team, after Robert Gates retires. Leon Paneeta, current head of the CIA, will move over to become Secretary of Defense. He is the most capable bureaucrat and will do a good job. General David Petraeus will then move into Leon's spot as head of the CIA. This shows how badly Stanley McChrystal screwed up, because the CIA post would have gone to him, as he loves cloak and dagger work more than anybody else...


But the most momentous event that happened this week is the meeting in Egypt and subsequent agreement between Fatah and Hamas. They have agreed to join as one governing body and hold an election within a year. This is bold for Hamas, who probably will loose most of their influence. This is good news because now the Palestinians can have one united voice whenever they do go back into negotiating.

Israel hates this, and the propaganda machines have begun to diss the two factions, dragging the US into saying how much Hamas is a terrorist organization. Yes, they were a few years ago, but now they've been forced to grow up, what with the responsibility of administering Gaza. That they've done so poorly at this task is the main reason they will loose in an election. Seeking to break up this new friendship, Benjamin Netanyahu went on Israeli tv and said bluntly: “The Palestinian Authority has to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas...”

But it looks like Israel is becoming more extraneous to the peace process, as Arabs are dropping their silly feuds and working with each other. OK, unless you are an Arabian or Chinese dictator, then you nurture your feuds and fantasies, as the world passes you by. And the direct influence of Egypt led to the inspiration and possibilites that some old politicians can change their ways: "A desire for unity has been one goal that ordinary Palestinians in both areas have consistently said they sought. Until now it has proved elusive and leaders of the two factions have spoken of each other in vicious terms and jailed each other’s activists.


But with the Palestinians seeking international recognition of statehood at the United Nations by September, Mr. Abbas has repeatedly said that unity must be restored for a credible case to be made. Other recent developments also played a role.


As Mr. Ahmad said after the news conference in Cairo: “The changes in the Arab region and the political upheaval contributed to reducing the pressure on the Palestinian factions, and by pressure I mean the negative kind of pressure.” He said that he was referring to “the changing rules of the game in the region.”


The next step is to go before the UN and ask to be recognized as an independent state. If they can achieve this, then throw out the old militant people for ones who want to build businesses and an economy, like Salam Fayyad has done, then Palestine may have a chance to survive as a homeland for Palestinians... It's another small step in showing the region they can turn things around by themselves. Expect Turkey to become a major trading partner, as their economy is booming right now. They have had a history of booms and busts, twice over the last 20 years, so folks are watching the current boom a bit nervously.


Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Syria Getting Serious, Muktada al-Sadr and Barack Obama Join Illuminati, Barack Lacking Father Figure

Ezra Klein
John Avlon
George Friedman

"President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to oppose him." - Ezra Klein
"Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination. Because when the other candidates aren't generating enough excitement, it's time to bring out Gary Johnson." – Conan O'Brien

"His real name is Gary Hussein Johnson. That's where it gets interesting." – Conan O'Brien


The situation in Syria is pretty drastic, unless you are one of the region's conservative autocratic generals that fled to Syria for safety, and now is giving the security service advice. As a result, people have vanished from their homes at night, 500 protesters were just arrested in daylight, doctors have been arrested at their hospitals for treating injured protesters, and this weekend tanks were dusted off and put in use against those unarmed citizens.

Certain forces in the region don't want Assad to leave Syria. They don't want a liberal government that might become more friendly towards Israel, so you have a hot-headed, self-declared rebel group like Hezbollah aligned with the arrogant military leaders, who have had a history of murdering whole towns in the past. Then, Iran doesn't want to give away its hard fought for influence in Syria. A Syrian government run on more democratic principles would affect Iranian society  more than the other way around, in effect leaving Iran and Saudi Arabia as the only remaining religious dictatorships. If the Yemeni president does indeed step down, or he just lied to try and stop the protesting. Ironic, because Saudi arabia has tried to stop the encroaching influence of Iran and the Shias, and soon it may become equated with it as an old, anachronistic hold-out towards modernizing themselves. Plus, members of the royal family would no longer receive part of the oil revenues, maybe forced to give most of their fortunes back...

Ezra Klein has an opinion piece that Barack Obama actually has political positions like an Republican moderate used to have, which I've been saying for about a year now, and the Republican Party has gone so far to the right that it measures off the charts into loonyville. Have some tea, said the Mad Hatter... John Avlon profiles Ron Paul, the once obscure Texas representative who has espoused both sane and insane ideas under the guise of libertarianism. And George Friedman is concerned over the influence that Iran has and will have over Iraq once the US troops leave: "The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place.


What is actually going on is that the United States is urging the Iraqi government to change its mind on U.S. withdrawal, and it would like Iraq to change its mind right now in order to influence some of the events taking place in the Persian Gulf. The Shiite uprising in Bahrain and the Saudi intervention, along with events in Yemen, have created an extremely unstable situation in the region, and the United States is afraid that completing the withdrawal would increase the instability."

Sign of the devil
The person who will benefit the most is the one who has the largest private militia in place, and that person is still Muktada al-Sadr, who is in Iran studying to become a top ayatollah like the Ayatollah Khamenei, so he can be all things to the Iraqi people once he takes power and becomes another dictator for life. Hopefully, they will also fix his teeth... The US doesn't want that to happen, and there is a good chance it won't if Assad leaves Syria, meaning the Iraqi people won't stand for another dictator and would protest against an al-Sadr or al-Maliki assuming the mantle. Oh yeah, I'm sure that the desires of Israel are mixed in there somewhere, but they are mostly bystanders to these movements, and any goodwill they build up with Egypt or Libya can be negated the first time that Netanyahu or Lieberman open their mouths...

Since Syria is more important than poor old Libya in the geography of the Middle East, I'll bet most European leaders , as well as US do-gooders, are kicking themselves in the pants right now; if only they had waited, they could be invading the country they really want regime change in, instead of dealing with that crazy old coot in Libya, and his deranged sons, proving once again that the date doesn't fall far from the palm tree...



Today Ron Paul has announced forming an exploratory committee on running for president. If he can generate enough interest and get enough donations through the website, then he might be convinced to run. If not, he can pocket a nice chunk of change that doesn't have to be given back to the donors. It's how Newt Gingrich makes a lot of his income every four years, and might explain why there is an increasing number of candidates you've never heard of before.


Also making hand sign of the devil
Much has been said about Barack Obama's famous inability to make quick decisions. He waffles, explores all sides to a problem, then makes a decision when it's almost too late. To even get this far, Obama needs the advice of strong women like Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, because that's how he was raised, with the women as the authority figures. His waffling may come from how he deals with the male politicians, they are just his competion; he is best when he is debating someone and his competitive instincts have been aroused. But, since he grew up without a father figure, he has been looking for someone to have that mentoring bond. So far, he has gravitated towards the advice of some generals from the Pentagon, and he like Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA. Look to Leon becoming the next Secretary of Defense once robert Gates retires. Anyway, this explains Obama's fascination with war strategy and his jumping into the Libyan quagmire. sending more troops into Afghanistan, and his acceptance of hiring mercenaries and accelerated use of drones in Pakistan.






Sunday, April 24, 2011

The federal elections office has revealed that Donald Trump hasn't voted in an election in over 20 years...

Nicholas Kristoff
Andy Dehnart
Doyle McManus
"It's possible to still love The Apprentice even if you hate Trump's politics. In Trump's case, he's consistently shown as someone who cannot handle complex thinking, usually deals with evidence delivered secondhand, and always convinces himself that he's right. Which makes him, perhaps, the perfect presidential candidate for the Republican Party." - Andy Dehnart
"It just came out that Donald Trump once called Ronald Reagan 'a con man who couldn't deliver the goods.' Trump also called Abraham Lincoln 'a bearded moron who couldn't even sit through an hour of theater.'" – Conan O'Brien

"Sarah Palin has a 61 percent unfavorable rating in Alaska. That number jumps to 100 percent if you only ask the animals." – Conan O'Brien




The protests in Yemen may have worked, the current president for life has decided that it was a fun 26 years and now would be a good time to say he will resign. He said 30 days because he hasn't finished transferring his bank accounts to the Cayman Islands and Abu Dhabi yet... Then, he might be counting on the short attention span of his uneducated citizens, who would calm down after 30 days with nothing to protest over. Then, he can show pictures of himself crossing his fingers behind his back while saying, have I ever lied to you?

 The next meeting of the Arab League will certainly be awkward.

The only danger with all of these protests is how addicting it is, being out on the streets with the adrenaline rush from dodging bullets and running from police. As Egypt is finding out, it's easier to tear things apart than it is building them back again... Bashar al-Assad can only hope that he doesn't piss off his citizens enough that they resort to the Ceausescu solution. The story goes that when the Communist dictatorship in Romania fell, the crowd rushed the imperial palace and literally tore Nicolai Ceausescu and his wife limb from limb...

The religious intolerance shown in Iraq, by attacking Christians and making life unpleasant enough that they will leave the country, may end up with more US troops stationed there than originally planned.  The rest will be led by drones down the shining path towards Tripoli, the new bi-polar capital of Libya. God only knows what has happened to Qaddafi's mental stability, if we thought he was eccentric and dingy before, we can hardly wait and see what his first post-protest rally will look like. Thankfully, he has his brutal sons to take over for him, and can keep him locked up and talking to himself like an old Hollywood actress aged past her prime... But what will probably happen is that al Jazeera will sign up the Qaddafi's for a reality television show, Life With Moammar... I know it will be a hit throughout the Middle East, and to attract an American audience we can sign up Ozzy Osborne and Kim Kardashian, or one of their lesser know offspring or siblings, hosted by Donald Trump...




No longer welcome in the state of Florida, and that is saying something, the rag-tag band of super-evangelicals that follow the self-appointed pastor Terry Jones, are migrating through the US, looking for a new home. They hoped to settle in Michigan, because they heard that the godless denizens of Dearborn had adopted Sharia law for their city. Although they come in peace, Pastor Terry brought along his handgun, which he proceeded in blowing a hole through the floor of his car. Terry, try not to fondle things that are fully loaded... I'm not sure where else this roaming hive would be accepted, unless hey converted to Mormonism and found a new home in the Southwest... But then, Glen Beck might need his space to stretch out after he leaves the Fox network... As noted in TPM, the mayor of Dearborn let them know that they still had their strip clubs, bars, and pork sausage factories...


Arizona's John Kyl, now proved to be one of Congress's biggest buffoons, was thoroughly embarrassed after making an incorrect statement about Planned Parenthood and abortion that was written into the Congressional Record. His office later issued a statement that John had not intended for it to be a factual statement, which drew all kinds of hoots and laughter. For example, one Washington blog said: "But I wish Jon Kyl had gone a step farther. If you’re not intending to make a factual statement, why even say something with numbers in it? Go big, or go home, say I! If you don’t even vaguely sort of possibly intend to make a factual statement, the sky is the limit. You could just start reciting the Book of Job. You could say something colorful, like, “Planned Parenthood is responsible for what happened to the unicorns” or just look into the eyes of Congress and murmur, “I love you.”

TPM reported that John then went to the Congressional Record and changed his statement so he wouldn't look so bad and hopefully, thwarting future searches on the Internet. The original statement from Kyl: "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

After Kyl amended his remarks, the congressional record now reads: "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenthood does."

Stephen Colbert then started a thread on Twitter, letting his readers come up with bunches of clever Kylisms. Stephen began the fun with this: "Jon Kyl is one of Gaddafi's sexy female ninja guards#notintendedtobeafactualstatement

Here's another bunch sent in:

Jon Kyl is an accomplished nude hula dancer. He is not welcome in Hawaii.

For the past 10 years, Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit.

Jon Kyl cheated on Sandra Bullock.

Once a year, Jon Kyl retreats to the Arizona desert and deposits 2 million egg sacs under the sand.

Citing religious reasons, Jon Kyl refuses to utter the number 8.

Jon Kyl once ate a badger he hit with his car.

Carly Simon wrote that song about Jon Kyl.

Legally, Jon Kyl cannot be within 100 yards of Helen Mirren.

Jon Kyl has a shrine to Scooter from the Muppet Show.

Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies.

Jon Kyl was sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner.



And at the Daily Kos, they used some Republican catchphrases that are also not intended to be factual statements:

"Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves."

"The Estate Tax Destroys Family Farms and Small Businesses."

"Death Panels."

"A Government Takeover of Health Care."

"No American is Denied Health Care."

"The Health Care Law Adds to the Deficit."

"Barack Obama Was Not Born in the United States."

"Barack Obama is a Muslim."

"Public Employees Are Overpaid."

"We Went to War [with Iraq] Because We Were Attacked."

"Abortion Causes Cancer and Psychological Trauma for Women."





Thursday, April 21, 2011

Beck, Brewer, and Bachmann, Ryan Getting a Taste

Doyle McManus
Reid Wilson
"Michele Bachmann said Planned Parenthood is the Lenscrafters of Big Abortion.' Which is a realy double-whammy because the conservatives hate Planned Parenthood and they hate Lenscrafters, because Lenscrafters makes glasses, and that could lead to reading." – Bill Maher
"In an interview yesterday, Donald Trump said he has a good relationship with 'the blacks.' Well, not anymore." – Jimmy Kimmel
"President Obama released his 2010 tax return. It turns out that he made $1.7 million and spent $14 trillion." – Conan O'Brien


As expected, the Republican presidential playing field is casting a wide net, drawing in candidates that don't have a chance and don't have a clue. Who, outside of an occasional coffeeshop in Albuquerque, has ever heard of Gary johnson? Or cares? For our amusement and entertainment, the GOP candidates are beginning to rip into each other like a circling pack of rabid hyenas. Donald Trump is proving how uninformed on the issues he really is, and Glen Beck is sniping at Mike Huckabee, shame on him. They are feuding over Michelle Obama's crusade against fat kids, with Mike being all for it, and Glen calling him a "progressive" for supporting it. We all know what happens when Glen attacks, but rarely get to see the other person's argument, so here's Mike Huckabee's reaction, taken from his weblog:

"This week Glenn Beck has taken to his radio show to attack me as a progressive, which he has said is the same as a ‘cancer’ and a ‘Nazi. What did I do that apparently caused him to link me to a fatal disease and a form of government that murdered millions of innocent Jews?


"I had the audacity — not of hope — but the audacity to give respect to the efforts of first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to address childhood obesity. I’m no fan of her husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented — either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another ‘boogey man’ hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The first lady’s approach is about personal responsibility — not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth. He seems to fancy himself a prophet of sorts for his linking so many people and events together to describe a massive global conspiracy for pretty much everything.” Mike's problems with weight loss are well documented, and Glen, who is a pudgy person himself, obviously has the need to get out and start moving around, seems to be in some kind of death throes, flailing around at what he perceives to be easy targets. Notice he didn't attack Michelle Obama herself, she could crush him like a bug...

I think that Sarah Palin may not throw her hat into the ring, thinking that it would be best to wait to run against someone other than Barack Obama. If he gets re-elected, the political drift of the public will probably swing again towards the Republicans, and she would do better to be seen as a strong candidate in 2016, while all of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates end up looking like the worst bunch of losers...

And the public can be fickle and cruel, just ask yesterday's darling, Paul Ryan. Paul thought that by offering an actual budget plan this year, the Republicans would be taken more seriously. He may not have counted on people actually reading it, or he is so blinded by either ideology or narcissism, take your pick, to think that he would be applauded. At a townhall meeting last night Paul Ryan was booed by the audience whenever he referred to his plan, something nobody expected, and he had to retreat. The pressure is ON in Wisconsin... all politicians need a healthy dose of reality and should be booed on occasion. They can't all be blissfully unaware like Ken Buck still is, even to this day...

If the current audacity continues with more laws passed by the states that give their Republican governors dictatorial powers, there will be outright rebellion. What Grover Nordquist and his minions don't perceive is that folks may or may not strike against pay and holidays, but mess around with their self-respect and dignity, and you have lost, a lesson sorely being learned in the Middle East right now. For every human right that's restored in Egypt and Tunisia, one is taken away in Wisconsin and Florida... Or, as is so eloquently put in the Asia Times by Tom Engelhardt : "As foreign and domestic crises collide, it's clear the US empire is walking into the night. At home, faith in the political system is lost, while the strange dance in Libya shows Washington has no conviction in the power it yields. The network of subservient semi-client states will rebel and this time, there will be no Rambo to save the day...."



In fact, the women of the GOP are looking the most level headed, maybe they are beginning to fight like girls.. What with Jan Brewer vetoing the recent two tea party bills in Arizona, that would allow carrying guns at schools and requiring any candidate running for federal office to provide proof to the Arizona Secretary of State. Jan used to be the Secretary of State, so she knows the limitations of the job, and verifying someone for Federal office is one of them.


Also, Michele Bachmann has come out as saying that if the president says he was born in the US, that's fine with her. When shown a copy of the president's actual birth certificate, allowed out of Hawaii by recent Hawaiian law, she said that the issue was settled by her. She may actually be serious about running as a candidate, if it has gotten her to think before she speaks... Are they angling for a Bachmann - Brewer ticket? Or is there a different Sharron Angle to
all of this, waiting in the wings?..


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

That's Funny, You Don't Look Cartoonish, Dictator's Manifesto

Economist article on China's Princelings
Eugene Robinson
"Donald Trump said he will not decide about a possible run for the presidency until after the current season of 'Celebrity Apprentice' wraps up. Say what you want about Trump, at least this guy has his priorities in order. He doesn't want to let any reality get in the way of his reality show." – Jay Leno
"Donald Trump has a great campaign slogan: 'A complex world demands complex hair.'" – David Letterman
"Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination. He has a slogan to win over the Republicans: 'Vote for me, I'm not Trump.'" – Craig Ferguson



Not much has been going on in the news, or have I become too jaded, everything just seems cartoonish, used to tsunamis, tornados, war, and the threat of nuclear meltdown to be able to focus on local and mundane events? I yawn when confronted with the schizophrenic behavior of al-Assad in Syria, simultaneously ending martial law and shooting to kill those ungrateful protesters. I merely chuckle when I read that Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer, vetoed the newly passed birther bill, citing grounds that it was unconstitutional. I did laugh at Louisiana's Bobby Jindal saying that he would sign a bill like that into law if it came across his desk. Poor Bobby, he'll do or say anything for a few more minutes in the national spotlight, his 15 minutes were rapidly used up when he opened his mouth and spoke... and I forgot where I heard that Donald Trump's running mate should be Gary Busey, either Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert...



The military still hasn't officially put the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell into effect, they are waiting until they perform a few studies, then take the results to a policy group, who will study the best way to make the study's results into official policy. Enough procrastinating to last at least two more years and another election... The military has also moved their pesky gay prisoner, the one that they were stripping naked every night because he might prove suicidal, and placed him at Leavenworth, Kansas. Dan Manning is accused of downloading low level intelligence reports from embassy officials from all over the world and posting them with wikileaks, because he was mad at the military for not repealing the DADT policy, or because he was a computer nerd who enjoyed hacking into files he was not allowed to, or because he thought that the files were so lame that there was no way they should remain secret, or because he just so happened to have an empty thumb drive with him at work one day, or because he envisioned the time that he would get to show off his naked body to a bunch of marine guards watching him on videotape every night... He'll be getting the same treatment at his new digs, and they might even come up with a few more humiliations for the man they already have branded a traitor. Let's just say that no-one's baking him fresh cookies anytime soon.



Now that the global focus is on corruption in our governments, will anyone actually do something about it, or just talk some smack like Dmitry Medvedev or Hu Jintao, and let dishonest business as usual continue? Too bad we don't have any enterprising young journalists to compile these stories of greed and corruption, naming names and corporations involved. It might be interesting to see if the complaints from Iraq are the same as the complaints in Bahrain and Syria, or Argentina and the US... You would think that an international police group like Interpol would have a similar database, but they don't, just reported crimes. Transparency International lists countries in an index of most honest to most corrupt, but they don't compile all of the complaints, just count them. Perhaps once we capture Qaddafi, we can sit him down in a room with Mubarak, Baby Doc Duvalier, and Laurent Gbagbo, and question them on their favorite forms of corrupt practices. Maybe call it the Dictator's Manifesto, or Conference of the Jailbirds... forward by Lil' Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud...


That's Funny, You Don't Look Cartoonish, Dictator's Manifesto

Economist article on China's Princelings
Eugene Robinson
"Donald Trump said he will not decide about a possible run for the presidency until after the current season of 'Celebrity Apprentice' wraps up. Say what you want about Trump, at least this guy has his priorities in order. He doesn't want to let any reality get in the way of his reality show." – Jay Leno
"Donald Trump has a great campaign slogan: 'A complex world demands complex hair.'" – David Letterman
"Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination. He has a slogan to win over the Republicans: 'Vote for me, I'm not Trump.'" – Craig Ferguson



Not much has been going on in the news, or have I become too jaded, everything just seems cartoonish, used to tsunamis, tornados, war, and the threat of nuclear meltdown to be able to focus on local and mundane events? I yawn when confronted with the schizophrenic behavior of al-Assad in Syria, simultaneously ending martial law and shooting to kill those ungrateful protesters. I merely chuckle when I read that Arizona's Governor, Jan Brewer, vetoed the newly passed birther bill, citing grounds that it was unconstitutional. I did laugh at Louisiana's Bobby Jindal saying that he would sign a bill like that into law if it came across his desk. Poor Bobby, he'll do or say anything for a few more minutes in the national spotlight... and I forgot where I heard that Donald Trump's running mate should be Gary Busey, either Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert...



The military still hasn't officially put the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell into effect, they are waiting until they perform a few studies, then take the results to a policy group, who will study the best way to make the study's results into official policy. Enough procrastinating to last at least two more years and another election... The military has also moved their pesky gay prisoner, the one that they were stripping naked every night because he might prove suicidal, and placed him at Leavenworth, Kansas. Dan Manning is accused of downloading low level intelligence reports from embassy officials from all over the world and posting them with wikileaks, because he was mad at the military for not repealing the DADT policy, or because he was a computer nerd who enjoyed hacking into files he was not allowed to, or because he thought that the files were so lame that there was no way they should remain secret, or because he just so happened to have an empty thumb drive with him at work one day, or because he envisioned the time that he would get to show off his naked body to a bunch of marine guards watching him on videotape every night... He'll be getting the same treatment at his new digs, and they might even come up with a few more humiliations for the man they already have branded a traitor. Let's just say that no-one's baking him fresh cookies anytime soon.



Now that the global focus is on corruption in our governments, will anyone actually do something about it, or just talk some smack like Dmitry Medvedev or Hu Jintao, and let dishonest business as usual continue? Too bad we don't have any enterprising young journalists to compile these stories of greed and corruption, naming names and corporations involved. It might be interesting to see if the complaints from Iraq are the same as the complaints in Bahrain and Syria, or Argentina and the US... You would think that an international police group like Interpol would have a similar database, but they don't, just reported crimes. Transparency International lists countries in an index of most honest to most corrupt, but they don't compile all of the complaints, just count them. Perhaps once we capture Qaddafi, we can sit him down in a room with Mubarak, Baby Doc Duvalier, and Laurent Gbagbo, and question them on their favorite forms of corrupt practices. Maybe call it the Dictator's Manifesto... forward by Lil' Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud...



















































Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sunday Rant: From Art of Fracking To Donald's Adonis Comb-Over DNA

David Ignatius
Howard Fineman
Doyle McManus

"The brutal truth is that Libya doesn't matter very much. It's a desert backwater of 6 million people with little influence over the rest of the Middle East. The main reason Libya matters at all is that President Obama and his NATO allies have taken it on as a challenge" - Doyle McManus
" Ayn Rand is blazing back as an icon of the Tea Party, which overlooks her atheism, amorality in romance and vigorous support for abortion." - Maureen Dowd
"Barack Obama was supposed to be something new and different. He ran by presenting himself as a Reagan-level change agent, a new synthesis. But aside from a health-care plan that is in large measure a give away to the industry -- and aside from spending tons of money on tax cuts and two and a half wars -- he hasn't really been either a force for change or a staunch defender of the progressive heritage. Witness the budget deal he just agreed to." - Howard Fineman

I've been reading up on the art of fracking, which sounds like it came from a children's cartoon show, but is the art of extracting natural gas trapped beneath a solid layer of rock 7000 feet below ground. What seems to bother most investigators is that the oil companies doing this fracking, or fractured extraction, don't seem to know what items are being added to the large amounts of water used to force the rock apart. Some places there have been known poisons and carcinogens added, in others there are weird items like walnut shells, sodium, and citric acid. I've come to the realization that there isn't one formula being used, the oil companies are adding old things past their due date from the food and drug industries. Instead of dumping these items on third world countries in the form of aid, they are dumping the stuff deep underground. At least that explains where all the red dye #2 went...

 Doesn't it seem like we are storing way too much stuff underground? People who say that they are worried what their grandchildren will inherit are lying, they know too well what they will get and the half-life of the material they are giving them. There is an old uranium mine, closed for over 30 years, located above Denver, that is having problems with contaminating the water-table with old tailings, and nobody has come up with a solution other than offering free x-rays to the victims. And in Pueblo, they are trying to get permission to build a nuclear plant, which was OK until people realized that it's physical plans are the same as the ones currently melting down in Japan.

The current debate over how big the federal government should be is a red herring, it's not the debate we need to have. The changes that sorely need to be made in our government is about incompetent workers and regulators. Case in point, The office of Mineral Management changed directors, yet hasn't changed any of its policies regarding drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It's obvious that someone's idiot child drew up what a blowout preventer is, the design is flawed and the resulting monstrosity doesn't work. But the government has been giving out permits for deep water drilling based on the oil companies using these faulty preventers. There has been absolutely no research and development towards making something that can actually work when things go horribly wrong, so we are setting ourselves up for another major disaster in the Gulf or off the coast of Alaska. The government has been accepting emergency plans with a date of 2008 on them, and there is more pressure on them by the current batch of Republicans to speed up the permit process.

Most of the really incompetent people were hired into government work from a plan directed by Darth Vader himself. The idea was to seed the bureaus with people who would purposely or inadvertently sabotage the efficiency and reliability, giving the Republicans an excuse to get rid of large sections of the government bureaucracy, and we'd be too pissed off at the government to protest such an obvious and lame-brained ploy. But the Bush administration spent eight years hiring these incompetents, let them burrow in so they couldn't be replaced when a Democrat was elected, and we have spent two years off yelling among ourselves and making cute signs based on tea party jokes...

And the joke is on us, because we don't yell back at The Donald's idiocy in public, equating him with having some of Charlie Sheen's tiger blood and adonis comb-over dna. It can only get more fun as more GOP hopefuls announce their candidacy for president. Time for some forums, or better yet, let's start having town-hall meetings again, pretend that they were a common political practice when hardly anyone ever used them before two years ago, and none after the shooting of Ms Giffords. Suck it up punks, I want to see how Newt and Mit and Haley are gonna walk tall in the Land of the Brave while pretending it's still The Land of the Free...





Saturday, April 16, 2011

Good Morning Syria! China, and Dreaming of Roasting Donald Trump

Paul Krugman
Gail Collins

"Michele Bachmann referred to Planned Parenthood as the LensCrafters of abortion. Then it got worse when she referred to Massachusetts as the Sunglass Hut of gay marriage." – Conan O'Brien
"Political experts are saying NBC should take 'Celebrity Apprentice' off the air because if Trump runs for president, he could use it as an unfair platform. Because nothing says 'leader of the free world' like someone who can't stop a fight between Meat Loaf and Gary Busey." –Conan O'Brien

"It's the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. A new poll found that 23 percent of Americans sympathize with the Confederacy. They are described as 'not African-Americans.'" – Conan O'Brien

It's good to see that their probation period is over, and now Conan O'Brien is paying his joke writers a regular wage. If left on his own, the poor boy is so, so unfunny...

Hot, breaking news, if you are from Syria: President For Life Bashar al-Assad went on television this morning and announced that the decree of martial law that has been in effect for the last 50 years will be rescinded by sometime next week, so stop protesting and get back to work, you ungrateful rabble! Mr Assad, nicknamed the Rand Paul of the Middle East, made the announcement because he couldn't figure out any other way to please the growing crowds protesting outside of his door, and, horror of all horrors, some were even chanting for a regime change. Wanting to portray a paternalistic yet tough guy image, marketing an image he hopes will endure for another 50 years, Bashar: "...warned there will no longer be "an excuse" for organizing protests after Syria lifts the emergency laws and implements reforms.


"After that, we will not tolerate any attempt at sabotage," he told the newly formed Cabinet in a televised address." That's right, those Syrians who just want to sleep through the night without getting arrested are now being called saboteurs. If he called them terrorists, it could be construed as a call for jihad by Sunni al-Qaeda against the Shia Syrian government...

Notice how low profile Iran has become. They are stuck with the quandary of wanting to support the Shia who are protesting in Bahrain against the Sunni government, while beating down their own protesters who come out in favor of this. Now, there are predominantly Shia protesters in Syria chanting for freedom against another Baath Party dictator in Syria. As the major Shia majority in the Middle East, Iran seems diminished by the intensity and fervor of the protests, which are creeping into Saudi Arabia. the Saudis are backing themselves into a corner and things may backfire against them. They have been focused on building a Sunni coalition against Iran, but the protests today, against lack of freedoms and corruption in governments, are also stirring inside the Kingdom. The royal family that matters are mostly old folks set in their ways, and not able to see how they must change how they rule, and give up more of the money from selling oil... Who would have thought that the day would come when the leaders of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco would show everyone how to lead the way forward without shooting your citizens... Of course, Syria could take it one step further and outlaw the GOP of the Middle East, the Baath Party, like they have just done in Iraq. Although the Iraqis are pretty busy creating new forms of dictatorships and warlords with their own private militias, getting ready for those peaceful times after the Americans have gone.

The rulers of China, a bunch of right-wing reactionaries all, have gone around the bend and are living in a world of instant insanity. They have arrested 57 more people who were associated with human rights activities, on top of the others previously arrested within the last few months, to sit in jail without being charged of a crime, or face some bogus trumped up charge like crimes against the ego of the state... What I don't understand, is why this generation of old Chinese men are so afraid of a little bit of criticism. After all, the generation before them were up there at the top of paranoid politicians along with Hitler and Stalin, Mao was such a dry, crusty-assed SOB that he had to have soldiers stick their hands up his butt to retrieve the dry, humorless pellets he produced. Why continue on this vein, or this prolapsed colon, if it produces the same crappy society? Doesn't each generation have a responsibility to make things better, unless you are Paul Ryan? Or is the system able to suck the compassion and imagination that is needed to be a good leader? Oh, that does explain the GOP's consistent approach to politics...


One of the most frustrating things to being a nobody blogger that no-one has ever heard of, besides the fact that the Huffington Post will not reply to my emails, is that I can never get to ask people in the news questions. The closest I get to seeing anything similar to my opinions, is when John Stewart makes fun of some blowhard politician after the fact. None of the talk shows on the weekends have normal-yet-interesting people to talk with their pundits. I have friends that are a lot more fun to talk to than Wolf Blitzer, and more insightful than a Sarah Palin or Eliot Spitzer. Currently, I want to be there the next time that the arrogant know-nothing Donald Trump has an interview. I don't even mind it if he bashes Barack Obama, but I do mind that there isn't anyone talking back and calling him on his load of BS... I guess he feels that the kind of people who watch his television show are Jerry Springer rejects without a brain in their heads, and he is pandering to their level of trash talking, dangerous for man who has gone bankrupt several times and has a fetish for Eastern European blonds, real or imagined... The latest Trumpism is his claim that it was Bill Ayers who actually wrote his book Audacity of Hope. This is because Donald, and all of the current bevy of politicians, from Sarah to Pawlenty to Romney, all have used ghost writers; otherwise they would all come off as illiterate jerks... I know that people are predicting that donald would shake up politics if he did run for president, but I don't see it. Trump is a brand name and everything he does is a marketing tool to promote himself, hoping that would help him make more money. It may work on shallow celebrities who want to be his apprentice (note - I have never seen the show, so I haven't the faintest clue what goes on), or it may work on the rubes who wander into his casinos, thinking they are in the lap of luxury as they are losing money by the fist-fulls... Donald's campaign would take that kind of marketing up to the next level, the presidency as a popular children's cereal, brought to you by the makers of levitra...

In the last few years there have been over 17,000 journalists who have lost their jobs, and schools like the University of Colorado at Boulder are getting rid awarding journalism degrees. That leaves the small time folk like myself willing to toil away for nothing, our only reward is going to bed at night, dreaming of roasting Donald Trump. A drug OD was not not the way to go, Giraldo...