I have found an awesome book, and I simply have to share
with you all. It is entitled:
     How to Win a Fight with a Conservative
     by Daniel Kurtzman (2007)
It describes the ways in which we can fight the LefTake &  Facebook,
Rethuglican, Beckhead trolls that we all deal with on a daily basis. To
introduce the pure genius of this book, I present to you an excerpt from the
final chapter:

When all else fails: 27,000 ways to insult conservatives

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Last weekend, the Beckwad claimed that President Obama was a follower of Liberation Theology. He did this in his usual back-handed manner, making it into an epithet.  

Now, you know I am against all religions, and think anyone who believes in magical sky fairies is completely deluded. However, I thought I might explore this theology, and contrast it to The Family, which is followed by a large number of our nation's elected leaders. What I found is that they are polar opposites, and yet purport to follow the same Christ.

It should be fairly apparent during the comparison, that the Republican Party and Fox News follow the tenets of The Family.

---

WikiLeaks has done it again. First was the leaked video showing a gruesome attack on unarmed civilians in Iraq. (They were carrying CAMERAS, because they were Reuters journalists). And now it is their Afghan War Diary. http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/

We all know there are so many elected positions up for grabs this November, and I'm sure we've all seen some pretty crazy ads. (Can you say "Demon Sheep"?) Who are you pulling for, and who are you hoping goes down in flames? Are these folks Democrats, Independents or Republicans? Do you like anyone in the Tea Party? Which are your favorite ads so far, and which do you find offensive? Who is not running, but you really wish would run for political office? Discuss.

Just as Dubya was misunderestimated, Sarah Palin has been refudiated.

Recently, Sarah Palin went on Twitter and called on peaceful Muslims to refudiate the building of a mosque at ground zero. The fact that "refudiate" is not a word caused her no dismay, but she likened herself to Shakespeare in creating words. Well, the gates of Twitter Hell opened up on that one. There is a new search on Twitter called #shakespalin, along with a new user id, in which Twitter users come up with some golden Shakespeare paraphrases. Several of them actually made to Time News Feeds. http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/...

Here are just a few goodies:

Albert Einstein said "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Well, looks like Americans are truly insane, because I think the Republicans are going to make significant gains in the House and Senate come November, even though they have yet to propose any policies other than the same ones they have been pushing for 30 years, and which have brought us to the brink of ruin.

We are constantly bombarded with examples of hypocrisy and false information from the right, and, no matter how many times it is refuted and repudiated by those of us on the left, the onslaught just continues. And, the sheep (the tea baggers, the fiscal libertarians/social conservatives, the religious extremists, the militia groups, etc) just keep eating it up. The leadership on the right is feeding us a banquet of bullshit, and the sheep act like it is a 7 course dinner.

I was cheered today to see that the report on Climate Gate cleared the scientists of wrong doing. Pretty much every news source is reporting on this, basically saying the same thing.

The scientists could have done a better job of presenting their findings, but the research is valid. The world is suffering from global climate change, and that change is man-made.

There is so little I can add to this article. It pretty much speaks for itself. Michael Steele has finally, completely, lost his effing marbles.

No, they're not really choosing to end their own lives, but seriously, they seem to revel in political suicide. I cannot figure out if they are so arrogant as to believe that their sh** don't stink, are so stupid as to realize that what comes out of their mouths has consequences, or are just so insane as to believe the rest of us think like they do. Here's a rehash of attempted political suicides from the last few weeks, including a couple of new ones...
Feel free to add your own favorite memorable quotes to this list.

---

I'm sure we all recall Sarah Failin's snide little remarks last week about President Obama being in the back pocket of big oil because he received campaign donations in 2008 from BP employees. Ludicrous, obviously, as these were donations from private individuals, and not from corporate. http://climateprogress.org/201...

Like clockwork, media outlets seized  on Palin's accusation and cited Center for Responsive Politics' calculation that Obama had received $71,051 in BP-linked contributions for his presidential campaign. Only problem is, contrary to Palin's and the media's suggestions, all of that money came from BP employees, not BP the company. A spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics confirmed Monday that "the $71,051 that Obama received during the 2008 election cycle was entirely from BP employees." The CRP spokesman also stated that "Obama did not accept contributions from political action committees, so none of this money is from BP's PAC. And corporations themselves are prohibited from donating directly to candidates from their corporate treasuries."

Well, look at what we have happening now. Hell-iburton is being investigated for its part in the Gulf oil spill, and, of course, they are passing out cash to the investigators as fast as they can.
http://www.politico.com/news/s...

Of the 10 current members of Congress who got money from Halliburton in May, seven are on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath.

Halliburton's political contributions in May are the highest they've been since September 2009, when the PAC also gave $17,000 in donations. In fact, the last time the company gave more than $17,000 in one month was when it donated $25,000 during the heat of the presidential campaign in September 2008.

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce's investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton's reelection effort. It was Halliburton's second-largest donation of the month - topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate.

In the Senate, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, who serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, who serves on the Commerce Committee and North Carolina Republican Richard Burr (N.C.), who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, all got $1,000. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also got $1,000.

In the House Reps. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), who serves on the Natural Resources Committee, Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich.) all received $1,000 from the oil giant.

Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren, the only Democrat who got Halliburton's money, is on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Does anyone else find this utterly revolting, and yet at the same time, no big shocker?

This is too funny, and makes me think folks are finally starting to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for 30 years by the conservative media.

Fox host Van Susteren asks blog readers to gauge her intelligence

For journalists, hate mail comes with the territory. And it can come at any moment, with critics instantly shooting off emails when someone ticks them off on a blog or on the air.  

Fox News host Greta Van Susteren has surely received audience complaints before - but a recent email exchange irked her enough to take issue with it on her own blog. And in a move that Fox executives probably would have tried to discourage had they been consulted, Van Susteren also urged her blog readers to weigh in on the central point raised by her correspondent: that she is, well, rather dimly lit.

It all started when Brian of Tahlequah, Okla., told Van Susteren she had a "mind like a seive" (yes, it should be "sieve"). Brian didn't stop there: He also wanted the host to know that her "brain is empty."

"Matter of fact, it is so empty, if you put a pea in your skull it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar," he wrote.

In her blog post, Van Susteren responded with a few questions - and several question marks. "Why does Brian watch if he thinks I am so stupid?" she wrote. "How stupid is that????"

Perhaps expecting fans to rally around her, Van Susteren polled the audience as to who's dumber: Van Susteren or the guy watching a show he doesn't like. As of this writing, after more than 12,000 votes, the results aren't in the host's favor: 67 percent of respondents say Van Susteren is dumber.

Still, she can probably take comfort in the performance that a Fox colleague, Clayton Morris, turned in on Friday's "Fox and Friends" broadcast. Reading an unrevised cue card in faithful Ron Burgundy style, Morris twice referred to himself as co-host Steve Doocy, at the beginning and end of a segment he was announcing. Perhaps the next poll on Van Susteren's blog will invite readers to pit Morris' intellectual heft against her own.

- Michael Calderone is the media writer for Yahoo! News.

Here are the results so far:

Who is dumber?
Greta? 72% (12,389 votes)
Brian for spending his time watching someone he thinks is dumb 28% (4,919 votes)
Total Votes: 17,308

http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews...

We're not going Greek anytime soon, no matter what Faux Noise says.
From Paul Krugman at the New York Times:

Op-Ed Columnist
We're Not Greece
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 13, 2010
It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the crisis in Greece is making some people - people who opposed health care reform and are itching for an excuse to dismantle Social Security - very, very happy. Everywhere you look there are editorials and commentaries, some posing as objective reporting, asserting that Greece today will be America tomorrow unless we abandon all that nonsense about taking care of those in need.

The truth, however, is that America isn't Greece - and, in any case, the message from Greece isn't what these people would have you believe.

So, how do America and Greece compare?

Both nations have lately been running large budget deficits, roughly comparable as a percentage of G.D.P. Markets, however, treat them very differently: The interest rate on Greek government bonds is more than twice the rate on U.S. bonds, because investors see a high risk that Greece will eventually default on its debt, while seeing virtually no risk that America will do the same. Why?

One answer is that we have a much lower level of debt - the amount we already owe, as opposed to new borrowing - relative to G.D.P. True, our debt should have been even lower. We'd be better positioned to deal with the current emergency if so much money hadn't been squandered on tax cuts for the rich and an unfunded war. But we still entered the crisis in much better shape than the Greeks.

Even more important, however, is the fact that we have a clear path to economic recovery, while Greece doesn't.

The U.S. economy has been growing since last summer, thanks to fiscal stimulus and expansionary policies by the Federal Reserve. I wish that growth were faster; still, it's finally producing job gains - and it's also showing up in revenues. Right now we're on track to match Congressional Budget Office projections of a substantial rise in tax receipts. Put those projections together with the Obama administration's policies, and they imply a sharp fall in the budget deficit over the next few years.

Greece, on the other hand, is caught in a trap. During the good years, when capital was flooding in, Greek costs and prices got far out of line with the rest of Europe. If Greece still had its own currency, it could restore competitiveness through devaluation. But since it doesn't, and since leaving the euro is still considered unthinkable, Greece faces years of grinding deflation and low or zero economic growth. So the only way to reduce deficits is through savage budget cuts, and investors are skeptical about whether those cuts will actually happen.

It's worth noting, by the way, that Britain - which is in worse fiscal shape than we are, but which, unlike Greece, hasn't adopted the euro - remains able to borrow at fairly low interest rates. Having your own currency, it seems, makes a big difference.

In short, we're not Greece. We may currently be running deficits of comparable size, but our economic position - and, as a result, our fiscal outlook - is vastly better.

That said, we do have a long-run budget problem. But what's the root of that problem? "We demand more than we're willing to pay for," is the usual line. Yet that line is deeply misleading.

First of all, who is this "we" of whom people speak? Bear in mind that the drive to cut taxes largely benefited a small minority of Americans: 39 percent of the benefits of making the Bush tax cuts permanent would go to the richest 1 percent of the population.

And bear in mind, also, that taxes have lagged behind spending partly thanks to a deliberate political strategy, that of "starve the beast": conservatives have deliberately deprived the government of revenue in an attempt to force the spending cuts they now insist are necessary.

Meanwhile, when you look under the hood of those troubling long-run budget projections, you discover that they're not driven by some generalized problem of overspending. Instead, they largely reflect just one thing: the assumption that health care costs will rise in the future as they have in the past. This tells us that the key to our fiscal future is improving the efficiency of our health care system - which is, you may recall, something the Obama administration has been trying to do, even as many of the same people now warning about the evils of deficits cried "Death panels!"

So here's the reality: America's fiscal outlook over the next few years isn't bad. We do have a serious long-run budget problem, which will have to be resolved with a combination of health care reform and other measures, probably including a moderate rise in taxes. But we should ignore those who pretend to be concerned with fiscal responsibility, but whose real goal is to dismantle the welfare state - and are trying to use crises elsewhere to frighten us into giving them what they want.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Matt.

Yeah, I know this is short. But this is so classic! I was laughing my butt off in the office today when I saw this.

Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourettes.

Well, the law has not even taken effect yet, and US citizens are already being arrested for not carrying their birth certificates. Oh yeah, this law was a good idea. NOT.

For anyone who thought that profiling would not really occur, here's a big FUCK YOU!

Wonder if Lie-berman and Brown will try to revoke their citizenship?

I am sure we have all seen on the news recently about the oil rig explosion and subsequent oil slick. Efforts to cap this slick have all failed, and this morning it was announced that the leak is actually spilling 5 times as much oil into the Gulf of Mexico as was previously assumed, and that there are 3 leaks in the pipe, NOT 2. The present cost of cleanup is about $8 billion (with a "B"), and the oil is rapidly approaching the Louisiana coastline.

Once the oil reaches the coast, it will cause an ecological disaster by destroying the wetlands and indigenous species. The Coast Guard has attempted to burn off the surface oil, but this is also going to cause problems with the native ecosystems.

With five times more oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico than originally estimated and the price tag for last week's explosion predicted at $8 billion, questions about BP's response and level of responsibility are mounting
...
Parts of the massive spill were lit on fire Wednesday as part of a controlled yet risky burn as a last resort to try and stop the oil slick from reaching the coastline.

"It's not a perfect solution," said Jackie Savitz Sr., campaign director for the Oceana Pollution Program. "It does increase air pollution and it can cause inhalation problems for marine life."

Officials may try another burn but it appears the oil will reach the coastline, threatening as many as 400 species, including sea turtles and dolphins. The Gulf's abundant oyster and shrimping grounds could also be affected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some may say that the potential benefits of additional off-shore drilling far outweigh the possible ecological negatives. I think what this past week has shown us is that the benefits do not outweigh the negatives, especially given the fact that Obama's willingness to increase off-shore drilling was nothing more than a political tact to mollify the right-wing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is eminently clear that, rather than continuing down the path of insanity towards off-shore drilling, we need to focus IMMEDIATELY upon other forms of energy.

No, I am not really going to suggest that we eat illegal aliens, but here is a very simple solution for immigration reform.

For too long the US has taken on the role of international police. This has occurred because when we invade a country, we never freaking leave it! We still have military personnel in Germany, Italy, Japan, Okinawa, etc.

May I take just a moment and say WHAT THE FUCK?

My idea is that we begin drawing down out of all of these locations, and let the countries police themselves. No, this will not suddenly cause huge unemployment among our military personnel or destroy the livelihoods of defense contractors. Because...da-da-da-DA! We are going to put them to work HERE.
Here are some specifics:

• Military personnel can be stationed on our borders; on all our borders, north, south and on the coasts, as well as in our ports of entry and airports.
• The military personnel such as the SeaBees, can be utilized rebuilding our infrastructure, schools, etc.
• The development dollars spent on military spending can go towards developing new energy sources, increasing our cyber security, etc.
• The drones and helicopters that are currently flying over war zones, can be used to fly over the more dangerous areas (those controlled by drug cartels).

I bet if we all put our minds to it, we could find LOTS of ways of better utilizing our military. Of course, an added benefit of bringing them home, they would prolly not undergo PTSD, and if they currently have it, they could get treatment for it. Also, they would be able to see their families more than once a year. Another benefit is that other countries just might stop hating us for invading them.

Think about it, and get back to me.

I took a stroll into crazytown yesterday via the RedState.com site. This is what I read:

Is the White House, SEC, and DNC Colluding to Destroy Goldman Sachs to Pass Financial Reform?

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Monday, April 19th at 6:35AM EDT
58 Comments

Few people are fans of Goldman Sachs on either side of the aisle these days, but FamousDC is raising some seriously troubling questions about the level of collusion between the SEC, White House, and DNC to get Financial Reform passed.

This is serious stuff. Just ask yourself what the reaction in the media would be if the Bush White House had done this.

In a nutshell: The SEC announced its charges Friday morning. At 10:38 a.m. the New York Times breaks the story. 28 minutes later Organizing for America sends out an email from Barack Obama calling on people to support Financial Reform.

Right after that, the New York Times released a massive story going after Goldman Sachs. By the afternoon the DNC has its Google Ads up tying the Goldman Sachs matter to Financial Reform.

This is stunning. Let's not forget that Goldman was a top donor to Obama in 2008.

Read this entire time line. It is pretty scary how the White House is using the full arms of the government, including quasi-independent government agencies, and outside interest groups to create bad guys with which to pass ever creeping socialist reforms that will continue to cripple innovation in this country.

So, help me to understand here. Obama is bad because the SEC is going after Goldman Sachs for committing fraud against the American people, and Goldman Sachs donated to Obama's campaign? In their twisted little minds, should Obama be PROTECTING Goldman Sachs against criminal charges, in effect granting them the ability to continue committing fraud?

I can only assume that this is some kind of swift boat tactic, because we all know that if the administration did protect Goldman Sachs, the vitriol would be that he is protecting the corporate fat cats who got him elected and screwing over the American people.  

I take this as just one more example why, to the right wingnuts, the administration cannot ever do anything good.

Now, I am going to go scrub that article's idiocy out of my mind with Bon Ami.

The Take Back America Tour - coming to a town near you...

Normally I would never have a diary that is just a few lines, but this video speaks for itself. It is some funny shit. Thanks to Nicole Sullivan on MADtv for giving us Darlene McBride - Take Back America Tour. I think this pretty much expresses the thoughts and desires of the tea baggers. Spoof on, MADtv, spoof on.

Gotta love the big hair and Tammy Faye makeup.

For you Pardu...

This was actually a comment I wrote in another diary, but it was recommended I turn it into its own diary, so here goes...

It was proposed by one of our more conservative members that the government could have saved a lot of money and stimulated the economy, if they had simply written out a check in the amount of $25,000 to everyone who lost their job in the recession. I think that solution would have been the WRONG thing to do. I believe that we are seeing a whole lot of good things come out of the stimulus.

---

The bang for the buck (of the stimulus) really involves what the money was spent on, rather than how much. Allow me to provide a few examples...

For example: Schools were able to keep paying teachers and municipalities were able to keep paying police officers. Neither of these would have happened, had the gov't "just written a check". Both of those groups of people would have simply gone home and waited it out. Had the gov't not chosen to spend as it did, the education of children would have been adversly impacted, as more kids were crammed into fewer classes, thereby receiving less personal attention. Crime would likely have risen, as fewer policemen would be on the streets providing protection.

Next example: We are investing in our infrastructure. You complain that roughly $150,000 was spent on each job...First of all, a huge number of those infrastructure projects are just now getting under way, as they have been in the hands of architects and engineers during the design phase, and have thus not been visible to the public. Design phase is over, and development phase is beginning. Roads are being built/completed, bridges are being repaired, etc.  These projects would have continued to languish if money was not spent to complete them. (Faultguy and I can both attest to construction workers finally working on Hwy 94 in St Charles again, which has been completely effed up for well over a year. Woohoo! YES!)

Another example: We are investing in alternate sources of power, since China is now the largest consumer of petroleum. You may have noticed gas prices are creeping up again. This time it is not from a speculation bubble, this time it is legitimate competition from China and India. We need new power sources, and before we can have them, we have to develop them.

OK, so aside from the benefits stated above, what else does this spending do for us? Let's see. Person A gets a job. Person A uses the salary to buy stuff from B, C, D, etc. All those people now have earnings, so they buy stuff from E, F, G, H, I, J, etc. This is your true trickle down economics. By giving money to the middle class in the form of a salary or unemployment benefits (as opposed to giving the wealthy as Reagan did and hoping the money trickled down), money recirculates and additional jobs are saved/created.  I am not entirely sure of the figure, but I think I read that for every $1 spent, $6 is generated via recirculation. That's not a bad return on investment.

In summary, thinking that the administration should have simply cut a check to everyone in order to stimulate spending (as Dubya did) is an overly simplistic solution. I believe the stimulus has worked well, its effects are still being felt, and will be felt for a long time to come.

Discuss!

OK, so I really do not want to market products to the folks here, but over the weekend, I went to see the movie Repo Men with Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Forest Whitaker.

It was a decent movie overall, but what struck me was the disturbing notion that this could very well have been our reality in the not too distant future.

A quick synopsis of the movie is that Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are "Repo Men" for "the Union". This Union creates bio-mechanical replacement organs for life-saving procedures, without the need to be on a list for a someone to die who is a donor. The company sells thousands of these devices all over the world and, of course, sales come with easy financing at a high rate of interest. (Kind of like a sub-prime mortgage or credit card, eh?) The patient has a 90 day grace period if he/she falls behind in payments. After that 90 days the repo men will come take the organ back, leaving the patient dead or dying from the forced removal. Jude Law receives one of these organs after an accident, and he soon realizes that his job is evil. He can no longer continue doing it, and is soon on the run after his grace period is up.

I won't spoil the end for those of you who have not seen it, but what struck me most was a comment by Liev Schreiber (the manager of the repo men). He stated that where the company made their money was NOT on the organs paid in full, but on the financing and repossession of organs (presumably for redistribution).

Let me tell you, that is a wake up call for health care reform. It is simply too easy to imagine what could happen if health insurance is wholly privatized. Oh, not the whole blithely killing of patients, but the idea of having to finance necessary procedures and risking bankruptcy or death simply because you cannot afford to keep making payments.