July 11, 2009 archive

Late Night Karaoke

Take me Home

I Dare you, No I Double Dare you MoFo’s to Do It.

Go ahead, either Israel or the U.S., bomb Iran. I dare you, and double dare you.  Come on kiddies, play your fucking games and do it, chickenshits.   Bolton, Ross, Leiberman, you slimey creeps, come on and put your money where your friggin mouths are, bomb those people! You said yourselves the end of the world will come if we don’t rid those evil Iranians of the capacity to build nuclear weapons. George Bush himself said so!  What are you waiting for?

Do it you slimely bastards and I guarantee all hell will break loose on your stupid heads.  You take this bullshit any farther, either you or Israel, and I can say you will live to regret it.  Not that you deserve as much.  The American people may be stupid but they’re not dumb.  Pull a stunt like this and it will be as obvious as a pimple on Karl Rove’s face.  We won’t let you get away with this one.

You want protests, people in the streets, revolution!  Well, try this one and see what you get.  We’ve seen what happens when acquiesence and complacency take hold, and too many of us are not acquiesing and not being complacent.  So try it you little chickenshit bastards, try and bomb Iran and see what happens.  There will be no parades and chocolate for you, only contempt and prosecutions.  We know what games you’re playing now and you can’t fool us again.

End this bullshit, people in power.  The world citizens want peace.  The world’s citizens want to share the resources of this earth, not be killed over them.  We aren’t interested in your geopolitical gamesmanship and collaborations of powers.  We aren’t interested in your plans to control the earth.  We want a peaceful and just world, where all world citizens can live their lives in peace.  

So go ahead, hit Iran.  You’ve heard of the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back.  That’s what bombing Iran will be, and it will be your backs.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos, for jollies.  

What we need isn’t what we got…

After taking a short hiatus, because, I admit I’m fed up, I peered back in to find this:

Having learned from the failures of the others, I immediately announced that dKos was a progressive community, and that conservatives would be on a short leash. There was a lot of crying about “free speech” and whatnot, but I made clear that cons had plenty of places to go online – Free Republic, Lucianne, etc – and liberals didn’t, and that Daily Kos would be a safe haven for progressives. I aggressively cleaned out the conservative troublemakers, and what do you know, liberals liked their little safe haven.

Talk about cutting down a forest and not realizing what a tree was…

Random Japan

Stepping out

A female loggerhead sea turtle named Yu-chan tried out her new prosthetic limbs in a pond in Kyoto. The 20-year-old creature had lost parts of two flippers in what was most likely a shark attack.

Blind pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, who last month became the first Asian to win the prestigious Van Cliburn competition, saw his debut CD reach No. 2 on the Oricon chart. It’s the top-selling release ever by a pianist in Japan.

Violinist Daishin Kashimoto was appointed the new concertmaster for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, making him the second Japanese to hold the position.

Capcom’s hit videogame Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which has sold 3.4 million copies in Japan, made its long-awaited North American debut.

Prime Minister Taro Aso was among the 4,500 people who attended a memorial service to mark the 64th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa.

88-year-old Australian Joseph Frederick Coombs, a former prisoner of war forced to work in a Fukuoka coal mine operated by Aso’s dad, came to Japan with his two sons and the son of another former POW to seek an apology from the Japanese PM.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry decided that certain liver and thyroid gland problems will be added to the official list of atomic bomb-related illnesses after a Tokyo High Court recognized them as such.

After the NPA lifted a ban on “adult-plus two” bicycles, Yamaha released a motorized model that’s tailor-made for moms with a pair of toddlers. The mama-chari costs over ¥120,000, not including the two child seats.

Bizarre crime story of the week: a 27-year-old man was arrested in Fukuoka Prefecture after a local resident returned home to find someone in a Spider-Man outfit robbing his house. The perpetrator made a run for it but police later found the would-be webslinger in a parked car, “changing out of a woman’s swimsuit and a set of pink arm warmers.”

Overnight Caption Contest (no shame edition)

because you know you want to….

Court Jester Theater: My what Big Eyes you have Corporate Giants

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

William Shakespeare

Court Jesters

In societies where freedom of speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester — precisely because anything he said was by definition “a jest” and “the uttering of a fool” — could speak frankly on controversial issues in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for.

Monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side.

“Welcome To The Machine”

Pink Floyd

This just in! … an urgent,

Breaking, Non-News Announcement!!!Listen up consumers!

Swing for the Fences

People look.  We’ve got some major league problems here on earth and it’s time to step up to the plate.  We can continue to try and get walks, hoping somehow we’ll score a run, or we can swing for the fences, and win this thing with power.  Walks are sometimes OK, but as the great Earl Weaver, longtime manager of the Baltimore Orioles once said, “You win games with three run homers”.  

I agree with Earl, I say it’s time to swing for the fences. It’s the bottom of the ninth man, we’ve got two on but two out.  Let’s send Eddie Murray up there and save our asses.

Hell, Babe Ruth must be rolling over in his grave.  We’ve got these weak ass singles hitters all over the Congress and Senate and a President who throws knuckleballs.  He couldn’t brush back a batter if his life depended on it.  Do you think if Nolan Ryan had been so pragmatic he would have struck out 5,700 batters?  Hell no, ole Nolan put the fear in batters hearts!

Come on now, we’ve got people on base.  We need a three run dinger.  If not, we could be Slippin into Darkness.  Pretty soon we gonna pay.

 

Slipping into America’s Crack: Home is a hotel without a lawyer

I have been feeling lately that the entire country has been hit by a storm,  that people are drowning or are standing on their roofs waving their arms, but that the most other people are ignoring them, their eyes set on some different horizon, looking for golden pots beneath rainbows.

The President and his family this week have been sampling the fine wines of Northern Italy with the worthless G-8, visiting an earthquake stricken town there. He has pontificated with the evil Santa that is the Pope and now having a delightful visit, no doubt, in Ghana.

The mainstream media has been preoccupied with sex, politics and celebrity death.  Huge numbers of television watching Americans have been fueling those Networks’ ad revenue, distracted by these baubles of the macabre.  The blogosphere seems more fragmented than ever, either being enraptured with its own meta,  or having its sights set on foreign revolutions  and  wargames. Quite a number too have been focused on the macroeconomy, noting the incredible hypocrisy and corruption of the big houses on Wall Street.  There are those too who are completely focused on healthcare legislation, which does get closer to the core issue. That issue is that people are hurting badly in this country and are slipping through its cracks.

Friday Night at 8: Meta

Photobucket

(Image taken from The Institute of World Politics advertising their course, “Political Warfare: Past, Present and Future”)

I got the real estate for this short time, so I’m gonna put meta on the front page.  Oh, the thrill of power!  Oh, the temptation to abuse it and then … the sweet surrender!

Heh.

There’s personal blog enemies and then there’s the blog political opposition and sometimes the two overlap.

Personal blog enemies smear your character, challenge your honor, try to bait you into swerving from your topic!  Oh noooooooo!

It’s a test of character to have these kinds of enemies.

And these are the enemies that are most difficult to deal with when it comes to political opposition.  They will take the side of Hitler rather than agree with you!  Yeah, breaking Godwin’s law, yeah, I’m edgy.

And this is part of politics, sometimes I think it’s ALL of politics.  It’s so personal.

Non-profit health cooperatives are trojan horses for private insurers

There is yet another Baucus bipartisan health care reform story, this one from Roll Call.  While primarily a story about the fight over funding reform, this nugget is thrown in at the end:

In a sign of a potential détente on another divisive issue – whether to implement a government-run insurance option as a part of health care reform – Baucus hinted that Senate Democratic leaders might be softening their position. Disagreement over the government-run insurance option is one of the main obstacles to a bipartisan health care bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Thursday that he could envision a nonprofit medical cooperative plan of some sort being acceptable substitute for a government-run insurance option. And Baucus said he believes Reid is now flexible on the issue, a hopeful sign for his goal of drafting a consensus bill.

If you know the history of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the way the public has been screwed in a number of non-profit conversions to for-profit companies, then you can clearly see what is happening.  Establishing a non-profit co-op leaves the door open for corporate takeovers by private insurers.

Friday Philosophy: An awful waste of space

Since we had to go house hunting Friday afternoon, I decided to put together a summary of some trans news items for Friday evening’s column.  But while I was doing so, one of my favorite movies came on, namely Carl Sagan’s Contact.

The news, of course, is what it is.  The movie put a different spin on the whole thing,  so maybe this will come out as not only commentary on those items but also a statement about the state of the universe.

Just maybe a few readers out there will get the point of what I am trying to say.  There is always hope for that.

Wanna take a ride?

–S. R. Hadden

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