I’ve had my differences with Idi Amin

on civil rights (I heard he put a rat

under a can on some dude’s stomach

and torched it hot.  There’s one way for the rat

to escape).  And some of the things Islam Karimov

has done, to be sure.  Boiling people alive?  

Egads!  I remain a staunch defender

of  liberal values.  That’s why ya gotta

respect…[Self-destructing blue-screen: On!]

when Obama calls in a drone strike

on Afghan civilians, prior to wiping out

the rescuers, and funeral parties attending,

with Hellfires, it shows impeccable restraint.

Vote!  [Self-destructing blue-screen: Off!]

“Words fail.”

In a highly unusual move, around 200 U.S. Marines were asked to leave their weapons outside the tent where U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was set to speak during his trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Although the military said the order was not given in response to Sunday’s shooting of 16 Afghan civilians allegedly by an American soldier, it possibly underlined how high tensions were running after the incident.

“You’ve got one of the most important people in the world in the room,” Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus told reporters at Camp Leatherneck, dismissing concerns related to the shooting. “This is not a big deal.”

He said he had given the order because the two dozen Afghan soldiers also there were unarmed and he did not want to treat them differently.

…”All I know is I was told to get the weapons out,” Sergeant Major Brandon Hall told The New York Times. Asked why, he replied, “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”

Also, Why I am leaving the Empire, by Darth Vader

Written in response to this Goldman douchebag resigning in “moral revulsion.”

Fucking douchebags.

Call a Georgetown law student a slut, and the liberal universe goes into supernova. Destroy Somalia and Libya, or obliterate due process of law, and the same people just yawn. Attorney General Eric Holder “asserts that the president can in fact decide to kill anyone he wants, as long as he claims that person is a terrorist.” Liberals love the guy.

Read the rest!  Ouch, baby!

How rare.  Margaret Kimberley, we luvs you.

I’ve got a lot to say about Obummer and the Nancy Capitalists, but fuck him, fuck them.  I wanna talk about something else.

One-hit wonder Looking Glass made a fine tune, Brandi.  Here’s some dude that breaks down the hot licks in the intro on the Wurlitzer.  Ya gotta love the way he rolls and pops it.  Imagine that on a Hammond!

Back in the olden days, my ex-wife and her family and I tagged along on a film safari at Pyramid Lake, in Nevada.  Hot water, cliffs, rock formations (pyramidal), and desolation on an “Indian” (Pauite) reservation.   Maybe the film safari tagged along with us.  I honestly don’t remember.  

My then-bro-in – law was/is a fantastic idea RISD/ Milan guy, industrial designer.  Think, “Beautiful Life” with snowboards, Japanese board games made from salmon-colored Portland cement,  Christmas package string-wrappings as to be a gift in and of themselves. Fucker was talented, as were my X and her parental units.  We were all having fun.

Anyway, the point of the safari was to shoot film and process it by day, then watch the film that night, tickety-tickety-tickety, onscreen, under the Nevada stars.  

Love-boat and I spent the day paddling around the geo-thermally bubbling Pyramid.  I had the best job in the world, and I wonder sometimes, atheistically, why God assigns us these enormously pleasing tasks.

What did I do to deserve ‘this?  That’s mostly the point, here: you didn’t do anything.  It just wuz.  So much is out of one’s control, let’s not talk about it, any further.

Tents were set-up, both for people and film.  There were barrels of chemicals (transported out afterwards), although, the developing tent was white!.  How did they develop film in a white tent in broad daylight?  What happened there?  My father-in-law was super-talented at stills, no one would deny his Hasselblad, but his darkroom was blind-dark.  I remain foggy on such issues.

Food was eaten.  Drinks were drunk.  Completely a-narrative,  yes, even scratchy, landscape films, cliffs, weeds, and dappling waters, were watched, under black starry skies.  It was a hit.  

And the Oscar goes to…

Everyone.

whereas Sarah Palin would merely shoot “infra-human” mammals from helipcopters on “hunting expeditions,” Barack Obama has and intends to kill Americans using drones, robot assassins, Navy Seals, CIA, you name it.

Do you miss John Ashcroft, yet?  Damned near.  At least Ashcroft showed an ounce of integrity on his sick-bed concerning illegal surveillance.

Not only should Eric Holder resign, he should take Obama with him to the laughingstocks.

I previously mentioned why Elena Kagan, daughter of Neo-Con, Supporter of Battlefield Earth, would be a terrible Supreme Court choice, and nobody cared, outside very tiny circles.  Well, now you’ve got Holder and Kagan in a 5-4, at their worst, and you’re fucked.  How’s that Big Tent D?  You helped convince America (progressives!) to vote for the Obama/Kagan ticket.  Nice work, buddy.

Yeah, and BTD wants me to “vote Obama” to work for the next Supreme Court selections?  I’ve got bile in my mouth.  

Via Ritholtz, I see bonddad is upset about the politicization of economics by econ-illiterate political bloggers.  I presume Ritholtz somewhat approves of this message, even though he adds it’s more about “dishonesty” and “lack of integrity.”  Bonddad posts some questions for both the left and right to answer before they open their stupid yaps again.

I have some questions for bonddad, Ritholtz, and economists more generally, in return:

1. How is it possible to have infinite growth on a finite planet?  Who are the genius economists who have repealed the laws of thermodynamics?

2. On a related note, if you can’t have infinite growth, how long before a debt-based economy implodes or is forced to declare a debt jubilee as debt inevitably outstrips real wealth?  Again, we’re talking about a measurably finite planet.  I’m pegging it at some time around Lehman, but Europe will also do nicely.  (also, what is the notional value on outstanding CDS; and when is a default not a default?)

3. How many species will be extant by 2050?  How much polar ice will be left?

4. Where is the accountability for outright fraud on Wall Street?  For “privatizing gains, while socializing losses?”

5. To what extent did tax cuts for the rich and imperial wars of aggression contribute to our debt?  Globalization?  Free trade agreements?  If the United States in not an empire, then what is it?  If an empire is not a wealth pump aggressively pursuing wealth from the periphery to pump it into centers of power (and how!), then what is it?

6. When did we return to “mark-to-market” accounting?

7. How’s the “experiment” in austerity working out?

8. Are the busses still running in Detroit?  Do they have streetlights?  Jobs?  Is everyone’s tummy full?

That’s just for starters.  

My brother probably noticed that I flicked him a look,

when he said my joints were “spalling;”  sounds like

a disease of old age, but the topmost

layer of little sand grains was not

adhering after I topped off the mortar,  

brick by brick, joint by joint, by eighths,

sixteenths. Days and nights passed.      

Adhesion was what concerned me most when

I cleaned each brick  with a spray bottle and brush

So as not to disturb the joints.  Spalling, eh?  

I can’t know every word in the Mother Tongue,

but if it happens, there is probably word for it.  

What puzzles me is that he knew that word,

because certainly I’ve laid more bricks.

the Fukushima rain is soaking through my shoes; I may never be the same, when I reach Baton Rouge.

I’m a total sucker for chords and bass notes

Picking off pieces of the chord.  Just listening to the bass

On Stevie Wonder’s “I wish” makes me wanna dig for gophers, and make future love tonight!  That’s right, that’s right!

You might as well

Just toss a lure into the waters and watch my gills

Vibrate with solemnity.  D7/F#.  Descending notes, C/Bb.  Oh, and Elton’s G#dim7 puts me on my knees on Bennie and the Jets.  

When you throw in the combos

you might as well just stick me in a barrel and start shooting with a large gauged gun

If Desperado is not one of the greatest pop songs of all time,

And we’re talking lyrics and chords and bass, and yep, I’m including The Squeeze as generally great song- writers and Linda Ronstadt’s specific version,

Then I am a snuffleapplegaus. You better let somebody love you (G, B7/F#, Em),

Let somebody love you (C, G/B, Am), Let somebody love you (G/D, B7/D#, Em), before it’s too late (Am7/D), prior to collapsing into sevenths and sixths.  Good lord.  And Get a mother fucking job.  That is some sweet-assed, trance-inducing song-writing.

I read the news today, oh boy.