boy, I'll say...

and then went Maude...

RIP, Bea Arthur. Although over the last few decades she has been more often a punchline than an historic role model, her powerful effect on women in the United States continues to this day. You helped us all come a long way, baby.

are you smarter than a fifth grader?

Congressman Barton,
I have watched your questioning of Energy Secretary Chu at least five times and have yet to figure out what your point is, unless your point is that you are a bigger horse’s ass than James Inhofe and John Boehner.

You ask a Nobel Prize winner a question about something extremely complex, expect him to answer in thirty seconds, mock his response, yet somehow you have concluded that you stumped him. If this weren’t so ridiculous it would be almost comical.

Congressman, you didn’t stump Dr. Chu and you know it. Climate change is a challenging and difficult topic, one that has been researched by brilliant people across the world, yet the best deniers like you and John Boehner can come up with is cow farts and the game of “I stumped the nerd”. I would like to suggest that if you want to have a serious discussion, bring it on. But if the best you can do is play the class clown, I suggest that you sit yourself back down and let a reasonable person take your spot. I checked your biography and was shocked to find that you are a highly educated person, which makes your stunt today seem even more shallow. Educated you may be, Congressman, but I wonder, are you smarter than a fifth grader?

deep thought #2

Honor, once lost, is almost impossible to regain.

deep thought #1

If you cast aside your principles in difficult times they aren't principles, they are slogans.

a simple question

If the Attorney General of the United States of America is presented with clear evidence that crimes of the greatest magnitude have been committed, does he really have the prosecutorial discretion to choose to not act to enforce the laws of our country or is he required to uphold, defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States and investigate, charge, try, convict, and punish those lawbreakers?

the real shock and awe

Jonathon Turley and Pat Buchanan just squared off on Hardball about the "torture debate." Turley stated unequivocally that the laws of the United States of America are the final authority on whether those who violated the laws and binding international treaties of the United States should be held to legal consequence as the result of their actions. In response, Buchanan proclaimed that he agreed in principle with Turley's statement, but that there was a "higher moral law" that said that because those who broke the law claimed to have done it to defend the nation and that even though they broke the law they did achieve the desired results, and they should be spared the consequences of their statutorially illegal actions.

If that is true, we may as well burn the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of America.

If there is some unwritten "higher moral law" that supercedes the authority of the founding documents upon which our government is based, our founding documents are meaningless and void.

If torture is not punished, it is tacitly approved.

If torture is tacitly approved because it achieves the desired ends, the government is free to torture us.

If that happens, it will be time for revolution.


This is OUR fucking country.

a new one

According to republican sociopath Mac Thornberry, what our country did could not have been torture because there were "medical professionals" in attendance.

You're in fine company, Mac. I'm sure Josef Mengele would agree.

truth exposed

We now know exactly what the republican party stands for. Their current defense over the illegal torture engaged in by Americans is it should be excused because "it was effective." Since when is breaking the law mitigated by the effectiveness of the lawbreaking? Do we all get to use this strategy now?

It looks like the guiding principle (such as there is) of the republican party is that the ends justify the means. That would explain an awful lot.

And these are the people who find the use of the word "torture" unforgiveable hyperbole. Funny, coming from the people who have been calling the Democrats traitors, fascists, and socialists for the last thirty years.

empty gesture

Reading the May issue of Motor Trend magazine, I discovered a fascinating tidbit of information. Remember a few months ago when Chrysler head Bob Nardelli made the grandiose pronouncement that he would not take any salary from Chrysler this year?

Well, it turns out that he has never taken a salary from Chrysler. Not that he works for free.

You see, Bob Nardelli is actually an employee of Cerberus Capital Management, the holding company that is the real owner of Chrysler Motors. He is still receiving his normal salary and bonuses for his job. He proudly announced that he would not accept a salary that he never got in the first place.

I hate to see the death of Mopar, but it's time to let this company fend for itself. If Cerberus can pay Nardelli, they can damned well fund their own company instead of shuffling the burden to American taxpayers.

if it's only politics, let's waterboard you

Kit Bond (R-Douchebag) just whimpered to Andrea Mitchell that the Democrats were acting like a "banana republic" because they wanted to prosecute members of the Bush administration over "political differences."

No, Senator Douchebag.

We aren't talking about prosecutions for political differences. We are talking about prosecutions for violating United States and international laws for people who enabled the torture of helpless prisoners. If you can't see the difference, perhaps you should be included.

the sleeper has awakened

supreme judgment

It's starting to look like the United States of America may actually be finding itself again and is slowly turning back into the land of freedom:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus-carsearch22-2009apr22,0,1967319.story

exposed

I don't know when Lawrence O'Donnell started taking journalism steroids, but it sure is having some wonderful results!

happy 39th

beauty contest runner-up, ugly contest winner

Carrie Prejean, Miss California:

"In my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think that it should be — between a man and a woman. Thank you!"


So, because you were raised to be a bigot that makes it all right? And while we're talking, just because you say "no offense to anybody" doesn't mean that you aren't being offensive and it does not excuse your lack of regard for the rights of others.

phew!

Hawking set to recover from chest infection

I'm waiting to see if Essa refers to him as a cosmetologist....

4/20

speaking of waste materials

Conservative scientific genius John Boehner:

"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide."

By that logic, this Mr. Wizard of the right should not mind:
1. being locked in a sealed chamber filled with pure carbon dioxide

Or:
2. being locked in a sealed chamber filled with shit


After all, they can't be harmful to human health since they both come from living creatures.

Right?

red alert

With the four much-debated memos from the Bush administration that disclose the interrogation techniques used on Abu Zubaydah, I can only point out one seemingly obvious thing.

If those acts do not constitute legal torture, the government can use them on us.

one if by hand

The Wichita paper reports that about a thousand people attended yesterday's ceremonial teabag protest rally. That means that about one of every thousand people in the Wichita metropolitan area showed up.

The Silent Majority, indeed.

I have to admit, I got a chuckle when I heard that the participants included a woman who rode through the crowd on horseback while dressed as Paul Revere. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with the teabagging thing, unless it's that "the British are coming."

morans

Well, the day of the teabagging is here, and the results are, well, less than impressive so far. You know, when the people who protested the arbitrary taxes the British monarchy imposed on the residents of the Colonies while giving them no voice in government, the tea they dumped in Boston Harbor wasn't actually theirs. They dumped somebody else's tea in the harbor. The modern teabaggers are buying the tea they are sending in protest. At thousands of stores around the country.

Apparently, it's an organized stimulus package for the Pekoe industry in the United States. Way to go, teabaggers. Carry on.


And don't forget to breathe through your nose.

just watch it

Apparently I was wrong. There is such a thing as magic. This has to be the most uplifting moment I have ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY


update: on MSNBC, the loathsome Contessa Brewer just said something to the effect of "don't you think the response to her was based on pity because she isn't very pretty?" followed by "well, if she gets a career out of this at least she'll have enough money to make herself more attractive."
(PARAPHRASES, NOT QUOTES)

My apologies to readers who won't like this, and I only use the term under the most extreme of circumstances, but you really are a cunt, Essa Brewer, and you are most sincerely invited to go fuck yourself. With a pineapple. And you know what? Susan Boyle is more beautiful than you ever have been or ever will be.

the big day is here

The day that many have been waiting for is finally here, and there is rejoicing all over the land.

No, I'm not talking about teabagging.

Today is the day Hermione turns legal. Yes, Emma Watson of the Harry Potter movies is eighteen. Keep the magic wand jokes to yourself.

"these balls are makin' me testy!"(*)

I've about had it with Shecky Olbermann, Slappy Maddow, their little sidekick Sammy Shuster, Jr., and all the juvenile nutsack humor of the last week or so. I hope these three assclowns realize that their corporate masters are leading them to their own destruction and this asinine stupidity they are displaying in greater degree with every broadcast is going to damage the infant liberal movement that is slowly growing in this nation.

Grow up or shut the fuck up, guys. You want to commit professional suicide, go somewhere you can't hurt the rest of us by association.


(*Bender the Robot)

spaced out

Quoted from a news release sent by NASA:

"Nearly 40 years ago this week, a new era in space flight began, when on April 12, 1981 the first shuttle mission was launched. STS-1 commander John Young..."



Forty years? No wonder they are having problems.

surreal

Imagine sitting in a cramped, hot, smelly lifeboat, bound and guarded by three armed men and with every reason to believe that your life could end very soon, when simultaneously and with no warning at all, the heads of the armed men who are holding you disappear like popped balloons, leaving three twitching bodies around you and a pink fog in the air that slowly settles to the deck.


Note to Somali pirates:
Don't fuck with Americans. We are the best killers that have ever walked the planet. And we really don't like being fucked with. Ask the pirates of Tripoli. Oh wait, you can't. We killed them too.

I can be respectful too

So, last night Karl Rove prefaced his latest criticism of our current administration by saying, "with all due respect, a blowhard like Joe Biden..." which, I must admit, doesn't really sound very respectful. But, if that's the way republican propriety works then let me say, Mr. Rove, with all due respect, a cocksucker like you needs to be imprisoned for contempt of Congress, investigated for eight solid years of violating the Constitution, and for being a capo in the Bush crime family.

With all due respect, you cocksucker.

you're welcome

The poor republicans are getting ridiculed by the Dirty Fucking Hippies over their sudden romance with their new method of protest known as "teabagging." I'm embarrassed to admit that until this furor arose that, like the republicans, I was not aware that there is apparently an alternate meaning for that term, one that is probably not very flattering to their highly-principled political protest.

I'd like to suggest that they simply drop the whole "Teabag the White House" protest and let the immature jokes fade into obscurity. The way to do that is to change the brand, something that the right has long had a great skill at doing. Best of all, while doing it, they can actually steal some of President Obama's populist appeal and follow Michael Steele's advice to make the party more hip and youthful so they can appeal to a more "today" crowd.

What I propose is that the right adopt the famous "terrorist fist jab" that Barack and Michelle Obama shared with such publicity during the campaign, and make it the official gesture of the republican protest movement, and in doing so turn it around on the evil liberals.

They can call it "fisting," and have "fisting parties" all around the country, and every time republicans meet they will "fist" each other to show their solidarity in opposing the islamohomofascistcommies that are tearing the country apart as we speak.

Republicans, start fisting each other today, you know you want to!

better late than never

I was just reminded that yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide by shotgun, so let me rectify that and express my sympathies.


GOOD RIDDANCE.

The man was a pathetic slacker of a musician who virtually single-handedly turned contemporary rock music into the compositional wasteland it is today. I only wish he'd sucked off the Remington ten years earlier.

things you learn on the teevee

Essa Brewer, Princess of MSNBC, just told me that Oregon was the fifty-first happiest state in the United States of America.

She has really white teeth.

good get!

Looks like Noron O'Donnell scored an interview with Exeter. As an astronomer, I'm really embarrassed to admit that I didn't even know there was any breaking news from Metaluna...