proof positive that one may be extremely crude if one is also hysterical and writes well...

One's outrageous sexual experience with Ann Coulter:

‘You might as well shoehorn billions of dollars into the Baseball Card market. The price of a Derek Jeter rookie will be driven up to hundreds of thousands of dollars—before the bubble bursts and the whole market crashes massively.’ It was getting hard to stay on point as she tongue-fucked my shitter vigorously.

Whiling a Friday afternoon in an overly-air conditioned cubicle.

congress doing its part to piss off the religious right...

... and therefore I'm for it:

For what is believed to be the first time in its history, the U.S. Senate will on July 12 be opened with a Hindu prayer, the Senate Chaplain's Office confirmed Monday.

(h/t to Salon)

in case of poisoning, induce vomiting...

New Englanders of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your DINOs:

Katrina Swett — a longtime New Hampshire Democratic activist and Senate primary candidate who has taken a pummeling for her past support of Joe Lieberman — is now officially running away from the Connecticut Senator.

Too late, baby! Let 'er swett!

the authoritarian supremes...

"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Chief Justice John Roberts said. But the school principal who suspended him "thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one," Roberts said in the majority opinion.

In a concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy said the court's opinion "goes no further" than speech interpreted as dealing with illegal drug use.

"It provides no support" for any restriction that goes to political or social issues, they said.

Let's see: The war on drugs is not a political issue. Advocating the overturning of draconian drug laws is not a political or social issue, and apparently is not protected speech. Good to know in a police state, fersherr!

Oh, and "goes no further"?? Isn't this what these overrated sophists said in Bush v. Gore? Like they can cherry-pick future cases to which their personal distastes do or do not apply, as though chipping away at the Bill of Rights a little piece at a time doesn't count when you're the Gestapo. It is this kind of decision that gives stare decisis a bad name.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the ruling "does serious violence to the First Amendment."

Amen!

where's the "fairness" in the fairness doctrine... ?

This is a subject that's been burbling up in my subconcious, and I figure at some point I'll expound further. Meanwhile:

[Progressive talk show host Ed Schultz] correctly tells guest host Michael Smerconish that it’s not about the ratings, when Smerconish tries to dismiss the CAP report because the market decides who is successful in radio. Ed points out to Smerconish that his ratings are better than Hannity in several markets, but still can’t find more stations to carry him. Ed argues that it’s an ownership problem.

I've always chafed at the idea of a Fairness Doctrine, where government dictates by law that for every point of view expressed on-the-air, an opposing point of view must be given equal time. This is a tree in the forest of of concentrated media ownership.

A more proper and viable means for balancing that which is broadcast over the airwaves would be for Government to reverse its non-enforcement of corporate anti-trust and force Big Media to sell off their affiliate properties one-by-one until each and every one of them has no more than 1 television station, 1 radio station, and 1 newspaper in a given municipality.

This is not a "free speech" matter. Money is not speech, irrespective of the unfortunate Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, for example, saying it was. Even so, enforcing media ownership to decentralize is a national security issue, indeed the primary means for preserving anything remotely resembling democracy, not only in America but the entire world.

Of course Hillary playing patty-cake with Rupert Murdoch leaves me considerably less than confident at the prospect she'd do the right thing if elected president.

up is down...

Jeez 'ouise! Accompanying the previous post, where I don't reflexively dismiss that which moves and with the suffix "R" affixed to its behind, comes a story where the phrase "corporate responsibility" isn't reflexively dismissed as an oxymoron:

Google said Tuesday it is getting in on the development of electric vehicles, awarding $1 million in grants and inviting applicants to bid for another $10 million in funding to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles capable of getting 70 to 100 miles per gallon.

Dare to hope the next step toward Wonderland is the arrest, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment (if not summary execution) of all "loyal Bushies" everywhere...

a republican worth another look...

U.S. Is ‘Really in Trouble,’ Says Bloomberg, Sounding Like a Candidate

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, sounding every inch the presidential candidate he insists he is not, brought his message of pragmatic, nonpartisan leadership to California on Monday, telling a crowd of Google employees that the nation was “really in trouble.”

In unusually stark terms, Mr. Bloomberg expressed his frustration with the state of the nation, touching on campaign-style issues like the war in Iraq, immigration, education, health care and crime before a crowd of more than 1,000 employees at the Google campus here.

When Republicans can sound progressive and not theocratic or fear-mongering, that's when this progressive will pay attention to Republicans.

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Update: Bloomberg Leaving The Republican Party

Upside: He has the political muscle and financial capital to stake the most serious Independant run in American history. Also, a strong Independant candidacy will breath new life into the corrupted 2-party system in America.

Downside: Being liberal, he'll be cutting well into the Democratic nominee's vote-count, not that I give a damn about the triangulating ways of she who is Hillary, but it could seriously inhibit the process of marginalizing neo-conservatism, a social and geopolitical malignancy most recently and most viably embodied by the amoral wind-sock Mitt Romney.

tom tomorrow's...

image courtesy of Salon.com

know your enema...

Carpetbagger has a tidy summary of the Repo front-runners:

* Rudy Giuliani — Matt Taibbi recently made the case that the former NYC mayor is actually “worse than Bush.” Giuliani is autocratic, thin-skinned, and self-absorbed. He’s inexperienced, ignorant about policy specifics, and his only selling point (performance on 9/11) doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny. His campaign is built around demagoguery — driven solely by fear.

* John McCain — A shadow of his former self, the senator appears to be a man who’ll do anything to win. McCain is combative and intolerant of dissent. He defends the indefensible and lashes out angrily at anyone who dares to disagree with him. He’s become dishonest, condescending, and egotistical, while pandering shamelessly to some of the worst elements in Republican politics.

* Mitt Romney — The man appears to have no real convictions at all. On most of the major political issues of the day, Romney believed the exact opposite fairly recently, and has struggled to explain his metamorphosis from moderate governor to far-right candidate.

* Fred Thompson — The actor/lobbyist/senator doesn’t seem to have any real rationale for seeking the presidency, other than the belief he might win. Thompson is at least as phony as Romney — the red truck story should be humiliating to him — and developed a Bush-like reputation for being lazy and incurious. He considers moving to northern Virginia “getting out of Washington” and his most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else.

And before Naahmy gets a burr in his butt-ox, I would add Hillary (and Joe Biden) to this quad.

a thousand words...

Photo via Pottersville

and then there were 8...

Impeach!

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) announced she would join Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) push for impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. “Before, it was speculated that no one else would support impeachment,” Kucinich said. His measure has also gained the support of Reps. Al Wynn (D-MD), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Lacy Clay (D-MO), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

a footnote on the 30th anniversary of the summer of love...

Glenn Smith on the one & only counter-culture:

Turned into fad, the movement was easily marginalized. But not before it launched unprecedented numbers of Americans into lives of nurturance and responsibility, a fact often overlooked by conservatives and their media mimics who like to report that we all turned into hypocritical, thieving stockbrokers. Many, in fact, became health care professionals, social workers, school teachers, environmental scientists, writers, artists, and parents. It may, in the end, have been the less deserving among us who entered politics and public life. The even-less-deserving, of course, became stockbrokers.

Where were you then? In 1967, I was a 7 year-old kid pushing Matchbox cars over unimproved dirt roads of my own making, hunting blue-bellied lizards and horned toads, as well as collecting old snake bones, with Martin Boyarski in the silvery hills of Nevada, and draping my father's Air Force-issue parachute over the clothesline in the back yard, making it a fort. All of which would've made my Summer of Love, uhm, 1978... and then again in 1989... and, geez, there must've been some others too! I guess it all depends on what your definition of Love is.

Today? I'm an aging hippie comic.

This above all, to thine own self be true.

a vicious circle...

Josh at TPM got me thinking, referencing the successful defeat of the cloture on the Gonzalez No-Confidence vote:

Brownback and McCain didn't make it either. But then McCain seldom votes at all these days.

I mused to myself, McCain is a Senator in name only.

Hmm, SINO!

By Jesus! He is the Manchurian Candidate!

love the rude pundit...

Or not... I, of course, do:

[T]here's the sentencing of Scooter Libby, all ready for his new nickname: Scrotum Licky.

criminal...

Lieberman...

why rhode island voters are light-years ahead of connecticut voters...

Sen. Whitehouse: Petraeus Has ‘Conflicting Loyalty,’ Independent Iraq Report Needed

But despite numerous indicators that Bush’s strategy is failing, ABC News reported recently that Petraeus wants the “surge” to “continue until at least December,” and expects “to report enough progress by September to justify the extension.”

In an interview this week with ThinkProgress, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) became the first member of Congress to call for an independent analysis on the state of the war in September, in addition to Petraeus’ report. Whitehouse charged that Petraeus has an inherent “conflicting loyalty” between “the desire to please the president” and to report the unvarnished truth about Bush’s strategy.

Keeping in mind Dubya listens to his Generals in the field provided they tell him what he wants to hear. If a General strikes a discordant note, that General leaves the field. Ergo, any active General reporting to Congress in September on the goings-on in Iraq will be inherently suspect.

Kudos to Whitehouse for getting this ball rolling.

and then jesus said "take this bread, for this is my body you eat"...

Or, more simply: Sweet Jesus!

Creationist Actor's Porno Past is 'Revealed'

A jaunt around the Internet shows Linden posing alongside a drag queen on an explicit Web site he owned called Bedroom Acrobat, the Associated Press reports. The Web site allows its network of members to post explicit stories and photos, AP reports.

When it learned of Linden's activities with the Web site, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

Riiiiight! How many times did they pull it, s'what I wanna know!

No, not the video...

don't know if this makes me cringe or giddy...

Normally I'd say this is a little fruity, but then these are the yabbos who'll be protecting Tom Brady's ass on the road to the Super Bowl:

Belichick ran many of the veterans through sprints, and he was particularly tough on the offensive line, which in a show of solidarity went through one set of the sprints holding hands, leading Belichick to crack a smile.

narratives offered by dead men...

Ever wonder how William Holden was able to narrate Sunset Boulevard even after he was shot to death by Gloria Swanson, while Marty Robbins could sing, wonderfully I might add, "I felt the bullet go deep in my chest," just before he died in his ballad El Paso?

Neither have I.

friday follies...

My favorite P.D. sent this this morning. The gist of the LA city attorney's apoplexy with the Sherriff read thusly:

"... violating that court order, the Los Angeles Sherriff's Department should be held in contempt. Additionally, this court should order that the Los Angeles Sherriff's Department transport Hilton in custody to this court for the hearing on this application and the court should order that the Los Angeles Sherriff's Department transport Hilton in custody to the Cer[?]y Regional Detention Center in order to serve the remainder of her sentence in compliance with California law and this court's May 4, 2007 order. Such relief is just, proper and necessary to ensure compliance with this court's orders. Additionally, such relief rightfully will restore any loss of public confidence in and respect for the integrity of the government of this city, county and state.

"II
An Urgent Hearing and Relief Are Necessary Because Hilton is Earning Custody Credits Every Day She Is on Electronic Monitoring, Despite the Fact That The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Acted in Contravention and in Contempt of This Court's Order."

No word on whether the city attorney was offered a paper bag to help alleviate his hyperventilation.

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Update: Oh dear! I almost feel sorry for her. Emphasis: almost...

Screaming Paris Hilton Sent Back to Jail

"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Hilton. "Mom!" she called out to her mother in the audience.

Now that's Entertainment!

is the nytimes suffering from sleep disorder... ?

Remember, oh fans of this blog, when I asked why Pat Leahy was dicking around? Well -- Yay! -- the New York Times has finally been roused to my way of thinking (h/t to DailyKos):

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

And to think I was, like, jumping the gun. Tsk!

Hmm... A gun. That might work.

he don't say...

Passing by the plasma in the kitchen, I note J.C. Watts once again carrying Dubya's water (hopefully in something leak-proof) while debating Donna Brazille on CNN before Wolf Blitz4brains.

Good looking guy, Watts, whom I bumped into once in a House elevator when I interned on the Hill back in the early 90s. I wished I could have asked him then what I wouldn't hesitate to ask him now, i.e., his response to his father, a life-long Democrat, saying, "A black man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."

maybe i've been doing it wrong all these years...

Dopey poll at the bottom of this link to DailyKos, "How many fingers do you use when you type?" -- with the options being "Two," "Ten," "Somewhere between 2 and ten," and "Not sure."

Out of 5521 responses, 51% said "Ten"; 38% said "Somewhere between 2 and ten"; 9% said "Two"; and 1% said "Not sure".

Let's throw out that last response because at least 61 people are blooming idiots because they don't know if they use "1 finger or more." In fact, let's just give them one finger.

I believe those who said "Two" because I used to be one of them before I took a typing class in high school way back when. Of course, even then, I would use 1 or 2 more when I grew confident with the locations of the keys.

I answered "Somewhere between 2 and ten." I learned to touch-type and have been timed over the years by a variety of employment agencies at somewhere between 70 & 87 wpm w/0-5 errors. Funny thing, though: as one deemed "highly proficient" at typing, I use all eight of my non-opposing digits -- one-thru-four on each hand -- while using my right thumb solely to hit the space-bar. In all these years, I don't ever recall using my left thumb -- for anything... uhm, other than to jam up my ass whenever I am made to watch Dubya bullshit his way out of a wet paper bag while expecting us to believe it.

So all I can say to the 51% responders: WTF?

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Update: Okay! I learned to type on a manual, so bear with me. After which, I graduated to an electric typewriter, then selectric, then wheel-writers, and finally word processors. Computer functions -- Aye! There's the rub. "Ctrl," "Alt," etc. -- one might, at some point, use the left freakin' thumb.

But is that really typing??

you wanted libby... ?

Naahmy, now Commander Guy Deux, and I give you Libby!

headline of the day...

TB Guy Tops Bush in New Poll

Literally having LMAO, I am assless now.

red sox fans are insane...

I was in the nose-bleed seats at Camden Yards in Bal'mer. A couple of years ago. The Sox were in town and Baker always made a point of getting in 1 or 2 of a 3-game series in and bringing me along.

These days, if you didn't know, Red Sox fans are everywhere. Often it is the case when the Red Sox fans outnumber the home team's support, or at least they're way louder. I found it terribly amusing when the Sox, who, in recent years, have owned the Orioles, would rally, and Red Sox Nation would start chanting "Let's go Red Sox!" Boom Boom BoomBoomBoom "Let's go Red Sox!" Boom Boom BoomBoomBoom. Until, finally, O's fans would be roused from their malaise and start booing the Red Sox fans in return. This always brought a grin to my face.

On one occasion, I could hear two O's fans sitting behind me -- and keep in mind this was before 2004; I know this based on the content of the conversation. One says to the other, "Are there any more obnoxious fans in baseball than Red Sox fans?"

The other guy says, "Yankees fans!"

"Well, yeah, they're obnoxious too, but at least they have a team that backs up their obnoxiousness. The Red Sox haven't won anything since -- what? -- 1918?"

He was right, of course. I mean, empirically, Sox fans annoy the bejesus out of non-Sox fans from New York to Florida to California. In almost every stadium there is a sizable Sox-loving contingent; surpassed only, I've heard told, by Yankees nutbars.

Well, I gotta tell you: Sox fans annoy the hell outta me! And I'm a Sox fan. Oh, not like I was in the 70s, when I would run out into the street after midnight, say, when Pudge Fisk hit The Pole in Game 6, yelling my fool head off; or in the 80s, when I raged nigh-upon uncontrollably against the inside of my car's windshield as I drove home after Bill Buckner let the ball role thru his legs.

But I've been away. D.C. for the last 16 years. Oh, I'd keep up -- reading the Globe and the Herald online. But throughout the 90s and the early 00s, I could sense my passion for The Old Towne Team was ebbing. When Boston finally ended the Babe's curse in Yankee Stadium in '04, part of me wanted them to blow the World Series against St. Louis if for no other reason than to maintain the allure of the hard-luck put-upon team. When Keith Foulke tossed the ball underhanded to Doug Mientkewicz, it was like the fever lifted. The Sox were no longer special to me.

And then I moved back to town last winter. I got interested again listening to the radio. Did any of you know Boston has, like, four (4) sports-talk stations? Not like it was when I left UMass in '90.

And you might think that the fever might've broken for others. Not from what I can see. The callers today, they're so damned shrill and inane! The Sox are up -- what? -- like 13-1/2 games on New York and were when they met again last weekend's series in Fenway. They lose Game 1 and all you could hear was how Tim Wakefield, a knuckleballer with a not insubstantial record over the last 1o years in Boston, was washed up and they should kick him, not just to the bullpen, but the back of the bullpen.

And how stupid is the general manager for bringing in dogs like J.D. Drew and Wily Mo Pena. Of course, the favorite whipping boy in April was Dustin Pedroia -- a rookie -- who struggled for a month and a half coming out of the gate, but is hitting over .300 now, making clutch hits, and is wowing the crowds with his defensive play. He's the golden boy now.

All I want to do with these whining dill-holes is bitch slap 'em upside their pointy heads.

Get a life already, you guys!

And one more thing: My issue may be with Red Sox fans, but when the Patriots take the field, be ye warned: They are my compadres and Don't Fuck with us unless we're at a commercial!

Got it!??

another one bites the dust...

Steve Gilliard: 1966-2007

One of our own (via HuffPo)...