Month: September 2011

Adrastos, Malakatude, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks4 Comments

Malakas Of The Week: GOP Debate Audiences

Peter Adrastos Athas

Ronald Reagan is the household God of the GOP; much as FDR has been for generations of Democrats. Wingers invoke the Reagan geist so much that it has inspired jokes about Zombie Ronnie. They’ve missed the point of Reagan’s genial persona: he was able to slather niceness over the most retrograde policies and make them seem less harsh This generation of Goopers, however, are mean, ornery and tacky, which are all aspects of malakatude. We all remember thecheers for the death penalty during Gov. Package Check’s 2012 debate debut and the “let him die guy.” Last night another crowd of … Continue reading Malakas Of The Week: GOP Debate Audiences

Jude, Of Interest7 Comments

Cough Up A Buck, Ya Cheap Bastards

Do you have any idea how much Claire’s coke habit costs? Non-sequential bills only, please. It’s the last day of the fundraising drive, and I’m breaking radio silence to urge you tochip in. Why? Well, because if you don’t, Virgo will come find you, and I can’t appeal to her sense of restraint every time. Also, look at what you get here. You get Scout, who is a natural reporter–that woman makes Edward R. Murrow look like a PR flack. You get Athenae, who is the best goddamn writer on the Internet (except maybethis guy, but he already gets paid). … Continue reading Cough Up A Buck, Ya Cheap Bastards

Athenae, Geek Cred3 Comments

First Draft Fundraising: Final Day!

All right, we’re down to it. If you’ve appreciated a crack van or two over the past year, hit the tip jar. If you’ve laughed at a story, reacted with anger or sorrow or joy, if you’ve come away from this place having learned something (even if it’s just how awesome Jude is)hit the tip jar.If you want to see a ferret wearing a wee turtleneck sweater tonight, hit the tip jar. Yes. I’m pimping the pets. Come on, you knew what I was like before this, you had to. Hit the tip jar! A. Continue reading First Draft Fundraising: Final Day!

Adrastos, Diary7 Comments

Friday Catblogging: Is that a bird?

Della Street is a house cat and has little interest in exploring the great outdoors; unless, that is, she hears a bird chirping. Oscar and Della actually got a bird once. It had somehow gotten into the house and when we came home I found a decapitated bird head, a pool of birdie blood and two very proud hunter gatherer kitties. I hope it never happens again but ya never know… This is Della in alert, bird stalking mode: Continue reading Friday Catblogging: Is that a bird?

Adrastos, LOL6 Comments

To & Fro

I love Afros, the bigger the better. I remember when Kareem and Doctor J had huge fros that made them look 10 feet tall. Watching the Doc dunk with his gynormous fro was one of the pleasures of my youth. A Louisiana woman, Aevin Dugas, is the new world’s record holder with a fro that’s 4 feet 4 inches in circumference. It shouldn’t make me proud to be a Gret Steter but it somehow does. Continue reading To & Fro

Adrastos, Law/Justice10 Comments

Elegy for Troy Davis

There are days when I’m proud to be an American and then there are days like yesterday. I dislike the death penalty because of its finality. Once the switch is flicked, the poison injected or the trap door on the gallows sprung, it’s over, a life is taken and society has its vengeance, which far too many confuse with justice. The Troy Davis case was very troublesome because of the recantation of 7 of 9 eyewitnesses and the lack of physical evidence. It’s also troublesome because it shows how hard it is to overturn a death sentence. I recall studying … Continue reading Elegy for Troy Davis

Michael F6 Comments

Gordon Jesus Gekko

FromAlbum4 Christ on a cracker. About one in five Americans combine a view of God as actively engaged in daily workings of the world with an economic conservative view that opposes government regulation and champions the free market as a matter of faith. “They say the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work,” says sociologist Paul Froese, co-author of the Baylor Religion Survey, released today by Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I’m not naïve. Christianity has never been as pure as the driven snow; but I try respect those who genuinely make religion a guide for … Continue reading Gordon Jesus Gekko

Athenae, Immoral Values1 Comment

Every Life

Where were they tonight, I wonder? The people praying outside Terri Schiavo’s hospice. The people canting in the halls of Congress. The people shouting about every life being worth saving, always, no matter what that life might entail. Where were they tonight? All those preachers, all those pundits, all those people who told us that we were a Christian nation, that we had to save this woman or lose our souls: Where were they tonight? Not outside a Georgia prison, that’s for goddamn sure. Which was predictable, really. People who demanded intervention in the Schiavo case are the same people … Continue reading Every Life

Games, Science, VirgoTex3 Comments

Winning the internet, all of it

It’s not often, lately anyway, that we read a story that makes us want to fistbump the whole interwebs and shout, “Fuck yeah humans!” Butthis is one of those stories. Video-game players have solved a molecular puzzle that stumped scientists for years, and those scientists say the accomplishment could point the way to crowdsourced cures for AIDS and other diseases. “This is one small piece of the puzzle in being able to help with AIDS,” Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington, told me. Khatib is the lead author of a research paper on the project, published today … Continue reading Winning the internet, all of it

Adrastos, LOL, Music2 Comments

Line of the day

It comes fromMary Elizabeth Williams’ Salon postabout the sperm bank that is no longer accepting donations from red heads. First we have the set-up and then the joke in bold face: “We have nothing against red-haired donors,” explained the agency’s director Ole Schou to msnbc.com Monday. Schou told the Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet that“there are too many redheads in relation to demand. Our stock is about to explode.” Exploding stock, of course, is not a problem you want at your sperm bank. Mary Elizabeth, who is herself a red head, is one of the reasons I’m a fan of Salon. She … Continue reading Line of the day

Athenae, Economy, So Called Liberal Media10 Comments

A Must-Read Story About Poverty Making the Rounds

Read the whole thing and then come back. I’ll wait. There’s a couple of things going on in here beyond just the “wow, are people fucking fucked” response you’re supposed to have. The first is this: Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund called the surging child poverty rate “a national disgrace.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cited evidence that poverty shortens life spans, calling it “a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people.” Overall, though, the figures seemed to be greeted with resignation, and political leaders in Washington pressed ahead with efforts to cut federal … Continue reading A Must-Read Story About Poverty Making the Rounds

Athenae, Law/Justice7 Comments

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Ends Today

And I hope, soon, so will injustices like this: In general, same-sex partners will not get the same benefits that the Pentagon grants to heterosexual married couples to ease the costs of medical care, travel, housing and other living expenses. The Pentagon says the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as a legal union between a man and woman — precludes extending those benefits to gay couples, even if they are married legally in certain states. Same-sex partners can be listed as the person to be notified in case a service member is killed or injured, … Continue reading Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Ends Today

Athenae, Political Crack9 Comments

Surrendering in Advance

Xposted at Firedoglake: From Digby comes this story: Even though the automatic recount had cut Bush’s lead dramatically in the previous three days, Christopher and Daley offered little hope that the margin could be eliminated completely. “Look you got screwed,” said Daley, “but people get screwed every day. They don’t have a remedy. Black people get screwed all the time. They don’t have a remedy. Sometimes there’s no remedy. There’s nothing you can do about it… Which is a Thing for me, a little bit, the giving up, because I feel like in the last 20 years or so we’ve … Continue reading Surrendering in Advance

Adrastos, Political Crack

Ich Bin Ein Piraten

It’sinternational talk like a pirate day but you’ll hear nary an arrr or peg leg joke from me. All I’ve got isthis oddball story about a new German political party, which did pretty well in an election Germany’s state parliament now has representatives from a brand new political party that focuses heavily on Internet freedoms. The Pirate Party won 8.5 percent of the vote for the Berlin state parliament and ousted the Free Democrats, which is part of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition. And who are the party members? Here’s howDer Spiegelopens their story today: As Berlin election results came … Continue reading Ich Bin Ein Piraten

Adrastos, Economy, Political Crack10 Comments

It’s about time

President Obama has finally realized that raising taxes on the super rich is both good policy and good politics. It won’t pass and it took public pressure from tycoonWarren Buffett to get him to act like a Democrat BUT better late than never. The Republicans are, of course, outraged but so are some erstwhile “centrist” Democrats like former Clinton adviser and all around douchebag Mark Penn: Barack Obama is careening down the wrong path towards re-election. He should be working as a president, not a candidate. He should be claiming the vital center, not abandoning it. He should be holding … Continue reading It’s about time

Political Crack, Pony, Bitches!, Stupid Republican Tricks, Tommy T6 Comments

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – Palin Announces Candidacy edition

Well, faithful friends, the moment we have all been waiting for is here – let’s suit up and hit the airlock, cos the Freeperati are buzzing like an electric razor on its last legs.

Sarah Palin to Announce Today on Bob&Mark Show?
HillBuzz ^ | Sept 16, 2011 | HillBuzz

“The Bob & Mark Show” broadcasts out of Anchorage, Alaska, with hosts Bob and Mark on KWHL.[Click here for a link to their site, where you can listen to the broadcast LIVE! ] In the final episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on TLC — which Governor Palin herself produced and had complete creative control over — the Governor promised to let Bob and Mark know, on the air, when she decides to run for president. Since the Governor personally chose to have that bit included in the episode, there has to be a reason for this. “The Bob and Mark Show” broadcasts Monday through Friday.

1 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 5:50:14 AM bynewfreep
After all this time – all this teasing – all this hope and fear – could it finally be happening??

To: newfreep

She should probably wait a few days and let the tabloid book about her draw some more heat.

But then Friday’s are always good for good news. Screw up the Journalists weekend and make them cover you’re news cycle. Then she’ll be the talk of all the talking heads on Sunday.

3 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 5:58:11 AM byUsagi_yo
To: newfreep

I don’t buy it. If she were goingh to annonce, ashe’d certainly want to do so in a more splashy wat than on a dinky radio show. (No offense meant to the show.) but wouldn’t she at least pick Rusd Limbaugh’/s show, if not calling yogether a full media scrum of all the Network and cable news channels?

4 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:00:36 AM byDGHoodini (Iran Azadi)
New collective noun – a “scrum of media”.

To: DGHoodini

Quite the contrary.

My understanding has been, Palin long ago stated if she does announce, it will be on that very show.

Could be the day…

8 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:04:41 AM byCringing Negativism Network (“Cut the Crap and Balance!” — Governor Sarah Palin , Friday August 12 2011, Iowa State Fair)

God doesn’t love me that much,

To: DGHoodini

Do you really doubt if she were to call up all the news media, foreign and domestic, and say she was making a big announcement in 24 hrs at (X) place, that every single one of them wouldn’t have a news team there at the ready? Ahead of time, to get the best position they could?

12 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:07:00 AM byDGHoodini (Iran Azadi)

It would be like throwing them a scrum…er, crumb.

To: Col Frank Slade
Bob and Mark Show?

Seems kind of a lame venue to announce a Presidential bid.

Hmmm…, perhaps that means that she’s not going to announce anything of the sort, once again leaving her acolytes spurned at the altar.

9 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:06:08 AM byOceander (Refusing to Vote in 2012 is the Same Thing as Voting FOR Obama in 2012)

OhSnap
.

To: Oceander

Let me guess:

A Perry supporter, right?

15 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:08:06 AM byCringing Negativism Network (“Cut the Crap and Balance!” — Governor Sarah Palin , Friday August 12 2011, Iowa State Fair)

ItsOnLikeDonkeyKong

To: Cringing Negativism Network

There is winning and there is winning the wright way. I want to win the wright way.

30 posted on Friday, September 16, 2011 6:19:23 AM bySarah-bot

WrightBiplane
Will Our Sarah announce?
Will Bob and Mark announce their engagement?
Will Freeperstan explode in a Perry vs. Palin free-for-all?
The answers to this and many other questions below the fold-er-ol.

Continue reading “Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – Palin Announces Candidacy edition”

Current Affairs, Diary, Doc4 Comments

It Gets Better…

(Ed. Note: I wrote this after a weekend in a place that had no wifi, no cell service and more deer than people. I was stuck in the Newark Airport in what appeared to be a “boarding call auction” when it came to when we were going to take off: “3:30? Got it. Do I hear 3:45? Thank you! Anyone for a 4 p.m. delay? Yes! in the corner! Do I hear 4:15… A said if I could post before midnight, I’d be fine. Consider this early by journalistic standards. Hope you enjoy it. – Doc.) I spent the weekend … Continue reading It Gets Better…

Uncategorized2 Comments

First Draft Fundraising Drive

So, once a year we ask that you support what we do here.Your contributions and the few ads we get are the site’s sole means of support; we aren’t part of any overall media organization and we don’t have sweet TV gigs to back us up in our efforts to bring you nothing but the finest in political commentary, crack vans, reasons to hope for humanity, and occasionally the kind of reporting that blows the doors off the joint. Like this: Scout interviewed the police chief (she didn’t say which one and it was hard to hear but I think … Continue reading First Draft Fundraising Drive