Category: If It Weren’t For My Horse

And I Believe That You Need To Stay The Hell In Alaska

We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.

This statement by Prudence Palin today in Greensboring, North Carolina, smacks so obviously of Danny Quayle’s “Murphy Brown” comments that it is uncanny. I know, the subject matter is different, but the idiotic, naive tone just shimmers right off of it. When Quayle made his comments, I was a teenage boy in a single-parent household. (And you wonder why I vote how I do.) Now, a vice presidential candidate suggests that there are “pro-America areas” of America. A close relative of a presidential candidate in fact suggested that the very area of America where I live is “communist.” I know he was quipping, but it was a shitty quip. I was born registered Democrat, and I’ll die that way, still pushing hard for instant runoff voting all the way.

This is where the McWeirdsmile/Prudence campaign lives, tho, trying to suggest today and in its Hail Plumber Joe deal the other day that somehow, they’re just folkie, friendly, corn-fed folks. You know, folks. Just like folks. Next she’ll be using applying her skills as a flautist to a spent whiskey crock and saying “howdy ya’ll.” It is idiocy. But there is a real danger in what her statement suggests, that some areas of the nation are made up of decent, God-fearin’ Americans, implictly suggesting that those elitist city-slickers just ain’t to be trusted.

Which leads me to wonder. Nine years ago, I moved from Cary, N.C. (40 minutes or so from where she spoke) to live in Arlington, Va. Does Palin think I was a “pro-America” folk before, and that, when I moved to the D.C. Metro area, I lost said status? How does that work?

And who made these assholes the arbiters of adequate levels of patriotism? This is the same political ideology that has just about nearly now gotten finished curb-jobbing America. They’ve been wrong about everything, everything, everything, from the efficacy of invading Iraq to how to steer the economy, and you reckon they know shite about patriotism? Actual patriotism? “Terrorist fist-jab?” WTF?

Look. Which message sets better with ya? What Prudence Palin said today? Or what Joe the Senator said today?

It’s disappointing, and I hope it’s a slip of the tongue and she doesn’t mean it, but she said it. It was reported she said that she likes to visit quote “pro American” parts of the country. Ladies and gentlemen, I, like your senator and governor, have been all over this great land. I’ve never been to a state, I’ve never been to a state that hasn’t sent its sons and daughters to serve and die for this country. One of the reasons why Barack and I are running is that we know how damaging the politics of division that continues to be practiced by the McCain, how damaging this policy of division has been. It’s time to put this behind us. Folks, it is not a corny thing. It’s real. We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic. We all love our country in every part of this country. And I’m tired. I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism.

Me too.

I Bet Prudence Palin Can't Even Spell 'Infrastructure'

Rachel Maddow, doing what she does best, tonight:

One truism in American politics now is that Americans trust Democrats more than they trust Republicans on the issue of the economy. It’s borne out by the polls, by which I mean that it is observably true, but it’s also a truism, in the sense that it’s taken for granted; it often doesn’t even explained. Well, Obama’s proposal today on the economy, on the government taking action in hard economic times to create jobs by building infrastructure, if you want to understand why Americans broadly like Democrats on economic issues? Lookie here! This is the DNA of the Democratic Party on the economy in a time of crisis. When the private sector is failing to do what the country needs it to do, use the public sector to help relieve the pain, to stimulate the private sector, and, ultimately, everybody wins. Public works projects create jobs. People get hired to build those roads and bridges and schools. When those buidling projects are done, we all benefit from improved quality of life because our roads and bridges are improved, and they’re safer, too. And the cost of doing business in America goes down because the truckers and the shipping companies and the widget makers all benefit as much as you do from fewer axle-breaking frost heaves on the highway. It’s yet to be seen whether America is ready for a new New Deal. But if we need one economically, we will need a President who can make that case, that government’s got to have a role to play. That’s why it’s no accident that tough economic times turn American eyes toward Democrats.

It’s also why John McWeirdsmile has appeared to be so utterly tone-deaf every time he has whined about earmarks. Certainly, there’s pork in earmarks, but that’s also sometimes how a state or congressional district accquires badly-needed infrastructure jing. And since right now feels eerily more like the Great Depression than certainly any time since I’ve been alive, it might be a bad idea to be charging against infrastructure investment in local communities, seeing as how that was one tool in FDR’s arsenal what helped snap us the hell out of it.

I am utterly ecstatic that Mr. Obama has proposed infrastructure investment as monetary policy. I just hope he’ll be able to find the money to do it. Infrastructure investment is, to me and also to Rachel Maddow, the most essential and yet most severely overlooked national security issue for America. Not to mention that all this talk about “going green” goes nowhere without the proper infrasturcture upgrades nationwide. I believe fervently that you can measure a country’s health by the shape of its transportation infrastructure, and we’ve poured neither enough money nor enough sweat into ours for years.

Fortunately, it’s looking like Obama’s coattails may reach all the way to Hong Kong, while McWeirdsmile’s may not even shade his crack. Florida Gov. Charlie Christ…sorry, I mean “Crist”…snubbed Commander Tigh real bad today, choosing to go to Disney World rather than to be seen with him. That is stunning; not even Crist, who was on the train early for the Republigoat nominee, is willing to be seen with him. Stunner.

John McWeirdsmile has apparently learned an important lesson of governance from The Current President: Take All Of Your Credibilty and Piss It Away And Then Poop On It, Then Bludgeon It With A Stick. What a dickhead.

Then I'll Feed Him A Nice Piece of Pie

If you say that you would “follow him to the gates of Hell,” aren’t you usually saying that you adore and respect that person? As in, “My CO, he’s a mensch. Once, he told me to flank left and I flanked right and nearly got my nuts blown off. He’s a leader, and I trust him with my life. I would follow him to the gates of Hell.”

So why does John McWeirdsmile continue to insist that he’d follow Osama bin Forgotten there?

You can accuse me of picking nits here. But I’m just saying. Either the Republigoat nominee for President of the Untied States adores and respects the guy who’s been pinned with the entire responsibility for The September The Eleventh and continues to proclaim this adoration and respect in public, or he is too stupid to know how to use the English language.

Now. Here’s a nice Web site you can spend some time on: Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain.

Priorities, People!

In my comments queue this morning stood this little gem. I did not approve it. But I am referring to it here.

Approval requested in the post titled “I Like To Wear Men’s Underwear,” which was about the Randi Rhodes YouTube debacle. Certain details in the post including the e-mail address have been changed to protect the stupid.

It said:

“To take a little heat off of Randi, it has been stated by others and noted by many in the know about Washington that Hillary has been involved in a Lesbian affair with…[a female person]…for…[a period of time]. If proof and cite are desired, I can be contacted at busybody at whogivesacrap.com.”

Who cares? Who cares who cares who cares who cares? Who cares? Why are people so interested in who the Clintons are screwing? Who cares?

I am more concerned with how badly they’re screwing the political process than I am with what particular person either one of them is actually with in the budoir. On your bike!

Also, and I’m only asking because this part of the statement is about to cause blood to squirt out of my nose, how, oh how, oh how does this statement “take a little heat off of Randi?” Mrs. Clinton is having a lesbian affair, so therefore the management at Air America Radio didn’t need to play contract hardball with her using some YouTubed comments she made in a nightclub in San Francisco? What?

Anyway: We here at Crack Whores for Good Government are not the only ones who noticed that Mrs. Clinton hasn’t quite been completely accurate about whenabouts Bill Clinton became the nominee in 1992. Here are a few others:

Pennies In My Thoughts

60 Minutes last night ran a piece on one of my pet nerd obsessions: The penny.

There are some weisenheimers who think it would be a spiffy idea to just eliminate the penny. They argue that it costs more to mint a penny than it’s actually worth and, sillier still, that having pennies in our economy is just time consuming.

What a bunch of assclowns.

Eliminating the penny doesn’t make sense on its face. You see, Jerry, the number “one” is a particularly interesting number in that it is the only unit of measure that represents a single unit of anything. When you say “five,” you’re really using a mathematical and linguistic shorthand, meaning “five ones.” Remove the unit representing a single unit, and what are you counting? What? A nickel is five pennies. A dime is ten pennies. A quarter is 25 pennies. A dollar is 100 pennies. Ten dollars is 1,000 pennies. If you eliminate the penny, YOU ELIMINATE THE MOST BASIC UNIT OF CURRENCY, DUMB-DUMB, and you necessiate by definition that our economy goes from counting in units of “one” to counting in units of “five.” If you don’t think that sounds like a doomsday scenario, you probably work in the Bush administration.

Besides. Arguing for the elimination of the penny because it costs money to mint is, wow, it’s an If It Weren’t For My Horse if I’ve ever heard one. You see, Jerry, metal markets are what we call “volatile.” Yes, the price of copper and other metals are very high today. But prices of those commodities do not stay flat. They could tumble by year’s end. Then you’ve eliminated the most basic unit of the American currency for even one less stupid reason than before. Besides again: I’m sure what it costs to mint all those pennies in a year would pay for a half a day in Iraq.

Look. Anyone concerned with the price of minting pennies should go home and look at your guilty reflection in that overflowing jar on his dresser (this means you, U.S. Mint Director Edmund Moy, who admitted in the story that even he has such a jar). Perhaps if more would bother to spend those pennies rather than hoarding them, the Mint wouldn’t have to make so many. And that would be good for the U.S. economy and for individual economies as well, since that jar is just wasted income. And by the way, the cashier at the local mom-and-pop where you get your morning Twinkie? She likes it, too. It means fewer trips to her local credit union for change. Spend your pennies, and you will get to hang on to more of your dollars. It’s that simple.

I told you it was a nerd obsession.

Willard Stinks

How utterly revolting a human being is Willard Romney? How disgusting, how ignorant, how repulsive can a human being be?

First, he utters one of the wrongest, most anti-American things a person can utter: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Wrong!

Then he lies about his daddy’s affiliation with Martin Luther King Jr., trying to use the man for his own political profit. Wow. Mortifying.

That is all.

No, But We Are Willing To Learn

In case you’re curious to read the e-mails between Corey Andrew and Sgt. Marcia Ramode, KIAV’s got ’em. Found them on the internets. Stole ’em. Heh-heh. (PDF)

In case you haven’t heard this story, have a seat. It’s a doozy. Andrew went and put his CV up on a job-hunting website. Ramode contacted him about signing up to fight for Uncle Sam! Andrew wrote back: “…I would imagine also that I am now able to serve in the US military as an openly gay man, right?”

She found the caps lock key.

“WELL I FYOU ARE GAY WE DON’T TAKE YOU YOU ARE CONSIDERED UNQUALIFIED.”

Then it was on, bitches! And it crescendoed to these dizzying heights from the recruiter: “YOU GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED THERE AND PRACTICE YOUR GAY MORALS OVER THERE THAT’S WHERE YOU BELONG.”

Ah. A Ted Nugent fan. Excellent.

It’s priceless. Click here, scroll to the bottom, work your way up. You’ll see what I mean when I’ve said that I think this is more than just prejudice; that it’s a genuine mental disorder. Andrew gooses her a bit, but this exchange goes from zero to Michael Richards with relatively little provocation—especially considering that the initial contact was from her, not he.

Second, I can’t help but believe that this sort of exchange really indicates that effluent—that’s a fancy word for “shit”—really does run downhill. Coincidence, is it, that we see this ugliness just weeks after the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this: “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that [the U.S. military] should not condone immoral acts…I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way…As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy.” ?

And if it can be shown, at least anecdotally, that effluent indeed can run downhill this easily, why is it so difficult to believe that the idea to hood and wire and force into standing and dogs and fake menstrual blood and all that to other human beings came from higher up?