Category Archives: War/Military

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And the Nominee for STUPID is. . . .The GOP

bobbyjOh my head hurts. I mean seriously people, the list of nominees for MOST STUPID is the most widely contested race of all.

Shall we poll the Internet denizens?

Here are some of the nominees. Feel free to add any you can think of. The winner will receive a dead fish wrapped in the NYTimes, delivered by a pony express rider wearing a Dior gown of sparkling crystals.

1. Proving that he can’t read, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin says he will sign a new bill requiring an ultrasound of any pregnant woman seeking an abortion. Having learned nothing from what happened in Virginia when Governor McDonnell also planned to sign the same sort of thing, Walker announces that “I don’t have any problem with ultrasound”. No I guess HE doesn’t. But perhaps if it were required that all men who decide to treat women like children and tell them what to do with their own bodies, should undergo a lobotomy, he might, just might, change his tune. But then again, maybe not.

2. Arizona House Representative, Trent Franks resurrected the old “rape victims block the pregnancy” argument of Todd Akin, stating the “incidence of pregnancy following rape is very low.”  This was in support of a bill introduced by Franks making abortion illegal after 20 weeks. Democrats had introduced an amendment making an exception for rape and incest. It appears that Republican man are raised to believe that they are doctors by osmosis. It’s a male thing.

sarah-palin-stupid-republican-quotes-dumb-republicans-best-republican-quotes 3. So utterly against any immigration bill are some Republicans that they don’t even want to debate the issue. The reasons are obvious. The final bill may well pass the Senate, and then it’s on the House where Boehner will wring his hands and insist that he’s only there to help the House speak it’s will. The likes of Steve King and Louis Gohmert and Steve Stockton, will provide the show there. For now this group joins in a team effort to win the golden smelly carp award: Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), James Inhofe (Okla.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Mike Lee (Utah), James Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard Shelby (Ala.) and David Vitter (La.). A finer band of brothers in stupid cannot be found.

4. Virginia Lieutenant Governor nominee, E. W. Jackson wrote a book, and published it. It is called The Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life. Trouble is, he misspelled Commandments to Comandments in the title. Then he said that yoga would lead to satanic possession.

5. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is somebody you probably never heard of. I suspect you can continue to not hear of him. He took to the floor last week in the House and ranted on about how the President was “a vengeful liar who lacks the moral compass” to lead the nation. He likened himself to Patrick Henry. He thinks he did a good job. Trouble is, I guess he forgets that the polls suggests he may be the one without a moral compass. It’s improper to cast such vitriol on the House floor. But alas it’s nothing new for the crazy crew. And by the by, all his reasoning was based on factual untruths. ALL of them. So I guess he’s intellectually impaired on top of being a flagrant abuser of the mouth.

6. Darrell Issa claimed through selected editing of testimony, that the order to select “conservative” applications for tax-exempt status came “from Washington”. He promised that the full transcripts would be released shortly. Of course the full transcripts said just about the opposite. The person who has owned up to the screening methodology, describes himself as a Conservative Republican and says he doesn’t believe there was any political motivation in the process, but merely a method to extract those applications that would undoubtedly necessitate deeper analysis. Issa now claims that release of the full transcripts would be “dangerous and irresponsible.” He now claims it is Cummings who is the problem.

Santorum_dunce17. Now I admit, this is not a Republican. But well, we have loved Carl Levin for many years. But we are pretty darn happy he’s decided to retire. He voted to keep the decision-making on rape charges in the hands of command. It was wrong. He sided with the military men. It was wrong. This kind of thing makes no sense on any level. It doesn’t promote cohesion in the ranks. It promotes distrust. Shame on him. And on Clare McCaskill who also voted this way.

So that’s my line up for today.

As I said, please add your favorites.

It’s hard to miss a week without Gohmert being on the list I know.

But he’ll be back in the top ten. He won’t let us down.

don-young-wetback-comments-immigrationSo.

Vote.

Vote often.

oops

 

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I’m Going As Fast as I Can!

SONY DSCReally I am. Actually, I’m traveling at lightening speed.

For example:

Yesterday I got up, cleaned house until 6:50 a.m., walked Diego two miles, finished cleaning the house, went to the grocery store, returned home, put away groceries, searched through all the papers in the file cabinet, finding 90% of what was necessary for the accountant tomorrow and the taxes, drove the Contrarian to the Eyemart with his new prescription, picked out frames, and stopped for *gasp* fast food for lunch, and arrived home, all before 1 p.m. At 3:00 p.m, I returned to Eyemart and picked up his glasses. The(Two more weeks and I can have chocolate again!)

Today, I cleaned house until 6:50 a.m, (finished by the way!), walked Diego two miles, and returned to make the basic parts of a Shepherd’s Boy casserole, which is now waiting to go in the oven. And *gasp* it’s only 9 a.m. and I have 50 minutes of leisure before we head off to get the taxes done.

Tomorrow, I get to go to the pool, and get my hair cut. We are determined to get all our “stuff” done this month. We have to hit the Veterans Affairs office to turn in our property tax exemptions yet, and something else that needs filling out, which I no longer remember.

I keep waiting for that blessed week when there are no “things” to attend to. I never used to be this busy. I really never used to be. The more retired I get, the busier I get. I know there is something important I should be ingesting from that realization, but I’m either not aware of what it is, or I’m scared to discover what it is.

I once upon a time said that virtually everything I dreamed about moving down here came true, but for a couple. The Catholic churches basically suck here (which I never would have imagined), and there is no pool within two blocks of where I live. Well guess what? One just got a good deal closer.

It turns out that one of the parks and rec outdoor pools is only about four miles from me. A darn sight closer than the approximately thirteen mile one that I go to now. It doesn’t open until Memorial day, but I have been told that almost nobody goes there, so I can enjoy myself in solitary bliss probably. Why they wait so long I have no clue–it’s in the mid-seventies every day now, and often in the low to mid-80′s.  Go figure.

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It’s been ten years since the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq. Where are all the celebrations? Were we not greeted as “liberators”?  Yeah, I guess not. It’s really hard to make an argument that awful as he was, the Iraqi people are not really any better off than they were before we “saved” them. I suspect they are much worse. And nobody worth a damn went to jail for that crime.

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The GOP screams like a stuck pig that they have “no war on women”. Well, yeah they do. But it’s only a huge segment of a much bigger picture in which a lot more people (mostly men, but not all) are implicated. Cases in point.

  • Remember the dude at the CPAC who wanted to know why Frederick Douglass sent a letter forgiving his slave master? After all, the North Carolinian “white demographic” pointed out, he got “food and shelter” after all. He pointed out it would be a damn sight better if we still had segregation, and that Black folk could do all the voting they wanted in Africa. Well it turns out that as that meeting broke up, a woman approached and proceeded to give him a thing or two about his overt racism. Said White Male, retorted, as I am told, “so is this the new rebranded version of the GOP where women confront and tell off men in public?” or words to that effect.
  • You all no doubt heard or read about the Steubenville case where at least two young men of high school age took advantage of an inebriated fellow teen girl, and raped her. The coverage has been, to say the least, extremely sexist in its presentation. The reporters and their networks cannot get over how sad it’s been for the boys, who had “promising football careers” and were so altogether nice in every way. They never missed a chance to remind us that the girl was so drunk she passed out. Oh and they ALL “inadvertently” dropped her name in their video reports even though she is a minor.

Forgive me if I still bluster about the need of women to continue the fight for full and complete rights in this still patriarchal world we live in. We put on the trappings of equality, and people do the “politically correct thing” and underneath it all, well, men will be men and boys will be boys, and women? Well women just keep taking it.

Read the link. It’s an important commentary on how we still operate in this country.

And well, it’s time to be off to the tax accountant. Sigh…you know I just love this!

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I Need Two More Feet!

brokentoeWandering into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a glass of water, my toe met its Waterloo. No I didn’t trip up to Iowa, rather my toe met the corner of the wastebasket container, and my toe lost the battle. At first I figured it for merely another stubbing with searing pain for about two minutes, and then chalk it up as another of those miserable toe meets _________stories.

Twas not to be. As I turned from the sink, and began to walk, a tingling was felt that was definitely harbinger of much worse to come. I sat upon the sofa and manipulated the fourth digit and heard/felt a distinctive popping, which suggested that all was not kosher.

I moaned and hobbled off to  bed, where I moaned again. The Contrarian sat up.

“I broke my toe,” I groaned.

“Where?” he asked.

“On the way into the kitchen,” I quivered.

“On the wastepaper container?”, the specifics somehow of great importance here.

I squelched the question, “are you going out there and beat it up?” and merely said, “yes.”

He got up. I tried to get as comfy as possible. A few minutes later, I heard him coming into the room.

“Still awake?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

He turned on the light, and stood there with an ice pack. He got one of the decorative bed pillows and laid it in place with the ice, and fixed my foot upon said pillow. “The internet said to keep it elevated and iced to prevent swelling.” he advised as he climbed back into bed.

“Thank you dear, it’s really not hurting.”

Which would all not be so terrible were it not for the fact that the other foot sports something we have called a stone bruise, which has lasted for about three weeks on my heel. I have tried to ignore it and “walk it off” but it hovers between getting much better, and then being horribly painful and hobbling. That leaves me with no good feet.

With flip-flops, and my toe taped in friendly buddy camaraderie with the bigger middle toe, there is just enough padding to my bruised heel foot to get around. Oh and with a healthy dose of some prescription ibuprofen given to me by the dentist to assuage sore gums from my teeth cleaning last week.

Diego, I might add, is bummed.

Meanwhile. . . . .

Drone-WarfareThis kinda sums up my concerns about drones.

Whether for surveillance or for attack, they pose a serious intrusion on our lives. Nobody thinks it wrong that they are snooping at the border, because we don’t want “them” coming across.

Probably few in America would object if they patrolled in high drug trafficking areas within some of our cities, because we want “them” stopped.

How many other areas are we prepared to accept drones as a part of modern law enforcement?

How many are prepared to have them used in a more aggressive form?

There is an old Star Trek wherein constant war between two planets resulted in an agreement that each side could “score” computer attacks, and “casualties” would be generated. People would then march dutifully to disintegration chambers. Thus each country could preserve its infrastructure and life could go on. This had gone on for five hundred years.

Proof that what we get too far from, we find more palatable. Making war nice and easy and unmessy, has unintended consequences.

President-Skeet-Shooter It was predictable.

We knew they would.

They can’t help it.

They hate with a viciousness and wild fresh-meat smell that is scary, funny, and as I said, oh so predictable.

They claimed we would never see a picture because he never had shot skeet, or as one Blazey Boob put it, “I have shot lots of skeets and he ain’t shooting any skeets that I ever seen.” Yes skeets indeed.

When they produced the picture, if was of course, doctored, like his birth certificate, his college transcripts, his law license, and well, his “I’m a human being” card.

He kills over three thousand Muslims with drones, and is called a card-carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood, intend on bringing Sharia law to Merika.

Go figure. They are nuts. It shows.

Anchors-AweighOn the other hand, watching the GOP engage in a mmmm, Tea People taste good, feeding frenzy is most entertaining.

I mean you go to bed at night a card-carrying conservative Republican, and wake up the next morning an RINO, to be heaped on the pile of derision by the reactionary right-wing. NOT CRAZY ENOUGH ARE YOU screams Yoda.

Some don’t think the Tea Bibbers have the stomach for a long fight against rational Repubs who just want to win a damn election. Some don’t think they have the numbers or will to start their own third party and linger in the basement with Ralph and the other groups that vie for a place on the ballot. HERE WE ARE ↓ IN THE BASEMENT. I think remnants of the old Communist Party still dust off the buttons every four years and give it go for the Bolshevik cause.

Rush and the folks at Foxy Noise are in a tither, not knowing what to do, while Karl insists that if you will just give him more money, he will use it and WIN this time. He promises. Rush has made a living off of cheating and double-dealing all his miserable life. He’s so very prepared to continue.

Meanwhile the Tea bibbers no longer have a clue what they were about in the beginning. It had something to do about banks they think, though what it was, nobody recalls. They look down and find a KJV bible in one hand and an AK-a5 in the other, and look longingly at the Bud on the table. I may not have two good feet at the moment, but they need another hand immediately. The Bud eases the cognitive dissonance of what is in their hands.

Maher-TroubleDonald is suing.

You see, Bill said that he was the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.

Donald whipped out his birth certificate to prove him wrong.

Bill, smilingly suggests that old Hair-do misses the point.

Donald wants Bill to donate some money to charity.

Bill smiles.

Donald sues.

Donald has nothing to do.

All those Apprentices run his business.

He can’t spend all day trying on toupees.

He can’t spend all day looking up all the words that people call him, that would take forever. And besides, things like Asshat aren’t even in the dictionary yet. But the word has been submitted to the Oxford English Dictionary committee with his picture.

Have a glorious day, and don’t stub your toe. Because I will laugh if you do. Really i will. Misery loves company.

1-sad-pup_1

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To Drone Or Not to Drone

dronesLet’s just start out by saying: I’m conflicted here.

So don’t expect answers, just a lot of questions.

Under the Obama Administration, drone attacks of a lethal nature have increased from something less than fifty under Bush to something over 350 under President Obama. Some of this undoubtedly has to do with better technology, but more has to do with an increasing willingness to use predator drones as a means of assassinating so-called “enemy combatants.”

My moral sense, informed by my faith, tells me that drones are simply wrong, because war in general is wrong, and killing people deliberately is wrong. I find nothing in the teachings of Christ which can make war appropriate; indeed his life and death suggest that it is never appropriate. That said, my own church, and most Christian denominations support the concept of war in limited circumstances–something called “justified” warfare. That includes, but is not limited to wars of self-defense to repel an invader. The trouble is, the term just is pretty broad, and although there are a series of elements to it, in the end, each is big enough to drive a truck through. It ends up meaning, war is acceptable when we think it is.

Still, I could go much further than the Church and stick to my basic belief that the way to stop wars is to stop warring.

Yet, I live in a real world with real threats. Innocents around the world are dying by the hundreds each day due to the evil of lethal aggression from a variety of sources. There seems to be a duty to intervene to stop it. When and how and for whom tend to be the stumbling blocks. Sadly our intervention seems more determined by how “strategic” the country involved is. Do we want or need something from it? If we do, we are inclined to do what’s necessary to bring it to stability.

That stability, sadly, has little to do with what is morally right or wrong. It is the main reason we find ourselves hated by large numbers of people throughout the globe today. That is true of every continent. We have supported vile dictatorships in the name of that stability and the consequent protection of our “interests”. The people have not forgotten. Some, perhaps most, recognize that the American people at large don’t make these decisions–they hate our government but not necessarily us.

So, if we life in a world where war is going to go on regardless of our moral objections, where do drones fit in?

First, let’s set the record clear. There is nothing wrong with using drones on the actual battlefield. It is no different from a large cannon or a tank. Nobody argues that the use of drones should be prohibited here.

The area of contention is the use of lethal drone strikes in otherwise “neutral” territory. Best estimates suggest that the number of people killed by drones issued by the US, amount to somewhere between 2,000 and 3200, give or take. Somewhere between 18-23% of those killed were non-combatants or as we like to cleanly call them, “collateral damage”. This should give pause by itself.

There seem to be several points of inquiry about their use in general:

  1. Who decides?
  2. What are the standards by which decisions are made to identify a target?
  3. Should Americans be subjects of attack?

Some argue that it is unseemly or somehow wrong that the President signs off apparently on each of these targets. They claim he should be more divorced from the action. Since he is undeniably accountable for the program and what it does or doesn’t do, I find this argument specious. In fact,  am slightly comforted that I can trust that a sane head is making the ultimate decision.

By the way, the very fact that President Obama has expanded the drone program so dramatically during his tenure in office, suggests that the Tea Party reactionaries who claim that Obama is in love with Muslims and is secretly working for them, are as we would expect, crazy as loons. Yet of course the Tea Party does not laud the President either for his actions, suggesting that their motives as we always suspect are more racial than rational.

The standards, we understand are largely revealed in documents released. They suggest that the following must be met:

  1. The target must be an imminent threat to US citizens safety and lives.
  2. There must be no reasonable way to capture the target alive.
  3. There must be no other rational alternative.

Since most if not all of those killed by drones have occurred in foreign countries, it is hard to explain how the first standard is ever met. One can only conjure up claims that this target was the one to give the “go” to a plot ready to be employed but for the target’s okay. I suspect that such a situation is rare.

The second standard would seem to be regularly ignored as well, since we know that special ops alternatives can and are used on occasion, and it is unclear when they cannot be used as opposed to when they can.

The third standard seems redundant.

The third issue, regarding Americas being targets seems to be the one that causes all the wringing of hands and hysterics. I find the claim that American citizens are citizens and therefore “different” completely bogus. If we contend that American citizens should not be subject to drone attack because it violates their constitutional rights to life and liberty absent due process efforts to remove them, than I think the same applies to foreign targets.

We claim that our “rights” are nothing less than human rights. We tell the world that they too should give their citizens nothing less, because it is simply morally right. We often attempt to interfere in other countries precisely in an effort to help the people there “obtain” their human rights. We maintain sanctions against countries that we find in violation of “human rights.”

Given all that, how can we treat those we capture and claim to be “enemy combatants” anything less than the right to be charged as such, and to be afforded due process. Guantanamo is a hideous example of the ugliness of American policy toward non-citizens. Before somebody suggests that it is no different from a POW camp, think again. Most  all POW’s wore UNIFORMS. Their ACTIVE engagement in warfare against us was not in dispute.

Many at Guantanamo dispute their designation. Some have been released years later because it was determined they were arrested in error. We have held some of these people for nearly 14 years not. It is immoral, period. To suggest that they are not entitled to  the basic right of having an impartial judicial determination of their “guilt” is inhumane in its narrowest sense. To suggest that we cannot “safely” conduct trials in this country is ludicrous and makes Timothy McVeigh and other terrorists who were tried here, some kind of “special case” which they were not.

At present, polling in the US suggests that 83% of the country approves of the drone program. Close to 2/3 believe that it is appropriately used against American citizens. There seems to be no real divide between Democrats and Republicans; this is one area where partisanship apparently does not play.

That is what I know. I’m sure there is much I don’t know. If you can assist me in my quandary, please do. I’m still not sure where I come out with all this.

You may way to take a look at the following:

The American People Love Drones

The International Law of Drones

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Standing in Line to Make that Assiness First

cruzThey breed ‘em big in Texas.

Asshats that is.

Ted Cruz, the newly elected, still wet-behind the ears, Senator from the late great state of YeHaw, is making it very clear that the Tea Bag Nation is full to the brim with bluster if not brains.

Ted got all in-your-face at the hearings over the proposed new gun legislation and then did the same when it came to confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel.

Now let me state up front, I have no clear opinion on Chuck. His performance at the hearings was unstellar to say the least, though I’ve read that he was warned again and again not to get into a pissing contest with his opponents. I am basically not terribly impressed with him, but I’m not the President either, so I say, if that’s the man he wants, he should have him.

Ted ranted like a child, and now threatens by his demands to further prove his assiness. He’s demanding records from Hagel of companies that Hagel was involved with but did not control (i.e. he has no right to the documents) and copies of speeches he gave that were never in writing to begin with and never recorded.

Ted you see is an all around jerk. He’s a perfect example of the substantivelessness of the Tea People in general. Bluster abounds, actual facts, knowledge, or even basic common sense are absent. That makes one wonder if he more resembles a Texan or a Tea Bibber. (apologies to all my Texan friends, seriously, I know you are embarrassed by this idiot as I was of the king of stupid Steven King, and am close to be of the Tea Pipsqueak Steven Pence of New Mexico.)

Rational heads even in the Republican party think he’s beginning to act like a first class douche. He has ambitions it’s clear. I rather think he’s dumb enough to destroy his own campaign.

Š

Meanwhile Republican-controlled legislatures across the country continue their assault on women’s rights. Oh, yeah, I forget, “protecting women’s health and safety.” I forget, when Republicans aren’t calling women too stupid to think for themselves, they are busy protecting their health–the better to breed my dear!

In Tennessee, Jim Stacy who has his eye on a congressional seat, is introducing legislation to require women to not only undergo ultrasounds before any abortion, but to see the photograph and listen to the fetal heartbeat. All because, women you know, probably have no idea what they are aborting, thinking perhaps its just a bag of Cheetos.

In Alabama, that bastion of intellectual plenty, a WOMAN legislator has decided that the architecture of the building in which an abortion takes place contributes to unsafe medical procedures, and thus are illegal places to perform said procedures. Such ploys are becoming most common, demanding that the building contain one more broom closet per floor, or six more heating vents. Just utter crap demands that cost thousands to comply with and thus force many clinics to close their doors. These bills of course are called “women’s health and safety acts” to pretty them all up.

Women who have no reasonable place to get an abortion? Suffer and have that kid. But that’s where the “help” stops of course. These states are fairly notorious for not wanting to help care for the infants they demand to be born.

Š

Just a bit of flotsam here. Bet you didn’t know that George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have something in common did ya? They do, they do! Both have had shoes thrown at them by irate Arabs. You all remember that George got his in Iraq. Well Mahmoud got his (several in fact) thrown at him from a crowd in Cairo. I just love the symmetry of that don’t you? Both nuts, both shoe dodgers.

Š

Do run by Woodgate’s View today and read the great reblogged post on the character Polonius from Hamlet and John McCain. It is both hilarious and a dead on accurate assessment of the great Maverick who really wasn’t. Great read.

Š

Under the theory, that if I can waste upwards of 300 million dollars in one election cycle, that should stand as no impediment to giving me more, Karl Rove is back at it, as you have no doubt heard. He’s formed a new group that is designed to purge the party of the craziest segment of the TeaDom and keep their airy little heads from winning primaries statewide. The first target is one near and dear to my liberal heart, one Steven King (R-IA) whom we understand is wanting to run for Tom Harkin’s Senatorial seat. Trouble is, as we know, Steven is a harebrained lunatic of the highest magnitude short of a quasar and cannot possibly win statewide (all the crazies being mostly kept in the western corner of the state). Karl wants him out and a more respectable (less crazy) alternative, probably Latham.

Fox Noise, with ratings dropping badly from their assurance that Willard would carry the day easily, is out to purge its ranks of the most awful of the awful, starting with Dick Morris who has been told to go peddle his Clinton-hating nonsense somewhere else. Ditto for the grifter queen herself, our dear little Sarah.

And of course, the GOP has offered the hot chile to the Latino community by designating Marco Rubio, to be the answer man to the President’s State of the Union speech. They want that brown vote BAD! All the while, Marco assures the Right that the new “path to citizenship” will be arduous and the line will be long, probably years in the traversing, to soothe the bigoted minds of the trailer trash that is THE TeaMonsterAutoBashBudBowl. None of it is true of course, but the stupid, usually stay that way, and will never know what hit them.

Which is all to say, that the emperor has no clothes and we see your little dickie bobbing in the wind, just fine, and nobody wants a little dickie.

Got that?

K.

Bye.

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Yeah So What Have You Done For Me Lately?

I’m too pooped for words. Three hours in the kitchen making food items for today and tomorrow. I still have stuff to make tomorrow but now I don’t have to spend the WHOLE day. Not that I give a hoot who wins this game, other than the coach of the 49′ers was from U of M and I HATE U of M with all the passion that a true Spartan can muster. That is a lot in case you didn’t know.

So I made some refried beans and some Mexican rice and some green chile salsa. We’re having chimichangas today but I have those made up from a while back and just have to take them from the freezer and put them in the oven. I still have to make guacamole which has a maddeningly bad habit of turning unappetizingly brown when left too long. It’s the oxygen that does it. Just a tip. Store left over with a piece of plastic spread tight on the surface, touching it to push out the air.

I made some pesto for a dish tomorrow, and a jalapeno popper dip too. Then I made some lemon/pumpkin seed sweet muffins, and then a vanilla wafer/banana pudding dish with a meringue on top. I’m pooped. I had a whole list, and everything is crossed off real nice and neat. I just have to make marinade for the Jamaican jerk chicken wings and then make the dough for the pizza wheels. Those are easy.

Has politics been pissing you off? Has me. Nothing changes. When 93% of the population is in favor of background checks for prospective gun buyers, why do all the Republicans think that they have the RIGHT to signal they are not wanting it? What makes them so special? Oh, yeah, I forgot, the checks they get from the NRA.

Paranoid-RightI been talking a lot on Facebook with old high school folks. Amazing that there is a couple of them who are the TeaBaggin’ whirly heads. One says nothing but stupid lines like “Obumma is destroying America” and “all democruds are stupid.” He obviously was matriculated through without passing a test of any kind.

The other wants me to explain why the Obama’s don’t have their law licenses any more. I explained it, of course rather easily. She pounced. “You are wrong! Michelle was forced to give her’s up or face prosecution for fraud!”

“No,” I sighed, “that is another of those crazy urban myths.”

She prefers to live in her delusions because it fits her mind-set. Oh and she said Sarah was just “brilliant”. Sarah may be a lot of things, brilliant is not one of them. I have rocks in my back yard that I could have a more interesting discussion with.

The loon-land crazies have gotten no less crazy and a goodly number of them are still being courted by the GOP. Which is fine. It just insures an easier road in 2016.

Dont-Laugh-at-MeI mean, I try to be patient with the really bashingly crazy ones. I do. But it does get so boring wasting any time on such blithering bonkers beliefs. How’s that for alliteration?

I love alliteration. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I just love to string ‘em all out there until I exhaust myself.

That poor don’t tread on me snake, I feel sorry for him. To be co-opted by such a bunch of dopes. It gives a bad name to snakes. I mean laughing at a snake? Seriously, that must be embarrassing.

GOP-Blockage

 

Is anybody beginning to just laugh whenever they see Lindsey or Johnny pull a microphone towards them?

Bellicose! Outrage! End of world as we know it!

Lindsey is the funniest of all because with his twang he sounds like he’d be better at calling for the next act in the cross-dressing contest at Mardi Gras. His fake shock and awe is truly hysterical.

Somebody ought to tell Johnny that if he dies with that big old permanent scowl on his face, it will stay that way for all eternity. Not the way you want to meet Jesus, John. Your life is way too short to waste any more of it tilting at windmills, or tilting period. Scrape Lindsey off your behind and find a good book to read on a good beach. It’s time.

Women-in-CombatWomen are fit for combat now.

Why anyone would want that I have not a clue.

I’m not the military type.

I’m a lover, not a fighter.

But he, if it floats your boat, go for it.

The usual people displayed the usual mock horror. I’m talking to you no longer relevant Alan West. I’m talking to you.

Republican-OutreachMeanwhile, what’s left of the sane Republican part, and I use the term loosely, cuz if we were really talking, sane, I’m not sure there could be more than three, is trying to entice all the groups they turned off to come see.

Unfortunately when it comes to women, they are still screwing up. I think they are unaware of HOW to change. They see themselves and their patronizing ways as normal.

As to the “immigration problem” they are trying to work that through. They are trying to be “for” a decent reform. Course, they are also trying to lie through their teeth to convince their peeps that it ain’t what it seems.

NO AMNESTY HERE! they cry. No of course not. HAVE TO GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE! they chant. What LINE? There is no line. Think about it.

By the by, I had a laugh yesterday. One of my high school (what to call him?) persons I barely knew  at all, said that first we have to secure the borders because only one bomb, and the grid would be gone. He also asks if I’ve crawled back under my rock, so you can tell we have nice chats. Actually I don’t speak to him at all in the hopes that he will get bored and go away. (They never do. They are too stupid to know they are unwanted.)

I struggled with that. He thinks the “grid” is a place you can go and “bomb”. He thinks there is “a” grid. He thinks it has something to do with the border. How can a person be wrong on everything? You see what I’m up against?

beyonceThis is what you are up against.

The media is so sad.

This is what I need to know?

Why?

Don’t I need to know about Syria? And climate change? And health care issues? And veterans suicide rates? And efforts to screw women’s rights? And the plight of the Palestinians?

Don’t you think I need to know those things?

But you wanna tell me that Beyoncé has lip-synced when I think that that is not really all that uncommon at major events? You want to tell me that? Go soak your head.

baby01

 

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You Should Be Scared Now

Your intrepid writer (that would be me) is going into the darkness once again in an attempt to get inside the head of the average, leaning Romney, but feeling slightly uncomfortable. The realm of the few undecided who are fairly high information types. So the five of you, listen up.

I have a safety rope attached, so if I tug twice, pull you swabbies for all you are worth. This ain’t no aircraft carrier you know.

Okay, so Romney is no Georgie Bushkins. I mean in what drives this man. Georgie was the screw-up in the family Bush and decided that bein’ Prez would be a good way to show old Dad and Babs that he was “somebody.” Romney is no Dubya, in that sense.

No, I read Romney as driven by his Mormonism. A recall a younger man talking about coming back from mission and feeling as he claims most of them do, “so anxious to get on with making their mark in the world.” It’s a fundamental stand of the Mormon Church as I understand it, to take the gifts given and achieve for the glory of God, (and the church).

Now, George Romney came up from nothing and became not only the CEO of a major car company, but a two-term Governor if Michigan, and failed at running for President. Willard starts up three floors. Becoming a CEO of a car company is no real accomplishment, so he switched to venture capitalism, where he certainly made his mark. But being even Governor would not measure up, so I believe he set his sights on the Presidency while still a very young man.

This is not to prove anything to anyone else, it is to PROVE TO HIMSELF that he has achieved what he should. All his efforts for decades have been setting up that scenario. The last two years as Governor of Massachusetts was largely spent out of state setting up his political framework.

That is the backdrop.

Now consider yourself an average hardworking working class stiff who isn’t doing all that well. You’ve been treading water for a long time, just getting by. You figure you’re entitled to better. You aren’t much of an ideologue. You don’t consider yourself a racist, a sexist, or unfeeling when it comes to the needy. You’re more inclined to live and let live and so some of Romney’s rhetoric on social issues makes you uncomfortable.

But, you think, “hey, he is a successful businessman, and if business is happy, maybe they will start ramping up their companies, hiring and raising wages. That’s good for me. Romney probably can do that even though I know he is basically an opportunist. Business will love him being president, and that should be good for me. I don’t feel real good about how he might screw the less fortunate, but hey we all have to sacrifice. If this makes our economy better for all of us in the end, we just gotta bite the bullet. And besides, the Democrats won’t just lay down on this social stuff. They’ll fight him.”

So you are leaning toward the Willard, even though you know he changes his mind about most things, and you don’t really have a clue where he really stands on much of anything.

Now bring in the foreign policy debate.

Romney has undeniably rattled the sabre for months, if not years, when it comes to foreign policy. We have heard about the President being an apologist, (code for not being a real American), about American Exceptionalism, about American superiority and how we are the leader of the world. We have heard all about not being tough enough on Russia, Iran, Syria, and China  and that we have not glued ourselves sufficiently tight to Israel. We have heard about leaving Iraq too soon, and not setting deadlines for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Most all of this has come from his foreign policy advisors who are basically a collection of Bushites. Fully 18 or 24 of his advisors are old Bush boys. They are essentially neo-cons and war hawks who have their very own agenda (which they pushed Bush into adopting), and how want to return to that through Romney.

In the debate, Romney did not say any of the things he’s been parroting for months about various aspects of foreign policy. Instead, he pivoted to the hard middle, and tried to present himself as a “man of peace” who would leave no stone unturned to avoid war anywhere in the world. He agreed with Obama at nearly every turn. He did what he did in the first debate, he pretended not to know anything about the policies he had been pushing for years.

In a stunning reversal, he showed once again that he will say anything–literally anything–to get a vote.

Why does this matter given that this is nothing new?

It shows that he is, like Palin, supremely uninterested in foreign affairs. I heard in passing that a couple of his aides admit that he doesn’t read the daily foreign policy briefings. He had memorized a whole set of “policies” for the world, none of which he cares about. When it became prudent to help secure the “women’s vote” (presumably more pacifist), to tack to the middle and seem not threatening, he did so.

He doesn’t respect the electorate. But that is not the crime. The crime is that he does not care about the world, insofar as it has nothing to do with becoming President. Being President is ALL that matters. And if he becomes President, he will continue not carrying, and the same neocons and war hawks will be making the decisions.

The decisions they make will invariably, I believe, lead us into another war. The neocons desire American control in the Middle East and those reasons have zero to do with stability there other that the stability required to get their hands on the oil. That is their goal. They live in a weird world of American superiority and control over the entire globe. Where we can force everyone to dance to our tune because we can and will enforce our will on them.

A vote for Romney is a vote for shadow government who will “do the foreign policy” while Willard makes life more comfortable for the rich, who he truly believes are the reason why America is what it is. The rest of us?

Somebody’s got to carry the rifles. It ain’t gonna be his sons and grandkids–they go on “mission” instead. It’s your kids who will be the fodder in the next war machine.

So consider that when you vote. Please, THINK.

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