John and Sarah, Sitting in a Tree

Please note in the video how John McCain can't stop staring at Sarah Palin's breasts. (Her eyes are up higher you old fart.) Also note how when McCain approaches Palin to kiss her she keeps backing away. As Rising Hegemon states, creepy.

Unencumbered by the Thought Process

I can't know for sure without getting into John McCain's mind. I'm not going to do that, it's a dark and frightening place. But, my gut is telling me that his veep pick was not a well thought out decision. Apparently McCain, only now, is getting around to vetting Sarah Palin.

McCain's first act as president, the selection of his running mate, was impulsive. He acted without thinking, without considering all of the ramifications. Impetuousness is just the personality trait you want in a man who wants war with Russia and has his finger on the nuclear button.

Throw 'em a Fake and a Finagle

They'll never know you're just a bagel
Razzle dazzle them
And they'll beg you for more ~ Razzle Dazzle, Chicago

John McCain's maneuvers over his veep pick is getting humorous. First its Mitt Romney, St. John's official rumor mill is all over that even though McCain hates Mitt's guts. Then, just joking before, the Chatty Cathys aboard the "Straight Talk Express" were all atwitter that the pick is Tim Pawlenty, a man who couldn't even get reelected in his home state today. But that was so yesterday.

Now the pick is Sarah Palin. Her twenty months experience as governor of Alaska (population 670,000) added to her years a mayor of Wasilla (population 6,000) makes her ideally suited to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Its a straight up play for the Hillaryites on the theory that they don't give a shit about politics and only care about the orentation of a candidate's gonads.

On the Convention(s)

I'm not liveblogging the Democratic Convention. I'm not even deadblogging it. I lost interest in Presidential Conventions decades ago when they no longer played any part in candidate selection. The conventions are just advertising these days, painfully long advertisements. As such they are only interesting in the reaction of the focus groups - both party's political junkies.

• The Clinton's played their parts well. They are both being praised from the left. The right has discarded its phony compassion towards Hillary and is in full Clinton hate mode.
• Joe Biden was a good choice. The left is happy if somewhat disappointed their favorite candidate (take your pick) was overlooked. The right is still hunting around for an appropriate response.
  
• The Hillaryites are grieving. They are still rending their clothes. They are still wailing. Some are still hoping that the entire nation collapses to punish it for the transgression of not worshiping the Goddess. Après nous, le déluge.

We will see about Barack tonight. No, he doesn't have to "close the deal." Whatever he says will be attacked by the right. No matter what he says the Hillaryites will whine that she would have said it better. Barack needs to present an inspiring vision with enough details to suggest there is meat on the bone but not so many that the vision bogs down into a laundry list. He needs to attack George Bush and John McCain with passion. And he needs some really nifty sound bites.

Why Isn't Bill Clinton Worshiped?

I'm reading a TalkLeft entry on how Hillary Clinton should be President, or Vice-President, or...I not sure what it is the Hillaryites want nowadays. It strikes me there are several self-described "older, educated women" who would rather be raped by John McCain than sit down on a bus next to Barack Obama.

Anyhow, I'm reading the comments and I come across this - Reagan is worshiped and [Bill] Clinton is dissed. Why? Good Question.

• Ronald Reagan defined the Republican party in the 1980's, something Bill Clinton never did in the 1990's.
  
• Bill Clinton abandoned party politics after 2000. He made no effort to set the agenda of a party in need of leadership. Never was there a word from him criticizing the illegal actions of the Bush II Administration.
• Bill Clinton shilled for anyone willing to pony up his speaking fee. He reminded me of former baseball great Pete Rose by showing up at any demeaning gathering that promised to cheer him and give him lots of money.
• Bill Clinton spent far too much of the 2000's behaving like George Bush Sr.'s adopted son. They started appearing everywhere together. It hard to be the Hero of the Democratic Party if your BFF is Republican First Daddy.

Political deification is not a right, it is bestowed by the people upon those rare individuals who create a movement that lives after their short time in office. Bill Clinton created nothing. He isn't worshiped because is hasn't earned it.

Is McCain Swiftboating Himself?

John McCain's campaign is quickly becoming a one-note symphony. Vote for me, he is saying with increasing shrillness, because I was once a POW. Every answer to every issue is "because I was in prison."

• He says he is a foreign policy genius because he was once in a foreign prison.
• He's an expert on war because he was once a prisoner of war.
• His personal history of corruption is excusable because he was a POW.
  
• His personal infidelity is understandable because he was a POW.
  
• He should not be expected to understand his own family finances because he was once a POW.
• It's okay if he lies or cheats because he was once a POW.

It's as if his personal history stopped 35 years ago. Hanlon calls it POW Tourrette's.

The Polish Missile Crisis

In 1962 the Soviet Union placed missiles in Cuba that were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. This was a deliberately provocative act responding to the attempted United States invasion of Cuba the previous year as well as the United States placing nuclear missiles on Russia's border in Turkey. The ensuing crisis led us to the brink of World War III.

(Aside: I still remember being in school discussing geopolitics with my fellow third graders. We concluded that the duck-and-cover drills were worthless and were being done so the adults could feel like they were doing something. We knew we could not survive nuclear war by hiding under a desk and even if we did we wouldn't want to.)

The current stimulus for the United States placing (defensive) missiles in Poland is the 2008 Presidential election (the Russian action against Georgia is a red herring). The White House is hoping to generate an international crisis with Russia that McCain can use to campaign for the need for a warrior president.

If this campaign tactic leads to war, well, that's just the price of victory.

John McCain will do anything to win election, even starting a war with Russia.

Dedicated Republican Idiot

I'm having lunch on the sidewalk outside my grocery store. A young guy drops off his wife so she can shop. He's driving one of those big-ass pickup truck that are marginally useful if you habitually have to haul a ton of masonry to the worksite but are worthless if the most you ever carry, beyond your own fat ass, is a twelve-pack of brewskies.

This guy drops off his wife and starts driving slowly around the grocery store parking lot. Lap after lap, for twenty minutes, he slowly tours the lot. It's like he's addicted to the smell of poorly burned hydrocarbons.

I know this dullard is a Republican from his Duncan Hunter bumpersticker. I know this cretin is dedicated because of his personalized license plate that spells "Hoonter." He is either a fan of the corrupt congressman from California's 52nd Congressional District or he loves Duncan Jr., the son of said congressman who is running to replace his daddy, for his massive man-boobs.

Human Organ Mining

The film The Island posits a near future where the very rich can have human clones of themselves manufactured and maintained. It is a form of health insurance, a ready supply of perfectly matched organs for transplanting. Their cloned replicas are kept blissfully unaware of the reason they exist. They don't know their fate is to be cut up for parts. It's a good movie, although frightening.

Friday's Slate Magazine has an article by Sally Satel calling for a commodities market for human transplant organs. Satel is a kidney transplant recipient and I don't doubt she is sincere in her desire to increase the amount of available organs for transplant by offering cash payments for human organs. Unfortunately, the practice of paying for human body parts has a long mostly gory history.

Ghouls
In the 19th Century a thriving industry grew up around communities with teaching hospitals to provide fresh cadavers for the study of anatomy. Body-snatchers, often called ghouls, would dig up the corpses of the recently deceased and sell them to medical schools. These ghouls were willing to resort to murder to provide the freshest, most valuable bodies.

Organ Harvesters
Today, there is a flourishing trade in organs. Will Saletan, also in Slate, described the state of the underground trade in body parts in an 2007 article. Forty percent of people in some Pakistan villages are missing a kidney. Fresh organs extracted from living "donors" have the best chances of successful transplant. Egypt, India, the Philippines, the Ukraine, American prisons, everywhere that jobs are impossible to find there are people willing to sell and buy irreplaceable body parts for money. Often, if a deal can not be made the organ brokers will simply steal it. Forced organ harvesting is happening throughout much of the Third World. In China prisoners are having their organs extracted without consent. In large cities modern ghouls are kidnapping people off the street to steal their organs.

Satel believes that a formal, legalized trade in body parts will end the worse excesses of the underground trade. Perhaps. It will also increase and legalize the gap between the social castes. The rich are no longer simply seeing the poor as a source of cheap labor, the poor are becoming consumables. Less even than slaves, the poorest of our planet are being cut up and consumed by the rich. They are becoming more like cattle than men.

Five Invasive Species in California

I'm sitting at my computer enjoying the cacophony of our local flock of parrots thinking about invasive species. Here are five.

House Sparrow
There's special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

~ Hamlet

In the 19th Century literary societies in the United States got it into their pretty little heads to import all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare. The birds loved it. House sparrows are now feature performers at every outdoor restaurant in the state.

Argentine Ant
aka grease ant. Another 19th Century import. These are usually the ants that invade your home. The weird thing about these ants is that the trillions upon trillions of them stretching the length of California from San Diego to Ukiah compose a single, gigantic colony.

Eucalyptus
Introduced by ignorant loggers to replace clearcut redwood forests. While eucalyptus grow quickly it takes centuries for the trees to mature into usable lumber. So they are really just California's biggest weed. But they are more than just a weed, they encourage fire. Native redwoods and oaks are fire resistant while eucalyptus are highly combustible. Firefighters call them "gasoline trees." They are also water hogs that are aggravating the effect of California's prolonged drought.

Jumping Frogs
The jumping frogs celebrated in Mark Twain's short story were the California red-legged frog. They are endangered today in large part because of that story. Every year the Calaveras County Fair hosts a Jumping Frog Jubilee. People imported the far bigger eastern bullfrog to compete and then released those frogs into local waters. Where they would eat the smaller red-legged frogs. Local officials are fighting to protect bullfrogs from the little red-legged frog.

Red Crown Parrot
Fifty years ago the only parrots in California were in cages. Today there are a half-dozen species, thousands of birds, flocking throughout much of the state. Nobody really knows why. The most common tale is they are descended from escaped pets. Some believe increasingly subtropical climate in Southern California has sparked an increase in their natural range.

McCain's Poor Ad Messaging

Way back in the day I was working on an underfunded campaign against a Republican incumbent with more money than could be wisely spend in an election. He mailed a 20-page(!) four-color flyer to every home in the district detailing the attacks against him so each could be explained. On the cover of this flyer was a photo of the Republican covered in mud rising out of a bucket of ooze.

I was thrilled. The cover was exactly the image I had wanted to send out in a one-sheet if we had only had the money. No one beyond a handful of political addicts were going to read the whole thing. The only image the voters were going to take was that cover which made him look hopelessly corrupt. The Republican had spent an ungodly amount of money doing our job for us.

On To McCain
I told that story to tell you this one. McCain has an ad running frequently during the Olympics. It starts by saying, "Washington’s broken. John McCain knows it. We’re worse off than we were four years ago.” while showing a black-and-white image of McCain. I love this ad.

Unless a television commercial is funny or has beautiful people in it, most viewers only pay attention until they get the basic message of the ad or until they can find the mute button. The first five seconds sells the basic message - "John McCain, we're worse off." The subliminal meaning of the black-and-white images reinforces the badness message. Except for political addicts, that is all most people are going to take from the ad.

So, McCain is paying good money to attach himself to a "things are horrible" message but few people are going to stick around for his "but I'm not responsible" defense. I love it. Couldn't have done better myself.

If John McCain Were President

The United States would be in a shooting war with Russia before the end of his first term.

The Bible as Porn

If you are of a mind to look for it, the Bible's Old Testament is just brimming with sexy passages. Cracked.com found the Six Raunchiest.

Incest
In Genesis (19:30-36), Lot's two daughters get their old man drunk and have sex with him. Not just any random sex either but Let's Get Preggers by Daddy sex. This is the same Lot who offered up these same daughters for gang rape in Sodom (Gen. 19:8) but the girls were so ugly the mob didn't want them.

Masturbation
Onan's daddy ordered him to marry his own dead brother's wife, Tamar (Judah 38:8-10). Onan did as ordered but chose masturbation over putting a loaf in Tamar's oven. God was so pissed at this he smote Onan. Forget going blind, jerking off can get a guy killed.

More Incest
Tamar, frustrated by the whole Onan affair, dressed up as a whore, went into a brothel, and bedded Onan's dad, her own father-in-law (Gen 38:15-16). From this incestuous hook up begins the line that leads to King David and Jesus Christ.

Biblical Soft Core
The Song of Solomon is all about a guy and a girl having hot, Middle Eastern sex. It is straight up soft core pornography dating back to 965 BC. We don't know who the woman is giving that the author, King Solomon, had 700 wives and 300 hundred concubines.

Gay Incest
Cracked missed this one. After the Flood, Noah tied one on and passed out naked in his tent (Gen. 9:21-25). Noah's youngest son, Ham, entered the tent and saw his naked dad. Biblical scholars disagree on what happened next. At best, Ham fetched his brothers and they played peek-a-boo with Noah's Johnson. At worst, Ham took a more hands-on examination of Noah's pecker. Anyway, Noah was angry and cursed Ham's child, Canaan. The poor kid didn't do anything wrong but he's the one who got the curse.

Note: I am not so much lazy as preoccupied I really don't feel like doing any independent research or political reading so I just stole (that's the right word) from the research done by Cracked.com.

Bush on Unacceptable War

Did you notice the subtle distinction in George Bush's comments regarding the Russo-Georgian War?

Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state...Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century. ~ Bush, August 11, 2008

Invading a neighboring state is bad. Invading sovereign states which are not neighboring (such as, say, the United States invading Iraq) is perfectly acceptable. I don't often praise Bush's elocution but this construction is elegant in its psychopathy.

In Search of the New Hitler

You have to hand it to Republican warmongers, they will keep comparing every country they dislike with Nazi Germany until it sticks and they can have war, any war.

The latest incarnation of Adolph is Vladimir Putin. Dick Morris today draws a direct, albeit entirely fictional, connection between the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 and Russia's attack on Georgia today. Of course, he ends by demanding that NATO troops be sent into the area to fight against the Russians. John McCain has also called for a NATO-Russian war over Georgia.

Putin has replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has for years now been our modern Hitler substitute while Iran was called Nazi Germany. The neo-con solution then as well was urging war with Iran.

Before either Putin or Ahmadinejad there was Saddam Hussein, the Iraq War was supposed to remove that pseudo-Nazi. It worked, not the war removing a new Hitler but using phony comparisons to encourage a stupid and pointless war. But the Iraq War is boring now and so the neo-cons are jonesing for another noble conflict to send other people to die in.

NBC and Bush

If NBC wants me to stop watching the Olympics and do something more productive they only need to continue showing those innumerable clips of George Bush Jr. behaving like the village idiot in Beijing.

Thought For the Day

Needless war. Economic collapse. Assault on basic liberties. Torture.

People who believes the past eight years has been good for the United States of America and the policies that have brought us here should be continued into the future are, by holding those beliefs, Unpatriotic. They have enjoyed seeing the nation suffer this past decade and wish the suffering to continue unabated.

Paris Hilton for Prez is, like, Totally Hot

Paris Hilton has a brilliant reply to John McCain's attack ad.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Sturgis: McCain's Appeal to Women Voters

The Obama campaign should make sure every woman from Bangor, Maine to Santa Barbara knows about who John McCain associated with during his appearance at the Sturgis Biker Rally.

How he appealed to the wannabe Hell's Angels gathered there. How McCain pimped his wife to the amateur stripper parade known as the Miss Buffalo Chip contest. How McCain was billed next to the Wet and Wild twice daily oil wrestling matches including porn star Vanessa Harding (not office/child/wife friendly website).

Let every woman in America know what kind woman voter John McCain prefers.
photo source

Petty Thugs in the DHS

The Department of Homeland Security has become a popular employment opportunity for people who used to torment small children and despaired they could never earn a living doing what they love. The DHS has more pure thugs per capita than any government agency since the Stasi. People who used to content themselves joining outlaw motorcycle gangs have discovered that their anti-social personalities are not only welcome in the DHS they are actually in the job descriptions.

Google dhs thugs and you'll find almost a half-million hits. Take this man at DailyKos, who was harassed and threatened for the crime of daytripping to Canada. The DHS "deputizing" Americans to spy against their neighbors. Or even just arresting people because they can, because there are no laws restraining them. Or just threaten people because they can.

What they want is even worse. If the DHS has its way Americans will have to carry internal passports even to enter American National Parks.

Dirty Politics

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ~ H. L. Mencken

The Obama campaign has opened the Low Road Express website to reveal the slime emanating from St. John McCain. It is going to be a busy site. McCain has nothing to sell but sleaze. McCain will find new ways to call him a gay muslim terrorist who is also a radical Christian and an uppity nigger.

I expect, by October, Jon McCain will be running the most obscene campaign in our nation's history.