Portobello Belle

I've led kind of a sheltered life, but I think this song might have a dope reference or two in it. Definitely got that Limey gui-tar picker. Groooovy slide show, too.

Congrats!

To the Modulator, who's been showcasing our pets weekly 200 times!

Ode To Joy

Don't need no stinkin' Philharmonic Orchestra to play Beethoven...



Look in the thumbnails for the lady playin' it on a Tampon Pan Flute.

A tip o' the Brain to dulcimermonk.

Quote of the Day - Zwei

The Misfit:

... Maybe that is what Amtrak ought to call their printed schedules: "Time horizons." ...

Update:

Honorable mention to Dr. Attaturk:

Ol' Huggy is gonna be leaving a skid mark in the adult diaper when he hears about this one:

...

Yay M-A!

From the lovely Avedon:

Massachusetts is shaking off the lint that was Mitt Romney by getting rid of an old law no one had ever removed from the books (because it was obsolete), which Mitt had invoked to ban gay marriages. That law barred out of state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their own state did not recognize their marriage, and was intended to prevent interracial couples coming to Massachusetts for marriages that were illegal in their home states.

...

Good on my northern neighbors. I just hope our Governor Paterson can strongarm our corrupt legislature here in NY to join the example MA and CA have set.

Saturday whorage

Saturday means another chapter of Birthright is up at The Practical Press.

Leave your links in comments.

Quote of the Day

TPM with video.

"...we won't let the Venezuelas, or the Nigerias, or the Saudi Arabias, or the Irans jerk us around by the gas nozzles the way they are doing it now." - Senator Craig (R-IDiot)

Larry, Larry, Larry...

Curmudgeonly Weenie Steppin'

Nicole Bell at Crooks & Liars:

In discussion of McCain’s painful fumbling over why health insurance covers Viagra but not birth control, The Situation Room panel of Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borger, Stephen Hayes and Jack Cafferty debate the position between a rock and a hard place that McCain finds himself, eager to win over those feminist Clinton supporters but hesitant to speak out against that mainstay of the Republican platform: restricting women’s reproductive freedom.

Jack Cafferty: Viagra Is For A Medical Condition, Birth Control Is A “Lifestyle Choice”

Excuse me? I know that most men don’t have a huge well of knowledge on the workings of a woman’s body (any more than I completely understand all of your equipment), but I think that in absence of knowledge, it might be smarter to avoid definite declarations like that. Oral contraceptives are absolutely used to treat medical conditions:

Although they are most commonly prescribed to prevent pregnancy, birth control pills are also used to treat a variety of menstrual disorders including amenorrhea (absence of menstruation), dysmenorrhea (abnormally painful menstruation) and hypermenorrhea (abnormally Menstruation is the periodic shedding of the lining of the uterus, causing bloody vaginal discharge.heavy menstrual bleeding). They may also be prescribed to treat a number of other conditions, including polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), hirsutism (abnormal hair growth) and endometriosis. In addition, birth control pills may be taken to regulate irregular menstrual cycles and to help in the transitional period prior to menopause.

In addition to preventing pregnancy and treating various medical conditions, birth control pills also offer women a number of significant health benefits, including a decreased risk of colorectal, ovarian and endometrial cancers.

And since when is the life of a woman to be considered a “gray area” for negotiation? But there’s no gray area about a man’s desire to get it up, nor any consideration to the consequences of what happens when he can? Jack, you disappoint me.

I like Cafferty, but he must not have taken his blue pill 'cuz he damn sure stepped on his weenie about one of the great inequities in 'health care insurance'.

But then, he's just another old fart that refuses to accept Nature's take on aging. Does anybody think there might be a natural correlation between a slowing of the ability to get it up and menopause? Nature made sex fun so people'd do it to continue the species. She forgot to make it less fun after it no longer produces fruit, though. Heh.

To be fair, I see nothing wrong with covering Viagra and not birth control measures if the old men would stick to having sex with post-menopausal gals who are a lot of fun because they let their hair down a little once they can no longer get knocked up. Yeah, like that'll happen.

Speaking of 'producing fruit', Repug politicians, of course, should restrict themselves to adult males.

Fig-leaf Rationales Fall Away

Consortium News

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call for a timetable on American troop withdrawals has touched off a dramatic change in the debate over the future U.S. engagement in Iraq – essentially, it marks a falling away of the fig-leaf rationales for the five-plus years of occupation.

When Cheney&Bush's fig leaf falls off, no photos please, thanks but no thanks. If I wanta see raisins I got a box of 'em in the cupboard.

The White House, the Pentagon and John McCain’s presidential campaign were caught off guard and fumbled their responses – in part because Maliki’s call for a timetable stripped away some of the more noble-sounding reasons for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely, especially the defense of Iraqi sovereignty and the protection of its fledgling democracy.

So, the Realpolitik rationales of extracting more Iraqi oil and countering Iran’s regional ambitions were growing more acute even as the notion of respecting the will of the Iraqi people – as well as the American public – was growing more tenuous.

On one side, there’s the Bush administration’s rhetoric about respecting Iraq’s sovereignty and valuing democracy. On the other, there is the desire of McCain’s neo-conservative advisors to separate the success of the “surge” from the prospect of troop withdrawals precisely to serve those long-obscured but now very real geo-strategic interests – oil and regional power.

Bingo!

The bottom line is that as the oil crisis intensifies and tensions remain with Iran, the fig leaf over U.S. policy – as justified by the Bush White House – will continue to float toward the ground.

This election could represent a watershed for the American Republic, what might be called a pivotal "Imperial Moment," when Americans will face a fateful choice about whether staying “East of Suez” is the mission they want for their nation’s future.

Let's hope that the scales have fallen off enough Americans' eyes that it isn't.

Jo Stafford 1917 - 2008

Now that I'm officially older than dirt, the folks I remember from my childhood are all moving on.

LATimes

Stafford's solo career began with an inextricable link to the war. A favorite of American soldiers, she was told by a veteran of the Pacific that "the Japanese used to play your records on loudspeakers across from our foxholes so that we'd get homesick and surrender." Not surprisingly, servicemen affectionately referred to her as "GI Jo."

She did a lot of comedy as well. Check this out. Pretty good slide show too.

Gitmo Detainees' Lawyer Drops Trou For Justice

WSJ's Law Blog

David Remes, a Covington & Burling partner, lowered his pants on Monday at a conference in Yemen to demonstrate the treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Remes continued: “At the press conference in Yemen — this is a society where the rule of morality is so strict — I wanted to drive home the degree of humiliation that these searches cause by illustrating a typical body search. The physical abuse they can stand. The verbal abuse they can stand. But when the military punishes Muslim men by shaving off their beard, or by forcing them to disrobe — for a Muslim man that is a thousand times more cutting than a Westerner can imagine. And that’s what I was trying to dramatize. The reaction to what I did makes me very sad. I wish people paid as much attention to the suffering and torment in Guantanamo as they paid to the way I sought to dramatize it.”

The presentation of his, er, package musta wowed 'em in a strict modest environment like Yemen. It took some sack to do that, or at least we now know where he keeps his spare socks on those long trips.

Proposed George W. Bush Sewage Plant makes ballot

Raw Story

A measure seeking to commemorate President Bush's years in office by slapping his name on a San Francisco sewage plant has qualified for the November ballot.

The measure certified Thursday would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Supporters say the idea is to commemorate the mess they claim Bush has left behind by actions such as the war in Iraq.

Local Republicans say the plan stinks and they will oppose it.

This is getting better and better! The 'local Repugs' can oppose it all they want. Each one of them has a vote.

If the measure passes, I humbly suggest a green dual-use proposal that will save time and energy: make the Bush shit plant the site of his presidential library. His fans can then read, albeit slowly with lips a-movin', about all his accomplishments in a symbolically odiferous environment. They can then don swim fins and a snorkel and tour displays of all he has done to this country with his Reverse Midas Touch.

Update:

At Think Progress, this in 'comments' on the same subject:

Texas approves major new wind power project
...

The Texas Public Utility Commission, not to be outdone by San Francisco, plans to name the massive wind farm, The Bush Blows Project.

The comments are more entertaining than the actual ballot measure. Go have some fun.

Send Karl Rove to jail

Go sign this.

No one in this administration's top echelon is going to go to jail probably ever, and for damned sure not until the Chimp no longer has the power to pardon, but a little pressure never hurts and it'll make you feel better.

Stepping stones ...

Seems Cheney and the neocons won't be deterred:

The United States plans to build a military airport near the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, which borders Iran, Iraqi media reports.

Khadr Karim Mohammad, the mayor of Halajaba, speaking to Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Wednesday, explained how the construction would proceed.

He said the municipality has allocated an estimated 1500 acres of land east of the town for this purpose and provided the necessary maps for the major project.

...

The official also revealed that a number of US delegations have visited the region frequently since 2003,"They were studying the roads leading to Iran, under the pretext of providing services to the town," he elaborated.

...

What? You think they'd give up? These pukes have waited 40 years to be in a position of 'ultimate power', the 'leaders of the free world', and they won't bow to the will of the American people. They never cared what we thought to begin with. Wouldn't surprise me to see an attack on Iran, using Iraq as a jump-off point, before the election.

Off to work. I been fucking with Mrs. F's work computer again, since the poindexters in her IT department 'fixed' it yesterday. I got it half-assed working with her hooked up by hard line and having to do a buncha reboot bullshit with my home computers, modem, and router. At least it isn't locking everything out like yesterday.

Rats ... leaving ...

I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.

This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

...

Good for Larry.

As if we didn't know ...

Michael O'Hanlon was a wanker.

Appeasing bastids ...

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

...

Thank god they have Barry to go to for advice. Good. God. What a buncha assholes. By the time the consulate is open, the press'll spin it like it was the Chimp's (and McSame's) idea all along.

Thanks to Ol' Fez-head for the link.

McCain -- Taking on the Mantle of the 'Know Nothing' Party for 2008

A BuzzFlash News Analysis

George W. Bush has shamed many Americans with his incoherent and anti-intellectual approach to the presidency. Now here comes John McCain.

In 1854, an anti-immigrant, fiercely Protestant political party called the Know Nothings fielded one losing presidential candidate before many of their adherents folded into the newly forming Republican Party. Could it be that the Know Nothings are back, with John McCain at the top of their ticket?

John McCain doesn't know where he stands or how he's voted on birth control issues. He doesn't know that Czechoslovakia has been two separate countries since 1993. He doesn't know much about economics. But somehow he knows he's the best choice for president.

\

So in 2008 it comes down to choosing between the former president of the Harvard Law Review, who has a clearly powerful intellect and ability to learn quickly, or the guy who doesn't really understand the economy after decades of voting on legislation that deals with it, and whose knowledge base will likely deteriorate while in office.

Doctors insisted that President Reagan, despite serious debate, had not experienced early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in the White House. The New York Times wrote:

Mr. Reagan had been portrayed by many pundits and political opponents as absent-minded, inattentive, incurious, even lazy. And his Presidency was marked by a succession of very public mental stumbles -- most notably his dismal performance in the first debate of the 1984 campaign, and his confused and forgetful accounting of his role in the Iran-Contra affair ...

If the doctors were right, then forgetting his role in a major foreign policy operation was just typical memory loss for a man in his seventies. If that's typical -- and McCain's behavior suggests it might be -- should we really be willing to accept it?

When we go to the polls in November, remember what eight years of choosing the guy we wanted to have a beer with over the guy we resented for being smarter than us has gotten us.

The problem with age-related memory loss is as nothing compared to the short memory of most Americans. Except maybe in cases like, "Bomb Iran? But, Your Presidentship Sir, we did that yesterday...."

The Repuglican'ts have kind of a selective memory problem at the best of times. They remember things as happening the way they were supposed to happen when they dreamt 'em up, as opposed to the usual disastrous way their schemes turn out. Hey, they'd remember it forever if a lobbyist's check bounced.

So tell me ...

How does getting shot down and the crap kicked out of you for years teach you "how to win wars"? I believe we lost that one.

Sex, drugs, and death

Under the heading of "I never thought I'd post about stupid shit like this but continue to amaze myself" comes an extensive Houston Press piece on door-to-door magazine salesmen. I hate solicitors. Note: most of the little bastards are too lazy to walk up my driveway. The ones that aren't run back down it. On the other hand, being of a spiritual nature, I let the Saints and the JDubs walk.

That kid at your door with a magazine order form will tell you a story -- part sad, part hopeful. The truth will be infinitely worse than you can imagine.

A customer is a "Jones." A sales pitch is a "spiel," and there are all kinds of spiels — a school-spiel, cancer-spiel, you name it. These lies are known as a dirty canvass, and they're quite successful. Of course, there are natural salespeople who don't have to dirty canvass and can write ten or 12 sales a day, but the agents who can't snow a Jones and who come back empty-handed are known as WABs, weak-ass bitches. A WAB occupies a stratum in the caste system right below circus freak and just above whore. No one wants to be a WAB, so sometimes you have to dirty ­canvass.

If the MPA is unaware of dirty canvassing, then its only other choice is to somehow believe that door-to-door companies are the country's single-biggest employer of college athletes in the marching band whose parents are dying of cancer and who are competing for a scholarship to study theater in London.

The thing about a Jones is, you never know what you're going to get. Some male Joneses will buy any crappy magazine from an agent showing enough cleavage. Some will invite you in for a joint. Some will slam the door in your face or sic their dog on you.

Funny, they didn't mention my favorite - an ass-load of rock salt from a 12-bore...