Discussed On The 'Tubes A Billion Times, But Just To Be Clear...

3.28.2008
Ore : 5:24 PM

...This is a "dog bites man" story not only because the subject is a Republican, (a political party from whom everyone who isn't brain-dead has expected this kind of behavior since the '70s), and not only because this is a Bush Administration hire, but because the subject is one of those "Cuba libre" nutballs, almost all of whom are naturally criminal -- often such clowns are involved with or are supportive of the mafioso against whom Castro and his followers originally complained.

Let's face it: your average, normal American doesn't give a flying fuck about Cuba, and certainly doesn't view Fidelland's sheer existence as an existential threat to everything America is. In pracitice, any American who cares enough to actively and vociferously oppose Cuban Communism is usually a proto-fascist who's a breath away from singing the praises of Batista (but only in the safe confines of Grover Norquist's living room.) Really, the most notable parts of this story are a) it weirdly segues into that silly plagiarism story (apparently, almost as bad as getting blown in the Oval Office), and b) that it was so poorly investigated yet published nevertheless.

Just who is editing for AP anyway? Since when did journalists and editors stop giving a goddamn about the whole "who, what, when, where and why" thing? All around, just a very odd story.

Labels: , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 5:24 PM | Permalink | 6 be jibber-jabberin'

I Knew It

10.25.2007
Ore : 11:03 AM

I knew I'd seen this Michelle Malkin bit before:

Labels: , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 11:03 AM | Permalink | 4 be jibber-jabberin'

You Never Promised Me A Rose Garden...

4.03.2007
Ore : 2:22 PM

CAVEAT: I was washing dishes and making my lunch for work when the Prez did his little down-home, folksy bouncy-bounce as a snarling Cheney lurked like a vampire in the wings, so I am relying here on (Cthulhu help me -- or at least, eat me last) the official White House transcript, which near as I can tell omits his crack-up about caring about the troops' and the troops' families' standards of living, to which the best replies might be "Walter Reed" and mention of food service contractors in Iraq...

Members of Congress say they support the troops. Now they need to show that support in deed, as well as in word. Members of Congress are entitled to their views and should express them. Yet debating these differences should not come at the expense of funding our troops.

Congress's most basic responsibility is to give our troops the equipment and training they need to fight our enemies and protect our nation. They're now failing in that responsibility, and if they do not change course in the coming weeks, the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones.
It's good for him to clarify this for the umpteenth time: In George Bush's pickled, wizened little brain, the military's most important job, their most vital overarching mission, above and beyond Afghanistan or Iraq or, you know, securing our actual homeland is Operation Shield George W. Bush; silly me, not only did I think the legislature was a coequal branch of government (as opposed to a bunch of disgruntled subjects needing their job told them by The Decider), but I also thought he had Rove and other minions for that politically, and the Secret Service to cover the physical aspects of protection. But I guess the old two-pronged approach is failing to cover his peevish ass. No, any time he gets called to accountability -- any time the American people, via their duly elected representatives, demand a reckoning -- his first response is to dive behind a bunch of men and women in uniform.

I mean, it's bad enough that he plays dress-up on flight decks just outside San Diego harbor, or that any time he's low in the polls his peeps arrange a photo-op in front of bleachers full of soldiers and a ginormous American flag. Using them as a blanket to try and hide your glaringly obvious incompetence and unfitness for duty is not just low -- it's pretty fucking retarded.

Labels: , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 2:22 PM | Permalink | 6 be jibber-jabberin'

Is It Just Me...

3.21.2007
Ore : 9:06 AM

...Or does Richard Perle look like a creation of Sid and Marty Krofft?

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 9:06 AM | Permalink | 4 be jibber-jabberin'

Is He Crying For A Change? Depends™...

3.20.2007
Ore : 12:10 PM

So, I just got back from getting the library mail, and two things stuck out.

Assata Shakur ain't got nuthin' on me, bitchez.First, the CAIR package. Alas, it exploded when I opened it -- but with liberalism, not Semtex (though some might argue the two are interchangeable.) CAIR was kind enough to send me that book in which Communist Jimmy Carter proves once and for all that Jews are the new Nazis. I hope I can read it in time for my next Bund rally!

Second, the super-classy cover of this week's issue of TIME, on which Zombie Reagan cries for the sins of the modern Right. Not that that makes much sense; I mean yes, it makes sense that someone would hijack a conveniently dead figurehead with PhotoShop in order to forward an agenda (and really, this cover definitely could have used a background collage of the collapsing WTC, an equally lachrymose bald eagle, and the burnt and bloody corpse of Dale Ernhardt, Jr., as well), but not that he would be looking down from heaven and crying. Tears? The Gipper don't shed no tears -- I'd sooner expect to see the Duke wipe his fatally constipated ass with Charmin' wetnaps than with the lichen-encrusted scraps of oak bark that Supply Side Jesus intended for real he-men to use.

BRAAAAIIIIIIINNNNNNNSSSS!!!Then again, he could be crying because that pesky Wisenheimer's disease prevents him from viewing Bush's fall into even worse gracelesness in the context of the history of the American Right, which, let's face it, has never had integrity; Reagan provided only an illusion of that.

"What would Ronnie do?" For one thing, he would have kept John Ashcroft, instead of hiring some wetback. Then he'd eat jellybeans and take a nap, while a molar-grinding and angrily muttering George H.W. Bush would head south to the border to supervise the construction of that new electrified fence.

Labels: , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 12:10 PM | Permalink | 5 be jibber-jabberin'

Are They Even Trying Anymore?

3.19.2007
Ore : 8:18 AM

I am operating from the premise -- quite justifiably, I think -- that the vast majority of the attack ads we'll see on the Internet and teevee and in the papers aimed at Senator Obama or Senator Clinton ostensibly by his or her rival in the primaries will be Republican rat-fucks (def. 2).

That said, this YouTube clip is pretty audacious even for conservatarians. That the people who support end-runs around due process, the suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite detention and torture of anyone at whom the administration jabs a crooked talon, warrantless wiretapping and whatever other nefarious data-mining schemes the spooks can conjure, "free-speech zones," laws that determine what people may or may not do in their bedrooms, no-knock house searches, et cetera would portray Hillary Clinton as some sort of "Big Brother" figure is just way too rich for my blood. Really, that sobbing sound you hear? That is irony, curled up in a corner, crying "Uncle!"

Why do I doubt this particular clip is the product of the Obama campaign? Simple: there's just nobody that rabid, stupid, mad-dog mean on that side of the aisle. Definitely Republican -- it stinks of Corsi/Rove/[insert name of favorite unhinged think-tank noodge here].

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 8:18 AM | Permalink | 0 be jibber-jabberin'

Lucky Duckies Redux

3.14.2007
Ore : 2:54 PM

...Or, "The Proles Are All Right":

How can we close the gap? Well, I suppose we could round up a bunch of assembly-line workers and force them to mow the lawns of corporate vice presidents. Because the gap I'm talking about is the gap in leisure time, and it's the least educated who are pulling ahead.
Ho, ho! Take that, you underemployed mooks! (Cue multifarious conservatarian postings of "Heh, indeed.")

I mean seriously, does he think people are spending their wealth of free time taking Celebrity Cruises? Supervising the maids' dusting their first-edition Katherine Mansfield anthologies over tumblers of single malt? Does he think they can afford even a putt around the local mini-golf course? Not bloody fucking likely. Leisure time doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot when you don't have two Reagan dimes to rub together.

But whatever helps people who don't have to scrounge around dumpsters to find recyclables sleep at night...

Labels: , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 2:54 PM | Permalink | 4 be jibber-jabberin'

SNAP Girlfriend! Pace be Picante!

3.13.2007
Ore : 7:29 AM

I for one will continue to support our troops by rubbing it out to "Behind The Lines," "Fire In The Hole," and "Band of Lovers"...

“I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.”
Does this mean he agrees that there should be adverse consequences for generals who, in uniform, speak at church functions in order to help sell the notion of a "holy war" between a putative Christendom and Islam? Does he believe troops who appear in uniform to support a certain party's political agenda should be punished? Would he support troops who disobeyed illegal orders to, say, torture people or otherwise violate the UCMJ or Geneva Conventions?

And -- no offense to all the hetero men and women in uniform -- is there anything more homo-hot (in a totally Spartan way, of course) than the military?

All of these questions are rhetorical, aren't they? My bad.

UPDATE: Shorter Pace non-apology: "d00d, sorry ur a f4gg0rtz."

Labels: , , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 7:29 AM | Permalink | 2 be jibber-jabberin'

Baron Harkonnen To Move Headquarters To Arrakis

3.12.2007
Ore : 2:46 PM

Considering the many instances of iniquity surrounding this company, this is pretty much a stale story. Only this really struck me:

Alan Laws, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said the move would likely help Halliburton’s position in negotiating large contracts.
They need help???

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 2:46 PM | Permalink | 4 be jibber-jabberin'

But If Those 'Few Bad Apples' Are Kept In The Bushel...

3.09.2007
Ore : 7:12 AM

...could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch...
Officials said they believe that the 48 known problems may be the tip of the iceberg in an internal oversight system that one of them described as "shoddy."
But I'm sure, a la Republicans totally not leaning on or having ousted politically inconvenient prosecutors, that none of these "errors" were committed in the spirit of retaliation and vindictiveness...

Labels: , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 7:12 AM | Permalink | 5 be jibber-jabberin'

Of Lucky Duckies and Republicans

3.07.2007
Ore : 1:14 PM

“...[O]ne of the key measures of a society’s health is how easily you can insulate yourself from its underclass.” - Mark Steyn.

Katrina, no FEMA trailers for tornado victims, Walter Reed, the decades-long jihad against public education, opposition to minimum wage and healthcare reform: These are all symptoms of rampant Republicanism. I'm going eschew handy neologisms like conservatarian, propertarian, movement conservatives, libertarians and what have you -- they have their place in any dialogue, but let's call a spade a spade. Let Instaglenn hedge on his favored pigeonhole all he wants; the problem has become the party through which all of these weirdos like him achieve their political parity.

Don't think I come at this with unrealistic expectations: should we retain a Democratic majority in the Congress after, say, Senator Clinton takes the Oval Office, we won't see an end to metastasized militarism, free healthcare for everyone, and all the rainbow-colored ponies we can ride. I'm not so optimistic that I see a national election as anything other than an attempt to find the least among several evils. (I just keep perspective: politicians are manipulative and often self-serving? Ooh, that's ground-breaking; but how then should we characterize royalty? Plutocrats? Military dictators? Oh, and yes, if you're a 30-percenter, don't bother answering that.)

Republicans since the fall of Nixon have not only failed to apprehend representative democracy, they don't even comprehend the nature and purpose of government itself -- they are incapable of governance of any stripe.

The rub I'm getting to is this: let's for starters keep in mind that, thanks to regressive taxes and a barbaric, unjust income tax scheme, a hugely disproportionate amount of tax-revenue comes from the American poor and middle class, and Doctor Pat "BB guns and adult diapers" Santy's fear of the Left's Borg-like collectivism notwithstanding, they ought to see something in return. Considering the billions we all of us pour in every year, there's no reason to raid Social Security. There's no real reason Deamonte Driver should be dead, except for the perennial, sociopathic machinations of the kind of people who write for and read the National Review (WARNING: Safe for work, but exceedingly vile).

There's plenty of money, but it's all going to kickbacks and graft among our elected leaders and the military industrial complex. There's money for you if you write sycophantic lies on behalf of the AEI, but not if you do actual investigative journalism. There's money for you if you're a food services contractor who gives U.S. soldiers and Marines the runs, but don't expect to keep your paycheck if you're a USDA inspector who actually tries to do his or her job. There may even be money for your soup kitchen, as long as your clients accept Jesus as their Lord and personal Savior.

You get to pay the Republicans' cronies, but there's nothing for you...

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 1:14 PM | Permalink | 12 be jibber-jabberin'

"Up To And Including Organ Failure"

2.28.2007
Ore : 8:25 AM

Oops!
(Perhaps it would help to view this post in light of the fact that the disinction the talking heads among our media make between a hate crime and terrorism is an almost meaningless one -- that is to say, they usually make their distinctions on a case-by-case basis, ad hoc: occasionally, because the victims are fewer than a score in number, but more often because the victims are of a group perceived as protected, or because the perpetrators are white Americans. Nevertheless, and the language of virtually all hate crime legislation reflects this, a hate crime against, say, a Hmong American is by definition intended to terrorize all Hmong Americans, just as 9/11 was a sort of hate crime against anyone born in this country, as well as any foreigner who works in, or with, or otherwise supports America.)

Now, I have never heard of any murderous gay-bashers or bomber of black Baptist churches being held for years with no right to due process, in secret locations where they'd most likely be tortured. As satisfying though it might have been, Timothy McVeigh wasn't black-bagged and shipped to Uzbekistan to hang from a ceiling fan while his toenails were plucked out.

In spirit, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and all that come with them, are intended to apply to all human beings. In practice, the ideals espoused therein are safest and most secure when in practice they apply to as many human beings as possible.

It may be counterintuitive but I'm pretty sure that our greatest weapons against terrorism are not furtiveness and the abrogation of our rights, but openness and an embracing of the latter; we are most secure not when we abandon the ideals on which this country was founded, but when we cleave closer than ever to them, even at the exclusion of seeking out the illusion of security.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 8:25 AM | Permalink | 7 be jibber-jabberin'

And We're Shocked?

2.27.2007
Ore : 6:49 AM

What a tragedy this might have been...
Yet more proof, ladies and gents, that Shaitan takes care of his own...

Oh, and if you ever needed even more evidence of his devilry, this quote is worth its weight in evil gold:
“They clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government,” Cheney said of Taliban insurgents. “Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber I suppose is one way to do that.”
Yes, suicide bombing is just another way of questioning authority. In other words, Code Pink and veterans who demonstrate against the Iraq war are the moral equivalent of suicide bombers.

Glenn Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Jeff Goldstein, Ann Coulter, et alia: These aren't merely isolated fringe elements who operate in a vacuum, folks.

UPDATE: Just so we're clear, folks, I don't mean just a little evil. (Read the whole thing, especially the last three or so paragraphs.)

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 6:49 AM | Permalink | 8 be jibber-jabberin'

Most Evil Visage On Earth

2.23.2007
Ore : 11:45 AM

Yes I'd like a baby labrador with a side of Iraqi toddler's blood -- hold the conscience.
Submitted with only slight commentary:

Cheney characterized Iraq as integral to the war against Islamic terrorists who want to “establish a caliphate covering a region from Spain across North Africa across the Middle East and South Asia all the way around Indonesia.”
And while yes, it occurs to me that the quoted outcome is exactly what Cheney and his flying monkeys would like to see happen -- a new paradigm that echoes that of our detente with the USSR during the Cold War, one that would shore up and maintain the political relevance of Cheney and his kind for decades (btw, yes I recognize the unlikeliness of this ever coming to pass, given the deep and myriad divisions within Islam worldwide) -- but on another level, are those really our only two choices: Shari'a-informed theocracy vs. corporatist military dictatorship occasionally leavened with Christianist theocracy? If that really is the dichotomy facing ours and future generations, then stop the world; I want to get off.

Labels: , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 11:45 AM | Permalink | 4 be jibber-jabberin'

Cutting Corners

2.22.2007
Ore : 11:36 AM

Shorter K-Lo: "Why won't the INS detain me already???"

Shorter Iaiaiaiain Murray: "Z.P.G., next to Birth of a Nation, was the finest conservative movie ever produced, in that it warned us of environmentalists' desire to purée babies."

Shorter Whale Pod: "Since 9/11 killed irony, it's fine for me to comment negatively on another man's physical attractiveness."

Shorter Jack Fouler: "Cuba! Marx! GET IT? Ha!"

Labels: , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | 5 be jibber-jabberin'

OMGWTFBBQ!!!

2.16.2007
Ore : 5:38 PM


Note-perfect and hilarious. Dig it.

Labels: , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 5:38 PM | Permalink | 6 be jibber-jabberin'

Make-up Hint To Pammycakes

2.15.2007
Ore : 11:06 PM


I noticed in this recent picture posted of atlasshrugs's Pam Oshry (yes, find the link for yourselves -- she's one of "those," and you're big boys and girls), the V-Day one in which she's posing with relative sedateness with heterosexual theatre critic Mark Steyn, that she heavily favors the Jessica Simpsonish smoky, smoldering eyes. My advice: chuck it. On Jessica Simpson, it fails to do what I apprehend she wants it to do: make her look deeper than she is. On Pam, it positively makes the old crow's feet look like brand-new buzzard tracks. I say lighten up. Pam should stop ignoring the lips and instead focus on them, and imbue them with incandescence a la Julianne Moore (hated liberal, I know...) Let the eyes speak for themselves.

She would still look crazier than Cheryl Crow trying to score an 8-ball, but the point is liquid eyeliner -- eschew drawing attention to the worn-out orbits, and make the guy focus down to the cheekbones and lips. Bonus? Peeps will be less interested in her severe, yet strangely unwidow's-peaked fivehead.

Labels: , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 11:06 PM | Permalink | 2 be jibber-jabberin'

Moranic Argument From Assertion


Ore : 8:14 AM

Rick Moran at the apparently unironically titled Right Wing Nuthouse pulls a not-so-fast one. (The column has to be long, you notice, because there's a lot of pretzel-twisting going on -- not even a blockquote from Jizzshake McCockslap, as famous for his intricate empty-calorie verbosity as he is for his ability to pack a whopping amount of non-information into one sentence, can find him a bridge to brevity.)

He wants to defend Instahack for his typical Glennocidal tendencies ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a [notional ally]" and all that) while still being on the right side of the issue. So he attacks Greenwald's mostly moral condemnation of Reynolds's plan while back-handedly lauding Yglesias's evisceration of its practicality. But Moran wastes no time demonstrating why even a junior-high schooler may disregard his disagreement with Greenwald:

How Lambchop managed to wangle a column at Salon is a mystery. They obviously haven’t been reading his shallow, calumnious, hate filled rants toward conservatives and Bush supporters. His generalized assaults on people who disagree with him are wildly beyond the pale of decency and common sense – coarse, exaggerated, full of laughably simplistic analysis coupled with nauseating, moralistic lecturing. Lambchop is a Calvinist without the redeeming belief in God’s mercy.
...Because by the time you're in 9th grade, you quickly learn from the low scores on your essays in Freshman English that you cannot continue neglecting to provide concrete examples in support of even the most mundane claims without ultimately failing the class. "Shallow"; "calumnious"; "hate filled [sic]"; and laughably, "beyond the pale of decency and common sense": All without a single link or quote to shore up his, let's face, far from mundane assertions. He even has the nerve to call Greenwald's posts "...full of laughably simplistic analysis..." without illustrating how this is so -- Rick cannot go beyond Moranic invective. While, to wit, Jeff Goldstein accusing someone of arguing in bad faith is utterly hilarious on the face of it.

But that is a digression.

There are not many, there is one holistic argument against government-conducted assassinations of civilian scientists and religious leaders, and Greenwald stressed its moral elements while Yglesias focused on the practical (a careful and ingenuous reading of each reveals that neither did so exclusively.) And there was no tag-teaming and shifting of goal-posts between Greenwald and Yglesias; one's argument (that Glenn's plan is wrong and nastier than a shithouse rat) reinforced the other's (that Glenn's plan is impractical and deeply stupid.)

Granted, here at Freedom Camp I only rarely delve into moral issues, knowing full well how tricky they can be, how unauthoritative I am, and how much easier it is to smack down the Rick Morans of Blogistan simply with observations that hew as close to materialism or utilitarianism as possible. But I can without any arrogance assert that unlike many of my counterparts on the Right, I know damn well there's a hell of a lot more to morality than, say, adhering to doctrinaire codes of sexual behavior.

For one thing, I've often noticed that a good litmus test for what is truly moral is that it virtually always accords with true pragmatism. It is morally feasible as well as materially pragmatic to fully fund and support public education. Torture is wrong as well as ineffective. Lying in order involve your country in an unjustified foreign war is as concretely damaging and counterproductive as it is evil and reprehensible. There's just no splitting the difference here.

PS "Lambchop"? "Sock-puppet"? This is an inside joke if I've ever heard one -- did I miss some Right-wing gotcha moment in which Greenwald was revealed as Sprezzatura II? What gives?

Labels: , , , , , , ,


posted by teh l4m3 at 8:14 AM | Permalink | 7 be jibber-jabberin'

© 2006 Freedom Camp | Blogger Templates by layoutstudios.com and Gecko & Fly.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.
Learn how to Make Money Online at GeckoandFly


Web This Blog

About Me

My Photo
Name:
Location: Camp X-Ray, Gitmo, Cuba

I know why the caged bird gets beaten.


Bulls, Bitches & Screws

Previous Posts

Archives

    Vote for this site at Freedom Forum
    Queer Filter