The Great American Sing-Off

Obama opens with a quick Al Green bit:


And then there's Willard:


If you feel moved, and you need to sing, then you should sing - but Dude, if you insist on doin' it in public, ya gotta remember there's a hard and fast rule from Karaoke Nite: If you're not Delbert McClinton or Joe Cocker, never EVER follow the black guy.








O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country lov'd,
And mercy more than life.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

War Tech

(hat tip = JG)
From Wired Magazine:

The U.S. military has been after self-guided bullets for years. Now, government researchers have finally made it happen: a bullet that can navigate itself a full mile before successfully nailing its target.

Got me to thinking - sometimes dangerous, always obsessive - and just a few quick Googlies later:

Tweety Speaks

Matthews is almost always going on about the politics of it all, no matter what weird shit's going on.  Maybe I've just not watched him that closely, but I've never heard this from him before.



Seems to fit with this:

Bumper Stickers, Pix Etc

Hoping

Maybe the reason the GOP wingnuts are trying all this weird crap now is that they're feeling the heat from an electorate that's finally starting to wise up to their bullshit, and so they feel the need to push a bunch of stupid initiatives before voters throw 'em all out on their bony red butts.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch this morning:

Bill to require ultrasound before abortion advances

A bill that would require a woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound took another step toward passage in the Virginia Senate Monday — but not before outnumbered Democrats rose to express their opposition in clinical terms.
Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax proposed an amendment — that any man seeking prescription medication for erectile dysfunction must first submit to a digital rectal exam and cardiac stress test.

Virginia has grown more moderate politically over the last several years - Falwell's dead and Crazy Ol' Pat is fading fast, and the DC suburbs are gettin' bluer all the time - so, as their hold on power continues to wane, the last of the die-hard crazies are going back to the well just one more time.

Differences Can Be Legit

Evidence that 'conservatives' and 'liberals' see the world differently.

From BBC (hat tip = Democratic Underground).

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are studying liberals' and conservatives' reactions to happy or pleasant photographs and scary or sad ones in an effort to learn more about the cognitive underpinnings of political preference.

Watch the video (no embedding available).

Out On A Limb

Obama gets blasted a lot from a lot of different directions.  I'm not gonna put up a list here because this is a blog, and I can say whatever bullshit I feel like saying, and I don't have to back it up or nuthin', so there.

Here's what I think is happening.  Right now, I'm kinda back to where it looks like Obama really is way out in front of us, and we're just starting to catch up with him.

The short version is this: When he "fucks up" - eg: no Public Option, Taxes vs Cuts, etc - he's not looking for everybody to shut up and go along with him (he's not Jr Bush for fuck's sake), he's looking for as many people as possible to stand up and holler and make him do what we want him to do.

So sign the petitions and call your Congress Critter, and send emails and...well, you know, PARTICPATE, you lazy fucks.  The guy can't do it all by himself.

Yikes

I really do try to stay positive, but this kinda thing keeps popping up and I'm right back to  thinking it's just not gonna end well.

Both Sides Do It

..but can you show me examples of this kinda shit coming from the Dems?

Both Sides Do It

...except when they don't.  The centrist meme is that Repubs and Dems are equally fucked up because they all engage in some kind of demagoguery or dirty tricks or whatever.  My own sense is that while there's a kernel of truth to it (at least in the Political Mode O'Day), when I look closer, one side is a quite a bit wackier, and a lot more authoritarian, and a boatload more likely to be totally batshit fucking crazy.

From Wonkette:

Arguably the worst person permitted to make laws on behalf of America, Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield, author of the “Don’t Say Gay”bill, recently took part in an interview on Sirius in which he not only defended his already nightmarish views on homosexuality and AIDS...

-snip-

"Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall. My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted]."

Also from Wonkette:

A RESOLUTION
Declaring 2012 as the “Year of the Bible” in Pennsylvania.

WHEREAS, The Bible, the word of God, has made a unique
contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and
blessed nation and people; and

WHEREAS, Deeply held religious convictions springing from the
holy scriptures led to the early settlement of our country; and

WHEREAS, Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil
government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, Many of our great national leaders, among them
President Washington, President Jackson, President Lincoln,
President Wilson and President Reagan, paid tribute to the
influence of the Bible in our country’s development, as
exemplified by the words of President Jackson that the Bible is
“the rock on which our Republic rests”; and

WHEREAS, The history of our country clearly illustrates the
value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the scriptures in
the lives of individuals, families and societies; and

WHEREAS, This nation now faces great challenges that will
test it as it has never been tested before; and

WHEREAS, Renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through
holy scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people;
therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives declare 2012 as
the “Year of the Bible” in Pennsylvania in recognition of both
the formative influence of the Bible on our Commonwealth and
nation and our national need to study and apply the teachings of
the holy scriptures

Please, gentle readers, go out there and find something I can put in my little blog here that shows Dems or Indies doing anything even remotely like any of this. Tell me where to look.  Tell me what I'm missing.  Enlighten me.  Let's put it all side-by-side for a real comparison.

For all you centrists and all you freeloadin' poseurs who say "fuck 'em all, I refuse to take part" while the rest of us do all the work - try to remember that this is the shit we get when we don't pay attention; when we don't own our responsibilities as citizens.

And lastly, don't be fooled by the rhetoric of (mostly) the Repubs when they tell you we need to beat down the Federal Gov't and let all the power devolve to the states.  State governments are chock full of shit-heels like Stacey Campfield, who call themselves conservative, but are truly radical.  They don't want you to be free, they want you to be obedient.  They don't want reform, they want revolution.  And what is it they're likely to deliver to us if their revolution against American Democracy succeeds?