Chris Hedges

I'm not completely down with all of his conclusions, but the guy speaks to some very uncomfortable points, which generally makes me think I should at least stop to consider what he's trying to say.

The Chicken Or The Egg

The question is whether some dick came up with the idea for the shirt first - or did the dick wearing the shirt voice his demand for it?

Answer: Doesn't really matter, does it?

The Repubs have gone right 'round the bend, hand-in-hand with the freaks who make up their constituency.  In fact, in this little thing we call 'democracy', the freakiest of the freaks in the constituency become the 'leaders' of the freaks - so again - doesn't really matter.

Not that this skinhead was open to the message, but shouldn't the GOP have gotten a pretty clear signal?  (Real glad a prick like this guy wasn't rewarded for crap like this)

And secondly - for anybody still laboring under the twisted delusion of 'both sides do it', please tell me where I can find the Librul Equivalent of this shirt?

Today's Gun Nut

As always, for every complicated gnarly problem there's a solution that's simple and elegant and wrong.  So it's not as simple as removing guns from the equation - or removing certain types of guns - but it's a good place to start.

And it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we could actually stigmatize the need to own combat-style weapons - use the powers of marketing and advertising to redefine the relationships, and to associate guns with people who struggle with lingering hangups about their sexual identities, or Daddy Issues, or whatever.

That's prob'ly a bad idea in the long-term, but think how fun it'd be - for a while anyway.  You take the one thing that helps the average gun freak feel good about himself and turn it around so it's something that makes people point and laugh.  Yeah OK - publicly mocking somebody with an AR-15 and 10,000 rounds of ammo is a little dangerous, but dang...

Here It Comes Again

The Debt Ceiling looms again as the next perfect opportunity to fuck with us like we had tails.

Via Democratic Underground, this guy's a new one for me:

Scalia's Hat

No, seriously - I think there may somethin' wrong with this guy.

The Lady Michelle

Body language makes a beautiful sound sometimes, and Michelle Obama speaks with a lyrical perfection in this short clip from the Inaugural Luncheon.



Can't wait to hear from Wingnut-topia about what a horrible person it makes her for having the nerve not to put up with the drunken antics and attempted glad-handing (ie: pawing) of Sir John the Orange of Paintboothshire.

1,384,171

1,384,171 is the number of Americans who have been killed by guns in the last 43 years.

One million-three-hundred-eighty-four-thousand-one-hundred-seventy-one.

Since 1775 (237 years), having fought dozens of battles, skirmishes and outright wars; putting many millions of American uniformed people in harm's way - the estimates look like this:

CONFLICT - TIME SPAN - DEAD AMERICANS
War of Independence (1775-1783) 25,000
Quasi-War (1798-1800 ) 20
Barbary Wars (1801-1815) 35
War of 1812 (1812-1815) 20,000
1st Seminole War (1817-1818) 30
2nd Seminole War (1835-1842 ) 1,500
Mexican-American War (1846-1848) 3,283
3rd Seminole War (1855-1858) 26
Civil War (1861-1865) 623,026
Indian Wars (1865-1898) 919
Spanish-American War (1898) 2,446
Philippine War (1898-1902) 4,196
Boxer Rebellion (1900-1901) 37
Mexican Revolution (1914-1919) 35
Haiti Occupation (1915-1934) 146
World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,708
World War 2 (1941-1945) 407,316
Korean War (1950-1953) 36,914
Vietnam War (1964-1973) 58,169
El Salvador (1980-1992) 20
Beirut (1982-1984) 266
Persian Gulf Support (1987-1988) 39
Invasion of Grenada (1983) 19
Invasion of Panama (1989) 40
Persian Gulf War (1991) 269
Somalia (1992-1993) 43
Bosnia (1995) 12
Afghanistan / Iraq (2002-2012) 6,616

For a grand total of 1,317,130

In just 43 years we've killed 67,041 more Americans than all of our "enemies" have managed to kill in 237 years of armed conflict.  Who looks at this and then says to himself, "So, yeah - I guess what we need is a lot more opportunity for Americans to kill each other"?

The Internet Is Outa Control

Today's Pix

Manti T'eo

Here's a picture of all the fucks I give:

Seriously - I've tried, but I just really really don't care.  And it's not that I don't care about a young man on the verge of fame and fortune being scammed to the point where he somehow felt compelled to go along with it (WTF?) only to get publicly fucked over anyway -  the story here is that the Press Poodles couldn't be bothered to do their fucking jobs.

As usual, Charlie Pierce gets it about right:

I remain fascinated by the unfolding saga of Manti Te'o and the alleged death of his imaginary girlfriend — Who exactly got the white roses he sent to the funeral anyway? — partly for the pure schadenfreude of watching the perpetual-motion Notre Dame mythmaking machine sputter and wheeze, leaving gears and tiny springs and pieces of itself all over the landscape as it augers in spectacularly, and in full public view. (And the Gipper was a gambler and a bounder and drank South Bend dry. Pass it on.)

Yesterday's Dildo-Brained Gun-Fucker News

From Balloon Juice:

Today is “Gun Appreciation Day.” An event created by right wingers with penis issues, and so called because “Insensitivity To First Graders Being Slaughtered Wholesale Day” doesn’t roll as glibly off the tongue. It also gives the game away, but I digress.

At gun shows across the country, the hicks and goobers line up to look at and buy all sorts of guns, and more guns and still more guns instead of getting the roof fixed, buying a used truck less than eight years old, or saving up for Billy Bob’s and Jolene’s tuition at the junior college that might have allowed them to not work at Walmart as adults.

And here are some hi-lites from This Week In Gun Safety:

• a 6-year-old in Cleveland, Ohio who died after she likely shot herself in the face.
• a 15-year-old in Anchorage, Alaska who was shot in the leg as guns were fired at her home.
• a 12-year-old in Bainbridge, Georgia who was seriously injured, already requiring two surgeries, after shootinghimself in his leg while hunting.
• a 4-year-old in Richmond, Virginia who unintentionallyshot and killed a relative in his home using a gun he found on a table.
• a 2-year-old in Savannah, Georgia who unintentionallyshot himself with a gun he found in a drawer.
• a 17-year-old in Cleveland, Ohio who was unintentionally shot in the chest while he and a friend were handling a gun.
• a 16-year-old in Kearny, New Jersey who was shot and killed in her home while babysitting her younger brother.
• a 15-year-old in Chicago, Illinois who was shot in the shoulder near LaFollete Park.
• a 17-year-old in Chicago, Illinois who was shot and killed just outside the Chicago State University gymnasium after a high school basketball game.
• an 18-year-old in Watsonville, California who was shot and killed.
• a 16-year-old in St. Louis County, Missouri who was shot in the leg after leaving a high school basketball game.
• a 15-year-old in Columbus, Ohio who was shot and killed during an after-school fight.
• a 17-year-old in Baltimore, Maryland who was shot and killed.
• a 15-year-old in Wilmington, Delaware who was shot in the leg.
• a 12-year-old in Hazard, Kentucky who was shot and killed in a parking lot at Hazard Community and Technical College, along with her father and 20-year-old cousin.
• a 15-year-old in Yakima, Washington who is in critical condition after he was shot in the head. A 17-year-old companion was shot in the back.
• a 16-year-old in Lexington County, South Carolina who was shot in the back while sitting in a pickup truck.
• two young children in Kansas City, Missouri who were shot as gunfire from the street entered their house.
• a 14-year-old in Las Vegas, Nevada who was shot and killed outside a party at an apartment complex.

--paraphrasing here: When it's stupid to own a gun, only the stoopid own guns.

A Small Win

...or maybe that should be the word 'win' spelled with the lower case 'w'(?)

From Addicting Info:

The full body scanner technology, which produces a semi-nude image of a persons body, has been controversial since they were first introduced. While the advocates for it called the scanners safe, that the images were not clear enough to be considered intrusive, privacy advocates have taken, at times, odd measures to protect the scanners.

What has been neglected in much of the media attention, however, is the safety of these scanners. The radiation used by the models of machines built by OSI Systems has been called into question, with serious concerns about the levels of dosage used. Late last year, OSI failed to meet critical safety requirements, and on Friday, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) announced their termination of the OSI contract. While OSI is not the sole supplier, its systems were under the most scrutiny due to the clarity and detail they provided.

So first, chalk one up for even a slight delay in stomping all over people's rights - of course, with one contractor out, it only makes things better for somebody else's brother-in-law to become very wealthy at taxpayer expense while doing practically nothing effective about the problems of terrorism.

Second, it's kinda nice to know that an opportunistic slug like Mike Chertoff is being left on a dry sidewalk under a scorching summer sun.

Today's Toon

Today's Toon

The Directory Of Sick Fucks

Via Democratic Underground:

In the increasingly distant past, the National Rifle Association (NRA) largely advocated for policies related to hunting and marksmanship, but today its leaders are defined by unsavory conduct and the advancement of extreme, anti-government ideology. While the NRA innocuously describes itself as the “nation’s oldest civil rights organization,” this portrayal serves only as a smokescreen to mask the fact that the organization is a rogues gallery of the most odious voices in the contemporary Conservative Movement.

One only has to look to the NRA’s leadership to discover that the organization is operated by a group of individuals who promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant animus, religious bigotry, anti-environmentalism, and insurrectionism. Some active NRA board members have even had close relationships with brutal dictators in outside nations. Put simply, members of the NRA leadership no longer make for polite company.

Moreover, while superficially bipartisan, the NRA is closely aligned with the most extreme elements in the Republican Party and has brought a number of the GOP’s most influential operatives into positions of power within the organization. The GOP and NRA are now locked in a symbiotic relationship where Republican legislators advance the NRA’s extreme agenda while the NRA musters its hardcore supporters to serve as attack dogs for a wide range of conservative causes.

This website shines a light on the background of members of NRA leadership, in large part by allowing them to comment on the issues of the day in their own words. It is intended as a resource for those who cherish moderation, civility and principled advocacy in American politics.

Take a look around at some of the leading lights in the NRA - some of these people are too nutty for granola.

NRA Leader Profiles