Passing thoughts on the State of the Art(ifice)

Thought of The Police the other day while I was thinking about the police:

Poets, priests and politicians
have words to thank for their positions
words that scream for your submission
...no one's jammin’ their transmission
- The Police

The noise level is so high these days you can have trouble hearing your own thoughts...

Florida apparently passed a law that says, basically: shoot first, then claim self-defense – it’ll be alright (especially if you’re an upstanding white guy and the other guy/perpetrator/victim is black).

Irony clause: This was vigorously supported by women’s groups trying to find a way to protect abused women who lashed back at their torturers.

The Congress passed a bill (instantly signed into law by the Prez) that effectively bans all protests anywhere near the object of the protest. As one officer put it to a sign-wielding protester: “The no-protest zone moves to be anywhere you are.”

Asma Assad’s (who finally let her hair down on Twitter, said “I am the dictator here.” – as we all suspected) government is now using social media to counter-propagandize the Syrian revolutionaries. (Death Count: 8,000 and rising)

Foxconn is evil, Apple is evil wait, wait… the guy who said this stuff in a one-man show apparently got some of his info from people who weren’t authorized by Foxconn to say that Foxconn was evil… so Apple and Foxconn aren’t evil after all, phew!, all our iPhones are safe… but the suicide nets at the Foxconn plants are still up…

Rick Santorum wants to know who you’re fucking, when you’re fucking and why you’re fucking… he especially wants to know these things about women; men, not so much.

Republicans have come up with yet another economic plan that fails to address any of the economic problems we are faced with except for the wrenching tragedy suffered daily by the very wealthy: apparently they don’t have enough money (see Ann Romney for commentary)… the White House is desperately searching for a way to capitulate.

Supreme Leader Imam Khamenei has, effectively, taken over control of the Iranian ‘Republic’ (ever notice how the grander the title, the punier the tinpot dictator?) from Ahmadinejad (too batshit crazy even for Khamenei). He’s declared that no, they are not producing weapons grade fissionables… now. It seems that the 30,000 centrifuges they have been running day and night for the last six months aren’t separating out the U-235 at sufficient purity for bombs… yet.

In its wisdom, the US Army sends a guy with brain damage back to the front for a fourth tour and then is ‘shocked, shocked’ to find out that he went off the reservation and shot anyone he could find in an alcohol-soaked redout… forget Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz and Musashi, didn’t any of these people see “The Hurt Locker” ?

On the other hand, in the time of ‘Obamacare’ vs ‘Romneycare’, we don’t hear a peep nowadays about ‘single-payer’ or Vermont…

The gutting of NASA continues apace, I guess that Obama was really pissed off that NASA couldn’t duplicate Star Trek technology – y’know, it’s been 40 years now, I mean, jeez, how much time do you guys need?

The economy crashed in 2008 due to weasels stealing everything they could carry and then sticking us with the bill (nice move!) it’s now 2012, four years later and NOT ONE PERSON has been indicted for the greatest fraud perpetrated against the citizens of the United States, in history… news at eleven?, I think not…

In a comment on the political situation in Europe wherein the European Banksters are taking over the governments and overruling or displacing any democratically elected regimes and replacing them with dictatorial states that answer to the German Central Bank. One politician said:

“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetimes.”

…wait, that sounds familiar, did I hear that before somewhere?

A shallow, narcissistic, incompetent corporate hack is being challenged by a shallow, narcissistic, incompetent corporate hack, an ignorant, shallow, incompetent, religious, misogynist, xenophobic bigot, a schizoid, incompetent, ethically convicted, opportunistic, cruel, serial betrayer and a fraudulent, self-serving, incompetent quack… my, my, my… how to choose.

I’m reminded of a story told about Dorothy Parker (a founding member of the incomparable Algonquin Round Table). She and Jean Harlow (the Britney Spears of her day) arrived at the door of the Algonquin at the same time. Harlow, trying to be witty (big mistake!) held the door for Parker, saying “Age before beauty.” Parker replied “Pearls before swine.” and swept through the door…

...no one's jammin’ their transmission…

I’m not fair anymore

I'm not fair, I'm not even-handed, I don't give the benefit of the doubt, I don’t suffer fools gladly any longer- I'm way past that these days. I'm angry and outraged at the cowardice, venality and stupidity I see in the political sphere, I'm frustrated that bog-obvious solutions to our problems are gathering dust while the clown circus magic pony ride goes on and on and I’m especially furious when ignorant, self-righteous twits attempt to foist their narrow-minded bigotries on me (or anybody else), case in point.

Rick Santorum (the Pro-Rape candidate) removed any possibility of his being elected and probably killed whatever chance the GOP hoped for in the general election even if they nominate Rubio for VP:

In an interview with El Vocero newspaper, Santorum said he supported Puerto Ricans' right to self-determination regarding the island's political status.

"We need to work together and determine what type of relationship we want to develop," he told the newspaper.
But Santorum said he did not support a state in which English was not the primary language.
"Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law," Santorum said. "And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language."

1) Of course there is no federal law mandating English (or any other language) as the 'principal' language
2) Nowhere, except in the fever dreams of rightwingnutland is this even an issue.
3) Can he say that in Spanish so everyone can understand him?


Every Hispanic in America just registered as a Democrat...
I think that this issue will be a tremendous loser for Republicans in this election (especially among the Hispanic community). So far, there has been no official language in the US, English has been proposed, German was proposed as a co-official language with English between the wars and of course Spanish has been proposed more recently - in some areas it is a de facto standard along with English if not de jure.

I don't like ‘Imam Rick’ very much on a visceral level. My nomination of him as the "Pro-Rape" candidate is an extrapolation of his stand that not even incest or rape are sufficient cause for a woman to seek an abortion. I consider his statement to be an invitation to rapists everywhere, after all, they get to increase their power over their victims by forcing them to bear their children.

As for the Republican party in general, I'm of the opinion that the GOP is populated mostly by corrupt corporate stooges who have left their ethics, morals and ability to think, at home on the bedroom dresser along with the cufflinks.

Sad to say (having been a Democrat for 40 years) this applies to the Democratic party too, nowadays…
…just to be fair.

A Brilliant Maneuver

Yesterday the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced it would no longer fund Planned Parenthood’s mammogram outreach to poor women, because a right wing Congresscritter had started an investigation into Planned Parenthood for, frankly, who cares? Some absurd allegation, trumped up to provide this very excuse.

This utterly transparent ploy is the basis of a brilliant maneuver by the right wing-anti-abortion, hate-women crowd. First, they carefully infiltrated the Komen Foundation with Karen Handel, who apparently bedazzled founder Nancy Brinker with her ‘born again’ fervor to serve women (although she had made her career as an anti-abortion politician).

Then Handel convinced Brinker and apparently some other gullible members of the board at Komen to support this astonishingly stupid decision (talk about a snake in the garden!). And eventually got the Komen Foundation to make what is arguably the worst decision made by a woman since Nancy Pelosi declaimed that ‘Impeachment is off the table.”

But for the right wing women haters, this is win-win! Now, no matter what happens next, the Komen Foundation has lost all credibility with its grass roots supporters. It’s once cherished position as the preeminent US charity fighting breast cancer and providing poor women with the help they desperately need, is now in cinders. As an added bonus, the women haters got to cut off funding for their objet de détester - Planned Parenthood…. It’s a twofer!

And, in addition, now Karen Handel and the rest of the women haters have a fan-dab-tastic method for closing down anyone they hate at any time they want. All they have to do is get a tame Congersscritter to start any kind of bogus investigation into the target group and presto-chango, they can justify any hate-filled, anti-woman action their little black hearts desire.

To the right wing fanatics who thought this up: I have to tip my hat to a vicious tactical victory – well done.

To the idiots like Nancy Brinker who just drove her Foundation into the ground, you really should resign because getting suckered like this means you’re pretty much too stupid to be trusted with anything this important.

In the larger picture, I wonder what it’s going to take for the left wing in this country to wake up and realize that they’re in a war with an implacable, merciless enemy that absolutely will not stop until all women are slaves? Think I’m overstating the case? Have you listened to Rick Santorum lately? No abortions for any reason including incest and/or rape (I’m thinking of naming him the Pro-Rape candidate), no condoms for anyone and no sex at all unless it’s between man and wife (women only as wives, of course) and even then only for purpose of procreation - How could you tell, Rick? And how would you find out? If you think this is starting to sound like the Reader’s Digest version of The Handmaid’s Tale, you’re right.

I’ve often wondered why women in this country don’t just stand up and take power – they’ve got the numbers. I see things like this happen and I don’t understand why they don’t burn the place down. I’m not a woman (obviously) but I have a wife and a daughter and Hell would have to freeze over before I’d allow any, cramp-assed, pea-brained, woman-hating bigot tell either of them what they could or could not do with their own bodies.

Time to step up ladies, if you don’t grab hold of your own reins, there are plenty of people out there who will be glad to – for you own good of course.

UPDATE 1:
The Susan G Komen Foundation has reversed course due to the massive outcry against their boneheaded move against Planned Parenthood. However, Ms. Handel still has her job so i would expect there to be a stealth move to block funding after the attention has died down.

UPDATE 2:
Apparently there's a caveat: The Komen Foundation announced that they will honor current grants - which they were legally obliged to do since they had already publicly issued the grants. However, they made no mention about grants for next year, which were the ones in question.
It's possible that this is a planned Red Herring: approving already approved grants and waiting until the heat dies down before refusing the next years' applications.

We'll see...

UPDATE 3:
Well, that didn't take long, see this article in HuffyPo. Turns out VP Karen Handel was actually targeting PP all along and so the right wing woman-haters are doing exactly what I predicted they were doing. Champagne tonight in the Halls of Right Wing Batshit Crazy Woman-haters!

UPDATE 4:
Who's reading? I note that this press release was done at the unique time of year guaranteed to get it the least possible attention in the universe: on Superbowl Sunday just as The Game was about to start. I took a quick look around the web to see who was aware of the story: None of the MSM of course: NYTimes: No. CNN: No. Salon: No. Slate: No. NBC: No. ABC: No. CBS: No FireDogLake: No. ... Huffington Post: Yes, Daily Kos: Yes. I'm heartened to note that Arianna Huffignton found this story of enough interest to actually folllowup on it, And the DK has two articles offering some actual insight on the underlying issues. Well done HP and DK.
Shame on the rest of the so-called 'press' - let us know how the Great Battle in Indianapolis turns out willya?