One Year Ago We First Met The Wasilla Hillbillies

It has been a good ride Sarah and we will continue to follow your career as it shifts gears from forward to reverse, to neutral and back again. You've given us a lot of laughs, even tears (from laughing so hard) with your Tweets, Facebook wall and and even your so called "prepared" speeches. One of my favorite sites for mockery is Mock, Paper, Scissors , This from Tengrain there today :

One year ago today, Mooselini was thrust into the national spotlight, thanks to the failing and flailing presidential campaign that Grandpa Walnuts was running. And in some sort of act of desperate daring-do, the old fart unleashed upon an unsuspecting public perhaps the greatest grifter and her clan of hillbillies in modern American history.

Besides the animal-like Todd, we have:

•Track: the alleged meth connection sent to Iraq to head off a criminal charge, and to clean him out, but it’s pretty close to ground zero in the heroin supply chain.
•Bristol: the single mother of Trip, ex-girlfriend of Levi and noted abstinance educator.
•Willow: the mysterious Palin with a vacant Jan-Brady smile. bristol, Bristol, BRISTOL!
•Piper: perhaps the one to keep an eye on, she might snap any moment now that she is the second-place human shield when her brother…
•Trig/Algorythm: who may or may not be Mooselini’s kid, and served as the campaign’s prop and took first place as a human shield away from Piper. Trig is the likable Palin.
•Levi: the handsome but stupid sperm donor and father of…
•Trip: who probably is another likable Palin, because he is really a Johnston.
Sweet Jeebus? Only one year? Really?

Really, I know, it seems time flies when you're having a good time.

How To Tell The Age Of A Horse

Whenever I see a horse I want to ask " Hey, why the long face ?"

The Age of a Horse

To tell the age of any horse
Inspect the lower jaw, of course
The six front teeth the tale will tell,
And every doubt and fear dispel.

Two middle nippers you behold
Before the colt is 2 weeks old,
Before 8 weeks 2 more will come,
Eight months the corners cut the gum.

The outside grooves will disappear,
From middle two in just one year,
In two years from the second pair,
In three years corners two are bare.

At two the middle nippers drop,
At three the second pair can’t stop,
When four years old the third pair goes,
At five a full new set he shows.

The deep black spots will pass from view,
At six years from the middle two,
The second pair at seven years,
At eight the spot each corner clears.

From middle nippers upper jaw,
At nine the black spots will with draw,
The second pair at ten are bright,
Eleven finds the corners light.

As time goes on the horsemen know,
The oval teeth three-sided grow,
They longer get project before,
Till twenty, when we know no more.

Author unknown

Les Paul RIP

Thanks Mr. Paul, for creating the instrument that has inspired so many players.

Some Western Pennsylvania Stoneware

from the days when craftsmen made functional things of great beauty. These were made in the middle and late 1800's here in western Pennsylvania, were shipped down the Monongahela river on flatboats and steamboats and distributed around the country. Local historians mention that stoneware often went downriver as far as New Orleans in the 1850s and 1860s. Factories in New Geneva and Greensboro became the most prolific producers of salt-glazed wares in western Pennsylvania. The names of Atchison, Boughner, Dilliner, and Hamilton & Jones and Reppert became associated with large-scale stoneware manufacture in the 1800's. Smaller shops were also built in the towns of Rices Landing, Fredericktown, and West Brownsville.

Even everyday items like a flower pot or chicken waterer were wonderfully executed

C. Baker Cake Crock, New Geneva, PA., attributed to Enix and Frankenbery Collection of Paul R. Stewart Museum, Waynesburg College

This food storage jar decorated with a baseball player brought a record price for local pottery at auction last year.

Food was stored / canned in these sealer jars

Many of the things needed in early western Pennsylvania, domestic wares in particular, could be fashioned from stoneware clay. These included water pitchers, churns, crocks, and canning jars, which were sold by the millions prior to the arrival of cheap glass. Any early order form would have also listed milk pans, spigot jars, various pots, chambers, bottles, and steins. Some potters made agricultural and industrial objects, such as poultry fountains, liquor jugs, and ware that could safely store acids and strong chemicals. On rare occasions, banks, doll heads, grave markers, twine holders, and whimsical novelties were created. Nineteenth-century consumers, especially homemakers, found these handsome vessels appealing because of their distinctive freehand cobalt blue flowers, vines, animals, birds, people, and abstract patterns.
All the potteries in western Pennsylvania produced large, masculine pieces, whose bold rims and strong shoulders were a reflection of the men who made them. Occasional flaws never detracted from their honesty.
In the 1870s, as the region's stoneware industry peaked, it turned to stenciled decoration both to cut costs and to give its image a makeover. Countless patterns were applied to vessels at this time, at first incorporating the pottery's name and later displaying the names and addresses of new customers anxious to self-promote. The stenciled crock, often viewed as synonymous with southwestern Pennsylvania stoneware, lacked the spontaneity of brush-decorated ware but was a superior article economically. Ordinary day laborers could learn to use a stencil in a day or two. This technique foreshadowed the decline and demise of the master decorator, whose handiwork is rarely seen after 1880. The more interesting stencils showcased eagles, flowers, fruit, shields, animals, abstract patterns, and -- though rarely -- people in action. Well-designed stencils produced patterns that fascinate in their great variety.


This was taken from an article called Western Pennsylvania's Stoneware Potters by Phil Schaltenbrand, written for the Westmoreland Museum of American Art

Rush Limbaugh Totally Flips The Fuck Out

This horse's ass, this fat bag of gas , this sex tourist , his Oxycontin is either working too well or maybe he should start tapering off. I believe he has finally lost it.
He compares the " Obamacare " logo to a Nazi swastika logo in the video grab below.

Limbaugh: "The Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo"

Rush thinks the symbol of caduceus, for centuries used to represent medicine, is secretly / on purpose a Nazi symbol.

Here's the Obama logo



This is the comparison from the bloviator's own website



I suppose he figures that this part of the United States Army is fascist also.



Too much ? Yes ......Ridiculous ? ..........yes indeed !
His own words



I suppose these two things mean the same thing



Using his logic, what does a " real American " supposed to think about this ? ...Just a coincidence ?



I found this comment by one Mr. Christopher Howard on Media Matters, who gets my thanks for the funniest thing I read all day :


Rush, you are confused. The talking point schedule is supposed to be as follows...
Monday: Obama is iron-fisted dictator (Hitler and Stalin) day.
Tuesday: Obama is weak leader (Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter) day.
Wednesday: Liberalism = Communism/Socialism day
Thursday: Liberalism = Fascism/Nazism day
Friday: Obama is secretly a fanatical Muslim and/or non-believer Atheist/or the anti-Christ day. Also Taco Night!
Please adjust your calendar accordingly.

The ones that do believe this kind of thing are like the "concerned citizen" described below:

At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program -- but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, "wasn't having any of it."

Chicory......this is one tough little wild plant. It will grow in a bit of dust and gravel beside a busy road. Who could be more likely to identify a flower than Freida Bee, MD ? Thanks for the ID !

Backside of a sunflower outside my window

My friend Karen calls this a Blanket Flower ..... Update/correction : I am reliably informed that this is an Indian Blanket Flower