Midnight Music Club - Tito & Tarantula - After Dark

The 1996 movie From Dusk Till Dawn had a teriffic soundtrack. I bought the disc years ago and it is one fine mixture of bluesy and ballsy songs by Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughn, The Blasters , The Mavericks, ZZ Top and Jon Wayne. Two things made this a memorable movie for me. First was this song and it's seriously sick guitar solo. The other was Salma Hayek's snake dance. Heres Tito & Tarantula doing After Dark. Enjoy !

New Feature Added To This Site - A Button For Sharing Called - AddThis

I have added a very cool feature to this site. At the bottom of this and all posts you will find a button like the one below. This will save and share any post here to one of over 60 different places. You can bookmark or share any post to Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, Blogger, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Friendfeed and many others I've never even heard of.
That's Larry The Kidman, bringing you the technology of today .....well.....today !

Place your cursor over the button below and get started sharing.

Slinky Cat

I think it was Art Linklighter that said that cats do the damndest things.

Meghan McCain Gets Her Ass Handed To Her

Meghan McCain was on the Bill Maher show the other day. I must say that I had, before this, some sympathy ( no, don't even call it admiration) for her mavericky ( where did I hear that word before ?) tendency to differ with some of the Republican powers that be. But she blew it on this show. She used the old girly girl / youth cop out and got handed her ass on a plate. She really has no business going on TV shows and giving her "opinions". Meghan, go back home, crack a Bud Light and read a fucking book.

It all got started during a discussion of George Bush, who McCain acknowledged was a less than perfect president. But McCain also pointed a finger at the Obama administration in Bush's defense, saying she felt that the Obama administration "has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor." When Maher asked McCain if she really thought this is what Obama is doing, McCain said "I do to a degree." A clearly annoyed Begala immediately shook his head and said "not to enough of a degree, I'm sorry not nearly enough." He then began to explain how President Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, to which McCain responded blithely "you know I wasn't born yet so I wouldn't know." Going in for the kill, Begala fired back "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it."

Happy Fathers Day Hoss

He loved the movies, music, baseball and his family. His coal miner buddies called him Hoss. My brother John and I called him Daddy.


Hoss in the late 1940's. He was always dressed like this then, big fedora hat.


Hoss in France in 1945 at age 32, with the 17th Airborne Division, making the world safe again.


On our front porch, September 1963 with me holding Tom, his first grandson, just two months before my father passed away.



New Father holding me, 1952. I look pissed and he looks nervous. Relax, it turns out you did fine. I mean hell, I'm 50 something, my brother 60 something and neither of us have ever been to jail........ ( fingers crossed ).

Now Liberals Are Pagans ! Kickin' It Old School

The RNC ( Rush, Newt and Cheney ) continue to accidentally serve their country by saying the most idiotic, misguided and obnoxious statements possible, all designed to pander to the lunatic fringe that's growing smaller every day . These guys continue to find new ways to paint themselves into a corner.......... I am amazed we're not in an even deeper hole than we are when I see the extent of their cluelessness and realize that they ran this country for so long. Some of the comments to this are so good I want to share em with you

From Steven Benen at Political Animal :

BRING ON THE PAGANS.... Once in a while, it's good for political activists to expand their rhetorical repertoire a bit. Conservatives, for example, have been complaining about "liberals," "Hollywood," and the dearth of "family values" for decades. The culture-war language is stale, and more likely to produce eye-rolling than passion.

Perhaps it's time for the right to bring back an oldie that we haven't heard emphasized in a while.

Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.

"I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history," Gingrich said. "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."


Now we're talking. It's one thing to lament feeling surrounded by liberalism, but to feel surrounded by paganism is to kick it old school. Really old school.

Back in December, a religious right activist insisted that "today's liberalism is really just ... a philosophy rooted in ancient pagan traditions." But the piece was published in WorldNetDaily, where it didn't have much of an impact.

Having Newt Gingrich talk about it raises the stakes. After all, the media keeps telling us how important he is.

I'd actually like to see this catch on with other leaders on the right. Nothing helps demonstrate the relevance of conservatism in the 21st century like high-profile complaints about pagans.

Don't you love that ? You go Steven !


Comments:

Gotta love the way that stellar example of Christian virtues, Gingrich, wants to hold the line against pagan values. Values like ethical violations while holding public office, giving your wife divorce papers while she's in the hospital with cancer, having affairs--what would we Christians do without Newt around to tell us what's right and wrong?
Posted by: frazer on June 7, 2009 at 7:55 AM

We are talking about serial adulterer Gingrich, tight? Also religious racist bigot Huckabee. Now I have seen everything.
Posted by: JS on June 7, 2009 at 8:05 AM

Pagans??? I can't wait until Newt gets to fornicators.
Posted by: JoeW on June 7, 2009 at 8:07 AM

So called "Paganism" predates Christianity by a couple of millenia. In fact Christianity co opted many of the old ways, including various holidays. Even the Golden Rule comes from the Wiccan Rule of Three.
Posted by: DAY on June 7, 2009 at 8:09 AM

"Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing"
hahaha... newtie's now officially acknowledged as a leading voice for the american taliban.
Posted by: linda on June 7, 2009 at 8:11 AM

Exactly what form of idol do liberals worship? Near as I can tell most liberal principles, as espoused by Christian, Jew, Muslim, religious and atheist, are grounded in the very Christian notion of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Idol worship featuring a mindless devotion to Ronald Reagan and other false gods like "capitalism" are pretty much Republican stock in trade. Elevating greed to a virtue is another rather unChristian notion current in Newt Gingrich's Republican world view.
Why are we still paying attention to Newt Gingrich anyway?
Posted by: Ron Byers on June 7, 2009 at 8:19 AM

The statements of both Newtire & Hucklebee veered toward calls for theocracy.
Just what does this mean?
"I am not a citizen of the world," said Gingrich, who was first elected to the U.S. House from Georgia in 1978 and served as speaker from 1995 to 1999. "I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator."
Has "historian" Gingrich never heard of the 14th Amendment?
Posted by: M. Bouffant on June 7, 2009 at 8:32 AM

Democrat Pagan Party. That has a much better ring to it than Democrat Socialist Party. Where can I get a bumper sticker?
Posted by: Norwood Woman on June 7, 2009 at 8:42 AM

These republicans remain inept, no matter the bizarrely articulate Gingrichs' of their world. Their tragic inattention to the country, and far too many miscalculations, were aptly recognized by voters in 2006 and 2008, too bad/so sad for the republican party establishment, now in shambles. These conservatives are unable to spin the reality like they use to. Undeterred, they continue in their very precise and disastrous downward direction. This morning--to my delight--a caller to Washington Journal on Cspan said President Obama can't even squeeze the Charmin without Republicans criticizing him endlessly, and another caller wondered who would be the next Turd Blossom of the republican party. Bwa ha ha . Gotta love how voters got so very intelligent the past few years! They aren't swayed by the party of continual crisis, of no solutions...the party of noooooooooooo. Talk about a major repudiation!
Posted by: consider wisely on June 7, 2009 at 8:51 AM

"today's liberalism is really just ... a philosophy rooted in ancient pagan traditions."
Well duh, isn't that the definition of philosophy? Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates were not Christians after all. There aren't many pejoratives left. But just like Liberal seems to be losing its sting, "Pagan" has also had a revival. Certainly to old guys like Gingrich and Pope Benedict, it still has that old voodoo. But I doubt in the 18-25 age group, it is the pejorative they think it is. As it is now associated with nature based religion.
Posted by: Patrick on June 7, 2009

Yet Another Hole Where Your Tax Money Goes

Here is a map of the births paid for by Medicaid by state. It's no coincidence that the states making the biggest drain on our tax dollars as regards these are in the South, the place where just abstinence only programs are offered and condoms are never spoken of. THIS is where your tax dollars go you nutty teabaggers, paying for babies born under a policy of state and locally applied ignorance, tempered with that old time religion. I guess it's serving the Lord somehow, but I don't see it.



This via Blue Gal who has a great gift of observation and a fine sense of sarcasm :

Click image for larger and more details. And don't give Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada a pass, their states look good only because data for 2003 was not available.

In a perfect world, citizens in states with higher birth-rates among the uninsured would pay a pro-abstinence and prophylactic ignorance tax, which would appear as a line item on page one of their 1040.

"Write the name of your state on line A"
"If your state is listed in Schedule IC (idiot Christianist) subtract $1,000 from your standard deduction."

States that enact medically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive sex education programs would be exempt from such tax after three years of reduction in Medicaid birth rates. (I would also push for free roadside condom distribution and including state-funded advertising for Trojans during all sports programming and American Fucking Idol.)

As I have said before, if accurate information can be made available on the website for Walgreens, it can be made available by your legislature.

Tennessee you must be so proud of the baby daddy who had 21 kids with 11 women and did not plan it that way. "It just happened," he said.

It just happened to Bristol Palin, too. I try not to think about whether Levi is practicing safer sex these days.

All of this is an opportunity to get our national head out of our ass and bite the bullet on mature behavior when it comes to sex. Teenagers need those of us who are adults to be adults. Bristol's mother needed to buy her condoms and tell her to use them, or watch her carefully enough and keep her busy enough that sex with Levi wasn't the only fun she could have.

Memorial Day and Those Of Us Not In Uniform

Ideals are not the exclusive domain of the military. "Freedom isn't Free," as a bumper sticker slogan, is all too often used as a wedge between those who support a particular military action and those who oppose it. But that slogan can as easily be applied to those of us not in uniform. America's servicemen and women have a special responsibility, but that doesn't absolve the rest of us of our responsibility. Part of that responsibility it to recognize the nature of their service by seeing that veterans get the best equipment, protection, and leadership possible when they're in the service. It's taking care of their families both while they're away, and while they're trying to adapt when they return home. It's also making sure that they get the medical attention, training, and job opportunities they deserve when they complete their time in uniform.

Our responsibility is seeing that America remains a place where freedom is not dependent on the money in your bank account, your family connections, the gun in your pocket, or the largess of political leaders. A place where diversity of opinion is not a problem, but a strength. A place worthy of the devotion those in the military have shown.

This day is reserved for honoring those who have served in the military, and that should not be forgotten. Every day is a day for honoring our obligation to both them and to everyone else. Not only is freedom not free, freedom can not be won on a battlefield. All the soldiers who have died in every war from the Revolutionary War to date have not, and can not, secure our liberty. They can only see that we have the opportunity to win it, or lose it, every day, through the actions we take right here at home.

From Devilstower at Daily Kos

Why They Were Kept At Gitmo In The First Place

Good Point

from Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall
From TPM Reader MR ...

As Congressional Republicans make their childish complaints about the possibility of Guantanamo prisoners coming to the U.S. mainland, it's worth remembering why they were put there in the first place. It wasn't because they possess superpowers or that America doesn't know how to lock up dangerous people. It was solely so that they would be outside of the reach of the U.S. legal system.

It's amazing to me that they would advance such ridiculous arguments as " they would turn them loose in this country " and " these are people who want to kill us ". No one is suggesting that they should be turned loose. Many people in our prisons have killed and would kill again and the prisons hold them with no danger to the local populace. There are terrorists, foreign and domestic,who have been held in this country for years. I have several friends and several more acquaintances who work at a nearby maximum security prison that also holds all the present death row prisoners in the state of Pennsylvania. To say that the US prison system cannot assimilate 241 more high risk prisoners is an insult to them and the other corrections officers that every day perform one of the most dangerous and mentally challenging jobs that can be found in modern society.

Sunday Morning Smile For You

This will bring a smile to your face. It is a compilation of street musicans from around the world doing the song Stand By Me. All the vocalists are amazing and the short bit the guy plays on dobro is sweet. Send it to a friend, spread some joy today, it's springtime .

Google Reader is Pretty Handy and Theres No Dripping And Zizzing Like With The Tropical Fishes

Google Reader is a very handy system for saving time. For years I put off buying a computer because I knew, that as an information junkie I was going to be hooked from the moment I started. And so I was, guitar, Civil War, Blues Music and I wish that was all. Just like years ago when you first got cable TV and couldn't sleep for days for fear of missing something, movies or news or nudity. Years ago I was into photographing trains. I realized that for the longest time the only way I had looked at a train was through a camera lens. I started letting the camera hang on my chest and watching the train as it passed. Real life in real time is best, that's why I don't like to stay here too long.

I found that I was checking 50 or so blogs every day and some of them more than once a day, burning up a lot of time. This Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for brand new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won't miss a thing. It shows them all on one page and you just scroll through. Any you click on takes you to that site in a new window. As you read them they are marked as such and disappear. You can Star any story to save it in a separate folder. There is a system to easily search ( type in either URL or blog title and it finds it ) and add content. I use several other Google Services and this dovetails in some degree or another with those. I know, this has probably been around since the 1950's but several of my friends had no knowledge of it, hence my reason for posting this.

pics

Dolly On Vacation


5 Cardinals


Sunrise Up Mather Hill

Buds

Ten Mile Creek

The Grinders Blues Band at Station Square in Pittsburgh, a long ago August. Me , Doch, Kelly and Brian, it was 100 degrees

Fred the cat

My old guitar buddy Steve comes over once a month or so with his favorite brand of Bourbon. Knob Creek is one very good drink and though it is a little hot going down it has a fine aftertaste. No chaser, that's the way to drink good liquor.

The swinging bridge. When I was young we would get about ten kids out in the middle and rock it from side to side like a swing.

Books that I really enjoy are kept and read again every couple years. I probably reread as much as I first time read. But I need to have a yard sale.

We'll Blind You With Teh Fear !

The extremists that control the GOP have come out with a couple new videos hoping to use old 911 fear stuff and Gitmo closings to scare the American public into supporting them again. Grasping at straws ! They still think we are idiots !

Stephen Stromberg at the Washington Post :

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not sure just what these ads are saying we have to fret about. A prison break? Though there are some prisoners at Gitmo who deserve to be let go -- something even the Bush administration admitted -- Obama isn’t going to release the worst-of-the-worst detainees the ad features onto American streets. Indeed, the GOP’s video even shows the heavy gates and high-security features of the facilities in which these prisoners would likely reside. Recently admitted al Qaeda agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri lived in a naval brig in South Carolina for nearly six years, and nearby Charleston is still intact. Colorado’s federal Supermax prison already holds Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber, Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th 9/11 hijacker, and Richard Reed, the guy who tried to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. The state’s no less safe for it. There’s a reason they call it Supermax.

The Smirking Chimps writer asks : Will Nation That Housed 425,000 Nazis In WWII Find Accommodations For 241 Gitmo Captives?

Former NSC head of counterterrorism Richard Clarke has a more serious response:

"This video and the recent Republican attacks on Guantanamo are more desperate attempts from a demoralized party to politicize national security and the safety of the American people. But what is more disturbing is their brazen use of imagery and the memory of 9/11 to score political points. Thousands of Americans tragically died that day, and for the GOP to think it can win elections by denigrating their memory is disgraceful.
"The difference between these Republican videos and the very terrorist propaganda that seeks to damage our society is negligible. Each attempt to stoke the embers of fear in order to disrupt American life. Just as al Qaeda videos should be viewed as misguided rants from a small group of marginalized radicals, so too should these Republican videos be equally dismissed. As opposed to what the GOP thinks, the American people are not that naïve."

Limbaugh/ Hannity/Joe The (Not A Real) Plumber - The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Rush Limbaugh, radio entertainer, drug addict and sex tourist is really starting to hit his stride in his efforts to purge "His" party of all heretics who don't walk the far right edge. Others are leaving because it's not crazy enough ! Go Rush-o, and go you other lunatics, you're making a better case against all you stand for than we could ever do. I believe you are finally doing "the Lord's Work."



This from Ellen at News Hounds :

Who couldn't see this one coming? Colin Powell had the nerve to speak outpublicly against the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, calling it bad for Republicans. So rather than debate the actual effect of Limbaugh and Coulter on the party, Sean Hannity called on Limbaugh-sub Mark Steyn to discredit Powell. Earlier in the show, Hannity made the unintentionally hilarious commentthat he doesn't ever hear “nastiness” from Limbaugh. But Powell was fair game, as Hannity introduced the segment by saying, 'endorsing Barack Obama was not enough' for Powell. 'Now he is on the offensive against Republicans.'
Predictably, Steyn claimed, “I don't recognize this characterization of (Limbaugh) as some angry, bitter man who's driving people away.”
Maybe those two don't but much of the rest of the country does. Before he backtracked to kiss Limbaugh's you know what, RNC chair Michael Steele knew it. And the pollsters know it. Limbaugh's favorability ratings are lower than George W. Bush's. And not even uber-loyalist Hannity has been arguing that Bush is good for Republicans these days."
“What sense of a vision do you get from Colin Powell?” Steyn asked dismissively. Earth to Steyn: Powell is not running for office. But he obviously has a vision for Republicans – the one Steyn and Hannity were so busy attacking.
Not discussed at all? Limbaugh's racial attack on Powell in response.
By the way, Powell had a 54% favorability ratinglast fall, compared to Limbaugh's recent 28%.

Wow, now even Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is quitting the Republican Party? That's what a new Time article reports on his latest antics :
"Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party -- and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience," the article says.

Looks like old Joe will be Rush's next target !

Kos nails it:

Republicans are an old party, and their retrograde bigoted positions on equality are repulsive to younger voters. Obama won the youth vote 66-32, and nothing the Republicans have done since then have made them more palatable to those voters. In fact, by doubling down on hatred, Republicans are merely cementing the millennial generation into the (D) column for years to come.
It's true that many Americans agree with the Republican position. In fact, per the polling, that number appears to be about 38 percent, or about 114 million Americans. That's a lot!
But that's not 50 percent, which is useless to you in elections, and it's a shrinking number as new youngsters reach voting age and the seniors pass on. Time is the bigot's worst enemy.
I'm just happy that what makes Boss Limbaugh happy, and what's best for the long-term health of the Republican Party are so diametrically opposed.


And lastly, Driftglass shares with us the official Wingnut Family Photo



First row seated (L - R): Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck
Second row standing(L - R): Joe the Quitter, Rupert Murdoch, Brit Hume

What does it say that the meatheads and toe-pickers are leaving the Grand Old Party because it's just not hair-on-fire/ass-gouting-napalm reckless and crazy enough?

Here is all you need to know about this Miss California Bullshit thats been going on way, way too long

Its like...Fuck this shit already ! This means nothing ! Who cares what this plastic titted bimbo has to say ? She's crying cause she lost for being honest . It's a pagent ! Some win some lose, by their answers. At's it, at's how it goes! Now this Michael Musto is one funny sarcastic son of a bitch ! I have a 12 hour rule on posting .........this means that when I come home drunk and write something that I must wait 12 hours before I post so that I can put a check on my self. But in this case , all bets are off !

Sojourner Truth Statue Placed In Capitol Visitors Center

She lived for nearly 90 years. She never stopped fighting to extend the rights and protections of our democracy. She preached against capital punishment and advocated for prison reform. She recruited African American troops for the Union Army. She helped to desegregate the streetcars that ran through Washington, and she worked diligently to improve living conditions for freed men and women.
She did not know how to read or write. Her life was from the most humble and improbable circumstances. But she ended up counting President Lincoln and President Grant among her acquaintances. She never, never, despite what she went through, stopped believing in the promise of liberty. She lived long enough to see the end of slavery, but not the establishment of voting rights for women. The 19th Amendment would not be passed until 37 years after her death. But today, she takes her place in this Capitol, and we are the better for it.
Was any person ever better named? Think about it. She is a sojourner of truth, by truth, and for truth. And her words, her example, and her legacy will never perish from this earth, so long as men and women stand up and say loudly and clearly: We hear you echoing down through the years of history, we believe that your journey is not yet over, and we will make the rest of that journey with you. God bless the memory of Sojourner Truth."
This from the US State Department website.

First Lady Michelle Obama joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other lawmakers and dignitaries on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to unveil a bust of Sojourner Truth, the 19th-century slave turned abolitionist who was also a fiery advocate for women’s rights.
Mrs. Obama praised Ms. Truth as a woman who didn’t allow “indignities to destroy her spirit,’’ who fought for her own freedom, the freedom of others and for women’s right to vote. She said the bust, which will appear in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitors Center, would inspire many young African Americans who visit the Capitol.
“And just as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott would be pleased to know that we have a woman serving as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the First Lady of the United States of America,’’ Mrs. Obama said. “We are all here because, as my husband says time and time again, we stand on the shoulders of giants like Sojourner Truth.”
From the New York Times

A speech delivered 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio :

Ain't I a Woman?

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

- Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Control Your Cat

I'm going right to Amazon and get me one of these !

Pity The Nation By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been around a long time (since Great Britain was just Pretty Good Britain) and he's always made sense.............. like so :

PITY THE NATION

Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

- by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 2007 (inspired by Khalil Gibran’s poem of the same title)

Gee ! It looks like from my counter, that people are looking here once in a while , so................... thank you folks who are looking, for looking.

I Say Nuts To The Teabagging Insanitea !

This is right up there with the terrorist fist bump, she touched the Queen, freedom fries, Sarah Palin, purple band-aids, spilling French wine, Joe the Plumber, and burning Dixie Chicks Cd's. We don't need to mock these loony tooners, they set em up and knock em down all on their own. Imagine, what idiot thought up teabagging as a political statement ? The original tea party was to protest taxation WITHOUT representation. The elected representatives of the people of this country already DID / ARE voting for the very things these Goober Pyles are protesting. They are simply confusing tyranny with losing an election. All this is only necessary because of the crimes of the last administration, one that most of these self styled patriots likely supported. Leave it to Faux News to push this kind of foolishness.

Andrew Sullivan summarized it this way : "These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown."

From John Devore at Horses Ass :

What would be interesting to know is the thought process, such as it is, that inspires teabagging. Sure, they’ll blather about “out of control government spending,” but they didn’t give a flying fig about it during the last administration and if someone today dares to talk about reforming the defense procurement system then the teabag noise machine starts in about “threatening America’s safety.”
So it’s really “government spending on things they don’t like that helps people they don’t like” that pisses them off. Wasting trillions on weapons systems that don’t work and invading countries that shouldn’t have been invaded was just fine with them.

Says Declan McCullagh:
But the problem with the Tea Party movement is that the same complaints can be lodged against former President George W. Bush. It was the Bush administration that bailed out AIG; it bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; it bailed out Citigroup; it bailed out Bear Stearns. And it was the Bush administration that pressed Congress to bail out Detroit automakers.
Where were those hand-printed signs last week -- or last year -- assailing "BushNomics?" Where were these same conservatives when the Republicans and the Federal Reserve were on a bailout bender last year? Or when the GOP doubled the size of the federal debt?

Climb on the sore loser express ! I say nuts to em'.

Wingnuts - Fanning The Flames And Killing People

This today from a quite reserved and restrained Rude Pundit :

Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers before being arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He legally owned an assault weapon and two handguns, despite being booted from the Marines for being too violent. Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry.

Conservatives are running scared because the left is seeing a connection, especially with Poplawski, between the violent, apocalyptic rhetoric of the right.

Jesus Christ, nut up, right wingers. You can't say that we're heading towards revolution and that gun laws are harming America, but, hey, we don't want violence. No, you can't walk around naked with a raging hard-on, but then say you don't wanna fuck something. There's times when you don't get to decide what your words actually mean; there's times when others take your words and actions to logical conclusions whether you meant it or not. Toss in a depr/recession and a touch of crazy and, well, boom. So at least admit that you squirted a little lighter fluid onto the fire.

and with another opinion on the same subject is David Neiwert at Crooks And Liars :

You have to wonder if right-wingers will ever get it: Difference isn't a threat. Because we believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought, there will probably always be haters like Richard Poplawski among us. Inevitably they will be driven by fear: the fear of difference. Because to them, difference of any kind is a threat.

They were mewling like wounded hyenas this weekend after some of us pointed out that there was a direct connection between the irresponsible fearmongering in which they've been indulging since Barack Obama was elected and Saturday's tragedy in Pittsburgh.
We strongly believe that there's a clear, common-sense connection between the paranoiac fearmongering that has passed for right-wing rhetoric since well before Obama's election (and has become acute since) and violence like that in Pittsburgh, or in Knoxville: horrifying tragedies, in which the sources of the criminal's unambiguous motives are that very same hysterical fearmongering -- whether it's about the evil socialists, stinking immigrants, or conspiring gun-grabbers who've taken over the country since Election Day.

And yes, Glenn Beck deserves some mention here. His fearmongering on the gun issue is noteworthy in itself. I'm sure we all remember the time he speculated that these shooters were just ordinary citizens frustrated by "the system" and "political correctness."

At the same time, the unrelenting meme being pushed by the right that Obama will mount an assault on the Second Amendment has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms. According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year.

Needless to say, President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Second Amendment and opposes a ban on firearms in the United States.

And from across the big water, read what The British Observer has to say :

The American right-wing machine has cranked up its engine of evil to prevent Obama from doing what needs to be done. I get Fox News on what you can refer to as cable, and it is clear that there is a systemic attempt to muster and organise against Obama’s agenda. Now, organising against the Democratic agenda is not in itself a bad thing. It is only right that in a healthy and functional democracy there exist a strong and viable opposition, laying their cards on the table. However, what we witness now is not the laying of cards, but rather: IRRATIONAL HATRED. The kind of hatred that Clinton faced and that Kennedy before him faced. The kind of right-wing hatred that propels individuals to shoot up schools and immigration centres under the demonstrably false contention that the election of Barack Obama, America’s first black President, would herald a drop in their standard of living, a standard that had already received permanent residency in the toilet after W.’s first term. The kind of hate that pushes duly elected member of America’s legislative arm to call for "revolutions" or to accuse the President of the United States of being a "socialist". The kind of hate that leaves the American secret service no choice but to put in place an unimaginable security regime around the American President just to ensure a Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity inspired lunatic does not turn everybody’s worst nightmare into reality.

A little more on the Pittsburgh shooter :
Accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski spent hours posting racist messages on an extremist right-wing Web site, decrying blacks and Latinos and warning of forthcoming economic collapse fueled by the "Zionist occupation" of America, an expert in political extremism has determined. Earlier, he had praised the "AK" rifle as his ideal weapon.

On March 13, according to the site, Mr. Poplawski wrote a lengthy post predicting economic collapse, engineered by a Jewish conspiracy:

"The federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of -- if not completely controlled by -- Zionist interest," the post declares. "An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war . . . This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab."

So , not just another nutty crazed gunman, and not a guy who " flipped out when the dog pissed on the rug ". Let the blame fall where it should.