This Is Not Good

Reprehensible? A legit issue? I find myself saddened when this commercial comes on.

An Important Message from Barack Obama about Jeff Merkley

Boom! Boom! Boom!

(h/t Ben Smith sur le Politico)

McCain as Ward Littel

Great stuff from Patton Oswalt.

Not the Kind of Thing Defend Oregon Would Send Out

This is too awesome not to post. From our friend Steve Novick:

One of the most important things you can do this election year is tell everyone you know to Vote No on Bill Sizemore’s Measure 64. A bizarrely technical measure – it’s a sort of attack on the use of a form of direct deposit by public employees – it would have the effect of making it much more difficult for union members to advocate for education and health care, more difficult for organizations like the Food Bank to advocate for social justice, and more difficult for the unions to fight Bill Sizemore’s other measures.

It’s important for you to know that the public employee unions are our first line of defense against devastating Sizemore initiatives like Measure 59, which would gut public services to give tax cuts to the wealthy. A lot of us understand that Sizemore’s measures are bad, and do our part – but the truth is that most progressives tend to focus our resources on candidate campaigns (thanks again for your help on mine!), and it doesn’t occur to us that we need money and manpower for the initiatives, too. It is no exaggeration to say that if it were not for the public employee unions, Bill Sizemore would have burned the state to the ground long ago. He knows that. That’s why he wants to cripple their ability to fight him.

If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, think of Oregon as the Shire and the unions as the Dunedain. They don’t get a lot of credit. But as Aragorn said to Boromir at the Council of Elrond:

"Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

And yet less thanks have we than you. Travelers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly."

The fact is that every Oregonian lives under the shadow of foes like Sizemore and his backers, like Loren Parks the Nevada sexual hypnotist and Dick Wendt of Jeld-Wen. They would lay our little state in ruin, if it were not guarded ceaselessly – by our friends in organized labor. Don’t let Sizemore drive the Dunedain into the grave.

Vote No on 64, and make sure all your friends do, too.

**** Shocking Election News **** **** Campaign Changing Day ****

**** Pollsters reveal Democratic bias *****

**** Obama loses in Hawaii courtroom trying to hide birth records ****

**** Obama in Hawaii to keep grandmother quiet ****

**** API to release tapes soon: MO: "I hate Whitey and so does Barack!" ****

**** Hotel receipt a plant by the Democrats to make right-wing look bad ****

**** Media focuses on clothes while naked Democratic fraud goes unnoticed! ****

**** Obama BFF calls for genocide! ****

**** Young people flock to McCain/Palin ticket ****

Much more to come in the next 11 days!

Obama to Godwin land-speed record

Behold, and you really do want to take some time with the comments on this one.

And you didn't mention this why?

Smaller media markets, like, say, Eugene, OR, tend to have... let's call it quirkier on-air personalities for their local shows. Like the newscasts. Eugene has some memorable weathermen; John Fischer, Tim Chuey, and the bald guy on the NBC affiliate - you tend to remember the face of the guy telling you the forecast for the next 200 days is some variation of "rain." I still encounter Joe Giansante if I happen to catch a Ducks game on some bar's satellite feed. And who can forget the woman who looked like Ally McBeal when the FOX station tried to put together a local newscast (didn't she end up reporting at some other local channel?)(is it wrong to admit that I had a crush on her?)?

The anchors, on the other hand, are a little less memorable for me. I can see faces, but couldn't give you names. Except for one, who was exceptional in that he offensively and unapologetically embraced his role as "the anchor," whose faux gravitas dripped with cheese, whose bright human interest stories were gaggingly cloying... for some completely irrational reason, I could not stand the sight nor sound of this person. It was the one network whose local newscast I would actively avoid.

And now Rick Dancer is running for statewide office? As a Republican? And no one bothered to mention this? Had I known this I would've been donating to Kate Brown a long time ago, just to spite him.

(George) Strait Talk re: Bolivia

Alright, listen. I know I'm the guy around here who writes the things that "don't make any sense." I am one opaque mother, I know, absolutely. (And thanks for having me, I don't say it enough.)

Because I know this, I don't know who would possibly be on board with my erratic references to the situation in Latin America - let alone Bolivia. So often buried beneath shout-outs to Tom Scharpling, Ric Flair, Vin Novarra, et. al... well I just don't feel confident that anybody's wading through all of that, at least not more than mebbe, like, twice.

But, should such people (as those outlined above) happen to exist, I now happily present to them this very interesting clip (text or video) Forrest Hylton discussing how "the fight is not over by any means but [Bolivia] has entered a new phase."

So this really represents in some ways a closure of that process that was initiated when people began to demand a new constitution and a new constitutional assembly through mass direct action in the streets, which was capable of overthrowing two presidents.

Castro, Chavez, and Goldberg?

Floating around the internet is this bit of intellectual fluff from Jonah Goldberg defending Palin against the charge that her "tax the wealthy oil companies" program in Alaska is more socialist than Obama's "repeal the tax cut on the top income bracket" plan (ed: We are all socialists now!):

In Alaska, the people own the oil as opposed to in Ohio where the people don't own Joe the Plumber. That's the system that Sarah Palin inherited. It's also the system that produced a lot of political corruption, which is the logical result of the sort of corporatist policies favored by Barack Obama. Sarah Palin did much to clean up that corruption. Obama never dreamed of doing anything comparable in even more corrupt Chicago. The tax increase on oil companies in Alaska may or may not have been well-advised (my in-laws have very strong feelings on the matter). But as a philosophical matter comparing Barck Obama's argument that we should soak succssful [sic]small businessmen to spread the wealth is really not comparable to the steward of a resource owned by the citizens of Alaska in effect renegotiating the deal to more favorable terms for the owners.

Apparently, Goldberg believes that the people own the national resources in America. While this is news to you, me, and everyone but the ISO, it would seem to suggest that allowing oil companies to make billions in profits exploiting our natural resources while providing crappy jobs and polluting the environment is the ultimate form of wealth redistribution. I mean, wouldn't a smart government be renegotiating these "deals" until oil company profits were so low, that Exxon decided it just wasn't worth it? (Understanding that, for now, neoliberalist ideology runs so deep that the notion that the government could exploit those resources in the name of the people just as efficiently and cheaper is a non-starter. Now that's Socialism with a capital 'S'!). Every dollar they keep is a dollar the people lose, no? It's our oil, they're our dollars.

Goosebumps.

Holy shit.

I believe.

No. Fucking. Shame.

John McCain is a fucking liar:

"I think she's most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president, tell you the truth," McCain said, citing her experience as a small-town mayor and Alaska governor. He added: "Bill Clinton was pretty well derided when he came out of a small state to run for president of the United States," and he pronounced himself "amazed" at the criticism.

The "most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president." More qualified than George H.W. Bush. More qualified than Al Gore or Jack Kemp. More qualified than the man who is currently running our government - Dick Cheney.

And Bill Clinton. Who had a law degree from Yale. And was a Rhodes Scholar. And was governor for over a decade. She's at least as qualified as Bill was, probably moreso.

OMFG.

It was enough to foist her upon us in the first place and pretend that she was qualified to run the country. But to offer this stunningly over-the-top endorsement is a transparent lie. And he knows it.

cardinology streaming

sur le facebook, of all places. have at it, fiends!

(three tracks deep, and "fix it" still stands out.)

on the other hand

On the "substance" front - let me say that I'm interested by (but unsure how to approach) the issues tied up in Ezra Klein's recent work on the mainstream media's consensus that the U.S.A.'s an intrinsically "Center-Right" country.

On the other hand, on the "sonics/phonics" front - it is kinda nice to hear the word "socialism" tripping off so many Americans' lips, these days.

Saturday Night in 1993 Will Never Be the Same

MillerCoors ends production of Zima

1 day ago

MILWAUKEE (AP) — MillerCoors LLC says goodbye to Zima.

The joint venture between SABMiller's U.S. unit and Molson Coors Brewing Co. told distributors in a letter Monday that production of the malt liquor beverage was discontinued as of Oct. 10.

Chief Marketing Officer Andy England says the decision was due to weakness in the "malternative" segment and declining consumer interest.

He says distributors can get remaining Zima inventories most likely through December.

Distributors are being asked to put products from caffeinated alcoholic beverage Sparks on retail store shelves to make up for Zima's absence.

The brand came to the joint venture from Molson Coors, maker of Coors Light and Keystone.

h/t: AP

Don Imus re: Rev. Wright and Don Imus

h/t to Ben Smith, 'glad to see that the Maverick is doing right by the I-Man and responding to his "tough questions" (about himself, the I-Man). Yeah, I-Man!

"When I got in the mess that I got in, Senator Obama was the first one to jump up and suggested that I be fired, which I didn’t have any problem with. And when the wheels came off with Reverend Wright, the first thing Senator Obama said was that we should put his remarks in context and also we should consider all the wonderful things that Rev. Wright had done throughout his life," Imus said. "That was a luxury that he was affording Reverend Wright and himself to get out of that mess, and something that he was unwilling to afford me – not that that would have been appropriate, by the way. But I thought that revealed a disturbing level of hypocrisy and a willingness to employ a double standard and something worth talking about."

I mean, leave it to a self-absorbed wanker like BHO to not distinguish between a) his pastor, and b) a washed-up, unfunny moron who essentially mocked black women athletes for being black!

Worst Ever

In another giant "Fuck you" to the American people, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to "read" 200,000 citizen comments on their plan to radically alter the endangered species rules in just 32 hours. Fish and Wildlife assembled a team of 15 people to read the legally mandated citizen comments. They started yesterday at 9 am and plan to work 8 hour days and finish up Friday afternoon. For those playing at home, that's 13,333 comments per person. That works out to 416 comments per hour. 7 comments per minute. These comments are written by citizens, including scientists and lawyers and often run to dozens of pages.

Law requires the administration to read and comment on public response to proposed rule changes, and this is an attempt to get this process done and the changes in place before a new administration takes office. If the rule change is still "proposed," then it is easily undone. If the the change is complete, then a new administration would have to go through the entire process again.

I guess it should come as absolutely no surprise, but jeebus. Democracy means absolutely nothing to these people, does it?

i don't never go see no movies no more

but maybe i should start reading slashfilm.com anyway. see what i mean? no? look below.

Former US Football star Ken Harvey (Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins) will visit the Globa Space Technology Forum in Abu Dhabi next month in an effort to find financial backing for a film about playing sports in space, according to The National. The film tells a story of a young boy who joins “a space-sport team in his quest to avenge the death of his father and to win the rights to mine for Helium-3″, which is thought by some scientists to be a possible fuel. Yeah, the stoyline doesn’t sound too promising. Harvey is also promoting his company Space Sportilization, with the purpose of promoting interest in playing sports in space.

Real quick. Can I have a show of hands from those who're against playing sports in space?

Volcker and Obama

story of the day, though I cannot link you to the actual WSJ content without all of us subscribing. Former Fed Chair Volcker (1979-1987), more than Reagan, inaugurated domestic neoliberalism in the USA as an inflation-fighting deficit hawk. Now he's presiding over what many are calling the "end" of neoliberalism.

Minimizing Expectations

Seems like maybe Orrin has given up on the House and the Presidency.

Defeating Senator Landrieu will not only give us a solid fiscal conservative in State Treasurer John Kennedy, it will stop the liberals from seizing complete control of the Senate and forcing their far-left agenda on the American people.

Please note that Orrin has been reduced to pinning his hopes on races where a poll have his guy 5 points behind with two weeks to go. This is Kennedy's internal poll. Rasmussen has Landrieu by 13.

This is what winning feels like. I like it.

Mo' Money

Last I had heard, Prop 8 in California, which would overturn their gay marriage law and take away gay rights, was going down to easy defeat. Apparently, this not the case.

On a not entirely unrelated note, the attempt in California to pass a referendum banning same-sex marriage, and thus strip marital rights from hundreds of thousands of citizens who were granted those rights by the California Supreme Court earlier this year, is looking stronger and stronger, largely as a result of huge amounts of out-of-state money from the Mormon Church and other religious fanatical groups which realize that denying same-sex marriage rights to California citizens will set back the cause of marriage equality by years, if not decades. The campaign in opposition to that pernicious referendum is sorely in need of more funding, and those inclined to donate can do so here.

Join me in giving No on 8 some coin, won't you. If we can win California, eventually the rest of the nation will have to fall in line.

If Joe Biden-qua-Veep is Wrong...

h/t to Chris Cilizza for hipping me to Ryan Lizza's in-depth profile of Joe Biden, veep-aspirant, and his forebears/foibles. i like the idea of him as an LBJ-ish "Master of the Senate," counting votes and pushing BHO's agenda.

They Have Them, Too

I was reading a Dennis Prager article wherein I learned there are two Americas. (No credit to Edwards was given). It seems these two Americas occupy a "Left" and a "Right." They have competing visions for America and even different ideas of what America is, but only one of them is correct. You guess which one.

The article itself is decently neutral and I found a lot to agree with. The fun of any Prager column comes in the comments.

Apparently, the US is on the verge of becoming a socialist paradise, as we are presented the choice of electing the far-left socialist/communist America-hating Barack Obama, or the leftist socialist America-loving, but sadly deluded, John McCain. Unless the US is already a socialist country or even a full-blown Marixist state.

A good many people are ready for the coming Civil War that will surely take place when Americans wake up and realize that they have elected an America-hating socialist Muslim as the president and he comes to take their guns away and "re-educate" them. Unless we agree to divide the country and give people the choice of living in the United States of America or the Socialist States of America, except that the SSA can not survive without all the hard-working God-fearing Americans, so war is practically inevitable. Unless, of course, people refuse to believe the media's attempts to tell you the election is over. How come it always seems like the media tells us the Democrats are ahead by 25% or so, but they only win very close elections? Of course, it really doesn't matter how people vote, as ACORN has the election pre-rigged. When Obama and his people are burning down your city in celebration, just like they do after the NBA championship, I bet you won't be able to find one white person who says they voted for Obama. One that's not a committed socialist anyway.

But the Obama presidency will be good, better than a McCain presidency, because it will snap people out of it and they will wake up and realize what has happened to their great country. A McCain presidency would just allow the media to keep on portraying the GOP as "conservative," when we all know there are very few true conservatives in office any more. Yep, an Obama presidency would surely move the country to the right, so it would be a good, good thing. (Unless, of course, Sarah is really the behind-the-scenes brains behind a McCain presidency. That would be a very good thing.)

Below are my two favorite comments from the 150 or so I read (there were 550+).

Mike Location: RI
Reply # 19
Date: Oct 14, 2008 - 1:21 AM EST
Subject: "Great Article"
This is so absolutely frighteningly true!! I believe the division in our great country will increase and I for one, a decendent of Henry Adams, great great grandfather to our second president John Adams, stand as my great ancestors did before me, by the hand and teachings of God, against the tyrrany of the LEFT!! We came to America to be Free!!

A clear message to you Lefties-we don't get on the Mayflower this time, YOU DO, and I got more news, don't expect "our government" to pay for your tickets-this will be your one way trip!!


Stunned Location: NV
Reply # 77
Date: Oct 14, 2008 - 2:55 AM EST
Subject: US Census 2006 shows 80% white in USA
Now for all you lefties out there, do you really think Barak Hussian Obama is going to get the necessary 270 electoral votes this election? You really think people in OH, Penn, Mich, NY are going to vote for this muslim, African, socialist "snake oil" saleman??? Unless Acorn rigged the election.

We will still be stuck with big gov't, John McShamnisty; just as we had some real wimps in congress and even Jorge Bush. You can't both say the sky is different colors without one being right, and the other being wrong, no matter what the reason. (Even saving the planet and the children)

hate deluge

horrifying voicemails and emails are crowding ACORNS's inboxes these days. such as:

"You liberal idiots. Dumb shits. Welfare bums. You guys just fucking come to our country, consume every natural resource there is, and make a lot of babies. That's all you guys do. And then suck up the welfare and expect everyone else to pay for your hospital bills for your kids. I just say let your kids die. That's the best move. Just let your children die. Forget about paying for hospital bills for them. I'm not gonna do it. You guys are lowlifes. And I hope you all die."

check it out at rightwingwatch.

PRM (Poll Results Monday)

The people have spoken and they much prefer this:



to this:

Grandma