Four Years, SDMF

Oh, and FUCK YOU, NATHAN GALE!! Also not to ever be forgotten: Nathan Bray of Columbus Erin Halk of northwest Columbus Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson of Texas

Damn... It's been a year already.

RIP

Six degrees of "The Dude".

Ok, so here we are, knee deep in the bullshit of presidential debates. I have made one observation that has now made every debate an even more entertaining laughing stock. You've seen The Big Lebowski, right? Right. When John McCain answers any question, does he not remind you of Walter Sobchack (John Goodman)? I mean, regardless of the question asked, there's bitter little John with his marionette-like movements always returning to a war story that we've already heard in an effort to connect everything under the sun to his time as POW, never mind how off topic he is. You think I'm kidding? Just keep an eye out for "Walter" the next time that little John makes a statement. All he's lacking is a .45 ACP, and we all know that under that leatherette skin of his, he's a gun grabbing dick just like the rest of 'em.

Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Paul Newman

Paul Newman, 83, the actor and sex symbol who surged to stardom by playing loners as well as criminal and moral outlaws -- anything to downplay his astonishing looks -- died of cancer Friday at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn. Brooding and sinewy, with luminous blue eyes and a husky voice, Newman resembled a preppy Greek God in his earliest screen roles. He quickly rebelled against conventional casting that tried to turn him into a pretty-boy alternative to Marlon Brando and James Dean. He became known as an introspective and nonconformist performer -- a perfect anti-hero idol for the socially rebellious 1960s and 1970s. In many of Newman's best films -- "The Hustler," "Hud," "Harper," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting," "Slap Shot," "The Verdict," "Nobody's Fool" and "The Color of Money" (for which he won the Oscar) -- he played amoral rats, genial louts, self-destructive idealists, drunkards and has-beens. Some of his characters redeem themselves by being defeated or killed, and others just continue bumming along. Newman hated to see his characters triumph on charm alone. No one, he said, would pay money to see such a beautiful man win the woman and save the day. Off-screen, he mocked his sex-symbol status and said that his personality was closest to the vulgar, second-rate hockey coach he played in "Slap Shot" (1977). His approach likely saved his career as he matured into a disciplined performer, one of the most enduring and polished of screen stars. At a peak of his fame, he gambled on directing small-budget films that often showcased his second wife, actress Joanne Woodward. Their film "Rachel, Rachel" (1968), with Woodward as an aging, virginal schoolteacher, was an unexpected hit. They had a famously durable marriage. Newman spoke about their relationship by noting how they decided to act in the comedy "A New Kind of Love" (1963). He told Time magazine: "Joanne read it and said, 'Hey this could be fun to do together. Read it.' And I read it and said, 'Joanne, it's just a bunch of one-liners.' "And she said, 'You [expletive], I've been carting your children around, taking care of them, taking care of you and your house.' And I said, 'That is what I said. It's a terrific script. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.' This is what is known as a reciprocal trade agreement." Despite his powerhouse reputation, Newman had an uneven performance record as an actor. He starred in several critical and commercial duds, including his debut as a Greek slave in "The Silver Chalice" (1954), a role he called "the worst motion picture filmed during the fifties." Nor was Newman at his best as a Mexican bandit in "The Outrage" (1964), a French anarchist opposite Sophia Loren in "Lady L" (1965) or a sci-fi wanderer in Robert Altman's "Quintet" (1979). He acted in a few disaster movies -- one set in a flaming skyscraper, the other about a volcano -- for the money. He also turned down promising parts if their shooting schedule interfered with his auto racing. Persistently overlooked by the Academy Awards despite 10 total nominations, Newman won relatively late in his career: for best actor in "The Color of Money" (1986) as aging pool shark Fast Eddie Felson who is equal parts mentor to and manipulator of the character played by Tom Cruise. Newman had reprised the role of Fast Eddie Felson from "The Hustler" (1961). Newman also received the 1986 honorary Oscar in part for "his personal integrity and dedication to his craft" and the 1994 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his philanthropic work. Paul Leonard Newman was born Jan. 26, 1925, in Cleveland and raised in the affluent suburb of Shaker Heights. His father owned a sporting-goods store. German Jewish on his father's side, Hungarian Catholic on his mother's, Newman once said he considered himself Jewish "because it is more challenging." During World War II, he served as a Navy radioman in the Pacific. He had been turned down as a pilot because he was partially color blind. After the war, he studied economics at Kenyon College in Ohio but preferred to say he graduated "magna cum lager" because of his barroom antics. One bar escapade landed him on the front page of a Cleveland newspaper, mortifying his parents. Thrown off the football team after another bar fight, he turned to acting to find a way to channel his rambunctiousness and performed in summer stock and repertory work after his college graduation in 1949. He also attended Yale University's drama school before his looks helped him win several roles on television and his breakthrough part on Broadway. Director Joshua Logan cast him as a wealthy playboy in William Inge's "Picnic," the drama about sexual tensions that erupt in a Midwestern town when a charismatic stranger arrives. Logan told Newman he could not possibly play the stranger because he did not "carry any sexual threat at all." The part went to Ralph Meeker, a loss that motivated Newman to begin exercising regularly. Newman spent considerable time with the play's female lead, Joanne Woodward. He divorced his first wife, actress Jacqueline Witte, in 1957, leaving her with custody of their three children. He and Woodward married in 1958, and they did 15 movies and television projects together. She survives him, along with their three daughters and two daughters from his first marriage. While in "Picnic," Newman joined the Actors Studio, where he learned "the Method," a style of acting that requires actors to plumb their own lives for motivation. He studied with Elia Kazan and Martin Ritt, both of whom would later direct him on stage or film. Film studios kept calling Newman, and he resisted many of the initial offers because he considered their contracts stifling. "And then somebody, after a couple of Budweisers, said, 'You know, they knock and they knock, and at some point they stop knocking,' and that stuck in my head," he later told New York magazine. "I thought, 'When will they stop?' And the last knock was 'The Silver Chalice. ' " Wearing a toga -- a "cocktail dress," as the actor called it -- and spouting ludicrous dialogue, he received humiliating reviews. When a Los Angeles station aired the movie years later, Newman took out a large newspaper ad apologizing for the film. Back on Broadway in 1955, he earned enthusiastic reviews in "The Desperate Hours," playing a ruthless criminal who holds a family captive. That same year, he replaced James Dean, who died in a road accident, as a washed-out prize fighter in a television version of Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Battler." Seven years later, Newman sought out the same, but much-diminished role in the film "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" (1962). "They screamed at me out there," he once said, referring to Hollywood advisers. "I was cheapening myself by playing a bit part, they said. I was a star and couldn't play a bit. . . . I wanted to do it again for myself. I wanted to sit down and look at the kinescope of the TV show, and then look at the movie and see what I've learned about acting over the years." Meanwhile, Newman had built up a critical reputation of imbuing stock characters with an intelligent restraint that often was not associated with the more flagrant of the Method acting followers. As examples, reviewers pointed to his work as boxer Rocky Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) and an Army officer accused of enemy collaboration in "The Rack" (1956). He brought a vulnerability to roles that emphasized his physique, notably in "The Long, Hot Summer," based on stories by William Faulkner, and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (both 1958), from the Tennessee Williams play. Starring opposite Elizabeth Taylor in "Cat," Newman played hard-drinking Brick, who refuses his wife's sexual advances because he is mourning the death of his gay friend, Skipper. The homosexual theme is played down in the film version, but Newman was well-aware of the subtext and tried to enliven the set with jokes about Brick's repression. In one scene, he secretly pushed his wife's nightgown to his face out of deep longing for her. During rehearsal, he once said, "I suddenly tore off my pajama top and started to climb into my wife's nightgown, crying, 'Skipper! Skipper!' There were 20 people on that set, and do you know, not one of them laughed. "To them, this was the Method in action and they stood in respectful silence. So, having bombed out on that mission, I mumbled something about, well, no, I guessed I wouldn't do it that way, after all." Tired of mediocre studio assignments, Mr. Newman wanted to confront studio chief Jack Warner with an ultimatum. Newman's agent, the powerful Lew R. Wasserman, persuaded Newman of a better idea. Wasserman went to Warner and offered him $500,000 to buy out Newman's contract, saying the actor would "never amount to much." It worked. Newman was free and paid his debt to Warner within two years. He returned to the stage, in Tennessee Williams's "Sweet Bird of Youth," directed by Kazan, and won terrific reviews as an ambitious gigolo. He acted in the 1962 film version of the play as well as "The Hustler," the first in a series of roles that explored what he called the "corruptibility level" of people. He said that theme spoke to him as a socially conscious actor. As Fast Eddie Felson, he played a soulless and self-centered rebel who competes against the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). For the role, Newman took lessons from the pool superstar Willie Mosconi but apparently had not learned well enough. On the set, Gleason hustled him in a real life pool game. "I beat him three straight games in pool for a buck each," Newman said. "And then we played for two hundred dollars, and he beat me easy." "Hud" (1963), based on Larry McMurtry's novel about a man with a "barbed-wire soul," as well as "Harper" (1966) and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) made Newman the prime interpreter of selfish rebels. "I tried to give Hud all the superficial external traces, including the right swing of the body," Newman once said. "I took out as many wrinkles as possible. I indicated that he boozed very well, was great with the broads, had a lot of guts, was extraordinarily competent at his job, but had a single tragic flaw: He didn't give a goddamn what happened to anyone else."Newman added that some reviewers faulted him for having "a face that doesn't look lived in." But Newman said the character's smoothness was exactly what made Hud dangerous. His insight into character motivation was one of his finest traits. To play the self-destructive detective in "Harper," he said he "simply got drunk" as he read the script. By the late 1960s, he began to feel like he was duplicating himself as an actor. He tried producing films in a short-lived partnership with Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier, but directing proved more his forte. For his debut, he chose "Rachel, Rachel" and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for directing. Reviewers praised his clean, lucid style and technical skill, and he directed Woodward again in movie or TV versions of several Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. She was a middle-aged widow raising two daughters in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972) and appeared in "The Shadow Box" (1980), a television drama about hospice patients. From the start of his career, Newman limited his social time in Hollywood, telling an interviewer he did not want to fall into the trap of material success that came so easily in the film world. He made an effort to appear grungy, wearing jeans and running shoes as well as a beer-can opener as a necklace. He shunned Hollywood for an 18th-century farmhouse in Westport, with an apple orchard and pool. Newman hated signing autographs or being asked to display his best-known physical feature, his blue eyes. "I try not to be hurtful," he said. "I say something like, 'If I take off my glasses, my pants will fall down.' Or, if they're insistent, I say, 'Sure, Ill take off my dark glasses if you'll let me look at your gums.' Fair's fair." Asked once about his looks, he said his children called him "Old Skinny Legs." Newman's biographer, Eric Lax, wrote that the actor liked to confound the Hollywood elite by driving a Volkswagen in which he had installed a Porsche engine. His cars became a joke with friends such as Robert Redford, who once gave Newman a Porsche as a present. The car, however, was a wreck -- dented from an accident and missing its engine. Redford paid a dump truck driver to deposit the car in Newman's driveway with a note attached: "Happy birthday." Newman had the car compressed, then placed in a wooden box at the Redford estate with a nasty letter. He conceded that Redford won the gag by never acknowledging the box.Newman had discovered auto racing while acting in the race-track film "Winning" (1969). "I cannot be competitive about acting, because there's no way to compete as an actor. What are you competing against?" he once said. "In auto racing, you either win or lose. You go across the finish line and come in first or second or ninth -- or not at all." In 1976, he won his first national amateur championship, and the next year began racing with professionals. In 1979, he and two co-drivers finished second in the Le Mans 24-hour road race. He continued participating in pro races in the 1980s and 1990s, reaching speeds of 220 mph. Newman also made forays into politics, often providing sex appeal to liberal campaigns. He volunteered extensively in 1968 for Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy (D-Minn.) and protested the Vietnam War at the U.S. Embassy in London. Newman occasionally was ridiculed as out of his element. He was roundly criticized in 1978 as unqualified when President Jimmy Carter asked him to attend a U.N. General Assembly session on disarmament. By the early 1980s, Newman made a decision to refocus his acting career after years of bloated disaster films and other undistinguished projects. Among the best films were the police story "Fort Apache, the Bronx" (1981) and the courtroom drama "The Verdict" (1982), in both of which he played deeply flawed heavy drinkers. He was a stuffy old WASP in "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge" (1990); an aged ne'er-do-well in "Nobody's Fool" (1994); and a gangster chieftain in "Road to Perdition" (2002), a film that brought him his final Oscar nomination. Articles have suggested that Newman's film choices were influenced by his troubled relationship with his father as well as Newman's estrangement from his son, Scott, a budding actor who died in 1978 of an overdose of alcohol and Valium. In honor of Scott, a son from his first marriage, Newman organized in 1988 a camp in Connecticut for children with cancer and life-threatening illnesses. His most famous philanthropic venture began in the early 1980s when Newman and author A.E. Hotchner began a food business, Newman's Own, with products including salad dressing, spaghetti sauce, popcorn and cookies. With profits from Newman's Own, he gave more than $250 million to charities and social welfare organizations. He joked that his salad dressings and pasta sauces earned more than his films. Newman continued to act in recent years, notably as the stage manager in a 2002 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but he was certain acting was not his whole life. He said that over the toilet bowl in his office bathroom he hung a letter from a fan -- of his tomato sauce. The letter ends: "My girlfriend mentioned that you were a movie star and I would be interested to know what you have made. If you act as well as you cook, your movies should be worth watching."

Castrating Congress, one unlawful billion at a time.

I'm going to continue my recent practice of keeping it short. "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." So the White House wants its Secretary to have total power over the funds, however much that ends up being. In other words, the White House wants to take the power of the purse away from Congress in this matter and center it in the executive branch. Lockstep towards tyranny.

Somebody do me a favor...

Check John McCain's wrist and see if he's still wearing SPC Matthew Stanley's KIA bracelet. I'm just curious.

Batshit crazy!!

Yeah, that about sums it up. In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, Palin says, "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." And... Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war because, "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan." Ever heard Megadeth's "Holy Wars"? No? Give it a spin.

Bandit this here's the Snowman, you got your ears on?

Jerry Reed, 71, a Grammy Award-winning country guitarist, singer and songwriter who played a mischievous, good old boy sidekick to Burt Reynolds in "Smokey and the Bandit" and other movies, died Sept. 1 at his home in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood. He had emphysema. Mr. Reed's trademark Georgia baritone drawl and relaxed manner in film and television roles brought his ingratiating presence to a wide audience, notably as trucker Cledus "Snowman" Snow in "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) and its two sequels. But it was in country music where Mr. Reed thrived as a major, innovative artist from the late 1960s to early '80s. Besides " East Bound and Down," the theme song for "Smokey and the Bandit," his hit songs included the propulsive " Guitar Man," the Cajun-inspired funky novelty tune " Amos Moses" and the tender " A Thing Called Love." Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Porter Wagoner were among those to cover his best-known pieces. Mr. Reed was a dynamic virtuoso who had distinguished himself as a session guitarist supporting Presley, Waylon Jennings and others before emerging as a major solo talent. He was most remembered for using an intricate guitar-picking style known as the "claw" because it used the entire right hand where earlier guitar giants such as Chet Atkins and Merle Travis favored a two or three-fingered approach. Besides being the title of a song he wrote, the claw was a development that music historian Rich Kienzle called essential to the "wild, untamed and dauntingly complex" country music that followed Atkins and Travis. Jerry Reed Hubbard, the son of cotton mill workers, was born in Atlanta on March 20, 1937. After his parents divorced, he spent his early childhood in orphanages and foster homes. He showed his early flair for music by using a hairbrush as a rhythm guitar to accompany the "Grand Ole Opry" radio program. His mother, who had remarried, bought her son a cheap guitar and he showed immediate skill, albeit with unorthodox fingering methods. Mr. Reed quit high school to perform in local honky-tonks and festivals and impressed an Atlanta radio show host, who took over the young man's management. He won engagements opening for singers Ernest Tubb and Faron Young. He also wrote novelty tunes such as "If the Good Lord's Willing" that made little impact when he recorded them in the late 1950s. However, rocker Gene Vincent covered Mr. Reed's song "Crazy Legs" in 1958, and Brenda Lee's version of Mr. Reed's "That's All You Gotta Do" appeared on the flip side of her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry." Wagoner also had a No.1 country hit with Mr. Reed's "Misery Loves Company" in 1962. After brief Army service, in which he played in a country band, Mr. Reed settled in Nashville and was a session and tour guitarist for Wagoner and Bobby Bare, among others. His own career as a solo artist had withered until Atkins, who headed the Nashville unit at RCA Records, urged Mr. Reed to leave his record label, Columbia, for RCA. Atkins's idea was not to refashion Mr. Reed to fit public taste but to let him pursue his own sound and identity. The plan worked, with Mr. Reed successfully reaching the charts with "Guitar Man" (1967). The next year, Presley recorded "Guitar Man" and Mr. Reed's "U.S. Male" with the songwriter doing the backup guitar work. Over the next several years, Mr. Reed experienced what was arguably his most professionally successful, with Grammy Awards for best instrumental performance both as a solo artist ("When You're Hot, You're Hot," 1971) and with Atkins ("Me & Jerry," 1970). His other hits included "Amos Moses" (1970) and " Lord, Mr. Ford" (1973), a comic look at the plight of car owners during the era's gasoline crisis. Tall, blond and charismatic, Mr. Reed became a comic fixture on country television programs including the "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" and tried to parlay that fame into an acting career. His admittedly modest abilities limited him mostly to broad comedy, and his final role was as a sadistic football coach in "The Waterboy" (1998) with Adam Sandler. Among Mr. Reed's last hit records, in 1983, was Tim DuBois's comic novelty " She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)." Although he faded from country music's front tier, he won another Grammy for best country instrumental performance for "Sneakin' Around" (1991) with Atkins. In the late 1990s, he formed the Old Dogs with Jennings, Bare and Mel Tillis, and the group specialized in singing comic laments about aging. "I'm not one of those flat-belly singers anymore," Mr. Reed told the Associated Press at the time. "The record industry is one of those industries that will discourage you and turn you loose. They sell records to those screaming little girls." Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Priscilla Mitchell Hubbard of Brentwood; two daughters, Charlotte "Lottie" Stewart of Franklin, Tenn., and Seidina Hinesley of Smyrna, Tenn.; and two grandchildren.

RIP Issac Hayes...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65. Hayes was pronounced dead at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis an hour after he was found by a family member, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. The cause of death was not immediately known. With his muscular build, shiny head and sunglasses, Hayes cut a striking figure at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting Afros. His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White. And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park." "Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes _ the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it." Hayes was about to begin work on a new album for Stax, the soul record label he helped build to legendary status. And he had recently finished work on a movie called "Soul Men" in which he played himself, starring Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday. ad_icon Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived. "The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor," Shular said. The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image. "Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements. "Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever." Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree. "That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview. At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys. "The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask." Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. "I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding." A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone. He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man." All this led to his recording contract. In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996.Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis. He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka." In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'wack' category like everybody else in town _ and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies." But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion. "There is a place in this world for satire," he said. "but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins." Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem _ and he's cashed plenty of checks _ with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character. Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6. Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back." He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.

Happy National Airborne Day!

To all my brothers out there. And not to be out done. Here's to the Colonel. Show off.

Do any of you realize...

One of the greatest injustices, travesties, land grabs, scams, and many other events that we as a country should be rioting over, is and has been going on in New Orleans since Katrina? I didn't think so. Follow this list of blogs and get educated. You'll want to have a bucket close by so that you can throw-up into it. Yeah, it will make you that sick to see how much you don't give a flying fuck about your fellow man, your country, or the fact that we live in such a, "Hey, it's not happening to me, so I'm gonna sit here on my ass and watch a little TV." society, that we are the most pathetic nation in the world. Dangerblond Your Right Hand Thief We Could Be Famous The G-Bitch Spot Bigezbear Humid City Squandered Heritage Or, don't read and keep looking at yourself in the mirror every day.

I'm not sure that flip-flop is the right word.

So, a little bit further down the page is a piece that I did on Obama. This will be an addendum to that. It seems that "in a reversal", Obama has decided that it is not only a good idea to tap the national oil reserves, but that offshore drilling is a good thing. Whew, damn, if he has many more "reversals" he's going to have to switch parties. Just to add... For those of you who don't know; Peak oil is a scam. The "emergency" and "dependency" oil issue is not only to further split a failed two-party system, but at its core it is a lie that is solely designed to increase prices and revenue for oil companies. Do your own research. Obama want's to tap reserves. Obama supports offshore drilling.

Remember that "economic stimulus" rebate check that you cashed?

The federal budget deficit will surge to $482 billion next fiscal year. Thanks for doing your part in guaranteeing the most complete economic depression since the nineteen-thirties... Dipshits.

Karl Rove says, "Hey Congress!!! FUCK YOU!!!" And gets away with it.

Let's see you try this: By BEN EVANS The Associated Press Thursday, July 10, 2008; 4:40 PM WASHINGTON -- Former White House adviser Karl Rove defied a congressional subpoena and refused to testify Thursday about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department, including whether he influenced the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama. Rep. Linda Sanchez, chairman of a House subcommittee, ruled with backing from fellow Democrats on the panel that Rove was breaking the law by refusing to cooperate _ perhaps the first step toward holding him in contempt of Congress. The White House has cited executive privilege as a reason he and others who serve or served in the administration should not testify, arguing that internal administration communications are confidential and that Congress cannot compel officials to testify. Rove says he is bound to follow the White House's guidance, although he has offered to answer questions specifically on the Siegelman case _ but only with no transcript taken and not under oath. ad_icon Lawmakers subpoenaed Rove in May in an effort to force him to talk about whether he played a role in prosecutors' decisions to pursue cases against Democrats, such as former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, or in firing federal prosecutors considered disloyal to the Bush administration. Rove had been scheduled to appear at the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Thursday morning. A placard with his name sat in front of an empty chair at the witness table, with a handful of protesters behind it calling for Rove to be arrested. A decision on whether to pursue contempt charges now goes to the full Judiciary Committee and ultimately to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. House Republicans called Thursday's proceedings a political stunt and said if Democrats truly wanted information they would take Rove up on an offer he made to discuss the matter informally. The House already has voted to hold two of President Bush's confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with its inquiry into whether the administration fired nine federal prosecutors in 2006 for political reasons. The case, involving White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, is in federal court and may not be resolved before Bush's term ends in January. Democrats have rejected the offer from Rove to talk with them informally because the testimony would not be sworn and, they say, could create a confusing record. Rove has insisted publicly that he never tried to influence Justice Department decisions and was not even aware of the Siegelman prosecution until it landed in the news. Siegelman _ an unusually successful Democrat in a heavily Republican state _ was charged with accepting and concealing a contribution to his campaign to start a state education lottery, in exchange for appointing a hospital executive to a regulatory board. He was sentenced last year to more than seven years in prison but was released in March when a federal appeals court ruled Siegelman had raised "substantial questions of fact and law" in his appeal. Siegelman and others have alleged the prosecution was pushed by GOP operatives _ including Rove, a longtime Texas strategist who was heavily involved in Alabama politics before working at the White House. A former Republican campaign volunteer from Alabama told congressional attorneys last year that she overheard conversations suggesting that Rove pressed Justice officials in Washington to prosecute Siegelman. The career prosecutors who handled Siegelman's case have insisted that Rove had nothing to do with it, emphasizing that the former governor was convicted by a jury. Thanks to the Washington Post for this article. Yeah, we used to have a powerful Congress, but that was before they were all castrated.

Sooooo... How's that Obama feeling working for you right now?

Is that kicking and screaming that I hear? First off, let me preface by saying that Hillary sucked, Obama sucks, and McCain sucks. We have been sold out. It's that simple. Having said that... Let the shit hit the fan. Yesterday, in what can only be called a stab into the heart of the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America, John McCain and Barack Obama along with others, granted immunity to telecoms who have violated your 4th Amendment rights under the auspices of domestic spying. But wait, there's more... It seems that Obama, after having secured the Democratic nomination, has decided to drift a little closer to the right. What's most fascinating about his efforts to appeal to the American center is the extent to which Obama, as a constitutional law professor and Harvard Law Review president, has repeatedly chosen the Bill of Rights as his vehicle for doing so. Yesterday, Barack Obama shed his skin; the skin that enticed so many people into believing that he did, in fact, support the United States Constitution, and in particular, the fourth amendment to same. What's Obama doing? He's trying to cozy up to the conservatives in order to gain votes. You know those "independent" votes that are soooooo very needed? That's bullshit. "Independent Voters" is double-speak for "I need to turn more conservative heads and secure their votes if I hope to defeat McCain in the fall." The bottom line is that there is political reality, and then there is principle. Barack Obama has billed himself as a new breed of politician who will stand up on principle. Yesterday illustrated that he’s reneged on that promise. He’s been revealed as an old school politico, who sticks his finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing. I'm just pointing out facts here. I never was for him. He just didn't have what it took for me. What was it that he didn't have? I follow the little things, like, ohhhh, let's see, HIS VOTING RECORD. All you have to do is see that when the big issues came up for his Senate vote, he didn't bother to show up. But I've been down that road already with those of you who are/were supporters. So now we're faced with an individual who may become President. I really don't care who's President. What I care about is their ability to appoint Chief Justices to life terms in the Supreme Court. And on that note, Obama scares the hell out of me. He's all for the lowering of the walls between church and state. But, let's get to the meat and potatoes of why I want him and McCain on a spit. “The history of the Intelligence Community is replete with instances of abuse of civil liberties,” observed Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper last year in the course of his confirmation as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. That is not news, of course, though it is useful to have it acknowledged by the Pentagon’s senior intelligence policy official. Also useful is Gen. Clapper’s proposed remedy: “The requisite elements of a program to prevent such abuse are: (1) clearly articulated and widely publicized policies; (2) training, both basic and refresher; and (3) a mechanism to verify compliance independently,” he wrote (pdf) in reply to a question from Sen. Carl Levin. By these standards, the pending amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was being considered by the Senate today leaves much to be desired. Far from being “clearly articulated,” the legislation leaves even experts uncertain as to what its provisions mean. And by granting retroactive immunity to telephone companies for unspecified illegal acts that they may have committed, the legislation compromises the most important mechanism for independent verification of legal compliance, namely the judicial process. “Does the new FISA bill authorize wholesale interception of all communications to and from the US,” asked James X. Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, “or does it only authorize the interception of the communications of particular individuals?” Incredibly, the answer is not reliably known. “Both national security and civil liberties interests weigh in favor of clarity on this question,” Mr. Dempsey wrote last month. Meanwhile, the congressional grant of immunity to telephone companies that are being sued for suspected acts of illegal surveillance under the President’s warrantless surveillance program “is a naked intrusion into ongoing litigation,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on the Senate floor yesterday. “I am aware of no precedent for the Congress of the United States stepping into ongoing litigation, choosing a winner and a loser, allowing no alternative remedy,” he said. “I believe it will be determined by a court that ultimately this section of the legislation is unconstitutional, in violation of the separation of powers, because we may not, as a Congress, take away the access of the people of this country to constitutional determinations heard by the courts of this country.” “If I were a litigant, I would challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provisions of this statute, and I would expect a good chance of winning,” Sen. Whitehouse said. So if you paid attention, you knew that Barack Obama loved the death penalty. You knew that he was pro-gun. You knew that he loved him some faith-based programs (and, if it's any comfort, the Family Research Council and other conservative and evangelical groups are pissed that Obama won't let churches discriminate in hiring for the programs). Most of this is no-brainer shit in the political realm. Did you really want Obama to have to defend no death penalty for child rapists? Pick your battles, motherfuckers, and pick 'em well. Like this one: Barack Obama's reversal of his position on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was a craven, cowardly bullshit move that ought to haunt him with the left (and libertarian right) for the rest of the campaign. By voting for the bill yesterday (including voting for cloture), Obama made a mistake that is the political equivalent of Hillary Clinton's Iraq war vote. (They are not morally equivalent, since the dead would probably rather be alive and spied on.) And while there's no telling how Clinton would have voted had she been the nominee, just as there's no way to know how Obama would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate in 2002, the New York Senator was unencumbered and able to take the moral high ground and voted against the bill. It wouldn't be so bad if Obama hadn't made an absolutely definitive statement about opposing any bill that contained immunity from civil lawsuits for telecommunications companies. But the bill did contain it. And he still voted for it. So he joined with other enabling Democrats to be like beaten dogs to their President-owner, hoping that Bush would praise them and pet them, even briefly. A proud, proud moment. So now we know: Barack Obama believes that corporations that agree to break the law at the President's urging are not complicit, which means that if the President breaks the law, the law should be changed so that, retroactively, the President can't be prosecuted for the crime. He believes that anyone can be subject to surveillance at the whim of the President at any time with the only oversight being over the techniques of the surveillance ("No, guys, c'mon, you can't just put cameras all over the country. Oh, wait, sure, go ahead, you crazy terror fighters"). He believes that, even if the FISA court actually has the 'nads to say no, the government can continue its surveillance while it appeals the ruling. And on and on. And to top this tasty morsel off... Obama is all for coming down on Iran. Yeah, that's war talk, for those of you who are listening.

Brief and rare pride in my Supreme Court

While there are other hurdles... Today we get to chalk one up for the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America. By MARK SHERMAN The Associated Press Thursday, June 26, 2008; 10:30 AM WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history. The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact. The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home." In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found." Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest. Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right. The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check. Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks. Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.