Rich Sanchez is not amused by Fox News

This may well be the most pissed off I've ever seen a newscaster on camera, and not without reason.

be careful what you wish for...

Chuck Jones might not approve, but as someone who spent an inordinate amount of his childhood wondering where I could get an Acme catalogue and what roadrunner actually tasted like, this is pure gold. The funny, courtesy of the Eternal Gaijin.

Weekend uke blogging

the original

My best guess is that Ms. Turner is somewhere north of 45 in this video, as it would be after the release of here 1984 mega hit album Private Dancer, which featured this song, the proper video of which is here. She appeared with Beyonce last year.

the cover - Danielle may not be able to rock the high heels like Tina, but check her out without those glasses!

and what is Tina Turner doing nowadays you ask - well, she toured last year. We should all look and sound so good at 68.

long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror

We are constantly told that the soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are the greatest, bravest, most honorable, competent and professional humans the western world has ever produced. No dares to say a word against them for fear of sounding like they are not supporting the troops, which is, as we all know, worse than eating babies.
Such notions are, of course, bullshit. Pulling on a uniform does not make anyone a saint. It doesn't mark them as smarter or braver or more honorable than anyone else. Soldiers are people, just like anyone else. Most of the people in uniform "over there" are young and I suspect alternately scared to death or bored out of their minds and definitely desensitized to violence. Which is how you get incidents like these:

The U.S. Marines Corp: The few, the proud, the unspeakably stupid.

The Canadian Armed Forces: There's no life like it.

cough, cough, oink, cough

My seven-year-old daughter has brought the new swine flu home from school. I expect we will all be oinking and rolling in mud by the weekend. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Update: The daughter seems to have weathered the storm, but my son came down with a fever on Saturday afternoon and went from healthy to obviously sick in the space of about an hour.

final update: All cured now. Thanks for all the good wishes.

Half the population is a "fringe group?"

I sorta thought this was being well covered elsewhere, but the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off, so I wanted to put my oar in.

Long story short for those not paying attention: The Stephen Harper government eliminated the federally-funded court challenges program that for years has provided money for people and group initiating test cases to challenge federal laws and policies that violate their constitutional rights to equal treatment. Quoth the prime ministerial douchebag the other day ""Instead of subsidizing court challenges, as the previous government was doing, subsidizing lawyers to bring forth court challenges by left-wing fringe groups ..."

Those left-wing fringe groups have included people insisting on equal rights for women, the disabled, gays and lesbians, the aged, first nations, francophones living outside Quebec --- you know, people who aren't pudgy, middle-aged, anglophone, white guys from Calgary.

As a pudgy, anglophone white guy who is newly middle-aged (Hey, at least I'm not from Calgary - not that there is anything wrong with that) I feel a special responsibility to be pissed off by remarks like this. Just because Steve and his fellow ReformAllianceConservative party members are a bunch of ignorant nitwits, doesn't mean all of us middle aged white guys are assholes. It's bad enough that Steverino has ruined paunch-hiding sweater vests and ten-dollar haircuts for us for all time, but this considerably more serious.

The court challenges program was a vital part of Canadian democracy. It ensured that anyone and everyone could fight for their rights in court, not just rich people who could afford lawyers. To argue that anyone who wants to fight for their rights in court is somehow part of the "left wing fringe" is offensive crap to start with. When you add to that the notion that the principle users of the program have been women--half the population--and marginalized groups such as homosexuals and native Canadians, it becomes extremely offensive crap. The idea that women, or anyone else, who want to be treated equally under federal law are somehow a "left-wing fringe group" shows contempt for women, the law, the constitution and pretty much anyone with a brain in their head. Equal treatment should not be a left-right issue, it is a matter of human rights. If Stephen Harper wants to argue that conservatives don't care about human rights or equality, well okay, be my guest -- that sounds like a real vote-getter that can only enhance your reputation as total douchebag champion of conservative family values.

Now, as I said, I'm late to the party on this one, but Alison over at Creekside, one of my fellow ink-stained wretches on the good ship Galloping Beaver, was quick to pick up the rope and start hauling on the sail first set by Antonia Zerbisias, a bunch of others have started hauling too. That sail seems to have caught the wind and the ship is gathering speed.

So screw you Stephen Harper, this is one fringe group I can happily support.

Muffy the billionaire sez...

Save the Status Quo!

(this message brought to you by Billionaires for Wealthcare and No Blood for Hubris)

"Million" "Moran" March

They can't read the health care bill, they can't behave in public meetings - hell, they can't even count - but they sure are angry. And ignorant. And racist.

The 9/12 movement - typical conservatives: A day late and a clue short.

Please America, don't let these modern-day know-nothings bully the rest of you into going along with their pig-ignorant me-firstism. Let them know that elections have consequences and that they lost the election by a huge margin. Most of these geezers will be dead of old age and apoplexy in ten or twenty years anyways if meth addiction, gun accidents and other forms of fatal stupidity don't get them first.

These are the same people who bought into Nixon's "Silent Majority" bullshit and were taught to hate anyone smarter than themselves and obey anyone richer than they were. The same bloodthirsty reactionaries who cheered for the Chicago cops at the Democratic convention in 1968 and for the Ohio Nation Guard at Kent State a couple of years later. The same people who thought that William Calley deserved a medal instead of a court martial. The same people who thought Woodward and Bernstien should have been jailed for treason. The same idiots who still think Bill Clinton lying about getting a blowjob was more important than Iran-Contra. These are the same square-headed, gas-guzzler driving, aerosol-cheeze-eating, rainforest-chopping, gun-hording, smug, "I'm-all-right-Jack" asses who shout "get a job" at homeless people and "If you don't like it here, why don't you move to Russia" at anti-war and human-rights demonstrators.

Well, here's a news flash Mr. and Mrs. Silent Majority: The popular, legitimately nominated candidate of one of America's two main political parties won the election in a legitimate fashion by a sizable margin. He might not be the person you voted for, he may even be a different color than you and think differently from you, but he is still the President, just like the last guy was. It's funny you're getting all upset about government spending now that someone wants to spend the money on getting poor people decent medical care instead of blowing up foreigners for no good reason. You don't like it --too damn bad. "America, love it or leave it" If you chickenshit, hardhearted, crewcut facists don't like it in the land of the free and the home of the brave, why don't you move to Shutthefuckupistan?

Doesn't sound so good when the shoe is on the other foot does it? But you'll notice, despite the amped up feelings on both sides, virtually no one on the left side of the divide is calling the people on the right traitors or questioning their patriotism or issuing "conservative hunting licences" or saying they should all be put to death. A lot of us on the left would love to see George Bush and Dick Cheney and the rest of their junta in jail for war crimes, but I don't recall seeing any of them burned or hung in effigy. I didn't see any guns at the anti-war rallies. We may have called Bush a Nazi, but he was killing tens of thousands of people and wiping his ass with the constitution at the time - actions which the conservative movement mostly applauded I might add - while Obama's great crime is trying to save the U.S. economy from meltdown and fix it so everyone, rich or poor, can go to the doctor if they are sick.

That isn't socialism any more than having a tax-funded fire department or public school system or public roads are socialism. You want to know what socialism is? Having the government build sports stadiums at taxpayer expense. It starts down the road to facism when they do it so that private companies run by their cronies can use the stadium to make a profit. But I digress.

So the LaRouchers, the Glenn Beck fans, the Klansmen, the Paulites, the white pride militiamen, the conservative bloggers, the freepers, the CPAC creeps and the Ayn Rand fan club got together and had they little jambouree in Washington. Good for them. If Osama Bin Laden had crashed a 747 on their little shriekfest and killed them all, the average IQ in the United States would have gone up ten or fifteen points, but it still would have been a tragic waste of human life.

This something the screamers on the right don't get. No one really wishes you ill, no one wants to hurt you and you aren't going to sent to a re-education camp or have homosexuality "shoved down your throat" or be made to pay more taxes unless you are already pretty well off. We just wish you would stop shouting nonsense while grown ups are talking and stop getting in the way while we are trying to clean up your mess.

If you'd calm down and turn off Rush and Beck and Fox News for a couple of weeks and read a book or two about history and politics that were not published by Regnery or recommended by National Review, if you went out and listened to some people who weren't exactly like you, you might even realize that your country could be a pretty wonderful place for everyone in it if you'd pitch in and help out a bit and stop trying to screw people to get a little more crap you don't really need - started thinking more about how you're playing the game and whether you're really having any fun than what the score is and winning at any cost.

Everyone in the United States, no matter how ignorant or bugfuck nuts, has the right to voice their opinion and demonstrate and if nothing else, this outpouring of crazy should at least galvanize the Sensible Majority(tm) to turn off hate radio and change the channel when Glenn Beck comes on. But that isn't enough. Agreeing to disagree is fine between reasonable people on issues that are not life and death. But going along to get along is not working with the militant conservatives. If you give them an inch, they will take your yard, put a chemical waste dump in it and then refuse you health insurance when the chemicals cause cancer and won't let you sue the chemical producers because that would be liberal nazi socialism or something and capitalism rools USA! USA! USA! Blar-har-har-har! --- This cancer on the body politic must be confronted before it poisons public discourse for another few generations. These guys invariably lie or just plain don't know what the hell they are talking about -- they need to be called on their shit constantly.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but everyone is also entitled to tell you that your opinion is stupid, meanspirited and totally uniformed and should be ignored if not ridiculed. To put it in terms the teabaggers understand, I bring you one of the most iconic photos of our internet age, the guy I like to think of as Teabagger Zero:

(hat tip to Red Tory, and JJ)

P.S. Austin Cline says a lot of this in a much more eloquent and organized fashion over at the General's