ThePoliticalCat

Caturday!

2012-01-21T23:28:00.000-08:00

Well! Hasn't this been an exciting week!

Bishop Willard "Mitt" RomneyCare started the week claiming to have created 100,000 jobs while at vulture corporation Bain Capital, but ended it whimpering something about "6,000 jobs."
After claiming that Romney won the Iowa state caucus, the GOP had to reverse itself and announce that Santorum actually won (Headline: Santorum easily slides ahead?)
Jon Huntsman (who? Oh, c'mon! You know! The guy who was polling at 1% or lower but the media still insisted he was in the race, even while refusing to let Buddy Roemer or Gary Johnson speak!) finally took his two million dollars worth of dental work and three hot daughters out of the public eye by announcing that he's dropping out of the race.
In a slap-in-the-face to all the "liberals" who love him (because the Republicans/conservatives hate his motorcycling ass with a passion), he endorsed Bishop Willard. WTF, Jon? Y U treat us so bad, after telling us that schmuck was unelectable? Did the Temple Leaders threaten to take away your planet, or what?
Rick Purreh finally took pity on a suffering America and took his moronic undereducated dumber-than-the-last-Texas-hick ass back to N*****head Ranch where I guess he's keeping the local coyotes in fear for their lives and asking God "Why? Why me, Lord?" as he weeps incoherently into his bourbon-and-branch.
Whom did he endorse? None other than "amoral jewelry-debt piglet"* Newt Gingrich, the man with the plan for trinkets from Tiffany's.
Meanwhile, the Godbag Faction of the Republican Party met last Sunday to anoint Santorum as their Chosen.
No, not with santorum, you sick little puppies. In any event, those Fuckus on The Fambly turds, those Christianist Bible-bashers and homo-haters and misogynistic morons of Rightwingnuttia decided that their Not-MittRomney candidate would be Rick Santorum. These assholes were totes backing (P)Rick Perry just last week, so, talk about pivoting on a dime here. Faithless sluts.
Perennial punching bag and media slut-moron Sarah Palin apparently has lost even more of her brain to whatever deadly disease was making her spew word salad.
After being informed that Newt's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, would be interviewed by ABC right after the South Carolina Republican debates, Babble Spice snorted that this would help Gingrich soar. Puzzled media bobbleheads have finally figured out that she meant Newt's amoral and perverse sexual shenanigans might have left him a little *sore,* or something. **
Over in Wisconsin, the Recall Walker campaign announced that it had received more (lotsmore) signatures than the minimum required to achieve their aim. Down, down, down goes Snotty Wanker, erstwhile governor of Wisconsin and rent-boy for the Koch Bros.

So, what's the deal, Republicans? Are y'all just tired of being a party, or what? Because this is some pretty weak fucking sauce, here, jes' sayin. I know we here at La Casa de Los Gatos have been saying for a while that President O could just cold phone it in, but, man? Do y'all have to make it so EASY for him? Y'all spent six years telling us he was a weak-ass n*****, a compromiser who caved on everything and apologised to everyone and bowed to foreign leaders and was morally weak. Meanwhile, he's been kicking y'alls asses nine ways to Sunday every day of the week.

I have heard Republicans telling me for six years or more about the fight against terrorism and how y'all are going to follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, and y'all know where he is and will take him out but only if we elect you (WTF? Treason much?). So, do we wanna talk about who might actually have taken bin Laden out? Because, you know, I don't remember that Republican President we had before Mr. Obama, you know, the one that NOBODY seems to want to talk about, I mean, they're *still* talking about Clinton and Carter, but you know, that guy, seems like everyone's done gone and forgotten about him, when he said he didn't care about bin Laden any more, and he disbanded the task force that was supposed to be looking for bin Laden, I don't recall ONE SINGLE Republican saying anything then. Not one word about following him to hell, or they will pay, or none of that shit. No, sir. None a that shit. And now Mr. Obama, he took out that Mr. bin Laden, and he took out that Mr. al-Zawahiri and he took out a whole bunch of these here, what the Republicans was calling "terrorists," round about ten years ago. He took them all out. And what do you suppose our fine Republican friends did about that? Did they say "Thank you, Mr. Obama"? Did they say "Thank you Mr. President, for keeping our country safe"? No, sirree, they did not. They said he illegally invaded a sovereign nation. These people, who had no problem with the US invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, which was NOT involved in any attacks against us, got all upset because Mr. Obama had to send a surgical strike team to take out the man who masterminded the most recent attack on American soil, who was being sheltered on Pakistani territory, by our "allies." Imagine that. Did you think you'd live to see the day when a bunch of "America, right or wrong! America, love it or leave it!" assholes would be more upset about the rights of those who shelter our enemies than about our right to pursue those enemies who kill our citizens?

And when he's not the Caveman-in-chief, he's supposed to be some kind of Superman who is singlehandedly preventing yon teabaggers from getting anything done while shoving unpopular measures down the collective throat of the American people. He's a Marxist, a Stalinist, a Fascist, and an Islamist, he controls the courts (which, nevertheless, stubbornly refuse to rule in his favour on certain issues, why, no one can say). He's using mind control techniques to hypnotize the weak willed sheep who are cowed by his bullish tactics even as they are seduced by the pork he proffers. Geez, no wonder we're obese. Half our metaphors are about spectator sports and the other half about food. Oh, NOEZ!! He's forcing states to take care of sick people, disabled people, poor people, babies and children who might be hungry, starving people, old people! How AWFUL!

What the FUCK kind of world are we living in where these nutbags can turn reality into something resembling sausage, i.e., chopped up, mixed up, and stuffed up a pig's anus? Seriously. There is a styful of pigs on the Republican side of this election. Fortunately, it's thinning. Still, the choices fucking suck.

So it's off to Florida for Mittens and Newt and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, while the rest of America stabs itself in the eye with a fork over and over and over, just to dull the pain.

Happy Caturday, y'all!

* Forever indebted to Kirsten Boyd Johnston of Wonkette for the so-fitting sobriquet of "amoral jewelry-debt piglet" for Newtie.
** Apparently, Bobblehead Barbie was correct, and them South Carolinians just LERVE them some amoral pigfuckery of the adulterous, wife-dumping, intern-humping, vow-breaking Nouveau Papist variety. Newt Gingrich just won South Carolina.

Attack Of The Killer Slimeballs

2012-01-11T23:16:00.000-08:00

It's here at last! The war of the Horrible Wealthy Old White Male Republicans that will culminate in the re-election of Barack H. Obama in about ten months. And firing the opening shots is none other than everybody's favourite lard-assed pasty cannonball, Newton Leroy GinGrinch, aiming to take down Bishop Willard "Magic Underwear Mitt" Romney.

Check it out. Very nicely done, no?

Whaddya think? Can Mittens survive this? And the Bain Capital attacks?

History And Its Discontents

2012-01-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

As y'all probably already know, if you're following this Cat's annual Book List & Review over at the sisterblog, we've been reading a lot of history over the past few years, and it has been extremely — extremely very — educational, indeed. We are shoved into schools, as children, not necessarily so much for the purposes of educating our eager young minds as to function as a sort of childcare-cum-penitentiary in which we are prepared for our future as obedient tools of the state. Learning to function in 50-minute segments, to slice-and-dice our attention into suitable spans, to absorb unquestioningly whatever the school system and our local school board shall deem it fit in their infinite lack of wisdom to shovel down our youthful throats.

No one questions this pablum, this feeding-tube of culture and knowledge that is piped directly into our veritable livers of learning, fattening us like those unfortunate foie-gras geese on things that mold our minds and early impressions, but travel under the radar, placing seeds in that fertile soil that are never questioned again.

Some of us are fortunate enough to be raised in homes that value education and the written word for its own benefits. But what about the hundreds of thousands of us who are lucky to complete twelve years of basic education, if that? Those individuals are wandering around with a worldview that is not even close to what those of us fortunate enough — or determined enough, or lucky enough — to educate ourselves further have developed.

Hell, even those of us who are educated better sometimes slip into the easy language of that early pablum. What have Americans been taught about the foundation of this country?

Tonight, PBS will be screening a documentary on General Custer, the stupid schmuck who has come down to us through the ages as the "hero" of "Custer's Last Stand." It's good to know that there are many white (and Black) Americans who have educated themselves on the true nature of this country's founding, and on the genocide of the Native tribes. But the local fishwrap carried a TV review column today by one Dave Weigand, who we must presume is an educated American. Educated sufficiently to find employ with the local fishwrap, in a time when nearly ten per cent of the nation's employable individuals are struggling to find employment. Here, for your enjoyment, are some gems from his recent review.

"After the war, Custer and his wife, Libbie, moved to Fort Riley, Kan., where Custer would head the 7th Cavalry as part of the government's effort to deal with the growing problem of Indians."

No, seriously. This is what passes for an educated reviewer's comment. What, exactly, does the writer mean by "the growing problem of Indians"? Were Indians suddenly becoming taller? Fatter? Experiencing a population explosion? The writer doesn't bother to explain what the term means. You, the reader, are left to figure it out for yourself, to ask your own questions, find out your own information, come to your own conclusions.

But this is a film/tv review, not a history examination or a job interview. We read movie reviews to be entertained, to be amused, to enjoy ourselves in a moment of leisure, slouched in our favourite chair. We're not going to bother to ask questions about what we're reading. So what do we do with this phrase, "the growing problem of Indians"? We file it away in our mental cabinets and the next time we're talking to someone or writing email or writing in our journals or blogs or FB walls, we might mention that "a growing problem with Indians" caused Custer's last stand. Suddenly, we've gone from being killed for killing other people and trying to steal their land to having "a growing problem with Indians" causing the death of an American hero. And this piece of information continues to colour anything we read or hear or see about Native Americans. We "know" that "the government" had a "growing problem" with "Indians." Even though we really don't know anything at all. No facts have been imparted to us, our store of knowledge about the Native people, or the white Americans of that day, the number of protagonists and antagonists, is richer by not one iota. Instead, what we have is an assumption that masquerades as fact. One of that family of statements that lives in the land of "Everyone knows" and "they say."

"While, in general, politicians in Washington hoped that the Indians could be contained, the sentiment in the West was to eradicate them, especially after gold was discovered in the Black Hills, on the Sioux reservation."

Again, we're not actually being given any information here. "In general" is a nice way of saying "I'm not going to tell you how many." Not that we need to know. And what does it mean, to "be contained"? Is that the same as being "killed"? Eradicated? Rounded up on reservations? Why not just admit that the Americans of the time longed to seize the land of the Native people? Because that IS what we're talking about, you know. It's not as if he doesn't say that exact thing in the very next sentence, either.

"As civilization advanced the frontier towards the Pacific ..."

This one got to me. The assumption that the greedy people who were simply looking for new frontiers to exploit,new forests to cut down, new natives to shoot and steal the land from, that these wretches and scoundrels and flim-flam men had any right to be seen as the forces of civilization, is nothing short of ridiculous, and outright offensive. Mind you, I'm not arguing the concept of the Noble Savage, here. The nobility, or lack thereof, on the part of the savage has no bearing whatsoever on the civilization or lack thereof of those who would exploit, rape, and murder him.

In short, Weigand appears to conclude that Custer was done in by "manifest destiny," without ever bothering to explain that "manifest destiny" is that doctrine that justifies the bloody imperialistic genocide of the Natives, the First Nations of this land, and the theft of their land, as well as the war with Mexico to take by force that land that now constitutes the whole of the present-day United States of America. I guess it sounds a lot less appealing to say that Custer died because he believed that Native Americans should be exterminated and their lands stolen by force. I can't imagine why.

Jon Stewart Nails It

2012-01-04T12:24:00.001-08:00

As always. Right out of the park. And remember, he taped this before last night's Iowa rout:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Watch for all the Repubs to start tearing at Santorum now.

Such a shayne punim!

2012-01-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

Anybody who dares to say our President "hates white people" has never seen this photo. Mind you, that's probably how his momma would be looking at him, if she were alive today.

And don't start with me on the NDAA. No, I'm not happy about it, but I'm not going to say anything until I've examined it for myself. My President @BarackObama is still the best possible choice available for the job, and I hope I can convince him to explain to me why this law is needed, and what he has done and will do to safeguard the civil rights of Americans and of all human beings, by extension.

In the meantime, if you watched the shitstorm that was the Iowa Republican Caucus tonight, you can see why I support my President. I do not want any of those loons in charge. This country is changing, just as the world is changing, and I wish that change would speed up. But we only get the kind of change and the amount of change that we work for.

See you in the frontlines of #Occupy in the new year!

MISSING PERSON

2012-01-03T07:43:00.001-08:00

2012 Book List

2012-01-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Photo copyright K. Smokey Cormier

Last year's final book review is up at the sisterblog, as is this year's book list. It's not complete, but that's because I can't climb up to the top shelves. If ever there's an earthquake, I'll be crushed to death by my own fucking books.

Anywho. Checkidout, place yer bets, and consider buying me lots of books for the new year, or lending me them, even. Also recommendations are welcome. Gotta remember to take the fucking pain meds even if it does make everything move at the speed of molasses.

Announcement For Teh Day

2011-12-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

No, we haven't been turned into a cat. Or a toad, for that matter. And yes, we did pass on that fucking chain letter. And all the other fucking chain letters y'all mailed us (you know who you are).

Surgery tomorrow. Would you believe we have to fucking BE THERE at 6:15 am? I feel like John Wayne Gacy in that stupid movie about him, yelling at everyone, "Do you know who I AM? Huh? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" I mean, fucking COME ON, people. La Casa de Los Gatos does not begin to download teh wakefulness until, oh, 9 am or such. This does not bode well.

Also, pain meds. I hate them. I don't react well to them. They make me vomit and feel nauseated all the time. And I can't read or think or function very well mentally, which I also hate. The last time I was on them, I actually got off them very easily mdash; I just kept forgetting to take them for longer and longer periods, and eventually decided if I wasn't suffering enough to want them I could live with the pain. Right? It can't be TOO bad if you're not groaning and writhing about. Because when I came out of the major surgery, the pain was so fucking bad, I could barely see. All I could do was groan, uh, uh, uh, like I was about to die. I remember hearing the sound and thinking, Now who the fuck is making all that noise? And it was me. Now that's the level of pain where you need medication. If it's just, you know, painful but you can still function, why bother? I mean, you're functional, right? That's better than being painfree but a vegetable from the neck up.

Also, I don't get any buzz from pain meds. The only thing they do for me is make the pain bearable. Some people talk about feeling high or a feeling of flying or consciousness-altering. I don't get any of that. If I did, maybe I could get addicted to pain meds, like a lot of medical professionals seem to. For me there is absolutely NO upside, and plenty of downside. Perhaps I should be grateful.

I'll be back pretty soon, I imagine. And since the daily pain levels will go down after this surgery, hopefully, back to blogging as well. So don't get up to any more trouble than y'all need to. BBL.

For All Our Irish Friends

2011-11-30T14:38:00.001-08:00

Wherever they may be:

Our very own part-Irish President goes HOME to claim his heritage! President O'Bama, whose ancestors come from all over our world and whose relatives live in every part of it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and #OccupyWallStreet

2011-11-26T13:18:00.001-08:00

The war in VietNam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. [...] With such activity in mind, the words of John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken — by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profits and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs re-structuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say: "This is not just." It will look upon our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

[...]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries.

Caturday!

2011-11-26T12:30:00.001-08:00

Yes it R CATURDAY!

Confession of the week: things have been very very very stressful at La Casa de Los Gatos. It's Yahrzeit time for Dad and Zingiber, who passed over the Rainbow Bridge just a smidge over a year ago.

Bandicoot decided to celebrate by developing a bad cold which blocked his little tubes, so his eyes were running, and getting ooky and almost-infectable, which means daily (sometimes twice or thrice) eye-washings and cleanings. He's a good little trouper, especially since he gets rewarded with some horrendously stinky vitamin treat. It seems to be helping a bit with the eyes, but Jesus what a fucking pain. All the others want one too, or at least want to know what's going on, which doesn't help.

We have surgery coming up in three weeks (slightly less). House has to be clean, cats medicated and doctored, garden put up for the winter, books put away so someone on crutches can get around. It's minor surgery but still fucking painful. Actually, it's fucking painful now, so what's the diff? Anyway. Nothing like icing your knee during winter. Still need to make several gallons of soup so I won't have to try to get down the stairs on crutches to cook dinner. Not that it helped the last time. I dropped a bunch of weight from being vomitous all the time. Can't take pain medication, it just makes me feel gross and pukey and brainless. Hopefully, I can smoke pot for the pain. Well, not *smoke* as such, since we quit smoking this year, for good and finally.

Meanwhile one of my nearest and dearest has just had massive surgery for a very rare disease. Called the hospital late last night, out of surgery (must have been about 9 hours, jezus how can they cut on anybody for that long?), in recovery, things are looking good. Now for rest, rehab, and recovery.

I have PT to look forward to starting mid-December. The knee is killingly painful now with pain running across the bone, not just the muscles, which makes me wonder just what the fuck is going on. X-rays and MRIs show the implant is holding firm. So why the fuck is it so painful? The pain is crippling my foot, goddamnit, I can't put the weight on the foot, flat. And the small muscles of the ankle seem to be working at odds. The nerves aren't firing properly, so the foot drags. What a joy! Walking becomes an exercise in coordination. Are the toes lifting high enough? Or is there a chance they're not lifting properly, which means they'll catch and drag, and possibly twist all the ankle muscles again? The swelling from the last spectacular twisting hasn't quite subsided yet.

Anyway. Fun and games at the old homestead. Countdown to surgery. On the PLUS side, I'll get to watch LOTS of films. And I've read close to 100 books this year, so I needn't feel too bad about being a brainless vegetable for the end of the year. On the MINUS side, Gojira Helen Wheels is *already* sleeping on the knee or ankle every chance she gets. We'll have to get the Old Protective Plastic Bucket out to guard against her. What a fucking brat.

Also, Bandicoot has a new, irritating habit: Licking Teh Hoomin. He will lick my hand (or nose) for up to an hour, if I let him (I don't; his breath smells like fish). I've taken to wearing my sleeves down over my fingertips. Thank god for winter (did anybody think they would EVER hear me be grateful for the cold? Yes. It's official. I am fucking grateful for the cold).

When he can't lick me, he licks my mouse. Yes, THAT mouse. The electronic, wireless, purchased from fucking Radio Shack or whatever guaranteed to be mouse-flavour-free mouse. Or my little table for my laptop. Pica?

Anyway. This is why we have kitten fever at La Casa de Los Gatos:

Hippity-hoppity!

Anniversaries

2011-11-11T18:18:00.001-08:00

You know what day it is. A day when we should all be remembering those young men and women that we have repeatedly sent into harm's way, by lying to them, telling them they were fighting for their country, or democracy, or freedom, or some such other bullshit.

A day when we should be weeping over the fact that so many of them come home broken in body and mind to a nation that seems to have forgotten all about them, except when it comes time to buy yellow ribbon magnets from China for a dollar or two. A day when we should be doing something about the fact that SO fucking MANY of our vets are unemployed, or homeless, or struggling to get by.

Today is all those things. If you know a veteran? Give them a hug or a thank you, call them up to say hello, take them to lunch or dinner, offer to help them out with something, anything. It could be something as small as picking up groceries, babysitting their kids, polishing their resume, setting up their computer, taking their damn dog for a walk. Do something. Anything. Just to let them know you appreciate what they went through while they were sweltering in a trench somewhere getting their ass shot off or getting water tainted with decaying corpses and rotting food thanks to George Bush, Dick Cheney, KBR, and/or Halliburton.

If you don't PERSONALLY know a veteran, you can always volunteer with one of the many fine organizations that help our vets in various ways.

These men and women risked their lives and their minds and bodies to do what they saw as their duty to the nation. You don't have to agree with their politics or their service to do them the kindness you would do any other human being. Step up and do your bit for them, and remember, in one month's time, a WHOLE LOTTA them will be coming home from Iraq.

If you're a business owner, you can help by hiring them. If you're working for a big corporation, ask them if they're interested in hiring veterans. If you work at a restaurant or other service/retail business, ask your employers if they will offer vets discounts, then publicize those discounts. Everything you do helps.

And, if you're a voter? Get your ass out there, register to vote, make sure all the vets you know are registered to vote. They don't have to vote for YOUR candidate. Just make sure they vote. Offer to drive them to the polls if they're disabled. Help them register by mail. But make DAMN sure they don't vote for Mittens Romneycare, because that miserable plastic-faced billionaire bastard is talking about PRIVATIZING the VA. After G.W. Bush's disastrous experiment with Walter Reed, I don't EVAH want to hear about veterans lying in pools of their own piss while rats run across the floor and mold spreads from leaky ceilings.

Today is also a very sad day here at La Casa de Los Gatos. It is the anniversary of my father's death. Dad fought in WW II, and was on the losing side, initially, so he spent some time as a POW. He came back from the war deaf in one ear, due to shrapnel, and with an enlarged heart. He lived a long, and mostly healthy, life, but his war stories were enough to give us kids nightmares for weeks. And I know he suffered from PTSD, although he was a gentle man who turned it inward into deep depression rather than outward into beating his wife and kids.

Goodbye, Dad. I still miss you so very much. I think I always will. You loved me and you taught me to love myself, even if the lesson took a long, long time to root itself.

Today is also the anniversary of Zingiber's death. For 14 long years, he was with me every moment, a fat, silly, fearful, neurotic, sweet, affectionate, jealous, possessive, overweight lump of love. I miss him every single day. No one has ever loved me the way that fool did. No matter what I did to him — and here I have to admit, shamefacedly, that there were times when he got on my very last nerve, and I did yell at him and torment him in various small ways — he never, ever held anything against me, not even for a second. I could attribute this to his complete and total brainlessness, I guess, but every night when he put his fat, furry little head on the pillow next to me and breathed softly and warmly into my ear, I realized that he might have been as stupid as the day was long, but that was real love in those big green eyes.

I miss you baby. I wish I could tell you one more time just how much.

Rick DinglePerry Is A Joke

2011-11-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry and George W. Bush once went out drinking, but only had 5 bucks between them. So Bush took the fiver and bought a sausage.

"What good is that going to do?" Rick asked.

"Trust me," Bush says.

They went to a bar and ordered a round of drinks. W. put the sausage through his zipper and told Rick to suck on it.

The bartender saw this and yelled "Hey, we don't allow that queer shit in Texas! Get out of here!"

They continued this, pub after pub, getting more and more drunk, all for free. After about the tenth bar, Rick said he was getting drunk, and didn't know how much farther he could keep going.

Bush replied, "How do you think I feel, I lost the sausage after the third bar!"

Keep SUCKING IT, Rick!

In case you missed it, here's the viral video of Rick completely losing it in New Hampshire, prancing about like a drunken gay pony chock full of god knows what all drugs or what.

I have never seen a straight adult male act so hysterically giddy over a bottle of ... syrup?

Fuck you very much, Republicans

2011-11-02T22:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to Herb Cain's harassapalooza, but srsly. This has to be THE fucking awfulest Republican presidential candidate lineup EVAH. First he claims it's all a bunch of lies, then he claimed he remembered exactly what happened and it was a whole lotta nothing, and now three OTHER women have come out to say he harassed them TOO. And his wife is still the Invisible Woman (has anyone seen Mrs. Herman Cain? IS there a Mrs. Herman Cain?).

Meanwhile, Rick DinglePerry's on some kinda good drugs, and I mean GOOD drugs, that motherfucker wants to lerve on New Hampshire so bad he can hardly even stand up anymore. I'll post that viral video in a day or so. Why the fuck not? It sure as hell makes me want to gag something horrible. Might's well share the pain. Y'all enjoy this heah now. And just remember, it COULD be worse. You could already be having to call one of these dumb motherfuckers "Mister President." Dear god, please, no.

Sing along with me, children!

CaturWeen

2011-11-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I missed Caturday. I went out of town over the week, and was fucking exhausted by the time I got back, not to mention hung-over as fuck-all. And I missed Hallowe'en, too. Just be grateful I didn't see fit to inflict Jesusween* on ya.

* Warning: StephenColbert Alert.

Things are tough all around, no need to dwell on what can't be cured, since it must be endured. La Casa de Los Gatos has never treated the blog as a place to whine about the many misfortunes to which flesh is heir. Suffice it to say that life sucks, and I'm sure yours no less than mine. We resign ourselves to updating our book list with book reviews for the year so far, and film reviews, over at the sisterblog. In the meantime, we stand in solidarity with #Occupy and the Indignados who #Occupy everywhere. Sadly, ex-Marine Scott Olsen was injured when Oakland Mayor Jean Quan decided to loose the police on the harmless Indignados there. We'll be keeping an eye on the #Occupation, but for today, we're weaseling out with this, for your amusement:

Figure out where YOU can #Occupy.

#OCCUPY!

2011-10-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Occupy it all, children! Occupy the cities, occupy your nations, occupy the boardrooms and the halls of power.

Sgt. Shamar Thomas, of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion has a message for the cops who are trying to beat you down and shut you up:

Don't let them crush you! Yell it in their faces.

There IS NO HONOR in attacking unarmed civilians whom you are SWORN to PROTECT AND SERVE.

Help this video go viral. Tweet it, go to YouTube and Like it, share it on FB. The world needs to know that we are watching.

Caturday!

2011-09-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

And we pulled a Rupert today, too. Blog, read, blog, write, putz around, and then we're gonna watch a movie, yay.

It's getting close to surgery scheduling time.

Have I mentioned how much I hate being cut on? I like to think my integument would go with me to my grave, intact. I've been lucky, never a broken bone in my long life, and this is my fifth surgery EVER (that includes the tonsillectomy as a kid, and the replacement of my left knee, and the two arthroscopic knee surgeries which resulted from accidents).

This will also be arthroscopic surgery. They don't use anesthesia for that anymore. They give you a drug called Versed, or *twilight.* It puts you under, but you can regain consciousness during. I seem to remember doing that briefly, but they hadn't started sawing on my leg yet at the time (thankyoudeity). I seem to remember someone putting their hand on my eyelids, and a voice saying "Close your eyes. Close your eyes."

I hate losing consciousness. I don't like pain much, either, but you know what, pain is something we can all put up with. It's no fun, and it can be depressing. But if the choice is taking pain drugs that turn you into a zombie or suffering a grinding pain for the hours that you're awake, but being mentally functional, I'll take the pain. And going under is the worst kind of loss of control, isn't it? I have to do this. I keep telling myself I have to do this. But I have weird reactions to drugs, not having taken many in my life. Most painkillers just knock me out for days. Vicodin gives me projectile vomits, and the last time I had Versed, I slept for three days. I just could not open my eyes, except to drink and pee. It felt like a very bad binge drunk hangover. So I guess I can look forward to a little Percocet and a lot of pain (I hate Percocet too, but my body tolerates it -- I lose my appetite and I can't sleep, but at least I'm not horking my innards out or unconscious for more than 12 hours at a stretch).

Of the 260+ books on the list for the year, I've barely read 60. Bah. Perhaps I'll save the fiction to read post-surgery. A lot of George Eliot, some Tolstoy, Don Quixote (I'm re-reading it), some Flannery O'Connor and Wallace Stegner and William Faulkner. I guess I'd better try reading all the film books before surgery. Can I do it? There's only 20 or so. I'll have to re-read Kurosawa's Something Like An Autobiography, and also Stuart Galbraith's The Emperor And The Wolf, a book on the long filmic collaboration of Kurosawa Akira and Mifune Toshiro.

So, books, film, and music, all geared up and ready. Now to put the house in a sparkling state of cleanliness and shut down the food garden for the year. All the barrels and pots need to be scrubbed, bleached, hosed down. The deck needs to be sealed. Can I do it? I hate being a gimp, I really do. I used to do all this stuff myself, for years. Now I need to rely on others. But hopefully, this surgery will put me in a position where I can exercise my way back to a reasonable shape. I don't need to be able to run up or down the stairs in the dark, four at a time, like I used to. I just need to be able to haul brush down the hill. Weed for 10 hours at a stretch, instead of having to get down off the hill because my leg is cramping. Is that too much to ask?

Enough whining. Tomorrow we have a hike planned. Let us hope that cramps, pains, etc. are under control by mid-day and we can at least try for a mile. And then it's home, sweet home, and playing with fancy machines. And eating some fine, fine ribs and roast potatoes and stir-fried choy with my two dearest friends. The obligatory tormenting of the resident felines proceeds apace. They got their pillow moved from the middle of the bed to one side, and judging from the chorus of howls that went up, you would have thought we dissected them individually without anesthesia. How pussy-whipped are we? The pillow is back in the middle of the bed, even though all the little bastids are now sleeping sprawled out all over, everywhere *except* the pillow.

A pleasant Caturday, all!

Sally Kern, Ambulatory Fecontainer

2011-09-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

If you didn't already know who Sally Kern is, feel free to look her up right here, which is where we pinched this horrifying photo.

Sally Kern's bigotry doesn't just aim itself at Teh Ghey. She is also no fan of women or minorities (no, she doesn't belong in either category), as she evinced by this speech.So why should it even be news that this dreadful cackling cow is making yet another gay-themed grab at headlines?She's got a book out. It's titled The Stoning of Sally Kern. Regrettably, it's not an instruction manual. Stupid twat, I mean, twit. Can you imagine having anything at all to do with this fetid ambulatory pigshit canister? No? Neither can we. Yet, somehow, she managed to find something that would join loins with her long enough to spawn. There's a persistent rumour in blogtopia that her husband, Southern Baptist minister Steven D. Kern, was once a member of the KKK. There's also the little matter of her gay son. Srsly. Click that link to read an interview with him. If your gaydar doesn't hit 12 out of a maximum of 10, let us know. These people just make us hork a big fat fucking hairball, OK? Srsly.And then there are people like this in the universe, who renew our faith in humanity and make it clear that the Kerns of this world are not a reason to give up on all its beauty, wonder, and awe:

The reason you have to "deal with" homosexuality is because these men and women are our fellow citizens. America is the people who show up. The show up for work, school, volunteer. They show up in the military, the police, the fire department (and the fire department calendars). They raise their kids and watch out for their neighbors.
The lesson I choose to take from 9/11 is not the paranoid fantasy that "they" are destroying us. It's that people are good. On that day, they called home to say "I love you". They helped strangers escape the danger -- sometimes dying in the effort. They fought back and made God work like the devil to take their lives. And they didn't check each other's religion, sexual preference, political party or immigration status.

Wonkette commenter JustPixelz

Yeah. That.Also, kittehz. We at this blog don't take our responsibilities lightly.

Too, FUCK YOU Sally Kerns! FUCK YOU very, very much, you horrendous bitch.Why can't all the people who have a problem with their GAY FAMILY just deal with it and leave the rest of us alone?

Humpday Entertainment

2011-09-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

Because, you know, why not?We're a fucking caramel world, or we soon will be, and this is like, the coolest Black/Jewish rap ever:

Black and Jewish (Black and Yellow Parody) from Kat Graham

The GARDEN CALLS, goddammit. Although in a muted voice. Smell fall in the air? I do.I'm off then, my precious little liberal vampire-rats. (I've fallen in love with Sara Benincasa and find myself emulating her speech patterns. Jesus fuck, be grateful, folks. I'm reading about a special class of employees of the early Kampuchean throne, and the first Muslim ruler of Champa. These people specialized in punishing anyone guilty of lese-majeste. Suffice it to say that I will not repeat what they did because I lost a week's sleep to nightmares over it. If you absolutely MUST know, go buy yourself a copy of Alfons van der Kraans' book, Murder and Mayhem in 17th-century Cambodia. And don't come crying to me when you have nightmares too.)

Caturday!

2011-09-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

And this blog was BROKEN this morning when I checked on it! Troubleshooting: they call it that because it's a fuckin' heap of trouble and you're ready to start shooting by the time you figure it out.

Anywho. I fixed it. Somehow, a line of text in the template that called a javascript got borked. I commented it out, but, you know, after three years of not even looking at software, ever, I had forgotten how to comment out stuff in HTML.

Maybe it's just time to throw out all the fucking software manuals. Or read them. But who's got the time?

La Casa de Los Gatos is planning to make the pigmeat today. Baby back ribs cooked with cherry juice, cherry preserves, jalapenos, garlic, red wine vinegar (just a smidge), a little palm sugar. With a side of baby bok choy and golden roasted potatoes.

Food is one thing that is not lacking in this house.

The fall is coming, isn't it? Feel it in the air? The sky is a richer, darker shade of blue, even in the hottest part of the day. The light is more golden. The tomatoes have finally set fruit, but the deer have harvested several of the plants for me. I want venison carpaccio SO BAD! So fucking bad.

The Republican Party is in some kind of crazy death spiral, where every candidate is top of the heap for two to six weeks, then flames out to some disgraceful embarrassing level. Today, Michele Bachmann, who was last month's "tea party darling" (notwithstanding the fact that there is no such entity as the Tea Party registered in the US as a political party; although there sure are a shitload of vultures making business off the "tea party" meme) clocked in at a lousy four per cent (4%) of the Republican electorate's support. Behind Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Willard (Mittens) Romneycare, and Rick (Dick) DinglePerry.

I'd shed a tear, but I seem to be fresh out of delicate lawn handkerchiefs with lace edging.

So RickDick DinglePerry is the pig at the top of the heap right now, and who's putting money on his staying there? He's already making calls to Repugnicant leaders everywhere, begging them not to keep pressuring Chris Christie and Jeb Bush to jump (or bellyflop, as the case may be) into the race.

Thad McCotter is still in the race, but a life-support system attached to his candidacy showed a remarkably flat line.

So here. Laugh at this, instead:

The Right Value Is Truth

2011-08-31T15:34:00.000-07:00

The right value is honesty.

La Casa de Los Gatos don't know about you, and how you might feel about homophobia, but we can tell you how we feel. We here are goddamn sick and fucking tired of all these closeted dickheads fucking around with OUR lives.

Just this month, we've had closeted homophobe Roberto Arango* posting pictures of his rectum to a hookup site. A fucking HOOKUP site! Where gay/bi men post for quickie casual fucks. If you're gonna bully other men for supposedly being gay, Roberto, you shouldn't be posting your starfish as an invitation to any swingin' dick within ten miles, know what I'm sayin'? Is that too much to ask, you arrogant asshole? Nobody really cares, Roberto, that you like to have another man's throbbing cock in your ass. Just don't fucking rub our faces in it after REPEATEDLY voting against our rights, you miserable piece of shit.

And look, what have we here? ANOTHER fucking Republican legislator caught with his dick hanging out? With a teenage boy?

His defense? "I'm not gay. I don't know why I did what I did."

I'll tell you why, you dumb fuck. Because you are gaygaygayer than a flock of fucking larks. You were so hungry for that pretty boy's 18-year-old body, his slender shoulders, muscular thighs, bubble butt, beautiful satiny dark skin. That's why. You were dying to stick your cock in him and his cock in you and to fuck until you both lost your minds. That's why.

Phil Hinkle's constituents think he should resign -- for being gay? For lying about it? For working so hard against the rights of gay people? This is the guy, incidentally, who is responsible for the "In God We Trust" license plate legislation in his home state. So, Phil, "In God We Trust" for what? For keeping anyone else from finding out that our cock throbs for teenage boys? Sounds like you spent all your time in the legislature on bogus legislation like this, and keeping gays from marrying. Have a good time on the unemployment line, you dumb fuck.

Phil says he's not running again. We say, "Not unless it's from his constituents."

So, homophobic Republican legislators? It's OK for you to fuck us, literally, and then fuck us virtually by denying us equal rights? Because, you know, all that shit y'all are continually spouting about "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," in the Declaration of Independence that you fucking claim to fucking worship? And all that crap in the Constitution about equality? You're not applying it to us, are you, when you vote against our right to marry and have families?

It's time for war on your hypocritical asses, y'all. Just come out of the fucking closet, admit who and what you are, and start acting like people, not ignorant fucking homophobes, OK? Because if you don't? It will be the civic duty of each and every one of us to do our best to expose you.

You hear that, girlzNboyz? If you've been schtupping a Republican legislator, it's time to let the whole world know. Start with the newspapers.

And now, to take the edge off, the gorgeous and brilliant Sara Benincasa sticks it to MishMash BatShitKrayZMann. Enjoy!

Black and Jewish

2011-08-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

Yeah!

Over at the Sisterblog

2011-08-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

A farewell to David "Honeyboy" Edwards, last of the great Mississippi bluesmen.

Rick Santorum Wins

2011-08-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

TWO awards!

World's Biggest Fucking Crybaby WHINER
Dan Savage's PayAttentionToYourName Slapfest

YAY, DAN!

Dan Savage's New Threat to Rick Santorum from Dan Savage

Now, Rick, don't get all huffy and LIE and pretend you don't know why the gay community is upset with you, you smarmy little shit. You know damn well your nasty, homophobic, closeted little mind has been squeaking forever about how much you HATE the gay. Judging from the number of gayhaters who have been exposed as complete and total fucking SISSYMARY QUEENS, it's probably time you shut up about that already, before Dan takes you out, or your boyfriend finally speaks up.

Caturday!

2011-08-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's that time of week again, and despite missing my best (and fattest) feline buddy, I still celebrate me some kittehs on a weekly basis (in between daily and hourly celebrations, of course, which are required by Our Feline Overlords).

What are the little fuckers up to, or rather, what have they been up to lately?

We got Bandicoot some chewable vitamins because he's getting old, and the sparkle in his eyes was dimming some. Needless to say, he quickly figured out that these are dispensed of a morning right after the hoomin wakes. Right, you got it. Every morning on the dot, 17 pounds of fat, hairy, stomach-swinging Bandicoot (with inch-long claws of a painful sharpness) proceeds to leap on me in anticipation. And if I don't wake up, why, he just extends those little razors and pokes me till I do. He will lick noses, exhale on me, sneeze on me, poke me in the eye with a paw, all until I wake and give him his treat.

Cat snot, ew.

Gojira would like a taste of Bandicoot's chewy vitamins, but since she already acts like she's huffing speed, she is SO not getting any. Ever since Zingiber abandoned La Casa de Los Gatos for his other home (I still maintain they're xenoanthropology grad students from a different planet out here doing fieldwork), she's taken to dragging this little toy around and making "Come watch me hunt and kill, kittens" noises (Zingiber took to doing this after he adopted Gojira and took her under his Mighty Muffin Maker -- not with real mice, of course. He was too stupid for real mice. But he regularly hunted (mostly unsuccessfully) a series of toy mice which he would then bring her, dragging them up the stairs with loud yowls).

Every night she brings the stupid thing upstairs and places it on the floor on one side of the bed or another. Throwing it down just means she'll repeat the trip. She's also (for whatever reason) decided she can't be touched or looked at with intent at certain times. Any attempt to make contact, real or virtual, leads to loud, indignant meeps, leaping and running away, frequent licking of the spot on which someone might have touched her if they weren't across the room, and terrified expressions, sometimes in quick succession.

What do I know? I hear cats make a substance in their brains that's analogous to LSD. I could believe that.

Madu is a punk cat. He got two ear piercings last week. He's a fucking idiot, too. He never seems to win a fight, but he sure knows how to get in them. Of all the animals who have lived at La Casa de Los Gatos, this is the only one who seems to get in a fight every fucking week of the year. The others got in a couple of fights, and that was it, they got the shit beat out of them and it never happened again. I'm beginning to think this dumb fuck goes to sleep in the middle of a fight. There's no other explanation for the weekly bod-mod attempts.

Gustav has taken to mugging us for pettings. Yes, the same Gustav who spent the first two (or more) years in this house acting as if he was going to be eaten by the Horrible Hoominz is now sticking his face in a person's face occasionally, asking loudly for hugs and kisses and pets. See, Prozac works miracles.

They're all getting old (except Gojira, in whom youth, quite literally, springs eternal). Right along with the rest of us, I guess.

But it's Caturday, and the garden is calling, so I'm off to enjoy the beautiful greenth, and the hot golden sun and deep blue skies of Paradise! Happy Caturday, all!

Don't Forget To Give Thanks!

2011-08-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

OK, this has to be an act of genius:

Really. ~~Thank~~ Fuck you very much, teabaggage.

Fighting back or Take that you idiot!

2011-07-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

I don't think there is any secret to the fact that the anti-gay RepigliCON Rick Santorum hates gays and has campaigned on that as an issue. Well, rather than being victims, gays are fighting back. Try doing a Google search for "Rick Santorum" and see what you get. Dan Savage, a nice fellow from Funny or Die has re-defined Santorum's last name in what is now the top hit from that Google search. Try it and gloat!

And if Rick Santorum doesn't back off his anti-gay hate campaign, Dan Savage is threatening to re-define Rick Santorum's first name too. Check it out!

What Does It Mean To Be Gay?

2011-07-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Well, according to this cute kid, it means "You are much alike."

Disclaimer: Frankly, I mostly can't stand kids. But this one's gonna grow up to be someone significant. Either that, or the world won't fucking end if we tell the children (as the Republicans seem to think).

Caturday!

2011-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Independent woman ... enjoy!

Bring The Troops Home, Goddammit

2011-07-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

A little reminder for all the Fortunate Sons:

Bring them back, goddammit, and not in body bags, either.

Cain: He's Not Able

2011-07-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Another day, another disaster for the Republican KKKlown KKKar KKKandidates.

Srsly, how embarrassing is this, anyway? Looks like Herman Cain is down for the count and sinking. First, the candidate was forced to acknowledge that he had only $13.00 in his "Hermanator" PAC.

Then, he reported his fundraising hauls for the current quarter: $2.5 million. Which sounds really impressive, until you realize that that is the smallest amount ANY of the candidates has raised this quarter, and about half of what Timmy "FeeFee" Teapawz raised. Pawlenty raked in the smallest amount of the other WHITE candidates, and Cain raked in about half that amount. Pretty sad, ain't it?

The teabaggers talk about how Herman Cain *proves* they're not racist (Why? Because he's a self-hating black man who's willing to give cover to white people attacking our President?), yet they won't give him their money.

You know, just like when they made Michael Steele chair of the RNC, but immediately took away his ability to disburse money. They're not going to trust no black folks with money! Come ON, Herman! Where have you been for the last 60 years, Uncle?

Well, the news just gets worse for poor ol' Uncle Herman. Here we all were enjoying our nice, long, warm, summery Fourth of July weekend, and what was the Hermanator's organization doing? Pooping all over him in Iowa, that's what. Yup. His Iowa people just up and quit on him, en masse.

Hermie's trying to put a good face on it, his current spokesweasel claims they've already got replacements lined up for all the rats wut done jumped his sinking ship. But srsly, how lame is it that your entire campaign staff ups and quits? And, worse yet, accusing each other of homosexual affairs? What is this, high school?

But srsly. I don't think Uncle Herman will be with us much longer.

Oh, yeah, and some of that money he "raised" was his own. The old man actually broke down and put some of his own Hermanbux into the race. What a fool. He's actually paying for the privilege of hanging out with a bunch of rich old white guys who would be yelling at him to fetch their drinks if he was even allowed in their fucking country club.

Bye, Hermie. Wish I could say it's been nice, but I'm kinda sick and tired of us Brownz siding with the majority against our own and doing the dirty work of trying to take down one of the best Presidents this nation has ever had — for them.

Caturday!

2011-07-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

Of a long weekend, no less!

Happy Fourth of July, all. Enjoy lying back, relaxing, resting, hanging with family and friends.

This feline is crawling into the overgrown garden for yet another valiant battle with the goddamn weeds. They're taller than me right now (OK, so I'm height-impaired, let's get THAT out of the way shall we, and quit the snickering?), especially the dog-fennel, and the buddleia has dead branches that could prove to be a fire hazard. Wish I had rappelling gear to make me feel secure on those slopes, but them's the breaks.

Missing our Zingiber more than ever, on these warm summer days when he would walk through the tall weeds, his eyes the same perfect shade of green, the giant whipping plume of his tail marking his passage through the overgrown garden. His quiet cat-smiles (that slow, lazy blink of the magnificent orbs) at all the other small life.

I never saw Zingiber kill anything, not even a fly. Poor sweet silly feline, gone and so sorely missed.

For all you other cat-lovers, here's a thoroughly enjoyable video:

The Michele BatShitKrayZMann History Channel

2011-06-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

OK, disclaimer: this is probably the first time I've ever seen Conan O'Brien. I had no idea who he was till today.

I think I like this guy. He is Teh Funnay.

Enjoy!

Jon Takes On Pox Ooze

2011-06-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Because, you know, nobody — I mean, NObody — does it quite like Jon:

Ahahahahahaha!!!

Thank you, Jon Stewart, for making it possible to live another day. I swear to fucking god wut I doezn't b'leev in, if I have to read about one more hypocritical GOP-goober cutting funds for Planned Parenthood, or posturing about "job creators," I'll ... watch this clip again.

OUT Of The Closets and Into The STREETS!!!!

2011-06-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Yay! New York just signed the Gay Marriage Bill, people, so what are you waiting for? Time to PAR-TAY DOWN!

FTA: "Republican Sen. Stephen Saland, who had been undecided about the bill and was one of the legislators who led the negotiations, announced during the debate on the Senate floor that he would support the bill, effectively giving it the 32 votes it needed to pass."

Everybody be sure to send a thank-you note to Rep. Saland, who will be targeted by homophobes for his support. He did the right thing, and it will cost him unless we all translate our thankyous into support at the polls. Thank you, Rep. Saland, for making this day happen!

TalkingPointsMemo has the details. And be sure to check out their pic of the celebrations at STONEWALL!!! Hai-yaah!

A great big huge gigantinormous thank you to Joshua Micah Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo who brought us this wonderful reportage.

For Nina!

2011-06-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Because you know who you are. (And so do the doggies. They got your name, girl.)

A very happy birthday to a very wonderful lady.

PS: Show it to your Mom and tell her I said HI!

WHCA Dinner

2011-05-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, Seth Meyers was great. Thoroughly enjoyable.

But you know what? This is still my ALL-TIME FAVOURITE!

Bush looks just about as happy as Donald the sTrumpet did.

Mission Accomplished!

2011-05-02T13:21:00.001-07:00

We know y'all heard the news last night. Our President announced on the national media that bin Laden had been "taken out" in a surgical strike designed to inflict minimum "collateral damage."

Al Jazeera has the photos if you can stand to see 'em. Bit, uh, strong, so be warned. There was a lot of spontaneous cheering and people waving flags and what-all. Folks gathered around the White House, singing the National Anthem. Firefighters of the NYFD celebrating in Times Square. Cadets at West Point raising such a ruckus, the sleeping inhabitants of nearby areas came awake.

And of course, the media today is full of it. And we mean that in the politest way. No, of course we don't. But we're calling a moratorium on the insults for the nonce. Might as well just sit back and admit that, since the attack on the Twin Towers, we here at La Casa de Los Gatos have been twitchy and oppressed, even if we didn't know it.

The first reaction at the ol' Cathouse was shock. The second was a tremendous sense of relief, as if an invisible hand around one's neck had finally loosed its grip. The third was exultation. But that only lasted a short while. It is unseemly to celebrate death, no matter whose. We are grateful the symbolic scourge is gone, but the sight of people singing and celebrating, regardless of whether they are mujahideen or American civilians, is a little ... unsettling. But we're not going to rain on anyone else's parade. Y'all do what it takes, friends. Just remember to say "Thank you, Mr. President!" over at whitehouse.gov.

And now, for a little light relief. Here's George Dubya Bush's reaction when HE got the news:

Yeeeeeee-HAW!

The President Rocks The Audience

2011-04-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

Live from the White House Correspondents' Dinner:

Contrasting this with Bush's last appearance, I can't help thinking how innately decent and fair our President is. Yes, he had fun tweaking a few people, but no one who didn't deserve it. Most important of all, he called for remembrance of our troops -- the Republicans pay a LOT of lip service to that, but they're the ones who keep cutting the VA budget and freezing the ordinary soldier's wage, and refusing to regulate the payday lenders who are driving our troops' families into foreclosure.

More touching was his call to remember those devastated by the storms that have struck the Southern states. Those red states are a hotbed of teabagger KrayZ. He didn't have to say word one about them. But, unlike Bush, who never mentioned Katrina after it happened except to complain that Kanye West dissed him, our President called for a show of kindness and help to those who hate and disrespect him with every breath.

Thank you, Mr. President. Here's looking forward to another five years with you at the helm.

The S_Trump_et Whores On

2011-04-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

We mean, of course, The Donald. Or should that read "whoreson"?

Today, our President, Barack Hussein Obama, released the long form of his birth certificate.

Ordinarily,this form is not available for viewing except to those having a personal interest in it — which is to say, the person whose birth it records or other immediate family members. Hawai'i's privacy laws also do not permit the State to release the original copy to anyone. The President requested a waiver of such laws in order to release this piece of paper.

No other President — nor even any nominee for the office — has ever been required to prove their citizenship. So let's be perfectly straightforward and clear about this whole brouhaha. Had President Obama been white, the question would never even have arisen. On what grounds do I assert this? These:

John McCain was never asked to produce his documents, despite the fact that he was NOT born in the US;
Birfers are trying to change state and Federal laws — and possibly even the Constitution — to take away the right to citizenship jus soli, i.e., by virtue of having been born on US soil. They are also trying to alter the right to citizenship jus sanguinis, i.e., by right of blood. Currently, the Constitution recognizes both conditions as conferring citizenship. "Birther bills" on the State level actually require potential nominees to have *both* parents born on US soil. The fact that this would exclude Mitt Romney (whose father was born in Mexico) and Donald Trump (whose mother was born in Scotland) hasn't yet penetrated their crania, I suppose.
These are the same people who, when Arnold Schwartzenegger the foreign-born brainless Austrian bodybuilder was making his stab at power, were willing to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for President. Yet they're not willing to accept the mixed-race child of a white American mother as a "real American" without making him leap through hoops despite what their OWN FUCKING LAWS SAY.

I'm furious and disgusted with the media's complicity in all this. With their endless bullshit, their boob job coverage, their fertility stories, their Royal wedding coverage, their bullshit about the teabaggers who can barely get 300 people to show up for most events, their refusal to cover the 100,000 who marched in Wisconsin. I'm sick of it. So I found this video on Crooks&Liars, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Please to watch. And then please spread the word. Because he's absolutely correct, every word of it.

Contact NBC and let them know what you think. They really need to hear from people.

Members of Tea Party, forget Ayn Rand ...

2011-04-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Members of Tea Party, forget Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, go straight to the master ...

American Exceptionalism

2011-04-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Ann Richards’ famous description of George Bush Sr. : “He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.” Equally applicable to the United States as a whole.

Good article about American Exceptionalism here.

Sing Along With Me, Children

2011-04-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sweet mother of GAWD, the Republican lineup for the 2012 elections is getting worse by the minute. I'm afraid to laugh as hard as I want to in case I piss myself.

Then along came Ms. Mollybean1 and posted SadnMad's delightful little ditty that sums the motherfuckers up pretty accurately, don'tyathink?

I mean, Christ, look at this pack of dimbulb stooges! The President can just phone it in at this rate, yes?

The incredibly evil stinking psychopathic bitch Ayn Rand

2011-04-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it is no secret that the so called Tea Party and worshipers of Ayn Rand are out to get her into national awareness so we will all worship her and live by her psychopathic tenets. But what they probably don't want you to know is that she was in love with a psychopathic murderer, William Edward Hickman. You can read about one of his unbelievably heinous kidnapping and murders here.

William Edward Hickman was a hero to her, her ideal man and the ideal for her books and her philosophy. And this is what the Republicans are pushing on America? Oh my god. Oh my god. And I thought Hitler was evil. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is insane. We need to push back hard and expose these bastards.

Great info is ammo and there is a ton of it out there except most people don't know of it. If you want to see a short video and interview of the psychopathic bitch Ayn Rand, the Democratic Underground has one on their page here. What a hideous evil philosophy.

And here, this stinking bitch who hated any government social programs took Social Security and Medicare before she died. Hey you stupid dumb fuck RepigiCONs, there is your heroine for you!

Is It Just MEEEEEE?

2011-04-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

Or are the protestors in WI drowning out the Witch of Wasilla?

Something like 6,500 people showed up in WI today. Why? Skanky Wailin'Failin'Bailin' Palin was giving a word-salad speech. AP (worthless corporate cocksucking shills that they are) claims that "hundreds" of te@b@gging Kochroaches showed up, and were met by "hundreds" of union supporters. But, if you look at this clip, it's pretty obvious that "hundreds" of teabaggers might have showed up but they were completely and totally outnumbered by THOUSANDS of union supporters. Who managed to shout Skanky's speech down. Go, WISCONSIN! Show us how DEMOCRACY'S DONE!

Can't We All

2011-04-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

Just do like these guys and GET THE FUCK ALONG?

I mean ... how cute is this?

For All Teh Nice Lady-People

2011-04-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

This one's for you.

Yup. "Git fucked" sounds about right, and if you can't find a convenient page to fuck, yer hand will do fine.

More delightful bare-knuckle beating available here.

Didn't I Tell You Guys

2011-04-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Like, a fucking year ago?

President Barack Hussein Obama proves prescient once again in a speech to Republicans a year ago:

The man thinks ahead. He looks ahead. He's not perfect by a long shot, and he's not my ideal candidate by a long shot. But he is, hands down, the most pragmatic President ever. His rhetoric is not overblown but precise, surgically precise.

I wonder if John Boehner is weeping into his whisky watching this, right now.

Details here.

Oakland: We can grow food on empty lots soon

2011-04-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

Novella Carpenter has reported on her blog that on April 14th, new urban agriculture laws take effect under the city's zoning update, and it will become legal to grow veggies on empty lots.

Republican's Immigration Policy

2011-04-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

Maybe the Republican's budget proposal is really their immigration policy: make the U.S. decrepit so no one wants to move here anymore.

Not Dead Yet

2011-03-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

Goddammit.

Rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

This is the best fucking ad I have ever seen in my life.

Indians Need To Ask "How Hateful Can American Conservatives Get?"

2011-03-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

My, my, my. It would appear that the Wall Street Journal, under Rupert Murdoch's guidance, is determined to alienate any Indian readers thereof. Since a substantial number of Indians in America, especially those born and raised in India, tend to be very conservative, pro-Republican readers of the Wall Street Journal, I sincerely hope any of you reading this, who might have friends or in-laws or neighbours of the Indian persuasion, take this issue up with those benighted souls. I'm well aware that many Indians, especially of the educated class and wealthier class, did not much care for Gandhi (I, personally, have plenty of issues with the guy). But something this outrageous cannot be allowed to pass.

Unless, of course, Indians revel in the thought of being spat on by the likes of Andrew Roberts. In which case, what can we say, except "Carry on, doods."

As for Roberts himself, sheesh, the guy is a closet case if ever there was. What IS the conservative fascination with other people's sex lives, anyway? Doods, aren't you getting any? Because if you are, it's either not enough, or not kinky enough. Normal people don't sit around fantasizing about other people's sex lives, honest. Because normal people are too busy, as a rule, indulging in some healthy slap-and-tickle themselves to worry about whether anyone else is getting it on.

Normal people with normal sex lives and friends and families and jobs and homes to look after barely have enough time to brush their teeth and match their socks, on a given day. Most of the people I know who have partners and healthy rolls in the hay are too exhausted after a good healthy bout of sweaty rogering to give a shit whether someone else is getting any, and if so, of what variety. Shit! Fuck me blind if I give a good goddamn about whether anyone else is knocking boots, as long as I'm getting some sweet, hot, slippery between-the-sheets action.

So, Mr. Roberts? Your fellow conservatives are pretty damn kinky, whyn't you ask *them* for some pointers on getting your knob nibbled? You could try George "Rentboy" Rekers, for some hot young purchasable action. Mark Foley can give you some tips on staying out of jail if you cross the line between "young" and "actionably young." If you'd rather blame it on "teh CULLUD," try FL Republican Bob Allen. If you'd prefer to assault children of the female persuasion, upstanding Republican congressman, whoops, ex-congressman and felon, Ted Klaudt can give you some, uh, tips.

No? Too tame? Don't worry! Former conservative candidate for Republican governor of Georgia, Neal Horseley might be just the thing for you! Neal doesn't deny charges of bestiality, and is quick to point out that "everybody did it," while eying the closest mule. Then there's David "ShittyVitty" Vitter, the Republican Senator with a diaper fetish whose Madam mysteriously "committed suicide" after threatening to reveal her client list. You, too, could probably find a prostitute to powder your freshly diapered bottom, if you just want to swim in shit for a bit. If you'd rather dress up and cavort around with teenagers, contact this bright and shining Young Republican star.

But for the love of deity, you worthless fecking eejit, keep your grubby, shitstained paws off the people who have done *some* good for the world, unlike yourself. You know, as in, more good than you will ever do, you worthless flaccid rump-pumper.

Geraldine Ferraro, RIP

2011-03-26T12:50:00.001-07:00

Geraldine Ferraro -- she gave us hope that women could get elected to the highest offices in the land. May she rest in peace.

Happy Holi!

2011-03-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

To all our Indian readers. The whole two of you. Srsly.

Sarah Palin goes to India, falls flat on ass. Listen and weep. Thank god this dimbo is not VP today.

More amusement here.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

2011-03-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

There is an old saying about statistics, that there are lies, and damned lies, and statistics, as though statistics are lies.

See, I don't believe that accurately calculated statistics lie. Any given statistic is what it is, but no one statistic can or ever will tell the story by itself. Statistics are only useful in the context of all the associated statistics that go with them. For instance the average number, such as taxes paid is meaningless without knowing the standard deviation around the mean.

And so while statistics don't lie, you can sure as hell lie with statistics. I keep hearing the mother fucking god damn Repiglicans claiming the rich already pay more than their fair share of taxes in this country. It is true, the rich pay a lot of the taxes but that claim is meaningless and a distraction meant to keep us from looking further into the truth of it.

The question is not how much the rich pay as a percentage of the tax burden in this country. The question is how much they pay as a percentage of their own income. I have written this before and I will write it again. They pay LESS as a percentage of their income than tax payers in the middle class.

So if a rich guy paid a million dollars in taxes last year, you would say, yes, that lord master over us paid a lot of money in taxes.

But if that lord master made a hundred million dollars and only paid 1 million dollars in taxes, then he only paid 1% of his income in taxes while we, with our almost infinitely smaller incomes paid a hell of a lot more.

Under President Eisenhower that rich person would have had to face a progressive top rate up to 91% on that $100 million and President Eisenhower argued strongly in favor of that tax rate on the rich.

And so when you see pot holes in the roads that aren't fixed, or schools closed, police and fireman fired, and all sorts of public services cut, that is the direct result of the rich and corporations paying virtually nothing in taxes while they have the vast bulk of the wealth Michael Moore spoke about.

So don't buy the bullshit repiglican line about the rich already bearing the burden, They aren't. They are free loaders on us.

And one thing they should remember, no one ever gets rich in a vacuum. Corporations should especially be concerned about that. If there is no middle class because we have all become poverty stricken serfs, who is going to buy their product? No one, that is who, and as we spiral into the poverty they are imposing on us, their gravy train ends.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats - huh?

2011-03-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

"A rising tide lifts all boats." Huh? Banks are sitting on their money. Corporations with profits aren't hiring. And are those richest 1% sharing their wealth and doing something constructive and creating jobs?

America is NOT broke! Hear Michael Moore's speech in Wisconsin:

San Francisco Shows Solidarity with Wisconsin

2011-02-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

Here is a collection of photos taken today at the San Francisco Rally in support of the Wisconsin protestors -- and union protesters everywhere.

I love that!

"Walker is a Koch addict"

If you're not sure what this sign is referring to, go here.

As you can see, we could have used a few more people. Next time, please join us.

Solidarity with Wisconsin Protesters

2011-02-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

First they came for the teachers' union,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a teacher.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the software developers and sent their jobs elsewhere,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a software developer.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-----------------------------

Not sure about unions? Sure you don't want a union? Read here -- very good article by San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Jon Carroll, about the importance of unions for every worker.

Analysis of the situation by Paul Krugman: Shock Doctrine, U.S.A

I have a confession

2011-02-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

They say confession is good for the soul, and I have one to make, even though I don't believe in the concept of a soul. But here goes.

I hate Republicans. Really, they are better referred to as Repuglicans, Rethuglicans, and even Republicons. I hate them. They are evil lying bastards. They are psychopaths. And I am not talking about the low information voter who has been manipulated into voting for Republicons. I am talking about the Repiglicans at the top, the various politicians in state and Federal government positions, or running think tanks, or even evil corporations who use their power to hurt the powerless while giving everything to the powerful. I hate them. I don't have it in my heart to love them because I can't love evil. I just can't bring myself to love them.

But there are politicians I do love, like Jackie Speier. She just constantly makes me proud and here is one more recent reason why.

But what to do about the evil Repiglican bastards? Peaceful protest. That is the way. It works. And when enough people wake up to what these bastards are doing to the country and protest like they are doing in Wisconsin, then we will have real change. I'm looking forward to that day. It just can't come soon enough!

Wisconsin: How YOU Can Help

2011-02-20T13:27:00.000-08:00

So, peeps, what the fuckety-fucking FUCK is going on in Wisconsin, huh? I turn my back for a few years, and this is what becomes of the world. Who EVER thought "Democracy is coming to the Middle-East in my lifetime"? Anybody? Anyone? Not me, for sure. But now a dictator-for-life has fled Tunisia (with a ton of gold, but still), and his fellow dictator-for-life has fled Egypt, and some other dictators-for-life are looking around nervously, wondering who's next. Jordan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, all aflame.

And now, Wisconsin.

So it turns out that creepazoid Scott Walker, purported Governor of Wisconsin, was elected thanks to two slimy oil billionaires who poured money into his pockets. People of Wisconsin! How could you let this happen?

In order to break the unions (a long-term goal of the Koch Bros. and the rightwing nutjob tools they have purchased), Walker declared that the state was having fiscal problems and needed to cut costs. Of course, he neglects to mention that while he's squalling about how awful the state's problems are, he just added a whole bunch of expensive tax cuts for the wealthy. Hmmm. Do I smell hypocrite?

Here's something you can do to help, even if you're not a citizen or resident of Wisconsin.

Update: And, if you actually have $$ to spare, throw a few towards keeping the protestors fed and warm right here.

If you are a citizen of Wisconsin, here's something you can do.

Wisconsin, you can recall these Republican buttfuckers that you handed your Legislature to. And clearly, you'd better do it fast, because your governor is willing to call the National Guard in to shoot you down, if necessary.

Eat the Richest 1 %

2011-02-19T00:56:00.000-08:00

Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of hedge funds -- many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout, and most of whose lending and investing practices were the proximate cause of the Great Depression to begin with.

Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains -- at 15 percent -- due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. Who is more valuable to our society -- thirteen hedge-fund managers or 300,000 teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?

-- Robert Reich

Want to read more? Go here. Fantastic piece by Robert Reich.

First Responders: Don't shake the lead out

2010-12-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

U.S. Senate needs your help? You know how to go slow slow slow, doncha? Or maybe your vehicles break down on the way there ... or a little sumpin' sumpin' blocks your way ... or ...

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

2010-12-12T14:57:00.000-08:00

Right here. It's stung me too many times this year to toss it off casually. Two family members (I think both were the last of their generation); too many feline friends.

Dad died last month. He was in his 90s, so it came as no great surprise except, apparently, to my inner child or summat, because I keep catching myself speaking or thinking of him all the time, in the present, or worse yet, as if he was actually present.

It's been almost exactly a month since I got the phone call. I had made reservations months ago to spend a couple of weeks around Thanksgiving with him. Let us give thanks for those parents we have left. Those relatives, of any degree of relativity. No, not really. I'm not terribly fond of my relatives. Although I was very fond of Dad.

I've been told I look like him. (A piece of flattery that would earn anyone a place in my good books, or on my Xmas list.) He was a handsome man. All I know is, I got his teeth (fragile), his feet (flat), and his tendency to tear up in old age. Also, thick eyebrows, early graying (he was 30 when he went completely silver, but the fates were kind and gave me an extra decade to get used to it), and a reading addiction I just can't shake. Thanks, Dad.

My father was a good man. One of the few I've ever met. His word was his bond. He never said anything he didn't mean (and because he was a gentle man, that meant he often said nothing at all, because he couldn't bear to be mean); he never told a lie. I miss him a great deal already. But he's been gone for several years now, fading a little each year. Losing his hearing, and then his sight, and finally even words. At first, at the beginning of his long decline, he would answer my questions with "I don't know. I don't know how to say. I've forgotten the words." In the end, he could not speak at all, although his brain could decipher that we were making patterns of sounds. He attempted to join in, but could only produce strange, disjointed noises, shouts, barks, mutters, all cadenced just like his normal speech.

Hard as it was to hear that he was gone, it wasn't intensely painful. After all, he was no longer mobile, nor continent, and the last stroke left him with a feeding tube. If he had understood what was happening, he would have hated every minute of it. So perhaps it's just as well that multiple small strokes took away his power of understanding.

But barely had I placed his bones in a funeral urn, crushing them with my hands, when came more bad news: Zingiber died suddenly, a week after my father.

O grave, here is thy victory. Stop taking my nearest and dearest away. Or at least slow your pace a little. Over the past decade, I've buried two sets of parents (natal and in-law); lost too many dearly-loved friends; and said goodbye to six cats and a dog, two charming chickens, and several bunnies. I'm done. I want a year or two without funerals and burials and mourning. Is that too much to ask? I'm feeling my own years, and I've spent thirty of the past X years worrying about, and taking care of (in my own incompetent fashion) my parents. They're gone, now, and I really have stopped caring. I don't want to give any more hostages to fortune. I'm ready for my own last trip to the banquet, goddammit. Ready to be worm food. Life sure is a lot bleaker without my dearly beloveds. Goodbye, Dad. I wish I could have talked to you more, but I really did spend every single day's worth of vacation over the last three decades with you. And Mum made every second of it a hell, so I'm sorry I didn't bite the bullet and sit through her needling, her vicious jibes, and her petty, pointed remarks and stay for the delight of your company. I couldn't do it, in the end. I just couldn't take any more. I'm sorry. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. And I always felt your love, Dad, surrounding me, making my life a better place. Making me all the good things I have ever been, or could be.

Goodbye, little Zingiber. I'll tell your story, my love. It will live in my heart always, just as you will, with my beloved father, and my sister, and all the others I loved who left me behind in their dance between matter and energy.

Caturday!

2010-12-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

from www.icanhascheezburger.com

And ... must add this too ... however, there is a commercial at the beginning -- sorry. But I thought the video was worth it. Mos def.

Enjoy your Caturday!

WikiLeaks ... thoughts ....

2010-12-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

Ms. Manitoba has some very rowdy and robust arguments with herself. The latest ongoing argument is about WikiLeaks. But here’s my most recurring conclusion:

Do you really think WikiLeaks will bring down the U.S.?

No, it is the corruption of high officials in U.S. government and business – this is what is bringing the U.S. down and making corporations lose money and jobs. Think of how much innovation could be funded with all those executive bonuses, golden parachutes, and "corporate donations to campaigns" (otherwise known as bribes).

Ms. Manitoba Is Nostalgic for The Great Depression ...

2010-12-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm awful nostalgic for the 20th century's Great Depression. At least in that one the Bankers and Other Financial Wizards who lost other people's money had the good sense to jump off buildings instead of giving themselves bonuses while others lose their homes.

Combat Troops: Put on Your Big Boy Pants

2010-12-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

Are we really relying on our combat troops to protect us from terrorists? Fight our wars?

Aren’t these the same men who are resisting the change in Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? These big strong men are afraid of “unwanted romantic advances”?

Well, us teensy little ole women have been dealing with unwanted romantic advances all our lives.

I am so F-U-C-K-I-N-G tired of hearing this.

Put on your big-boy pants.

And ... meanwhile, reports are coming out about female soldiers and suicide. Often there is history of sexual harassment or rape. (Maybe it's psychological projection on the part of these men ... they're afraid gay men will do to them what they've been doing to women?)

However, some folks even believe these alleged suicides are really cover-ups for murder by their fellow soldiers. To read more, go here.

Remember though, these men who are experiencing anti-gay hysteria are the minority -- the majority of troops are okay with the change in policy.

In Memoriam: Veterans' Day 2010

2010-11-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

Forever young, all those who fell. Forever wounded, all those who returned.

If you haven't already, do something today to honour your brothers and sisters in uniform. They have freely chosen to give their service to the nation. Many have lost their lives in doing so. Others have lost limbs, or minds.

Today, we have 6,500 homeless female veterans on the streets. That's double the number from a mere decade ago. What's worse is, they represent a mere ten per cent of homeless veterans. There are 65,000 people out there who risked life and limb to serve, and this is how we thank them?

Today, we here at La Casa de Los Gatos want to thank all those who served, in whatever capacity. Special mention to VoteVets founder Jon Soltz, relentless critic of the Iraq War, who learned today that he has been called up for military service. He will be part of the last contingent of American troops in Iraq, closing down our military presence there. Special mention to Roger Greenan, VN vet, now at Fiddlers' Green. Special mention to Pat Tillman, a modern-day Renaissance man cut down by supposedly "friendly" fire. Special mention to Louis Rochat, VN vet, also at Fiddlers' Green, no doubt telling tall tales to the men whose lives he tried so hard to save. Special mention to Warren Leeder, a conscientious objector who nevertheless served as a medic. He didn't carry a gun, nor did he sit on his ass at home. No, he carried his medic's bag into foxholes as bombs rained down around him. Thanks to him, at least a dozen came back who would otherwise be fertilizing some foreign field. RIP, Warren.

Those of you not named here, and you know who you are, you're too precious and important to be named in public. So there.

Marijuana Beats Meg Whitman in California

2010-11-04T18:44:00.001-07:00

photo from the kind folks at www.ugoto.com

Ha ha ha ha oh my hee hee hee hee hee oh my golly gosh hee hee hee oooooooo yeah! Ms. Manitoba is a clean and sober gal ... but she loves a good laugh at the expense of someone like Meg Whitman.

Dear Readers - The Marijuana Initiative got 500,000 more votes than Meg Whitman!!!!!

And ... SHE SPENT ALL THAT MONEY!!!!!!

Good golly. Election days can be fun ... you just have to look at the right data.

Info from Melissa Griffin this evening on KALW. She's a writer at the San Francisco Chronicle and has her own blog.

Congratulations Are In Order!

2010-11-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's the morning after the night before, and what a night it was! First off the bat, congratulations, California! It looks like the voters of the Great Golden State proved themselves, once again, to be the forward-looking independent-minded, trend-bucking bunch of eccentrics they've always prided themselves on being. Result: Governor Jerry Brown, Senator Barbara Boxer, Congressmembers Nancy Pelosi, Fortney "Pete" Stark, Henry Waxman, Lynn Woolsey, and a slew of other progressive Democrats. Neutral about Kamala Harris, but it looks as if she might have won her race, too. Thank you for keeping the Great State of California a deep and enduring blue. All over CA, Democrats have won their races by 60-80%.

Congratulations are also due to the Great State of Colorado! Despite forebodings and prognostications of doom, CO now has a Democratic Governor, John Hickenlooper, who ran on NOT attacking the other candidates. Yay, Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper's win means that disgusting maggot, Tom Tancredo, will have to find some other body politic to devour. CO has also returned Senator Michael Bennett to his Legislative seat. Good riddance to Ken Buck, the man who won't admit to wearing high heels. Finally, thanks to Dan Maes' dismal showing at the polls (<10% support), the Republican party is now an official minority party in CO. Thank you Dan, and thanks to all your teabagging supporters. Suck that Koch.

Congratulations to the State of Rhode Island, where former Republican-turned-independent and always-sensible moderate Lincoln Chaffee won the Governor's mansion with the help of Democrats, who turned the whole state blue. Democrats won all their statewide races. GO, RI! And as for Frank Caprio, dude, this is why you DO NOT fucking diss the fucking President of the fucking United fucking States, OK? He's the Prez. You might not like him, but he has a huge and loyal following. President Obama, despite the terrible shape of this country when he took over, still has higher ratings than most other Presidents at his stage of holding office. When you diss him, you piss off a lot of Democrats who might otherwise have thought of voting for you. I hope you've learned your lesson., you little fucker. Now go hold your tongue and try to make yourself useful.

Congratulations to the blue, blue State of Massachusetts! Deval Patrick keeps the Governor's mansion, and Barney Frank goes back to the Senate! And better yet, Democrats won EVERY SINGLE RACE in MA.

Congratulations to the State of New Hampshire for retaining your Democratic governor, John Lynch. Despite the efforts of homophobes to unseat him because he supports LGBTQ rights, Lynch beat out the Republican handily and goes on to serve his fourth term. Some anti-incumbent mood.

Congratulations to the State of Maryland for returning feminist icon Barbara Mikulski to the Senate. The Senate sure could use a few more like her, and a lot less like, gee, Cornyn? Coburn? Brownback?

Congratulations to the State of Connecticut for rejecting Linda McMahon and supporting Richard Blumenthal instead. Blumenthal's clearly the better candidate, and your voters proved that they knew it.

Congratulations to Delaware for sending the would-be witch and perennial Senate Candidate, Christine O'Donnell, back to her battery-toy collection. DE went with Chris Coons, who knows the First Amendment by heart. Yay, DE!

Congratulations to the Great State of New York for choosing Andrew Cuomo instead of krayZloony Carl Paladino, who brought his baseball bat to his concession speech. The guy is nuttier than a fruitcake, and I'm glad he's history. Also, Schumer. I'm not wild about him, but his constituents seem to be, so good work, NY, for sending him back to the Senate. Pity y'all allowed five districts to slip into Repub hands, but Gillibrand won her race, so overall, y'all done good.

Congratulations to the beautiful State of Hawai'i for making Neil Abercrombie your new Governor! Duke Aiona was a dangerous loon. Abercrombie was by far the better choice. Thanks to y'all, Democrat Brian Schatz takes the Lt.-Gov's seat. Democrats hold both the State House and Senate, so y'all are on the right road! Daniel Inouye returns to the Federal Senate. Colleen Hanabusa beat Charles Djou. And Mazie Hirono returns to her job with a solid win.

Congratulations to the Silver State for handing Sauron Angle a 7-8 point defeat in her widely acclaimed teabagger race for the Senate. The Koch brothers and Dick Armey spent millions there, only to lose. Happy Day. NV is no more for sale than CA or CO.

Congratulations to the Grand Canyon State for returning Progressive Rep Raul Grijalva to the House, despite last-minute attacks on him and his office. Congratulations for returning Democrats Ed Pastor and Gabrielle Gifford, also. Unfortunately, y'all have to live with the twin embarrasments of Dan "Potatoe-Head" Quayle and Jeff "There's A Good Reason For My Last Name" Flake. Also, Brewer? Srsly?

The Republicans are spinning like tops to claim that this was a landslide for their end of the political spectrum. We here at La Casa de Los Gatos are just really glad that the worst of the teabagger candidates went down faster than a manwhore. Palin endorsee and campaign slimebag Joe Miller? Looks like he's going down. Sauron "Church Lady" Angle? Gone, gone, gone. Cara Carleton Sneed Fiorina? History. Chuck deVore, are you happy now? PayLin endorsed her instead of you. It was the kiss of death.

Meg "Watch Me Spend My Billionz" Whitman? Gone. Christine "Masturbation is For Me, Not Thee" O'Donnell? Gone straight to jail, did not pass Go, did not collect those $200M dollars she needs to pay off all her bad debt, rehabilitate her candidacy, and try for political life ever again. Ken "Vote For Me, I Don't Wear Heels" Buck? A bad memory. Dan "Bicycles Are A UN Plot" Maes? To be remembered forever as the man who single-handedly took the Republican party to minority status in CO.

The teabagger candidates who won — Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, and Rand Paul — represent a mere fraction of the total. But Rand will be a thorn in Mitch McConnell's side, which makes us kinda happy. Prediction? More political grandstanding, posturing, and fractures ahead. The Blue states seem to have become bluer, and the Red states seem divided between radicaloony teabaggers and moderate conservatives who find them unacceptable, with Democrats and Progressives tucked away in various corners, working hard to turn their Red states Blue. Despite teabagger challenges to most Republican candidates, most of them survived intact (Sam Brownback won handily in KS, Roy Blunt Trauma in MS, and Governor Goodhair in TX).

What's interesting is what happened to Blue Running Dog democrats, like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and Blanche Lincoln. 23 out of 54 Blue Dogs lost their seats. And their support of, (or opposition to) universal health care had nothing to do with it. If anything, we can expect more progressive Democrats in the House.

So, overall, as to be expected in a mid-term election year, the party in control lost seats. It's not a stinging defeat, it just shows that more work needs to be done. Today we celebrate. Tomorrow, we're back at work.

What The FUCK Is Happening To This Country?

2010-11-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable. Glenn Blech has just attacked a volunteer debate moderator from the League of Women voters.

What is it with these people? Fucking everybody is fair game? What are these fuckers up to? Ever since the day our President was sworn into office, Glenn Blech, Flush Rimbowl, and Pox Noose have been attacking him, and those of us who support him, despite the fact that 65,182,692 of us voted for him.

If you didn't want to click the linky, these are the linked incidents:

FL gunman shoots exchange students;
List of far-right politicians inciting violence;
Murder of the Holocaust Museum guard;
Murder of Dr. George Tiller;
"Dirty bomb" materials found in RWNJ's home;
TN skinheads arrested for plot to murder President Obama;
Assault on WA activist Christie Stordeur;
Assault on KY activist Lauren Valle;
Arrest of a Democratic voter at a session for Eric Cantor;
Intimidation of elderly black voters in TX;
Attempted voter intimidation by teabaggers in TX;
Reports of teabagger targeting of minority voters for harrassment coming out of many states.

There's lots more, not covered here. In OH, a McDonald's franchisee sent his employees a flyer telling them that if the Republicans win, they can expect bonuses and raises. Otherwise, fugaddeboudit. And, face it folks. This 24/7 demonization of anyone who isn't a fucking rightwing nutjob has gone too far.

It's one thing to attack your political opponents. But when you start attacking the fucking majority of your fellow-Americans because they voted for a black man in the White House, you are going TOO goddamned fucking far. For eight years, y'all told us, "Suck it up. Your side lost. Deal. You're either for us or agin' us. America — love it or leave it."

When does it get to be your turn to fucking suck it up? Y'all lost TWO FUCKING YEARS AGO, and all we've heard since then is threats, abuse, and promises of violence. And Pox Noose is at the heart of it all, spreading a seething discontent by feeding the fantasies of the worst of the worst. All along, y'all have been able to claim that none of you instigated this violence, this assault on the Constitutional liberties of the people. But now, stuff like this starts happening all over the place right around the elections, and it becomes clear to the rest of us who aren't stark barking mad, as the denizens of the TeaParty (what party? They're not registered as a party) appear to be.

Srsly. I don't want people who look or think like these pignorant dorks in charge of the country. Do YOU?

Raw Story commenter Sue Wilson says:

It's time to realize that Glenn Beck has 14 million radio listeners compared to 2 million Fox viewers. Radio airwaves are publicly owned, and we the people can and must demand accountability from broadcasters. Early next year, I am launching a project to empower communities to challenge stations' licenses. Why? Read here: http://retwt.me/1PsNH How? http://retwt.me/1PkA I need your help. I need specific instances of inciting violence on the radio. Not hate speech, our lawyers say it has to be inciting violence. I need date, time, host name, station call letters, and most importantly - audio. You get me these, I will challenge the stations' license. We the People are Taking the Media Back!

Sounds like a wonderful idea. When do we start?

If you like what Sue Wilson has to say, you can follow her on Twitter at @sueblueswilson.

And get your ass out there bright and early tomorrow and FUCKING VOTE. Unless you really want pignorant acephalic swine making the laws that will affect you and your children for the next 4-10 years.

What YOU Can Do To Make The Elections Better

2010-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't already know it, ABC has invited Andrew NotSoBrightBart to give a live election analysis on Tuesday.

Yes, that Andrew NotSoBrightBart. The one who characterizes himself as "Matt Drudge's bitch."

The one who peddled an edited video of Shirley Sherrod that resulted in a wave of wingnut hysteria, with addled teabaggers calling their radio and TV stations to express their horror and outrage that a black woman whose father and uncle had been murdered by white men, once experienced a certain prejudice towards white people. (Of course, they edited out the evidence that she had overcome that prejudice and remains a lifelong friend of the white people in question, who are still very grateful to her for her efforts on their behalf.)

So, if all those incidents in NotSoBrightBart's past bother you — you know, like James O'Keefe pretending he dressed up as a pimp taking Hannah Giles dressed as his ho' to destroy ACORN, an organization that represented poor people and helped them resolve housing disputes and exercise their voting rights — or whipping up race hatred against Shirley Sherrod; or trying to illegally tap the phone of a sitting US Senator; or attempting to set a reporter up for something closer to rape than seduction; you might, you know, want to let ABC know that rewarding a known serial prevaricator and provocateur, and fanning the flames of sectionalism and antipathy right around the elections is, like, not nice at all. And you will kick their fucking asses to the curb. Politely, of course.

Please contact ABC News and voice your opinion:
ABC News
147 Columbus Ave., New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777

General e-mail: netaudr@abc.com

Here is a link to Disney Corporate feedback form:

http://corporate.disney.go.com/responsibility/feedback.html

Cat-ur-zzzzzzzzz

2010-10-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Or for the other inhabitants of La Casa de Los Gatos. Strenuous snoozing (if there is such a thing) by All And Sundry. Feet poking into noses, nipping of tails, pinning down of hoominz who might want a little less bed-crowdment. Also, paws in the face and eyes.

Hope y'all had a great time at the Rally for Sanity And/Or Fear today, those of you who went. Best estimates are that the crowd was over 250,000. Yay from all of us who couldn't (snivel) go. Looks like a Good Time was had by all.

Rainy weather here, now, at last. Maybe the ground will be soft and moist enough to be worked by Tuesday. If all goes well, the resident gimps are hiking tomorrow, hopefully in some wonderfully piny park.

Where were the Tea Party Clowns ...

2010-10-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Where were the Tea Party Clowns when President Bush was increasing the deficit? Oh, all of a sudden they don't like BIG government. Not a peep when Homeland Security was created.

They are a bunch of clowns. Those creepy kind that we all have nightmares about.

Hypocrites and clowns.

The Bush Presidents are known here in Oakland, California for increasing deficits.

Caturday!

2010-10-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

and have a fun Halloween weekend!

Tax the Rich! That's American values ...

2010-10-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometric progression as they rise”

-- Thomas Jefferson

It's not socialism ... it's plain old American values.

From a recent article about Glenn Beck in The New Yorker "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War roots" by Sean Wilentz:

Thomas Jefferson, for example, wrote approvingly in 1811 of having federal taxes (then limited to tariffs) fall solely on the wealthy, which meant that "The farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."

What's wrong with taxing the rich more? [No name calling. Just tell me in real terms -- what's wrong with it?]

How's YOUR Memory?

2010-10-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

Go ahead. Watch it.

French protests and U.S. Aid to Pakistan ...

2010-10-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Two things have merged in my mind today: the French protests + U.S. $$$ Aid $$$ to Pakistan.

I guess the Obama administration fears the Taliban extremists more than they fear all the folks here in the U.S. who are losing their jobs and homes. Guess they bet on the right pony.

Folks, the U.S. (meaning us) are giving Pakistan $2 Billion dollars a year to fight extremists. I know that you know how hard it is to earn cash these days. So there goes our hard-earned cash ... to Pakistan. Where will it really end up?

And good people here are still losing jobs ... still losing their homes. Two billion dollars. Per year -- you caught that part, didn't you, bunkie?

What does it take to get folks here in the U.S. of Amnesia to get out there in the streets and EXPRESS THEMSELVES??!!!!

Enthusiastically gonna vote Democratic ...

2010-10-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

My previous post might have led some of you to doubt if I were gonna vote in mid-term elections. OH YEAH! And ... I WILL VOTE ENTHUSIASTICALLY IN FAVOR OF DEMOCRATS. No enthusiasm gap here. Know why? BECAUSE I HATE REPUBLICANS AND WHAT THEY STAND FOR.

I will never let the Republicans win when I can vote against them.

We cannot let the Republicans win!!! It's as simple as that. I don't think they're gonna win. Because you gotta remember -- THEY'RE A BUNCH OF WINDBAGS. They always brag about how they're gonna win.

We must let President Obama and his administration finish their work -- isn't that why we elected him in 2008? (I'm just not gonna donate money, that's all.)

VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN!

Happy Caturday!

2010-10-09T10:15:00.001-07:00

(from our friends at ICANHASCHEEZBURGER)

President Obama: Jobs and Foreclosures!

2010-10-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Someone from the Democratic Party just called my home and asked for money. I said: when you create more jobs and stop foreclosures, then I'll donate money.

I pay taxes so the filthy god damn rich don't have to!

2010-09-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Yes, our precious, needy rich should not have to pay taxes. None at all. The only people who should pay taxes are us poor suckers in the middle and lower classes, at least that is what Republicans think. No wonder I hate the fucking bastards so much.

How much do the rich pay? A lot. Yes, it's true, the rich pay a tremendous amount of taxes in this country, they really do and I don't dispute that for a second.

Except that is the wrong fucking question.

The right question we should all be asking is how much do the rich pay as a percentage of their income? Warren Buffett has famously said that he pays less as a percentage of his income than his secretary does and he says that isn't fair. And you know what, I totally agree with him.

Indeed, I would like to see this country return to the progressive tax system that we had under President Eisenhower, where the top rate was 91%. There are all kinds of great reasons to return to that tax policy and as far as I am concerned, there are NO (ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, ZIP, NONE) good reasons not to and to keep things the way they are.

But since it is late and I have to get up early in the morning, I am going to leave you with one good reason found in the quite below that we should be soaking the rich, the fucking freeloaders that they are. Need I say more?

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Louis D. Brandeis (Supreme Court Judge)

Labor Day today

2010-09-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be very short and sweet. Today is Labor Day, a day to honor labor, the workers who built this country. Remember, it was not the rich who built this country, it was labor. All the money in the world will not build a road or a dam or a bridge or a building without the workers to do the labor.

And no rich person in the world ever got rich in a vacuum. They were only able to get rich because of people doing the work, supplying the labor, and buying the stuff that made the rich rich, rich on the backs of labor. Take away labor and it will all go to hell.

Wikipedia has a good page on the establishment of Labor Day as a National holiday back in 1894 as legislation enacted by Congress and signed by President Grover Cleveland. Originally established as reconciliation with labor following the deaths of workers at the hands of the US military and US marshals during the Pullman Strike, in recent years we have used the holiday as a end of summer celebration with only passing reference to labor.

With the millions of Americans out of work and desperately wanting work while the rich are sitting on their piles of money, maybe we should remember labor once again both for the workers who built this country and for the current and future workers who will rebuild this country given half a chance. So here is to the American worker! Hooray!

In Honour of Labouring Folks Everywhere

2010-09-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today, we celebrate Labour Day (which, everywhere else in the world, is celebrated on May 1st, also known as Lady Day) with a little ditty from the Great Depression. No doubt it will warm the cockles of every heart that has experienced these fine characters, especially of late.

Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

1.
I'm an autocratic figure in these democratic states,
A dandy demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the baker bake the most delicious breads,
As the sons of Casanova fill the most exclusive beds,
As the Barrymores, the Roosevelts, and others I could name
Inherited the talents that perpetuate their fame,
My position in the structure of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My pappy was a gentleman, and musical to boot,
He used to play piano in a house of ill repute.
The madam was a lady, and a credit to her cult.
She enjoyed my pappy's playing, and I was the result!
So my mammy and my pappy are the ones I have to thank
That I'm Chairman of the Board of the National Silly Bank!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

2.
In a cozy little farmhouse in a cozy little dell,
A dear old-fashioned farmer and his daughter used to dwell.
She was pretty, she was charming, she was tender, she was mild,
And her sympathy was such that she was frequently with child.
The year her hospitality attained a record high
She became the happy mother of an infant, which was I.
Whenever she was gloomy I could always make her grin
By childishly inquiring who my daddy could have been.
The hired man was favored by the girls in Mummy's set
And a trav'ling man from Scranton was an even money bet.
But such were Mammy's motives, and such was her allure,
That even Roger Babson wasn't altogether sure.
Well I took my mother's morals and I took my daddy's crust,
And I grew to be the founder of the New York Blanker's Trust.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

3.
In a torrid penal chain gang on a dusty southern road,
My late lamented daddy had his permanent abode.
Now some were there for stealing, but my daddy's only fault
Was an overwhelming tendency for criminal ault.
His philosophy was simple and quite free of moral taint:
Seduction is for sissies, but a he-man wants his rape.
Daddy's total list of victims was embarrassingly rich,
And one of them was Mother, but he couldn't tell me which.
Well I didn't go to college, but I got me a degree.
I reckon I'm the model of a perfect S.O.B.
I'm a debit to my country but a credit to my Dad,
The most expensive senator the country ever had.
I remember Daddy's warning -- that raping is a crime,
Unless you rape the voters a million at a time.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

4.
I'm an ordinary figure in these democratic states,
A pathetic demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the cop possess the flattest kind of feet,
As the daughter of the floozie has a waggle to her seat,
My position at the bottom of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My father was a married man and, what is even more,
He was married to my mother -- a fact which I deplore.
I was born in holy wedlock, consequently by and by,
I was rooked by every bastard who had plunder in his eye.
I invested, I deposited, I voted every fall,
And I saved up every penny and the bastards took it all.
At last I've learned my lesson and I'm on the proper track:
I'm a self-appointed bastard and I'M GOING TO GET IT BACK!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

Arizona Gets Teh Big Ugly

2010-09-03T10:22:00.000-07:00


Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona

It would appear the "illegal alien" hysteria that Republicans whipped up to scare all them scary brown people away from the polls is having dubious effects, at best. Raw Story tells us that the State of Arizona has already incurred costs of close to half a million dollars defending the deeply flawed legislation that is at the heart of this battle, SB 1070.

Apparently, one of the effects has been to reveal Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's true nature. We don't often pick on people for their looks here at La Casa de Los Gatos. We much prefer picking on their character flaws. But every now and then one comes along that just leaves us flapdoodled.

I mean, lookit, this lady has money. She's not some poor slob who works two jobs fourteen hours a day to put food on the table. And she obviously spends a good bit of that money on her appearance. I mean, the dye job alone is keeping a good part of the chemical and fashion industries employed, heah!

So, what, Jan, did the plastic surgeon want to charge by the yard to get rid of those dreadful frown lines? Perhaps if you worked on your inside a bit, you know, took time to see the good and beautiful around you, those dreadful lines would fade. After all, wrinkles should, you know, convey character. And yours are not conveying anything nice about you at all.

She's not a nice person, Jan Brewer. She lies about all kinds of stuff, and most of what comes out of her mouth is hateful and false.

Looks like it's catching up with her, though. She's off her game, and as the cost of defending this ridiculous piece of legislation goes up, up, up, she's stumbling and stammering and falling apart. Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Divide and conquer

2010-08-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

All *true* red-blooded Americans hate labor unions. Obviously they are all corrupt and at the root of all our problems. Hell, America hates workers and labor in general. And don’t even mention government workers. They are the absolutely worst. Why, if we get rid of government workers and outlaw labor unions, all our problems will be solved.

And hell, while we’re at it, let’s get rid of all our workers and labor in general, and just send all of the good paying jobs overseas. And for any work that needs to be done, we’ll just get slaves who will work for whatever crumbs we might toss at them. If they die, oh well, cost of business. There are plenty more slaves out there to take their place. Isn’t America great?!!

Frankly, I’ve had it and it is really pissing me off. Not the labor unions or government employees, or workers in general, but the attitude.

Maybe I am alone in this but I am concerned that labor unions have taken it on the chin for far too long. Every time I turn around I find myself talking to a still employed worker (not management) who hates labor unions and sees them as totally corrupt and useless, whether it’s teachers unions or police or firefighter unions or whatever. The union employees are seen as getting too sweet of a deal, making too much money or getting too generous of a pension.

And I don’t know, maybe some labor unions do get too sweet of a deal, with more pay than what we think the job deserves or a pension that is to generous.

Indeed, they have better pensions than I do as my current job in industry doesn’t even have a pension. Wouldn’t I love to have retired at say 55 with a pension equal to my pay at the time or something like that? Absolutely! I’m a bit older now and I am tired, physically and mentally, and it is becoming harder and harder for me to keep going at it each day. But I can’t retire yet. I have to keep going as I don’t yet have the means to support myself in retirement. Hell, I haven’t even had a raise for the last 3 years and I am not particularly happy about that either.

But I don’t begrudge for a moment the union worker who is getting a good deal these days. No, I say right the fuck on! God damn it, right the fuck on!

Hell, I was just talking to a friend who was bemoaning the labor costs of the airlines. And he was complaining about a long time 30-year stewardess who had broken into 6 figures with her pay. I say right on to that stewardess!

Imagine if the airlines did this way back when she was first hired:

“Join our airlines with an exciting career as a stewardess. You’ll start off at minimum wage with no benefits. We’ll fly you to exotic places where you will often spend 12 hours a day at 40,000 feet where you can deal with unruly passengers while living with the risk that one day your plane will crash. Won’t that be fun? And after working your entire career in this exciting field, you will still be making minimum wage with no benefits and no retirement, save perhaps Social Security and whatever pennies from your minimum wage you might have saved in your 401k. Oh, you didn’t make the best investments in it? Too bad for you.”

Would you take and work for that deal? Would you like to be a fucking slave all your life? Or would you like your job to offer opportunity for growth?

And while I am ranting, lets not forget the evil government worker. They obviously make too much money, like my sister did, who had a BA degree in law enforcement and worked for over 30 years in the California prison system in a high stress job and yet never made more than about 50K a year. After a lifetime of performing that job as a California State employee, she retired “early” at 61 as she could not take it anymore. And her sweet pension after a lifetime of service? It’s about $2900/month. She will survive on that but I would hardly call that a sweet deal.

But you say, the states are broke and we don’t have money for anything, let alone schools or police or firefighters or parks or welfare for the poor or anything. We have to cut cut cut and too bad for the labor unions and government workers as we’re overtaxed and we’ve had it.

Well, I say bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

I say there is plenty of fucking money in this country, enough to pay decent wages and provide livable pensions, and provide for education and the services we ought to expect from a “civilized” society.

You see, when I hear that 2 trillion dollars is unaccounted for by the Pentagon, or I hear about the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or that Exxon Mobile made 19 billion in profits last year on how many billions in revenue and yet paid ZERO, ZILCH, no income taxes on it and still got back hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refunds, I say there is plenty of money if we tax it and spent it wisely.

And when I hear that this CEO or that CEO got canned from this corporation or that and still walked away with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in severance pay, or that CEO’s make 300 times more than the average worker, I say there is plenty of god damn money to pay the workers a decent wage and provide a pension.

Instead, there is a PROPAGANDA WAR in this country to divide the workers from labor unions and from ourselves so that we fight each other and distract ourselves from the real sources of our problems.

Our problems are not because of labor unions. It’s not the “high cost” of labor, which has largely been sent off shore anyway so that the oligarchy in this country can keep more money for themselves.

Our problem is the oligarchy controlling government policy and stupid management that has abandoned even good business sense so they can have their own corporate piggy banks while their corporations, and the rich, pay little or no taxes and don’t want you or I to notice it. We pay through the nose while they get rich and I am god damned spitting mad about it.

So when I hear a union managed a sweet deal? I say right on union! God damn it, right on because no matter how sweet the deal they got, it's not going to even come close to the sweet deal the oligarchs have stolen from society for themselves. And yes, I say stolen because I defy you to show me what the hell they did to earn it. With the exception of artists or creative people who really created something of value, the oligarchs aren't rich because they earned it. They are rich because they took it. They just took it.

And so damn it, I don’t want to hear another god damn word about the evils or excesses of any union until the oligarchs have fully paid their dues and their fair share. Until then, I say we need more labor unions so we can reclaim the ground the middle class has lost. We’ll be a better society for it.

Caturday!!!

2010-08-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

from our friends at www.icanhascheezburger.com

Have a great Caturday, everybody!!

Now, this one ... really doesn't need a caption IMHO. But if you've got one, head on over to www.icanhascheezburger.com -- they're asking for captions.

Schwarzenegger: Typical Politician

2010-08-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Photoshopped by K. Smokey Cormier
this is an actual quote

Schwarzenegger, when running for the governor's office, claimed to be a leader. Nuts to that. A real leader stands up for his beliefs. He vetoed same-sex marriage twice when the California state legislature passed it in 2005 and 2007.

So, why is he in favor of same-sex marriage now? Typical politician: he's not running for any election.

Hypocrite: a person who pretends to be what he is not. Is Schwarzenegger a free thinker and an ally of gay people, or is he a bigot?

BP: "Plug for good" ... "Never leak again"

2010-08-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

I guess people in the United States of Amnesia would fall for these words:

BP delivered what should be a knockout punch on Thursday to its damaged Macondo well, filling it with concrete and all but guaranteeing oil will never leak from it again.

-- from the always believable HEARST NEWSPAPERS

they did use those truth-insurance-policy phrases: "should be" and "all but guaranteeing"

Anne Rice: Today I quit being a Christian

2010-08-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Those are the words of the writer Anne Rice. She has left the Catholic Church. Her reason is because she could not stand by and just watch as the bishops spent parishioners' hard-earned money to defeat the civil rights of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men in secular society.

... When that broke in the news, I felt an intense pressure. And I am a person who grew up with the saying that all that is needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and I believe that statement.

Evil? Too strong a word? No. It is evil. It is the evil of George Wallace ... the evil of Adolph Hitler. If they had their way, we would be burning like witches.

Want to read the story? Go here.

Bishops, beware ... drop drop drop drop that becomes a tidal wave.

Quote from the movie Mother ...

2010-07-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

Companion quote to previous Caturday post ...

“Always eat well after coming back from the police station.”
-- Park Eun-kyo and Bong Joon-ho from the movie Mother

Caturday! Got in under the wire ...

2010-07-31T19:09:00.001-07:00

Friends and family have asked just this question of Ms. Manitoba. I iz experienced.

Yes, it's still Caturday here in Pacific Time. Hope you all had a great Caturday ... and those of us with a few more hours ... party on, cats and kitties.

New Job for Shirley Sherrod

2010-07-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

President Obama, please give Shirley Sherrod a new job. Please read Maureen Dowd's article in the New York Times.

Here are some excerpts:

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean c’mon, “ said Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, a black lawmaker so temperate that he agreed with an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on Friday by Senator James Webb of Virginia, which urged that “government-directed diversity programs should end.”
“The president’s getting hurt real bad,” Clyburn told me. “He needs some black people around him.” He said Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race: “Some people over there are not sensitive at all about race. They really feel that the extent to which he allows himself to talk about race would tend to pigeonhole him or cost him support, when a lot of people saw his election as a way to get the issue behind us. I don’t think people elected him to disengage on race. Just the opposite.”
Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s House delegate, agreed: “The president needs some advisers or friends who have a greater sense of the pulse of the African-American community, or who at least have been around the mulberry bush.”

And, one last one ... this blog supports this idea wholeheartedly:

The president shouldn’t give Sherrod her old job back. He should give her a new job: Director of Black Outreach. This White House needs one.

If you would like to read Dowd's entire article, go here.

Caturday!!!

2010-07-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

Vatican Leaders and Mel Gibson

2010-07-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe the Vatican leaders should hire Mel Gibson as their spokesman?

Vatican Leaders: Women Priests and Pedophiles, Part 2

2010-07-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

Of course, my evil twin (or maybe my more honest self) says: "Let those asshole Vatican leaders run the church into the ground. Good riddance to bad rubbish." The leaders of the church have done so many horrific things over the centuries. The pope is a dictator -- who wants to pledge alligiance to that?

Read The Vatican Empire by Nino Lo Bello ... still relevant even though it was written in the late 60's -- the author talks about the enormous wealth of the Catholic Church. (And they have the nerve to beg money on the pulpit on Sundays. Actually, my family's parish priest used to yell from the pulpit about all the slackers who weren't putting in their donation envelopes ... or were putting in too little.)

[Thanks Labrys for the little push.]

Vatican Leaders: Women Priests and Pedophiles

2010-07-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

It's time now. Don't you think?

It's really time for Catholic women to take back their church. Those bishops and cardinals ... ya gotta wonder. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

The New York Times reports that Vatican leaders have essentially equated ordaining women as priests as grave an infraction as priests molesting children. Here's an excerpt:

The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia.

The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests.

The overall document codified existing procedures that allow the Vatican to try priests accused of child sexual abuse using faster juridical procedures rather than full ecclesiastical trials. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the changes showed the church’s commitment to tackling child sexual abuse with “rigor and transparency.”

Those measures fell short of the hopes of many advocates for victims of priestly abuse, who dismissed them as “tweaking” rather than a bold overhaul. The new rules do not, for example, hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their watch, nor do they require them to report sexual abuse to civil authorities — though less formal “guidelines” issued earlier this year encourage reporting if local law compels it.

But what astonished many Catholics was the inclusion of the attempt to ordain women in a list of the “more grave delicts,” or offenses, which included pedophilia, as well as heresy, apostasy and schism. The issue, some critics said, was less the ordination of women, which is not discussed seriously inside the church hierarchy, but the Vatican’s suggestion that pedophilia is a comparable sin in a document billed a response to the sexual abuse crisis, which roared back from remission in Europe this spring a decade after it first erupted in the United States.

“It is very irritating that they put the increased severity in punishment for abuse and women’s ordination at the same level,” said Christian Weisner, the spokesman for “We Are Church,” a liberal Catholic reform movement founded in 1996 in response to a high-profile sexual abuse case in Austria. “It tells us that the church still understands itself as an environment dominated by men.”

[To read the whole article, go here.]

I guess those Vatican leaders want to run the church right into the ground.

Once more, I say to Catholic women: It's time to take back your church!

When You're Strange: Mini Review

2010-07-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

The other night I watched When You're Strange -- the documentary about The Doors written and directed by Tom DiCillo. DiCillo wrote and directed one of my favorite films: Living in Oblivion, which I highly recommend. I used to be a big fan of The Doors. Still am but just don't listen to them that often. So, I was really looking forward to this documentary. It also got good reviews. But, folks, I was disappointed in this one. If you want a walk down memory lane -- and only that -- you'll be happy. I wanted more. Joan Rivers said in today's Parade magazine: "I hate documentaries that tell you nothing about the person." I go further: "I hate documentaries that tell you nothing new about the person." And that's this movie.

Oh, it's enjoyable. But sometimes a little precious, sometimes choppy -- the transitions aren't smooth.

Caturday!!

2010-07-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

from www.icanhascheezeburger.com, of course

I love the little (sigh) next to the car.

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Have a great Caturday, everybody!!

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Who's really the immigrant?

2010-07-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

On this day in ...

1846 U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.

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More stolen land.

And some pinky whites have the nerve to outlaw Mexicans coming across the border!

Oh, don't get me started!!