And we will know them by the trail of their stupid

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift

Followed by a personal fave. . .

"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip." - Ignatius J. Reilly in Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I'm pretty sure the following people are not actually with the campaign and, I hope, truly represent only a minority of Sen. Hillary Clinton's supporters. However, they do a decent job knocking the Clinton argument down from parsed legalese to a more a plain spoken form of ridiculous. Seriously. You want to see dumb-as-rocks Democrats? (Allegedly?)

I present to you, Harriet Christian (supposedly):

"[T]he Democrats are throwing the election away! For what? An inadequate black male?"

Um. . . did you really say that?

And what the fuck? I thought we were settled on his adequacies. Even Sen. Joe Biden, in his not-uncommon foot to mouth way, said Sen. Barack Obama was "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Freudian slip or not (I'm willing to believe it was,) I'm not sure that "proud ... older American woman" could have come across as anymore uninformed and, well, stupid? I realize you may have been speaking more out of anger and frustration than from any coherent angle. But keep in mind that people, when they're angry, tend to be less self-censoring and that's a very telling 'rant' in that respect.

On to some "IFYOUWEREONLYAWARELIKEME" stupid:



Wow. Go vote Republican, please. Leave the rest of us the fuck alone. I also love the rehash of some of the more stupid mini-gates (I hate that suffix, btw.) There's a reason this woman won't vote for Obama and it has nothing to with Prof. William Ayers being "the bomber" or Tony Rezko's legal problems that are completely unrelated to Obama.

Semi-lucid talking points. Emphasis on "semi":



To Mr. Voter-Rights: The "voter rights" you speak of were subject to the rules of the primary as set by the DNC and agreed to BY ALL OF THE CANDIDATES. When you reconcile that cognitive dissonance - the whole "set protocol vs. desired result" thing - we'll talk about what you really think this election "is about."

Personally, I think this lady is a Republican. Substantially the same ridiculous talking points, yet she appears unemotional or detached from the lunacy required to actually believe what she's saying (as evidenced by previous clips.) But in case she's not:



Srsly? The only argument these people can give that sounds remotely like it was concocted in reality is "OMFG COUNT TEH VOTES!!!" What I wish for is that these people stop looking for reasons to not vote for the "inadequate" darker skinned 'boy' and just vote for McCain. Get out of the progressive caucus (I say 'progressive' as I'm not a Democrat.) We don't need nor want you. The results of Saturday's Rules and By-laws Committee (RBC) meeting might have given Clinton a reason for her now-beyond-ridiculous campaign to continue, but it also announced that the Obama faction is now running the Democratic party.

It's over. Barring a catastrophe, Clinton is done. Not because Obama could plausibly capture enough delegates by Tuesday night to clinch the nomination. That would be nice if it happens. Rather, as the very fascinating hearing on Saturday demonstrated, Obama is continuously confirming his influence and diplomatic tact with the party "cogs." His endorsed proposal in the most contentious delegate fight, Michigan, won by a 2 to 1 margin. (18-9, I think?) Obama could have taken the true lawyerly and/or litigious way, like Clinton has, and went to that hearing with legal guns a-blazin' and easily destroy every single argument made by the Clinton camp to the RBC. Instead he held back, worked the politics angle and left the parsing to the desperate. A brilliant strategy that has 2/3 of the RBC in alignment with him. You think the people on the Credentials Committee for the Democratic convention haven't taken notice?

So let those losers run to McCain. They obviously don't believe in progressive causes enough to put aside their racism Obamerage™ long enough to realize they're supporting a continuation of the policies they purport to oppose by, taken at their word, the very act of being Democrats. Screw 'em. They are not needed to win the general election anyways. Toodles.

On the upside, however, these morons couldn't make a stronger and more visceral argument against direct democracy. (Something, these people apparently believe we live under. We don't, btw.) I guess I should thank them for that.

(h/t to Wonkette)

The War Prayer

Perhaps I'm lucky. One of the strongest tenants of the Catholic faith impressed upon me as a child was, as Ma' would say: "Would you like it if they did that to you?" (It's also a belief woven into Hindism, Islam, Buddhism and various other practices.) These weren't matters of devotion or adherence to a certain dogma, these were matters of the simple truths of human decency and humanity. Two Golden Rules (paraphrased):

• Love God
• Treat people the way you would like to be treated

Neither are impossible concepts to get your head around (even for people who debate the capitalization of the word "God.")

When praying for a win in the little league quarter-finals, you're also praying for a loss in the little league quarter-finals for the other team. Unacknowledged of course (or under-acknowledged, at best), and logically there has to be a winner and loser for there to be a competition. But why would you wish on someone that which you are praying to avoid, through prayer?

I'm not saying everyone should throw the game and let the other guy win (a misappropriation of another very important parable in the Bible.) What I'm saying is that calling on God in defense or praise of strategic competitive goals does not only contain easy to ignore negatives reactions, it is antithetical to the standards of the Golden Rules that were so generously preached and mostly observed by the people I feel lucky to call my family.

Wielding "God" as an ideological or tactical tool to gain a desired competitive result, be it a baseball win or war is indefensible. God's lessons are not about victory. The Bible taught me that Jesus cared not so much about leprosy as a disease, he cared about leprosy and how it affected the leper. The rest will follow.

That being said, courtesy of Mark Twain, this seems to be "going viral" and I think it's a good thing.



It reads just fine without the well conceived animation.

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

(h/t to slacktivist)

Oh, and btw, anyone hiring?

[UPDATE: BTW, I'm an athiest.]

Feel good hit of the summer. . .

It would warm the cockles of my dance-club-hating-heart to know this is making the rounds in the weekend roofie grind-fests that are American dance clubs.



Music courtesy of RevoLucian. Priceless.

Wow.

So, Presidential hopeful John McCain was thrown a 'social curveball' on Thursday.

[MARTY] PARRISH: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a cunt?[*]

Balls. (I'm not sure what it has to do with "mental health care," however.) If there is an award for the best question asked of a Presidential candidate this election cycle and this doesn't win, the fix is in. Maybe it was not the most appropriate question, but even that is somewhat debatable given the direction this current cycle is headed.

“This is about character,” Parrish said, when reached by telephone afterward. “And in a moment of intemperance, he called his wife the most despicable name a person can call a woman."

Yeah, that's a crowd-pleaser of a word if there ever was one. Either way, it takes a titanium pair to get up in front of mixed company and say that word, never mind in a question to a candidate for the highest office in this cursed land.

MCCAIN: Now, now. You don’t want to … Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.

Credit where credit is due: That's the one of the classiest non-denial denials I've heard in a long time considering the setting and the question posed to Mr. McCain.

Mr. Parrish, by the way, is a Baptist minister. Make whatever you want of that.

Of course, in our current police security state, Mr. Parrish was briefly detained and questioned by the Secret Service. I'll bet if he had used one of those cute illusory phrases or metaphors, only the tackiness would have been noticed and the Secret Service would not have even cared.




* For the love of Christ, do you think people could actually spell-out the explicative when it relates to the story? Nobody's mother is going to die a thousands deaths because you used (and correctly represented) the word "cunt" in your newspaper article or blog post. Highlighting a specific word that was uttered by someone is not the same as invoking that word in a pejorative fashion. Especially when said word is the whole fuckin' reason you wrote the Goddamn article/post in the first place. Nine out of ten times we're gonna know what you are talking about and actually seeing the letters in the proper sequence is not going to significantly change that fact.

Although, if you want to use the word "cunt" as an invective noun directed at a woman? Well, you're on your own with that.

With that in mind and somewhat without context:

Well that didn't take long. . .

Pictured above is a candidate for Federal office who's either the dumbest politician on the fuckin' planet or dumber than the aforesaid politician. I'm not sure which. Tony Zirkle is this guys name. He's a candidate in the Republican primary for the 2nd Congressional District in Indiana. This historically unaware candidate gave a speech at the National Socialist Workers Party's birthday celebration held in honor of Adolf Hitler's April 20th birthday. Let that sink in for moment. . .

When confronted with this he explained it away as such, "[t]his is a great opportunity for me to witness." (For the uninitiated, "to witness" is to profess your faith, love, trust and whatever else in Jesus to a group of people. I'm sure there may be more to it, but that's all I've ever walked away with.)

Zirkle was there to talk about porn. More specifically, pornography made by Jew's that victimizes Christian women. So I guess it makes sense to go in front of a group of people who were celebrating the birthday of the guy responsible for exterminating 1/3 of the Jews on the planet.

[I know this is dated, but I still shake my head in disbelief looking at that picture.]

Dear Senator Clinton,

You are becoming a parody of yourself. I won't ask you to stop, because it is not my place to do so. However, when you say this:

“Senator [Barack] Obama is a good man and he is a very talented and gifted man. But I think his comments were elitist and divisive. And the Democratic party has been unfortunately viewed by many people over the last decades as being elitist and out of touch. . . ”

Please do not turn around and weasel around like so:

After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services “is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.

“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said at a press conference held in a working class neighborhood here. “This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?”

Um. . . Can I try? Hey did you know I'm a bona fide professional musician. For real. What's that, you ask? Have I ever made a living as musician? I don't see how that is relevant, I've played trumpet before. Truthfully: I haven't picked up and played a trumpet since college and I am a musician (a pretty damn decent one, in my opinion,) but unfortunately I've never made a real living as one. . . yet.

Those last two sentences are so fucking priceless. You go to church? So? (see what I did there?) Hmm. . . where have a heard another politician use a potentially condescending™ dodge like that? Oh yeah, right here.

When this election campaign started (sometime during the late 80's, it seems,) I sat back and tried not to pick any candidate to declare, essentially to myself, my support for. The three candidates, I guess, I ranked the highest didn't make the final cut. But so goes politics. Even as it became a two person race, I tried to stay objective. But you more than helped make up my mind for me.

As an ex-Democrat, I feel no real loyalty to the party and should you somehow garner, by hook or crook, the nomination. I will not be voting for you. Ralph Nader says thank you. And, like him, I kind of wonder when the Democrats running for office will actually try to appeal to their base, ya know the almost half of the nation that considers itself progressive?

Meanwhile, keep wasting your time trying to prove your poor rural bona fides (start by hiding your tax returns.) Though I'm sure you must know that most of those people you are pandering to with guns and church mixed together wouldn't vote for you if you promised to water-board 'sand niggers' in the Rose Garden every Friday at 5 pm. Frankly, they're not that dumb. Bitter and/or mad? Sure. That dumb? Mostly likely not.

Hopefully, the base of the party (the people who attend the conventions and do the nominating) will come see you for what you really have become. A joke and a sad, pandering parody of former progressive who knows of no bus too small to throw her base under.

You're not being condescending, you're being outlandishly fake. (We're talking John-Boehner-crying fake.) Condescending, however? No. Just an insult to my intelligence.

Sincerely,
jack fate

40 Years Ago. . .

Without comment. . .

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....

Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother.

Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem -- or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
[...]
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!