O Happy Day!

Everyone has heard the good news - the Affordable Care Act was upheld almost in it's entirety. Even that evil motherfucker John Roberts, while taking several pointed jabs at President Obama, voted to uphold. The beautiful sound of exploding melons was heard all over the wingnutosphere, with a couple of the champs being Demint; "I'm not actually named after Ayn" Rand "but I paw the pants puppet to John Galt" Paul; and teh Virgin Ben Shapiro.

However, there is equally bad news. Three other evil motherfuckers, "Fat Tony" Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Simple Sammy Alito, along with wishy-washy motherfucker Anthony Kennedy, a man who has never found an argument he'd accept the same way twice, made very clear that protection of the people is for pussies.

I said I'd return to this again and again. Russ Feingold is not running. We have Barack Obama. We can apply pressure to him, and can and have gotten a number of things done. One of them is not single-payer, but we're a step closer. We need to elect good liberals, the Graysons, the Darcy Burners, frakkin' Feingold, yes, but even moderate dems can be reasoned with and pushed.*

We get president Windsock Mitt, replacing as many as 4 (possible predicted retirements) Supreme Court Justices, and I guar-an-damn-tee that the most pleasant of any of them will be like Satan's less-well-tempered little brother. Willard and his crew believe in only one thing - they individually do not have enough money. Also, that magic underwear is cool. Oh, $77k per year spent on a horse that can marengue is pocket change but they still deserve a tax deduction for it. And the platoon of cabbage-headed sons that Ann front-pooped will never have to serve in an military unit tougher than the Boy Scouts. So, he believes in four things.  As long as said nominee promises to deliver on those lil' items, hypothetical Judge Lecter will have free rein to return the United States to our glory years, the 90's. The 1690's.

*THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO BLUE DOGS, who should be driven from public life with extreme prejudice.

Homophobia Is A Choice

At the suggestion of my wife, my sister-in-law and her sweetie got me this at MN Pride in (Loring Park over the weekend.)

C'mon, Minnesota, 

VOTE NO!!!!

on the MN-Homos-Make-Me-Feel-Funny-And-My-Wife-Gets-An-Odd-Look-On-Her-Face-And-I-Think-I-Need-A-Bigger-Truck Amendment. 

Don't Vote For Prejudice.

W00t!!1!!!Eleventy!!!

Saturday Night Redbox Fail

Hey all, sorry for the brief lack of posting but occasionally real life intrudes. Any rate...


Today's review is of a film called Joyful Noise.

This is a deep philosophical treatise on the world of competitive gospel singing, asking the questions we all ask, to wit:


a) Is Queen Latifah (or whatever she is called here) married?
2.) Is Queen Latifah pretty? (I'm inclined generally to say yes, and she can certainly sing.)
3.1415947). How much collagen can go into human lips before critical mass is achieved?
b.) Can Shiva the Destroyer of Worlds* create a bloodbath even he can't mop up? (I'm not sure about this one, I was tired and had been drinking. Squeezed real lemons, couple shots of stevia, carbonated water, and vodka. Very good and stuff!)


So, we had my dad up here for a fishing trip, and after a very successful day, and the consumption of piscine plentiness, we decided to relax with a movie. Sweetheart had stopped at Teh Redbox and picked up some movies, and as one of them was not Casablanca, we settled on the zombieless one to see with my dad, this musical Rocky, with robes and stuff. 


To digress briefly, Pookie and I have a bad record at Redbox, dreadful, foolish fluff, one after the other. This is all the fault of my honey, I am an innocent victim. 


(What's that babe? Yeah, sleeping bag is already in the garage. So, we're good? Yeah? Great, I'll start the grill...)


There is a church choir that competes in church choir competitions, led by the Queen and Dolly Parton, who at this point resembles Gandalf with a pair of wax lips inflated by an industrial compressor. With boobs.


(What happened, Dolly? She is very talented and was a very attractive woman, and it would have been something to see her gracefully age, I expect she would have been quite dignified. Instead she seems to want to look like Angelina Jolie, albeit with a better voice and as a better actress. Beside the point.)


So there is conflict, and dancing, and a character who kills men with a smile on their face, and romance, and cheaters, and twelve year olds, and blackmail, and half the cast of Law and Order shows up at one point or another. All of this spirals towards the expected ending, with more dancing, romance, and half of the tropes in the book. 


I give it a very enthusiastic "OW, MY BALLS!"






*Oh, and speaking of Shiva, has anyone else read The Destroyer - the several year/100+ volume Remo Williams pulp novels? Seriously woot!! They did a movie of that as well, Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins

which is not as woot, could certainly been better. However, Fred Ward was the perfect Remo, and Wilfred 'Diabeetus' Brimley was an ideal Harold Smith. Too damn bad the movie had issues. I mean, Joel Grey as Chiun? Why not Mickey Rooney as long as we are doing wildly inappropriate racial caricatures. Holy FSM.

A Little Light Lunchtime Linkage

I’ve been reminded of Milwaukee Summerfest recently, which made me think of Summerfest 1997 or 98. We had Collective Soul, on the ‘Collective Soul’ tour, and the Foo Fighters with ‘The Colour and The Shape’, on the same day, and overlapping times – fuck. It was hard to choose, in the end we chose Collective Soul. Now, clearly, the Foo fighters have been more successful, and they have earned it, still putting out amazing stuff, but I gotta say Collective Soul has been consistently very good for just as long, and the album ‘Collective Soul” still really holds up.



The shuffle widget on this music thingie later gave me Vans by Suicide Machines. I aint young no more but damned if it don’t make me try to boogie. Badly, I’m old, round, and crabby. But thrash nevertheless.



I’ve said before that I believe in everything – Bigfeets, ghosties, beasties, UFO’s, gnomes (see them everywhere!), Jersey Devils. Years of looking, but only rarely having any sort of personal experience, have not cooled my interest. One of the ways I keep informed is through podcasts.

On the way to work this morning I was listening to Beyond The Edge Radio podcast, made by Eric Altman of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society. This show featured author Dave Coleman and his book The Bigfoot Filmography.
I want this book, sounds great! (Sorta severely spendy for what it is, however.)

I know I’m a bit of an outlier, believing in cryptozoology and paranormal topics, but you have to admit that with (still) no mainstream consensus, Bigfoot has amazing cultural penetration. The Patterson-Gimlin film


has been referenced countless times. There’s The Six Million Man show from the 70’s with the lunchboxes, action figures, Lindsay Wagner (ok, I was a bit young for puberty, but she didn’t slow the onset any) – Andre The Giant played Bigfoot on at least 1 episode. The Legend of Boggy Creek, which is great and cheesy, or greated cheese. Asylum-style SyFy channel releases like Sasquatch Mountain (ugghhh!) with Tim Thomerson and Lance Henriksen. The fantastic Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie. (Which is hard to describe, and actually, Bigfoot is really only a unifying thread to the movie, a documentary, but it is really very good! I think it’s on Netflix. See it!)

At any rate, happy Sunday all! I’ll just stay at work for the rest of the day pppbbllfffttt!!!

Well Hell, If That's All It Takes To Be Rich And Powerful...

On today's Thom Hartmann show, he threw out a general question about corporate leaders and right wing politicians. The question being: Are sociopathic tendencies common, expected, or even required for success in the modern world of multinationals and corporations selling little more than paper and mindboggling financial 'instruments'. Certainly a lack of human empathy may be rewarded. And a corporation, for all of its supposed personhood, is by definition sociopathic, as making decisions based on the welfare of human beings is going to hurt the bottom line.


He then applied the question more specifically to Mitt Romney, who effortlessly throws out amazing whoppers, doubles down when he receives pushback, and then does a 180 the next day. We have always been at war with Eastasia. 





Rmoney has been certainly been rewarded beyond the dreams of most Amercians for having a talent in gutting companies and firing people for a maximum profit.


Concepts such as the noble lie (this is a great essay), and the Mormon White Horse Prophecy were mentioned, but neither Hartmann nor any callers mentioned two things I think might be a little illustrative.


a.) In 1978, the Mormon Church finally acknowledged that black people were, umm, you know, people. Mitt Romney was a full grown adult, and bishop in his church, when they finally came to that conclusion, after much prayer and realizing there was a whole 'nother continent to be converted and start tithing. To emphasize one more damn time, he had been raised to adulthood believing that racism was not merely just, but part of a divine plan.





2.) Mitt Romney has had family members, that he has known within his lifetime, who fled the United States for Mexico to retain the right to polygamous marriages. Specifically, multiple wives. None of that two husbands, London Bridge bullshit. Wives. "Har har har, not all of 'em can have a headache at the same time" wives. To emphasize one more damn time, they left the US to continue the tradition of treating women, literally, as cattle.*


Look, sociopath or not, regardless of his religion, Mitt Rmoney is dangerous. He has the wind-sock routine down and will do anything to get elected. His only core value is that he has no core values. Well, there are a couple, I guess. His boys will never be in the military, for one, and he himself doesn't have enough money, for a second. Oh, and dressage is a sport. Oh, and shooting public employees for sport should be in the Olympics. 


He doesn't come across as obviously twisted as Pres. George W. Footiepajamas. The Drooler was very clear in his vivid dreams of causing the Apocalypse and his Oedipal issues, and even now is persona non grata in teh Repug party - he was way too obvious. The election is gonna be scary, Willard can almost pass for human, and between the people who have short political memories because of little things like trying to survive and raise their children, and the Tea Partiers who long for the days of lynching, there are plenty of people willing to give me an ulcer.


President Obama has a tough row to hoe, especially given his tendency to fire up his base (ummm, theoretically, me) with health care reform, or DADT repeal, followed by infuriating his base (again, sort of me) with giving the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and Ben Nelson too much buy-in on health care reform or his never ending quest for a Grand Bargain on the budget with people who wouldn't let him into their country club. 


Given that Paul Krugman and Bernie Sanders are not on the ballot (I told you I'd come back to this), Imma vote for and work for President Obama for re-election. Not overjoyed about it, but he'll do for now, we have to hold his feet to the fire and prevent some of the more egregious stuff, but at least his first instinct is not to open Soylent Green factories. Willard 'Mitt' Romney is not an option.





Ah, fuck. Let's end on something fun, shall we?





*I'm actually not specifically knocking Mormons here, at least not anymore than I knock any other religion - they's all cuckoo.

The Fallout Begins

This is hardly a shock.


After Turdwaffle*, better known among the wingnut population as rising rock star Scott "teh Flunker" Walker, survived, through the grace of god and a number of $250,000 contributions; from Diane Hendricks, the richest woman in WI, worth a billion, and who paid zero taxes in 2010; The Koch Brothers, who didn't really stand to gain much, not really, ummm...; and other rich scum; there was gonna be an effect.


It started.


Architect of the Bush Budget Mitch Daniels declared, on the Sunday morning right-wing-pundit-o-rama, that public sector unions are the cause of all our ills. Someone said teh other day, (and I'd love to credit them, I just can't remember where,) that the WI voters decided that teachers and garbagemen are to blame for WI's economy being in hell.


The Stepford Candidate is gleefully rubbing his hands, salivating at the chance to end the American Social Contract once and for all. Fuck those poors. 


Are you kidding me?




*thanks ZRM!

Unexpected Finds - Due South

Sweetheart and I were shopping Friday. She was looking for useful shit, and I was chauffeuring, carrying, poking around.


(And still being bloody thrilled by the fact SHE'S HOME!)


In my role of poking around, I was looking at the DVD cheap-ass bin, $5 copies of Teh Little Mermoid, Snow White and The Seven Gnomes, Transformers - Rise Of The Fallen, garbage movies and knock-offs, sometimes you find something cool.


I found something cool!


All three DVD seasons* of Due South, five bucks each. Love this show, great characters, fun, action, fan-tas-tic soundtrack (Canadian stuff, Tragically Hip, Captain Tractor, Sarah McLaughlin, Stan Rogers, keerist they are good soundtracks).





There is a (fairly spendy) box collection that I was going to get (but luckily had not yet), but the transfers supposedly have technical problems. I've watched one full disk so far and sound quality and picture are excellent, and there do not to seem to be any soundtrack deletions/substitutions. Serious stroke of luck, for me, Imma thunkin!

*Two abbreviated seasons were put on one DVD because american TV networks are dumb.