See — Was That So Hard?

Is that the Bob Dole moment — the moment when Psychogeezer throws in the towel, and tries not to take down the party with him?

Or is it just a pause before the other Bob Dole moment, when Psychogeezer resumes throwing out Viagara to the mob so they don’t lose their stamina?

nojo: Unclear. The voice tells me, deep down, that he knows that it’s getting out of hand now and that all he has left is his reputation, and that if he engenders a hateful mob it will tarnish any honor he has left.

Whether he listens to that voice for the duration, or takes on those who would turn up the heat even further, remains to be seen. The spokesbots and strategists at the Geezerplex might go off on the old route almost immediately. Does he let them go in that case? At this point, he probably should — any claims about disarray in the management are probably beside the point. He’s got nothing to lose.

@chicago bureau:
@nojo:

He’s weakly trying for Dole (a), but I’m too cynical to believe it is anything other than another tactical swerve of the bus. Talibunny doesn’t have a shred of decency or sportsmanship in her, and she’s been off the leash for too long already. Remember, Geeze only jumped into this “He’s a terrorist!” fray in the last 48 hours. She’s a lifer, and has that 40-something stamina in her plus a base-building reputation to enhance for a future Senate campaign.

Oh, and everyone seems to have missed him saying “decent family man citizen“, as if that last qualifier really puts the kaibosh (sp?) on the Ay-rab moniker. Fuckin crone.

(Jamie Sommers here, working on a secondary account because WordPress hates me.)

I’m hoping this is not just a bump in Geezer’s road to hell and that he is actually turning back from the brink. He’s still my senator, fwiw, and god willing, he will remain so after Jan. 20. I don’t like him or agree with him much politically, but the one thing I could always count on was that he was better than Bush. If he keeps this up, he’s going to lose the last tiny shred of dignity left and (call me soft) I don’t want to see that.

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Welcome back, fellow prisoner cynic.

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Jamie!!! Another wandering cynic brought home! Praise!
No doubt you’re all watching not-Keef and heard that the Alaska Legislature’s investigation found that Talibunny did indeed “violate the public trust,” abused the power of her office, and acted in violation of state law in firing Monegan.
Bwahahaahahaha!!!

Re McCain vs the haters: I think it’s gotten out of his control to the point that Obama isn’t the only one whose safety should be of concern to the Secret Service. I could totally imagine one of the mouthbreathers trying to off him so their Sarah could take over (what would happen in that case BTW?).

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Bisous!

@Bionic Bee-yotch: WordPress hates everyone. I’ll get around to posting registration tips soon as I get around to everything else I’m putting off.

Meantime, drop me a line at nojo@stinque if you need help beating the crap out of the system.

And nice to see ya! I think we’re almost complete.

Running an organization that is having internal conflicts is disturbing, even frightening for an aware manager. Realizing that you’re leading a cult of genocidal maniacs must be kind of disconcerting even for a callow opportunist like Psychogeezer. Clearly, he must know by now that Palin would shoot, gut and dress him in a heartbeat and that letting her set the tenor of the campaign makes her the leading voice and likely to divert loyalty from him. He fighting for the control of his own campaign.

@FlyingChainSaw: Who knew that the Handmaid’s Tale would be written by an Alaskan puck-breeder?

@chicago bureau: He’s got nothing to lose, just like…Thelma and Louise. It’s just that I feel like I’m in the back of that monster truck and they’re about to put the hammer down and head off the cliff.

@nabisco: Of course, today’s apparent shift wouldn’t have anything to do with polls showing the Ayers attacks have been completely ineffective.

@nojo: They seem to be effective with the rabid drooling unecumbered-by-thought-processes contingent of teh US American voting public, which, I am sincerely afraid, because there are many in my fambly, will show up in a crazy convoy of ignorance to vote their gut feelings at the next polling station/truck stop. Also, ACORN is the new enemy.

(Sorry for all the commas.)

@FlyingChainSaw:

Or perhaps he’s just realizing that he was never in control of it in the first place….

@Pedonator: No shit.

Anyone expecting Sen. McCain to put his campaign on hold because of the death of his sister-in-law?

Cindy McCain’s half-sister

Me neither.

It’s hard to imagine what’s going on in McCain’s mind today. His political campaign has turned into something Mussolini would have appreciated, his running mate could face criminal charges any moment, his latest plan for the economy will only help people his age who don’t need the money in their IRAs, he’s becoming more unpopular every day, he’s lost his only shot in a presidential election, and now a relative just older than himself has passed away. Time to fold ‘em and walk away.

Someone on Mommy 1.0′s Jez post on this whole racism/murder crap raised a very horrifying frightening thought that is making me tear up, really bad:

I’m actually afraid for Michelle and the girls more than Obama himself at this point. I hope that the Secret Service understands that these are people who do not see those children as human beings, and would be as happy to murder them as they would be to murder their parents.

But mostly, I’m afraid for those of us who live in, let’s say…”contentious” areas…who have Obama car and/or yard paraphernalia. I plan to take mine down around 3 PM on November 4th. I believe that violence will be done to Obama supporters very soon, before election day, definitely, but the evening of November 4th, I believe they’re going to kill Obama supporters in some places.

I’m sorry y’all but I am really really really frightened for the girls and Michelle as well, probably more so than for Barack himself. Killing me as a supporter is secondary. McCain might be trying to refute this crap and stop it, but they have unleashed a monster which the saner folks in the GOP realize now that they have no control over.

@Pedonator: My 82 year old Mom was going on tonight about the crooked votes, yup, Fox is pushing the Acorn, election fraud thing hard. I think she might be older, born in 1922, or was it 24, she’s anywhere from 82 to 84. Still drives to work, which is good, but watches FoxNews, which is bad.

@rptrcub:

I’ve referenced it again and again to you all, but….

…what rough beast, it’s hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

This is a powder keg we are on, people….

@rptrcub: I bet Obama is more afraid for them too. Did y’all see Rachel tonight take on the “bomb Obama remark, bringing up the Birmingham church, the Jewish temple in Atlanta, and other civil rights era bombings? She was mad enough to bite a ten-penny nail in two.

It certainly is interesting that McCain would switch gears after his campaign was defending its attacks all day…

TPM post on McCain: 7:51 p.m.

TPM post on Troopergate: 8:42 p.m.

Head fake, anyone?

@nojo: There has been a storm of criticism from prominent, sane republicans. Violating the Reagan rule, never criticize a fellow republican, was it that? Or was he given reassurance from Bush, don’t worry, John, the October surprise is coming, trust us?

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Its the most amazing election year ever, never a dull moment. Economic crisis, polarization reaching the point of violence, a black president becoming an inevitability, wars and threats all over, there is more to come, of this I am sure, there is no doubt that there is an all-out effort going on to get Osama in Pakistan now, it could succeed, and if it does, there will be a spasm of terrorism, small, ad hoc stuff, but hey, it doesn’t take much to get the people in a frenzy again. We ain’t seen the half of it yet. Geezer could yet melt down and implode, physically or mentally, and the threat of assasination, the threat against Obama, is very very real. Yikes!

@rptrcub: oh fucking hell. We’ve had one yard sign and two car magnets stolen since March. Tomorrow I pick up a new yard sign. I’ve got younguns at home and live in the middle of Bitterz PA.

Please tell me that everything will be okay and that we’re actually safer than when I was dodging the sniper fire that Hilz never saw or when I worried about getting the shots from well water in the tropics.

Or that at least you Stinquers will raise holy he’ll if, you know, something happens.

(back to googling Snorg girl, who makes all things innocent and bright)

(all misspellings due to a combo of liquor, rage and the damned “smart” touchpad of my iTouch)

@Promnight: You touch on a theme I’ve been trying to find a way to articulate, but it’s too terrifying to put into a complete sentence: …polarized populace…economic catastrophe…backdrop of racists and/or anti-immigrant hatred…resentment against teh gheys who seem to make progress even in Republican judiciaries…years to immunize us against the prospect of perpetual war…pervasive surveillance…

…lasers targeted at individuals from space, guided by the latest GPS technology, which is integrated into the must-have technology for every first-world wannabe-playah who totes a cell-phone…

…scary audible clicks whenever you use your land-line to contact loved ones overseas…vast sections of desert surrounded by barbed-wire fence while nightmare panopticon atrocities rise from the sands…military brigades stationed ready to quell homeland riots…

…tin foil confiscated lest it be used to construct the millinery mode…

But hey, what could possibly go wrong? We do live in the best of all possible worlds.

Thanks y’all. It’s good to be back.

Not only will Rev Wright be brought back, but Faux News is already bringing back Louis fucking Farakkhan.

I’m so fucking pissed, I can’t think straight.

Saw RFK Jr tonight at a storefront Obama office in Santa Fe, his fourth stop of the day targeting heavily Hispanic areas of northern New Mexico but which drew mostly older middle aged white libs here. Almost all of the Hispanics there were Democratic party officials, candidates, office holders, or Richardson administration officials. The only other Indian at the event was wearing a sari.

RFK Jr sounds better in person than on the radio. “New Mexico has always been special to me. I chose it for my 5th grade project,” he said. Other good lines were about the immorality of our health care system and how the goodwill this nation built up over 230 years as seen by the world wide outpouring of support after 9/11 was squandered by Boosh. Kennedy had to run after less than 15 mins. Both he and his teen son Connor, whose hair and looks could get him a Disney Channel show, were in rumpled unpressed oxford shirts and narrow ties. Got a lot of groovy swag (Native Americans for Obama, Obamamos bumper stickers, and dropped a medium size check on Rep Udall’s wife for his Senate race. People still knew me which I was happy about.

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Hey, Jamie. Welcome to our new home. Complementary chips and salsa with your beer or margarita on Fridays.

@Promnight: Picked up a snub nosed Smith & Wesson .357 with custom grips, high viz sights (not quite “night sights”) and a slicked up trigger job after work today. It’s an over engineered piece of American heavy metal made in Springfield Mass USA. It’s a little big for four season concealed carry, so I’ll probably get a smaller carry piece sometime.

@Bionic Bee-yotch:
Welcome back.

As for the Faux Fux. Let’em froth at the mouth. They will end up looking like the Mumu wearing Gorgon played by lawyer Marvin Belli in the Star Trek (geek geek) episode “And the Children Shall Lead”.

Pretty till the kiddies start disobeying and the warts and icky shit start appearing on his face.

For most of us “thinkers” we already knew that but Joe Six Pack will start to see it Pretty soon, doesn’t matter how many brain dead big hootered blonds like Steve Douchey and Megan Kelly the pretteh Rupert hires. The stank of the ugly vicious lies remains.

@redmanlaw: I’m going to BE HQ here tomorrow. If they don’t have an “Obamanos” sticker I may need to send you an SASE so you can get us one for the lawn shrine.

@ManchuCandidate: Ooh that was the awesome send up of 60s Hippie idealism, my FAVORITE episode!

@ManchuCandidate: Ooh that was the awesome send up of 60s Hippie idealism, my FAVORITE episode!

ADD: wrong episode, I’m a baaad Trekkie

@nabisco: Drop me a line c/o redmanlaw@gmail.com. I’ll see what I can do.

@nabisco: Dude, you can’t even tell the difference between a hazy wart-encrusted spectre and a cauliflower-eared proto-Vin Diesel? Sheesh.

@nojo: Well, you can see how evolved my touch pad skills are while “interfacing” with WordPress – I can’t even edit my own damn comments! You can’t expect me to accurately access my brain stem for Trek episodes as well.
@redmanlaw: Thanks mucho. Let you know after I take the kids to HQ. M’ija wants to know if we’ll see Eagle himself, or at least get something pink (she’s five).

People, you do not need to go out and ARM yourselves. Your sharpest tools are your minds. Don’t lose them.

@rptrcub: I agree. I ran into a friend at a local comfort food place a couple of hours ago and we were talkng about this. Both of us got choked up even mentioning the girls.

We were talking about bullet proof vests but I like another commenter’s idea. Popemobiles for all of them!

@redmanlaw: Ah, margaritas! You know me too well. did the swag you got actually say “Native Americans for Obama”? Cuz the stuff I have says “First Americans” and I keep having to explain that shiz to people. ::sigh::

@nabisco: It’s OK — I do the same things with mine. I think wi-fi in bars may not be so grate, aktully.

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Glad to have you back, as well. What the hell does that dude have to do with Obama?

@nabisco: The Way to Eden. You shall get 10 minutes in the agony booth for your inaccuracies.

And another thing: If you’ve been harboring some secret desire to buy firearms but you’ve been afraid you’d lose your liberal street cred if you did, don’t use the economic crisis or the election as an excuse to do what you’ve always wanted to do. Just go buy a goddamned gun. But don’t lose respect for it and never forget what it is designed to do. It’s designed to punch holes in living things that are large enough to kill them. If that’s your bag, own up to it and be unrepentant, but this horrorsthebadguysarecomingtogetme hysteria is just that: hysteria. No one makes good decisions against that backdrop.

@JNOV: Perfect! Guns aren’t macho symbols. They’re not for “self-defense” or for defending your family or for protecting the stuff you’ve accumulated. Guns are tools designed for one and only one function – killing at a distance. Something people all over the world seem to be willing to live without.

@JNOV: To be honest, I prepare to arm myself with Molotov cocktails, knives purchased at the dollar store for hand-to-hand combat, cherry bombs, stinkbombs, bottle rockets and a BB gun (a single fire, pump action training Daisy rifle I still have from terrible, terrible days in the Cub Scouts). The gun thing is not a good idea for me personally, for obvs reasons (the rollercoaster we both share). I’ll let others have at it.

I also might see if the Acme catalog has some affordable catapults.

@rptrcub: Ha! When I was looking at the ACME catalog, I noticed that they didn’t have any of those portable holes. I’d just carry one around with me and throw it over the bad guy’s head. That’ll learn ‘em.

Those knives from the dollar store — for butter or meat?

I’ve x-rayed too many kids with BBs lodged in their faces and other places. And kids who have fallen out of supermarket shopping cart baskets. Don’t let you kids ride in the part for food, y’all.

Molotov cocktails? I’d blow off my hand.

Chainsaw on a chain? I’d cut off my head.

Catapult? I’d get my hair stuck in it somehow and snap my neck.

Gun? You know what I’d do with that.

@Dave H: Yes.

@JNOV: I’d say the meat knives, but butter knives can be thrown at people to momentarily stop them while they chase you, through the mere power of confusion.

@rptrcub: And I have laughed for the first time today. Or tomorrow. Since I woke up. Yeah.

So: on my way home from a concert tonight, I had this thought — what if the dialback today was totally staged? I mean, a woman at random is given a microphone and pops off about how Black Eagle’s an Arab? I’m not so sure that this wasn’t planned to make him look a hell of a lot better than the kooky wing of his base.

I don’t know. There’s a hockey game I Tivo’d that I have to watch. Night.

(Oh BTW: Jaime Sommers! Hey!)

@nabisco: Did you find that pic of the hiney in the green and white striped shorts?

@chicago bureau: It’s all staged. One big fucking Passion play.

@rptrcub: Borders has a book on making catapults. There’s a viking design that uses wooden poles/saplings, surgical tubing if I recall correctly, for what looks like a pretty decent long range rock thrower. My son and I built a small catapult that has about a 6 foot range, perfect for LR floor battles. Also, shuriken and throwing knives from martial arts catalogs.

@Bionic Bee-yotch: Native American.

@JNOV: You left out that they’re fun.

@redmanlaw: Yes. Purposefully.

@JNOV: For the first time in my life I am at the point of seriously considering a survival food cache. Now is that insane? Maybe, but you know, I would like to know that for a couple of hundred dollars I have a few months subsistence, even if I am hysterical. The gun, that I am also for the first time contemplating owning, its the same thing, its a contingency thing. I am not and never will be the kind who imagines needing a gun near my bed, in case bad guys are breaking in, thats insanity. Its part of a disaster kit, thats all. Is that so insane? As long our oour society is functional, I don’t think I will ever need a gun, but if it breaks down, I damn sure want one.

Even if the chances are still very slight, it would certainly be handy if ever, and even if its still highly highly unlikely, I do believe the possibility of widespread civil unrest and a breakdown of civil society in this country are higher than they have ever been.

And what about them makes them fun? The raw power of deadly force. It’s seductive. The pride in sighting your target and taking it down can’t be disputed. But a paper target is just a proxy. And some people think they’ll just wing or hobble the bad guy and spare his life. Not fucking likely. All I ask is that people take a real inventory of the attraction and accept it for what it is. Own that side of them that enjoys such sport. It’s a destructive side. It’s a murderous side, and we probably all have it in us. Taking that step to arm yourself just takes you one step closer to the goal. Hurt, maim, kill.

@Promnight: If our society does break down, you’d have better luck using that gun on yourself to save you from the angry horde (it won’t just be one person, will it?) who wishes you harm.

Here is a simple question, its in regard to the gun issue. You all have seen the batshit crazy people going out to the Palin rallies, and I think they are not McCain people, its Palin who has brought out teh crazy, you have seen them, they are filled with hate. They think democrats = socialists = terrorists = traitors. They really do believe that.

So, a simple question: Do you think these people would kill liberals, if they could if they thought there was sanction for it, if they thought it was justified, if they thought it was doing their patriotic duty, their mission from God?

They fucking damn sure would. They all dream of they day they can. Its their comforting fantasy. They dream of it.

I am not fucking exaggerating. They would. They hate us. They hate us so much they cannot control themselves, they lose control of their facial muscles and start spitting when they talk about us, liberal socialist unamerican traitors, these are not just epithets to these people, its what they believe in their hearts.

The sight of so many of them literally frothing at the mouth, so fucking many of them.

I want a gun.

@JNOV: The jews in Germany thought the same way.

Had a dream last night. It was a Fahrenheit451 dream. I’m walking around trying to decide which book I’ll become, when I see some guy walking slowly, reciting a book quietly. People keep coming up to him as they pass to kick him in the balls. Suddenly a woman in a turtleneck and boots kicks him in the balls, cracks him across the bridge of his nose, and pokes him in the eye, then walks on. I ask someone what is going on. They reply: “He decided to become Free to Choose. The woman in the turtleneck is Icelandic.”.

It’s like Y2K all over again. And what a letdown that was. I just knew that toilet paper would be the new currency, but I was too lazy to stock up.

If the angry horde comes to get us, think they’re coming unarmed? Looking for the fleeting pleasure of killing one or two before they descend on you?

It’s not going to happen. No one is going to come beat down your door, and a food cache is just good planning for natural disasters, so I totally support that.

But all this talk about home protection is not only crazy talk but it’s not feasible. If the future is a bad as you fear, like I said, use the gun on yourself when they come knocking, because there won’t be enough time or ammunition to keep you safe.

@Promnight: Yeah, I was wondering when that was coming. My response is the Holocaust still would have happened. Too many Nazis and not enough Jews. That’s where the whole concept of how shitty it can be to be a minority comes into play.

@Promnight: @JNOV: You just need:
1) Glass bottles.
2) Gasoline.
3) Tide powdered detergent.
4) Rags to use as wicks.
5) Reliable windproof lighter.
Shake mixture until it becomes gelatinous. Add wick, soaked in a little bit more gas. Light and throw.
Burn. Baby. Burn.
Oh, if you’ve got Mason Jars or those jars that storebought pasta sauce comes in, those are really nice. They hold alot, shatter easily, but are safer to wick and carry.

@JNOV: I am a life-long anti-gun fanatic. I never wanted one in my home, for any reason.

And yet I also believe they are ultimately weapons, things, artifices. Their power derives from the intent with which they are wielded. And I also truly believe that the 2nd amendment of the holy constitution was to provide for the common people not to be powerless against the armed thugs of their government.

I don’t want a gun in my urban townhouse, and I understand having one would be as likely to get me killed as not in any confrontation. But at this point, seeing the frothing rabid irrational completely un-founded-in-reality invective that attends these McCain/Palin rallies, I have to start thinking seriously about it.

But I would only get a gun if I were willing to invest lotsa time in safety/practice/sharpshooting education.

The earlier talk of photography (shooting I stand behind) had me thinking today as this site started too look like a negative of a Palin rally. They’re afraid of the black mooslims. We’re afraid of the uneducated mob. Just like the Founders. You know, when only landed white men could vote?

Fear should never be a motivating force to make serious decisions. Like who to vote for. Or what size ammunition is best for shooting a crazed racist in the face.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very upset by the past week’s events, and I am very fearful for my son’s safety in this world. But I have been since he was born, I just put it out of my mind because I refuse to be gripped by the fear and have it dictate my decisions. Inform them, yes. Dictate them, no. And I won’t go off half-cocked (heh) in some feeble attempt to protect myself or my son from a threat that historically is more of a danger to him than it is to me. Cooler heads must prevail.

Take Obama’s example. He has kept a level head throughout all the bullshit that has been hurled at him. If he can do it, so can I. I have Teh Hope™ even though I am afraid.

I’m afraid because I don’t know what the future holds, but I refuse to have that fear rule my life and force me to make (what would be for me) bad decisions. And probably futile ones. Owning a gun would only give me a false sense of safety and might cause a misstep based on that faulty thinking.

@Ewalda: Very Slow Citizen Kane Clap Clap Clap.

@Ewalda: Ha!

@Promnight: Two words: Timothy McVeigh. He was happy to kill 169 innocent people, including children, for his fucked up idea of patriotism. He went to his death proud of what he had done. One minute I was reading the morning paper in the law firm reception area, the next I was on the floor surrounded by broken glass. I have seen up close what that kind of hate can and will do.
I just take some solace in the idea that if you want to kill liberals in Orygun, you’re gonna go to Portland, not Mac. We’re too far from I-5.

@JNOV: Maybe the gun is just a symptom of a higher awareness, a distrust in the idea that “it can’t happen here.” Thats what happened in Germany, it was not that the jews were not armed, it was that they trusted that a civilized nation could never do what it did to them. They still trusted in civilization as they were rousted from their homes and loaded on trains, they trusted in civilization, they had a faith that in the 20th century, as bad as it looked, it could not possibly be that bad, that society could not allow what was happening to happen. They were like us liberals, watching our society and government become more and more dominated by a fundamentalist, intolerant, christian, downright fascist ideology, but still just hoping that the next election will turn it around, that our civil society will prevail.

Guess what, this election will not turn it around even if Obama wins. They will not accept it. These knuckle-draggers will be energized and full of rage, they will devote enormous energy to fighting in every way against what they are convinced will be a traitorous and illegitimate government, they will file lawsuits chalenging the vote, they will find support in the whackjob shithead judges Bush has been appointing, Obama will be stymied and resisted by the ideologues Bush has been shoving into the civil service ranks. Look what they did to Clinton.

Had the jews in Germany all armed themselves, well, it would not have allowed them to defeat the nazis coming for them, but just the fact that they had the idea that such measures might be necessary, would have been a sign that they also would not have been so trusting, it would not have been the same. And even if all it accomplished was to take some of the bastards with them as they were killed, well, you know what, thats a good thing. Go see Masada.

@Pedonator: I’m not even an anti-gun fanatic. I’m just saying call it what it is. You (the universal You) wanna gun? Just buy a fucking gun. But don’t think you’re (the Universal, yeah) protecting yourself against someone hell bent on fucking you up. Because if these people out to do us harm are as crazy as people fear, you can’t fight that. Save a bullet for yourself, because if society really does fall apart, it’s going to fall apart in unimaginable ways.

@Promnight: Thanks for the travel tip. I don’t need to see Masada to understand its import. Slaves in the US killed their children to save them from a life of slavery. Go see Beloved.

We all need to move to RML’s farm-ranch in northern New Mexico and make ourselves a small but sane little micro-society.

@JNOV: An article on the legal aftermath of a defensive shooting by Mossad Ayoob was one of the most sobering things Ive ever read. Promnight and others who are considering getting into this really should look it up. If anyone comes in my house tonight, they’ll be facing a nearsighted guy in a motorhead t-shirt and boxer shorts holding a flashlight and an ax handle with Mrs RML dialing the fuzz. The firearms are always locked up with the ammo kept separately.

And, Prom, we have 50 lbs of beans, 25 lbs of rice and water in the garage, firewood, kerosene lamps, and a little camp stove, plus the grill and a full bottle of gas.

/night

@JNOV: If its us against them I am not going to concede the upper hand, and although its not us against them in my mind, it clearly is in their minds. Toussaint whatsisname, I don’t know much history, but that guy, who led the only succesful slave rebellion, he didn’t kill his own children, he killed the masters.

@redmanlaw: Thats all I have in mind, RML, 50 pounds of rice, 50 pounds of beans, and what, 5 gallons of oil? Iodine to treat the water. Good for months. A couple of years ago you could do all that for $100, now its probably $250.

Sit through all 10 hrs of SHOAH. Take your mind off of our little troubles. Then walk around for an extended period of time afterwards hating all humans, for the unspeakable force lives somewhere in everyone. It’ll do you good.

@Promnight: Seriously, I don’t care if you go buy a gun. All I’m saying is you are fooling yourself if you really think that’s going to protect you from the dark days you envision.

I believe there were more slaves in Haiti than there were white people. I know there were more slaves than whites in Virginia at the time of the Second Constitutional Convention, and the whites were scared shitless of a rebellion. I’m not sure why this is germane to you having a gun, but just go buy one if it’ll make you feel better. But it shouldn’t.

@JNOV: You are right of course. I joke about making murder holes in the overhangs of my patio, but every approach to my home is fraught with giant windows, etc.

I know in my brain that if enough people want to get me, they will. But if it’s just a random thing, a lone christianist (for instance) thug and a few of his mouth-breathing cohorts, perhaps a gun could be useful. Probably not, but in times of trouble we reach for our guns, even if they are imaginary.

I seriously doubt that I will actually procure any firearms. But at this point I’m not going to rule it out completely, and I appreciate redmanlaw’s advice just in case.

Deterrence. The gun’s first and best purpose is to prevent the necessity of its use. We should form and highly publicize “liberal gun clubs”, get media coverage, of liberals at firing ranges firing off massive freakish weapons, just to put that idea out there.

@Promnight: Mobs are inchoate. It takes a cynical leader to focus their fear and resentment towards a target.

Nixon, Atwater and Rove worked for two generations to focus that resentment, and Palin is reaping the reward of their efforts. She is no dummy. She knows exactly what she’s doing, down to the wink.

Remove the focus, and you still have dangerous yahoos. But you don’t have organized dangerous yahoos. Big difference.

@Pedonator: I thought the murder holes were a good idea. ;-)

Someone mentioned the 2nd Am. The 2nd Am has to be read with the 3rd Am. We never had a standing army until the end of WWII, and all men of a certain age (even to this day) can be called to be in a militia. The 2nd Am wasn’t so people could protect themselves from the govt. It was so the govt didn’t have to supply the militia with guns. At least that’s one interpretation.

And remember, the Founders did fear a tyrannical govt, but they feared the unwashed masses just as much if not more. The Founders got so much right and got so much wrong. Out of fear. Don’t fall for the head fake.

I have to work tomorrow, so I really need to try to sleep. I’m all riled up, and the Klonopin just isn’t doing the trick. Trixes Stinquers.

Good night, hopefully.

@Promnight: Just like the death penalty.

@Promnight: “Deterrence”? Is your life disconnected segments, or are there, like, consequences for actions? I do believe that waving a gun around at someone invites later armed retaliation, and/or someone waiting until no one is home and then breaking in and stealing said gun.

It’s late. I’m out for tonight.
Peace.

@nojo: A friend of mine studies hate groups and extremists, and the biggest weapon they have now is the interwebz. Now a small cell of two or three people can hook up with The Christian Identity Movement miles and miles away and receive their marching orders. They are disorganized just enough to not pose a nationwide threat, but that changes every day.

I’m not saying there isn’t reason to fear, and I’ve admitted that I am gravely concerned about my child’s safety. All I’m saying is think before you act. We sound so much like the people at the Republican rallies it’s scary. At least to me. You gotta keep your wits about you or you will just be chum.

@Promnight: Don’t tell me deterrence worked so well for the Cold War. I think it only conditioned all of us to have nuclear nightmares and fear ultimate destruction at any moment, without any warning. I like the idea of liberals retaliating, but at least until the bombs start dropping, liberal rhetoric should be verbal, not pyrotechnical. When the rabid drooling mouthbreathing fundamentalists start planting burning crosses on our lawns, all bets are off.

@nojo: My fear is that, at Shelob’s direction or not, the dangerous yahoos are increasingly organized.

@JNOV: Shit, forgot all about Stormfront…

Still, if I may indulge in nuance, there’s a big difference when those attitudes are legitimized by major national candidates, their campaigns, and local officials who open rallies by sneering at Barry’s middle name. They are all complicit in some very ugly business, fanning the flames instead of dousing them.

We’ll always have Stormfront. We don’t need organized politicians courting them.

@nojo: Hear hear!

As the resident crazy around these parts, I’d like to submit that once a lunatic latches on to a lunaticy idea or plan or action, all bets are off. That’s why you have to be smarter and not necessarily stronger. I say dump mood stabilizers in the water supply. Everybody could use a little evening out.

@Pedonator: The Cold War has been so clouded by the hagiograpy of its conclusion, it’s hard to tell what worked anymore.

But without fact-checking myself, I think the hotline was installed after the Cuban Missile Crisis. And there were the nuke treaties that Reagan and Shrub chose to disregard, at our peril. And NATO, which circled the wagons in Europe.

There was also a general awareness among the ruling class that the world might blow up if they weren’t careful.

Deterrence? Certainly one of the pieces, but not the whole puzzle.

@nojo: I still believe the economic collapse of the Soviet Union (preceded by Reagan’s god-like shout of “Tear Down This Wall” of course) was the major reason “we won”. Bottom line, we outspent them, mostly militarily. And the 90′s in Russia (and Cuba) present a lesson for us on how to get on, grow our victory gardens, make the most of rat meat, etc.

And perhaps we can learn basic survival skills from our comrades…

@Pedonator: Rat meat? Think I’ll go back to my veg ways and turn my laundry room into a container garden with those lamps they use to grow weed. Not all of us are blessed with Sandy Eggo weather. *sniff* I miss it so.

@JNOV: Regarding the Psychology of Lunacy, just go back to those pro-Sarah boards when a few unpleasant details started drifting into consciousness. They were easily swatted away — redefined at the very moment of awareness.

So if someone wants to say that McCain can afford to dial back now because his work is done, no objections. You can’t stuff those emotions — that fear — back into the bottle.

But I’ll be happy if the ceasefire holds, although I don’t trust it until Palin starts shushing the crowd. As bad as it is now, three more weeks of it under these conditions would have had me expecting Kristallnacht at any moment.

@Pedonator: It’s not how “we won”, but how we survived long enough to get there — some 35 years of tension before Ronnie could spend the Russkies under the table. The real story of the Cold War is how we managed not to destroy ourselves.

And, while I’m in an apocalyptic mood, the real story of the financial collapse is the folly of unlimited growth — of which we’re only seeing a symptom. We’ve taken out a highly leveraged mortgage on the environment, and when that margin gets called, the Fed ain’t gonna make a fucking difference.

@nojo: Touche. And perhaps the Russkies will have the last (or penultimate last) laugh as we outspend ourselves now.

@nojo: Exactly what I’ve been saying for years. The only thing that grows indefinitely is a cancer, until it finally kills its host. Our economy is based on fundamentally unsound principles.

@Pedonator: Watch that Russkie laugh turn into a spit-take: oil prices are plummeting with the rest of the economy.

@Pedonator: Silent Creative Partner loves the line in the Matrix when Agent Smith calls humans a virus.

But yes: Fundamentally unsound, and aggressively ignorant. No need to go all Malthusian with the analysis, but, um, how are the water tables doing?

@nojo: Yes, but they still have way more oil and gas than we can possibly muster the investment to drill here, drill now. Drill wherever, but it’s a losing game. The cheap, easily processed oil is just about done.

@nojo: The water tables are still virtually untapped under parts of Paraguay…by coincidence the parts of Paraguay under which the Bush crime family and their Moonie cohorts have just established “ranches”.

@nojo: And of course all of us in Sandy Eggo are at the mercy of anyone who can pump obscene amounts of water into our desert metropolis.

…and the pumping of that water requires prodigious amounts of energy…

@Pedonator: One of the first things I did upon moving to California was read Cadillac Desert…

Okay, it was a Chinatown thing. But still.

Back to Doom: Reagan ushered in the Age of Denial in 1980, and we’ve been doing our best as a nation to ignore the obvious and inevitable since then. Adjustments wouldn’t be pleasant under the best of circumstances, but we make them that much harder the longer we put them off.

I’ve long since accepted that nothing will happen until we have no choice. By which time it will probably be too late.

@nojo: All of this started way before Reagan. It’s just a symptom of the larger economy which says you can get something for nothing, i.e., infinite growth. As long as there is an infinite supply of more suckers to come in at the bottom, i.e., digging the trenches and slapping together the concrete blocks of ever and bigger dams, the illusion can be maintained, and you can build a magnificent pyramid.

Just a diorama of what is happening on the larger scale in our great vaunted finance-fueled economy. I’m not a Paultard, really, but srsly when money stops representing anything of real physical value, what the fuck do you expect to happen?

@Pedonator: Gold has intrinsic value?

I get conflicted about Nixon over things like this, but he was right to let money float. Money is a language with no relation to the world — the value it represents is the value we collectively assign it. It’s not an abstraction of barter, it’s an intangible in itself.

But I don’t think that undercuts your broader point, and we’re seeing the collapse of perhaps the largest pyramid scheme in history — one caused not by the absence of a metallurgic correlative, but the very deliberate disabling of financial controls established in the 1930s for a reason. (And how ironic that those controls were intended to prevent another Great Depression…)

You’re right that the Gospel of Growth goes back much longer than 1980 — more like 1780, in that the United States was always predicated upon expansion. But I date the current manifestation to 1980 because that’s when we stopped trying to do something about it. We didn’t want to hear about limitations, we wanted Morning in America. We didn’t want to conserve the environment, we wanted to rape it.

Oh, and we wanted to beat the shit out of Iran. Ted Koppel made his career and literally his program counting the days “America” was “Held Hostage”. He neglected to count the days Iran had previously been held hostage by the Shah and Savak.

You could feel the wind shift that October of 1980. Americans desperately wanted a leader who would lie to them, and we’ve been stuck there ever since.

Huh. Interestingly, I ran across a couple spent .40 cal casings on the way home tonight. Kinda creeped me out, made me reconsider the gun question.

The problem is that, even with this thing in my hand, what am I gonna do? I’m fundamentally opposed to killing things. I avoid stepping on bugs if I can help it. I’m not gonna shoot a person. It’s stupid.

I still have the .22 rifle, and doubt I’ll get rid of it — it’d be a handy size for the coming apocalypse. It’d drop a squirrel like nobody’s business, and them’s good eatin’. And really, no one considers a .22 a threat, particularly in a bolt-action rifle. And to answer JNOV’s assertions: I own that .22 because I honestly enjoyed punching holes in paper at one point (although I pretty much stopped caring, and shooting, a few years ago).

The murderous side of me is there somewhere, but I’m not letting it out via firearms. It wants to go murderin’ people, it’s gonna have to do it the old-fashioned way, with fists and claws and teeth. That 50 year old rifle is a boondoggle, not a desire to perforate living beings.

ewalda,
you watched all 10 hours? at the holocaust museum in israel, they have video screens throughout showing ‘shoah’. i watched a few, was annoyed they didn’t give credit to speiberg. quite sobering.

my dad has been carrying a pearl handled .22 in his pocket forever.
let’s see, keys, wallet, gun…ok, i’m ready. it fell out of his pocket once at a restaurant and i asked if he always carries it. he said, this is new york city! wouldn’t leave home without it. everybody here is armed!

personally i prefer the policy of my island, no guns. period. the cops don’t have guns. now i’m headed to where unconcealed uzi’s are permitted. i’m for no guns for nobody. but i might change my mind living in jerusalem. the world isn’t fucked up, guns aren’t inherently fucked up. people are.

OK, reset the network here to run over Ethernet and listened closely to the Minnesota video a couple of times. (Wireless works but wiring into the router directly does given a noticeable boost to performance, like one and a half again as fast.) Anyway, the loudest applause I heard was the sequence (true after some booing) in which Psychogeezer entreated the crowd and the larger election participants to be respectful. I listened to the cat calls and, in a room that size, it sounded like about a couple of dozen loud fools at best. Yeah, a guy stood up and repeated Sarah’s last speech and said he was scared Obama would climb in through the window and eat his first child right through his wife’s belly but the loudest consensus response indicated overwhelming popular approval for a civil and moderate engagement of the candidates and their campaigns. Still, this is Minnesota. In Mississippi, they might have torn him apart for advocating niceness.

@Promnight: Teh Gheyz have them, and they’re called the Pink Pistols.

@baked: I watched every minute. It should be a part of every 6th-grade curriculum. One school week, 2hrs per day, with directed discussion afterwards. Every state should make it mandatory that home-schooled children must watch it upon reaching their 12th birthday.

@Ewalda: Home schooling is not bad per se, but its been embraced and is championed by the most foul and drooling christian nazi theocrats, and is now producing a narrow-minded, half educated, completely brainwashed army with a stated agenda of inflitrating government and society and creating a theocracy.

Once upon a time, the one thing that created the melting in out melting pot and taught people to accept those who are different, at least, even if, only half-succesfully, was the universally shared experience of public schooling. Home schooling is not evil, but its being used very succesfully by the evil to forward an evil agenda.

Meanwhile, homeschooled ubermensch Tim Tebow is driving the Tigers to school in the minivan of pain, and I cannot bring myself to hate him.

@Promnight: Close friends are homeschooling their kids, but I want my kids to experience the highs and lows of public school. We’re already talking about the injustices of the perks of being in fourth grade (languages, band, hot lunch choices).

Whoa, let me set the record straight:
I think that home schooling is the absolute worst thing that a parent can do to their child.
Let me make this clear: Home schooling is a very stupid thing to do, and absolutely no good comes of it.
Allow me to put a finer point on it: Anyone who home schools their children deserves to be publicly humiliated for producing the ignorant, twisted, useless sociopaths that are eventually going to bring an end to this country.
Any fucking questions?
There is no excuse for home schooling, unless you live in a hovel 300 miles from a public school.
You don’t like your public schools? Then raise the taxes to fix the motherfucker, stupid!
You think that schooling needs to be based on jeebus? You are a sick person, and your kids will hopefully murder you in your sleep.
Look: Your kids will live in a society where most of their age-peers will have gone to public school. They better learn to survive with the rabble early on, because you just ain’t nearly that priviledged to be able to insulate the young master and mistress from the real world, bitch.
Is that clear enough?
OK, one last point: Talk to anyone who is under 30 and educated in the public system, and ask them about the home-schooled people they know or have taken college classes with. Invariably, you will be told that the home-schooled are at a disadvantage academically and socially (I am wording this as kindly as I can).

I’m really worked up about this. C’mon, somebody at least let me know they read my comment. I’m sitting here all alone and I’m ready to punch a hole in the wall over the national nightmare known as home schooling.

@Ewalda: The only well-adjusted homeschooled kids I’ve come across were the kids of two physicians I met in Japan who had sold their practice, purchased round-the-world tickets and designed the curriculum around the countries they were visiting. I’m sure are others with good stories, I just don’t know them.

@Ewalda:
No you’re right. Only home schoolers I know of that do well are the ones whose parents are smarter and better than the teachers. Not many of those.

Sort of the same way one should never represent themselves in court as otherwise it’s the dumb teaching the dumb and that never works out well.

@nabisco: @ManchuCandidate: The thing is, no one knows what they don’t know. Why pass on your blind spots to your kids?
Now, the round-the-world learning excursion was definitely a good thing, as long not all of the schooling before and after was at home. Also, it seems to be what one could call an exceptional case. Actually, it must have been a wonderful experience. Too bad we all aren’t rich enough to do it.
Lots of us are smarter than most of our kids’ teachers. All that means is that you stay involved with your kid’s schoolwork and augment the teacher’s work with your own insights/knowledge.

I read it, and I agree for the most part. However, I don’t think fixing schools is as easy as just raising the taxes. In some areas it would take years to improve them even if there was more money. I don’t have friends who’ve resorted to home-schooling, but I do know people who converted to Catholicism strictly for the parochial schools. I’m glad I don’t have kids because I am horrified at what passes for education in American public schools today — they do nothing but teach those fucking tests. You don’t learn critical thinking skills being drilled for standardized tests. I’ve seen the results in the college freshman who’ve arrived at university incredibly unprepared. I knew more than they do when I was in the 8th grade. So while I can see the sociological disadvantages for doing so, I do feel some sympathy for people who want to give their kids a better ( and non-jeebusy) education and can’t afford a private school.

@Ewalda: I did, and it makes me want to pen something similar about single-sex education, particularly as it applies to females. I love love love Bryn Mawr, my Haverford education would not have been the same without it, my mom, aunt, and sister all went to Wellesley, and my grandma went to Mount Holyoke, but I just can’t get behind it, for myself or for any daughters I may have. As my sister has attested to, it doesn’t necessarily prepare you for co-ed work or social environments. And while the idea that female students are better off on their own, because male students are called upon more and dominate the conversation in co-ed classrooms, is not without merit, I’d much rather that girls and young women learn to assert themselves in the face of that adversity than simply sequester themselves. I’m not trying to say that home schooling and single-sex education are two sides of the same coin, because they most certainly are not, but both frustrate me a good deal.

@Mistress Cynica:
Need better trained teachers and a tougher curriculum, I think. Plus more science courses, emphasis on correct grammar plus phys ed and arts.

Also have to foster a love of reading and learning which I think go hand in hand. Hard to do with that tradition of anti-intellectualism.

I also wished they added one more year to HS. In Ontario we used to have Grade 13, but the Cons dumped it to make it more “efficient.” Now people take fewer electives and more specialized education when it should be more general. University should be more focused not high school.

@mellbell: I went to a women’s college, and I strongly believe in same sex education. It was so freeing, not to have men around. It was easier to focus, no one cared what they looked like or worried about what they said. It fostered lifelong friendships, and feelings of solidarity with other women that I didn’t see in coed environments. I didn’t find it difficult when I went on to a coed university or when I entered the workplace. If anything, I had more confidence in my ability to compete and to take the lead in situations. I think it depends on the individual–some people will do better in single-sex education, some won’t.

@Mistress Cynica: No kidding. DC is consistently at or near the top in terms of average spending per student as compared with the fifty states, and consistently near the bottom in terms of student achievement. (The literacy and reading comprehension rates for DC high schoolers literally make me cry.) Mayor Fenty, thankfully, recognizes that throwing money at the problem isn’t a winning solution, and is trying to shake things up, but it’s going to take much longer than his time in office to turn it around.

Thanks, everyone. As I mentioned the other day, I received a big bag of drug samples. Been trying Pristiq from the bag, semi-recreationally. So far, I’m not too pleased with it. This stuff really makes one manic. I appreciate everyone’s indulgence of my ranting.

i heart your ranting ewalda,
re home schooling. my daughter teach’s 7th grade physics to obnoxious ‘gifted’ children. they are bonobo’s. she is considering home schooling because of the cluster fuck she has experienced. private school administrators, you should all know, lie to parents about their kids to keep that tuition rolling in, and the last public school she left was some version of one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. 3 schools in a year and a half. she has 2 masters degrees and is trying unsuccessfuly to put some grain of knowledge into these bone heads. we’re so fucked.

and about SHOAH. besides the childrens memorial at the museum in israel, the shoah clips were the most moving. it’s one thing to see the artifacts, but quite something to see and listen to the stories of the actual survivors. usamerica has become the 4th reich. i agree with you. mandatory viewing. have you seen ‘operation paperclip’?
(rural american kids who previously never heard of the holocaust learn about it and make a difference, don’t miss it)

i wish someone would give me a large bag of drug samples, but i’m on the no fly list.

and a shout out to the mia dodgerblue, thought you were being observant for the holy days. saw the funniest sign in front of a synogogue. it said, “happy new year! please vote for the shvatza”

also, have we seen original andrew?
(hi bionic one!)

I can’t speak to the condition of public schools today, but they were still pretty damn good in the Eugene of my youth.

That’s when I first heard of “home-schooling.” Seems the Christian parents of my brother’s friends yanked their boys home because they feared the bad influence of the public system — in a town, and an area of town, about as gentle middle-class whitebread as you can imagine.

And that’s when I first heard the “socialization” objection — from my parents, who are as Decent Conventional American as Decent Conventional Americans get. They understood — and expressed clearly — that not only are public schools fine, but public schools offer benefits well beyond the classroom.

I don’t know what happened to my brother’s friends, so I can’t say whether they met amusingly ironic fates. But their parents were doing them no favor.