A Gathering of Sociopaths

That photo, more than anything, showcases Prommie’s observation that Sarah is indeed Peggy Hill in appearance and in abilities outside the home.

“Deos Meos” as Peg would say.

Kill them, and then fuck their corpses.

I have been howling with laughter at the many stories and youtubes emanating from this Klavern of Batshittery. And the dumb, the overwhelming dumbness.

Perhaps an avant-garde theatre piece staged somewhere in the meat-packing district of Manhattan by a commune of Marxist lesbians? That should pretty much settle their hash. And I think – I’m not promising, mind – but I think it might be doable.

@Benedick: Maybe Move-on or somebody needs to run ads in their states showing their antics and records. Beat them bloody with their stupid.

Analysis of why New Mexico’s domestic partnership bill failed (hint: note the influence of foreign based special-interest group):

The Trend That Doesn’t End; NM Social Conservatives Triumph Again,

Political trends come and go, but New Mexico’s strain of social conservatism is not one of them. It has been with us since statehood and it asserted itself in 2009 in muscular fashion at the Roundhouse. A domestic partner bill–decried as a gateway to state sanctioned gay marriage– fell like a dead weight to the floor of the state Senate.

The lopsided 25 to 17 vote Thursday against the bill . . .was opposed by all R’s plus ten Democrats–all but one of them from outside the urban areas of ABQ, Santa Fe and Las Cruces.

Conservative coalitions have time and again kept liberals and their pet causes corralled in the big cities, stopping them from making inroads into the expansive swaths of our state where the deer, the antelope–and the roadrunners–play.

The only ABQ senator to oppose the partner measure was the west side’s Bernadette Sanchez . . . the stamp of the Catholic church was seen in her decision.

Northern Hispanic Catholics, evangelicals and Little Texas and southern conservatives came together to form a powerful lobby loudly heard by their senators. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. As New Mexican political trends go, that is the granddaddy of them all.

- from joemonahan.com

@redmanlaw: Damn foreign cults.

More indicators of the effectiveness of GOP rule:

WalMart Worker Immolates Self in Parking Lot [hat tip AARPrick]

Alabama Man Killed Over Chrysler Sebring Repossession

Adding a Joe the Plumber video to the bottom of post – he wants to smack or shoot select members of Congress. Priceless.

@blogenfreude: They let him in and asked him to talk. And they are looking for ways to regain the public’s respect. Wow, if there is an indicator of a civilization in decline, it’s this.

I say turn the base against them. With all the technological gizmoes and doohickeys out there, surely someone can doctor some photos, audiotapes and video showing these asswipes making fun of the fundies, rednecks, and other assorted assclowns that make up their base. How fun would that be!

Off topic, this sounds like a fun church:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/2009/02/26/20090226sr-realestate0227.html
/TJ

@blogenfreude: Yikes, that’s terrible. I can kinda understand the suicide though. I’d probably want to kill myself too if I worked for Walmart for 7 years. RIP stockboyman.

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: have a friend with a fine arts degree who is a dairy manager at a WalMart.

ADD: Now that you’re banned, do you have to wear a scarlet letter ‘B’ on thy garment?

ADD 2: But the stockboy gig is a proven career path to the NFL.

I can’t imagine anyone willingly burning themselves to death.

@redmanlaw: At least he’s management, such as. This guy was a 58 year old overnight stocker. I’m pretty sure that’s the lowest rung on Walmart’s low-price-made-in-China “totem” pole (not counting the undocumented janitorial contractors).

Yes and, in keeping with the latest style, the ‘B’ is backwards.

It’s only a path to the NFL if you’re a fundie Xtian and I’m guessing this guy was more of a Bhuddist, if his choice of suicide is any indication.

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: My friend is female, my oldest friend in the world, and is in Munich right now according to her FB update today. Her late mother was like my second mom.

@redmanlaw: sorry about the gender confusion. How’s your nephew?

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: Out of surgery yesterday and looking at the long road to recovery. Thanks to you and everyone for your concern.

redmanlaw: Good good good on the medical front.

blogenfreude: The Wal-Mart immolation happened in the West Suburbs. This comes on the heels of Wal-Mart wanting to open up more stores in Chicago (union resistance has prevented this, largely). Now then: the Trib’s reporting on this doesn’t give any hard clues as to motive, but his co-workers apparently thought he was a reasonably happy guy. Trouble at home is my first instinct — I’m not willing to put a body count on Wal-Mart. Yet.

Meanwhile, I wonder what the CPAC crew think about Norm Coleman’s lawyers right about now. Turns out they were withholding e-mails sent by said lawyers to a witness. The only real conclusion I can draw is that (a) Coleman et al knew that their bird was ready for glazing and (b) the only real result they could get was to drag the thing out as long as they could, ensure a FAIL at trial and go for the full appeal — intermediate level, State Supreme Court, and then the U.S. Supreme Court. And the Supremes would ditch D.C. at the end of June, meaning that oral argument (if any) would not be held until OCTOBER.

There. I’ve thought about this for five full minutes and come up with (what I believe to be) the definitive answer. Funny that the judges have not totally put the screws to Coleman’s lawyers by now. Transparent as Saran Wrap, these guys.

@redmanlaw: Good to hear!

Does it come as a surprise to anyone that Piyush the Wannabe made up his story about him and the sheriff the other night?

…

Yeah, me neither.

And now, another immolation, this time in Parliament Square. Iraq protest suspected, no details.

Memo to world: could we please stop with the setting ourselves on fire thing? And suicide, and thoughts of suicide, more generally. Seek help if required. Worked for me fantastically well. Thanks much.

In happier news — Item: Canada “turns back Russia bomber.” Score one for the RCAF!

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: If he was going to make shit up he should have gone for it. . .

The 17th Street levee was failing, everyone was hysterical, families were going drown unless someone did something. As governor I had to be ready to put my life on the line every day for Louisiana. I pulled out Sarah’s panty’s and wrapped them around my head and ran to the levee, swooning in her delicious aroma and raising a rip snorter of a hard-on. Turning the corner up Palmetto Street, I saw the breach and gasped when I saw the lady pushing the baby carriage right next to it. Leaping 60 yards in a single bound, I grabbed the lady and the carriage and threw them both into a National Guard helicopter hovering overhead and plunged my heroic pestorker into the levee breach, giving residents crucial time to escape the ensuing deluge.

Earlier suspicion that the Wal-Mart death had nothing to do with, you know, Wal-Mart is confirmed by family, as follows:

In an interview, his son said his father went to work last night with nothing seeming out of the ordinary. “This had nothing to do with the economy. I want to make that clear,” he said, adding that the family may never know the reason for the public suicide.

A store manager, who identified himself only as Erwin, had no explanation for the suicide. He said the man had not been laid off.

Here is one of the most amusing and pleasurable scientific studies I have read in forever: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html

The conclusion: Pigfucking family values conservative churchgoers are addicted to the Pron. The number one state for consumption of internet pron? UTAH. Eight of the top ten pron-cosuming states voted for McCain! Churchies seem to give up the pron on Sundays, what with God watching and all, but make up for it the rest of the week! Laugh after laugh.

@Prommie:
I’m more curious as to what kind of pron they watch.

T/J: not pron, but good old fashioned lust: here’s the official photo of the only FLILF: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/michelle-obama-official-p_n_170601.html

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: No.

@ManchuCandidate: 1:57 of taking off the magic underwear, 3 minutes of actual sex.

@chicago bureau: Canada turns back Russia bomber.
And just where the hell was Talibunny, I’d like to know. Isn’t she and she alone supposed to be the first line of defense when Putin rears his head, such as?? Must’ve been too busy shopping at Nordstroms on the RNC’s dime in preparation for this DC thing. Or just enjoying her Oxycotin “care package” from Bristol’s ma-in-law-to-be.

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: I was more surprised that Obama’s non-SOTU shout-outs included a mention of that town in Kansas destroyed by a tornado. You know, the one whose death toll he accidentally magnified by a factor of one thousand. Would’ve thought that his speechwriters would clear steer of that. Oh well.

@chicago bureau: Can you believe they’re still using those prop-driven Tupelov Bear bombers? And maybe horse-drawn artillery? Tall hats with plumes on the officers? I think that dodger could tell you whether it’s still true that the only place you can get vacuum tubes for vintage guitar amps is the Motherland.

@redmanlaw: I have seen old tubes on ebay for lots of money.

Are like reporters (I know that’s a broad term) invited to this thing? I mean, here they have a perfect opportunity to ask the guy if he stopped beating his wife. Or if he has taken up beating any new women in his life.

http://apps.co.lucas.oh.us/onlinedockets/DocketDR.aspx?STYPE=1&PAR=DR19970476&STARTDATE=01/01/1900&ENDDATE=01/01/2100&PARTY=D

@FlyingChainSaw: Surely you have a press pass in that international spy kit of yours, right? Get on that!

@flippin eck: I like to envision him as Jim Rockford with a set of blanks in the passenger seat.

@FlyingChainSaw: and all without Viagra! Then David Vitter came in and tidied up the flooded ward with a case of Pampers he just happened to have handy.

@flippin eck: Just don’t use the one from the Rocky Mountain News. Maybe Spy magazine.

@FlyingChainSaw: When Rush Limbaugh calls Bobby Jindal “the next Ronald Reagan,” he surely means his dramatic capacity for creating stories and then believing them. Poo, I tell you, fling poo!

Someone needs to infiltrate that CPAC craziness–apparently the tone there is on par with the Repub convention. This morning, John Bristle Brush Bolton got big gaffaws by talking about Iran incinerating Chicago.

@Dodgerblue: Gawd dayum! Her hotness nearly melted my computer.
[And on a side note, I am loving those chairs in the background.]

@flippin eck:
I guess he hates the Chicago School of Economics and the Cubs too…

Seriously, Bolton’s too much of a wussy to do anything. If he acted the way he spoke then he’d be the CO of Delta Force.

@flippin eck: Its more like a Palin rally; the convention, at least those people are in politics, even if they are crazy. These people are civilians, the kind of civilians who come to rallies, and if they weren’t all total failures with no jobs or money, would be going on the National Review cruise; in other words, complete, utter nutjobs.

I understand that thus far, Bolton joked about a nuclear bomb destroying Chicago, to great cheering, Joe Da Plumber said that if he were in Congress he would get in trouble on account of he would shoot the liberals in Congress, Alan Keyes is encouraging US military members to revolt against their illegitimate commander in chief, and Michelle Bachmann went completely off the deep end in her excitement about the Hip-Hop shizzle stuff that Steele has going on and started screeching at him “you be da man.” Also. Its all great fun indeed.

Really, is it wrong to call these people “pigfuckers?” Drooling mouth-breathers? Inbred cretinous hicks? Fucktards?

I don’t think so. They are so much worse than all those things, really, the only wrong in using those epithets is that its an insult to pigfuckers. Such as.

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: The ones from the Stevie Wonder concert are even hotter. She looks incredible in green, and the hair, my god, I’m swooning here.

@flippin eck: That would get me in. As soon as I asked a relevant question – why the fuck should anyone listen to a wife beater? – I know I’d not make it out, once they parsed my only editorial credential was Stinque.com. Then again, they let website representatives into press conferences these days. . . Hmmm.

@Jamie Sommers is unfairly harsh!: The Vitter angle is intriguing and, in the best GOP traditions, frightfully twisted.

@ragingmonk: The party has devolved into a freak show. The Terminator. The gun-totin’ country mom, The Psychogeezer, Joe the Wife Beater. It’s like they picked their candidates from the pages of a comic book authored by Rod Serling.

@mellbell: No shit–she looked stunning.

@mellbell: That emerald looked amazing on her and she should always wear her hair like that. She looked about 10 years younger.

@Dodgerblue: Perfect. The little black dress (by Kors) contrasting with the pearl choker and the white lilies. Just perfection. *sigh*
As a bonus: no Laura cray-zee eyes and rictus smile.

T/J. I went outside this afternoon and I could smell dirt. You know what that means? Winter is over. This is almost my favorite day of the year – the end of winter day.

In other words, winter is over here in god’s country. Woo hoo!

You may all now return to Palin… Jindal… Steele… Limbaugh… Face it: the world was a better place before we heard of these ‘people’.

@Benedick: Winter struck back in Chicago today with icy, windy horrible vengeance. Please send some dirt smell our way.

@Benedick: You’re right about the world being a better place before we heard of these people. Sometimes I fear we spend so much time bashing on these people promoting an ideology we disagree with that we risk turning into left-wing Know-Nothing reactionaries ourselves.

Right now we have a president and a Congress showing signs of moving toward a much more progressive style of government (universal health care and a progressive income tax for God’s sake) than any of us living in the US have ever seen. It took a total breakdown of business as usual to reach this point but here we are.

Instead of being vocal in our support for something; anything specific we’re carrying on about Jindal and Palin and Steele as if they really mattered right now. These people are not George W Bush or Dick Cheney during the last eight years. They have zero authority at the national level. All they and the corporate media can do right now is distract progressives to keep us from changing this nation into something vastly different from the USA Inc. of the past 30 years.

If this experiment in dare I call it LIBERAL government succeeds it won’t matter what conservatives say or do for the next four years. People will know who was president and Obama and a solid Democratic majority in Congress will be reelected in a landslide.

@FlyingChainSaw: Yup. Or Amazing Stories by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Marvel). c.1960.

Further TJ/ Just got my copy of Spy: The Funny Years, and what a deee-lite! I’d forgotten about that issue when they infiltrated Bohemian Grove, and there it is, mentioned as the best issue evah!

I just may stay up with some Old Milwaukee and cheap blow and read through the whole thing tonight. Then turn on MTV and wait for 120 minutes (Sunday night, right?)!

Nojo, make sure you spend that $1.14 kickback on something good, like a fifth a pack of Camel lights smoked with me in mind.

@Dave H: But they’re soooo much fun to mock, especially when they’re not in power. And frankly, I don’t know what to support, I don’t know if there’s any way out of this quagmire, so I’d rather just exit laughing. And yes, I am that shallow.

@redmanlaw: The Chinese make some too. There are a buncha sources for “new old stock” U.S. and British tubes (or “valves” as they are charmingly called across the pond) for considerable sums of money, but you’ve got to be careful that they are really unused and not “pulls” from some old piece of junked equipment. As in many areas of life, you need to know your dealer.

@Benedick: YES! You can smell spring. The sense of smell is the most evocative sense, for me, at least, the memory of smells is strong, my horrible poetry is filled with descriptions of the smells surrounding events and scenes. Yes, the smell of dirt is the smell of spring, and the smell of the skunkweed in the swamps, the first green to erupt, and the smell of last fall’s leaf-fall starting to compost again after being interrupted by the cold. And the smell of dead skunks on the road, as they start to stir and search for mates, they get run over, their are dead skunks everywhere, this year is the year that I realized that the smell of skunk is another of the smells of spring.

@nabisco: Letters to the Editor of the New Yorker, that one tickled me, I had forgotten about it, Spy solicited and ran letters to the editor of the New Yorker, thats funny. Spy played a big role in creating this worldview we share, bemused superiority and cynicism, but still, with hope, tempered hope.

A total TJ, but here is Sterling Hayden on life, happiness and life:

From Sterling Hayden:

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. “I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

@Dave H: Oh I couldn’t agree more. As I post here from time to time to time let’s not ever forget why we love this nation. Don’t let’s forget what’s wonderful here. The open, generous, optimism of the US. Maybe it takes a first generation immigrant like me to really appreciate it. Let me tell you, when I came here on parole (don’t ask) the INS officers were fantastic! They did everything an expensive lawyer might have done and did it gladly because they reckoned it was their duty as citizens. Of course President Obama isn’t everything every one of us wants him to be RIGHT NOW but look how much is going on, quietly, carefully. He is the real deal. He knows what he’s doing. He’s never been a liberal. I don’t care what he thinks about gay marriage. I just know I want to have his children and that bitch better back the fuck off.

@Benedick: Beautiful. This may sound insane, but just the fear of what is happening has had an effect on the people of this country, and just the prospect of hardship has people talking in a different way, lately, that I have sensed in ways impossible to distill into scientific data, no, its a conviction like that of reader who just senses, sees, the mind of the writer through the words and truly understands a difficult meaning that baffles others. The US, which has been caught up in a zietgeist of greed and I got mine and “devil take the hindmost,” I think is moving back to a more “charitable” general worldview. Just the prospect of hardship has made this happen. So many people who never ever thought of it before, have been forced, like a dog being forced to confront his shit on the rug, they have been forced to confront the real chance that they themselves, they might just find themselves, for reasons beyond their control, FUCKING POOR. And that kinda makes you wake up. Benedick, stephen, yes, I am seeing some of that american spirit of legend, that has been so scarce lately, returning, quietly, in personal interactions with people, in conversations, its not in the media or in politics yet, but, I see it in people.

We elected a black president, Benedick, that is so utterly overwhelming to me, and he is a fucking stock character HERO. Race is this country’s greatest shame, we are second only to South Africa in our history of racism and oppression, so schizophrenic, as we also truly also have been committed to freedom and deomocracy. And we overcame it a hundred years before I ever thought we would and we elected not just a black man, but an incredibly smart and competent and funny and handsome and strong and, well, he is a hero, he will go down in history as a huge figure, no doubt in my mind.

So I has hope, even though I am also convinced we are looking at a catastrophic, millenial crisis that could truly set civilization back, maybe not centuries, but so much progress has been made in only the last 60 years that if we only ceded that much ground, it would be a catatstrophe.

@Benedick: The bulbs are popping up, lilacs budding up, weeds and plants are greening up. I saw my first bee yesterday. Runners are wearing shorts and tank tops. We’ll be cleaning irrigation ditches soon.

@Benedick: We do believe in this country and what it stands for, when you get down to it. We also love to mok those who are getting in the way of creating a more perfect union to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

@Promnight: Darling one, yes we did. We elected a black president. And he can even say the word president. And he’s graceful and enormously erudite and skillful. Look how he brought down the Swampsow when even George Will said he couldn’t do it.

The difference between the US and SA is that they had a Truth and Reconciliation. We just had Jim Crow. But we will get through it. I can’t believe in zombie flesh eating cannibals because that is just not going to cut it on date night. We will overcome.

@Benedick: Yes we shall.

@redmanlaw: Lucky lucky you. Wearing shorts. The costume of my people. With perhaps a wifebeater. Winter is life in exile. On account of one’s knees turn blue. I was in the liquor store buying… liquor for… a friend… And anyhoo I told the lady there, as might one neighbor leaning over the fence to another here in small-town America, that I planted 1,000 bulbs last fall. To which she replied “Hope the damn sqirlz din get em.” Bitch. But it is about to be spring. The buds on the weeping cherry are swelling like 13 year old boys with their father’s Playboy. There will be daffodils and lilacs soon. And tree frogs and cicadas. But what I love most is the way the hillsides here go cherry red when the buds get ready to pop. I can’t wait to see what’s going to extrude itself from the ground this spring because I haz Hope.

Plus, it is our duty as patriots to mock those who would diminish the republic. I love this stupid fucking retardo place.

@Dave H: We really need to get you and SBT into the same thread so you can hash it out.

Me, I’m not ready to throw in my lot with Barry just yet, and if I were, I’d probably gush over at ThinkProgress. But for every two or three appealing moves he makes, there’s a move that makes me cock my head and wonder what the hell he’s up to. (Keeping an eye on that 10 percent swing vote is the usual answer.)

However, I think I’m going to disagree that we’re paying too much attention to irrelevant sideshows, and being insufficiently critical or supportive of the Main Event. (Bearing in mind that we don’t exactly have daily story conferences…)

These idiots are dangerous. They are a threat to our nation, a threat to our well-being, and a threat to democracy. They aren’t cranks we can safely ignore. They have held or influenced power for a generation, and they have and continue to cause great harm.

Comparisons to FDR and the Depression are inevitable these days, but here’s an angle I have yet to hear: Not only did FDR make America safe for capitalism, he also saved the country from fascism. Before Hitler was the Devil, he was dangerously appealing to a significant number of Americans. Mussolini made the trains run on time. People cried for authority, a Strong Hand. Opposition to Uncle Joe was just a matter of taste.

Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal and their cohorts are advocates for Theocracy With a Human Face. Their followers are starting to openly call for violent overthrow. They won’t get it, but they may bomb a federal building along the way. We’re not free of them yet. Human nature didn’t change on or about November 4, 2008.

So, no apologies for “irrelevant” posts. We used to dismiss Reagan as a third-rate actor, and look where that got us.

(And golly, what’s playing on TCM right now? All the King’s Men…)

@nojo: Yeah, I also think they are an evil that must be opposed, everywhere, in every way possible, and ridicule is the death knell. When our ridicule becomes mainstream ridicule, then we will have hurt them, and its happening.

No, its a positive moral act to point them out and ridicule them.

Another friend of mine has work in performance in Californina:

http://www.davidamram.com/classical_reviews/three_songs_concerto_1.php