Boom

Who knew that an egotistical muscle head with delusions of grandeur could fail horribly in the real world?

It’s exactly like Last Action Hero, complete with fizkal dishastur for those who backed it.

“Hasta la vista, Ahny!”

Welcome to the third world, my Cali sisters and brothers!

The only comfort in all this is it will provide campaign fodder for years to come. The Republicans are now the party in California that caused your hometown to go belly-up. Dem candidates should beat that drum until their palms bleed.

TJ/ Missy Prejean (of Holy Boobalicious Burn in Hell Perez Hilton fame) has a book deal. The most shocking part for me, someone thinks she’s literate.

@ManchuCandidate: Who’s the publisher? Regnery?

@ManchuCandidate:

What’s the over/under on it being a coloring book?

@blogenfreude:
Of course. Who else is going to publish it.

@Tommmcatt Floats:
I’d say pretty good odds.

@ManchuCandidate: I swear, I had not checked:

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean has landed a book deal with Regnery Publishing. Entitled “Still Standing,” the book will be released in November 2009.

Fox News Commentator sez Taliban should kill hostage U.S. soldier already. W.T.F.

@SanFranLefty:
Ugh. The guy was a novelist and I liked his books. One of them was about a guy who fought to rescue his girlfriend from thugs…

@Tommmcatt Floats: He’ll be out of office in 2010 when the shit really hits the fan and it will be some Democrat’s problem to deal with — taking a page from the Bush game plan.

You shouldn’t feel bad; what’s happening in CA is a preview of what’s coming for our nation as a whole.

(hurl). Did you read the comments? (Recommendation: Don’t read the comments).

Oh fuck it, this one pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with America and the human race in general*.

*Does not apply to Canada and Western Europe.

They want to continue their liberal socialist spending ways, even if they can’t raise taxes, so the way they will do that is take money from the Cities and Counties, and of course the state workers. They need your money so they can continue to fund $80B of Health and social services, aid to illegals, and education.

Oh yes, obviously it’s all a massive commie plot to spend money on E-V-I-L endeavors like caring for the elderly, sick and disabled, while trying to build some kind of future by educating children, minorities and “illegals.” Those ungrateful little fuckfaces oughtta be glad that Jeebus Himself didn’t just assume the form of a white bull and bang their mothers just like his daddy, Zeus, did in the Olden Days. Money should only be spent on gawdly endeavors like trillion dollar wars and making billionaires even richer!! Embrace the psychopathic death cult called modern conservatism!!1!

These are the kinds of well-thought out, totally rational arguments we’re going to be hearing during the Great Implosion.

@blogenfreude: Entitled “Still Standing:How I learned to Balance This Enormous California Largesse,” the book will be released in November 2009.

Fixed.

@SanFranLefty: @Original Andrew: Two excellent examples of why my philosophy in life is “People suck.”

@Nabisco: Still Standing: How I learned to walk upright.

“They knew what they were getting into. I say, let ’em crash!”

Srsly: y’all do realize that state legislatures are the equivalent of short-season-A baseball, right?

I was basically an avid observer of Wisconsin state government for a couple of years, and it’s a wonder that the place didn’t fall in on itself. Illinois is just about there, for reasons that are all too obvious. And the braindead commentary you hear from teabaggers? A bunch of them are state legislators, completely in hock to and cribbing whole pages from one pressure group or another. (Flip it for leftish pressure groups for your Democratic pols. It works almost as well.)

State government is usually set up so that there are four or five people with wattage to the cottage. The rest of them are there purely for show, it seems, without the brainpower to do anything remotely useful — except to give chuckles to jaded, cynical types like me. And thus you get results like this.

@Mistress Cynica:

Read the Reagan necro-worshipping Seattle Times, and you’ll wish Caligutard had just pushed the button already.

Original Andrew: Speaking of noozpaperz — God, from looking at the S.F. Chronicle, it looks like they’ve dumbed it down a bunch in the wake of whatever fiscal turmoil they’re suffering. Yikes.

Let me just say that I’m glad my kids made it through public schools in California, and I feel sorry for the kids and teachers who are facing the financial disaster that Arnold, the showboating Repubs and the gutless Demos are allowing to occur.

SanFranLefty: You fail to see how it works. Half Bird, half brain. Simple, really. Even the Fox News airhead was trying to save it. Couldn’t do it, however.

Seriously — fuck that guy.

Ah-nuld tuh-minated ze economy. Not like it wouldn’t have happened to any other governor — he just happened to accelerate it. I’ve never seen a more useless state legislature — the Democrats without spine and the Republicans without brains, and the dance to get 2/3 for a budget that never worked each year.

The sad thing is that the state isn’t getting fixed any time soon.

@Original Andrew: You can’t ever read the comments on any California newspaper. Didn’t you know that it’s the illegal Messicans who are responsible for every ill in society? The scary thing is that now some Minutemen from San Diego and Orange County are collecting signatures for a state ballot initiative that would deny birth certificates or California residency to any child born to undocumented parents. Nevermind that pesky 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

@chicago bureau: I guess you’ve missed my bitching and moaning around here about my local fishwrap turning to shit and relying on twitter feeds and blogs by Getty trustafarian children, because Hearst Corp. is too idiotic to figure out how to revamp and instead they’re ruining what used to be one of the best papers in the country and an iconic paper in the West.

Here is my latest SF Chronicle rant: So Mr. SFL and I are off in the wild for four days, on Sunday afternoon when we get into cell phone range he turns on his iPhone. Checks the SacBee website to learn still no budget, and then we proceed to read on the pages for the San Jose Mercury-News, LA Times, Sac Bee and New Fucking York Times about a SF subway collision that happened on SATURDAY that injured 50 people. Not a peep on SFGate. If you can’t even get a story about mass-injury mass-transit accidents up on your website twenty-fucking-four hours after it happens, just shut down already.

@Signal to Noise:

It’s all gonna happen again next year, right?

Since it’s working so well in CA, the anti-tax wingnutz here in WA managed to get an intiative on the ballot that will permanently lock-in this year’s devastating budget cuts, so that we’ll have annual fiscal crises as well.

One thing that I’ve observed is that perhaps state legislators have done too good a job of protecting voters from the disastrous consequences of their own actions. Reading about the CA budget crisis, about how they took money from this or that program to pay for other programs the public wants in order to keep them afloat for decades, maybe we simply must have a massive crash for people to realize how destructive this insane greed, stupidity, irrationality and antipathy towards their fellow citizens really is. Cut taxes and prepare for class sizes to double, and so forth.

@SanFranLefty:

The Seattle Times should be gone by the end of the year, let’s hope, which will mean that we’ll be the first major American city without a daily newspaper after the P.I. went to online-only last year.

It’s sad and all, but the right-wing sewage pumped out daily by the Times does more harm than good. They sure do hate the liberals that live in the city they’re named after (and, ironically, wish to sell subscriptions to).

TJ: WHAT THE FUCK?!? WHAT THE FUCK?!? WHAT THE FUCK??!!?

Sorry. But when the headline of the story is: “House GOP Website Posts Video of Rep. Todd Tiahrt suggesting Obama’s mother wanted to abort him I sort of lose my shit.

@SanFranLefty:

You just knew there was gonna be a R-KS or a R-OK after that asswipe’s name, right?

@Original Andrew: essentially the initiative and proposition process spoiled voters into thinking shit didn’t cost anything, and the politicians encouraged it because it didn’t require them to have to make any difficult decisions.

@SanFranLefty: didn’t you get the memo? You can say whatever you want because the Prez is an “Other” now and child of a single momma.

@Original Andrew: @Signal to Noise: It’s not that I’m surprised he said it, but that the GOP is so fucking stupid as to feature it on their website. They have lost all touch with reality.

@SanFranLefty: I saw that, what, last Friday? Didn’t even merit a post; I’ve gotten so where my expectations of the GOP are so low it takes more than that. I am completely jaded.

@Original Andrew: Yep, gonna happen next year too. The state’s income is based on sales and income tax revenues, both of which are in the shitter. We have no oil severance tax, which is completely nuts. Our Gov takes care of the prison guards and leaves the rest to rot.

For those of you who follow such things, I can’t seem to stop ending my sentences with dangling modifiers and prepositions, and for that I wish to formally apologize for my (totally unintentional) Crimes Against Grammarians.

I haz teh Duh today.

Robert Reich has a fairly logical explanation on the upcoming failure of healthcare “reform” over at Salon. Turns out Obamacare may have more in common with the Wall Street bailouts in terms of keeping the bon temps rolling for industry fat cats. As long as our Congresscritters can be bought like a sack of groceries, we’re not going to get universal healthcare.

Jeebus, I need to get happy. I’m gonna get out and enjoy the glorious weather we’ve been having here in the PNW. The Mr. and I took the dogs to Point Defiance yesterday, which was simply stunning (and in Tacoma!). We actually ventured outside The 206 (!).

Palin and Prejean are the bookends to my boxes of masturbatory kleenex (3 ply and plsuh). I see bursts of stars! Quick(er) Pick(er) Up(pper).

@SanFranLefty: Barack should go down to the House chamber with a horsewhip and just fucking lay into him. Right there with the cameras running, and after, when he is lying there on the floor bloody and weeping for mercy, deliver this very short speach “You think you can go around insulting people’s mommas and not get a severe ass-whipping? You got a lot to learn about personal responsibility and the consequences of actions.”

At least challenge the motherfucker to a duel, the old formula, “Suh, I demand satisfaction.” Boy would shit his pants.

And California has a budget thanks to the Democrats rolling over and playing dead.

“The plan would reshape government in California, significantly scaling back many services that have been offered to residents — particularly the elderly and the poor — for years.”

The prison guard union is jumping for joy – billions slashed from education and children’s health care guarantees a fresh supply of prisoners in another 10 to 15 years. Did you know the California Department of Corrections and (ha!) Rehabilitation forecasts prison population and future construction needs based upon 3rd grade reading test scores?

Meanwhile, all but the comatose elderly and disabled just lost their in-home supportive services that come in to their homes to help cook meals and change their diapers.

Welcome to Third World America. California, always the leader, is just getting to Calcutta a little more quickly.

Spineless piece of shit Democratic “leaders” in the Legislature can kiss my liberal ass.

@Promnight: Well, and this assfuck was talking about the possibility of Barack being aborted as if it were a bad thing. I would have thought that the GOP would be thrilled.

/off to martini and Sunday NYT crossword

@Promnight: Tha Eagle should just go all Buzz Aldrin on his ass.

@redmanlaw: Obama can borrow my chainsaw. No comment necessary. He can just walk slowly into the House chamber with the fucking thing spinning and saunter over to Tiahrt, plunge it up into his balls and out of his filthy mouth before pulling it back, kicking Tiahrt’s quivering corpse over his desk and finishing him off by throttling the puppy up and burying it into him with a shrieking wine of the chainsaw’s engine. The AP photographers can capture the image of Omaba walking away from Tiahrt’s shredded body with the chainsaw sticking out of him, still idling and wafting exhaust into the House chamber. Any jury would burst into applause.

@FlyingChainSaw: Executive Privilege.

@FlyingChainSaw: Indeed this would be required. In my pickup basketball playing days, a remark like that about someone’s Momma would put you on the DL for a long, long time.

@SanFranLefty: Yep. Demos have the spine of the dead possum under my house.

@Dodgerblue: Your remark demeans dead possums.

@redmanlaw: Just wait. The Demos still need to vote on this thing, at which point they may stink worse than that poor possum did.

@Dodgerblue: The snails eating my cucumbers in my garden have more spine than the Dem “leaders” here.

@SanFranLefty: And, to bring this full circle, the possums in my neighborhood help keep the snail population under control.

@SanFranLefty: @Dodgerblue: SFL therefore needs to beat these assholes senseless with a cucumber.

@Dodgerblue: And now it gets interesting, El Ay County to sue State over seizure of local funds. I’m sure that the there will be many other counties joining in that suit.

@Promnight: Too much dialog. At that point, Obama should snap his neck so he can’t move, throw the shattered body over a desk, cut his trousers away and ass rape him before finally strangling him to death and staring him down, in stony silence, smiling in apparent rapture. Tossing aside the dead, twisted corpse, Obama could then turn to the Congress and ask, “Anyone have another mother joke?” The jury would be asking for autographs.

@redmanlaw: I just got a call from the Dead Possum Anti-Abuse Brigade. They’re not amused.

@FlyingChainSaw: I’m growing zucchinis the size of Louisville Sluggers in my garden this summer. One or two of those should do it.

@Dodgerblue: Stinque.com Zucchini Brigade led by Field Marshals SFL and Dodgerblue. Justasec. . . Cripes, it was Arnold on the phone, whimpering he will be good, just don’t let you two at him with the squash.

@FlyingChainSaw: We’ll need Californios Tommkatt, Nojo, StringBikiniTheory, Terri (damn, forgot her Stinque handle), maybe get Cynica down from Ecotopia (just get on the I-5, point it south and close your eyes) and we’ll have the Mission Impossible team, the impossible mission being beating some sense into Arnold.

@Dodgerblue:

Ooh, can I hold the lead pipe?

@SanFranLefty:

Nevermind that pesky 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The wingnut Bill of Rights ends after the 2nd Amendment and has the 1st crossed out with a magic marker.

@Dodgerblue: Ah-nould, fear us!

@Dodgerblue: @FlyingChainSaw: I think it would be vegetable abuse. Plus a waste of the tasty cucumbers in my garden.

And Dodger, you harvest the zucchinis before they get that big. They lose all taste when they get to the size of baseball bats.

@SanFranLefty:

Ooh, ooh, I have a great cucumber salad recipe if you want it.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Really? Give it to me. I normally slice them thin, toss with chunks of the heirloom tomatoes, and sprinkle rock salt and cracked black pepper on top.

Or I slice them up and put them in my martini.

all this talk of possum v. zucchini reminds me to Ask Stinque: what do you do with the carcass of a dead rabbit found on your property? State law talks about domestic animals and livestock, but not dead vermin (sorry, bun). Trash day is tomorrow, but I imagine that ain’t hinky with public health.

Looks like a suburban mower got to him/her, and the poor thing may have crawled into our lawn to expire. Ma Nabisco insisted that I scoop the thing up, entrails and all.

@Nabisco: No Bugs Bunny on the barbecue? Tastes just like chicken.

You could call animal control and check, but I’m pretty sure you pop him in the garbage the way you would with a dead squirrel.

And flippin would object to you calling a rabbit “vermin”

@Nabisco: Mail it to Rush Limbaugh.

@SanFranLefty: And flippin would object to you calling a rabbit “vermin” You’ll note that I apologized for that!

@FlyingChainSaw: Think I can get 3rd class postage, or would the entrail seepage piss off the postmaster?

@SanFranLefty:

Lotsa Sweet Visallia (sp?) Onions, sliced
Peeled Cucumbers, sliced thin
Grape Tomatoes, halved
Green, Red, And Yellow Peppers, Jullianed (sp?)
Capers and Caper Brine (to taste)

Toss with Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil, and Herbs de Provence

Top with Blue Cheese or Goat Cheese

Yum.

@Tommmcatt Floats: Vidalia and julienned. That sounds great. Can’t wait til we have tomatoes–maybe next week!

@Tommmcatt Floats: Om nom nom yes, that sounds so perfect for summer! We have one tiny green tomato and only flowers on the zucchini plants so no garden eating yet. I like just slicing the cucumbers half-moon and tossing with rice vinegar and dill, I could eat that by the bucketful.
@SanFranLefty: Careful, all the fat is in the skin, so if you’re grilling it you should marinade it first, or wrap in in bacon, or both!

@Mistress Cynica: I had spring early tomatoes ripening as of two weeks ago, then we got hit with some kind of blight. The leaves mossed over and are now yellowing and following off, I’ve harvested a couple of handfuls but I’m not convinced the plants are going to make it.

Jalapenos and habaneros are coming in nicely, though.

@Nabisco: Bury it where your dogs won’t dig it up, which may require rocks or lumber above the spot. Also, watch for fleas from the deceased. People here get plague and all kinds of nasty shot off dead rabbits. I heard someone talking about how rabbits around here carry (long name of something unpleasant that I can’t remember), so I’m kind of put off of rabbit hunting for now. Use gloves and watch for fever, chills and swollen lymph glands.

Fried rabbit and potatoes. Oh well . . . I still have to eat all my dead trout soon, anyway.

@SanFranLefty: I concur with brother Drinkyclown on wrapping small game (or wild turkey or dove breast) in bacon before tossing on the grill.

@redmanlaw:

By the way dude, how are you? How’s the family? Greetings to all from the Tommmcatt!

@Nabisco: Ooo peppers, I don’t think I can grow those well in the NW. Oh hey I looked up the USPS guidelines and all they’ll let you mail is bees and chicken.

“12.2.4 Bees and Poultry

Unless sent at the First-Class Mail or Priority Mail prices, special handling is required for parcels containing honeybees or baby poultry. Under 601.9.3.7, only queen honeybees may be shipped by aircraft. Check with your local Post Office for mailability prior to mailing honeybees other than queen honeybees at First-Class Mail or Priority Mail prices. “

There you go. Mail him bees!

@Tommmcatt Floats: I m enjoying the sound of a soft July evening rain through the open French door with a single malt at hand after a dinner of rib eyes, pasta salad, and calabacitas with a peppery Cali merlot. Mrs R and son are off at the mall helping the boy’s cousin score some cool skater shoes. You and the Mr should get yourselfs out here and we can hang. You guys might totally miss the opera this year, but there’s so much else to do, including sleeping in the hammock until cocktail hour.

@Tommmcatt Floats: That sounds yummy. I will try it. I got a great recipe for roasted tomato soup today at the Farmer’s Market (they had samples that were delish).

@drinkyclown: We can’t grow peppers in SF – the habanero and jalapeno plant shrivel and laugh at us.

@drinkyclown: Honey, you could wrap turds in bacon and they’d be tasty. Everything is better with bacon. I’m such a bad Jew.

All this talk of lead pipes, cucumbers and other vegetables is making me wonder whether this is all some elaborate double entendre I’m missing out on.

Just to be on the safe side … is the zucchini a shower or a grower?

ADD: Aha! Shriveling jalapenos. I knew it. They’ve been in the pool too long.

@drinkyclown: @SanFranLefty: I tried peppers last year, and they just looked sad and cold.The inability to grow them here probably explains why the natives have very different standards of what is “spicy hot” than I do.

@Jamie Sommers says take this job & shove it!: Shrinkage!

@Nabisco: See if you can find someone in a biological research lab to help you out. Toss the dead bunny in the minus -130 (C) freezer for a couple of hours, pack him up and send him off FedEx – which will take shipments of dry ice packages. The FedEx web annunciator will tell you when it arrives. Then you can call his show and ask how he likes his new rectal dildo and how it compares to Gingrich’s tongue.

I made veggie burgers today for my vegetarian customers, I looked at a few recipes, and found they are all over the place, so I felt free to experiment. Here is what I came up with:

Irish steel cut oats.
Barley
(these things, when cooked, have a slightly firm, but soft, texture similar to ground beef)
To thicken and form a pattie, chick pea flour.
Mashed black beans.
Some miso paste, for the umame, meaty flavor.
onions, garlic, parsely, and mushrooms, all processed to almost a paste.
White truffle oil, and a bit of toasted sesame oil.

The texture is exactly the same as ground beef. When fried, it forms a blackened caramelized surface exactly like grilled hamburger.

But I reject the idea of veggie burgers, I am going to make meatballs, and serve three dishes with them:

Vegetarian meatball sub, with marinara sauce.
Spaghettie with veggie meatballs
Pitas with veggie meatballs (my version of falafel) with cucumber-sour cream sauce and what, feta and sprouts?

@Promnight:

As a newly-minted veggie, I’ll have to give that a try. It sounds pretty good. Do you have porportions for the ingredients?

White truffle oil…mmmmm…

@Promnight: @Tommmcatt Floats: A question that came up this weekend around the family grill: “why do vegan/vegetarians insist on making or procuring food items that look like meat?”

I know that I don’t go looking for steaks that resemble lettuce leaves, so the question remains unanswerable for me.

@Nabisco:

I think it is an “ease of delivery” system. Most meat products are pretty contained, can be served on a bun, aren’t messy like casserole, etc. I have to say that I eat a lot of black beans and rice, and quinoa with beets. I’m pretty new at it, though. Maybe Ian has a better answer….

Oh my god, a whole thread about dead bunny disposal?? The horror, the horror…