Wonder why Republicans/Teabaggers/Conservatives are shitting the bed?  Well, there’s a black man in the White House, and the GOP’s white base is not pleased – they long for, and are receiving, a revised Southern Strategy from the GOP. And don’t forget – Nixon invented it, but their god perfected it:

On August 3, 1980, Ronald Reagan gave his first post-convention speech after being officially chosen as the Republicannominee for President of the United States at the Neshoba County Fair. The speech drew attention for his use of the phrase “states’ rights” at a place just a few miles from a town associated with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers. Reagan said, “I believe in states’ rights … I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment.” He went on to promise to “restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them”.^[2] The use of the phrase was seen by many as a tacit appeal to Southern white voters and a continuation of Richard Nixon‘s Southern Strategy, while some argued it merely reflected Reagan’s libertarian economic beliefs.

I got your Gipper right here, and he’s a racist. If you make your first campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, you admit as much.

Farting around on Wikipedia last night – did you know that Herb Alpert is a nice Jewish boy from Ellay? That none of the members of the Tijuana Brass is Mexican?  Neither did we.

Now that was just weird.

Another car you might (not) be able to buy – the Fisker Karma:

Jalopnik sez:

Fisker, the plug-in hybrid startup that’s won $828.7 million in government and private backing but delayed production of its Karma plug-in three times, has managed to assemble the first Karma commercial. If it’s on video, it must be real, right?

But we sez – wait until the price comes down a bit.

We have been reliably informed that the Iraq War is over but, as Atrios points out, we have left the usual contingent of troops behind. He decided to resurrect some old Richard Cohen, but we dug up some vintage Friedman (he of the 6 month moving deadline):

This column has argued throughout this debate that removing Saddam Hussein and helping Iraq replace his regime with a decent, accountable government that can serve as a model in the Middle East is worth doing — not because Iraq threatens us with its weapons, but because we are threatened by a collection of failing Arab-Muslim states, which churn out way too many young people who feel humiliated, voiceless and left behind. We have a real interest in partnering with them for change.

Read more »

So 2008, but I like it despite the fact that I am behind the times, big time:

Apparently, Duffy is very big in Europe – am I lame because this is the first I’ve heard of her?  What a voice …

I watched my Nana make them many times as a child, and as a young adult she let me make them under her supervision.  But like many grandmas, she never cooked from a recipe.  I wrote down what she did sometime in 1982, but that piece of paper is buried somewhere in my mom’s house. Nana died in 1984, so I had to suss it out, and here’s what I came up with:

Read more »