ScaramoucheBlog

Politics, Sex, Religion, and all those impolite Human Conversations...

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Location: Oaksterdam, California

Friday, January 27, 2006

Guaranteed to Kill Rodents of Unusual Size

The best 'Snark on Coulter' of the year comes from Scorpio:
Ann Coulter is at it again. She suggested today that Justice Stevens should be poisoned via a creme brulee.

She picks an odd way to tell everyone she's lactating.

I know it's early in the year but I doubt anyone will top that.

Deny Bush His Magic Moment

Via Susie Madrak, I see that Attytood saved me the trouble of writing about how the Democrats should filibuster the Alito nomination before Bush's State of the Union Address.

That sure would change the dynamic of all the pundit's post morterm post partem analysis of the delvery of another giant speech turd.

I yearn to see them pull this off: simple plan:
Nobody asked us, but if Harry Reid had a true flare for politics -- and for the dramatic -- he would try to convince his 43 other members, in the name of party unity, to filibuster Alito...for exactly one day. Why? Because Tuesday night will be the one night in the first half of 2006 when regular folks may actually watch a political event on television.

How dramatic would it be for the big anchors to start their broadcasts at 9 p.m. with the news that Democrats had banded together -- for 24 hours, in the spirit of Jefferson Smith -- to tell America what they really think of Alito, that he will tip the scales on the High Court for big business and big government against the little guy.


I say don't stop at a day - filibuster the fuck out of this nomination.

Here's a talking point, "Alito thinks Bush can do no wrong and a women has no rights!"

Weekender

I see I have become one of those dreaded weekend bloggers. Boy, does that suck.

But not as much as dial up, and sure as hell not as much as Earthlink!

I should have the DSL back on in a week or two.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Russert, Obama, and Belafonte

Walk into a bar, and Russert asks if it was appropiate for Belafonte to call Bush a terrorist? Now he doesn't direct his question to any of the white patrons of said bar, just Senator Obama.

Only this is not a joke, I saw this happen on Meet the Press this morning. Russert tried his trademarked "gotcha'" grilling to get a guest to disavow the remarks of someone else or they may tarred by the same brush if they don't stridently distance themselves. Senator Obama almost seemed taken aback by the pure bull-shittedness of the question, but then responded that private citizens are entitled to their opinions.

Not a bad answer since Belafonte is a private citizen, not a politician, and has no bananas for sale.

Maybe we should ask Tim Russert to respond question that TBogg once put to his readers: Answer "Why I Am A Republican."

My favorite response was, "I came for the tax cuts, but stayed for the intolerance."

Snark aside, could that be very different from what Russert might answer if put to the rack? Gotcha'!

It sure does seem to sum up what was in his mind when he ask that question.

Conservative Curriculum

I was just over at Bad Attitudes where I found Amazon Book Reviewer Jon Swift who had this to say about Ben Shapiro's book,
Brainwashed : How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth:
Education is bad, January 17, 2006
I have not actually read this book but I do agree that education is bad for young people. Schools fill their heads with dangerous ideas. Have you ever noticed that while most schools teach "liberal arts" there is not a single one that teaches "conservative arts"? I think that should tell you something.

That reminded of something I wrote last April. Yet when I checked on it, I saw that I'd left it in draft mode and had not published it.

So, through the magic of Draft-O-Vision it is now seeing the light of day:
Can you imagine what a Conservative Arts degree would entail?

The upper division credits would probably require courses like this:

- Econ 420: Profitable Private Prisons and the War on Drugs
- Statistics 360: Florida - What Comes Around Goes Around
- Art History 241: You Know It When you See It
- Poli Sci 444: You Are for Us or You're Agin' Us
- Foreign Language 666: How to Talk to a Liebral

You can imagine how pretty it would be.


I also noticed that I have over 50 draft posts stuck in the same limbo. Not that I will bother you with all of 'em...Not yey anyway...

Saturday, January 21, 2006

back on-line

I am back in a dial-up fashion.

Check out the free barbarian beer post

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Continuing Saga of Why Earthlink Sucks

Longtime readers will understand me when I say, Earthlink bites, suck, and splooges in serious way. Like last time they screw up a payment and calling customer service only gets you the run-a-round.

So why don't you change your ISP, you ask? Well, I was just told that I would have to pay $199 to cancel my service. It seems back when I escalated my complaints and I spoke with a supervisor all the discounts that they offered were to tie me into a new year-long contract. I don't remember agreeing to that and never received any written confirmation to that effect. One might say that was a deceptive business practice.

I've been a customer for over5 years and used to speak highly of their service. But I've never seen a company's service levels fall so low in such a brief time. In the last year I have with increasing frequency been knocked off-line and recently rebooting the modem has been a daily event - sometimes hourly.

Anybody else have this problem with them? I'm thinking about SBCglobal for my next ISP, but I also hate the phone company and have for most of my life. That started after seeing The President's Anaylst many, many years ago...

Thursday, January 05, 2006

If They Only Say What They Mean to Say

I don't know how he does it, but the Poor Man can transmogrify himself into the mindset of that notorious cult known as the The Corner:
For the record, I’ll say it again: the threat from Iraq was not imminent, and no one ever said it was. Iraq was not “about to attack us”, as liberals like to say Bush said, it was “about to about to attack us,” or possibly “about to about to about to attack us,” which is a completely different thing. Apples and oranges. For a more detailed discussion of how liberals can’t understand nuanced arguments like this, please read my new NRO article,Everyone Who Opposed The Iraq War For Whatever Reason Is Personally And Directly Responsible For All Atrocities In Human History, That’s It, End of Story.”


It sounds believable, in that this is what you'd expect to vomit forth from the mouths of right-wing adherents and apologists...

Public Service Announcement

Info from a concerned friend:
To all you cell phone lovers / users...

JUST A REMINDER... 31 days from today, cell phone numbers are being
Released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale
calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS...

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only
take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.


Just thought I pass this along....


Update 1/14/05
: This may not be true according to Snopes.

Padilla is Not a Poster Boy for Liberals

Building on a comment I left at NewsHound (Yes, I know this is the laziest form of blogging) in response to another's comment to this article:

At the beginning of the discussion, Johnson told Mike Gallagher, subbing for Sean Hannity, that Judge Luttig, who wrote the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, denied the Bush Administration's request to transfer Padilla, "in the most activist way that you can imagine - 'we're not gonna honor that, we think you have political motives, we're not gonna do it. We're gonna defy your authority as the executive. We're gonna defy your war power authority as the president. And we're not going to do it.'"

The reaction to the latest on the Jose Padilla story made me write this:

Padilla is not a poster boy for Liberals. He is a test for whether the rule of law still functions post 9/11.

The law does not allow for guilt by association, nor past crimes when determining innocence or guilt. That comes later at the sentencing.

If anything, our system provides for leniency over supposed guilt. I know that drives conservatives crazy but the that's what the founding fathers wanted and is what makes America great.

Sad to say, there is a movement to reverse those fundemantal and progressive rights under the current administration.

I can accept that a guilty man goes free rather than an innocent man gets punished. It's the bedrock of our democracy and written into our legal system.


What makes this exceptional is that Luttig, who wrote the decision, was short listed as a Bush nomination to the Supreme Court. Not exactly an activist judge in my opinion.

(corrected some typos from the original comment)

Bush's War on Tourism

When will the the insanity end? Just look at this story about a 4-Year-Old Boy on Government 'No-Fly' List:
Sijollie Allen and her son had trouble boarding planes last month because someone with the same name as Edward is on a government terrorist watch list.

"Is this a joke?" Allen recalled telling Continental Airlines agents Dec. 21 at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport. "You can tell he's not a terrorist."

She said it took several minutes of pleading and a phone call by the ticket agent to get on the plane to New York.

Allen, a Jamaican immigrant, said workers at La Guardia Airport were even more hard-nosed before their Dec. 26 flight home. She said a ticket agent told her: "You're lucky that we're letting you through instead of putting you through the other process." (emphasismine)

Would that other process include a cavity search?

More and more this is not the country I grew up in.

(via Ang's Weird Idea)

Is Canada a Great Country, or What?

The Canadian Medical Association Journal said in a study published on Tuesday, Free booze makes homeless healthier?:
Seventeen homeless adults, all with long and chronic histories of alcohol abuse, were allowed up to 15 glasses of wine or sherry a day -- a glass an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- in the Ottawa-based program, which started in 2002 and is continuing.

After an average of 16 months, the number of times participants got in trouble with the law had fallen 51 percent from the three years before they joined the program, and hospital emergency room visits were down 36 percent.

"Once we give a 'small amount' of alcohol and stabilize the addiction, we are able to provide health services that lead to a reduction in the unnecessary health services they were getting before," said Dr. Jeff Turnbull, one of the authors of the report.

"The alcohol gets them in, builds the trust and then we have the opportunity to treat other medical diseases... It's about improving the quality of life."

Three of the 17 participants died during the program, succumbing to alcohol-related illnesses that might have killed them anyway, the study said.

The report showed that participants in the program drank less than they did before signing up, and their sleep, hygiene, nutrition and health levels all improved.


On top of that they found they saved money on health services.

(via Jackson West)

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Jack Abramoff -- Republican to the Core

He was never an equal opportunity giver, Bob Geiger has the facts on his, and his familiy's, politcal tithing (Regarding tithing, Jack didn't even live up to the ten percent rule. Who knew that you could buy the Republican Party on the cheap?).

For quick refresher on who is this Jumping-GOP-Jack-Flash-in-the-Pan, checkout this wikipedia entry.

(via The Generik Brand)

What Motivated Jack Abramoff?

Could it be the old schlocky film Americathon where wealthy Native Americans are trying to reposess a finacially troubled U.S. of A.?

Did he watch this film while taking bong hits with his fellow frat-republicans during his college years and wax highly poetic about the plight and sovereignty of America's first minority? Or did he read the screenplay while attending Beverly Hills High School?

Maybe it spurred him on to become Chairman of the College Republicans in in 1981 so he could help in the selling of America to the highest bidder?

If you've never seen the film, or were too stoned to remember, you didn't miss much.

How to make Hummus Bill O'Reilly Style

Via Susie Madrak I see that the Freeway Blogger has a spiffy new and useful phrase for the ol' liberal lexicon:
Harrasturbator:
Noun. 1) Any person who uses another person against their will for purposes of sexual self-gratification. 2) Dysfunctional sex criminal, rapist. 3) Obscene phone caller, exhibitionist, or person who rubs themself against others on a bus.
4) Colloquial: Impotent, angry man, object of intense derision.

Over the course of the next year, I'd like everyone who reads this post to start using the term "harrasturbator" (or "harrasturbate," "harrasturbating," "harrasturbation" etc.) on the Internet. The word must be used in the context above to describe either Bill O'Reilly or anyone else who uses another person against their will for the purposes of self-gratification.


So if you harrasturbate like the falafel kid you'll end up with hummus over everything.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Tongue twister or beat up as a child?

How many Abramoffs, could a Jack Abramoff, if he could only jack abram off?

Too bad he jacked them all off.

Now he asks for forgiveness...

Techie Tuesday: QuakeAlert

Back by popular demand (OK someone asked me about it) and part of my New Years's
resolution, I'm resurrecting the Techie Tuesday series.

Since many of my readers are living in the danger zone, California (& not that song from Top Gun) I thought I share this new technology from Canada.


The battery powered Earthquake Early Warning System, QuakeAlert is as their conclusion states -- without going into all the science and stuff:
"The results of the tests showed, in general, that QuakeAlert is sensitive enough to detect small vertical ground motions, thereby providing a warning time before the arrival of more damaging horizontal motions produced by earthquakes. Warning time will allow users enough time to take precautionary action in the event of an upcoming seismic shaking. The warning time will depend, of course, on the earthquake type, the epicentral and focal distances, and the geological conditions of the site where the device is to be installed. A careful consideration of these aspects would ensure an effective performance of the device and will help to prevent or minimize undesirable false-alarm triggers caused by ground motions with similar characteristics to those produced by earthquakes." Dr. Carlos E. Ventura, Earthquake Research Laboratories, University of British Columbia.


All this at a steal for $199.95.

If you need more security, try out this device from Zombie Alert -- Home Protection for Sophisticated Families with their $1 million money-back guarantee.

Be safe as you can....

Monday, January 02, 2006

Democrats and Ten Words

All a of a sudden everyone is talking about how the Democrats need to focus their message into ten words or less.

This is not new.

But the idea has gained newness recently. Where did this come from?I wrote about this a over a year ago in Finding the right response : Ten Words in Ausgust, 2004. It came from a TV show...

To recap that post in it's entirety, here it is:

Luis makes a good point about the game of Ten Words
"There it is. That's the ten-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words."

--President Bartlet, in the West Wing episode "Game On"


In the game of "Ten Words," Bush has been winning the game.

Luis goes on to point out a few missed opportunities of the Kerry Campaign where they could have retorted to latest GOP smear without a non-nuanced response, i.e. many more words than ten.

Atrios details the upset many of us feel, the spokesmen for our side come across weak, ill- prepared to counter spurious charges.
...Okay, first, the short version of what they're doing wrong - a crappy job of dealing with the beltway journalists/cable news bobbleheads/talk radio set>

I think us bloggers can come up with those (please, don't call 'em slogans or memes) compact 10-word nuggets, those 10-word rispostes to counter those right-wing thrusts.

Do this in the spirit of shorter style, as long as we can avoid that problem that plagued Ovid: Brevis esse laboro obscurus fio, I try to be brief, but only become obscure.

I agree it is a lot like fencing - recognize the attack and craft the perfect response to quickly score home and draw blood. First touch or first blood? Yet be aware we are not dealing with gentlemen.

The problem is, Bush's great skill with the ten-word sword and the perception of Kerry unconditionally approving of what Bush did have been wounding Kerry in the media and in public perception recently.

Sometimes it is painful to know that your guy is right and the other guy is not only wrong, but also a lying, deceptive bastard, and yet you can still clearly understand how people can see it the other way around.


I think I will fight this ten words at a time...Want to join me?


I'm glad that people are finally talking about this.

Bush Hatred? My God, No It's Love of Country!

One country, under one gut is not what any patriot died for. Yet that is how Bush decided to to invade Iraq. His gut told 'em that Saddam was lying to him and there was a threat.

Furthermore, his gut told him to go ahead, attack. Maybe the voice of Gopd (sic) is loged in his small intestine?

Despite all the analysis and diplomacy skills of our government, we are held hostage to the gut of the Commander-in-Chief.

I hope he never again eats a burrito from across the border. For us it could be devastating (they still carry around the football with its launch codes,right?).

Impeaching Bush, even the idea has its downsides:

I wrote about this a few weeks ago about the danger of Impeaching Bush, like in what could come after; so does Deborah Leavy:
Unfortunately, there is more than one downside to impeachment. I am not referring to the huge distraction it represents to the Congress and the administration, or the divisiveness in might engender. The problem I want to raise is the line of succession. If the Senate were to vote for impeachment, Bush would no longer be president.

But then what? Consider the consequences. Vice President Dick Cheney would succeed him. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire! From the moment Cheney selected himself as vice president, he has been directing Bush's presidency. It was Cheney's idea to expand the powers of the president, and that is what started this whole sorry mess. Cheney, too, violated his oath to uphold the Constitution, so he should probably be impeached as well.

Next in line is the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. Dennis Hastert? What kind of presidential material is that? Then comes the president pro tem of the Senate, Ted Stevens, the Howard Dean of the Republican Party, the guy who yells and screams on the floor of the Senate if he doesn't get his pet projects for Alaska. Imagining him as president is truly building a bridge to nowhere.

Next? Members of the Cabinet, starting with Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice. Like Cheney, she has been in the thick of things since the beginning of the Bush administration. Maybe she could be impeached, too.


So, as some think it's just a kerfluffle

I must agree with TDoug Thompson
Let's start the New Year by impeaching the criminal at the top of this corrupt pyramid scheme and then work our way down through the sordid pile. Indict Vice President Dick Cheney for bribes he paid and the money he laundered while Chairman of Halliburton. Send Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to prison for insider trading. Put former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay under the jail.

Time to send a message to the cabal of greed and corruption that has taken over our government and tell them that their ass is grass and we've got a bunch of lawn mowers fully gassed and ready to start cutting.


Impeachemnt did not throw Clinton out of office. It did change the dynamic in the voters eyes. Clenis and, those were good times, or gut-loss of liberties.

Make your choice.

Vote no on the presidential gut and his followers...

2006 the Year of Reckoning

Back from the Chrismas Front, my R&R is almost over.

This year holds so much promise. November 7th, the mid-term elections will be upon us sooner than Bush can make another gaffe.

There's the buzz of impeachment in the air. It would be more satisfying if the Democrats have a Speaker of the House.

I know that's a long shot, but as I always say hope for the best...In planning for the worst, I'm taking up right-wing writing skillz (I believe in the almighty power of the five bi-cycles of Bush).

Yes, it looks like the annointed one is showing signs of the super-holiness:


Looks like the stigmata to me...,,, Posted by Hello