Happy New Year

I got nothing, so here's a cool drawing of Blade Runner.

There is no place like Nebraska

The boys are definitely the squarest.

Nelson said he and other senators, "perhaps" including Democrats, plan to introduce an amendment "something like Stupak" on the Senate floor. The prospects of such an amendment passing, however, are slim. Republican abortion-rights opponents include Nelson's home-state colleague, Sen. Mike Johanns, have conceded they cannot muster the 60 votes they would need to attach the Stupak language to the Senate bill.

"The only thing I'm talking about is the Stupak plan, which is referred to as an abortion issue but I think the president was right when he said this bill's not about abortion. It's about how you account for federal dollars to stay consistent with Hyde and the long-term federal policy of not using tax dollars or federal monies to fund abortions," Nelson said.

Go Huskers!

Last Time I went to Church...

I felt as if I'd landed on an Alien planet, had established rapport with the local indigenous fauna, and then, having been invited to their weekly gathering, had been completely shocked from the ridiculousness and utter lack of reason inherent in their kooky, and otherwise meaningless rituals and sermons:













from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot:

Consider again that pale blue dot. Take a good long look at it. ["That's us. That's Earth."] Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?

Do some "Big Think", and doesn't every resulting religion or ideology resemble or become a self parody of this?

Better Feeling through ineffectual absurdism

Morgan Spurlock presents "What would Jesus Buy?":

Okay, we poppin champagne like we won tha championship game*

Wayback Machine set to Feb 19th, 2009:

Under Mr. Steele's helm, the “old” may seem inappropriate in the Grand Old Party's affectionate nickname. He said he is putting a new public relations team into place to update the party's image.

“It will be avant garde, technically,” he said. “It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.”

Does that mean cutting-edge?

“I don't do 'cutting-edge,' “ he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

Okay, all together now, let's go Back to the Future:






I love the 80's.




*

An equal right to keep death at bay

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Do your homework kids.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Otherwise you might end up like this woman.


"Fat, Drunk, and Stupid is no way to go through life."

United States of Jesustan

Now, with no Executive Branch!



Will update with more details later, but for now, read the descriptions of the people depicted and an interview with the artist here.

So far, my favorite mouseover descriptions:
****
UPDATE:
Reagan as “a true patriot of freedom”. WTF does that even mean?

Thomas “Payne” appearing in this painting, even though he wrote a whole book ridiculing organized religion.

The Schoolteacher looks like Sarah Palin.

The “College Student” is holding a copy of “The Five Thousand Year Leap.” A book by a notorious Mormon Crank about how America is awesome because God is an American. (Seriously)

No executive branch depicted, because Jesus IS the Executive Branch.

Dolly Madison looks like Ally Sheedy.

the Fifty Stars and that they stand for the fifty states? Some stars burn more brightly than others. “Real American” states like Texas and Georgia as opposed to elitist, faggy states like California and New York.

And the only two people without description are “Satan” and the “Business Woman”. I guess the nature of those two abominations to American Culture speak for themselves.

UPDATE: Presented without Comment.

FSM Bless the Internet

USA! USA! USA!

Talking Points Memo:

When the International Olympic Committee voted against Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics this morning -- after the President and First Lady flew to Copenhagen to push for it in person -- the Weekly Standard newsroom burst into applause.

"Cheers erupt at Weekly Standard world headquarters," wrote editor John McCormack in a post titled "Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!"

The line was quickly removed, but ThinkProgress caught it in time and posted a screenshot of the post.

But even with the edits, McCormack is still obviously reveling in America's defeat.

"As a citizen of the world who believes that No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation, I'm glad that the Obama White House's jingoist rhetoric and attempt to pay back Chicago cronies at the expense of undermining our relationships with our allies failed," he wrote.

McCormack's fellow conservatives joined in the celebration.

"Chicago and Tokyo eliminated. No Obamalypics," Michelle Malkin tweeted, following up with, "Game over on Obamalympics. Next up, Obamacare."

"Please, please let me break this news to you. It's so sweet," said Glenn Beck on his radio show.

"Hahahahaha," wrote Red State's Erick Erickson. "So Obama's pimped us to every two bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him. So much for improving America's standing in the world, Barry O."

The Drudge Report announced the news like so: "WORLD REJECTS OBAMA: CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND. THE EGO HAS LANDED."

"The worst day of Obama's presidency, folks. The ego has landed. The world has rejected Obama," echoed Rush Limbaugh.

"For those of you ... who are upset that I sound gleeful, I am. I don't deny it. I'm happy," Limbaugh said. "Anything that gets in the way of Barack Obama accomplishing his domestic agenda is fine with me."

"President Obama fails to get the Olympics while unemployment goes to 9.8% Iran continues nuclear program. America needs focused leadership," Newt Gingrich tweeted. Then he added, "Somehow charm and oratory dont seem to work in foreign affirs but historians have warned that foreign policy is different than campaigning." (sic)

"ChicagP\/\/n3D!" tweeted Newsmax, of recent fame for running, then pulling, a column about an impending military coup against Obama.

h/t BJ Commenter SiubhanDuinne

Paul Krugman:

Middle-aged adolescents — dumb middle-aged adolescents — rule one of our nation’s two great political parties.

Where's yer foam finger and flag pin now?! Jackasses.

FUWP

Favorite Balloon-juice error yet:

GFYS

via conservative writer Andrew Sullivan:

Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “[Obama’s] appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear-free world ... have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt. Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership.” Jennifer Rubin at the neoconservative publication Commentary declared Obama’s speech was “one of the more embarrassing and shameful displays by a US president before the UN”. For Gardiner, Ledeen and Rubin the model for foreign policy is that represented by Dick Cheney. He projected strength and decisiveness and America’s enemies allegedly cowered. Obama — or Obambi — is, in their eyes, an arugula-eating surrender monkey.

Let’s review the evidence. In Iraq, Obama postponed any rapid withdrawal, keeping troops there as long as the Bush administration had pledged. While ending torture, Obama has retained key provisions for extraordinary rendition and has recently scored real successes in the terror war. Last week brought the exposure of what looks like the first real Al-Qaeda plot within America, busted by the FBI and unaccompanied by any Obama grandstanding or fear-mongering. Several Al-Qaeda leaders have been taken out by drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama has sent more troops to Afghanistan and ordered a full review of strategy from one of Cheney’s favourite generals, Stanley McChrystal. For the first time in two decades Israel does not have carte blanche from the White House to do whatever it wants in the West Bank.

On the critical test of Iran we see the Obama method in clarifying perspective. Look at the moves of the first eight months. First off, Obama makes it clear that America is ready to talk if Iran is ready to deal. The Bush-era polarisation is defused, revealing to global opinion that it is Tehran, not Washington, that is the problem here. The Bush-style warnings are instead given by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, further underlining the fact that this is a global problem, not just an American one.

Obama then goes to Cairo to deliver a speech rebranding the United States with the Muslim world. The following month the green revolution breaks out on the streets of Iran and, despite brutal suppression, the spell of theocracy is for ever smashed. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, and Ayatollah Khamenei, its supreme leader, are opposed now not only by the massive majority of Iranians, but by part of their own elite as well. Then Obama scraps the missile defence system in eastern Europe, pleasing Russia, and moves the focus of defence to the Mediterranean, pleasing Israel. Dmitry Medvedev expresses the view — never uttered by a Russian leader before — that sanctions against Iran may be inevitable. Obama follows up by being the first US president to chair a United Nations security council meeting, where he presides over a resolution calling for nuclear disarmament. The vote is unanimous. Again, he wields American power through the prism of international co-operation — and receives a rapturous welcome at the UN from many developing countries that would previously have stayed aloof. Again, he lets Brown and especially Sarkozy make the more focused comments on Iran.

On Friday he reveals the existence of a second uranium enrichment site — near the religious centre of Qom — and proves that Tehran is a dishonest negotiator. And this time the storyline is not America versus Iran, but the world versus a deceptive dictator, clinging to power via a coup.

Is this weakness or is it a different avenue to strength? Politics is always about timing and context. Seeing Obama’s moves without taking into account the Bush-Cheney inheritance is to wear ideological blinkers. Obama’s promise was and is a rebranding of America (which was the primary reason I supported him). If you are an unchastened neocon you see no need to rebrand after Guantanamo, Iraq, Bagram and Abu Ghraib. But if you are capable of absorbing complicated reality, you realise that such a rebranding is essential if America is to dig itself out of the Bush-Cheney ditch and advance its interests by defter means than raw violence and occupation.

Arugala-Eating, yes. Surrender Monkey, never.

"There is also a difference between strength and brittleness. Cheney and Bush, for all their swagger, failed to prevent North Korea or Iran from progressing with nuclear weaponry. Bush retreated somewhat in his second term, under the influence of Condoleezza Rice and Bob Gates. Obama’s alternative strategy — which is a logical evolution of the second Bush term — seems to me the most productive avenue the West now has. And the West now has a leader who doesn’t need the headlines or the braggadocio of the Cheney method.

Sometimes a little give can mean a much bigger take. Sometimes a little restraint and cunning are more effective than constant tub-thumping and ideology. Who do you think had a more successful foreign policy: George H W Bush at the end of the cold war or George W Bush at the start of the war on terror? Obama is following the first Bush, not the second."

Aunt Kim, keep listening to your intellectual betters like Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh. In the meantime, GO. FUCK. YOUR. SELF.



Keep freaking out about socialism, or trrsts, and respect for "the Constitution", and please, oh please, get back to me when you read about those three things.

Define socialism, terrorism, and I want a book report on the United States' Constitution.

Seriously, until you have something more substantive to contribute to the national discourse than this,



then please,



UPDATE:
via Media Matters:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible

.

WTF?! Jesus Christ, You people need a fucking Valium.



And he told your Republican ass to go fuck itself, huh? Well, let me double down on that.
--Aidan Gillen as Councilman Thomas Carcetti

Bill Moyers was right, and still is right

UPDATE:

More recently, this week:

THERE'S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY!!!

Modern Life is such a bitch.

Infomercial Hell - watch more funny videos

Don't watch this anywhere near a desk...

Because 2 minutes in, you will find your head repeatedly bouncing off of it.

Intelligent, Accomplished Individuals, aka DFH's

You're going to have to google "DFH".

Excuse me. Adults are talking.

Move past.

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Cool as Ice

It's not just blind stupdity, it's hip!



We need tanks and hummers, not hybrid cars!
We need honest politicians, not communist czars!
USA, not the USSR.
We need more Ann Coulter and less Bill Maher.
[…]
I don’t need another lecture from the Socialistic hypocrite.
Tuesday was your birthday, but where’s your birth certificate?

I can't figure out which is worse, that or this:



Seriously,

When conservatives try to replicate "cool", they end up with laughable shit like this:



or in short, WWJDIHWOICD?

The longest laugh of my weekend

...began @03:38.