Watching the Republican Freak Show

(I tried, really I did.  I felt it my duty to watch at least some of the Republican Convention, if for no other reason than to get a few laughs.  But every time I tuned in what I saw was such a bizarre spectacle, that I honestly became alarmed.  First there was the wife, Ann, standing in the harsh glare of the lights telling us all "you can trust Mitt," and little else. Sweet, I suppose, in an oddly strange way.  And then there was Clint Eastwood(!), talking trash to an empty chair.  And the audience, reacting to every empty slogan as though they were watching the biggest train wreck in the history of politics.  I had to turn it all off.  I was beginning to feel sorry for them.  But I digress ...)

• About that Eastwood speech.  Years from now, that little performance will be played back and cited as one of the most bizarrely awkward moments in convention history.  Even Mitt Romney was wincing backstage as Clint did his "Harvey" routine talking to an invisible Obama.  Yowee.
• And we can't get away from this without mentioning Paul Ryan's little speech.  Some people say Mr. Ryan uttered a record number of outright lies for a convention speech in history.  Somewhere in the back of my mind is an admonishment from a parental unit of mine that goes something like this:  If you feel you have to lie about something, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.  At this pathetic convention, Republicans made very few points, and most of the points they did make were outright lies.  There's a quiet desperation here.  Sad.
• Here's a must-read from a Rolling Stone article by Matt Tabbai.  "The Republican convention in general has been a strange affair. The vibe around Republican politics in general was much happier in the days before the Bush presidency cratered. Republican politics before Bush imploded was a confident brew of guns, Jesus, and Freedom."  Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan Speeches Make Me Miss George Bush.
• You gotta love the RNC delegates.  Most of them are nice enough people I suppose, but quite a few of them are racists.  There I said it.  From throwing peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and calling her an "animal," to complaining about a Mexican worker at Epcot, the Right Wing intolerance marches on.
• Apparently Mitt Romney is a huge fan of Barack Obama.  When he spoke of Obama's 2008 campaign during his speech the other night he said  “Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who’s living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity.… This was the hope and change America voted for.”  All well and good.  But because of the Republicans in Congress (and Rush Limbaugh who famously stated "I hope Obama fails.") many of Obama's "hope and change" never came about.  Something is rotten in the Republican Party.  Whether it's the influence of the "tea party," or the ignorance of racists, we progressives hope that when they lose this election perhaps they can take a good long and hard look at themselves, and start anew in 2016. 

The Definition of Life

Paul Ryan appears to be saying, (see video) whatever the means of conception (sex, rape artificial insemination, etc.) does not change the "definition" of when life begins. And for him, and in respect to his beliefs, that suggests that he would view a "morning after pill" as no different from an abortion in the fifth month of pregnancy. Some of the more doctrinaire among his cohorts also believe that In Vitro Fertilization is taking a life as well, though the logic of that escapes me. Several Romney sons have apparently committed such crimes against nature, presumably with their father's counsel.

So what will it be? Ryan's more extreme position, or Mitt Romney's more flexible and changeable one? Of course Romney's position will be the operative one, but since Ryan seems to believe he would be working for a murderer, what are voters to think about what the Romney-Ryan ticket believes. This week. And if something happens to Romney? Then it would be Ryan defining when life begins. For all of us. And the prospect of two (2) Ryan Supreme Court Justice appointments? Kiss Roe v. Wade good-bye and start adding up the deaths from illicit abortions. Those are lives, too, unless I am mistaken. I guess to the Republicans they are just women, so no biggie...

Arthur

Weekend Update - Weird Science Edition

(It's been an incredibly loooong summer without Duck Football, but as I speak we are just a mere week away from the opening game against Arkansas State.  We have a new quarterback this year, a strapping young man named Marcus Mariota, and the league's all excited about his prospects.  I gathered the neighborhood children in the car this morning and we went to Autzen Stadium for the annual meet the Ducks festivities, but when we got there the line to get in was about a mile long, no exaggeration.  We decided a trip to the local frozen yogurt shop was a better choice.  This town is SO ready for the Ducks this year.  Our media room is all "ducked out" and ready to go.  We've washed and ironed all our uniforms.  The flag is flying in the front.  The bar is stocked.  Go Ducks!  But I digress ...)

• Where were you on July 20th, 1969?  I was sitting in the family room of a house in Lubbock, Texas in front of a black and white TV watching the drama unfold as Walter Cronkite described the descent of the lunar lander, named "The Eagle," as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first manned landing on the surface of the moon.  Heady and exciting stuff, it was.  Then, a few moments later, Neil Armstrong became the first human being in history to set foot on that moon, and became one of my all-time heroes.  Neil died today at the age of 82.  May he rest in peace.
• By now most of you have heard about Congressman Todd Akin's (R-Dipshit) remark concerning women and rape, right?  Mr. Akin is one of those magical-thinking Republicans who can change the facts of reality simply by wishing them away.  He's Anti-Choice, you see, even in the case of rape.  And besides, he reasons, it's a medical fact that a woman's body has a defense mechanism that prevents her from becoming pregnant during a rape.  This magical thinking is the cornerstone of the Republican platform.  Bill Maher has some comments and a whole "New Rule" concerning Akin and the Republicans.
• Republicans have their own rules, as weird as they might be, and Congressman Akin's is just one of them.  But they also believe that dinosaurs walked with man and still do, that abortion causes cancer, that heterosexuals can't get AIDS, and that religion can cure homosexuality.  And there's more weird science. 
• And while we're on the subject, consider Texas' Governor Rick "Good Hair" Perry's (R-Asshole) decision to  rather forfeit $35 million in annual federal funding for the Women’s Health Program - a Medicaid waiver program that provides low-income women with contraceptives and cancer screenings - than see any more state tax dollars go to a supposedly pro-abortion organization.  This means that hundred of thousands of Texas women will receive no critical health care they need.  "Texas in particular can’t afford to scale back on the services Planned Parenthood provides. The state has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the nation and the highest percentage of uninsured women. Texas lawmakers have let politics distract them from their obligation to some of their poorest citizens."  Perry calls his decision "a win for women."  Did I mention he was an asshole?
• When Charlie Gibson famously asked Sarah Palin if she supported "the Bush Doctrine," I remember her sitting there with a blank look on her face.  It was an unfair question.  The rest of us had that same blank look.  What has happened to that rascally frat boy who amused and confused the world for eight years?  Why isn't he the "elder statesman" of the Republican Party?  Why isn't he making a big speech at the convention?  George?  George?  What's happened to you?  (The link I had here was apparently infected.  I'm sure that most rudimentary virus checkers picked it up.  It has been deleted.  My apologies.)

Weekend Update - The Finger Edition

(Now with those silly-assed Olympics out of the way maybe dear god we can get back to the important thing on television: America's Got Talent.  They actually had the gumption to put the entire contest on hold for three weeks just when we were really getting into it.  I can't even remember who was in the final running.  Oh wait, I remember that kid who can street dance while contorting his body into odd shapes, kinda like watching a jaywalker getting hit by a car.  I think his name is Landau Eugene Murphy Jr.  With a name like that, he's got to be good; my apologies to the Smucker's people. There's also a magician who's quite awesome.  At any rate, let's get on with it NBC.  But I digress ...)

• Mitt Romney is a difficult man to care about.  He never says anything of substance, he has no real ideas or visions.  He's bland and dry like a piece of unbuttered cold toast.  And now there's something called Mitt Revulsion Syndrome (MRS).  News articles go unread, channels are changed, blogs are avoided (except for this one, of course) whenever there's a mention of The Plastic Man.  Even people on the Right find themselves longing for the cowboy-up bullshit of Dubya Bush.  Mark Morford sums all this up in "Mitt Romney vs. Dead Potted Plant."
• Come with me for a moment back to 1974.  Tricky Dick Nixon had just admitted that he was, after all, indeed "a crook" and resigned.  His vice-president, Gerald Ford, became President.  Gerald Ford had to pick his own vice-president and he chose Nelson Rockefeller.  Now Nelson, had to be confirmed by the Senate, and being one of the richest men in America at the time, he didn't want to release his tax returns to anyone, especially the MSM.  Evidently rich people don't want the common folk to see how they make their billions.  At any rate, eventually, before Nelson Rockefeller was confirmed as VP, he had to cough up SEVEN YEARS of tax returns.  Now then, here's my question:  Why hasn't the MSM jumped all over Mitt Romney, who has given congress the finger and has refused to turn over any of his tax returns?  With the exception of Rachel Maddow, where's the outrage?
• Here's a fact for you:  Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. The specter of downward mobility in retirement is a looming reality for both middle- and higher-income workers. Almost half of middle-class workers, 49 percent, will be poor or near poor in retirement, living on a food budget of about $5 a day. William Rivers Pitt writes "Beneath the Bottom of the Barrel." 
• And speaking of barrels, my nephew sent me a picture of a barrel of something labeled "Black Liquor," the other day.  I didn't know what exactly it was, but in spite of sounding delicious over rocks with a lemon twist, I could see by the picture it wasn't the type of thing you'd want in your mouth.  Turns out that "Black Liquor" is the Koch Brothers' moonshine.  Jim Hightower explains.
• We love Joe Biden.  We love Joe Biden because he says what he thinks, and sometimes what he thinks doesn't get through the political filter and shredder before it comes out of his mouth.  He did it again the other day.  Joe was speaking to an audience in southern Virginia containing a large number of black people.  He was pontificating on Mitt Romney when he said " ... he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street."  And then he added the punchline: “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”  Kinda silly, and the Right is all over it, of course, but what if crafty old Joe is doing this on purpose?

From a Friend In London

(Arthur passed along this lovely letter from a friend of his in London, and I inadvertently sat on it for several days.  So he (Arthur) went ahead and published it, along with his remarks, on Daily Kos, under the odd name of "arthura."  Guess that'll teach me.  I love the "London Spirit" of this letter.) 

Perhaps you know that we have the Olympics in London!

Before the Games started we were warned about travelling in London with 1.5 million visitors for the Games. So being obedient Londoners we listened to our Lords and Masters and OBEYED. Especially since we all know that one small mishap brings the whole road, rail and tube system to a halt. Road digging; gas works, etc were banned. We washed the buildings, swept the roads and put Olympic rings on everything and sold GB flags. And we've called ourselves Great Britain again, rather than United Kingdom. Schools were on holiday in any case, so parents took them abroad; City businesses made sure that all their employees worked from home; art shippers planned all their collections for before/after the Games and no one dared to travel on the Underground because WE HAD BEEN WARNED. The rest of us were too snobbish about the Games to buy tickets (especially since they had all been sold in the first ballot back in the Spring) and scorned to try to buy them elsewhere. So we all, absolutely ALL of us, stayed away from Central London.

Therefore, naturally, you can get a seat at rush hour on every underground or the bus. Driving round London is like driving at 3am on a Sunday - roads empty, everyone courteous, crime rate has dropped like a stone and there is no one about - they are all in the stadium or lining the cycling or marathon routes. They had the triathlon in Hyde Park: free..... swim across the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park - mind the swans - (!), get out and ride a bike for 1000 metres round Buckingham Palace; ditch bike and run round Hyde Park... crowds 10 deep cheering on and on ..... so 2 unknown Britons won gold and bronze. Everyone is so excited that almost every seat for the Paralympics is sold: 2.5 million of them. London is a dream - we all smile, laugh and thoroughly enjoy ourselves. We have absolutely surprised ourselves with how much we are loving life and revelling in the Olympics going well. We are out on the roads watching the road cycling, the marathons and everything else round London. The south coast of England - with the sailing - has headlands lined with people with flags and binoculars watching every move and people are holding Olympics parties to watch t.v. and have a drink and celebrate. We have become very, very un-British. Everyone is deafened by the support at the swimming, basket ball, athletics, etc. in each stadium the cheering is deafening. Visitors are stunned that the British could be like this. One, just ONE, demonstrator threw a bottle onto the track behind some of the male runners .... unfortunately for him he was sitting next to a judo competitor and behind him was a weight lifter!!! The weight lifter thumped him and the judo expert pinned him down til the police extracted him - to cheers.

Then there is the sole Saudi Arabian lady runner - minutes behind everyone else - was cheered and clapped home with true celebration because everyone here knows that it was the first time that a Saudi Arabian woman had been allowed to take part in the Games - and it was the taking part that mattered. Meantime a Saudi team won silver for horse riding to their immense delight and a bold 27 year old UK man who won gold in the trap shooting (shooting clay pigeons) was hugged by a prince from Abu Dhabi - he (UK) had lost his £9,000 UK team support funding a few years ago when he stopped coming first and at a shooting meeting in Abu Dhabi, where he learned this, thought 'Why don't I ask' - so asked the previous Olympics gold winner prince if he thought he could help! Yes, said the Prince, £9,000 immediately, but I wish to teach you HOW to win. Three years later .... gold for UK. And the horse owners of the winning dressage horses had refused amazing prices for their horses from foreign buyers - and so it goes on.

We have Games fever in other words..... Newspapers sell more; 11,000 tickets are put on sale daily and there is an absolute fight for them. Everyone is glued to their tellies and talks non-stop about it. 7,000 people took part in the opening ceremony - all volunteers, not paid, but doing 150 hours of training and practice and it was flawless with wonderful "in" jokes - and how they persuaded the Queen to meet James Bond (Daniel Craig) I don't know - but wonderful that she agreed! And none of these 7,000 people told the press what the opening show would be, or even told their families. The flame was called "Betty" in references and they practiced lighting it at 3.am in the weeks before the Olympics - and only 3 people knew what it looked like.

In the meantime Olympics Art is in full swing: Stonehenge as a bouncy castle: a life-sized model of Stonehenge made in trampoline material and painted grass and stone colour. It was in the north for two months in practice - designed by a leading contemporary artist - it is now touring the parks round London during the Olympics and goes off to the Continent after. It is the most amazing hit! You can bounce against the stones and on the 'grass'; you can run and jump and children adore it. Secretly, all the adults love it too....... So we have to confess - we are all enjoying ourselves. And, every country has a 'House' in London - could be a pub taken over for the two weeks; a restaurant, a building or whatever. And that House is a showcase of everything belonging to that country - music, food, books, etc and their team visiting. We have Czech House in Islington and queues of locals trying to visit every day. These Houses are an amazing hit all over London ..... Czech House has an adapted London bus doing press-ups outside their building!! All the Houses are really amazing places to visit.

The Games take place about 4 miles as the crow flies from my house. For the opening ceremony I could hear the cannon like sound of the fireworks; my house shook and every night to the east the sky is lit up with the brilliance of the lights from the Stadium.

We have become blasé about winning Gold. We are of course behind the USA and China. But we are THIRD. Well above France - wonderful - considering that M. Hollande, new Premier, said he thought France would be triumphant and that (in the first two days) UK was not doing well .... When you think about it, we should be FIRST - we are much smaller that USA or China and yet we've cleaned up on everything! This is the astonishing fact of holding the Games and what it does for everyone. The athletes somehow feel they are entitled to win! We'd like to bottle it and feed it to everyone! And all the European leaders are loving it - they wing their way into town to present medals, or congratulate teams, or just be present when their athletes are winning and are using the occasion for a quick political chat and then off back home!

This is fascinating and I'm sure people/newspapers/pundits will be discussing it for years..... we are now analysing why we are winning so much, and so easily in some instances; why people are gagging for more tickets and cheering so loudly. It is of course the feel-good factor. Why, they ask, could 7,000 keep a secret and do something wonderful for no money and the love and fun of it for the opening ceremony, yet bankers are paid squillions and bugger up everything. How can one tap into this incredible yearning to be part of something joyful. To be together in celebration. To love something in an uncomplicated way and just to enjoy everything. And to surprise ourselves by being proud that it has all happened so smoothly - and even the rain stopped. So we've all stopped being cynical and are sorry for those who took themselves off on holiday........ More fascinating is that more winners from every nation of gold, silver or bronze are bursting into tears with the thrill of it all than at any other Olympics and somehow we've all done the RIGHT THING!

We have even forgiven The Times newspaper today with their front page picture of the Dutch riding team with their Germanic names - shown winning GOLD .... Unfortunately, it was the UK winning gold and the wrong photo and caption shown! Red faces all round - but we will just laugh and move on.

So we have an absolutely fascinating two weeks in London and we are all amazed at ourselves!! Something so different it's hard to describe.


Best wishes,

Weekend Update - August 12th

(Well, I can now click "Become a limo driver" off my Bucket List.  Took the white Lincoln Town Car stretch and filled it with very attractive young bridesmaids all decked out in their respective fineries, and one gorgeous bride also bedecked.  Drove them all out to a local winery and dropped them off for some occasion, I suspect it was a wedding.  All went well.  I'll be doing this off and on whenever the boss needs me.  I'm hoping it'll keep me out of trouble.  Of course, on the other hand ... My next Bucket List item?  "Become an airline pilot."  But I digress ...)

• The London Olympics are still plodding along, and some of it is fun to watch while some of it is a tedious ordeal. But watch or not watch, it's the Olympic Games and all the athletes and participants who are to be praised and honored.  Except at FOX News? where some of the commentators have noticed there's an abundance of foreigners, dark-skinned foreigners at that, and not enough patriotic cheering of USA USA.  Here's Eight Crazy FOX Freakouts About the Olympics. 
• Mitt Romney has finally chosen his running mate for the upcoming election, and in a smooth pandering move to the tea baggers, he picked Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.  You know Paul, don't you?  He's the guy who says things like he wants to help the poor by eliminating their dependence on the government.  Sort of like helping a drowning person by throwing him a rock.  He and Willard are a credit to their class.  "Mr. Ryan's Cramped Vision."
• So let's take a little look at this Ryan character's record.  One of the Koch Brothers butt-boys, Ryan thinks scientists are intentionally attempting to mislead the public on the issues of global warming.  Scientists.  From there it just keeps getting worse.  Meet Paul Ryan.
• Today's lesson:  Let's say you're a politician and you want to make it appear as though you're immensely more popular than you actually are.  You set up a Twitter account, and find yourself ignored by millions.  Solution?  You hire someone to supply you with fake Twitter followers.  Sure it's pathetic.  But what's a douchebag to do?
• What's the difference between a "gunman" and a "terrorist?"  One of them is a white person.  Juan Cole explains the Top Ten Differences Between White Terrorists and Others ...

Weekend Update - Olympics Edition

(Been watching the Olympics?  It's on most the time around our compound, and I'm getting sick of it.  Don't get me wrong, I love women's beach volleyball as well as any other man, but where do they come up with some of these "sports?"  Team "handball?  On a field?  And what about ping pong?  Excuse me, "Table Tennis." Ha. I know, I saw "Forest Gump" too, but come on, we used to play ping pong drunk on our collective asses in Jerry Paulsen's garage.  And I'm here to tell you, any one of us, in any state of inebriation, could beat the wimps playing in the Olympics.  And DON'T EVEN get me started about that dancing horse crap.  The Olympics should be just one kind of game, formed out of two teams, 11 players on each side, where the idea is to get this oval looking ball down the field to the opponents goal posts, and ... wait a minute.  I might be thinking of football.  NFL preseason game tomorrow.  Everything's going to be okay.  But I digress ...)

• Apparently Dirty Harry is loosing it.  Seems that Clint Eastwood, the actor-director, has endorsed Mitt Romney for president.  "I said, God, this guy, he's too handsome to be governor, but he does look like he could be president," Eastwood joked. "As the years have gone by I began to think even more so about that."  Yes, that's a quote.  Well, so much for that right-wing "Hollywood Elite" argument.
• Want to keep those pesky terrorist fundamentalist tourist away from your country?  Well, who doesn't?  A Danish politician has come up with a capital idea that we here at Bad Hat fully endorse.  Peter Skaarup says that footage of women sunbathing topless at Danish beaches should be included in tourism videos to scare away extremists.  That's right, barrage them with topless women!  But Naser Khader, a member of the Danish parliament and apparently a serious poopy-head, declared later that "A pair of naked breasts is no protection against extremism."   Oh yeah?  How does HE know?  We say, go for it!  And while we're on the subject, where's the nearest topless bakery?  I could use a danish ...
• "Mitt Romney's recent overseas trip was designed to present the presumptive Republican nominee as a statesman, but to the contrary portrayed the candidate as an narrow-minded, insensitive, race-baiting, war-mongering, uber-pandering empty-suit whose foreign policy and diplomatic skills make Sarah Palin seem downright Kissingeresque."  Jeeze I love that quote.  Romney, Sarah Palin, and Henry Kissinger all in one sentence.  Read more, it's good.
• I want you to close your eyes and think about this:  Picture the Gross Domestic Product amount of the United States AND Japan combined.  Without knowing the exact amount you can probably imagine it's quite a chunk of money, right?  Well, it's about $21 Trillion, or about the same amount that the "super rich" have stashed away in off shore accounts.  No, really.
• "Who is Barack Obama? We know less about this man than any other President in American history. What’s he hiding? His autobiography is full of fictional characters. But there’s a lot more than that. If you try to look into his past, you run into a brick wall. His college records at Columbia, sealed! His college records at Harvard, sealed! We don’t know what his thesis papers were about because those are sealed too. He Selective Service record is sealed. His records as an attorney are sealed. He has a Connecticut Social Security number and we can’t get answers about that either.  And no one — I mean no one — has seen an actual physical copy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate."  THEY'RE STILL OUT THERE! gawdluv'em.
• Remember December 7th, 1941, the day of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?  Well, most of us don't because we weren't alive yet, but I'm sure you've heard of it.  Most of us DO remember September 11th, 2001, the day of those horrible attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon.  That too was a horrible day.  And do you remember the black day of August 1st, 2012?  No?  Well that was the day the contraception coverage mandate went into effect, and Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Douchebag) has publicly compared the first two dates with the third one.  Kinda just makes you want to go out and enlist, don't it?