Scared Shiteless

Remember how great the two airline bailouts have worked for consumers over the past 7 years....

And are we really going to let BushCo come up with a plan to bailout Wall Street?

Hell no to anything they offer.

And this should scare the crap out of you....

McCain: We should deregulate health insurance like we deregulated Wall Street.:

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

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One is a leader with a vision, the other a crazy old man willing to say anything.

The Contrast: Barack Obama vs. John McCain - The Jed Report:

"The responses of Barack Obama and John McCain to the economic crisis today tells you all you need to know about the choice in this election.

One the one hand, in Barack Obama we've got a statesman who wants to work together to get things done for all Americans. On the other hand, in John McCain we've got a yipping little dog (apologies to canine lovers everywhere) who will tear anything down to get ahead.

Here's a short video I put together to illustrate the contrast:"

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"Gran-Gran keeps a box of spiders....."

How scary is this spider? That may depend on your politics:

"In the second test, the volunteers were subjected to a loud, unexpected noise, with scientists measuring the involuntary blinking that followed. A strong startle response is indicative of heightened fear and arousal. The results, which are published in the journal Science, revealed significant differences in both responses, which corresponded with people’s political views. Those with “markedly lower physical sensitivity to sudden noises and threatening visual images” tended to support liberal positions, while those with strong responses tended to be more conservative.

This would fit with the hypothesis that people who have more fearful responses to perceived threats are more likely to be conservative, while those who have weaker responses develop more liberal views."

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Heh.

Are you an elitist? / 18 revealing ways to know for sure:

"6. The impressive dimensions of the strap-on system in your dresser would make your average Alaskan redneck hockey player scream in horror even as it openly titillated a dozen Republican senators from Colorado Springs to Idaho, though it would probably still get you arrested in Alabama.

7. You know what a strap-on is."

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Ear Spiders and Mr. 28%

Woo-hoo, TDU and DBT at the GAMH in SF! Tonight and tomorrow. Very excited!

Gonnna intersperse some pictures I took yesterday during a beautiful San Francisco Sunday. Too freakin' hot, though. It got up to 80 degrees... thought I was going to die. Slept buck nekkid on top of the cover last night. That's a once/twice a year deal in San Francisco.

Capital "L" loser. Nobody but the lizard brains like Georgie any more. Boo-fuckin

Newsweek: Bush approval hits all time low of 28 percent:

"May 5, 2007 - It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ‘08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ‘08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.

So who are the Republicans going to get behind in '08?

Is it the third rate 'actor' Fred Thompson and his big-fake-tittied-much-younger wife? First 'Lady' will be a stretch. (And, no, I am not biased against fake titties. I love all titties. Ain't nothing wrong with a little renovation)

Daily Kos: Ten is Not Enough

Many are betting that Fred Thompson is the man they're searching for. After all, calling everyone in Hollywood a loon, then fawning over any third-rate actor who will give them the time of day, is a Republican tradition. Sonny Bono, the terminator, the guy who played Gopher on the Love Boat, and don't forget the deified Pharaoh Ronald, in whose golden shrine the debate was held -- ah, for more Republicans like these. They'd crawl all over the guy who played the body on last week's CSI if he'd only mouth the phrase 'pro-life.' On the right-leaning actor scale, Thompson's a prince. Besides, he's already played the president, so he certainly has experience at the primary Republican qualification: looking presidential.

Trouble is, what the Republicans are looking for can't be found in Thompson, nor in arch-hypocrite Gingrich, nor even work-wife Rice. That's because what the Republicans are missing isn't a person, it's a philosophy.

For four decades, the right has been peddling Rugged Individualist Soap. If they just had the opportunity to rip the reins away from the liberals (and all the actors who had not provided comic relief to a chimp), they could Set Things Right(tm). Funny, that's not quite how it worked out. On every front -- every front -- the Republicans turned out to be miserable at turning their points into practice. "Staggering Incompetence" might as well be the party moto. The Republicans' problem now isn't that they don't have the right candidate, it's that they still have the right's talking points. And those talking points are played out. Like a commercial that's run ten too many times, people are simply tired of it.

Fuck, I wish the NRA supported the other amendments as radically as they support the 2nd.

NRA: Don't Ban Gun Sales to Suspects:

"WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms.

Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In other redneck news:

'General Lee' auction ends at almost $10M:

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If the bids are real - and the eBayMotors.com auction was stopped once for fake bidding - a modified 1969 Dodge Charger, painted to look like the General Lee from the TV Show 'The Dukes of Hazzard,' nearly became the most expensive car ever auctioned.

The auction closed at $9,900,500 at 1:00 pm Friday. That puts it just $1.1 million away from the $11 million paid for a 1931 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Sports Coupe sold by the auction house Christie's in 1987. To date, that is the highest price ever paid for a car at auction, according to Christie's.

The car was used in the show, which typically went through several cars per episode during its 6-year production run in the early 1980s. But this one is owned by John Schneider, who played Bo Duke in the series, a role that was only slightly less central than that of the car.

'I'm excited as I can be but I'm not going to believe it until my banker calls and says 'buy me a beer',' said Schneider after the auction ended."

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Gran-Gran was RIGHT!

Doctor Finds Spiders in Boy's Ear:

"These guys weren't exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop. What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear — 'like Rice Krispies' — ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear."

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Values via Atrios

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'Dick is so last year'

Things to pull your hair out over:

1. Shrub

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

Those letters to Santa? He ain't the only one who knows when you are sleeping or awake.


2. NRA

SEATTLE -- After years of close association with the Republican Party and hard-nosed opposition to federal land-use regulation, the National Rifle Association is being pressured by its membership to distance itself from President Bush's energy policies that have opened more public land for oil and gas drilling and limited access to hunters and anglers.

"The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters," said Ronald L. Schmeits, second vice president of the NRA, a member of its board of directors and a bank president in Raton, N.M.

Oh, sure, now that it's cool to hate Bush you jump on the bandwagon? The NRA should be the largest environmental group in the U.S. but they are not. They are just a bunch of blood thirsty wankers who want the right have their own howitzers in their back yard. Maybe, this is a sign that another element is taking over this organization.

And don't get me wrong. I come from a family of hunters and have no problem with people owning guns.


3. Big Brother Horror Stories

I went to renew my driver's license on November 27th 2006, and just yesterday, on January 4th 2007, was I able to get my license renewed.

An outstanding warrant from 1984 in Massachusetts popped up the federal crime database, at the Missouri DMV and I was refused a driver's license. What's relevant is I've never been arrested for a crime in Massachusetts and when I gave that information Missouri DMV clerk, she looked look at me as if to say, "Yeah right, you and 1001 other criminal deadbeats who jumped bail."

The recently implemented, online Justice Department crime database is shared with state departments of motor vehicles by executive order from the Bush Justice Department. If a citizen has outstanding warrant for anything as trivial as a parking ticket, the state departments of motor vehicles are required to deny a driver's license renewal to anyone with an outstanding warrant, regardless of the crime.

4. Minimum wage

This one is about to change since the good guys are in charge. Click the link for a cool interactive map.

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Gran-Gran keeps a box of spiders.....

Spiders on Drugs

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And college students and broke motherfuckers bow their heads across the world:

TOKYO (AP) — Momofuku Ando, the Japanese inventor of instant noodles — a dish that has sustained American college students for decades — has died. He was 96.

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In response to 'Dick in a Box' comes a really, really, really bad parody. Boobs in a box.

Besides, boobs are totally 2007. And dick is so last year.

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Blogging of boobs, I never knew that the over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders could be life savers:

A woman watching New Year's Eve fireworks from a picnic table found out that her bra can do more than lift and support: It also slowed a falling bullet.

DBT Lyric Pictures - Box of Spiders

While visiting the family over Thanksgiving I took some time to go out and about in the greater Florence\Shoals area and snapped some photos of the landmarks DBT references in the lyrics of their songs.

When I first started to listen to DBT I had recently moved to San Francisco and was struggling with the "duality" of my own Southern thang. I wasn't exactly capable of being "proud of the glory" and was having some issues "staring down the shame". I was hesitant to even tell people I came from Alabama due to their reaction. Example: An Alabamian upon meeting someone from San Francisco for the first time might assume the San Franciscan is gay while a San Franciscan upon meeting an Alabamian for the first time might assume the Alabamaian is a racist. Neither labels fits me and we all know what happens when one ass-u-me(s). Never-the-less, DBT came along and gave me a voice and a reason to be proud of the glory of the artistry that comes out of the south and particularly The Shoals area in the Northwest corner of Alabama. DBT was singing songs about MY southland, the landmarks I grew up with, the highways I barrelled down drunk with bourbon and youth, the neighborhood yards I cut for pocket money in the summers, the factories that employed my family and put food on my table, the water-way that allowed me to grow up with a "Huck Finn" childhood.

DBT's ability to tell the other side of the story and to tell that there are "a lot of good folks down here" while acknowledging the "bad shit that went down" has been a huge influence on who I am and the way I represent the South while living outside the South. Progessive individuals do exist in the South and their voices are often the most informed. That's why the only Democrat who can win the presidency is a Southern governor.

Since I'm doing a little bit of preaching in this post it is fitting that I present to you my first DBT Lyrics Picture tour. From Patterson's "Box of Spider's:

The Stone Point Church of Christ

My great-grandmothers bout ninety-seven
and she is sure when she gets to heaven,
old St. Peter's gonna throw his arms around her and say
'I've waited so long for us to meet'.
She put the General in a box
and buried him behind the Stoney Point Church of Christ,
when I was three.