2008

Happy New Year, y'all. I've got nothing today.... except a tequila hangover and hours and hours full of football and flat lining.

Kicking Drummer Boy Ass

Number 1 isn't a surprise and Cheney was #2.

But look who's number 9. You suck.

The entire list is a hoot and worth a read.

The BEAST: 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007:

1. George W. Bush

Charges: Is it a civil rights milestone to have a retarded president? Maybe it would be, if he were ever legitimately elected. You can practically hear the whole nation holding its breath, hoping this guy will just fucking leave come January '09 and not declare martial law. Only supporters left are the ones who would worship a fucking turnip if it promised to kill foreigners. Is so clearly not in charge of his own White House that his feeble attempts to define himself as "decider" or "commander guy" are the equivalent of a five-year-old kid sitting on his dad's Harley and saying "vroom vroom!" Has lost so many disgusted staffers that all he's left with are the kids from Jesus Camp. The first president who is so visibly stupid he can say "I didn't know what was in the National Intelligence Estimate until last week" and sound plausible. Inarguably a major criminal and a much greater threat to the future of America than any Muslim terrorist.

Exhibit A: "And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."

Sentence: Dismembered, limbs donated to injured veterans.

.......

9. You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover. You deserve it, chump.

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Like things weren't rotten enough in Bama.

Alabama governor accused of violating campaign finance laws

Alabama's Republican Governor Bob Riley may have attempted to conceal illegal corporate donations to his 2002 and 2006 campaigns by representing them in campaign finance reports as having come from individuals, according to an an investigation carried out by the Montgomery Independent.

Riley's campaigns have been under close scrutiny during the past several weeks, with questions being raised about his narrow victory over incumbent Don Siegelman in 2002, followed by Siegelman's prosecution on what many consider to be trumped-up charges when he proposed to run again in 2006.

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Fight. Fight. Fight for your saviors love!

Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus:

"BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed."

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Since most of you are probably not at work today, here's a little 's-e-x' for ya.

The top 10 sex memes of 2007 / From convictions to hoaxes, Violet Blue looks at 2007's most-clicked items

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"They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred"

A-FREAKIN'-MEN! Liberal policies work best and we shouldn't eff them up simply because there is some unwarranted need to be 'bipartisan'. We need to be as partisan as the Rethugs have been over the past 30 years.

Why progressives should forget the middle ground.:

"What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing—what we need is partisanship."
.....

"But any attempt to change America's direction, to implement a real progressive agenda, will necessarily be highly polarizing. Proposals for universal health care, in particular, are sure to face a firestorm of partisan opposition. And fundamental change can't be accomplished by a politician who shuns partisanship.

I like to remind people who long for bipartisanship that FDR's drive to create Social Security was as divisive as Bush's attempt to dismantle it. And we got Social Security because FDR wasn't afraid of division. In his great Madison Square Garden speech, he declared of the forces of 'organized money': 'Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.'"

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Lawyer up. Put that shite dead center back on the table.

Lawyers Stepping Up:

"We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…."

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If you're a news geek like me you'll enjoy this challenge.

MediaBloodhound: MediaBloodhound's 2007 Fact or Fiction Challenge

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Subprime cluster eff.

Tent city in suburbs is cost of home crisis:

"ONTARIO, California (Reuters) - Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits 'tent city,' a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis."

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Pole Tax

I'm wondering where the howls of outrage are from the 'right-to-lifers' in this country? Oh yeah, she was already a fully formed human, not an embryo. Nothing to see here, then.

Effing tragic.

Teen dies after insurance nixes transplant funds:

"A 17-year old died just hours after her health insurance company reversed its decision not to pay for a liver transplant that doctors said the girl needed.

Nataline Sarkisyan died Thursday night at about 6 p.m. at University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center. She had been in a vegetative state for weeks, said her mother, Hilda.

'She passed away, and the insurance (company) is responsible for this,' she said"

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nice dress, Hoover

Report: Hoover had plan for mass arrests:

"ASHINGTON - Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document."

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How they steal elections. Fascinating article.

TPMmuckraker | Talking Points Memo | "Angry Black Man" Does GOTV:

"As Josh wrote earlier this week, I've been gobbling up the new tell-all by Allen Raymond, the former GOP consultant of New Hampshire phone jamming fame."

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Obama's got game.

SI.com - Writers - S.L. Price: One-on-One With Obama:

"Here's the beauty of pickup basketball: You may be a U.S. senator, a living symbol of racial healing and perhaps even the next President of the United States, but if you're gliding in for an easy layup and each point is precious, I've got no choice then, do I? You're getting hacked. So, yes, I'm hammering that arm and crashing headlong into your whippet-thin frame; and, yes, it's a foul so flagrant, so absurdly desperate, that all you can do, body buckling, is laugh. Hey, it's pickup. Everyone, even you, uses whatever he's got to win.

'Believe me,' Barack Obama says, walking to the top of the key, 'you can get shot for doing that.'"

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In "What the Hell is the matter with Texas news".

U.S. Disparity in Executions Grows as Texas Bucks Trend:

"This year’s death penalty bombshells — a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas.

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Seriously, 'What the hell?'

The Raw Story | Texas slaps a tax on strip clubs:

"Texas, where strip clubs have given rise to Anna Nicole Smith and many other less-generously endowed performers, is about to make it more expensive to watch a little bump and grind.

In what some have dubbed the 'pole tax,' the Lone Star State will require its 150 or so strip clubs to collect a $5-per-customer levy, with most of the proceeds going to help rape victims. The tax goes into effect on New Year's Day."

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The Candy Cane Massacre

They don't call it the wild, wild West for nothing.

Tiger kills San Francisco Zoo patron, injures two others:

"(12-25) 21:12 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- One zoo visitor was mauled to death and two others severely injured when a Siberian tiger escaped from its grotto at the San Francisco Zoo early Christmas evening and went on a bloody rampage in front of terrified zoo patrons.

The tiger - the same animal that chewed a keeper's arm during an attack last December - was shot to death outside a zoo cafe by four officers who managed to distract the animal as it mauled one of its victims."

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When 'protecting our freedoms' goes horribly wrong. Who could of predicted.... who could of predicted.

Norad/Google Santa Tracker goes Horribly Wrong:

"Washington, DC (Rotters) - Children worldwide breathed a collective sigh of relief as Santa reportedly dodged an errant anti-missile strike this evening. The Department of Defense insisted that the strike was an accident due in part to NORAD's participation with Google Earth in providing a Santa Claus tracking service this year. Santa and all of his reindeer suffered a close call but were unhurt according to North Pole sources."

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A REAL hero. An amazing human being.

GI saves Iraqi boy in long-shot adoption:

"MAUSTON, Wis. - Capt. Scott Southworth knew he'd face violence, political strife and blistering heat when he was deployed to one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas. But he didn't expect Ala'a Eddeen"

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Tommy is my best buddy Shipper's boss. You can check the trip I took to Palau a couple of years ago here:

Reverse Mars, bitches!

'Drilling up' into space for energy

Tommy Remengesau Jr. is interested, too. "We'd like to look at it," said the president of the tiny western Pacific nation of Palau.

The Defense Department this October quietly issued a 75-page study conducted for its National Security Space Office concluding that space power — collection of energy by vast arrays of solar panels aboard mammoth satellites — offers a potential energy source for global U.S. military operations.

It could be done with today's technology, experts say. But the prohibitive cost of lifting thousands of tons of equipment into space makes it uneconomical.

That's where Palau, a scattering of islands and 20,000 islanders, comes in.

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Yes, is it?

Is camouflage bacon really necessary? :

"While shopping at a local grocery store earlier this week, I was taken aback by something I found in the meat counter - bacon in a camouflage package."

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Happy Hollandaise

Happy Holidays, y'all from JPW and Alabama Ass Whuppin!











And for my Jewish friends:

And for the rest of us:

DBT Half Week in Review - 12/21/07

Pre-order the new album Brighter Than Creations Dark from the official Drive-By Truckers store for your chance to be entered in a drawing for one of 2 grand prizes to include a signed poster, a gift certificate for $100 of merchandise from the official Drive-By Truckers store and 2 tickets to an upcoming headlining Drive-By Truckers show of your choice. In addition, the first 100 people to purchase the Brighter Than Creations Dark CD & T-shirt bundle will ALSO receive a signed tour poster from the Drive-By Truckers.

Contest begins December 20, 2007 and ends January 22, 2008. To guarantee deliver on the release date, domestic customers must select the express shipping option and place their orders by 3 PM on January 18. All pre-orders taken by this time will ship that Friday. The release date delivery option is not available for international customers. Orders that ship by the standard shipping method will take between 3-5 business days to arrive.

Remember, only the first 100 people who order the Brighter Than Creations Dark CD & T-shirt bundle will receive a signed poster, so hurry up and order yours today!

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A few odds and ends today as we gear up for the Holidays:

dbts : Message: [BT/MP3] Party for Adam & Wendy Musick (Southern Bitch, w/ members of DBT et al):

"'Athens music is losing some good ones: Adam & Wendy Musick of
Southern Bitch are moving away any day now, taking over their family's
farm in Virginia. Kimberly and Brad Morgan (of The Everloving Band and
Drive-By Truckers respectively) had a few musician friends over to
play songs as a farewell, and record it for a keepsake. We thought
some fans might enjoy it too.

Chuck Bradburn (Southern Bitch), Brad Morgan, Wendy Musick and John C.
Stubblefield (Lucero) perform along with the lead singers listed above.'

MP3: http://southernshelter.com/2007/12/musick-party-morgans-121407.html
FLAC: http://digitalpanic.org/bittorrent/showthread.php?t=18721"

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Some nice pics of Bettye in concert:

NineBullets.org - a DBT fansite :: View topic - The Scene of the Crime...GRAMMY NOMINATION!!!!

Betty on NPR:

NPR Music: Bettye LaVette Is the Comeback Queen

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The Wydelles newish website.

The Wydelles

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Jenn likes funny words:

Ferfberger � Pointy Pointy:

"It’s funny-made-up-word Tuesday! I love words that are FUN to say. You know, words with ZAZ. (By the way we went to see Dethklok the other night and that shit ROCKED! Moreonthatlater) As I was saying, ZAZZY words"

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Molded by rock:

"More than 20 years later, there's very little that I don't remember about my first rock concert - Van Halen on the '5150' tour at the Cow Palace in Daly City. I was 15 years old, and drank cans of Budweiser in the parking lot while listening to 'Led Zeppelin II' on the stereo in my friend's two-toned beige and brown Dodge conversion van. Some older dude with a black beard walked up and said, 'I'm going to have to give you a citation ... for not partying hard enough!' I was so relieved that he wasn't going to send us to jail, I paid him $10 for a bumper sticker."

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Slash On Stealing His First Top Hat, Becoming Fashion Sensation:

"The first sign of a true rock star? When a man named Saul Hudson changes his name to Slash... and it sticks. The second? When said rock star puts two stolen items together and instantly creates a fashion sensation. The former lead guitarist for Guns N' Roses (now with Velvet Revolver) recently chronicled his rise to rock stardom in his eponymous book Slash. I spoke with the guitar legend about how and why he developed his signature style:"

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Pot Suspect Served Hash Cake for Lunch

(12-20) 13:21 PST AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) --

A man being held in a Dutch police cell on suspicion of growing cannabis got an unintended treat in his lunch — a piece of hashish-laced cake, a spokesman said Thursday

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Fat Fuel

Fair comparison.

Post columnist compares 'Christianized' GOP to hypocrisy of KKK:

"The GOP's clamor to identify itself as a party of Christian piety has failed to include some key elements of the faith -- namely Christian principles, according to a Washington Post columnist who says modern Republicans recall the hypocrisy of the Ku Klux Klan."

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Extremely fair commentary on the feckless Dems.

Democrats who refuse to lead - AMERICAblog:

The current crop of Democrats don't know how to fight. They're afraid to fight, they're incompetent at fighting, and they're incapable of fighting because they don't know how to fight. They think that issuing a press release with the right talking points is fighting back. They think that holding a simple press conference on the Hill will generate a news story. And they think that a single, or even a week's worth, of news stories is a victory. They simply do not understand what the Republicans all know too well - how to take a story, a theme, and jam it down your opponents' throats for weeks, if not months, if not years, on end. To a Democrat, if you get a blurb in the Washington Post, one day, that's a public relations victory. To a Republican, once that blurb is repeated every day for 30 years then they declare victory.

The current crop of Democrats and their consultants and the non-profit advocacy groups in town have no idea how to fight like a Republican, how to fight to win. It's not just a lack of will, a lack of backbone, they quite literally don't know how to fight, so when they do rarely fight back, and lose because it was done so poorly, the lesson they take away isn't that they need to learn how to fight better, but rather, they think they lost because they fought back. And it will get them nowhere until they realize that they don't know what they're doing, and others do.

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If human fat can be used as fuel, then the U.S. should be energy independent by... yesterday.

Eco-boat powered by human fat attempts round the world speed record:

"The fastest eco boat on the planet will attempt to break the round the world speed record using fuel made from human fat."

Demonstrating further commitment to the cause, Bethune underwent liposuction and donated enough to produce 100ml of biofuel, while two other, larger volunteers also had the procedure, making a total of 10 litres of human fat.

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Doe, a whale, a female whale.

Whales may have come from deer-like animal:

"WASHINGTON - It sounds like a stretch, but a new study suggests that the missing evolutionary link between whales and land animals is an odd raccoon-sized animal that looks like a long-tailed deer without antlers. Or an overgrown long-legged rat."

Is that a candy cane in your pocket?

Really!?! This is what it has come to? A 'health-care gift card'? The richest nation in the world and our national health care plan is a rip off of Starbucks?

wcbstv.com - Medical Gift Cards A Hot Commodity This X-Mas:

"When it comes to Christmas presents, Stacey Smith was stumped over what to give to her husband's grandmother.

'Especially an older person … they really have everything they need,' Smith said.

But now she's found something that fits perfectly -- the 'gift of health' through a medical gift card.

'She can use it towards her prescriptions and her medical bills or anything like that,' Smith said."

Wait, it gets worse.....

One in Five Expect to Borrow to Heat Homes This Winter

For perhaps as many as 27 million American adults, keeping warm this winter will mean borrowing money and 20 million will use credit cards to be able to afford their heating bills, according to a CreditCards.com poll."

Best. Country. Evah.

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Is that a candy cane in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Santa acted like a little bitch about it, too.

Woman Accused of Groping Mall Santa:

Santa Claus says that a woman who sat on his lap was naughty, not nice.

A Santa at the Danbury Fair mall said the woman groped him.

'The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted,' police Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said of the weekend complaint."

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Woo-hoo. At least he's involved somehow.

Peter Jackson to produce `The Hobbit':

"NEW YORK - Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have reached agreement to make J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit,' a planned prequel to the blockbuster trilogy 'The Lord of the Rings.'"

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Bad Attitude

It is incredible that this is not a major story for every news outlet in the U.S. Thus the times in which we live....

SIEGELMAN SPEAKS! EX-GOV CALLS '02 ELECTION "STOLEN" BY THE WHITE HOUSE!:

"So far, the mainstream press coverage of Don Siegelman's ordeal has pointedly ignored the theft of the 2002 election. Clearly, Siegelman himself does not regard that theft as a side issue, but as a major crime, and one that is quite relevant to his whole story.

Today, the Alabama governor is not allowed to speak up on his own behalf. He's locked away inside a federal prison cell, and, for good measure, has been silenced by the Alabama courts. As Scott Horton has so aptly put it, Don Siegelman is the Man in the Iron Mask."

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Brief win for the good guys. Important win.

Judge: White House logs are public:

"WASHINGTON - White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws."

And another really important brief win:

BREAKING: REID PULLED TELECOM BILL:

"Harry Reid just pulled the telecom bill. The Senate will take it up again after the first of the year, but for now there will be no retroactive telecom immunity."

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What the hell is wrong with these people.

Princeton Student Admits Faking Attack :

"A Princeton University junior who claimed to have been beaten by two men in black ski caps for his conservative views admitted on Monday that he made up the attack, according to Princeton Township police officials."

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Finally, FINALLY an organization that's will clean up all of this filth.

Singleton hunts for 'A-Team' team

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