Furibundum

People I know keep on dying, reminds me how I don't like getting older. Granted, most of the ones dying lately, has nothing to do with age; suicide is ageless, of course, as is the sudden niggling cramp or ache that turns out to make you unexpectedly dead in a matter of few weeks. Don't know whether all of the bucket-kickings lately should make me thankful to have made it 47 years when others have not, or instead freak me out wondering if sooner than later it will be my turn , living on borrowed time. Either way, I wish it to be any other time but the present, back to when I didn't think so much. Back when I used to go out dancing to fluff like this, when I could not possibly have known how things would turn out, to an earlier time when more of the people I knew were still alive, and we only just wanted to dance. So give me a break about the song, I know it is so 1989, but it brings memories back for me, and makes me happy, which for today is a good thing, I've been ki...

Back in 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama had this to say opposing The Patriot Act when it came up then for reauthorization: "We do not have to settle for a Patriot Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety. We can have one that secures both." Throughout his entire presidential campaign, Obama often railed against the Act, criticizing it giving authorization for the Bush administration to secretly spy on U.S. citizens, illegally and unconstitutionally and with little or no judicial or congressional oversight. He pledged that he would institute "robust" checks and balances if he got elected, explicitly promising to overturn its unconstitutional sneak-and-peek provisions toward citizens not even suspected of a crime. "Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional," he said. Now tomorrow, President Obama is set to sign into law an unamended extension of that same Patriot Act, a bill that pre...

I'm just being petty and irritable, of course, but this annoys me a little bit. See, I sometimes cross-post over at AlterNet, mostly because I'm a fan of the site, but also because I'm an attention whore . I know it's their turf and everything, but if they wanted to change my title, don't you think I might at least have been given a heads-up? I got no notice whatever, just a surprise when I went there and saw it done. Likely that's where the "alter" comes from in their name. Trivial gripe, I know, but I'm acting a crank today. Probably for the most part because I'm jealous that theirs is better than mine, and because I understand why they did it. I should know better trying to be clever all the time; lesson learned. I can still bitch about it, though.

Most folks have their own way of thinking about any one thing, which is all right, even when I might disagree with whatever their say-so is on the matter. On the other hand, I am pretty intolerant when the "thinking" part of concluding an opinion plays little or no role at all, rather pigheaded judgment passed without reason or common sense. Take this one particular clown, Cliff Kincaid, editor of the AIM Report for Accuracy in Media , a "non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" . Setting records straight might be a stretch in describing what they do, actually; it doesn't take much more than a cursory perusal of the stuff over there to recognize their own particular bent on things. Cliff Kincaid is a perfect fit , hooked the same way, leaning decidedly right. But notwithstanding political bias, nuts is just...

You might think the George W. Bush administration's hijacked Justice Department is still under appointment, what with the final word coming down from there this past Friday about Bush's former Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee. Seems the verdict is that the pair of them, who concocted the " Torture Memo " on behalf of the administration toward the beginning of Bush's wartime reign, really did not misconduct themselves professionally after all, as had been the first findings by the Office of Professional Responsibility; that might have meant disbarment. Instead, the two lawyering hacks only exercised "poor judgment" in writing up and signing off on the official memoranda granting limitless authority to President Bush, overriding whatever bothersome domestic and international laws that might otherwise occlude a presidential wartime notion. The memo accorded Bush the okey-doke to order torture ( felony ), declare war on a whim anytime, any...

Hey, it's CPAC 2010 today... and tomorrow and the next day after that. Three full days of Conservative Political Action Conference kerfuffle , mostly talking over how to save freedom from or for or on this or that or the other; the usual docket with the usual suspects present and accounted for. There is this one thing even curiouser than the rest from today's agenda, a puzzlement, really: Getting Started in Hollywood , a session covering the "ins and outs of getting a career started in the world of film, TV and theater". I don't understand why . [Never mind, I found out that one of the guys for this is from a company, Big Hollywood , "for those who think something has gone drastically wrong and that Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots" . Who knew such roots?] Anyway, stunning the red team today, this morning's surprise appearance by the big dick Cheney himself, smirking and chattering on for a bit about something that I don't give...

I hate this guy, Pastor Steven Anderson . I know what you're thinking, that I mean I don't like what he stands for. No, I hate the person. And I don't mean I just don't like his beliefs, either. I mean I really hate him and his dissing the president. Like it says in the Bible about guys like him, I hope he dies soon and his wife get left alone so that his kids have to beg and dig through trash just to live. Plain and simple, I hope he dies and goes straight to Hell. Here's my personal prayer about it: "Dear God, break his teeth in his mouth so that he melts like a snail and dies like a partially-birthed baby." Or something like that anyway. So what it doesn't make much sense, you get the gist. Like I said, I hate the man. Not that I would want somebody to do anything to him, mind you; that would make him seem a martyr and Lord knows we don't need that! Maybe he could die from natural causes instead, that would be all right. I would like ...

I find a lot of things funny, but I don't usually really laugh about them; even my online LOLs are fake more often than not, I'll admit. But honestly, who can possibly resist, at the very least, to giggle here? "We're talking about taking the penis of one man and putting it into the rectum of another man and wiggling it around in excrement. And you have to think, I'm not sure, would I allow that to be done to me?" LOL, and I really do mean it this time, even the "OL" part. I'm not sure it would be quite as funny without the video to go along with that, so I am posting it below just in case. You've probably seen it already. It seems to have gone viral, this video of New Hampshire's state representative Nancy Elliott explaining anal sex to the dimwitted ones in session there with her, arguing for why the state's same-sex marriage law should be repealed, five weeks after its passing . It's hardly worth mentioning that she is Rep...

I don't know why I find it so incredibly sad about that Georgian guy, Nodar Kumaritashvili, being killed today on his final pre-games Olympic trial run. Sadder than what I would have expected of me; I don't know luge people from whomever, and I still don't care to start bothering with that now. But I actually got verklempt when they brought up at the opening ceremony tonight about him being dead, surprised me more than just a little bit. Not the opening ceremony was what surprised me, it was as irritatingly boring as I had expected, but the me choking up part was unsettling. Then toward the end when they took a minute of silence for his passing, it got so bad, in fact, I went for a box of Kleenex generic facial tissue. Why this particular incident affected me so much, who knows? But it did, full-on waterworks, and I figured why not waste space just to say so.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a bratty little shit. Despite earlier agreeing to stop Israel's land-grab in the West Bank for awhile (giving in to some uncommon U.S. pressure) as a good will gesture toward talking peace again with the Palestinians, the Prime Minister last month doggedly made clear that he has every intention, instead, to keep on building and staying there forever. He was on board at first, sure, until he wasn't; when the Jews who are already settled there started raising a ruckus about him giving in and stunting their growth, then all of a sudden he is planting trees and making nice , acquiescing that, "Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel for eternity." Well, yay. Never mind that that sort of complicates things, blowing out of the water whatever peace mission Obama's envoy has been on for the past year. Not that it should be very surprising, rea...

As if being subjected to last night's commercial inanity wasn't enough of an affront to intelligence, apparently non-stop analysis and commentary about it have been the order of the day for today. Of course, here I am tossing out my own two cents about those Super Bowl ads as well, so I suppose I'm really no better than that lot, those blathering on about it all day long. Once again, stuffed in betwixt every other play throughout last night's game were the overly-costed and overly-hyped glorified plugs that happen at every Super Bowl, promoted as some sort of must-see, can't-miss bestest commercials ever. And they all sucked , the very worst kind of suck. The advertisers try way too hard to impress, and in doing so come up way too short of expectations, or at least what I would expect from all the hoopla anyway. Granted, most commercials the rest of the year aren't anything to brag about, either, to be sure, but those just sort of happen here and there ov...

Tea Party Convention, Nashville, Tennessee. Like a fucking revolutionary costume party down there. Tancredo forgets notes, thinks it's a white supremacists rally. Farah makes a birther speech. Palin says "hopey-changey", wishes Reagan a happy birthday. Six hundred nutjobs wet themselves. Whatever. Idiots still in our midst. Teabaggery October 2009

If stupid is as stupid does, then pardon me for speaking ill of the dead here. But I will anyway, because the truth of the matter is that all 65 persons who were in attendance at that sweat lodge thing in Arizona last October, both the lucky survivors and the less fortunate dead ones, frankly must have been pretty half-baked already just being there. Those are the folks who were hustled by now-arrested motivational speaker James Arthur Ray into anteing up $9,000-plus a head for the trip to Arizona, there where they might escape toward attaining harmonic wealth and spiritual enlightenment. A five-day long recurrence that Ray lines up every year, the "Spiritual Warrior" retreat. That is Ray's business, helping others achieve enlightenment, which I would bet took off hugely since getting so much attention a few years back, when everyone started wanting to know what exactly is The Secret . First, he was in the movie to help explain it, and then later on showed up on Opr...

"Cautiously optimistic, again to wait and see" is how I wrapped up my post the other day , referring to whether or not President Obama would step up making good his promise to push repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Later than we had expected from him, maybe, but better overdue than never. So let the games begin. Kicking it off today, the hearing out of the military's top defense officials about their take on getting rid of it, and what the Pentagon would need to do if and when that happened. I reckon that's a start, but I have a gripe about how things got going and how I expect things will turn out going forward. Robert Gates said that just laying the groundwork for a repeal of the policy will take most of a year. That's how long is apparently will take to prepare the military, and to get their thoughts and opinions about it before doing anything else. He said he will put together a "high-level working group" to immediately get started on t...

You know, I'm the sort of guy that not too terribly long ago never gave a second thought to buying pretty much anything I wanted. Mostly because I had money back then, that helped a lot. But also because I never really processed in my mind whether or not I should reconsider buying something just for the want of it. Being poor makes a guy think about stuff like that. Hindsight and that sort of thing. I keep thinking if I had been even just the bittiest more frugal back then, I probably wouldn't be in such dire straits now and, honestly, could probably plan on getting by just fine for years to come; particularly given my borderline neurosis being so stingy now. Anyway, for some wiser than myself, it doesn't necessarily take for a bad break to envisage the possibility of re-appraising how they might want to change up their lives for the better; dismissing much of what most of us offhandedly are convinced makes for being happy, mostly just things, has its up side. This here bo...