An image I snapped at a small-town carnival this weekend. Shit like this really bothers me, though most people I know think I’m nuts for saying so. By the time the average American is mature enough to start thinking for themselves, they’ve been exposed to mountains of this stuff. Desensitization, indoctrination, at every turn, so hard to overcome. Carnival rides, cereal prizes, happy meal toys, etc…..essentially it all adds up to an “America-fuck-yeah” contact high, and some people just never seem to be able to shake themselves out of the haze. Too easy to shrug our shoulders at each individual incidence and ignore the forest for the trees.
On a lighter note, I got a really good laugh out of the fact that the sign has saguaro cacti. I didn’t even notice that when I was taking the pic!
When Jim and Dianna Beardsley met with Shrubbo to show their continuing support for the war that killed their son (they were in D.C to bury him),
The president gave them presidential medallion coins and coloring books for their son’s widow and two young children. Then Bush heard the helicopter arriving and he hugged them goodbye.
Sorry to have caused the death of your son in the name of lawless greed and making the world just a little less safe for everyone. Y’all like to color?[StarTribune]
To be honest, the full text presents a more positive picture of the Shrubmeister. Yeah, so I would have spun the story a little differently (or, left out the whole coloring-book thing so America-hating liberals like myself couldn’t so easily make it look like an insensitive blunder). But damn, look at the shit-eating grin on Shrubbo’s face in the pic. He’s thrilled for a photo-op holding an 8×10 of the kid whose life his greed and incompetence brought to a premature end.
Funny vid. Colbert’s coverage of Chong’s NBC interview about the Paris Hilton media flap. Yeah, so that’s a little convoluted, and if you’re seeing it first on this blog, via YouTube, well….that’s about as “meta” (as my friend Tamer would say) as it gets.
So Chong goes on MS-NBC to discuss Paris Hilton…I have no clue who thought this would be a good idea. He gets right to the point about mainstream media wasting our time and distracting us from important issues, so Contessa Brewer basically accuses him of being stoned. Wonderful. That part’s not in the vid below (you can GoogleTube it yourself if you wanna watch the whole, stumbling interview), but some of the interview is included in the Colbert coverage. I think Tommy actually sort of surprises Colbert and momentarily renders him speechless. Enjoy.
“They were saying, ‘Don’t fucking move, don’t fucking move,’ and came straight at me,” Riley told the Guardian. “They put my hands above my head, searched me, and searched my car, even though they were looking for someone who was stealing tires. You know, if they had a description of a light-skinned black man with a big Afro and sideburns, maybe they should have taken me in. But they were yelling, ‘Are you on probation? Do you have a warrant?’ And every time I said no, they said, ‘Don’t lie to us. Don’t fucking lie to us.’”[Pitchfork]
Yeah, I know this shit happens all the time. I just posted this as a plug for The Coup, whose music is awesome.
Another proud moment in government brought to you by the Bush administration: the Department of Transportation has been accused of working as an auto lobby.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who heads the Committee on on Oversight and Government Reform, sent DOT Secretary Mary E. Peters a letter today requesting more information on a voicemail message received by a member of Congress that implicates the agency in a lobbying effort. The message left by Heideh Shahmoradi, an aide at the Transportation Department, urges the unnamed official to take a stand on California’s move to enforce tougher carbon emission standards because “this would greatly impact the auto facilities” in the member’s district.[TPM]
The very end of this video seems to explain how to best avoid being immersed in your own fart cloud. But then I don’t speak Japanese. Could be about cooking, for all I know.
OK, I am not, at this juncture a Modest Mouse fan, but I do have one of their albums in my iTunes cart. It’s been sitting there for a couple of months, but I haven’t clicked “Buy” yet, for some reason. My point is, this post isn’t about Modest Mouse, but rather about an ambitious and totally cool amateur video some fans made for a contest.
Starting with greenscreen footage of the band, they broke it into sequential frames, posterized the files in Photoshop, then shot individual, sequential shots with a dSLR camera at various locations, and edited them into a video. I think the end result is pretty nifty.
So now America wonders WTF is wrong with Albania. Eugene Robinson discusses Shrubbo’s “fleeting glory.”[WashingtonPost]
That was a wonderful reverse-Borat moment Sunday, with the joyous townspeople of Fushe Kruje yelling “Bushie! Bushie!” and Albania’s prime minister gushing over the “greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times.” The crowd pressed in for autographs, photographs, a presidential peck on the cheek. Years from now, in his dotage, Bushie will feel warm all over when he recalls those magical hours in Albania. How they adored him!
The piece also touches on other crimes of the Bush Administration, concluding:
We will remember this whole misguided administration for deciding to wage the fight against terrorism in a manner that not only mocks our nation’s values but also draws new recruits to the anti-American cause. We will remember this White House for unwittingly helping the terrorist cause perpetuate itself.
Yay, it’s a great new “regular” feature for my blog! I considered “Hypocrite of the Week,” but decided that was too ambitious. I put “regular” in quotes because it’s more likely to be “Hypocrite of the Time Intervening Since the Last Time I Highlighted a Hypocrite.” But I figure with today’s news cycle, that intervening time will always seem like roughly a month.
My regular readers, if I have any, should feel free to send me suggestions for future hypocrites, thereby eliminating my “work” load. If YOUR suggested hypocrite is featured, I just might remember to send you a free T-shirt, once the Ruptured Structure clothing line is released (c. 2014).
Anyway, remember this old codger, Mr. Tort Reform, Robert Bork?
Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they “wantonly, willfully, and recklessly” failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.[ACSBlog]
