BEST ADVICE FOR WEATHERING THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS

PALIN: THE EARTH IS FLAT AND THE SUN REVOLVES AROUND IT

Sarah Palin: Dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time. Points to McCain as an example!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/palin-claimed-dinosaurs-a_n_130012.html

FROM SOMEECARDS.COM

LEAKED: JOHN McCAIN'S NOTES FOR FRIDAY'S DEBATE

THIS ABOUT SUMS IT UP...(click pic to enlarge)

TEN DAYS AGO HE SAID THE ECONOMY WAS SOUND; TODAY McCAIN SUPPORTS BAILING OUT --- OF THE DEBATE

Saying that "desperate times call for desperate measures," GOP presidential nominee John McCain announced today that he would personally bail out of Friday's scheduled presidential debate.

"As of today, I am officially bailing out of the debate," Sen. McCain told reporters in Washington today. "And I invite Sen. Obama to join me in this bailout effort."

Sen. McCain said he would be putting together what he called "a comprehensive debate bailout package," which could include bailing out of the other two scheduled debates as well.

When asked what motivated his dramatic bailout proposal, Sen. McCain said, "When I woke up this morning and I saw those terrible numbers, I knew that a bailout was necessary to keep those numbers from getting worse."

Mr. McCain refused to answer a reporter's question about whether he was talking about economic numbers or poll numbers, saying, "I am bailing out of any response to that question."

GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said that she would join in her running mate's bailout effort by bailing out of her debate with Delaware senator Joseph Biden.

In a campaign stop in Michigan, Gov. Palin detailed a series of bold initiatives, including building a twenty-foot-high fence between her and the press.

McCAIN: MORE OF THE SAME

"ASK ME ABOUT MY PARENTS' DIVORCE."

BUSH SAVES THE ECONOMY

REALLY....

HOW FOX NEWS/RIGHT-WING MEDIA ASSHOLES WOULD REACT IF SARAH PALIN WERE A DEMOCRAT:

THIS PIC SPEAKS FOR ITSELF......

NOTHING TO SAY TODAY ABOUT McCAIN/PALIN, SO HERE'S A PIC OF A BIKER CHICK:

CLICK ON THE IMAGE,THEN CLICK ON IT ONCE MORE TO ENLARGE

A GIRL AND HER DOG

AHHHHH --- SO THAT'S THE LOOK MICHAEL JACKSON'S BEEN GOING FOR...

No major blogging tonight: the remnants of Hurricane Ike are seriously blowing out, and we've lost power twice so far, so I'm posting a pic while I can.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE SAME ASSHOLE BULLYS CONTROLLING THE SCHOOLYARD?? EIGHT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH!

So everyone's talking about the nasty spike of nastiness in the presidential race -- a spike brilliantly orchestrated by the Republican Rove Machinery -- and Republican John McCain takes a moment to point out that even this is Barack Obama's fault.

Y'see, all the crap being thrown at Obama -- the fear-mongering, the half-truths, the full lies -- all the character assassination hurling Obama's way, is in fact, his own doing:

"I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America," the Senator from Arizona tells us.

Am I just losing my friggin' mind? Seriously. I keep looking around the room to see if I'm living in some suddenly altered state where everything we know is now called the opposite, and nobody notices. Or can stop it.

"I wish I didn't have to take your lunch money, but you should'nt of hadda brung it."

We're in the 3rd grade again. The skinny, smart kid who just moved in to the neighborhood is getting roughed-up by the asshole bully. The kid who hits you in the head with your hand and says, "Why're you hitting yourself? Why're you hitting yourself?"

"Um, actually I'm not. You're hitting me."

"You calling me a liar?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that..." SMACK!

"Why're you hitting yourself?"

And there seems to be no one to appeal to. There're no grown-ups around when you need 'em. No one to step in and say, "Alright, that's enough now. We don't do that here, fella." And in the absence of any authority, the asshole gets to keep doing it.

"Why're you hitting yourself? SMACK! Why're you hitting yourself?"

From the few minutes of the GOP convention I could stomach watching, all I could think was that Giuliani and Sarah Palin were doing some big-person, lethal version of "I know you are, but what am I?"

America: "Well, respectfully, Governor Palin, it could be argued that you are, in fact, relatively inexperienced."

Her: "I know you are but what am I?"

"Hm? No, perhaps you misunderstood. We are talking about you."

"I know you are but what am I."

"Well, Governor, just listening to your speech, you seem awfully caustic."

"You are."

"And, frankly, a little bitter."

"You're bitter."

"I mean, where's your sense of humility?"

"I'm rubber, you're glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you."

"My God - you're... dangerous!"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Maybe that's the problem. Obama treats us like adults, and McCain's team treats us like children.

Obama seeks to inspire and raise us as a nation. McCain's people want to reduce us to infants.

Obama asks us to be deep. And courageous.

McCain prays that we're simple. And cowardly.

Now everyone is calling for Obama to "get angry." "Get out there and frown this way, curl your lip that way, and clench your fist like so." And, I don't know..... That'd be cool. Sure. But I don't think the fix can come just from him. There's only so much the guy can do. It's going to have to be us. I don't know what exactly we need to do, but I know we'll do it. I have to believe -- I mean I really have to believe we're big enough, strong enough and smart enough to reclaim what's ours. I love my country too much to let the assholes take over the school yard.

THE BUSH YEARS 2000 - 2008 (click pic to enlarge, then click again)

This is today's major pic. The next post is today's blog (OK, yeah, with Calvin & Hobbes pics too).

PALIN WANTS CREATIONISM TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS. HERE IS THE PREDICTABLE RESULT:

WHILE BUFFY WAS SLEEPING (SHE DIDN'T MISS MUCH)

HAPPY 9/11 FROM SARAH PALIN AND CHARLES GIBSON

While Buffy napped after a long day, I watched ABC News at 6:30 in which Sarah Palin said that she was "delighted" with her performance in her interview with Charlie Gibson.

She shouldn't have been.

Here's how I would report it (not far from the truth, unfortunately):

Palin gave credit to her "trusty Magic 8-Ball" for helping her come up with answers to "some darn tricky questions."

"Charlie brought his A-game, that's for darn sure," Palin said after her interview. "That's why it's a good thing I had my Magic 8-Ball with me."

During the interview broadcast on ABC, the Alaska governor was seen shaking her Magic 8-Ball after each question before responding to Mr. Gibson.

All in all, Gov. Palin responded to over eighty of the ABC newsman's questions with only three answers, believed to be a record for a nationally broadcast interview with a major political figure.

"Terrorists are hell-bent on destroying us," Gov. Palin said no fewer than nineteen times.

"I believe that America must do what we can to be strong," she said fifteen times.

"Reply hazy -- try again," she said nine times.

Occasionally, she attempted an adlib, usually the word "Charlie," which she used over one thousand times.

All in all, Gov. Palin said she was "pleased as punch" by her performance, despite having told Mr. Gibson that the United States should invade Russia.

When asked by reporters where she got her answer to the Russia question, Gov. Palin replied, "My Magic 8-Ball got stuck on that one, so I asked God."

On the campaign trail, GOP presidential nominee John McCain said he was "thrilled" with Gov, Palin's performance, adding that she would be shipped to Alaska and frozen in a block of ice for the remainder of the campaign.

DUCK FOR COVER

POSTCARDS FROM FLORIDA

FINDING NEMO 2

SURPRISED WE DON'T SEE THIS MORE OFTEN...

IDIOTS FOR McCAIN

Obama's convention looked fabulous and the Republicans had to rain on that party as best they could, so McCain impulsively chose Palin, who turned out to have some dirt in her background. After the dirt started raining down, the Republicans sent lots of vetters to Alaska to inspect the record that they hadn't bothered to look at before.

McCain met Palin moments before he picked her. Impulsiveness, McCain's biggest flaw after his hotheadedness, asserts itself once again.

And then there's the corollary: McCain out and out lies that the vetting was "thorough," even though all of us can see that it wasn't and simply couldn't have been.

So now you have it, folks, a perfect demonstration of the McCain-Palin ticket and future governing pattern -- act on impulse, cover it up by lying, demonstrate over and over that your own ambitions are more important than security and good governance.

It may be that American voters will fall for this, in spite of the fully demonstrated incompetence and criminality of the right wing (I'm glad to see, though, that the bookies, who in this case seem to be more levelheaded than most observers, say no). It also may be that the Republicans have their vote-stealing operations fully functional and the current election is simply a sham. In either of these cases, we WILL get McCain and Palin, and if we do, the decline of the US under Bush will turn into a collapse under McCain.

When we look at Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Palin, what we see are different varieties of selfishness:

Bush's selfishness is defensive, stubborn, and dumb (dumb like the morons who can't spell in the pics above. 'Maverick' maybe, but how the hell could anyone misspell 'America'?!?!)

Cheney's selfishness is power-mad.

McCain's selfishness is impulsive and hotheaded.

Palin's is simply heedless (and, judging by reports from Wasilla, vengeful!).

So, there you have it. The Republicans think that selfishness is a winning ticket that always appeals to something in the American people (would that be ... selfishness?). Obama has made his opposition to selfishness explicit. That doesn't mean he will win -- unless the bookies are right. I hope they are. Because four or eight more years of lying, cheating, opportunism, war-mongering, refusal to prepare for things, and a lack of "vetting" will surely do us in.

And let's be clear: there is no one in the world, not even Putin, who can do us in. It can only be done by suicide.

I PROMISED A PIC THIS TIME. HERE 'TIS (click to enlarge, then click that to enlarge more):

McCAIN: COTTAGE CHEESE ON A PLATE OF LIME JELLO

John McCain's nomination speech was so flat, so disjointed, so utterly devoid of any vision or affirmative plan for the U.S. -- it's hard to say much about it, other than it sucked.

McCain may have ended his speech with a Knute Rockne-like cry for Americans to fight and fight some more -- for what he never really said -- but most of his speech was a snooze, delivered in the tone of a kindly old uncle reminiscing about World War II before fretting about how how those pesky Russians are stirring up trouble again.

His speech was all rhetoric (or as Buffy said, "Bullshit") and as full of lies as Palin's, just more boring, so I was more apt to yawn than get angry.

"My fellow Americans, when I'm President, we're going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." Sounds good, right...but it's pure crap. McCain has no plan to reduce oil imports -- in fact throughout his career he's rejected every plan that might reduce oil imports substantially, including fuel economy standards, biofuels, and renewables. Shit, he even rejected the plan offered by billionaire conservative oilman T. Boone Pickens to aggressively deploy clean energy and alternative fuels over the next ten years!

"We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now." No, we won't drill them now. We might drill these new wells in maybe 10 years, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration expert on offshore drilling explains (see The Cruel Offshore Drilling Hoax - click the following link):
http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/10/the-cruel-offshore-drilling-hoax-part-1/

"Senator Obama thinks we can achieve energy independence without more drilling and without more nuclear power." This is such a bold-faced lie that I actually did get a little pissed off. Barack Obama has made quite clear that he supports nuclear power and is open to an "all-of-the-above" compromise that includes drilling.

McCain also said: "We lost their {ie: Americans'} trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies." McCain is referring to the 2005 Energy Bill which was certainly imperfect, but it contained more clean energy and energy efficiency incentives than any bill in more than a decade, so of course McCain opposed it. Ironically, it also contained more nuclear energy incentives than any bill in more than a decade -- and yet McCain opposed it and keeps claiming that those who voted for that bill don't support nuclear power. Uhhhh...WTF?!?!

According to McCain, "We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children." Listening to McCain, you'd think it was the Democrats who occupied the White House the last seven-plus years and it was time to throw the bastards out. Sheesh!

Hell, McCain's speech was so boring that I'm boring myself and probably you by just blogging about it, so hey.....c'ya in tomorrow's blog (there'll be a funny pic. Promise!).

FUNNY PIC OF TWO CLOWNS

NO PICS - - I'M TOO PISSED OFF RIGHT NOW OVER PALIN'S SPEECH

Did you watch Sarah Palin's speech last night? The speech told us a lot about her.

It told us that she can distort the facts and deliver mean-spirited zingers with the best of them. It told us that if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter ever need a stand-in, she'd be a great pick.

It told us that she can be condescending and dismissive of the real work Barack Obama did helping real people on the South Side of Chicago. It told us that she can uphold the long Republican tradition of lying about Democratic tax cuts—even though Obama's plan would give Americans a bigger break than McCain's.

But the speech—written by one of President Bush's speechwriters—didn't tell us the truth about Sarah Palin's extremist positions. And the more that people know her far-right views, the less they support her. (There's a partial list below. Sources all over Google, if you care to search like I did.)

Palin's speech and the reaction to it also made clear why McCain picked her. It wasn't a decision about who's most qualified to serve a heart-beat away from the presidency—it was a political decision about pleasing the far-right base of the Republican party.

• Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task." She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
• Palin has actively sought the support of the fringe Alaska Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin told members of the group—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and "wished the party luck on what she called its 'inspiring convention.'"
• Palin wants to teach creationism in public schools. She hasn't made clear whether she thinks evolution is a fact.
• Palin doesn't believe that humans contribute to global warming. Speaking about climate change, she said, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being manmade."
• Palin is extremely anti-choice. She doesn't even support abortion in the case of rape or incest.
• Palin opposes comprehensive sex-ed in public schools. She's said she will only support abstinence-only approaches.
• As mayor, Palin tried to ban books from the library. Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books because some had inappropriate language in them—shocking the librarian, Mary Ellen Baker. According to Time, "news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor."
• She DID support the Bridge to Nowhere (before she opposed it). Palin claimed that she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. But in 2006, Palin supported the project repeatedly, saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

The plain fact of the matter is that Sarah Palin did a bang-up job delivering a Karl Rove-style political attack speech last night. That makes her a 'skilled politician' but it doesn't make her views any more palatable for voters. Americans don't really want another far-right, anti-science ideologue in the White House.

(HINT: I'M REFERRING TO REPUBLICAN VP NOM SARAH PALIN)

When the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, minority teenage mother growing up in some (presumably Democratic) urban area, that pregnancy becomes fodder for lectures from conservatives about bad parenting, the perils of welfare spending and so on. But when the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, white teenager from some small town in a Republican state, that pregnancy is...a celebration of the wonders of God's magnificence--and choosing life!

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION SCHEDULE BROUGHT TO YOU BY (SURPRISE!):

KNOW YOUR ENGLISH HISTORY

"HEY! HOW ABOUT A LITTLE PRIVACY, OK!?!"