Rush Limbaugh says he’s not the titular head of the Republican Party. He’s correct of course; Rush is just one of many tit heads in the Republican Party. Speaking of Republican tit heads, everybody’s favorite Uncle Tom, Michael Steele, says “…liberalism will kill you. It’s a drug we don’t need to be hooked on.” Yeah, man. And I need my fix, bad.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear I’ll be getting that fix from the tit heads in the Obama administration’s DOJ. In their latest Bush-like action, they’ve sided with the previous administration on the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson lawsuit charging Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage with violating the Wilsons’ constitutional rights, declining CREW’s request to have SCOTUS reconsider the case.

More tit headedness as the Senate voted 90-6 to deny funds necessary for moving prisoners from Guantanamo to prisons in the US. As you no doubt have already heard, Harry Reid declared that he would never allow terrorists to be released in the United States. When reminded that nobody was talking about releasing them, just putting them in prison in the US, Reid relied upon the logic and debating skills he learned at George Washington Law School for his response:

Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

Touché, Senator, touché. And might I add that Liberty University’s apparently got nothing on GWU?

Some good economic news up here, for a change. Well, I reckon it’s good news. We used to have a Miller Brewery in Fulton, NY, but it’s been closed for quite a while (mostly ‘cuz Miller sucks). It was taken over by Northeast Biofuels, who wanted to make ethanol. They spent about $200 million getting the plant operable, and then went bankrupt. Yesterday, SUNOCO bid $8.5 million for the place, easily outbidding another group who bid $1 million, with the intention of liquidating the assets. Supposedly, SUNOCO actually wants to operate the plant, and hopes to produce 20% of the 460 million gallons of ethanol they use to blend with their gasoline each year. It’s not a huge amount of jobs, but it’s better than a big empty building, at least.

Otherwise, not much new. Granny is back home where she belongs, and we have a full house again. The bad news is, it’s back to work again today. The good news is, at least there’s a three-day weekend to look forward to. I could use a day off.

There’s a big anniversary coming up: the 20^th anniversary since the Chinese army crushed the peaceful Tiananmen Square demonstrations by college kids and working people. I honor of the occasion, the memoir of Zhaou Ziyang, former head of the Chinese Communist Party, is being released this week – four years after his death. The work, which the publisher has titled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,” details Zhao’s assertion that the decision to impose martial law was illegal and a peaceful solution could easily have been negotiated. Zhao refused to condemn the protests, and was purged from the party and exiled at the end of June, 1989.

For their part, the Chinese government, via Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu

“…reiterated the official view that the movement’s crushing paved the way for China’s economic success in the two decades that followed what he called “the political incident.”

“Facts have proven that the socialist path with Chinese characteristics that we’ve pursued is in the fundamental interest of our people and it reflects the aspirations of the entire nation,” Ma said when asked to comment on the release of a posthumous memoir by Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese leader who was deposed for supporting the protests.

Sounds to me like the Chinese have fully embraced the idea of capitalism. Crush the people and kill the dissenters in order to protect profits.

Kinda beat this morning. Woke up in the middle of the night, filled with a sense of dread and impending doom, and feeling very anxious. All for no apparent reason (I mean, Granny won’t even be here ’til Wednesday at the earliest). I guess I musta had somebody else’s blues. So, naturally, I couldn’t get back to sleep, and now I’m tired and feeling like crap. If New York State would pass a medical marijuana bill, maybe I could get a decent night’s sleep.

Michael Steele says it’s “inappropriate” for Notre Dame to give Barack Obama an honorary degree. Well who gives a shit what you think, Mikey? You might be Catholic, but you sure don’t look Irish to me (though you know what they say about Irishmen). Why do they continue to report this on the news as “Obama receives heavy criticism” for speaking at Notre Frickin’ Dame? What, from a few mouth-breathing talking heads who’d criticize him if he shat money and killed Osama bin Hidin’ with his bare hands (funny thing is, I swear I could hear one of these protesters yelling “Barack Obama stole my shoe!” as they were throwing him out. :fire: ), and some cabbage patch Catholic chick who said she wasn’t going to her graduation ‘cuz the evil black mooslum babykiller was gonna speak?

Please. I love these high and mighty “moral” people. We used to love hanging out with the Catholic school girls back in the day, ‘cuz there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do once you got a bottle of Giacobazzi into ’em.

On a side note, what’s the big deal about an “honorary” degree anyway? I mean, it isn’t worth anything, is it? Especially one from Notre Dame (or ASU, for that matter). The shit people find to get their panties in a knot over (while the rest of the world is turning to shit around them) is beyond me.

Oh well, on to more important things. A good lacrosse weekend for Central New York. As you may recall, the local community college took both the men’s and women’s JUCO national championships. This weekend, Cortland College advanced to the Division III title game at Foxborough next Sunday. LeMoyne College will be there as well, representing us in the Division II championship game the same day. And both Cornell and Syracuse advanced to the Final Four (Cornell, having beaten Princeton, will face #1 seed Virginia on Saturday, while #2 Syracuse – who easily beat Maryland, which kicked the crap out of Notre Dame because God hates them – will face #3 Duke). So, we could have an all-CNY championship game on Memorial Day (I’m taking up a collection to send a stripper over to the Duke palyers’ hotel on Friday night, if anybody’s interested).

On Press the Meat this week, Michael Steele gets a permission slip from Rush Limbaugh to visit the show, as long as he sticks to Rush’s script. Also on, the DNC’s Tim Kaine, and a roundtable with the Council on Foreign Relations’ Richard Haass, Newsweek’s Jon Meacham, Wall Street Journal’s Piggy Peggy Noonan, and the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein.

Over at CBS’s Faze the Nation, it’s creepy downstate NY congressman Peter King, the ACLU’s Anthony Romero, CBS’s John Dickerson, and Joan Biskupic of USA Today (what, nobody from People MAgazine was available?).

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace hosts a “fair and balanced” debate between Richard McBrien and Frank Pavone, on whether Notre Dame should stoop to honoring abortion rights advocate Barack Obama. For you high and mighty Catholics out there, might I suggest that you quit buggering altar boys (and covering up the buggery) before you cast stones at others?

As for Notre Dame in general, I have two things to say to you:

First, FUCK YOU and your use of an Irish American as your mascot, thereby both dehumanizing Irishmen, and perpetuating the racial stereotype that the Irish are thick-skulled ignorant brutish fighters. I ought to kick your asses.

Second, you lost to Syracuse – at Notre Dame in front of Touchdown fucking Jesus in football last year. Yeah, Syracuse, who lost to Akron at home last year (no offense to Kevin or the Zips). Suck on that, you assholes.

Also on Fux, Senator Mitch McConnell steps out of his closet, and “Power Player of the Week” Patty Stonesifer, chair of the Smithsonian Board of Regents. And to Patty, I have one thing to say: pay your goddamn summer interns, bitch.

On the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus hosts a “debate” between Krazy Jon Kyl and Jim Webb, on whether or the US is safer under Obama. Hmm. Let’s see, Bush/Cheney, under whose reign more Americans were killed as a result of terrorist attacks than all other presidential administrations combined vs. Obama, who is actually not – yet- despised by most of the world. Tough call.

Then it’s a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, James “cupie doll” Carville, the Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, Political wizard Steve Schmidt (senior adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign), and the spawn of evil, Liz Cheney.

On CNN, India’s version of the Chuckie Doll, Fareed Zakaria, hosts former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates discusses the war in Afghanistan with consummate journalist Katie Couric, Steve Kroft talks to AIG’s Ed Liddy, and Morley Safer talks to somebody named Anna Wintour, who is apparently famous for her sunglasses, though I’m proud to say I haven’t a clue as to who the hell she is.

Have a good one, y’all.

As punishment for not taking him to the park yesterday, Fritz insisted on getting me up at 5:30 this morning. But, what the hell, I wasn’t actually sleeping anyway. I wanted to be able to listen to Final Engagement while I cut the grass today, so I converted it to mp3 (for my own personal use, not for distribution, and still – as far as I know – covered under fair use). When I did, I noticed that the first minute and a half of the first track is silence. What’s up with that? Hard to believe it got released that way (not that it’s a big deal; just curious).

Speaking of Maron, I hope we hear from anyone (Vernon) who caught him and Janeane last night. Those of us who live in areas where they apparently will never come need to live vicariously through you, you know.

I made the mistake of leaving the teevee on after the morning news, and accidentally exposed myself to the weekend Today Show, which is – amazingly – even more banal than the weekday fare. I didn’t really catch any of it, but I saw that they’d trotted out Elizabeth Edwards again, and the Today Show twit (no clue who she is) was grilling her about whether she was confident that John had “told her everything.” Jeebus, OK, we get it already. Johnny’s a scumbag (frankly, I still wish he’d been elected President, though I suppose he’d have probably disappointed me in the end, too).

They did, however, have a story about a hound dog and an orangutan that met on a wildlife preserve and have become the best of friends. I have to admit, this was the cutest damn thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Now they’re doing a fascinating story on spray tanning. I kid you not. Dave Garroway, John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, and Frank McGee must be so proud. Well, Hugh Downs, anyway. The rest of them are just rolling in their graves.

Oh well, time for a little Renovation Nation on Planet Green, until it’s late enough to cut the grass (assuming it stops raining).

Yesterday really blew, wind-wise. We didn’t lose power at work, but when I came home for lunch, I found the clocks blinking, so I reckon the power was out there. Siggy doesn’t like storms, and even high winds scare the hell out of him. Power failures, too. Especially when the UPS in my office downstairs (where he hangs out during the day) and the one in Granny’s office upstairs start beeping. He must’ve been terrified yesterday, and when I got home at lunch, I found that he’d managed to lock himself in the tiny little bathroom off the kitchen (it’s literally too small for him to stand in if he keeps his tail straight). I don’t know how long he was trapped in there, but the whole room was full of dog slobber. Poor boy. Then, when I got home after work, I realized one of our circuit breakers had tripped, so my UPS was dead (and Sedition Radio was off the air). It’s always something.

Arkansas GOP cracker Kim Hendren has apologized for the way he referred to that Jew Senator of mine. Not that being a Jew Senator is a bad thing, of course. Just not something you see much in Arkansas, I guess, where they have good, Christian family values like Andy Griffith and whatnot. I wonder if Hendren knows Jesus was a Jew? Better not tell him – his head might explode. Jesus can tell him all about it come Judgment Day.

With the decision to not release the prisoner abuse photos, the revival of military commissions, the reluctance to prosecute torturers, and the removal of protections for polar bears and gray wolves, I’m experiencing a bit of déjà vu these days. I always thought it was a good thing that the Bushies were so stupid, or they could have been really dangerous. I hope the new boss isn’t just a smarter version of the old boss.

Speaking of the new boss, did anybody else find his comments at yesterday’s town hall meeting kind of condescending?

Now, this brings to the last principle, and so this touches on your point, and that is, why not do a single-payer system. (Applause.) Got the little single-payer advocates up here. (Applause.) All right.

Little single-payer advocates? Like, the cute little morons who just don’t understand how the big boys play? He did go on to say…

If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.

But we just can’t have the audacity to hope for something like that in this country, I’m afraid – even if it “could very well make sense.” Or not. Oh, well, he still is supposedly going to insist on having a public component. Unless he changes his mind, of course (think, telecom immunity, torture photos, military commissions…).

Don’t worry, though, Dick Cheney isn’t running the White House again (honest). And Rush Limbaugh isn’t running the Republicans, either.

Speaking of brave American hero Rush Limbaugh – who has had the guts to take on tough foes like Parkinson’s patients, the spectacularly impotent Michael Steele, and a pilonidal cyst that kept him from killin’ gooks and winning the Vietnam War singlehandedly – has now found a new battle. He’s taking on John McCain’s 97-yr old mother. Go get her, Rush. Though I wouldn’t take any bets on you outliving her, you piece of shit brainwashed Nazi coward.

Oh well, I’m running late, here. Have a good Friday.

Not a lot of time this morning, due to a work-type “crisis” that I have to deal with. So, I’ll resort to the weather. It’s a very windy day here, with more wind and thunderstorms headed our way, as the weather that brought tornadoes to the midwest arrives sometime this afternoon. Hopefully things won’t blow for you today.

I got an e-mail yesterday from Democrats.org, telling me to “stand with” President Obama on healthcare, and touting the “historic” agreement by the healthcare industry to reduce costs. Yeah. They’ve agreed to “voluntarily” reduce costs (gee, maybe the financial services industry will agree to voluntarily regulate itself, too) by $2 trillion over 10 years (so health care will cost an estimated $31 trillion instead of an estimated $33 trillion). We’ll know they’re doing this, because they’ll tell us they are (congratulations! Your premium only went up 3%, but it would have gone up 6% if we weren’t doing such a great job. Honest, you can trust us – we’re the insurance company!).

Unfortunately, I know how the insurance industry cuts costs – they just cut what they’re willing to pay (they’ll cut payments by, say, 5%, increase their profits by 4%, and tout the 1% “savings” they’ve passed along to you). And then the uninsured either make up the difference, or get pushed off to public hospitals (who get ever-reduced Medicaid reimbursement, but don’t have the option of refusing patients). Of course, in order for you to save that 1%, we either have to raise taxes by 5%, or let people die in the street (my money is on “let ’em die in the street”). Yep, it’s gonna be great.

Speaking of e-mails from people I don’t know, I got one from Barbara Boxer yesterday, too. She was pleading with me to contact the White House to push for the appointment of a woman as the next Supreme Court Justice. And that’s OK, as far as it goes. We need more women in government.

What she didn’t urge me to do, however, was push for a progressive woman who would respect the Constitution, individual rights (like my right not to be spied on, tortured, or thrown into a prison forever with no right to see the evidence against me), and the rule of law (such as pressing to investigate and prosecute those who ordered and carried out torture).

I guess Barb’s e-mail would have had more of an impression on me if I hadn’t seen Fahrenheit 9/11, with Representatives from the Congressional Black Caucus coming forward one at a time objecting to the illegal appointment of George W. Bush as President, and begging for one – just one – Senator to stand with them. Senators like Barbara Boxer, who remained silent and are at least in part responsible for what happened over the ensuing eight years (oh, I know, Boxer found a little courage after the 2004 election, and joined in the objection to Ohio’s electoral votes. Too little, too late. She missed the boat in 2000, and 2004 was just a dog and pony show).

The problem is, I want more than a woman, Barb. I want one who’ll do what you didn’t have the guts to do. What nobody – male or female, particularly in the Senate – seemed to have the guts to do while Bush was president, and still don’t have the balls to do now that he’s gone. All while his despicable hatchet man Dick Cheney goes on the teevee taunting the Obama Administration, and just daring somebody to do something about it.

Maybe they should have sent that e-mail from Maxine Waters instead. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll contact the White House and insist that Obama appoint Maxine or Stephanie Tubbs Jones to SCOTUS. I’d like to see them kick Clarence Thomas’ ass when he pulls that Coke can shit.

And now for the important stuff: Donald Trump and Carrie Boobjob coming up on the Today Show. Can we officially be done with this now?

Like everybody else, apparently, I don’t have much to say. But, we’ll give it the old college try (just remember, I dropped out of at least three colleges – that I remember)…

I don’t really know if Michael Steele ever had his shit, but if he did, he appears to have completely lost it now. It’s amazing how low the Republicans will stoop in order to get a token in place to have something to show to the media. First they anoint token female Sarah Palin as savior and future of their party. There are plenty of smart republican women out there, but they chose a moron instead (I assume that’s because smart women scare the hell out of Republicans). They obviously had a much more difficult time finding a token black guy, because there are fewer black Republicans than there are black Alaskans (note, I made that up, and while I don’t know whether or not it’s an accurate statement, it’s certainly a truthy one). Of course, I’m pretty sure a smart black guy scares Republicans even more than a smart woman, which is why Republicans would rather have had Hillary Clinton as President than Barack Obama (plus I think most of them have mommy fetishes that she could have fulfilled – completing the trilogy of Republican sex fantasies that includes chicks with dicks – transgender author Ann Coulter – and Asian schoolgirls Michelle Malkin).

In other news, Al Franken took one more step toward assuming office and beginning his 5-year term as Minnesota Senator. Just a few months of arguments before the MN Supreme Court, and then an appeal to SCOTUS remain (and then perhaps a new election). I’m not sure if all US Senate terms from MN are going to be 5 years from now on or not. I reckon we’re saving money on paying staff and salaries, though (I wonder if the pay is retroactive).

Meredith Viera just pimped the “big story” coming up on the Today Show, and it’s some pretty important stuff. Apparently new topless photos have emerged of everybody’s favorite twit, Miss California, Carrie What’shername. Though from what they just flashed on my screen, it appears she was wearing black electrical tape or something. Sadly, I don’t have time to watch the show (let alone do a Google image search).

I really don’t get what the big deal is with her. A bimbo with fake boobs from California that appears to be dumber than a box of rocks? That doesn’t strike me as being terribly unique. And as far as her being championed by the anti gay marriage crowd, I don’t know what that’s about either. I mean, she said “no offense to anybody, but I’m into opposite marriage.” So, OK, she’s entitled to whatever opinion that little walnut of a brain can muster up, but that didn’t exactly sound like the sort of venomous bile that would get the wingnuts all moist and dewy.

Leave it to Republicans. They can’t even get a token bleach blond bimbo right.