Merry Christmas!

Peace on Earth & Good Will to Men, Women, Children and those In-Between All Categories.

The Books Next to My Bed, Part I

Dorothy L. Sayers died today. Back in 1957. If you haven't read any of Miss Sayers work, hit yourself very hard right between the eyes with a big stick and then go to the public library or your favorite bookstore and find something by her. Anything by her. The pain in your head will immediately cease upon the first word of the first story or chapter.

You need to know Lord Peter Wimsey. Knowing Wimsey is like knowing Sherlock Holmes - it's a thing you need to do before you die. I'm only a neophyte Sayers-fan, I have to admit, but I'm hooked. I read an omnibus novel collection a few years ago and I have a another book of Sayer's stories on my bedside table right now. I read a story every few months. It's like taking a short vacation into pure pleasure.

I've been meaning to write about the Books Next to My Bed for a while. Just a moment ago I saw that today was the anniversary of Sayers' death and I decided the time was nigh. Don't worry, there will soon be music. We've had computer "problems" at home lately that have prevented me from doing lots of stuff I want to do for you, because I love you furry critters so much...but they are fixed and music will come again. Soon.

Gasket Blowing Chunk-O-Meter

I blew one on a comment left last night by an "Anonymous" person. Several things caused me to spew bile and chunks.

Anonymous. Couldn't even take the time to get a decent username. Hiding behind silly names while lashing out at our enemies is a time-honored American tradition. Just ask Richard Saunders. (Now that's a silly name! Gomonkeygo got nothin' on Dick S.)

Misquoting Thomas Jefferson. Or any other "Founding Father." Hate that. Really, really hate it. Especially when the misquote is used as the bulwark to a juvenile sense of reasoning regarding important issues, like gun control. "Give me liberty or give me a fact-checker?"

Telling me to stop "crying" or "whining" - This really pushes my buttons. Only conservatives and Republicans can say that things are bad in these United States, by their rules. Otherwise you're just a whiner. Republicans and conservatives are, after all, the only Americans endowed with "common sense" and "values." Common sense and values that have plunged us into two unwinnable wars, turned former friends into foes, destroyed our economy, worked to discriminate against the basic human needs of companionship and love...and I could go on further but I'll just send you over here if you need reminding.

So, I let it all hang out. It felt kinda good too, not to hold back, just to rage. If "Anonymous" ever comes back, I probably won't even blink, I've gotten so much toxicity out of my system now. So, thank you, Anon - you're better than castor oil or enema. Not much, but...

The Republican Master Plan to Retake the White House in 2012

Part I: Send the nation into a dizzyingly deep Depression by allowing the auto manufacturers to fail and millions to lose their jobs.

Part II: Blame Obama.

Part III: Hope Obama can pull us out of it because we ain't got shit for brains.

Folks, if you believe in God, pray. Me, I'm sharpening pointy sticks.

Update: My Smart Wife reminded me of a subsection to Part I which I failed to append:

Part I, Subsection A: Destroy the heinous UAW. Because workers united is bad, bad, bad. We hates them, hates them all!

All Choked Up

I can't help it. I've missed him so much. To know that he's back in the swing of things brings real joy to my heart.

Who? What returning hero of the world plucks my heartstrings so? Jeebus come again? Zombie Reagan? Batman? No, WTF and if only. It's actually none other than ol' Turd Blossom himself, Karl Rove.

Yes, Rove is back, baby! And as batshit crazy as ever!!!

Take a look at the first line of this Wall Street Journal piece he wrote on the forthcoming Republican "comeback":

“

What a difference a month makes. Since November's election, the GOP is three wins, no losses.

”

Wow. It's like honey dripping on my eyeballs, it's so sweetly sick and wrong. Ever the true-red loyalist, TB has already forgotten Ted Stevens. And he chooses not to mention that the filthy Saxby won via an anti-Obama white vote in a run-off. And that the new "hero" of the Republicans, Ahn "Joseph" Cao, won against the slime-bag Dem William Jefferson. I could have beat Jefferson. Wearing a paper bag on my head. Naked.

Rove goes on to lie at length as only Turd Blossom can. It's nice to see he hasn't lost touch with losing touch with reality. I invite you to read the entire article. Sometimes oldies are goodies.

We've missed ya, Turdie! Welcome back!

My Cold Dead Hands

Take a gander at the snapshot above. This is from our Big Trip South this last summer, taken at a giant convenience store - country-style gift shop - fireworks depot somewhere in way southern Missouri if I remember rightly. And this was on the door.

Why? Why do we need signs like this? What makes people (to use the term loosely) like the NRA think that every damn one of us should be waking around packing concealed heat? If you ask me, it's a sad interpretation of the 2nd Amendment:

“

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

”

I know most folks read this as the right for every nutjob to own and carry around as many weapons as he or she physically can at any given moment, but I don't. I've always read it as pertaining to the arming of state-run citizen militias and not individual citizens. It doesn't make sense to me otherwise.

Gee, just when was the last time my local militia group trained? Gosh, I can't remember. Oh, wait - they call it the National Guard and the United States Army now and we don't need any local militia units full of shotgun- and pitchfork-wielding farmers!!!

Now, I'm no big-city liberal that's never held a gun in his life. I grew up on a farm, aw shucks and by golly! I shot BB-guns and .22s and shotguns and a few rifles growing up. Even a pistol once. Yee-hah! I used to go skeet shooting and target shooting and just generally sometimes shot shit up around the farm for the sheer hell of it (aka boredom). My poor GI Joe collection would still be around today if it weren't for firearms.

I also took a "Hunter's Safety" class like just about every damn kid within 40 miles of me did, run by the NRA. In Wisconsin, it's a deer-hunting tradition that at least one moron per year, one that should never have been allowed near a gun or even ammunition, shoots the heart out of his best friend/brother/father by not following proper hunting safety guidelines. Because of fools like this, I used to think that it was pretty cool that there was a group committed to the safe use of firearms and teaching people how to properly use them.

But as my buddy Mr. Memphis noted in the comments to my previous post, that ain't what the NRA is about now. They are about politics. They are more like the IRA than the NRA of old, an armed wing of the Republican Party wielding a disproportionate amount of political influence based on the number of weapons they own and their pretty plainly stated desire to use them in the name of keeping automatic weapons, cop-killing bullets and any other lethal weapon possible freely available on the streets of America for all of our less-than-levelheaded citizens to enjoy and kill with.

Bastards is all they are now. Total bastards. Complete bastards. Lying bastards. Bastards.

PS I hope someone stuck a gun in Charleton Heston's "cold dead hands" before they stuffed his filthy corpse in the ground. If there is a God (isn't, but just for argument's sake), he's gonna need it when he gets to Hell.

BREAKING UPDATE! Ya'all need to check out the comments. Ed makes the single best argument for banning concealed weapons I've ever seen. Bravo, Mister Ed!

Coincidence City, Arizona: Our supper last night was interrupted by a phone call. Of course, it was a telemarketer. For...the NRA! The nice lady wanted to know when was the last time I got out and enjoyed myself while hunting. I could have been very rude. I could have said, "I'm enjoying myself right now - just keep talking!" But I told her politely that it's been a few decades since I went hunting and that I do not support the NRA or any of the positions they hold about anything. She thanked me and hung up. I finished my salad. A good time was had by all.

PS I will give a free face-licking to the first person to identify the source of the pop-culture meme used as preface/header/whatever on the above paragraph.

----------------
Now playing: Julian Cope - Come The Revolution
via FoxyTunes

Dirty Rotten Bastards

Only a few stinkin' days to go, but Bush can't let one of them go by without flipping off the American people. His hatred and contempt for us is absolutely unique, I think, in the annals of the Presidency. Today's outrage?

For purely political reasons, Bush has lifted the 20+ year old Reagan-era ban on concealed weapons in our national parks. Yeah. Think about it - that meth-addled redneck in the campsite next to yours will now be packing heat, legally. And there's nothing you can do but pray he don't mistake you for a bear or a narc when you leave your tent to piss in the middle of the night.

Back to why. I said Bush the Cretin is doing this for "purely political reasons" and I mean it. This dastardly, evil, screw-us move by Bush has been done solely to throw crap in Obama's face. The NRA is already singing tight-balled hosannas in praise of Bush, so you can see where I'm heading.

When Obama eventually moves, with the completely and totally Democratic-controlled Congress (bunch of wusses that they are) to repeal this idiocy, the NRA and the rightwing nutjobs can all scream bloody murder and "I told you so! He's takin' away our guns, I tells ya! I told you he would!"

With the recent news that Rove is back in the White House in charge of the white-washing of Bush's disaster of a Presidency, this kind of move shouldn't surprise us. He probably slipped it under Bush's door in passing, you know, just to keep on being the helpful Turd Blossom we all know and love.

Revolution Time Now

I've been kinda busy this week, trying to get back on the blogging beast, but also working my day job and tackling a new website that's kinda taxing the limits of my meagre abilities. Taxing is good though, maybe I'll break on through to the other side. Too much staleness in the noggin' these days. Need to have it all blown away!

And the soundtrack I've chosen this week is Spacemen 3. I have not one single live boot of these guys - did they even play live? But I found this on the YooToob and thought I'd share.

Have a great day, kids! I'll be back to regular stuff soon.

PS Don't ya just love the profile shot of the three guitar necks! Gives me spacegoose bumps!

Jazz Is Dead

In fact, all human endeavors have now been made moot, pointless, silly, beyond worthless.

Let us all just die gracefully and give up the planet to our new walrus overlords.

Back from the Beyond

I needed a break from blogging. So I took one. But I'm back, because Ed hit me with one of these things. I thought it'd be a good way to get going again.

1. Five names you go by:
a) J____
b) Dad
c) Hon
d) Mr. W____
e) Joeyjojubglubub (Yes, really).

2. Three things you are wearing right now:
a) My blue pullover zip-up thing.
b) Funky socks - I'm sick of plain socks.
c) My wedding ring.

3. Two things you want very badly at the moment:
a) Bush to hand over the keys to Obama.
b) To be at home. It's very clean now, thanks to company for the weekend. I barely left the house in four days and didn't want to leave this morning. A clean house is a comfy house.

4. Three people who will probably fill this out*:
a) -valis
b) Nazz Nomad
c) Nuzz Prowlin' Wolf

* But I do not put an onus on them to do so, though I'm sure their answers would be better than mine.

5. Two things you did last night:
a) Made a flier for The Boy's middle-school food drive. An homage to Andy Warhol. I told him he had to get them to print it on many different colored sheets of paper and plaster the walls with them.
b) Installed Photoshop on the PC I hammered, glued and duct-taped together this weekend for my "Office" in the basement.

6. Two things you ate today:
a) A slice of cold pepperoni pizza. But really good cold pepperoni pizza.
b) A second slice of cold pepperoni pizza. (That's it so far!)

7. Two people you last talked to on the phone:
a) Dr. N. in an involved conversation about colostomy bag accessories. (Not kidding).
b) My Smart Wife.

8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
a) Fold laundry.
b) Try and find the power cord to the scanner for my "Office."

9. Two longest car rides:
a) Boca Raton, FL to Rockton, IL with four other people in a four-door sedan. One of whom had just been dumped by her boyfriend and who could only emit unintelligible moans for 24-hours.
b) Kirksville, MO to Madison, WI with a very very very very very unhappy infant in the car. I still shudder when we take that route and pass certain landmarks.

10. Two of your favorite beverages:
a) Beer. Particularly a nice, bitter IPA. (I saw no reason to change Ed's answer here).
b) Mendota Springs carbonated water (lime).

And finally, a clip from a favorite movie.
"Runner!"