Forget The Irony, He's Lucky He Didn't Get Tasered!

Far to many posts bit on the obvious in reporting the story of legendary Bob Dylan getting rousted by New Jersey police.



CNN was one, that put it in their headline;

Bob Dylan a complete unknown in New Jersey town

The rock legend was stopped in July by police in Long Branch, New Jersey, who were responding to a call about a suspicious person roaming the neighborhood, police said.

According to Long Branch Police Department Sgt. Michael Ahart, Dylan had been peering into a window of a house that was for sale, which prompted a neighbor to call the police on July 23.

One of two responding officers, Officer Kristie Buble, 24, approached Dylan and asked him for his name.

"She recognized the name, she just really didn't believe it was Bob Dylan," Ahart told CNN. "He was soaking wet because it was raining and he was wearing a hood."

So Buble asked the musician for identification, but he had none.

All things considered, he should count his lucky stars, that they didn't taser him, for not having any identification with him.

More, from ABC News;

"I asked him what his name was and he said, 'Bob Dylan,' Buble said. "Now, I've seen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago and he didn't look like Bob Dylan to me at all. He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.

[snip]

"We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn't sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something," Buble said.

She asked for identification, but Dylan said he had none. She asked where he was staying and he said his tour buses were parked at some big hotel on the ocean. Buble said she assumed that to be the nearby Ocean Place Conference Resort.

"He was acting very suspicious,'' Buble said. "Not delusional, just suspicious. You know, it was pouring rain and everything."

[snip]

Following her police training, Buble said she indulged him.

"OK Bob, why don't you get in the car and we'll drive to the hotel and go verify this?' " she said she told him. "I put him in the back of the car. To be honest with you, I didn't really believe this was Bob Dylan. It never crossed my mind that this could really be him."

[snip]

"I pulled into the parking lot," she said, "and sure enough there were these enormous tour buses, and I thought, 'Whoa.'"

Her sergeant met her at the hotel parking lot.

"I got out of my car and said, "Sarg, this guy says he's Bob Dylan,'" Buble said. "He opened the car door, looked in, and said, 'That's not Bob Dylan.'"

The article points out that Dylan has long practiced making himself anonymous;

In October, 2001, he was held up at a checkpoint at Jackson County Exposition Center in Oregon as he attempted to get into the backstage area of his own concert, according to the Associated Press.

We won't pass, though, on riffing, about the sweatpants tucked into boots, and wearing two raincoats.

Since he's touring with Willie Nelson, perhaps Nelson was warbling "Crazy" while Dylan was getting dressed.


Review Links

LA Times: Live review: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp*

NY Times: Three Guys Playing in the Rain, Undaunted and Indefatigable

Again, Why Are We In Afghanistan?

One of the things said, about waging war in Afghanistan, is that everyone else - the British, the Russians - failed, that this is a country that has no history, no concept, of centralized government.

But, geez, when it comes to devaluing the lives of their woman, they suddenly become legislative pros

Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights ... Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

If you recall, earlier this year, they passed laws allowing husbands to rape their wives.

The Afghan woman told the bold, brave step of protesting, but, were shouted down, by men, as "whores" and "enemies of Islam"

If we want to do something good in Afghanistan, like secure peace, make the area safe, than we can land a bevy of cargo planes, offer all the Afghan woman that wish to, passage and citizenship in the United States (or another friendly country that values the basic rights of woman) and leave the male population there to become adept at goat fucking.

They might go hungry, with no one to make their dinner, but, hey, they won't have any resistance to their "sexual demands".

Melissa McEwan, equally outraged, over on Shakesville, urges readers to contact our State Department, complete with sample copy of a letter you can send to Secretary Clinton.

Please do so, and add in the idea of airlifting the Afghan woman outta there.

No Sheep Need Apply

It could, probably, be said that this mother-daughter team don't need to count sheep to get to sleep.

Mutation Tied to Need for Less Sleep Is Discovered

The scientists were searching the samples for variations in several genes thought to be related to the sleep cycle. In what amounts to finding a needle in a haystack, they spotted two DNA samples with abnormal copies of a gene called DEC2, which is known to affect circadian rhythms. They then worked back to find out who provided the samples and found a mother and daughter who were naturally short sleepers. The women routinely function on about 6 hours of sleep a night; the average person needs 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep.

[snip]

What distinguishes the two women in the study and other naturally short sleepers is that they go to bed at a normal time and wake up early without an alarm. The two women, one in her 70s and the other in her 40s, go to bed around 10 or 10:30 at night and wake up alert and energized around 4 or 4:30 in the morning, Dr. Fu said.

“When they wake up in morning, they feel they have slept enough,” Dr. Fu said. “They want to get up and do things. They arrange all their major tasks in their morning.”

I would be interested to know what "major tasks" get done, before the sun rises, by these two.

Ron Chusid, over on Liberal Values had a little fun with this;

There is no word as to whether the two mutants who were discovered will receive training from Professor Xaviar to use their powers for the benefit of humanity.

[snip]

So far there has not been panic seen in the general public over the news of mutants living among us but some executives at Starbucks are nervous over the prospect of humanity being genetically engineered to require less sleep.

I suppose, if they were to crack into the X-Men franchise, they would go under the moniker of "The Sleepers", and they would have to create a scene in the movie, with "The Sleepers", good-naturedly, of course, mocking the other mutant heroes for being "lazy"

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For Peggy Noonan, Next Stop, Willoughby!

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Rudy ... You Like Jumpin' Those Sharks, Don't You!

Phil Rizzuto ... Great As He Was, The Scooter Didn't Always Have His Wheels On The Ground


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Breaking News! Report Slams Seeds Of Democracy Currently Used “Worthless”; Stunning IG Reports Cites Use Of Cheap, Mail-Order Seeds Of Democracy For Iraq, Middle East; Spotlight On White House, Rumsfeld For Low-Cost Military Vision; Dirty Halliburton Water Also Cited

Top Ten Cloves: Other News Tidbits About CNN Headline News Anchor Chuck Roberts


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Pope, Vatican Relieved New Sex Scandal Is Adultery; Videotape Flown To Rome; Teams of Lawyers, Denial Machine Stand Down

Bush Administration Grounding Iraqis Over Missed Deadline; Had Warned Playing With Friends, Staying Out Late Would Lead to Consequences

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard At Justice Sunday II

Blaming Victim Gets Marriott Corp. Ignorant Dolts Title

This is, simply, astounding.

We have a roster of Ignorant Dolt building up, but this, this just almost drains the life out of you, the galaxy-high, Ignorant Dolt stupidity of, supposedly, human beings.



The Marriott Corp., through their property, the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa, is countering the law suit of a woman who was raped on their property, by blaming the woman, claiming she was careless, negligent and "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities,"

WTF?

And when you see how this woman was assaulted, you have to wonder, how on earth can the Marriott Corp., rather then harassing, and, attempting to intimidate this woman, wouldn't be front-and-center with helping her.

Or, at minimum, settle the suit out-of-court and go about their way.

Stamford Marriott claims woman was negligent in her own rape

The woman filed the lawsuit in May 2008, six months after Danbury native Gary Fricker, 56, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a plea deal in the case.

On Oct. 10, 2006, Fricker stuck a handgun in the back of the then 40-year-old woman and forced her and her children, then 3 and 5, into their minivan as they left the hotel, according to court documents.

She let him go through her wallet and told him he could take it, but Fricker demanded she take off her clothes. Fricker sexually assaulted the woman for several minutes, pointing the gun at her and her children and threatening to sexually assault one of her children.

When another car pulled up, the woman screamed, and Fricker fled. Police arrested Fricker near White Plains, N.Y., three days later, and he immediately confessed, police have said.

Fricker, a transient carpenter, had been arrested 20 times before and was wanted in Florida on an arson case, police have said.

In front of her children, with a gun, and threatening, also, sexually assaulting one of her children?

And, what is behind Marriott Corp. countering this woman?

The Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa, along with the firms in charge of managing the hotel and its parking garage, made the claim as part of a list of special defenses filed in state Superior Court in Stamford last month. Such defenses allow defendants in civil suits to argue they are not responsible for damages even if the plaintiff's story is true.

They're not responsible, even if the plaintiff's story is true ...

And, Marriott Corp. showed their heartless, Ignorant Dolt souls in going after her;

The hotel also subpoenaed several people involved with the family, including a Pilates instructor, friends, tennis partners and the children's baby sitter. The woman's attorneys argue the individuals subpoenaed do not know anything about the attack, that the subpoenas inadvertently identified her to those people and that it was merely an effort by the hotel's attorneys to intimidate her.

Hmmm ...

Maybe Marriott Corp, can open a Twitter account, and just begin smearing this woman daily, 140-characters-at-a-time.

Think about this, next time you are traveling, and choosing a hotel.

Do you want to patronize a company with this gutter-level of morals and empathy?

This could earn Marriott Corp, the Ignorant Dolts-of-the-Year title.

This is stuff of Ignorant Dolt, to the infinite power.

Google Gets Wired Today

In case you missed it, if you've done any Googling today, they have a commemorative (of sorts, well, for physics geeks, surely) logo up;



It is in honor of Hans Christian Ørsted.

Who?

From The Guardian;

Probably not even the physics geeks remember much about Hans Christian Ørsted, although Google's Doodle logo illustrates his key discovery. That is, if you run a current through a wire – in this case, from the battery at the front – then the electricity creates a magnetic field, which will deflect a compass needle.

[snip]

As with many great discoveries, it happened by accident. In 1820, Ørsted, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, was preparing an evening lecture when he noticed that a compass needle moved away from magnetic north and pointed to the wire whenever current flowed from the battery.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, the compass needle pointed in the opposite direction when you flipped the battery round.

With an invisible current creating an invisible field that moved a physical needle, this caused quite a stir at the time. In London, the Royal Society gave him a medal, and he was also made a knight of the Prussian Order of Merit, of the French Legion of Honor, and the Danish Order of the Dannebrog. On his death in Copenhagen in 1851, he was given a state funeral.

[snip]

To honour Ørsted, the scientific community named the unit of magnetic induction after him, in what we now call the CGS (centimetre-gram-second) system. Sadly for him, people no longer measure things in oersteds, because nowadays we use an international metric system (SI) that honours people such as Ampere, Ohm, Hertz, James Prescott Joule, James Watt and Michael Faraday instead.

Hmmm ....

Since today is August 14th, they could have put an illustration of Rosebud.


Bonus Google Riffs

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Guitar Legend, Inventor Les Paul Passed Away

Another giant of music has died, as news broke today that guitar legend, and inventor, Les Paul passed away, at the age of 94.



It is almost impossible to measure Les Paul's impact, imprint on music.

He was there early, he stayed late and he never, never, ever, gave up looking, searching, tinkering, demanding new sound, a new level he could take his genius to.

A news release, from Gibson Guitar;

The World Has Lost a Remarkable Innovator and Musician: Les Paul Passes Away at 94

New York, NY…August 13, 2009…Les Paul, acclaimed guitar player, entertainer and inventor, passed away today from complications of severe pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in White Plain, New York, surrounded by family and loved ones. He had been receiving the best available treatment through this final battle and in keeping with his persona, he showed incredible strength, tenacity and courage. The family would like to express their heartfelt thanks for the thoughts and prayers from his dear friends and fans. Les Paul was 94.

One of the foremost influences on 20th century sound and responsible for the world’s most famous guitar, the Les Paul model, Les Paul’s prestigious career in music and invention spans from the 1930s to the present. Though he’s indisputably one of America’s most popular, influential, and accomplished electric guitarists, Les Paul is best known as an early innovator in the development of the solid body guitar. His groundbreaking design would become the template for Gibson’s best-selling electric, the Les Paul model, introduced in 1952. Today, countless musical legends still consider Paul’s iconic guitar unmatched in sound and prowess. Among Paul’s most enduring contributions are those in the technological realm, including ingenious developments in multi-track recording, guitar effects, and the mechanics of sound in general.

[snip]

By his mid-thirties, Paul had successfully combined Reinhardt-inspired jazz playing and the western swing and twang of his Rhubarb Red persona into one distinctive, electrifying style. In the Les Paul Trio he translated the dizzying runs and unusual harmonies found on Jazz at the Philharmonic into a slower, subtler, more commercial approach. His novelty instrumentals were tighter, brasher, and punctuated with effects. Overall, the trademark Les Paul sound was razor-sharp, clean-shaven, and divinely smooth.

As small combos eclipsed big bands toward the end of World War II, Les Paul Trio's popularity grew. They cut records for Decca both alone and behind the likes of Helen Forrest, the Andrews Sisters, the Delta Rhythm Boys, Dick Hayes, and, most notably, Bing Crosby. Since 1945, when the crooner brought them into the studio to back him on a few numbers, the Trio had become regular guests on Crosby's hit radio show. The highlight of the session was Paul's first No. 1 hit and million-seller, the gorgeous “It's Been a Long, Long Time."

[snip]

In 1948, Paul nearly lost his life to a devastating car crash that shattered his right arm and elbow. Still, he convinced doctors to set his broken arm in the guitar-picking and cradling position. Laid up but undaunted, Paul acquired a first generation Ampex tape recorder from Crosby in 1949, and began his most important multi-tracking adventure, adding a fourth head to the recorder to create sound-on-sound recordings. While tinkering with the machine and its many possibilities, he also came up with tape delay. These tricks, along with another recent Les Paul innovation—close mic-ing vocals—were integrated for the first time on a single recording: the 1950 No. 1 tour de force “How High the Moon."

This historic track was performed during a duo with future wife Mary Ford. The couple's prolific string of hits for Capitol Records not only included some of the most popular recordings of the early 1950s, but also wrote the book on contemporary studio production. The dense but crystal clear harmonic layering of guitars and vocals, along with Ford's close mic-ed voice and Paul's guitar effects, produced distinctively contemporary recordings with unprecedented sonic qualities. Through hits, tours, and popular radio shows, Paul and Ford kept one foot in the technological vanguard and the other in the cultural mainstream.

All the while, Les Paul continued to pine for the perfect guitar. Though The Log came close, it wasn't quite what he was after. In the early 1950s, Gibson Guitar would cultivate a partnership with Paul that would lead to the creation of the guitar he'd seen only in his dreams. In 1948, Gibson elected to design its first solidbody, and Paul, a self-described “dyed-in-the-wool Gibson man," seemed the right man for the job. Gibson avidly courted the guitar legend, even driving deep into the Pennsylvania mountains to deliver the first model to newlyweds Les Paul and Mary Ford.

(You can use the above link for a great slide show presentation of Les Paul)



NYT (Jon Pareles) - Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94

Rolling Stone - Les Paul, Guitar Legend, Dies at 94

Les Paul on Wikipedia

Gibson Les Paul

Les Paul - Chasing Sound

Les Paul Website


And, of course, his music;

Les Paul & Mary Ford: Alabamy Bound /Darktown Strutters Ball




Les Paul & Mary Ford How High the Moon




Vaya Con Dios - Les Paul & Mary Ford (1953)



Yes, Vaya Con Dios, Les ...

It's been a gas ...

Jesus, That Was Fast! ... New Taser Incident

Holy Cow!

We just posted, yesterday, the pointer to Digby's "Let's talk about tasers", and bing-bang-boom, there's a new, hideous taser incident in the news.

Mom in minivan tasered twice in Salina traffic stop; camera captures deputy's rough roadside arrest (VIDEO)

In January, an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy pulled over Audra Harmon, who had two of her kids with her in her minivan. A routine traffic stop escalated quickly.

The deputy, Sean Andrews, accused her of talking on her cell phone. She said she could prove him wrong.

He said she was speeding. She denied it and got out of the van. He told her to get back in. She did, then he ordered her back out.

He yanked her out by the arm, knocked her down with two Taser shots and charged her with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His rationale on the disorderly conduct charge: She obstructed traffic when she got out of the van. The speeding accusation: going 50 mph in a 45-mph zone.

The scene along Hopkins Road in Salina on the afternoon of Jan. 31 was captured by a camera on the dashboard of Andrews' patrol car. Harmon, 38, says the video is proof of police brutality.

A mother, with her two children in the car, has to have the unfortunate fate of this asshole macho cop cross her path.

Yes, the video is proof of police brutality, so click the story link above, and watch the it.

There's no sound, however, you can clearly see that Ms. Harmon was, hardly, presenting herself as a threat to this cretin cop.

There is nothing visible that indicates the use of a taser gun was needed.

I suppose, Ms. Harmon is lucky, in that, if he didn't have a taser, he may have shot her death, all over a bullshit traffic stop (which the local DA dropped the charges), and a citizen expressing her rights.

Madness ...

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Dorothy Rabinowitz, Writing, Still, With Head Firmly Plant Up Own Butt

We have written previously, about the need of an Ass-O-Matic.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, of the Murdoch Street Journal, is still mighty pissed about the election of Barack Obama, and offered to the world yesterday, another hit piece, this one, couching her contempt under the banner of Healthcare Reform.

It’s not hard now to envision the state of this crusade with just a month or two more of diligent management by the Obama team—think train wreck. It may one day be otherwise in the more perfect world of universal coverage, but for now disabilities like the tone deafness that afflicts this administration from the top down are uninsurable.

She picks on Linda Douglas, the Obama Teams' communication point person on Health Reform, for calling out all the lies, distortions and just crazy untruths that the Rabinowitz Right Wing Freak Show have been spraying around (you know, all the "Death Panels and Euthanasia" memes) and blaming the Obama White House for it;

Neither has she seemed to entertain any second thoughts about the tenor of a message enlisting the public in a program reeking of a White House effort to set Americans against one another—the good Americans protecting the president’s health-care program from the bad Americans fighting it and undermining truth and goodness.

Talk about tone-deafness ...

How about just some dumb-ass blindness there, Dorothy ...

And, there's this;

Crusades are busy endeavors, the enlistees in this one, like those in every undertaking of this White House, concerned with just one message. Which is that the Obama administration is in possession of vital answers to ills and inequities that have long afflicted American society (whether Americans know it or not), and that those opposed to those answers and that vision are cynics, or operatives of the powerful vested interests responsible for the plight Americans find themselves in (whether they know it or not), or political enemies bent on destroying the Obama administration.

How about the crusade, Dorothy, since, oh, about Day One, to discredit, and delegitimize the Obama Presidency?

You know Dorothy, to really beef up your tirade, you could have, as a service to your readers, spend a few paragraphs detailing the PartyofNoicans Healthcare Reform plans.

Oh, that's right ...

Sorry, I forgot, they don't have one.

She caps off her hit piece with this;

It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.

Actually, maybe we should have some sympathy for Dorothy Rabinowitz.

It's going to be awfully cumbersome for her, for another 3+ years, to be writing her column, with her head planted up her ass.

Don't Laugh, The Next Time, It Could Be You

While he is on vacation this week, Glenn Greenwald has various writers filling in for him, and yesterday, Digby was in the seat, posting about a tremendously under-publicized, and extremely troubling issue.



The growing use of tasers by law enforcement.

Let's talk about tasers

I'm speaking of the ever more common use of the Taser, an electrical device used by police and other authorities to drop its victims to the ground and coerce instant compliance. The videos of various incidents make the rounds on the internet and you can see by the comments at the YouTube site that a large number of Americans find tasering to be a sort of slapstick comedy, the equivalent of someone slipping on a banana peel, with a touch of that authoritarian cruelty that always seems to amuse a certain kind of person. "Don't tase me bro" is a national catch phrase.

Tasers aren't benign however. They kill people. Nobody knows exactly why some people die from being tasered, and they certainly don't know how to tell in advance which ones are at risk. But there have been hundreds of deaths similar to the one below, which nobody can adequately explain:

[snip]

Representatives of the government torture innocent citizens into unconsciousness, on camera, in United States courtrooms with tasers. They use them on prisoners and on motorists and on political protesters and bicycle riders, on mentally ill and handicapped people and on children And it's happening with nary a peep of protest.

America's torture problem is much bigger than Gitmo or the CIA or the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The government is torturing people every day and killing some of them. Then videos of the torture wind up on Youtube where sadists laugh and jeer at the victims. It's the sign of profound cultural illness.

Included in her post, is the tale of a case in Utah (as well as a handful of other abuses), where a mentally-handicapped person, inside a United States courtroom, was tasered by bailiffs, not for threatening behavior, but more related to his handicap and not understanding something in the procedure he was involved in.

It is absolutely harrowing.

Go Google "police use of tasers" and you get over 2-million results

I suppose, Skip Gates can consider himself lucky.

As you will read in the post, just mouthing off to the police is reason enough, seemingly, for them to whip out the electronic weapon, and charge you with about 50,000 volts.

Double lucky, if it doesn't kill you.

Go read Let's talk about tasers, and think about calling, or writing, your Congressmen, to start the ball rolling in getting this weapon eliminated.

A Lot of Books ... A Lot of Covers ...

In a post over the weekend, J. Robert Godbout, on Open Salon, pitched, in these tough times, the virtues of the local library.

I can't say enough about the importance of supporting your local libraries as there is a world of items available to us - and the best part is it's all free!

So for this week's weekly 10 I thought it would be interesting to look at the countries 10 largest public libraries (by volumes held) as reported by the American Library Association.

No surprise on the #1 public library, however there were a few eye-wideners on the list

Go check out Weekly 10: The 10 Largest Public Libraries In The U.S.

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Shorter Krugman: Yeah Big Government!

We have to defer to D-Day, for "Headline of the Day";

Paul Krugman: making heads explode everywhere

So I recommend you read Paul Krugman, like usual. This piece will make right-wing heads explode even more than anything else I've cited from him. Especially this part:

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.

No doubt, Reagan's #1 Groupie, Peggy Noonan, has already made the call, for the delivery of a case of wine, and is refilling her prescription meds, so she can hunker down and defend her beloved hero.



As usual, Paul Krugman has been keeping his eye of the ball, and presents measured optimism that things are, slowly, very slowly, heading towards the better;

Averting the Worst

For all that, however, the latest flurry of economic reports suggests that the economy has backed up several paces from the edge of the abyss.

A few months ago the possibility of falling into the abyss seemed all too real. The financial panic of late 2008 was as severe, in some ways, as the banking panic of the early 1930s, and for a while key economic indicators — world trade, world industrial production, even stock prices — were falling as fast as or faster than they did in 1929-30.

But in the 1930s the trend lines just kept heading down. This time, the plunge appears to be ending after just one terrible year.

So what saved us from a full replay of the Great Depression? The answer, almost surely, lies in the very different role played by government.

That's right, the PartyofNoicans arch enemy, Big Government, is running in to save the day.

We don’t know what the economic policies of a McCain-Palin administration would have been. We do know, however, what Republicans in opposition have been saying — and it boils down to demanding that the government stop standing in the way of a possible depression.

I’m not just talking about opposition to the stimulus. Leading Republicans want to do away with automatic stabilizers, too. Back in March, John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that since families were suffering, "it’s time for government to tighten their belts and show the American people that we ‘get’ it." Fortunately, his advice was ignored.

Something Robert Stein agrees with;

It will take months, even years, before the verdict is in on the wisdom of every aspect of the enormous Obama spending and deficit growth, but one thing is already clear: All that furious activity has been more reassuring than a President McCain approach of tax cuts and hoping for the best.

If you happen to work with, or live near, any Right Wing Freak Show Flying Monkeys, you may want to bring along your rain slicker.

Krugman promoting Big Government should get them flinging their feces around.

The Queen Monkey, Michelle "Staklin" Malkin, has already issued the clarion call.

Good Post Alert: Hollywood and Hiroshima: When the White House Censored the First Nuclear Film

There's a good read today, over on HuffPo, from Greg Mitchell, of Editor & Publisher, and author of "Why Obama Won".

Mitchell delves into our use of the nuclear weapon in World War II, and, specifically, Hollywood's treatment of it - with plenty of interference, censorship and white-washing, from the our government.



Hollywood and Hiroshima: When the White House Censored the First Nuclear Film

Creative artists of every variety have made incisive, satiric or powerful statements about nuclear threat. They have offered cautionary works that depict the horror of the bomb or its meaning in our society. What these artistic statements share, however, with rare exceptions, is an avoidance of the specific subject of Hiroshima.

[snip]

Ambivalence or guilt is certain to be evoked by any cinematic treatment of Hiroshima. Perhaps that is why the films all grapple with the notion of American decency. The three Hollywood films have much in common: Each was highly touted and directed by a talented film maker but was an artistic failure. Each was subject to political pressure or scrutiny. The making of the films is as revealing as the films themselves.

[snip]

The MGM screenwriter James K. McGuinness deleted the offending scene and wrote a new one in which Truman explained that in his many discussions on the matter the "consensus of opinion is that the bomb will shorten the war by approximately a year." In the revised scene, Truman revealed that the United States would drop leaflets warning the populace of "what is coming" as a means to "save lives." He said there was a "consensus" that dropping the bomb by a year (there was no such thing) andd he predicted that a "year less of war will mean life for . . . from 300,000 to half a million of America's finest youth."

And he advised that the targets had been picked for their prime military value, rather than the truth: They were picked because they had not been bombed previously and so would demonstrate the pure power of this new weapon. In any case, the aiming points for release of the bombs would be the center of the cities, not over any military bases.

Still, the White House demanded further changes; among them, deleting a reference to morally concerned scientists who favored demonstrating the bomb for Japanese leaders in a remote area before dropping it on a city.

Go read the entire piece, it's well-worth it.


Bonus Riff

Well, This Angel Earned Her Wings

Good Post Alert: Shaun Mullen and The Legacy of Paul Tibbets,The Enola Gay & Separating the Warrior From the War

This Date ... On The Garlic

10 August 2008... On The Garlic

Not Fair! ... Another Gone ... Isaac Hayes

Take Me Out To The Electoral College

Editors Note: Lost Days (Literally and Figuratively)


10 August 2007... On The Garlic

Move Over McCain, Rudy Says He Can Jump The Shark Better Than You!

Are The Gitmo Lawyers Playing Bunco Squad To Our Blank Check Club? ... Let's Hope So

OOPS! We Almost Forgot ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll


10 August 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: New Possible Reasons Joe Lieberman’s Website Crashed On Election Day


10 August 2005... On The Garlic

Sheehan May Move, Camp Out On Downing Street; Says "Bush and Blair Are Thick As Thieves"; Looking For Brit To Give Answers

Top Ten Cloves: Why The Bush Brothers Don't Want Katherine Harris To Run For Senate

Instant Ignorant Dolt: Newt Gingrich

Now, one could argue, that this is redundant.

That former Congressman, and Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would already be an Ignorant Dolt , grandfathered in, for his years of lying, hypocracy, and, if no other reason, his "Contract On America".



But today, on Mini-Me-Clintonite, George Stephanopoulos's 'This Week', Gingrich choose to stick his head up Sarah Palin's butt, a surely awkward manner in which to kiss her ass, but, nonetheless, he did.

Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean went at it on health care this morning on This Week. Especially over Sarah Palin's claim that Obama's health care plan will create "death panels" that would encourage euthanasia.

“Communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept,” Gingrich told me.

“You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in American who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.”

(Click the ABC Link for the video, and watch Newt raise his hand, signaling he wants the Ignorant Dolt title)

We posted about this last evening, on Palin, and the Republican's meme that Obamacare means "death to the elderly", so, perhaps, Gingrich saw it, and is lobbying for a position in Trig Palin's administration.

Steve Benen places, nicely, the IID Crown on Gingrich;

There are two relevant questions here. First, why was Newt Gingrich, the disgraced former House Speaker who was driven from office by his own party 11 years ago, invited to appear as some kind of credible policy expert on "This Week"?

Second, what is Gingrich talking about? We're talking about a provision in the House bill that would allow Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions on advance care planning. The idea came from a Republican senator, Maine's Susan Collins, who's argued that the measure would improve Medicare's "care for patients at the end of their lives."

Either Gingrich knows this, in which case he was lying, or he doesn't, in which case he shouldn't be spouting nonsense on national television.

Bet on that he knows he is lying ... Old habits die hard.

Also, from the same segment, watch Howard Dead bitch-slap Gingrich;

Dean vs. Gingrich On Health Care Reform



Next time you're in Boston Newt Gingrich, come around to The Garlic, and pick up your Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre.


Bonus Newt Gingrich Ignorant Dolt Riffs

Zandar vs. The Stupid: Follow The Leader

Ron Beasley: About those "Death Panels"

Amanda Terkel: GOP Rep. Kingston Separates Himself From Palin: There Are ‘No Death Panels’

This Date ... On The Garlic

9 August 2008... On The Garlic

R.I.P Bernie Mac


9 August 2007... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things About First Lady and Daughter Writing A Children's Book


9 August 2006... On The Garlic

The Garlic In The News - Times Online Newsdesk Weblog


9 August 2005... On The Garlic

Bush Signs His Energy Bill With Call To Big 3; Wants Hybrid of Nuke/Coal/Wind-Powered Autos ASAP

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Jeanine Pirro Thinks She Can Beat Hillary