Sure, Queer Is In The Dictionary, But So Is Dickhead

,,as well as shitheel, dipshit, and hypocrite. You see, Sam Wurzelbacher, known by the name "Joe The Plumber", even though he hasn't plumbed an inch of (galvanized) pipe since he became the darling a spokesperson for the Religiously Retarded wing of the Republican party, feels it's perfectly okay to call gays 'queer' because the word is in the dictionary.

Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur.

Strange is Sam calling himself Joe, praising Sarah Palin and casting aspersions on other Republicans for not being as Christian as Sam/Joe Wurzelplumber is, or passing judgment on gays. Like all good bigots, he uses the old 'some-of-my-best-friends-are' excuse, then flatly states that "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children". Because, you know, gay is a disease that is transmitted from the older gays to younger children all the time. That's why they shouldn't be teachers, either.
Well, Joe, I wouldn't want you anywhere near my children. You profess to follow a God of love, and yet you hate just about everybody who isn't white, Christian, Republican and heterosexual. Wait a minute; Joe's quitting the GOP.
Joe says he might consider running for office someday (obviously not as a Republican) but says "God hasn't said, 'Joe, I want you to run.'" Haven't you been listening Joe? Your book has tanked, you're a laughingstock to most of the country, and I'm sure your old boss has replaced your position within his company. God hasn't told you to run, he's told you to just go away.

Test Driving Digital Broadcast Television

Back in February of this year, i was under going an anxiety attack. You see, the 17th was rapidly approaching, and I had not yet purchased a digital television converter box. You see, I don't have cable, and while I watch very little television, there are those shows I like to watch, and with out a TV signal, well, I'd be forced to watching old videotapes and the same twelve DVDs I've had for years.
Just as time was running out, my ex-wife provided me with a coupon that allowed me to purchase a new converter box for a mere fraction of the cost. I hooked up my antenna, tested the system and.... they pushed the switch date back to June 12th. So it sat next to my TV, like the pile of broken DVD players I've been accumulating, collecting dust like them, waiting for the day when it becomes something resembling useful.
Then, a couple of weekends ago, while using the analog antenna reception, we came across RetroJams, a weird broadcast channel showing old videos non-stop. One of the boys suggested we try and see if we could pull it in better with digital converter box, so we turned it on , scanned for available channels, and found that a number of local channels were already broadcasting in HD digital. We watched the box office debacle Sphere, an unintentional comedy starring Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson.
And it was great. The digital picture was as clear as cable television, just like we had been promised. Since then, we have been watching in HD on the local channels that have begun broadcasting the signal. Only the local NBC affiliate and the local CBS affiliate have to yet commence HD broadcast, making it hard for me to watch one of my favorite shows, 30Rock, except by turning off the converter box. And there has been other problems with it as well.
1. Every time I turn off the television for an extended period of time, the converter box shuts off, and to begin watching again, I have to scan for all the channels again.
2. On occasion, the box will shut itself as I watch it, with no advance warning.
3. Weather conditions can still alter the signal, creating interesting pixel trails and image mash-ups that are like an acid trip. In fact, if I still did drugs, it would be cool to watch just for those moments when one image melts out of another like a free associated mind trip.
4. The additional channels promised have turned out to be Christian broadcasting featuring bad Christian rock bands, televangelists, and movie and television shows from the "good old days", when injecting reality into entertainment was as far away as injecting reality into religion is today.
Sill, I am looking to upgrade my antenna, hoping to fix some problems, and am still hoping that I can start watching My Name Is Earl and 30 Rock in HD soon.

Our Torture Is Better Than Your Torture

Just to set the matter straight, when other countries torture it's bad. However, when the US engages in torture it's okay, because "if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture", even if that torture was not to save American lives but to attempt to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
Americans have been conditioned, Jack Bauer'd into thinking that torture is a good thing, because there are so many people out there who wish to do us harm. And rather than discuss the reasons that people may want to do us harm, because we are not the sainted country the rose colored glasses wearing, beer swilling, flag waving, television watchers think we may be (after all, we torture people to justify acts of aggression against nation states sanctioned into near submission), it's better to pretend that we don't torture children, run assassination squads, or bomb civilians.
America needs to grow up. Our moral high ground has been washed away by an ocean of blood, spilled in our name.

Wha' Happened?

Ah, for last year, during the primaries, when the most important issue facing the United States was how to properly display your patriotism by wearing flag lapel pins. Love of America outweighed every issue, from dealing with the impending mortgage crisis, reining in gas prices, or formulating a safe and sane exit strategy from Iraq. And no one loved America, or so they claimed, than the Republican party.
Now, it's a different story. Almost half of Georgia Republicans would like to secede from the nation. Kind of hard to love that flag when you're no longer part of it, isn't it folks?
So, are they all sore losers? Do they think that John McCain has a better handle on things and he and Sarah Palin would have done a better job of dealing with the steaming shitpile that the previous administration dumped on Obama's doorstep? Have they become the America hating terrorists they feared not too long ago? Has not their God equipped them with the strength of character and courage to deal with tumultuous times?
Naw, they're all just a bunch of pussies who can't take the heat. Any one from the left who would have suggested secession during the Bush/Cheney regime would have been rounded up and hung as a traitor. I say we give all these wusses their own state (like Mississippi) and be done with them.

Bullets & Unicorns: The Magical World Of Arlen Specter

Proving once again the long held idea that there is no real difference between the two arms of the corpocracy we call political parties, Arlen Specter has announced he will switch parties for the 2010 election. Is he the first rat to desert the ship since pundits have written off the Republican Party as just as relevant as a Pontiac since the blowout in the past election, or is he expecting a difficult primary run from a challenger more in tune with the lunatic fringe that is the GOP these days?
Specter first rose to prominence working for the Warren Commission, where he crafted the "Magic Bullet" theory to cover up the conspiracy to have JFK murdered. Later, Specter fought the extradition of the Unicorn Killer from France, where Ira Einhorn had gone to escape justice.
So now, Specter will close his eyes, click his heels together and transform himself from one political belief system to another, all for the sake of holding onto a job. I guess it beats real work.

You Cried Wolf Once Too Often

I've been ho-humming the recent swine flu outbreak (or, as some people would prefer it to be called, the "Mexican" Flu) because I've heard this before. Remember the Avian Flu that was to going to kill millions of people? How about SARS? How about that Global War on Terror? Global warming Climate change? Gay marriages?
What these all are connected by is someone made money from it. Dick Cheney, and a host of Republican donors (i.e., Erik Prince) benefited from the war in Iraq, I mean, the Global war on terrorism, er, make that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Donald Rumsfeld, as the owner of the intellectual property for Tamiflu, stands to make as much from the Swine (a/k/a/ "Mexican") Flu scare as he did from the Avain flu scare. And St Albert of the climate change cult is making as much from the swine flu scare as he will make from carbon emission trading.
Knowing that the causes for war in Iraq were pretty much made up. And the reason the previous administration was so eager to use torture was to provide a non-existent link between Saddam Hussein and alQaeda. was the current flu pseudo-pandemic created in a bio weapons lab? Is it all somehow related to the 81 microbiologists who have died mysterious deaths since 9/11?
Or is it all just a coincidence, perfectly timed to distract the masses from the ongoing torture debate? Personally, I'll go for the latter.

Nobody Wants To See That

Here's three signs you're doing too many drugs:
1. You dub yourself the Wizard
2. You attend events wearing wizard robes
3. You decide, while attending said event to doff your wizard robes (how would people then recognize you as a wizard? You wizard's staff?)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally opposed to public nudity, but there's a time and a place for it. Unfortunately, these proper conditions rarely occur, and so you're forced to see someone naked who would be best served leaving their clothes on. But isn't that always the case?
This is another example of the Idiocracy that we've become. Rather than go to see a performance by an artist, we're constantly forced to have to deal with selfish people who want to add their stamp to it, whether or not it spoils the performance for everybody else. When I go to a festival such as Coachella, I'm there to see the many acts on the line up, not have some asshole show me his asshole. Take your neediness and thirst for attention somewhere else. Or better yet, grow up!
being the father of two young boys, I know that when they are younger, they like to run around and flap in the breeze. Sure it's cute, but at some point in parenting, it behooves a parent to teach a child that, while there's nothing wrong with a little full frontal, people's right to not see your junk overrules your right to wave it in front of their face.
To make this a full piece of performance art, police at the event came along to taser the Wizard, thereby making it more entertaining for everyone involved. I know we're devolving into a police state where cops are ever more eager to taze people, but in some cases, I do believe it's justified. Just put your clothes on, dude. Nobody wants to see that.

Michelle's Organic Garden

(To the tune of the Beatles' Octopus' Garden)
I'd like to be
In DC to see
Michelle's organic garden cause a fuss....
Wait a minute! How can something as uncontroversial as an organic garden at the White House cause a stir? Easy. Big business. It seems that the Mid America CropLife Association thinks that an organic garden sends the wrong message to consumers about "conventionally" grown food based products. Surely there's nothing wrong with Frankenfoods, right?
And just who is the Mid America CropLife Association anyway? You think, well, Mid America, they're just a bunch of farmers, right, but then you look at the way they spliced two words together to make one where there wasn't before (CropLife) even using capitalization to point out just how clever they are and you know you're dealing with chemical giants like Monsanto, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow AgroSciences.
MACA feels that Michelle, as part of the ever trend setting Obama family, is sending the wrong message because "(t)he time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.” Of course they don't, that's why most of them don't grow their own food.
You don't suppose that maybe Monsanto is worried because second quarter profits have slipped, and that means smaller bonuses? Because that's what it comes down to: some of you still have money in your pocket and that's money that big business wants to take from you, even if they have to force you to take out another mortgage to get it. They don't care that organic farming works to minimize global warming, they can always fan themselves with stacks of hundred dollar bills.

Kutner Was Murdered

Okay, I'll admit it; I'm a fan of the Fox series House. I started watching it a couple seasons ago, mainly because it usually followed another favorite Fox series of mine, Prison Break.
At the start of the season prior to this one, House, a diagnostician, had lost all the members of his old team, and had held auditions for members of his new team. He started out with a large number of hopefuls, then whittled them away for various and sometimes spurious reasons. One of the most determined doctors was one Lawrence Kutner, played by the actor Kal Penn. I had recognized him from something, and it wasn't until a trip to the video store jogged my memory that I realized he was Kumar, the easy going stoner college student from the Harold and Kumar series of films. So because of that, or perhaps in spite of that, Dr. Kutner became one of my favorite characters on the show.
So it came as shock to me that on this past Monday's show, that Lawrence Kutner killed himself. I hadn't yet heard the story that the actor, Kal Penn, was leaving the show to go work in the Obama administration. I did know that the new team would be supplanted by the old team, as Chase and Cameron's screen time had been cut back when they were replaced. But still on the payroll 9and in the opening credits) they were do to come back according to a report I had read in Entertainment Weekly
I thought, as House did in that episode, that Kutner was murdered, and still feel that way, as the storyline concerning his death will continue until the end of the season. First clue: at the morning meeting, when House asked where Kutner was, Dr. Taub made a cover story about him having to take his dog to the vet. Was Taub covering for him, or did he know that Kutner wasn't coming in, so he made a lie up to cover up something?
Second clue:Kutner's funeral service was a Hindu service. All very fine, because Kutner was an adopted child of murdered Indian parents. Except Hinduism doesn't approve of suicide. I believe the suicide angle was put there to get a mental health message out to people due to the bad economy leading to a higher suicide rate.
In the episode previous this one, Dr. Kutner had diagnosed the patient's condition, in a very House-like way, and yet he let Dr. Taub take the credit. Taub had been having a crisis of faith due to his being unsure as to whether he wished to stay on House's team, and was about to be canned by House unless he proved to House that he was worthy of being on the team. House had discovered the ruse because he had bugged the patients bed and confronted Taub about it.
Following Kutner's suicide, Taub showed no sadness. He didn't attend Kutner's funeral, even though earlier in the season, they had started to develop a friendship. And when everybody else was mourning him, Taub was trying to distract them with their patient. He especially became impatient with House when House began investigating Kutner's death as a murder. In short, I believe that Dr. Taub killed Kutner and made it look like a suicide (Taub had attempted it earlier himself).
That is my theory, anyway, and only time will tell if I'm right , or just making shit up. But if I am (and I firmly believe I am) remember, you read it here first.

Vanishing America

A friend at Facebook sent along a link to this site, which I almost immediately dove into, especially the drive-in theaters. Once abundant and plentiful in the era of mobile America, the drive in theater has now gone the way of the drive-in restaurant (now they're all drive thrus). Now all that's left are the drive-in churches.(God knows where to find you because you're always in your car)

I have fond memories of the drive-in. Mom and dad packing up the kids in the burgundy 1966 Buick SportWagon packed full of snacks and fruit punch to go see Our Man Flint, my sister and I in the very back with blankets spread out, wandering to the snack bar to use the rest rooms (Where, we found out, they sold real food. Dad, can we get a pizza?)in our jammies, playing on the playground, and enjoying the cartoon, as well as the ads for the snack bar, and the clown clock in the corner of the screen that told us how many more minutes we had to go before the feature started. Or, conversely, how much time we had left to buy something at the snack bar.
But now, the drive-in is rapidly disappearing, like the Ash tree or Circuit City. Once representative of the mobile American society, the drive is as much an anachronism as the daily newspaper, both unnecessary in the age of the internet where NetFlix can deliver movies to you, pizza places exist on every corner, and news is available on demand, for free.

Anything That Worries Newt Gingrich Is A Good Thing

This morning, I caught a glimpse of Newt Gingrich on Fox News, attempting to usurp Rush Limbaugh as the de facto GOP leader, talking about how disappointed he was that we weren't calling it 'the War On terror' anymore. I saw only about thirty seconds before I made the kids plug in their X Box. When the US is the one killing women and children we can hardly be labeling it as a war on terror when we are as bad as the terrorists themselves. The core democratic value of 'innocent until proven guilty' isn't being met when we kill only 'suspects' with out a fair trial, such as we are constitutionally guaranteed ourselves.
Why we are fighting in Afghanistan is a matter open for debate as well, since it was thermite and not jet fuel that caused the twin towers to collapse. Oh come on, I hear you say, the US wouldn't cover up it's role in the worst terrorist attack on it's own people any more than it would cover up bankster fraud or it's role in the drug trade. Is it only a coincidence that in places like Somaliaand Afghanistan, places involved with oil and oil distribution do American al Qaeda members like Adam Pearlman Gadahn surface?
The American Idiocracy is more self-involved, unaware of what their government is up to because they're too busy getting drunk and watching college sport play-offs while being subjected to mind numbing advertisements for alcohol products and foods laced with mood altering and mind numbing flavor enhancers. Someday, they may wake up and realize all the evil being done in their name.
Which has Ol' Newtered worried. Someday, there may be a third party to challenge the corpocracy's two party stranglehold on the US political system. This threatens Newt's cushy position as a paid pontificator and think tank traveler and may force him to do more than write bad alternate history screeds.

Controversy Is Blooming In Holland, Michigan

Spring is here and in West Michigan, that means it's time for the annual Tulip Time Festival in Holland, MI. It's the time of year when city residents (the white ones, anyway) celebrate their heritage by donning wooden shoes planting tulips, and riding floats dedicated to far right agendas. Lots and lots of tulips. And if you like tulips, this is the place for you.
The people of Holland have been having this festival for eighty years now, and one of the highlights has been the Tulip Time Parade. Nothing controversial here, right?
Well, it seems that this year because of a change in it's 501c3 tax designation, anti-choice group Right To Life of Michigan won't be allowed to sponsor a float in the Muziekparade, the largest of three parades. The new status requires the festival to refrain from endorsing organizations whose objective is to influence legislative outcomes.
Now, some are calling for a boycott of the parade, because they can't enjoy it if they aren't ramming their far right agenda down everyone's throat. Even though other groups were also rejected, reading the comments here would lead you to believe that Christians have been singled out for persecution and it's all Obama's fault. And this from the people who didn't have a problem with Bush's "free speech" zones.

There's No End To That Dick

Dick Cheney, what a guy. Loves to torture, runs his own death squads, and now, according to Seymour Hersh, he has planted moles in the Obama administration. I guess elections don't apply to Dick Cheney.
Not that the moles can affect policy too much, but these Cheney/Rumsfeld loyalists report to him and keep him informed of what's going on. I imagine Cheney in his undisclosed location, large conference table filled with lackeys with files detailing how close the new administration is coming to uncovering some of the many crimes committed by Cheney while he had his hands on the reins of power (Come on! You don't think that Bush was running anything, do you?)
So even though the American people overwhelmingly told the Bush administration to go fuck themselves, Cheney decided he wasn't going to listen to them. Either that, or he's just looking for a way to get more no-bid contracts for Halliburton.

You Are Only As Sane As Your Belief System Allows You To Be

We all have belief systems, ways to cope and interpret the world going on around us. Some embrace religion, some embrace politics, or a combination thereof, it's our way of trying to stay sane in an increasingly crazy world. That is the world of man.
But some people cling to belief systems even after they have obviously failed them. To continue to do the same action and expect a different result is by definition insanity, and yet, there they are, clutching at straws.
In Baltimore, a judge has agreed to drop charges against a mother who starved her child to death after he refused to say Amen after breakfast if the boy is resurrected. The boy, who was just one year old, was ordered to be withheld food by the leader of a Christian cult as a punishment for not saying amen. The mother, who still belongs to said cult, is still holding out that the child will be resurrected.
And speaking of crazy cults, the cult of conservatism claims Sam Wurzelbacher represents the working people. This is a guy who hasn't worked a lick since John McCain brought him up at a presidential debate last year, now spends his time speaking at conservative gatherings about how horny he is. Maybe that's why his book is tanking, working people are having a hard enough time paying the bills, let alone ponying up the money for a book by someone who feels that taking away their free choice represents their best interests, which is why real plumbers heckled him at his last speaking gig. And if you really believe "Jioe" is a plumber, you're as crazy as the people who starved a little boy to death in hopes that he would be resurrected.

See? Another Token Gesture By The Cultural Elite

In yesterday's post, I referred to "Earth Hour" as one of those token gestures by the cultural elite. While everybody else was turning off their lights in an effort to save the planet, the king of the global warming climate change cult kept his lights on. It's not bad enough that Al Gore's home uses twenty times more energy as the average household, but when it was time to put his money where his mouth is, he showed me that, well really his quest for reducing his carbon footprint is a s real as his quest for manbearpig. You have to make sacrifices so that the cultural elite can continue their consumptive ways.
Now, I do think that it's important that people make an effort to cut the crap out of their lives. But, as I said, to only do it one day a year because of some corporate sponsored event that they can use to improve their image, write it off on their taxes or use as a basis for some carbon trading scam is ridiculous.

Excuse Me, But I Have To Shovel More Global Warming Offen My Sidewalk

Environmentalists Hail Earth Hour as a Big Success. Of course, when the lights came back on, and the sun rose the following day, the Earth was still littered with garbage, humans still felt the need to convey themselves about in gas guzzling and air polluting vehicles, so how much of a success was it really? Was anything really done to alleviate global warming climate change?
Driving through my neighborhood last night on the way to the grocery store, the only houses with lights out were the ones unoccupied due to mortgage foreclosure. What we have is another one of those token gestures by the cultural elite, like lapel ribbons or mandatory "volunteerism" where we are asked to make sacrifices that they won't have to make because of political connections or carbon trading scams where they can continue to pollute as much as they want by buying carbon credits from suckers people like you and me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating the continuation of the poisoning of our planet, I'm just saying that when corporate types get on board with something like this, there's probably more in it for them than just improving their image. So, please, shop when you feel bummed out, turn out your lights when they want you to, and salivate like a fucking dog every time they ring a bell. But to only do something about the planet only when they suggest (or can make a profit from it)makes them look as powerful as you look silly.

Television Just Got A Little Suckier

Just when I think television couldn't get any worse, Fox has announced it's intention to air The Osbournes:Reloaded as a series of specials starting March 31. That was worth getting my digital TV converter for. Is this what they plan on replacing Prison Break with? I'm sure I stand alone in condemning such an obvious attempt at trash television, but listen to this! In one episode, a male audience member is tricked into making out with a grandmother for $100. Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. How funny!
Can't we make these people go away? I mean, with the exception of Ozzy himself, does any other member of the first family of foul have a discernible talent? I've noticed Ozzy looking a little hunched over these days, is that from carrying the rest of his clan on his coattails?
I'm sure the show will be a big hit, because most Americans are more brain dead than Ozzy himself. This is good for the rest of the clan, who would otherwise be forced to work real jobs where they might be forced to display some humanity. But no, thanks to the idiocracy, they have entered the entertainment offspring entitlement aristocracy where being related to someone even remotely talented gets you in. (Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie work the door)
One segment of the show, sure to be funny annoying is when the Osbournes go to work at places like fast food drive thrus! Wacky! This will proves that they are totally inept at actually working along with being inept as human beings.
This is all your fault. Sure you loved to watch the Osbournes on their first "reality" show, and even bought it on DVD. But when Ozzy put out the CD of cover tunes, it didn't sell as well as expected, and now he's gotta cover that advance from the record company somehow, and this folks, is it.
I know, I know, I don't have to watch it. And I can turn the channel when commercials for it come on during every break for the next week. And I can switch the station when the all the morning radio shows are crawling over each other to play the most mundane clips themselves. And I can ignore the many nitwits who will extol the virtues of such trite and unoriginal programming. But I still have to live in a country where this trash is foisted on to a willfully waiting public who will swallow it clean like some spoodge sucking strumpet.
It's times like these that I wish that maybe Iran did have a nuclear weapon program, (unfortunately, they don't)and there was a major thermonuclear war that wiped out a large percentage of the world's population, because if this is what we've crawled from the primordial muck to attain, then somewhere we must have gotten lost and it's time to start all over again.
But that's just me.

I Really Miss That Guitar

(photo courtesy Matthew Richards)
I've been doing that Facebook thing for a while, not really, I think I signed up a month or two ago, and left it at that.(My home page is here if you wish to add me as a friend) Then today, I decided to try to change somethings on there (namely, my name, as it is listed as one of the many pseudonyms I've adopted over the years) only to see a blast from the past.
It was 1993, I think, and I was playing guitar and singing (screaming on key, really) for the coolest band I ever was in, Dysfunktional Son of God. These were the glory days for me, and there was nothing better than playing out. But what really struck a nerve for me was seeing an old friend.
Directly behind me, in front of the drum set was an old hollow body electric I used to a have, a Framus. I got it from a friend who ran an antique/vintage clothing store. I picked up an old saddle, with silver and turquoise trim, out of a free pile at a garage sale. I thought my friend, Chuck may be interested in it, so I took it down to his store. When I got there, he showed me his most recent acquisition, which was the guitar. Knowing that I know something about guitars, he asked me what I thought of it. It was excellent, fine German craftsmanship. I showed him the saddle, and that twinkle appeared in his eyes that always did when I brought him something unusual. He then offered a trade, the saddle for the guitar. It was only after the deal that I told him I got the saddle for free.
I don't why I got rid of that guitar, although I gather it was probably so I could buy some drugs. Like a lot of other things, I let a lot of good guitars slip through my hands because I couldn't smoke them. Now I'm down to only three, including the Fender that I'm playing in the picture. Somethings, like memories, are worth holding on to.

Macaca See........

I remember a time, not too long ago, when the Republicans were evil. I mean real verifiable evil, sulfur and brimstone evil, nasty as they wanted to be. But now what has happened?
Republicans used to set the pace, they turned liberal into a bad word and successfully painted everyone who opposed them and their nefarious ways as a traitor. They made tax cuts for the rich as American as running a war on a deficit and were proud of it. Now what are they up to?
Stalking Democrats with video cameras, hoping to force a macaca moment. This is sad and pathetic, and maybe a bit creepy. The plan is to ask questions of Democratic congresspeople they see as vulnerable in 2010 in hopes of forcing out an embarrassing response, which they'll then post to YouTube. Did I say a bit creepy? I meant to say full on bull goose looney creepy. But not evil. And that's what makes it sad and pathetic.
The GOP used to be about ideas. Not good ideas, but ideas nonetheless. But the voters resoundingly rejected those ideas in the last two election cycles, because, face it, they didn't work. Now all they have left in their bag of tricks is some second rate and second hand chicanery. They get it now-newspapers and talk radio are out, the new gizmo to spread their message is this internet doohickey. So they're trying to recreate what occurred naturally.
In 2006, Sen. George Allen, running against Jim Webb in Virginia, made an offhand remark about a Webb staffer following Allen's campaign as a macaca. Which turned out to be a racist slur, since S.R. Sidarth,the man Allen was addressing, was a 20-year-old of Indian descent. OOps!
Now the Republican Dirty Trick squad has decided this is the way to regain their footing. Not by actually having anything remotely resembling ideas themselves, because they all became intellectually bankrupt backing Bush/Cheney for all those years. Now all they can do is trot out Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal in hopes of scoring points in the whole "We don't see color either" department, and rally around Sarah Palin, because she kinda sorta represents the morality they claim to have when their teenage daughters aren't getting knocked up and having babies out of wedlock, destined to suckle at the public teat until some corporation, looking for an inroad into closely knit political circles, hires her as a "consultant" where she'll make $100K to introduce certain people to other certain people while Dad is out racing snowmobiles and Mom is winking at gray-haired old men at the regional party caucus.

The Altered State Of Richard B. Cheney

AIG is planning to use $450 million of the second round of economic stealfromus to pay bonuses to "attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses", you know, the ones that led the company to the verge of bankruptcy. I guess they're not the ones to blame for the current economic fiasco.
And neither is the Bush administration, according to it's chief criminal, Richard B. "Dick" Cheney. According to Dick:"I don't think you can blame the Bush administration for the creation of those circumstances."
Aren't the Republicans all about personal responsibility? Yet, no one in the party has the cojones to stand up and say, "I fucked up". Hell, they even blamed 9/11 on Clinton. And, yes, they even blamed our current economic woes on, you guessed it, Bill Clinton. But wait, what does Cheney say when asked about Obama saying he inherited our current economic woes from Bush?

"The notion that you can just sort of throw it off on the prior administration -- that's interesting rhetoric, but I don't think anybody really cares about that."