the defeatists!

Hammer In Hand, Still Pounding On A Screw

there's been a whole lotta blawg! going around this neck of the Innernet woods lately, and I think Pastis has been reading IOZ.

 

I think this strip accurately captures the essence of every single argument, confrontation, or issue that has ever been raised on the Innernet.  in the final panel, Rat provides us with the only true Solution, while Pig pushes past and defeats even that idea. 

what a day for Defeatism. 

Oddities...

When the original band degenerates into a cover band of itself,

it's not surprising that the cover bands might take over...

But, when they were good, they were very good...

Declaring victory and going home

In the days of my youth, I spent some time in Panama and Latin America. I participated as a staff NCO and briefer on a mission called Operation BlastFurnance, where the US Army, the Bolivian Army, the DEA and associated other folks went after the Cocaine Industry in the jungles of Bolivia. Total clusterfuck in many ways -- my fondest memory is having to monitor the Medevac of a platoon of soldiers who came down with...wait for it ...brucellosis. Seems that they had been told not to drink any milk products because the Bolivians didn't pasteurize their milk. However, nobody said anything about the ice cream...

So, this is just precious. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long for Morales to do this. As people who follow the AXE's rantings know, I'm very anti-drug and have advocated for years the establishment of bounties on drug dealers as being rabid scum lower than weasels on the evolutionary scale. However, the best way to fuck over the criminals is to decriminalize the damn stuff. I don't advocate recreational drugs, dipshits, but I don't advocate transfat, tobacco, alcohol or sugar... But, I do advocate taxing all of that shit. That's a reasonable, left-libertarian approach.

Ah, England...actually Wales, but WTF!

Bonnie Raitt-Burning Down the House
by SFBA4me

Now, in the US when a princpal installs cameras in the Girl's Bathroom, we call it voyeurism. In England, where the IRA gave them the gift of 24/7 Closed Circuit TV Coverage of everygoddamnthing imaginable, it's just the next step in securing the state. From itself. For itself. God save the Queens...

Texas Update--Live and die by shades of gray...

So Bush goes to Baylor to hang out with the Cheerleaders... Besides just noticing an odd resemblance to the Oregon Ducks in terms of school colors, notice anything else? No people of color. Odd, that a major university in a very diverse state doesn't have anything but Anglos on the cheer leading squad? Or is it?

I love a lot of things about Texas, but I have to say things have not gone all that well for the great state in the past few decades. The Existentialist Cowboy connection between what's happening to Texas and the whole Rovian-Bushian-Rick Perry legacy...

As fundamentalism grows stronger, education declines and vice versa. The gulag 'state' of Texas, last among all states in high school graduations, is a prime example. The deterioration of public education in 'fundamentalist' dominated states is no coincidence. As they were in the middle ages, education, enlightenment, science and logic are considered to be enemies of 'the Church'. Fundie allies inside the GOP consider them to be enemies of the state as well. The back to back idiocies of George W. Bush and that of the 'hair club for men' representative, Rick Perry, sabotaged one's chances of getting a passable education in the gulag state of Texas. Texas recently beat out Mississippi for dead last in those graduating high school. Even Mississippi ranks higher! Think about it and tremble -- for our futures!

As I said, I love Texas. I wear boots a lot, and I wear Lucchese about half the time, and Frye's the other half. I love Fajitas, used to say that Lone Star was my favorite imported beer, and even enjoy Walker-Texas Ranger.  I subscribe to Texas Monthly, listen to Robert Earle Keene, and have a business plan someplace for a combination laundromat, coffee shop, honky-tonk and gym for Austin. I miss Molly Ivins,  But, some things about the place are just sad...You'd like to think that things are getting better, but I have to wonder. Texas used to have and probably does still have some great universities -- UT, A&M, Tech, Rice -- and a very strong state system. When I lived there, I was about half appalled and half impressed most of the time, but always kind of interested. But, Bush and band fucked the place up, and continue to do so. 

The idea that Texas high schools have bench marked Mississippi and then surpassed them in lousiness is really sad. Let's face it; Mississippi gets a really bad rap. It's a poor state, run by ignorant backwards inbred dickheads for the most part, but it has made some tremendous strides in the past few decades. It is no longer more awful than Bulgaria; in fact, it's probably at least as good in terms of services, infrastructure and the rule of law as is...Turkey. That said, having worse schools than Mississippi means you have high schools about as good as Bulgaria. At best. Now, Texas is bigger than Bulgaria, but sheeeeiiiitttt, as they say in Lubbock. A lot of Texas is empty. I think that sort of emptiness makes people crazy.

Well, if Kaye Bailey Hutchinson beats our goodhair, we'll have the oddity of a conservative female Republican with big hair who is interested in conservative values replacing a neo-con clown notorious for big male hair ( I wonder if he and Blago used to exchange hair gel tips? Politics is politics, but big hair is forever.) However, she wrote a book that wasn't completely ghostwritten or mad, and unlike some of her predecessors and contemporaries, she's not totally hateful. One thing that I do know about Texas women of a certain class -- they are mentally tough, organized and will cut you if they have to. That might help. Probably won't, because the governor-ship of Texas is less important to the actual running of the state than the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House. Will take some heavy lifting...and, then there's the legislature, gerrymandered out of all possible recognition. Well, one of the quickest way to get change is to overreach.  

RANDOMNESS on a Foundation of connectivity...whatever that means...

Crusader AXE has been busy and pissed off most of the week. At times, I feel like someone gave the ducks that surround me dentures, and they're just nibbling away. Wasn't there a pre-human duck with teeth? If so, the bastards surround us, looking like mallards but then drawing blood.

I've been sucked into a pool of ennui. We knew that the Rs were going to be Obstructionist, the Dems were going to be reasonable, and everybody handy would end up looking like fools. We had a long confab amongst the Agiprop-Area 51-Defeatist community this week, and agreed ultimately that we'd like some infrastructure, but what we really want is CEOs in jail. Sounds like a great name for Jackson Browne-Bruce Springsteen collaboration or a New Age Band...

So, on a lot of levels its been hard to find something I've wanted to write about. It's all been done before...however, everynow and then the absurdity meter gets tipped. Since the apotheosis of St Sarah of Wasilla, I've been interested in Alaska's whole rugged individualist-meth crazed - demi-socialist zeitgeist. My guide on this has been the inimitable The Mudflats. I've sensed a more focused version of the Defeatists at times; we're kind of ADD renegades, slipping into all sort of areas as viciously and angrily as a crew of malecontents worshipping a teenage goddess can get, once we see something shiny. TMF stays focused on the craziness that Alaska offers combined with a left-libertarian whimsy. The gang isn't really shocked by the corruption, sleeze and general lunacy of the political spectrum; mildly surprised, amused and cynically inspired.

Yes, that is Peter Sellers, and he's kind of channeling Olivier doing Richard III only using the Beatles as opposed to the whole "Was ever a woman in this manner woed? Was ever a woman in this manner won!" thing. I stole the piece above directly from The Mudflats, by the bye. Love it. I kind of disliked most of the Beatles catalog growing up, and still think they're overrated...Paul McCartney versus Bill Wyman on bass? Ringo versus Charlie Watts on Drums? John Lennon versus Keith Richard on rhythm guitar? The only outright advantage they have over the Stones was in Harrison over Brian Jones on lead. But, once Brian wandered off to drown in his own tear filled swimming pool because nobody loved him anymore, Mick Taylor and then Ron Wood both are far better than George ever wanted to be. However, while Jagger is a better singer than any of the Beatles, the sum of their voices and the multiple ways they had to attack a song was an advantage. And, George Martin now, if alive, is still a far better producer than anybody the Beatles ever had. One other advantage that the Beatles had that we can forget, especially thinking about the over-produced experimental stuff they did at the end is that they had a really "cool" humor to what they were doing. This piece, which is from some Beatles TV show, shows very little Beatles, but I can't picture Mick and Keith doing the same stuff, and I really can't imagine anything as subtle as this from...well, just about anybody. I guess Ray Davies and the Kinks might have been able to pull it off, but there would have been too much smirking going on, and then Dave would have hit Peter Sellers across the neck with his Rickenbacker fucking the whole thing up.

Back to Mudflats. TMF was inspired by the Attorney General of Alaska who has compared working as lawyers for Sarah Palin's  government to being with Henry V on St Crispian's Day. Seriously...they must have some really interesting growhouses in Alaska, producing some incredible crap -- Fairbanks Fairy Droppings? Heavy Mooseshit Shit? Anchorage-a-Pulco Gold?) to come up with that. Seriously, read the article and bookmark the site. It's pretty cold...err, cool. And, it's odd that Olivier in Henry V looks a lot like Obama, with a bad haircut in gay armor.

OK, I'll have that lobotomy now...

Things not to see at the top of an article about Megan Mullally .

Probably not all that clear on the concept, but...

OK, Aerospace is a strange place. Engineers there seem to be in permanent denial of Murphy's Laws. But, the above is funny... THIS is troubling. Didn't they watch 24 last night? Excuse me, I have some reservations to cancel and stock to sell.

Why I still read Harpers...

"My neighbor, a high school teacher living about an hour outside New York City, wants to torture a terrorist. He's worried because he believes that Osama—excuse me, Obama—cares more about terrorists than he does about us. He's never heard of the Spanish Inquisition. Another neighbor—an actual plumber, actually named Joe—wants Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tossed out of the high school library. Joe came by recently. Did I want my kids learning how to curse and kill dogs and commit adultery? he asked. I said that my kids already knew how to curse, and that I hadn't realized that killing dogs and committing adultery were things you had to learn. He showed me the book. He and his wife had gone through it with a blue highlighter and highlighted the words "crap," "shit," and "damn" every time they appeared, on every page. They'd written to Laura Bush about it, and received a supportive letter in return, signed by the first lady. "You're a teacher," he said. "Don't tell me you support this kind of filth." I asked him if he'd read it. Well, no, he said, but he knew what it was about. He didn't really go in for reading, himself, he said."

Hopefully, this will take you to the Mark Slouka's article in the February Issue. If not, subscribe. 

Sorta Sublime, really Ridiculous...and the anthym of Shakesville

 Powerpop wonders if there has ever been a decent cover of this song. Well, no. Not even Tina's cover at the top is all that good. Although the sound quality is crappy, this is is pretty amazing despite the implied magical abilities of Clyde's flat-top box. But, man for sheer "why the hell did the universe need this?" general wierdness, hard to top this one...