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November 17, 2007

Crazy Monkeys Will Kill You Dead! Ahh!

The monkeys in India are going batshit and attacking people.

"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly.

"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.

A pack of terrorist Monkeyofascists^TM assassinated the deputy mayor of New Delhi!

Last month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony after being attacked by monkeys.

I promised something silly, but... oh shit, piss and corruption! The monkeys are going nuts because...

Because of shrinking forest cover, monkeys have increasingly moved into cities elsewhere in India as well.

09:29 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Never Mind That Beach-Front Property

Aaaand this one from the IPCC kind of kicked my ass:

In the best-case scenario, temperatures will keep rising from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, or about 1850.

"We have already committed the world to sea level rise," the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists said, they could not predict by how many feet the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities.

Not very fun news for a Saturday night, but dammit anyway.

Something silly up next.

09:18 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Tomorrow

More from the IPCC:

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late,” said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC. “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

Dick Cheney wasn't in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he has presided over eight years of ignorance and inaction when it comes to this. Historians of the future will curse this regime.

06:20 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

The Day After

Sci-Fi is showing the nuclear disaster movie The Day After right now. I'll never forget watching this when it first aired in 1983. I was 12 years old and it scared the living piss out of me. It still does -- but it's more poignant now that I understand the politics behind the narrative. The quid pro quo beginning with tensions in Berlin; then we attack the Soviet troops with an air burst; then they nuke one of our ships in the Persian Gulf in retaliation; and so on and so on.

Chris Matthews recently said something rather chilling and it's been running through my head while watching this movie. He said he was glad that Dick Cheney wasn't in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

05:41 PM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca

If You Think Bush/Cheney Was Bad...

...Wait until Emperor Giuliani. Glenn Greenwald makes it very clear:

Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain are all horrific in their own right. But Giuliani is in a different league in terms of messianic extremism. There really hasn't been someone like Rudy Giuliani -- someone so drenched in plainly authoritarian impulses, merged with such wild-eyed militarism -- anywhere near the White House in modern American history, if ever.

Giuliani is borderline psychotic; he sold out his own social values in order to nuzzle up to the Christian right; he believes what his sycophants say about him; and he believes he single-handedly saved America from the evildoers on 9/11. That's a recipe for an Authoritarian Cake the size of your car.

08:39 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Morning Awesome

Today is Remembrance Day, the commemoration of the Gettysburg Address originally delivered by President Lincoln on November 19. 1863.

08:21 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 16, 2007

Widespread Extinctions This Century

The Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change:

In a startling and much-debated conclusion, the document warns that human activity risks causing "abrupt or irreversible changes" on Earth, including the widespread extinction of species and a dramatic rise in sea levels before the end of this century.

And that liberal bias? I didn't find this on any of the big liberal blogs (all due respect). I found this in bold red text on Drudge.

UPDATE (Saturday, Nov. 17): The Huffington Post is running this as its banner headline today. Go Arianna!

11:43 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Turtle Turtle Turtle

When I saw Gergen on CNN after the debate last night, I concluded that he's officially turtley enough for the Turtle Club.

Dana Carvey as the Turtle Guy,
Turtle Club Founder

David Broder,
Turtle Club Pundit Emeritus

David Gergen,
Newly Inducted Turtle Club Freshman

Strength and honor, Gergen Turtle!

05:07 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! Hold on!

I thought the reason why Senators Schumer and Feinstein voted to confirm Mukasey was because they were afraid of a scary psychotic Attorney Godzilla recess appointment by the president.

But now Senator Reid says that he's going to keep the senate in session -- pro-forma -- during the Thanksgiving holiday in order to block the president's recess appointments. Where the hell was this when we needed it?

Senator Feinstein on Mukasey:

"I believe that Judge Mukasey is the best nominee we are going to get from this administration and that voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the White House to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and to diminish effective oversight by Congress."

Senator Schumer:

"Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington."

Good for Senator Reid and the Democrats on this pro-forma session, but curse them for not bringing this up three weeks ago.

03:39 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Rudy, Hillary, Mitt, Barack, Cubby, Annette

I'm going to get all crotchety here.

One of the reasons why I'm anxious for the primaries to be decided? All this disrespectful and amateurish first-name business.

These are U.S. Senators, Governors, Congressmen and Miscellaneous who are running to be the next President of the United States. They should each demand that their opponents refer to them by their title, i.e. Governor Richardson, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator McCain. The former office-holders like Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or John Edwards can either use their previously held title or the salutation "Mr.".

Why? Respect for the offices.

The only first name I'd like to hear more of is Mitt. That said, I try to use the titles whenever possible here and on the Huffington Post out of respect for the offices. I'm not always perfect, but I especially try to use the full title "President" Bush instead of "Mr. Bush" or "Bush" or "Smirky McChimpeach." The one I sometimes neglect is "Vice President." It's sometimes too long and awkward to fit into the rhythm of a phrase, so you'll see "Cheney" (or "Dick" when I'm really pissed) in my stuff a lot. I'm trying, though, dammit.

Anyway, these candidates need to cut the crap and stop talking to each other like they're having a pick-up frisbee golf tournament. I don't want a "Hillary" meddling with healthcare and global warming. I don't want a "Rudy" to touch anything outside of a lawnmower or perhaps the Six Million Dollar Man. And I certainly don't want "Dennis" or "Ron" to go fucking around with nuclear arsenals. Give me a senator, governor or even just a Mr. or Mrs.

End crotchety rant.

01:56 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

You Might Abort A Person Today

I've been thinking about a particular anti-choice argument used by Mike Huckabee recently.

"It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."

A similar tactic used against choice and embryonic stem cell research is to truck in some "snowflake babies" and the like. This is accompanied by the argument that these children wouldn't exist if stem cell research had "aborted" them.

When you deconstruct this argument it really begins to fall into the realm of metaphysics and quantum pseudoscience. So I was thinking about a response to this crazy down-the-rabbit-hole political ploy and came up with the following counterpoint: how many people don't exist today because their parents decided, for whatever reason, to not have sex one night?

In other words, by the same what-if reasoning, you wouldn't exist if your parents had watched Letterman instead of adjourning to, well, whatever. So a human being's decision to forego sex actually aborts a person -- prevents the existence of someone. Therefore, by the twisted logic of an anti-choice or anti-stem cell activist, shouldn't we be arrested for murder every time we decide to not have sex?

And you know something scary? This is the basic argument against contraception.

12:24 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

The Senate Votes, My Brain Liquefies

I have a degree in political science, but sometimes this stuff makes my brain bleed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday blocked a Democratic proposal to pay for the Iraq war but require that troops start coming home.

The 53-45 vote was seven votes short of the 60 needed to advance. It came minutes after the Senate rejected a Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war without strings attached.

The Republican measure failed 45-53, 15 short of the number of votes needed to go forward.

Why isn't every senate Democrat screaming into thirsty cable news microphones about how the Republicans have once again voted against the troops?

Aravosis has more here.

11:47 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Score One For The Planet & The Troops

The president's unfair, weak and ineffectual fuel efficiency standards for SUVs were killed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. The court ruled that the standards don't go far enough to factor in the effects of the climate crisis. NYT:

The court, siding with 4 environmental groups and 13 states and cities, also asked the government to explain why it still treated light trucks — which include pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans — more mildly than passenger cars.

Under the rejected rule, the average fuel economy of light trucks was to rise to 23.5 miles a gallon in 2010, up from the current standard of 22.5 m.p.g., but still well below the current standard for passenger cars of 27.5 m.p.g.

Tell me if that last part is reasonable or fair -- no matter how you feel about the existence and causes of global warming. Also, it bears repeating...

11:21 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Cable News Hackery

Kos asks good questions.

Would it kill CNN to not include partisan supporters of the various candidates in their post-debate spin?

Would it kill CNN to disclose that James Carville is a partisan Clinton supporter when talking about the presidential race?

Would it kill James Carville to disclose that he is a partisan Clinton supporter when on the air talking about the presidential race?

"Experts" should not mean "partisan affiliated hacks." There are literally thousands of men and women who qualify as telegenic political experts and none of them are former campaign managers or staffers.

08:04 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Oh No You Just Did Not!

I agree with Jane about this bit from the debate last night. Senator Obama compared Senator Clinton's position on Social Security to the postion of Romney and Giuliani. Then supporters of Senator Clinton booed, and both Congressman Kucinich and Governor Richardson stood up for some reason, as if to say, "Oh no you just didn't!"

The only really weird thing about Senator Obama's comment was that he said "tax cut" instead of "tax increase" twice. Other than that, it wasn't outside the context of the general discourse of the debate.

07:43 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Morning Awesome! Go!

The story of O-Ren Ishii.

07:22 AM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 15, 2007

"Phoney Soldier" Infiltrates Debate

On his awful show tomorrow, Rush Limbaugh is going to mock and insult someone from the debate. Sadly, it'll probably be this Iraq veteran. Again.

Place your bets. Will Limbaugh's performance include:

A) spastic arm flailing
B) making sarcastic pudgy faces into his webcam
C) wagging his cigar between his teeth like an asshole
D) all of the above, with an encore of mocking the veteran's hat

11:33 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

How Many Attacks Since 9/11?

This is really bizarre. According to Michelle Malkin and an anti-Muslim website called TheReligionOfPeace, there have been... 9,995 terrorist attacks since 9/11.

Hmm. I'm confused. I thought President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rudy, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest keep saying there have been ZERO attacks since 9/11 because the Bush Republicans are so wicked awesome. Weird.

All that torturing, detaining, invading and wiretapping? Mission accomplished. Did Malkin and TheReligionOfPeace count the domestic jihad attacks as well? You know -- those other, lesser-known terrorist attacks after 9/11: the anthrax attacks and the DC Sniper?

04:18 PM | Comments (2) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Proof That He's Psychotic

Dracooolah!

TPM.

02:52 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Comments Are Working Now

If you want to comment, we're all set. You just have to register then sign-in.

Go!

01:59 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Rudy Is So Tough -- You Don't Even Know!

Glenn Greenwald:

Romney's draft-avoidance isn't quite as shameful as Super Tough Guy Rudy Giuliani's, whose deferment request was denied in 1969, thus placing him at imminent risk of being drafted, when he somehow convinced the federal judge for whom he was clerking "to write to the draft board, asking them to grant him a fresh deferment and reclassification as an 'essential' civilian employee." The very idea that a first-year judicial clerk, just out law school, is "essential" for anything is absurd on its face. Yet the swaggering tough guy Rudy Giuliani used that blatant lie to ensure that someone other than himself was sent to fight in Vietnam.

Brilliant as usual. Except for "swaggering." Giuliani kind of skulks, slithers and lurches. Like this guy:

11:13 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I'm Tasteless

From the wingnut mailbag:

"Don't touch my SUV or F-150 or I'll shoot you with the handgun you don't want me to own or spit a mouthful of chocolate candy in your face that you don't want me to eat. [...] Your "Goddamn Awesome Blog" tag line is juvenile and tasteless but it seems to fit your overall stupidity."

This guy just threatened to shoot me, but my blog title is "tasteless." Awesome.

UPDATE: Here's another one from the puritan right-wing.

Subject: Awesome Blog! Message: Not! You are such a fucking pussy. Take your Pious and shove it up your ass, you smug anti-war pussy. Smelling your own farts eh? The folks at Southpark have assholes like you down pat. Pussy!

10:41 AM | Comments (3) | Posted By Bob Cesca

The Media Is Ignoring The Clintons. Duh-what?!

Right-wing tool/hack Brent Bozell was on Scarborough this morning promoting his new anti-Clinton book Whitewash. He claimed that the traditional media isn't following up on the "Clinton scandals".

Are you fucking kidding me? Two things here. First, the media was all over the Clintons for 8+ years. Second, the traditional media includes one of the biggest, most powerful right-wing media conglomerates since Hearst. NewsCorp. If they're not investigating the First Lady's murder of Vince Foster, it's because... the First Lady didn't murder Vince Foster and everyone who tried to make this case are now eating their apple sauce with corks on their forks!

But you know, this is one of my hesitations about supporting Senator Clinton. All this ridiculous bullshit from the '90s will be dusted off and repackaged for the new millennium. After eight years of George W. Bush, America deserves real change.

08:31 AM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Morning Awesome! Go!

Upwards to the vanguard...

08:20 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 14, 2007

Problem With Site Comments

The comments aren't working right now, damn your eyes. Hopefully, we'll have it squared away soon.

09:18 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I'm Not An Injured Or Sick Child...

...So why is Michelle Malkin attacking me -- I mean attacking Arianna Huffington who isn't me?

A sanctimonious liberal (redundancy alert!) blogger excoriates various conservatives who all presumably own massive, gas-guzzling vehicles like the Ford F-150.

The blogger, one Bob Cesca, published his post at the Huffington Post, founded by the Queen of gas-guzzling Gulfstream Liberals, Arianna Huffington. Yes, the same Arianna Huffington who was caught driving this Chevy Suburban beauty to get to the Sierra Club’s national summit in San Francisco a few years ago. (Photo of Arianna's SUV posted here)

Tell you what, Bob Cesca. When Arianna swears off all private jet travel and the Frosts cram their kids into a Prius, I’ll buy a scooter.

Until then, take your eco-sanctimony and drive it off a Malibu cliff.

(My Wednesday post here.)

Yeah, so anyway. I have nothing to do with Arianna's vehicle choices and the concluding paragraphs of my post today clearly state that we can all do better. And yes, Malkin went on to refute my post by... inexplicably posting a photo of the car owned by the parents of Graeme Frost.

What about conserving gas and foregoing tax cuts in lieu of the war effort you vocally support, Malkin?

08:31 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

New Blog, New Name, Same Outrage

I've decided to re-launch my Reality Based Nation blog with an all new title and design. I've been posting new blog entries since last week, but it's been more than a year since anything was posted here prior to then, so don't be alarmed by the huge gap on the archives page. The CIA didn't sweep in and disappear a year's worth of posts or anything like that.

So the new title is crazy, isn't it? I've wanted to use that Uncle Sam poster for something, so I worked up a new over-the-top title that underscores the pulse-pounding jingoism in the painting. Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go! Why the hell not?

Meanwhile, I've been upped to the regular Wednesday top spot on the Huffington Post which is cool. My longer-form rants and essays will continue to appear there, while shorter bursts of outrage will be posted here. It's an incredible honor to be a part of the Huffington Post and I hope they'll continue to allow me to hijack their bandwidth with my personal political agenda. 2008 will mark my third year blogging for Arianna.

So let's do it. The 2008 Election Year.

Go!

03:10 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

New Ribbon Magnet: "We Ignore The Troops"

The tragic story of the Marlboro Marine. Meanwhile, one out of every 4 homeless Americans is a veteran.

07:41 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Victory!

Asia Times via Kos:

Violence is no longer hitting the headlines, but it clearly continues. Bodies of Iraqis killed after being tortured are still found in garbage dumps, although fewer than a few months ago.

"Iraqi and American officials should be ashamed of talking of 'unidentified bodies'," said Haja Fadhila, from the Ghazaliya area of western Baghdad. "These are the bodies of Iraqis who had families to support, and names to be proud of. But nobody talks about them, there is no media. It is as if it is all taking place on Mars."

We're going to hear about this kind of thing for decades.

07:31 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 12, 2007

Hybrids Are Sooooo Gay

Gas prices will break the record high in the next 2-3 weeks.

If the projected gasoline price materializes it would be the most consumers have ever paid to fill up at Thanksgiving and could break the all-time high of $3.22 a gallon set last May.

Regular unleaded at Wawa is $3.05 here in the distant Philly suburbs (Wawa, by the way, sells its gas at cost). And you know what? We deserve to be nailed on this one. After 2 years of outrageous gas prices, have we made any changes in our driving habits? Nah.

Mike Nash, ad director at Mitsubishi, Cypress, Calif., said SUVs and trucks continue to be desirable: "People don't want to give up performance and features."

Hybrids, which garner media attention but sparse sales among consumers, have seen sales increase modestly as a segment, driven mostly by the small Toyota Prius. Hybrids make up 1.5% of all U.S. car sales.

We're a smart people who think that driving a 50 mpg hybrid is somehow gay and therefore bad and unpatriotic.

11:50 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I Will Punch The First Pundit Who Says 'Macaca'

Some flags fell down in the same room where Senator Clinton was located.

She didn't knock them over. They didn't fall ON her.

But to read the blogs and news sites, you'd think a million flags avalanched onto the senator's head after she grabbed several of them to use as giant patriotic snot rags.

I'm not a very big fan of Senator Clinton these days, but this little non-story screams of someone desperate for a gotcha YouTube moment when nothing really happened.

06:45 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Kirk Cameron's Banana Theory

This has been around for a while, but it never gets old. Ray Comfort (actual name) and Kirk Cameron explain the intelligent design of the banana:

I wonder if God designed a special-needs helmet perfectly shaped to fit Ray Comfort's soft cranium.

04:43 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Sex, Violence And Profiteering

This is funny.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A former employee of a Tennessee defense company is accused of sleeping with an Air Force contracting officer to secure Iraq contracts.

Eric W. Barton, who worked for EOD Technology Inc., which won at least $2.5 million in Iraq contracts, is accused of having a six-month relationship with Air Force Capt. Sherrie Remington, who at the time was in charge of awarding some contracts for work in Iraq, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News reported Sunday.

[...]

From 2005 through spring 2006, when the affair was allegedly taking place, the company's contracts increased from $3.8 million to $106 million.

Meanwhile, Senator McCain thinks we're winning the war in Iraq. Once again, his naivete is shocking. Even if the reduced violence holds, and even if we declared victory today and withdrew all of our combat forces (that won't happen for years), there will continue to be decades of political instability in the region, not to mention generations of anti-Americanism. I don't call that winning.

01:37 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Comcast Gets Screwed For A Change

The FCC is going to do something right for a change.

The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to impose significant new regulations to open the cable television market to independent programmers and rival video services after determining that cable companies have become too dominant in the industry, senior commission officials said.

It is a major departure for the agency and the industry, which was deregulated by an act of Congress in 1996.

Officials say the finding could lead to more diverse programs; consumer groups say it could also lead to lower rates.

Other than my mortgage, my Comcast bill is the most exepensive household check I write each month. Around $170 per month for cable, internet and phone (VOIP). It's even larger if we order On-Demand movies. And they consistently treat us like shit. Yet there's nowhere else to turn for all of these services, other than going back to a la carte services from Verizon and all the rest. Among other advantages, this ruling will at least give us some ammunition to threaten snippy customer service reps.

And of course the larger, more significant point... This ruling does honor to the great Sherman Antitrust Act. It's about damn time.

08:47 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 11, 2007

This Is A President Of The United States

Senator Obama's pulse-pounding address at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa:

I'm very close to endorsing this man. Why? Because he's a president. Further explanation in the weeks to come here and at the Huffington Post.

08:54 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

We Don't Make News, We Make News... Better

When Tim Russert grills a candidate about the corrupting influences of corporate contributions and lobbyists, as he did with Senator Obama this morning, is that segment of the show sponsored by BP, Chevron, Pfizer, Learn About Clean Coal or BASF?

11:43 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca