dog-blogging...

I usually think it's pretty lame when people post pictures of their pets on their blogs.

Except, y'know, when I do it...

Seriously, how freakin' cute is this:

Fighting Words: 4/28/08 Cartoon...

"The Wild, Wild Internet"...

Website changes...

So I've been doing some sprucing up of the old website lately, including adding buttons for "Buy A Print" and "Make A Donation." I'm aware of some little problems on various types of browsers... I'll have to come back to it and iron those out next week.

However, if you see any major problems like the site doesn't come up at all or your computer explodes when you type in the address, let me know. Pretty sure it's not my fault though if your computer explodes...

Hopefully, these changes will hold me over until I can get around to a complete site redesign someday. But probably not... I'll probably continue to tinker with the damn thing.


UPDATE: I just looked at it on a smaller screen, and it's all outta whack... I got some work to do still. So consider it partially under construction at the moment...

Full Disclosure...

My hatred of rednecks is a little skewed right now, as one of 'em is in the process of stealing my hometown basketball team. I have a lot of fond Sonics memories (I still use my '96 Finals gym bag) that are going down the drain thanks to a lying redneck sack of shit named Clay Bennett (again, of course, I'm referring to the redneck owner of the Sonics, not the editorial cartoonist of the same name... the latter is a great guy). But, of course, it's not just Clay-Clay's doing... thanks also go out to Howard Schultz (the dumbass Starbucks CEO who sold the team and now claims he didn't see all this coming), and, of course, David Stern (the toad who is responsible for destroying the NBA).

More on the ABC Debate, our pathetic national media...

This will be a pretty easy Moron post for this week's 'toon:

• Alls ya gotta do is watch the damn thing (or read the transcript), if you haven't already suffered through it. The cartoon mainly came from my longing for a response to these 5th grade-level questions that wasn't softened so it couldn't possibly "offend" someone. Of course, Obama can't come out and say, "well... I DO hate rednecks!" But it would be funny as hell if he could.
  
  After all, it's not like his original comments were actually WRONG in any way, shape, or form... but the amoral halfwits in our national media (in this case, Charles Gibson and George Snuffaluffagus) smelled "controversy" (and ratings) and, predictably, jumped all over it.
  
  Who really gives a shit if rednecks are offended anyway? It's not like they have some kind of national identity established over the course of history as a result of being wronged by the overriding power structure. And, no, I'm not making a generalization about "poor" or "working class" people here... I'm talking about REDNECKS. White Trash. We've been over this before...
  
  Plus, I suppose that, technically, I too could be considered a redneck. So maybe I'm just a self-loathing member of this particular "ethnic group"...
  
  
• Andrew Sullivan:
  

  The loser was ABC News: one of the worst media performances I can remember - petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about.
  ...
  
  No questions on the environment, none on terror, none on interrogation, none on torture, none on education, none on spending, none on healthcare, none on Iran ... but four separate questions in the first hour about a lapel-pin, Bitter-gate, Wright-gate and Ayers. I'm all for keeping candidates on their toes. But this was ridiculous.

• Glenn Greenwald:
  

  AMY GOODMAN: George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton aide—President Clinton—said he had asked fair, tough questions, the kind of questions that would be asked later. What is your response to that, Glenn Greenwald?
  
  GLENN GREENWALD: This is the justification that reporters use repeatedly whenever they focus on insipid, substance-free stories. They pretend that if it were strictly up to them, they of course would focus on the serious substantive matters that the country faces, because they’re politically sophisticated observers. The problem, they say, is that Americans, the sort of heartland voter whom they patronizingly look down upon is interested in these sort of personality-based Drudge-like issues, and therefore they have no choice but to report them, since these are the issues that are going to predominate in our political process.
  
  ...
  
  And these journalists believe that they’re sort of spokespeople for the people in the heartland and speak for them and patronizingly say that they’re interested in these insipid issues and that’s why they’re covered. The reality is there’s no connection between the establishment journalistic class and the people whom they claim to represent, and the reason they cover those issues is because they, the journalists, want to cover them, not because the people want to hear them.

• Paul Waldman:
  

  The Washington journalists themselves are as elite as they come, but they know who the good guys are -- they're the residents of the small towns, whose "values" can't possibly be matched by those who live in cities; they're the people whose lowbrow tastes make them "authentic"; they're the earthy, regular Americans defined by their modest tastes in food, drink, and entertainment. The journalists may not actually know too many of these people, but they know they're there, and they know they're better than the rest of us.
  

  
  

Fighting Words: 4/21/08 Cartoon...

"ABC's Extended Debate Coverage"...

Sound familiar?

From my current reading, a snippet that probably won't make it into my "more on" post... Robert Parry takes us back to the good old days of 1992, back before the Clintons had completely lost their minds:

The Clintons had a different perspective, too, when the insinuations about a person’s lack of patriotism were about Bill Clinton in fall 1992. As that campaign heated up, President George H.W. Bush unleashed his subordinates to dig up whatever dirt they could to impugn Clinton’s loyalty to his country.

Some of Bush’s political appointees rifled through Clinton’s passport file looking for an apocryphal letter from his student days in which Clinton supposedly sought to renounce his citizenship.

Though no such a letter was ever found, Bush exploited the mystery around Clinton’s passport files to raise questions about Clinton’s 1970 student trips to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, where he allegedly stayed with Communist friends.

With his patriotism challenged, Clinton saw his once-formidable lead shrink. Panic spread through the Clinton campaign. Ironically, one of the nervous Clinton’s aides who contacted congressional Democrats seeking their help in countering the Republican smears was George Stephanopoulos.

Bush's allies also put out another suspicion, that Clinton might have been a KGB “agent of influence.” Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times headlined that allegation on Oct. 5, 1992, a story that attracted President Bush’s personal interest.

“Now there are stories that Clinton … may have gone to Moscow as [a] guest of the KGB,” Bush wrote in his diary that day. [For the fullest account of the 1992 Passportgate case, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

...

Sensing that the loyalty theme was hurting Clinton, President Bush kept stoking the fire. On CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Oct. 7, 1992, Bush suggested anew that there was something sinister about a possible Clinton friend maybe removing the apocryphal renunciation letter from Clinton’s passport file.

...

“I just think it’s wrong. I – that – maybe – they say, ‘well, it was a youthful indiscretion.’ I was 19 or 20 flying off an aircraft carrier and that shaped me to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and – I’m sorry but demonstrating – it’s not a question of patriotism, it’s a question of character and judgment.”

Clinton countered by challenging Bush directly.

“You have questioned my patriotism,” the Democrat shot back. Clinton then unloaded his own zinger: “When Joe McCarthy went around this country attacking people’s patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong, and a senator from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism.”

Many observers rated Clinton’s negative comparison of Bush to his father as Bush’s worst moment in the debate. An unsettled Bush didn’t regain the initiative for the remainder of the evening.

More on our Stone-Age dialogue on global warming...

Tidbits for this week's 'toon:

• Saw more of the same old shit on global warming from Captain "Wrong-Way/Right-Way" this morning...
  
  
• E.O. Wilson:
  

  How did such frail creatures come to be a geophysical force and dominate the world? Brains, obviously. Somehow, by a process still not well understood, we mastered fire, invented weaponry, and learned to talk to one another in arbitrarily devised symbolic languages. But in rising to power, beginning with the invention of agriculture a scant 10 millennia ago, we carried along with us the heavy baggage of ancient primate instincts. Today, as a result, we live in Star Wars civilizations ruled by Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.

• Renee Schoof on John McCain's environmental policy:
  

  When McCain introduced his latest version of a cap and trade plan in January 2007, he warned: "Just as there is danger in doing too little, there is peril in going too far, too fast, in a way that imposes unsustainable costs on the economy."

• Brad Johnson of GristMill:
  

  Like Bush, McCain’s global warming talk is good — both speaking in generalities about needing to be “good stewards” and get “serious” about climate change.
  Like Bush, Candidate McCain is drenched in ties to Big Oil — McCain’s campaign is run by lobbyists for Saudi Arabia and energy companies, and McCain has repeatedly blocked attempts to roll back subsidies for Big Oil.
  Like Bush, McCain uses China and India as an excuse for inaction — When asked about global warming policy, both Sen. McCain and Bush say that India and China have to participate in a global agreement — ignoring the fact that unlike the United States, both countries are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, the rest of the industrialized world is not making excuses — they’ve set to work.

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from his new manifesto on global warming:
  

  The evidence is before our eyes. The practice of borrowing a billion dollars each day to buy foreign oil has caused the American dollar to implode. More than a trillion dollars in annual subsidies to coal and oil producers have beggared a nation that four decades ago owned half the globe’s wealth. Carbon dependence has eroded our economic power, destroyed our moral authority, diminished our international influence and prestige, endangered our national security, and damaged our health and landscapes. It is subverting everything we value.

  
  
• Read my previous post on Frontline's Hot Politics.
  

Fighting Words: 4/14/07 Cartoon...

"Neandercons: Ice Age!"...

More on Bush supporting the troops...

Links and stuff for this week's cartoon:

• The main inspirations for the 'toon were the last two episodes of Frontline, which I thought were interesting for the contrasting perspectives they offer on the Iraq War. The episode "Bush War" certainly was a thorough attempt at covering the behind-the-scenes events that led to the war. However, as they recap all of the political gamesmanship that has occurred within the Bush administration, the true weight of their crimes gets lost. At some point in the portrayal, it almost starts to seem like their monstrous actions are excusable as simply being the result of "business-as-usual" in Washington. Those of us who don't live in that moral vacuum know better.
  
  The next episode touches a little more on the true consequences of a pointless war. "Bad Voodoo's War" follows a National Guard platoon as they do "convoy security missions" day after day for months on end in 130 degree heat, all the while being forced to simply cross their fingers and hope they don't get killed by an IED or small arms fire. After their tour is over, they get to go home, battle PTSD, and if they're lucky enough to still have all their limbs, get stop-lossed and go do it all over again. Repeat for the next 100 years.
  
  
• Of course, the other main inspiration for the 'toon was the litany of asinine quotes we've been given by Bush and Cheney lately.
  
  Cheney:
  

  Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

  
  Cheney:
  

  "So?"
  
  Vice President Cheney, March 19, when asked about the American public's disapproval of the Iraq War.

  
  Bush:
  

  "I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you...in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks."
  
  President Bush, March 13, speaking by videoconference to American military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan.

  
  
• Spencer Ackerman:
  

  We need to ask "if we left tomorrow, what would happen in Iraq?" and from there, we need to determine which of those anticipated results are unacceptable to us. Then we must aim our efforts on making sure those unacceptable results do not occur. When I look at the problem that way, it becomes almost impossible to find a purpose in what we do. Regardless of what we do, the Shia are going to take control. They have completely infiltrated all the security forces. The only kind of leader who could keep them in check was a tyrant like Saddam. And when the Shia take control, as soon as we leave, they are going to be as brutal as they like against the Sunni and there will be little we can do about it. That is what will happen whether we leave tomorrow or in ten years. As far as the foreign fighters, they will leave Iraq when we do. So what are we trying to accomplish here? Train the Iraqi forces? History shows that training forces in the Middle East can backfire. Any training we offer these people will find its way to our terrorist enemies.

Fighting Words: 4/7/08 Cartoon...

"Karmic Justice"...

More on the media & the '08 election...

There's obviously a ton of stuff I could link to for this week's 'toon, but I only have time to do one quick one that caught my eye:

• Check out Cass Sunstein's "The Obama I Know"... he and Obama were colleagues at the University of Chicago Law School:
  

  On this occasion, he had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. I had written a short essay suggesting that the surveillance might be lawful. Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through.
  
  In the space of about 20 minutes, he and I investigated the legal details. He asked me to explore all sorts of issues: the President's power as commander-in-chief, the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force and more.
  
  Obama wanted to consider the best possible defence of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened and offered a counter-argument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said that he thought the programme was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides. He thanked me for my time.
  
  This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side.
  

email funny business

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