When most of the Western democratic world are mourning the senseless murder of unarmed cartoonists in Paris, and rallying in huge numbers to reaffirm such basic values as freedom of speech and the right to criticize and resist religious bullying and authoritarianism, Pope Francis I took this moment as the perfect time to blame the victims and reassert exactly the opposite values:| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I just saw Interstellar, misdirected by Christopher Nolan (who did a FAR better job with Inception) and wasting the talents of starring Matthew McConaughey, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, John Lithgow, and David Oleyowo (who I really hope will do better playing Martin Luther King Jr. in the upcoming movie Selma). To say this movie was less than stellar is too charitable; I prefer to call it a really good attempt to show what pure down-home-American-Heartland-Hallmark-card sillines...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I was wondering whether any of my legions of devoted readers (particularly those in any part of the UK) had an opinion on the upcoming Scottish independence referendum. There's been almost ZERO coverage of it in America's so-called "news" media, and I strongly suspect that a "Yes" vote -- which now seems more likely to happen than, say, two months ago -- will provoke one of those HOLY-CRAP-WHERE-DID-THIS-COME-FROM??!!! freakouts for which we geographically-challenged Americans are so well kn...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Some years ago, my mother got me a Christmas present I had asked for: a subscription to the Economist. And she has been kind enough to renew my subscription each Christmas since. Now, however, I am seriously considering asking her not to renew it anymore. Not because I'm not grateful for her gift (it's a pretty expensive news-weekly); but because the Economist has changed, mostly for the worse.| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I'm still processing last night's "debate" in my head, but I'd just like to say this: Did Mitt Romney actually call his kids liars on one of the most-watched shows on national TV? Since when was such behavior acceptable?| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I recently found out about a blog titled Smirking Mitt Walking Away from Stuff. The title explains it all: photographs of significant events, with the image of Mitt Romney, smirking as he walks away from reporters after accusing President Obama of "sympathizing" with the people who murdered our Ambassador in Benghazi, pasted onto them. So now we have Smirking Mitt Romney Walking Away From: our troops, firehosing of civil-rights demonstrators in Alabama, his own Bain Capital record, demonstr...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Today is Tuesday, September 11, 2012; and just like that Tuesday eleven years ago, it's a beautiful sunny morning, with barely a cloud in the sky, and the first serious hint that summer is over, vacation time is over, and it's time to retire the shorts and sandals and put on warmer clothing.| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I just got home from EDS/HP headquarters, where the building shook for several seconds but showed no sign of damage. I'm home now, there's no sign of visible damage in my area, and so far, I see no damage in my house other than stuffed hedgehogs and penguins knocked on the floor. USGS now says the quake was about 5.9 in magnitude, and was felt as far south as Georgia and as far north as Boston and even Toronto. I'm now hearing reports of damage to a garage at National Harbor (that's all ki...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
The recent proposal to allow Congresspersons to carry guns is so stupid, so childish, so dishonest, and so wrong, on so many levels, that I honestly have a hard time keeping track of exactly how wrong it is. There -- if this post is less than 100% coherent, you have my excuse up front... | Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Only one day after a Congreswoman was critically wounded and six others (including a nine-year-old girl) were murdered in cold blood, our so-called news media are already reverting to their reflexive practice of mindlessly shielding both themselves and their Republican clients from an honest discussion of the causes of this latest mayhem.| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Following is a comment I posted elsewhere. Sorry for the hasty post...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
If you teatards want to get pissed about a "mosque at Gound Zero," here's the real deal: a mosque that was on the 17th floor of tower 2, before both towers were destroyed. It survived the first WTC attack in 1993 (and heard no controversy about its presence afterword), but not the second in 2001.| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
I just came across a Salon article that may force me to retract, or at least reconsider, a large amount of what I said in my previous post. Short answer: the (state-owned) Saudi media were first to hype up the Koran-roast (just like they pretty much created the Toon Tantrum*); which prompted Gen. Petraeus to make his comment about danger to US troops and mission; which gave our media all the excuse they needed to join the manufactroversy and reinforce the Muslim world's worst images of Ameri...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Every country on Earth has its share of mentally ill losers who have nothing better to do -- no better way to express their feelings -- than staging pointless (and sometimes dangerous) stunts just to get people's attention and feel relevant. The overwhelming majority of such people are ignored by the public, first because they are unconnected to any significant events or institutions; second, because consistent coverage of their stunts would simply wear thin and distract our attention from t...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Now that my current employer have modified their nanny-ware to allow access to personal blog sites like LiveJournal, I'm able to get back here and start ranting again. I'm in a bit of a hurry today, so here's a little something I wrote back in April about an incredibly stupid panel discussion I saw on ABC...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Thye Book of Eli is a bit like the Bible: if you try to read it literally, all you'll get is a useless mishmash of stock images of destruction and desolation (done in a photographic technique that another reviewer suggested be patented as "apocalyptone"), badly-dressed bad-guys lifted straight from Mad Max and Waterworld (couldn't they have stolen some badass eye-candy from Tank Girl?), and premises almost (but not quite) as poorly thought out as a Democrat's campaign strategy. Eli is not a ...| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
So now I'm working (indirectly, as a contractor) for the US Department of Commerce. I take Metrorail to work, and get out at the Federal Triangle station. Which means I'm an FDR liberal who has to walk through the Ronald Reagan Building to get to the Herbert Hoover Building -- the perfect metaphor for the direction our once-great country has been taking since 1981.| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Joan Walsh caught this tidbit, among others:| Moderates of all Nations, Unite!
Salon has this handy source for refuting all of the idiotic claims of the Birther Movement (BM) impugning Barack Obama's eligibility to be President . It won't do any good, of course, since these morons, like all other conspiracy-buffs, simply ignore contervailing evidence and go on repeating the…| motherwell.livejournal.com
If Pope Smirky doesn't like this cartoon, he can go to his imaginary Hell. The Pope may not understand the sentiment behind this "insult to religion;" but I'm sure his God will understand. And, as they said in the movie, if he doesn't, then he is not God.| motherwell.livejournal.com
I tried to upload this pic in a comment, and couldn't; then I tried to send it in an LJ message, and that didn't work either; so I guess I'll just have to upload the photo here: I first saw the Downing St. fox in the Washington Post Express , an even-more-stripped-down version of an…| motherwell.livejournal.com
I've always known that the belief that Republicans are "better" or "stronger" than Democrats in the area of foreign policy is a myth, and has been since 1941, if not earlier. (Democrats: WW-II and the Marshall Plan. Republicans: McCarthyism and Iraq.) I've also known that today's Republican Party…| motherwell.livejournal.com
Happy New Year everyone! It's 2012, the year when Obama the Antichrist is supposed to bring about the end of the world. You Israelis are getting shitloads of US aid, no questions asked, thanks to our loony-right End-Times bigots, so you'd better step up and do your part to fulfill their apocalyptic…| motherwell.livejournal.com
On the one hand, it is perfectly obvious by now that the factors that drove Jared Laughner to fire into a crowd at a political event Tuscon, AZ, killing six, were purely psyciatric, and not at all political. If there's a political agenda to be discerned from his words and actions, it is one wholly…| motherwell.livejournal.com
So Pope Palpadict is now in Britain, meeting with the Queen (God(s) save them all!) and continuing his desperate attempts to apologize for his Church's failure to deal appropriately with child-rapists within its own hierarchy, while protecting the all-important authority of the same backward…| motherwell.livejournal.com
