Short ends.

Tuesday links and pix, because I’m tired and all I want to do is watch “Game of Thrones” on my iPad, because wouldn’t you?

Flickr isn’t turning up anything good, so I went through my own photo library. Have I used this before?

Yet another Saturday Morning Market shot — a couple of skinny little boys with a very involved mother, singing “Folsom Prison Blues” between market sheds. They didn’t appear to have a busker’s license, and my guess is they were booted pretty quickly, provided the enforcers could get through the layers of awwwwwing fans.

And now on to the links:

Neil Steinberg, the Sun-Times columnist, took note of Ann Romney’s bon mot yesterday with a note of respect:

I thought it was a joke when I first read it. But no. Ann Romney, Mitt’s wife, when asked how she responded to those who said her husband is “too stiff,” really did say “I guess we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not.”

Satire must bow and recognize a force greater than itself. No exaggeration can improve upon what these people are actually capable of saying. The mind reels.

Meanwhile, Strip Search Sammy Alito lives up to his nickname. Along with his confederates.

A couple of you mentioned going to the Titanic exhibit at the Henry Ford here in the other D (Dearborn). We’ll be doing so as well, and if anyone wants a drinkie or two with the hostess, you just rustle me up.

Something I did not know: “Dixie,” the unofficial anthem of the ol’ Souf’, wasn’t written until 1859. It was written in New York City, of all places, for a minstrel show.

Zzzzz.

Posted at 1:03 am in Current events |
 

60 responses to “Short ends.”

  1. Dexter said on April 3, 2012 at 2:20 am

    About twelve years ago my mom had gall bladder surgery and she was back in her room a couple hours later.
    Mark Souder had gall bladder surgery March 23 and immediately afterwards had a twenty-one hour surgery.
    I have never heard of this…it must have affected his pancreas in an untoward manner. Souder is still in the hospital.
    From KPC News:
    “Former congressman Souder hospitalized in Iowa
    By Bob Buttgen —bbuttgen at kpcnews dot net
    Monday, April 02, 2012, 4:13pm

    IOWA CITY, Iowa — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Souder of Fort Wayne is recovering from a medical emergency and two surgeries at the University of Iowa Medical Center in Iowa City.” …

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  2. Brandon said on April 3, 2012 at 3:15 am

    “They didn’t appear to have a busker’s license”…

    They shouldn’t have to have one.

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  3. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 3, 2012 at 6:33 am

    Dixie, written by a guy from Mount Vernon, Ohio, who some say swiped it from some other guys in Mount Vernon who came by their minstrelsy the hard way . . .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Family_Band

    Sounds like Souder has pancreatitis, which I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

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  4. James said on April 3, 2012 at 7:49 am

    Oh, don’t worry about that Alito thingie. It only applies to “driving while black.”

    I heard that on NPR last night and was struck by 2 things:

    1/ Whoever was doing the report referred to the activity the suspect was engaging in as “motoring,” which I found weirdly archaic. I kept picturing him and his family wearing those goggles, scarves, jackets and hats worn by automobile pioneers.

    2/ It also struck me that the Supreme Court based this decision on convenience for law enforcement, not the law. They kept saying how it would be difficult with the number of arrests to not allow this. No mention was made of rights to privacy.

    For being “conservative,” they sure were willing to throw away our constitutional rights and freedoms. It’s a shame they’re not willing to be so pragmatic when it comes to healthcare.

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  5. basset said on April 3, 2012 at 7:50 am

    I wouldn’t either, Mrs. B. has had to deal with that.

    Meanwhile…

    “I wish I was in the land of traitors
    Rattlesnakes and alligators, run away, run away, run away, Dixieland…”

    anyone know the rest of that version? or is there even a rest of it? Not finding it on the Google.

    the original has more verses than many of us may realize:

    http://www.linkbuildingvideos.com/watch-video/ff58W_m2ipk/maxpowers518/dixies-land-1916-recording.html

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  6. beb said on April 3, 2012 at 8:01 am

    If MittbRomney is not stiff when you unzip him, wouldn’t that be a disappointment to Mrs. (I’m not rich) Romney?

    James, I think the reason the news article describes the man as “motoring” is because his wife was driving. He was just riding along. Which makes his arrest, imprisonment, strip-search(es) all the more bizarre. As for the ruling itself, it’s time to realize that conservatives don’t believe in rights and freedom. They secret long for a police state where they are the police.

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  7. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 3, 2012 at 8:11 am

    Wow – Nancy, your old “neighbor” Dr. Snyderman is getting put on a Today Show panel next to Sarah Palin. With Donny Deutsch another stool down, and a furious looking Star Jones. He looks like he’s rethinking the retainer check he cashed from NBC for 2012, but the good doctor is doing her best to be courteous to this unexpected infestation of her house.

    Palin’s having a relaxed, goofily chatting kind of time; you can see the show they’ll build around her, and it’s not “Hardball.”

    Update: Jones is apparently going to pretend Palin just isn’t there. Fascinating.

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  8. Dorothy said on April 3, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Oh dang, Jeff beat me to it! The husband of a good friend of mine wrote a musical based on the life of Daniel Decatur Emmett and I played his second wife in the premier of the show here in good ol’ Mount Vernon about 3 years ago. I was a sight to behold in my grey wig. Gave my hubby the Willies to see me thus! (and now I’m going to go look up the origin of “the Willies” and find out if I should or should not be capitalizing it.) And yes, Jeff, we know all about the controversy about whether or not Dan Emmett stole the song from the Snowdens. In Mount Vernon they have a Dan Emmett festival weekend every year in early August.

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  9. Julie Robinson said on April 3, 2012 at 9:46 am

    The strip search decision is one where I wish the court had gone on a field trip so they could experience it themselves. I can only imagine how terrifying it would be.

    I had to read the Ann Romney quote twice. The first time my brain substituted hot for not and that, as they say, was a true cognitive dissonance!

    Edit: I just heard Mittens says that serving as a pastor in the Mormon church has helped him connect with people. Nope, you can’t write this stuff.

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  10. Bitter Scribe said on April 3, 2012 at 10:04 am

    I can’t find that Neil Steinberg column on the Sun-Times site.

    As for strip-searching, I remember a long time ago when Chicago-area police departments got in trouble for strip-searching women who made illegal left turns and had out-of-state drivers licenses. It was a big scandal back then. Now I guess it’s OK. Conservative progress, gotta love it.

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  11. Mark P said on April 3, 2012 at 10:29 am

    Well, “conservative” and “liberal” don’t really mean anything having to do with the words themselves. They’re just convenient shorthand for “batshit crazy dangerous but still wears clothes” and “reasonably human.”

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  12. Icarus said on April 3, 2012 at 11:07 am

    weren’t you gonna write about the Hunger Games today?

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    • nancy said on April 3, 2012 at 11:14 am

      Yes, and a few things came up, and I got tired and decided to boot it. If you would like to file a formal complaint, I’d be happy to transfer you to the editor. (ring, ring) Editor speaking! The Hunger Games entry you requested will now be published at a later date. Would you like a refund?

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  13. Jakash said on April 3, 2012 at 11:22 am

    As long as we’re asking questions of the Proprietress, I wonder, since you didn’t link to a column, NN, if that Neil Steinberg comment was from Twitter or Facebook or something like that.

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    • nancy said on April 3, 2012 at 11:30 am

      Sorry, should have clarified: That was on Neil’s Facebook page, and that was the comment in its entirety. I don’t like to link to FB because if you’re not a member, you generally can’t see its content. HAVE MY APOLOGIES SUITED YOU? WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO ASK ANY MORE QUESTIONS, EXPRESS ANY MORE COMPLAINTS? BECAUSE I’M RIGHT HERE, TALKING IN ALL CAPS.

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  14. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 11:33 am

    This piece of better than average corporate rock is popularly known as Sister Christian, but Night Ranger called it Motoring. Incomprehensible, inane, dumb as grunt lyrics but a lot more musically imaginative and less bombastic performance than all that Steve Perry Streetlight People shit.

    I want Mrs. Romney to tell the world the family nickname Little Mitt goes by, and if it’s emblazoned on the flies of his magic u-trou. I’m betting they call him Moroni, or maccaroni.

    Back in the wake of the Chuck Stewart murder hoax in Boston, the BPD executed a few hundred thousand stop-and-searches in two weeks, before it became obvious that Chuck had shot Carol and then himself to fake a robbery by the proverbial “black male. The cops had black kids all over the city leaning against walls with their pants around their ankles. How many white people are liable ever to fall afoul of this ruling. Thanks to Alito and Scalia and Scalia’s homunculus Long Dong, cops can find a roach in a car ashtray and charge every passenger and the driver with possession, even if one of them admits ownership. Ain’t that originalism? Just as the Founders intended. Of course, founders, some of them, were hemp farmers. If this latest shit from these activist judge bastards isn’t legislating from the bench I’d like it explained how it’s not. Of course “activist judges” don”t rile up the right wing anymore, now that it turns out the bench legislators are on their side.

    Christine Todd Whitman announced that the SC ruling exonerated her of charges of racial profiling for her famous grinning black guy patdown, and said she’d be happy to do it pantsless next time she does a ride-along. Newt Gingrich said that Whitman is a “flaming liberal with no place in our Big Tent Party”.

    Is that your Taxi Driver DeNiro, Nancy? Testy.

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  15. LAMary said on April 3, 2012 at 11:43 am

    I think we need to stop asking annoying questions. Shhh.

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    • nancy said on April 3, 2012 at 11:45 am

      WHO’S ANNOYED? NOT ME. NOT ANNOYED AT ALL.

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  16. Connie said on April 3, 2012 at 11:47 am

    No questions. No Complaints. All is fine.

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  17. coozledad said on April 3, 2012 at 11:51 am

    While we’re talking in all caps, I just received a broadsheet in my mailbox from NC Civitas, another front for Art Pope and the people who drink whatever foam comes out of his crack. It took me a couple of seconds to decide if it was justifiable to unload on whatever stupid Baptist functionary they’ve got working the phone, and yes, it was worthwhile.
    These people are inadequately neuronal to live in a free society. In a just world, it would be possible to teleport them to an environment more favorable to evil dumbshits; say Franco’s Spain or, even better, Nazi occupied Ukraine. Then they could get a belly full of that götterdämmerung they keep publicly beating off to.
    Instead, they’ll be rounding up truckloads of toothless cracker trash to stink up the polls.

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  18. Peter said on April 3, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Well, somebody got up on the wrong side of the computer today.

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  19. Jakash said on April 3, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Well, gee, m’lady, I was just following up on Bitter Scribe’s comment, really, but I’m the one who gets yelled at. (Sheepishly putting tail between legs and shuffling back to Lurkerville.)

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    • nancy said on April 3, 2012 at 11:59 am

      I’M JUST KIDDING. CAN’T ANYONE TELL WHEN I’M KIDDING?

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  20. Sue said on April 3, 2012 at 11:56 am

    Prospero, the weird thing about the Sister Christian song is that when I first heard it, I thought it was odd that someone had redone an obscure song I remembered from the early ’70s. Of course it was not a new cover of an old song, but I clearly remembered it as such. It creeps me out whenever I hear it now because I still feel that ’70s connection and it seems like the first tentative steps toward batty-old-ladyness.

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  21. Sue said on April 3, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    Everyone please note the last line of Nancy’s post today – ‘zzzzz’.
    Obviously she’s… talking… in her sleep.

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  22. LAMary said on April 3, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    She’s shouting in her sleep. One time my grandfather shouted “look at the pink smoke!” in his sleep. We never figured out what that meant.

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  23. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    Crimefighter Christy Whitman doing an Alito, with a big grin on her mug. Dumbest thing a politician ever did? Too bad, actually, Mrs. Whitman is a semi-sane GOPer. Clone her a couple of hundred times and put the clones in the GOP congressional seats, and the USA might make some progress.

    Mitt’s time machine.

    The pink smoke comes from the green rocket. Uncle Nicola’s trying to tell you something. Shoot Loud, Louder…I Don’t Understand. One of my brothers once shouted “Look at the grouse” in his sleep. We knew immdiately what he was talking about.

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  24. DellaDash said on April 3, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    Just finished an extremely satisfying Netflixed ‘Game of Thrones’ season 1 marathon, and am handling withdrawals with the beginning of a Sean Bean retrospective…starting with ‘Catherine Cookson’s The Fifteen Steps’ (1989), which I plucked off the library shelf. Bean plays a drunken, brawling bully, as foil to his Eddard-Stark-noble elder brother; both of them part of a large, low class, dock-working family in South Tyneside with very broad indeterminate accents. I’ve also put the first two ‘Sharpe’s…’ movie/episodes on reserve.

    While at the library, I had a bit of a wild goose chase trying to track down the Playaway (audio) version of ‘The Watch That Ends The Night’. Online said a copy was supposed to be available at my branch. The new, young library guy couldn’t find it in the back, and told me to check the YA section. No cigar. So we put it on hold. (When I got home, I was intrigued enough by Prospero’s suggestions to add hardbound copies of ‘Natural History; A Novel’ and Ondaatje’s ‘…Billy The Kid’ to the mix.)

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  25. beb said on April 3, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    Considering Nancy’s mood I’d better nopt make any snarky comment about High School Prom Throne of Crowns…

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  26. Icarus said on April 3, 2012 at 1:02 pm

    Since I’ve only recently started following your blog (even though EZ has linked to it for ages) I don’t know you well enough to know when you’re kidding or being sarcastic. I re-ran my post through my favorite email analysis program (the Snarkism & Subliminal 3000) and it passed.

    So I’ll just be quiet until the next time you write that you don’t know what to write about and I’ll send a big “I told you so” your way. 🙂

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  27. coozledad said on April 3, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    Nance: You ever see this movie?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT5aJb_DS0w&feature=relmfu

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  28. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    Two favorites of mine, Della. Hope you enjoy. I’v never met anybody else that has read either.

    That green rocket and Uncle Nicola nonsense is a reference to Raquel Welch’s greatest movie (after Mother, Jugs and Speed), Shoot Loud, Louder…I Don’t Understand, with Marcello Mastroianni. That man had an affinity for bounteous breasts, I’d say. Anyway, the pink smoke reminded me of it.

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  29. nancy said on April 3, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    Nyet, but I think I’ll check it out. The winter palace looks pretty great. No wonder the peasants revolted.

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  30. Dorothy said on April 3, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    I answered a call on my cell that came in while I was at lunch and I wanted to talk in all caps, but my husband shushed me. I talked as angrily and quietly as I could. One of those robot calls, saying I had filled out a contest form (something I’ve never done and never will do) and won a free cruise. So of course I had to hit the “1” button and tell the bitch I don’t fill out contest forms and I’m on the do not call list and please STOP CALLING MY CELL PHONE WITH THIS CRAP. That’s not easy to do in a quiet voice.

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  31. coozledad said on April 3, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    They did it all in one shot. Took them three tries, though. The whole thing’s like a painting.
    My favorite part is Catherine the Great’s struggle with urinary incontinence.

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  32. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    The GOPer mass hysteria and fainting epidemic over the President’s SC comments are fracking hilarious. He basically made an argument against partisan activist judges legislating from the bench. Hasn’t that been an absolute requirement to prove GOP bona fides for at least the last 20 years? Course, they shut up about it around the time of the Citizens United

    Today is the anniversary of the birth of the late, great Richard Manuel.

    Dorothy, that contest/won a cruise gambit is a standard component in crime stories lately, to frame the rube for murder or whatever. I received a spam message yesterday informing me that I’ve won a gift card worth $10.5 mill, an astounding figure in my experience. The message actually instructed me to arrange by email to pick the card up in person. Muggers? Kidnappers? Personal enemies

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  33. adrianne said on April 3, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Della, do you know that Sean Bean has become a movie/TV trope: apparently, he’s always killed off.

    But he survives all the episodes of “Sharpe” that we’ve seen, and he’s very good, so enjoy!

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  34. Brandon said on April 3, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    “Well, somebody got up on the wrong side of the computer today.”

    Definitely.

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  35. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 3:42 pm

    My favorite part is Catherine the Great’s struggle with urinary incontinence. That horse thing. Cooze, do you know the music on that movie clip. Beautiful.

    SCOTUS/ACA:

    Does the ACA affect interstate commerce? Undoubtedly.

    Does the law meets the rational basis test which presumes that an economic regulation such as this is constitutional so long as it is rationally productive of a legitimate government objective? Clearly.

    Any other consideration of the ACA by the Court’s objective umpire activist originalists of the Scalia wing of the SC is pure bullshit legislating from the bench activism.

    On this day in 1882, Jesse James was shot in the back and killed, by the coward Robert Ford:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEFDlbR_lnM
    (Seger with Teagarden and VanWinkle)

    Republican evolution.

    Today’s also the birthday of both Richard Thompson (aka world’s greatest fingerpicker), and the punk patriarch, Mike Ness, of Social Distortion and the Minutemen.

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  36. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    Two virtuosos:

    When the Angels Sing, Mike Ness and Social Distortion.

    52 Vincent Black Lightning, Richard Thompson.

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  37. Julie Robinson said on April 3, 2012 at 3:59 pm

    My cell gets a lot of spam calls despite being on the do not call list. I made the mistake of answering one so they know it’s a real number, but no more. If it’s out of the area code and I don’t recognize it, I don’t answer. If it’s legitimate they can leave a message and I’ll call back. But they never do.

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  38. Deborah said on April 3, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    ditto for me on the spam calls on my cell. I probably get two a day. I never answer anymore now that I know it’s a deal. Sometimes they leave messages, mostly they don’t.

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  39. DellaDash said on April 3, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Didn’t know that, Adrianne. Hmmm. Did just notice that Bean is part of the ‘Missing’ cast, and will give the show a second glance because of it. First glance turned me off cause it looks like Ashley Judd has gone and had her skin stretched taut across her facebones. I could be wrong, of course, but watching her makes me wince. Same goes for Anjelica Huston, who looks even freakier on ‘Smash’. I used to consider both women beauties, but their current TV incarnations are giving me a strong case of the facelift heebie jeebies.

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  40. coozledad said on April 3, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Prospero: Sergei Yevtushenko. It was written for the film. The piece that precedes it is Glinka. It’s the same waltz Michael Palin used for “A Cycling Tour of Cornwall.”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eltl90YzLok

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  41. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    More howling proof of Santorum’s 1)abject stupidity, or 2) willingness always to spout the first outrageous lie that pops into his pointy little head:

    http://thinkprogress.org/education/2012/04/02/456547/santorum-uc-american-history/

    Gutdom, what a nitwit.

    edit: Thanks cooze, I find that music enchanting. The noise of the reveller’s conversation on the sound track is pretty amazing also. I ordered the movie from Netflix. Good follow-up to the Jean Vigo collection I sent back today.

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  42. mark said on April 3, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    Judicial activism can take many forms, including “legislating from the bench.” Examples of that form include Miranda and Roe v Wade. But striking down legislation, and returning things to the pre-legislation status quo, is not “legislating from the bench,” regardless of whether it is considered judicial activism.

    It’s best not to mix talking points.

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  43. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    Mark,

    Just repeating GOP shibboleth “talking points” from the last 20 years, that were a constant drumbeat until Bush v. Gore legislated a preeminence of federal election requirements over those of the sovereign sstate of FLA. I’m just repeating Scalia’s argument, who basically used the two terms interchangeably to refer to partisan behavior by judges. If you check, you’ll see that I stated this opinion before the President did. I didn’t know from the GOP flinging this shit for two decades there were such refined definitions of terms. They aren’t my talking points, which I don’t have, nor are they “talking points” generated by liberals of any sort. They are terms straight out of the mouths of partisan GOPers, presumably from the keyboard of the odious Frank Luntz, and it’s obviously galling to hear those words bouncing back to GOP behavior quite appropriately. . So excuse me if I took these idealogues at their words. Guess I won’t make that mistake again any time soon.

    GOP: Party Bankrupt of Ideas: They might as well elect the Situation or Snooki goobernator. Chris “Gargantua” Christie wants to run NJ on policies borrowed from and laws cadged from the unelected creeps and cretins that developed and pushed Stand Your Ground (aka Get a Vigilante Out of Jail Free) for the NRA and sold it’s bogus shit to the corrupt wingnut FLA state lege.

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  44. Sue said on April 3, 2012 at 5:14 pm

    In Arizona, apparently you can be pregnant before you are pregnant. Just when you think they’ve found all the angles, they find another one:
    http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/04/01/arizona-legislators-trying-to-declare-pregnancy-two-weeks-prior-to-conception

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  45. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    Sue: That’s the Gleam in Your Father’s Eye Act.

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  46. Minnie said on April 3, 2012 at 5:39 pm

    Happy birthday, Richard Thompson. One Thousand Years of Popular Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAS4ltt7DzI

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  47. Bitter Scribe said on April 3, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    Mark: What do you think Roe v. Wade did, if not “striking down legislation, and returning things to the pre-legislation status quo”? Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, laws banning abortion were not handed down by God.

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  48. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 6:48 pm

    Absolutely, Minnie. Guy’s a genius. I hope Brittney Spears realizes what an honor it is for RT to turn her song into something other than drivel, something that sounds ominous. I’ve got the One Thousand Years album, but even better the double Shoot Out the Lights album that has a bunch of songs with his ex, Linda, too. I love Vincent Black Lightning, but this ballad is also a favorite, with haunting lyrics:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AeIsU2686Y

    And Little Blue Number is great Rockpile style new wave rave rock:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9wBBBsMwk (funny lyrics too).

    As good a songwriter as a guitar player if that’s possible.

    Funny how “judicial activism” has been a password to the faux-conservative GOPer inner sanctum for two decades, but when it comes back in their mugs, it’s an unprecedented and unseemly attack on the court by President Ni… Fuck these assholes if they can dish it out but not take it.
    I pictured Luntz swallowing his tongue when he heard Obama come out with this acute and accurate description of the 2012 originalist partisan GOPer judges in his own carefully crafted phrases. Makes me laugh my ass off, and fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, and go all sputtering apoplectic. Being told I’m not using the terms according to some supposedly well-established definitions is an even bigger joke. Like they weren’t empty slogans and dog whistles in GOPer mouths.

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  49. MarkH said on April 3, 2012 at 6:48 pm

    Della – I always believed that Ashley Judd at least had her left eyebrow surgically arched years ago.

    In Ronin, Sean Bean did not get killed off, but was booted off the plot when he effed up an early part of the caper. He doesn’t seem to last long, at least, alive.

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  50. Prospero said on April 3, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    Ashley Judd was partying last night, I imagine. Just about coming out of her post NCAA fog about now.

    Richard and Linda Thompson (RT plays banjo):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6kjCd7QRbw&feature=related

    Of course, they have a talented son, whose voice is his dad’s 25 or 30 years ago:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g35D5jwpbpM&feature=related

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  51. Dorothy said on April 3, 2012 at 9:09 pm

    Deborah and Julie – I usually do the same thing (ignore calls from unrecognized numbers) but every once in awhile this feeling comes over me that I have to answer one – it gives me a sick sort of satisfaction if I tell the callers that they’re lying about having an entry form that I filled out. I wish I could control these urges more, but sometimes I just can’t help myself! (After this public confession, though, I’m guessing I might get a little better at the self control thing.)

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  52. Minnie said on April 3, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    Prospero, I love Vincent Black Lightning and the Shoot out the Lights album, as well. Yes, the whole family is amazingly musical.

    Here’s one of my favorites. This is from a NY club preview of Kit Bag, and every clip I’ve seen from the show is outstanding. I drove around singing along to this every day for months. Wonder I didn’t drive off a bridge in despair. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM2eaeYZSXw&feature=relmfu

    Just one more, this from Austin City Limits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBeF9uci7jk&feature=related

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  53. basset said on April 3, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    Another virtuoso:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Krey-_0-TA

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  54. brian stouder said on April 3, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    Something I did not know: “Dixie,” the unofficial anthem of the ol’ Souf’, wasn’t written until 1859. It was written in New York City, of all places, for a minstrel show.

    I can’t swear to it, but I think I only learned this upon reading Adam Goodheart’s marvelous book “1861; The Civil War Awakening”

    If you get the chance, read “Elizabeth and Hazel”; it is a newsie-news sort of book, like one of those long Sunday articles that can, by turns, make you laugh and then hurts your heart. Famous newsmen before they were famous pop up like dandelions when Elizabeth walks the gauntlet (and which leads to who-knows-what, at that moment) at the high school.

    I did not know that the high school that the Little Rock Nine was actually shut down altogether, the following year. The locals decided they’d just as soon have no school, as to having a (nominally) integrated one.

    Larry Lubenow, a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald (where he made $1.75 an hour) gets an interview with Louie Armstrong in September 1957:

    Armstrong had been contemplating a goodwill tour of the Soviet Union for the State Department – “they ain’t so cold but what we couldn’t bruise them with happy music,” he’d explained – but now, he confessed to having second thoughts. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell”, he went on, offering further choice words about Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
    “The people over there ask me what’s wrong with my country. What am I supposed to say?” As he spoke, he got progressively worked up. Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced”, and had “no guts”, while Governor Faubus was a “no-good motherfucker” (writing for a family newspaper, Lubenow somehow turned that into “uneducated plow boy”)

    That ‘family newspaper’ comment made me laugh out loud, as (to me) it is an old Nancy Nall trope from way back!

    Aside from that, lemme jus’ say that you folks in the reserved seating down in the front of the thread shoulda’ known that mom had had enough….Jus’ sayin’

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  55. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 3, 2012 at 11:45 pm

    Uneducated plow boy. I’m using that, somehow.

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  56. Dexter said on April 4, 2012 at 12:31 am

    If Kansas would have had Brittney Griner of Baylor , they would have beaten Kentucky Monday night.
    I have not followed the story at all until tonight: Baylor has a player named Brittney who speaks in a male-like voice, has an 88 inch wingspan, is 6’8″, wears mens’ size 17 basketball shoe, can dunk a basketball at will, and is unlike any other woman who has ever played the sport. She could make any team in the world, mens’ team, womens’ team…it would make no difference.

    Well, now she has the attention of the entire world, not just the world of womens’ basketball. She totally dominated the national championship game vs. Notre Dame last night. Notre Dame, a very, very good team, had no chance playing against Brittney and company. It’s like James Cameron’s Blue Na’vi aliens playing basketball against a pack of little people.

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