Never pass up a chance to sit down or relieve yourself. -old Apache saying

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Swami Beyondananda

Lose Weightiness Now!

"I lost weightiness ... ask me how!"
-- Swami Beyondananda

In these stressful times, it's easy to gain weightiness. Weightiness gain is not your fault!

Work ... the economy ... and now the election season ... and pretty soon ... yes, that's right. You've gained weightiness. Well, if gravity's got you down, let levity lift you up!

Here are just some of the serious problems that can be caused by overweightiness:

  • Irregularhilarity
  • Humorrhoids
  • Irony deficiency
  • Truth decay
Absolutely FREE here is Swami's 5-step program to lose weightiness now!
1. Take a vow of levity! Remember, levity will help you rise above whatever is bringing you down. In a toxic situation? Laughter will keep you from taking it poisonally. Feel the levitational pull uplifting the corners of your mouth into a smile. You want to uplift humankind? Uplift your face first! Here is the levity vow: "All for fun ... and fun for all!"

2. Don't Get Even -- Get Odd. Instead of staying stuck in dualing dualities, use your one-of-a-kindness to find the odd solution that beats the heck out of getting even.

3. When You See A Sacred Cow, Milk It For All It's Worth. When our sacred cows give the milk of human kindness, we are fortified to take the bull by the horns.

4. Enlighten Your Load. Is your life stuffed with stuff? Unstuff it! Stuff is a major cause of weightiness. You'll be surprised that the more liquid you get, the more solid you will feel.

5. Wake Up Laughing, and Wise Up Loving. Time to wake up. You'll never lose weightiness if you keep hitting snooze. Wake up with a laugh, and end the day with an embrace, and if you are alone ... embrace yourself, and immerse yourself in a warm solution of love. And in addition to these five steps to fool-realization, a vital laugh force, and fully opened clown chakra, here are four things you can do every day!

Daily Weightiness Loss Exercise Plan.

1. Wake up laughing. As Swami says, "If you wake up with a funny feeling ... go with it." If you don't immediately laugh upon rising, then rise and start laughing. Nothing funny? Go look in the bathroom mirror. If you're still not laughing, pretend you're looking at someone else. Do that, and you'll laugh.

2. Do Ha-Ha-Ha Breaths. Very important to move the laugh force early in the day to insure regularhilarity. So, we use the vowel sounds, and we put a h- in front of it ... so we begin way up here at the top of our heads with a hee-hee-hee. Then we move down to the throat and we chuckle a heh-heh-heh. Next, down to the heart for some hearty laughter, ha-ha-ha, and now the belly laugh ho-ho-ho. and way down to the bottom hoo-hoo-hoo ... and now move the vowel sounds back up hoo-hoo-hoo, ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, heh-heh-heh, hee-hee-hee ... ah, nothing like a good vowel movement early in the day.

3. Enlighten Up the News. You want to know where most weightiness gain occurs? In the morning, eating breakfast and watching the news or reading the paper. Why? All the studies are conclusive: The news puts on weightiness, and is a major factor in truth decay. That's why we recommend using mental floss after every serving of mainstream media. Just put your thumb and forefinger about six inches from each ear. Ready? Then, with a gentle back and forth motion, dislodge all the illogical logic, all the petrified bullshit, and every dysfunctional belief masquerading as reality. Ahhh ... you will feel so much better. Your synapses will start synapping again.

4. Play at Work, Work at Play. You know what the secret of a happy life is? To be able to answer yes to the question, "From this you make a living?" If you aren't doing what you love -- or at least loving what you do -- you are slathering on pounds of excess weightiness! So ... if you can't be with the work you love, love the work you're with. And if you hate the work you're with, love hating it. Invent a hilarious character, and use that character to complain loudly about everything you hate. Then laugh.

Note. If you begin feeling lightheaded due to sudden weightiness loss, simply surrender to the levitational pull. If symptoms of ascension continue, consult your metaphysician.


Help Others Lose Weightiness Too!

During this contentious election season where it's hard to escape barking dogmas and dueling dualities -- not to mention feud poisoning -- it's so very important to maintain regularhilarity. That's why we've extended Swami's Cosmic Comedy Specials throughout our upcoming Wake Up Laughing Wise Up Loving Tour.

First of all, you can order the Fool Enchilada Special for the very special price of just $59 (includes U.S. shipping) and get $112 value! That's more laughs per penny than the high-priced laughsitive!

And ... if you want to go audio only, you can order all four of Swami's hilarious CDs for just $39 (includes U.S. shipping).

If you want to immerse yourself in the what's, how's and why's of creating cosmic comedy, there is the Wake Up Laughing e-book, AND a four hour teleclass A Course In Laughter available for download for just $15. https://www.wakeuplaughing.com/epistore/

And ... if you're in a really generous mood, you can be part of our Buddysattva program and get the Wake Up Laughing e-book for a dozen of your friends. Hey, that hole in the Bozone Layer that has compromised our planet's clown chakra can't heal without your help!

And remember, when it comes to laughter what goes around, comes around. The laugh you save may be your own!




Go to Swami Beyondananda's website by clicking here.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Go Rabbi Lerner!

It's not often I say something like, "The rabbi is right."

Obama (and Biden) Have No Clue
About What's Bothering Their Political Base

Rabbi Michael Lerner
Original

Shortly before the California Democratic primary in 2008, the San Fransisco Chronicle invited me to write a short article explaining why I, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, was supporting Barack Obama. Like most other progressive activists, I understood that a president is limited in what s/he can accomplish in limiting the power of America's economic and political elites and in restraining the military-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical and health care profiteers, the oil industry's relentless destruction of the environment, or the selfishness and materialism that had become the hallmark of Wall Street and increasingly the "common sense" that was conveyed by the media and advertising into the consciousness of many Americans.

But what a president can do is to challenge the ideas of the powerful and rally those who have become aware that the current system is not only destructive to the future of the planet, but also to the possibility of constructing lives that have a sense of higher meaning than accumulating money and things, or building families and friendships that are about love and not dominated by the self-interest "what's in it for me" consciousness of the capitalist marketplace.

President Obama is now traveling the country seeking to rebuild the enthusiasm he generated in 2008, and seems clueless as to why it is not there. And the Democrats who followed his lead seem similarly clueless. They imagine that we, their political base, must have had unreasonable expectations that somehow a Democratic majority in Congress and a Democratic president could overcome the Republican party of "no" and the powerful institutional constraints built up over many decades. So they try to explain to us why they failed to pass the legislation that we, their political base, would have wanted.

It's easier to believe that their liberal and progressive base is naïve than to acknowledge that we are not alienated for their failure to pass appropriate legislation, but for their failure to fight for such legislation. And our upset with Obama is not that he didn't accomplish what he couldn't accomplish, but that he didn't do the one thing he could do: consistently speak the truth, tell us and the country what was really happening in the corridors of power and what the constraints are that he was facing.

It's one thing to make compromises after you've struggled for something you believe in, another to make the compromises without ever trying. Liberals and progressives had already been deeply disillusioned after the Democratic sweep of Congress in 2006, continued to fund the war in Iraq despite overwhelming popular opposition to that war. So when Obama entered the primaries and spent much of his time distinguishing himself from Sen. Clinton on precisely the grounds that he had opposed the war from the beginning, he gave his base the impression that he would be a leader who would challenge the war makers. Similarly, when he challenged the selfishness and materialism that pervaded Wall Street, we felt we had a candidate who would be willing to speak truth to power.

So what happened? Massive bailouts for Wall Street while almost nothing for the millions of unemployed or those losing their homes to avaricious financial lenders; escalation of the war in Afghanistan and leaving 50,000 troops as "advisors" in Iraq; refusing to consider a "public option" for health care and supporting a plan that forces tens of millions of people to buy health insurance without putting any restraints on insurance companies' continuing escalations of the amount we have to pay for health care; repression against immigrants; allowing continued drilling in the oceans for oil even after the Gulf disaster, and substituting the empty promise of "cap and trade" for the tax on carbons that is the only plausible way to reduce carbon emissions; refusal to punish those engaged in torture in the US intelligence community; and the list goes on.

The president has a bully pulpit that could have rallied the American public to an alternative worldview. Reagan did that while facing a hostile Democratic Congress; Roosevelt did that while facing a hostile Republican Congress-and that is what made them the most significant presidents of the 20th century.

Many of us will vote Democratic in November, despite all this. But don't expect us to be able to rally others when the best we can say is that the Democrats and their national leader are better than the plausible alternatives. That is not a rallying cry likely to produce many votes or move us beyond our deep disappointments. And many others, feeling humiliated at allowing themselves to have opened to the hope Obama elicited, now find themselves either totally uninterested in politics or wishing to strike back at the Democrats for making fools of those who trusted. Obama and the Democrats remain clueless.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine and author of 11 books, most recently a national best-seller The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right ( Harper, 2006).

Monday, September 27, 2010

Real Pledge to America

This site is a whole lot more truthful than what the Republicans just came out with.

The Real Pledge to America.

WE WILL PROTECT SENIORS. EXCEPT WHEN CROOKS ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THEM. THEN THEY'RE ON THEIR OWN.

Click here.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

How to win in 2010

TRMS 9/23/10

In this 8 minute video, Rachel Maddow (TRMS) informs us that Republicans are campaigning around the country on the good things in Obamacare, BUT ARE TAKING CREDIT FOR THE LEGISLATION THEMSELVES.

Meanwhile, Democrats seem too afraid, as usual, to take any credit for the health insurance legislation.


Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Spiders on drugs

An "oldie" but goodie.

"Oldie" in this modern age can mean anything over two years old.


Friday, September 24, 2010

"Small Business" scandal

This is just so, so, so wrong. Yet another example of everything skewed towards the rich in this country. Here we have some of the worlds largest companies being classified as "small businesses" and saving billions of dollars in taxes that should be going to the US Treasury, and naturally greasing the wheels in Congress to keep it that way. This is one corrupt country folks.

Olbermann: GOP Uses 'Small Business' Tag to Help Save Huge Companies Billions

The "small" businesses that Republican lawmakers say will suffer if the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire are not so small after all, MSNBC's "Countdown" reported Tuesday.

Some of these businesses, which include big names in engineering and finance, are "large" in terms of revenue, payroll and distribution, but "small" in terms of ownership, the report, by David Cay Johnston and Chris Hayes, has found.

According to the Republican tax logic, a small number of owners is the sole criterion for a "small business." Such businesses, which according to the Joint Committee on Taxation accounted for 94 percent of all U.S. businesses in 2007, include partnerships, sole proprietorships and S corporations, a designation that allows owners to report profits and losses on their personal tax return, rather than on the company's.

"'Small business' is a brand name," MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said.

The report found that businesses with billions of dollars in annual revenue fall under the small business category. Bechtel, a global engineering and construction company that is considered a "small business" under this logic, took in $31 billion last year. Ferrellgas, a propane company, earned $2 billion in revenue last year. McIlhenny, another "small business," which makes Tabasco sauce, made $250 million in revenue in 2007.

Other names include auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Also on the list are the collection of "small businesses" owned by the billionaire Koch Brothers, who this year tied for fifth on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans, and who were profiled last month by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.

Bloomberg first reported this unusual tax logic on Monday. The Republican "small business" designation, the report said, would apply even to individuals with no employees at all. It could include actors, athletes and authors -- even President Obama.

Watch the 11:00 minute long video.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Hightower on Feingold

Thanks to the absurd Citizen's United decision at the Supreme Court this past January, unlimited amounts of money can now flow from corporations or individuals into those dark "issue-oriented" advocacy groups.

You can't give an unlimited amount directly TO a candidate that wants to eliminate regulations, let's say, but you can give an unlimited amount to an organization that wants to eliminate regulations, and that organization can spend unlimited amounts of money to defeat a candidate that does NOT want to eliminate regulations. This is beyond absurd. It is grossly corrupt. Bu
t, that' s America.

THE CORPORATE ASSAULT ON AN HONEST SENATOR

Jim Hightower -

If you look at the whole flock of 535 congress critters, it's hard not to giggle – or break out in uncontrollable sobs at the thought that – oh my God! – this is the United States Congress. As Peggy Lee sang years ago: "Is that all there is?"

Well, no – within the manure pile, there are quite a few genuine gems, and one of the finest is a fellow who consistently stands for common sense and the common good. He's Russ Feingold, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.

He's a Democrat – but really he's a populist maverick who has refused to go along to get along, even when that means going against his own party and against what the political consultants tell him is his own best interests. For example, he was the lone senate vote against the autocratic, liberty-busting Patriot Act in 2001. Feingold also had the stuff to vote against Obama's escalation of the misguided war in Afghanistan, and not only did he oppose the 2008 bailout of Wall Street banksters, but he also said "no" this year to Obama's Wall Street regulatory reforms, blasting them as too week and meek.

So, this sensible senator is now targeted for defeat by the moneyed elites. They've found a multimillionaire corporate Republican (who made a fortune in plastic) to use confused Tea Party forces as a ramrod to oust Russ. The corporate contender attacks Social Security as "a giant Ponzi scheme," calls health care reform "the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime," and insists that the science of global climate change is "unproven." If this guy gets any dumber, we'd have to water him twice a day!

But he's a rich corporate honcho, backed by the moneyed powers, so he could join the congressional manure pile – if We the People don't rally around one of our own. Connect with Russ Feingold at www.russfeingold.org.

I think you can hear Jim in his own words by clicking here.

And visit Jim's website here.

Tariq Ali

In far too many ways, Obama is just a smarter, kinder and gentler George W. Bush. Sorry to say it, but it seems true to me. It's not what Obama SAYS that we need to watch, it's what he DOES. We've been fooled again.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali has a new book out; it’s called The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad. Some might say that’s a little harsh.

TARIQ ALI: I know some of his supporters might feel it’s a little harsh, but I think that we’ve had two years of him now, Amy, and the contours of this administration are now visible. And essentially, it is a conservative administration which has changed the mood music. So the talk is better. The images of the administration are better, the reasonable looks. But in terms of what they do—in foreign policy, we’ve seen a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies, and worse, in AfPak, as they call it, and at home, we’ve seen a total capitulation to the lobbyists, to the corporations. The fact that the healthcare bill was actually drafted by someone who used to be an insurance lobbyist says it all.

So, it’s essentially now a PR operation to get him reelected. But I don’t think people are that dumb. I’ve been speaking to some of his, you know, partisan supporters, and they’re disappointed. So the big problem for Obama is that if you do nothing and promise that you would bring about some changes, you will not have people coming out to vote for you again. And building up the tea party into this great bogey isn’t going to work. It’s your own supporters you have to convince to come out and vote for you, as they did before. I can’t see that happening.

AMY GOODMAN: The cover of your book, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, is a picture of the face, the head of President Obama, and half of it is peeled away to reveal President Bush.

TARIQ ALI: Well, this, you know, I think, is a sort of very brilliant West Coast montage artist, and they are the best. Whenever there’s a crisis, they come up with an image which says it all. And I like that image a lot, and I used it very deliberately to show the continuation, that it’s not a case that we have a new administration. We do, technically, but it’s continuing with many of the old policies in the—how it deals with the economy. When you have people like Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, occasionally Frank Rich in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd, these people who were desperate for a Democrat administration being incredibly critical of some of its things, when you have venerable professors like Gary Wells saying, "I’m disappointed," the honeymoon didn’t last long with Obama. It lasted much, much longer with Clinton. And one reason for that is that he had raised hopes and was unable to deliver. He turned out to be an apparatchik and a political operator from one of the worst Democrat areas in the country, Chicago, and that’s what he behaves like.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Gibbs, the White House press spokesperson, going after the so-called "professional left"? Your thoughts?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, it’s interesting that they are incapable of dealing with the right. With the right, it’s conciliation. That’s what they feel they have to appeal to. With critics from the left, they tend to be very harsh, as if they are saying to us, "You don’t know how lucky you are." But why are we lucky? I mean, you know, we judge people not by how they look or what they say, but by what they do. And what Obama has been doing is, you know, to put it mildly, extremely disappointing at home, and abroad it’s murderous. On Palestine, on Iran, no changes at all. So, one has to spell this out, because if they don’t realize that they’re doing this, they’re going to get more shocks. And Rahm Emanuel refers to people on the liberal left who are critical of Obama, and he uses a bad swear word and then says, "effing retards"—well, we’ll see who the retards are after the midterms, Amy. That’s all I can say.

AMY GOODMAN: Surrender at Home, War Abroad You were born in Pakistan. You ultimately went to Britain, where we just came from last night. It’s been interesting to see the politics there, but also the devastation of the war, the effects of the wars, on the population at home in Britain. A report in the paper the other day, when we were in London, saying that 20,000 veterans are in prison, mainly Iraq, Afghanistan war veterans, for committing violent and sexual crimes. But what about the war abroad and what President Obama is doing—says he’s scaling back Iraq, still about 50,000—actually, well more than that—military, and you could say paramilitaries with a mercenary armies there, and in Afghanistan, the surge?

TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, again, let’s look at it concretely. Bush had promised exactly the same withdrawal pattern from Iraq: by this time, we will be out. Obama has followed it. They’re not going out. What is essentially happening, they’re reducing the presence of combat troops and eliminating it in the big cities, and building six huge military bases all over Iraq, in which they’ll keep between fifty and sixty thousand soldiers, ready to act when the need be—just like the British did when they occupied Iraq in the '20s and ’30s of the last century. And the British were then driven out by a violent upheaval and revolution in the ’50s. So the US is keeping these bases in, (a) to control Iraq, and (b) as a warning to Iran. And I think there's going to be trouble.
The war isn’t over at all. We’ve seen, just a few days ago, huge explosions in Baghdad and Fallujah. It’s a total disaster and a mess. And to present that as somehow "mission accomplished part two" is a joke. That country has been wrecked, a million Iraqis dead, its social infrastructure destroyed. And in Afghanistan, they are now going from bad to worse. They know, and General Eikenberry knows and says, we cannot win this war militarily. They can’t lose it, but they can’t win it, either. So, political solution is the only way out, and that means that they have to have an exit strategy. Obama isn’t even talking about that, because that might be construed as a sign of weakness. But by who? The army knows what’s going on. They can’t stay there forever.

AMY GOODMAN: It was quite astounding, with the tremendous attention on Terry Jones threatening to burn a Quran, a horrific symbol all over the world, as it would be for any religious book, but at the same time, what was coming out of Afghanistan, a report of a kill team—this is a US kill team—who was taking souvenirs of fingers and other body parts, that getting very little attention in terms of what it means for not just the Muslim community, but for people all over the world.

TARIQ ALI: But, you know, Amy, some of us who are sort of elderly now remember exactly the same things happening in Vietnam during that war, where there were lots of report—in those days publicized much more, I have to say—of US soldiers in Vietnam taking trophies, which were parts of bodies of Vietnamese dead or who they had killed or tortured to death.

AMY GOODMAN: And just this report we read today, Michael Ware, well known face on CNN, constantly on talking about Iraq—

TARIQ ALI: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: —saying when he had this footage of a US soldier killing an Iraqi teen, they did not allow him to run that footage. And CNN owns it, so he can’t get it.

TARIQ ALI: It’s a disgrace that CNN did that, but that is a sign of how the global media corporations have been reporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Self-censorship has been the order of the day. They haven’t wanted to offend the US military, in sharp contrast to how the Vietnam War was covered. I remember Morley Safer on CBS News reporting a family’s home being destroyed by US Marines and Safer commenting, "We’re fighting for freedom." That sort of stuff is not permitted now. The global corporations don’t do it, which is why programs like this are important. But now that if he can’t even use the footage that he took, what is that? I mean, how people in that part of the world know exactly what’s going, and it’s not the Quran burnings that upset them so much—but they do, too—but what is happening to their daily lives with the US and NATO presence. That is what upsets them, and that is the root of the problem.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, we were just in London and saw a production that’s based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, but it’s The People Speak. It’ll air on History Channel UK on October 31st, a remarkable production of British people’s history. And one of the people who is portrayed there was you, talking about "Blair-faced liars." But you have a long history of decades of organizing around global politics in Britain. What about solutions right now? I mean, you have this One World March that’s going to be taking place on October 2nd in Washington, DC, based on jobs, justice and education. What about the kind of organizing that you feel is the most effective? People say, well, what should Obama do? What should Obama do? He is one person, albeit occupies the most powerful position on earth. But isn’t it really about movements, pressuring these individuals? That’s what makes history.

TARIQ ALI: I agree with you entirely. And I remember saying to lots of activists in the United States during the Obama election campaign—you know, people mobilized by MoveOn.org, etc.—and I would say to them, "Fine. You’re campaigning for Obama. You want him elected. OK, good. Let’s hope he delivers what you hope he’s going to deliver. But he’s not going to deliver even that if you just elect him and go back home." And I remember arguing for a massive antiwar gathering for the inauguration, which would pressure right from day one on the new administration, saying, "Congrats, Barack. Now out of Baghdad and Iraq. Out of Kabul and Afghanistan," from the word go. Without that, politicians don’t do anything. We wouldn’t have won any democratic rights, unless people had fought for them. The right of women to vote would never have been got, unless there’d been suffragettes fighting for it. So, that is the lesson, I’m afraid. And, you know, when people tell me in this country, "Oh, but there’s pressure from these kooks on the right, the tea party and this and that," I said, "Obama boasts, and his office boasts, that they have 13 million supporters online. Well, what the hell are they doing with them? I mean, why couldn’t they mobilize even a tiny proportion of these to come out and give them support?" They don’t do that. So, someone has to do it.

AMY GOODMAN: Or they’re there and the media doesn’t cover them. When you had one of the tea party rallies in Washington—I believe it was right on the anniversary of the war—there were about 500 members of the tea party there. There were thousands of people protesting the war. It got almost no coverage, certainly not equal to what happened with the tea party.

TARIQ ALI: Exactly. So the exaggerated threat of the tea party is played up by the right-wing media, Fox and many others, because they see it as a useful way to hammer the administration. But the administration’s inability to take them on in terms of arguments, that is what’s worrying, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tariq Ali, I want to thank you for being with us. Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad is the name of his new book.

Original and the video can be found here.

Sack toon: Two-faced


Monday, September 20, 2010

It's bigger in Texas

Nick Anderson is the political cartoonist for the Houston Chronicle. It was really no surprise to me when the Chronicle recently endorsed former Houston mayor, and Democrat, Bill White for Governor over the incumbent Republican Rick Perry.


To see more of Nick's handiwork, click here.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

O'Donnell humor

After her upset victory in the Delaware Republican Senate primary, Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell has become an overnight sensation, as well as a target of late-night mockery.

The comedians are having a field day with O'Donnell's vocal opposition to masturbation, which she laughably articulated in a 1996 MTV interview that went viral following her election victory.

The best jab at O'Donnell's anti-masturbation stance came from Jimmy Kimmel, who took it upon himself to launch his own pro-masturbation crusade:

"I'm not a political person. I keep to myself. I'm not one to get involved in these things. I'm not proud to say I'll stand by as our leaders drag us into wars based on false pretenses. I'll stand by while our oceans are polluted by greedy corporations who only care about money. I'll stand by while our military blatantly discriminates against our own armed forced based on their sexual preferences. But I'll tell you something. When our right to masturbate is threatened, that's where I draw the line. What goes on between me in my own bedroom, and car sometimes, is my business, not the government's.

"So listen up, Christine O'Donnell — and Rosie O'Donnell too while we're at it — we need to send a message to Washington, people. This November, I want everyone who believes in basic human rights to touch themselves in the voting booth. I want to say this to Christine O'Donnell. I want you and your followers to know one thing: you'll take away this penis when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands." (Watch video clip)

A powerful message. We'll see if voters take up Kimmel's call to arms, er, make that hands.

Here's a roundup of more late-night jokes about O'Donnell's war on masturbation:

Jimmy Kimmel: "I have a feeling Christine O'Donnell opposes masturbation the same way Bristol Palin opposes pre-marital sex."

Jay Leno: "Interesting woman, very conservative. She has come out against masturbation. So not only is she against politicians putting their hands in our pockets, she's against you putting your hands in your own pockets as well."

Jay Leno: "She is against masturbation. Frankly, I don't think it's any of her business what I do in the privacy of that voting booth. This is America. Once you close that little curtain, you should be able to pull any lever you want."

Jon Stewart on Christine O'Donnell and Masturbation Jon Stewart (after showing a clip of O'Donnell saying, "You're gonna be pleasing each other and if he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?"): "You're in the picture, my dear, because as Oscar Wilde once said, 'I can't reach it with my mouth.'"

Stephen Colbert (after showing a clip of O'Donnell saying, "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."): "Thank you madam. Masturbation is adultery. I know this is horrible news for my home audience, many of whom are committing adultery as we speak."

Craig Ferguson: "She's also against masturbation. I'm afraid you lost me now, lady. If she wants to win this November, she may have to change that position."

Needless to say, this won't be the last of the O'Donnell masturbation jokes, so check back for updates.

smart goes electric

Could this be our new car? From the looks of it, it's not that much more expensive than the smart car we bought back in 2008.


When It'll Be Available: In October 2010, Fortwo ED will be available in very limited quantities for testing purposes in select U.S. cities. A total of 250 cars will be available for $599 per month for 48 months and 37,282 miles. Daimler announced that expanded U.S. sales will begin in January, 2012.

The Details: A Microcar, the Smart Fortwo ED is available as a three-door hatchback. The battery can be charged from 20 percent to 80 percent capacity with a 220V outlet in 3 hours. The Fortwo's range is 84 miles and the top speed is only 62 mph, it can go from 0-37 mph in 6.5 seconds.

The Fortwo uses battery packs made by Tesla, and is based off the original gas-powered Smart Fortwo, which is currently available with a gasoline engine rather than an electric motor.

Price: Base price ranges from $12,635 to $21,635

MPG: 300 miles per gallon.

What They're Saying: Car and Driver reviewed the Fortwo ED and was pleased with the car's small size. "It will probably be used as a second car or for people in urban areas who want to take advantage of specific incentives (electric cars are exempt from London’s £8-a-day congestion charge, for instance) or the Fortwo’s size," they write.

And despite its small size, the Smart Fortwo received a “good” rating from IIHS in 8/11 measured injury categories. The NHTSA gives it a four-star frontal driver crash test rating.

You can read about six other electric cars that will be available for purchase in the USA either right now or in the near future by clicking here.

Friday, September 17, 2010

10/30/10

Hey David! What are you doing the weekend of October 30? Something to do with the election, perhaps? Wanna have some company??

Colbert, Stewart plan rallies on National Mall
WASHINGTON – TV personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are taking their faux political feud to Washington and plan to hold opposing political rallies on the National Mall just before the November elections.

Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," interrupted his regular fake newscast Thursday night to announce a "Rally to Restore Sanity" on Oct. 30. He said it's for people too busy with their normal lives to go to other political rallies.

"We're looking for people who think shouting is annoying ... who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard," Stewart writes in promotion for his rally. "Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement."

Nearby, Colbert is planning a "March to Keep Fear Alive." The host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" is encouraging participants to bring an overnight bag and five extra sets of underwear.

He wrote the United States is built on three bedrock principles: freedom, liberty and fear.
"They want to replace our fear with reason," he wrote. "But never forget 'reason' is just one letter away from 'treason.'"


The events come a few weeks after Glenn Beck's recent rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington. Stewart's website notes they chose Oct. 30 as a date "of no significance whatsoever."

Stewart and Colbert have filed a single application for a permit to host 25,000 people on the Washington Monument grounds, National Park Service spokesman Bill Line said Friday. It hasn't been approved yet.

As for whether 25,000 people would actually show up, Line said he wouldn't challenge the application from Stewart and Colbert.

"We have no reason in God's green earth to think differently," he said.

Stewart said Thursday night that his rally would be a "million moderate march." He suggested a few signs for the rally, including "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."

"You may be asking yourself ... but am I the right person to go to this rally?" Stewart said on his show. "The fact that you would even stop to ask yourself that question as opposed to just jumping up, grabbing the nearest stack of burnable holy books, strapping on a diaper and pointing your car towards D.C. — that means I think you just might be right for it."

See John Stewart's clip here. I don't know what goes wrong with those links, but they always seem to misbehave.

See Stephen Colbert's clip here.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Purple Pokeberry

This story highlights one of the problems with science. There are a near-infinite number of substances that must be tested and experimented with, to see their effect upon this or that other body or substance.

Gotta find the optimal temperature at which substances are reactive. And it could be a wasted experiment unless you hit it with JUST ENOUGH blue light from an argon laser, just to note one example out of trillions.

And then the possibilities are multiplied further when a combination of two substances produces a different effect upon a third body that neither of them displayed when used separately.

And then you have all the potential combinations of THREE substances together acting quite differently than only two of the ingredients. With just enough heat. And light. Etc. Etc. Etc.


I hope we can come up with the right combinations of things before we ... uh ... exterminate ourselves.

On the other hand, if you are a "true believer" in the Bible, well, you already have all the answers you need. God is the answer to damn-near every question, brother. There's no point in exploring or experimenting. You already got all you need. And all you need is God.

(sigh)


Solar on the Cheap: Thanks Purple Pokeberry!

Monday 13 September 2010

by: Arnie Cooper | Miller-McCune | News

A dye made from the purple pokeberry — a common weed — proves uncommonly effective at juicing up the prospects for solar power.

"A valueless plant growing wild…" might be dictionary.com's definition of purple pokeberries, but David Carroll, director of Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, says the omnipresent "weed" will soon play a role in improving solar power in places ranging from residential green building in the United States to areas in the developing world cut off from the power grid.

Carroll says a red dye made from pokeberries can be used to coat a new type of solar cell that's produced from millions of tiny plastic fibers. Unlike traditional solar units, fiber cells — thanks to a patented design that exposes more surface area to the sun's rays — can produce a usable amount of power even at sunrise and sunset. (Carroll has created a spin-off company, FiberCell Inc., which is producing the first prototype cells.)

The dye acts as an absorber helping the cell's tiny fibers trap significantly more sunlight during the day, compared to current solar systems, that then gets converted into energy. The technology is especially promising because it is able to generate twice the total kilowatt-hours per day than traditional silicon-based units.

Too late! Too bad ... the rest here.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Luckovich on Gingrich

When Duh-bya was President, I hated his guts, but that was based on reality. We didn't need to go around making up shit all the time. There was already plenty of material to deal with. With Obama, the right-wingers have simply lost all perspective and connection to reality. It's amazing and sad.


A real progressive!

I will take real progressives any day over candidates who want to outlaw adultery and masturbation (Christine O'Donnell, Delaware)
WE DID IT! Bold progressive Ann McLane Kuster defeated Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign co-chair Katrina Swett in Tuesday's New Hampshire congressional primary. PCCC members made thousands of phone calls and chipped in nearly $100,000 toward her people-powered victory. We'll help Kuster defeat Tea Party Republican Charlie Bass in November -- and help progressives like Bill Hedrick (CA-44), Elaine Marshall (NC-Sen), and others.

You can help Kuster further by going here.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Whole Lotta Nuts

I wonder why it is that such a large number of Teabaggers have problems spelling? Could their poor spelling possibly correspond with a low educational level? Surely the more one watches FOX News, the poorer one's spelling and comprehension becomes. Which came first? FOX News or idiots?
Click here for more embarrassing signs.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Boehner being reasonable?

What a nice turnaround it could be if some Republicans quit trying to run the country into the ground just to re-gain power. I have a rare chance to applaud John Boehner. We'll see how long that lasts.

BOEHNER SIGNALS PROGRESS ON TAX POLICY?....
Everyone no doubt knows the score by now. The White House wants to make permanent lower tax rates on the middle class, while allowing breaks for the wealthy to expire on schedule; Republicans (and some less-progressive Democrats) want to make all of the lower rates permanent, no matter how much it adds to the deficit.

By mid-week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a new idea, which was pitched as a "compromise": President Obama would agree to give Republicans everything they want for the next two years, at which point, they would demand the exact same thing all over again.

The president responded with a counter-offer: No. "[M]y position is, let's get done what we all agree on," Obama said at a press conference. "What they've said is they agree that the middle-class tax cuts should be made permanent. Let's work on that. Let's do it. We can have a further conversation about how they want to spend an additional $700 billion to give an average of $100,000 to millionaires." He added that lower rates for the middle class is "something that we can all agree to. Why hold it up? Why hold the middle class hostage in order to do something that most economists don't think makes sense?"

This morning, Boehner suggested he'd be willing to go along with the president's approach -- but only if he had no other choice.

"If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions I'll vote for them," Boehner said on CBS' "Face the Nation." [...]

Host Bob Schieffer pressed Boehner repeatedly on whether he would vote for a bill that didn't include the extension of tax cuts for those making over $250,000.

"If that's what we can get done," Boehner said.

The Minority Leader made clear that this isn't his preferred option. He desperately wants lower rates for the wealthy, no matter how much it costs or what it does to the budget, and thinks it's "bad policy" to let some rates expire on schedule (in other words, Boehner now opposes the policy he and his party shaped in 2001 and 2003).

But the bottom line is, Boehner suggested this morning that he'd rather have some lower rates than no lower rates. That may seem like a common-sense position for a Republican to take, but remember, the GOP has strongly resisted this line up until now. Indeed, Republicans have effectively said they're prepared to hold the entire policy hostage -- if Dems didn't agree to breaks for the rich, the GOP would block lower rates for the middle class. If Republicans didn't get everything they want, they'd make sure Democrats wouldn't get any of what they want.

It was, in effect, a game of chicken: give in to GOP demands or else. This morning, Boehner seemed to point in a different direction, conceding if Obama's tax breaks for 98% of the country is all he can get, he'll take it.

Unless Boehner somehow walks this back, it looks like progress.

Original.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Toles toon


Chicken!!!

A man feared his wife Helga wasn't hearing as well as she used to and he thought she might need a hearing aid. Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family Doctor to discuss the problem.

The Doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to give the Doctor a better idea about her hearing loss.

"Here's what you do," said the Doctor, "stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response."

That evening, the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he was in the den. He says to himself, 'I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens.' Then in a normal tone he asks, "Honey, what's for dinner?"

No response.

So the husband moves closer to the kitchen, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Helga, what's for dinner?"

Still no response.

Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, "Honey, what's for dinner?"

Again he gets no response.

So, he walks up to the kitchen door, about 10 feet away. "Honey, what's for dinner?"

Again there is no response.

So he walks right up behind her. "Helga, what's for dinner?"

(I just love this)

"Frank, for the FIFTH FREAKING time, CHICKEN!!!"

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Luna likes it

Our cat, Luna, loves to sit in the window in the stairwell and watch the world go by.


When we're out working in our Community Garden across the street, I can see her up there, sitting in the window, watching us.


What a life.


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A calendar that's free?

And formatted in Word?

It's easy. It's fast. It's free. It works. Click here.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Moore loves Rahm

Just because I am so busy with other things right now, I'm going to defer to my old pal Michael Moore.

Happy Fuckin' Labor Day

By Michael Moore

Dear Rahm Emanuel:

Happy Fuckin' Labor Day! I read this week that — according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration's former "Car Czar" — during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, "Fuck the UAW!"

Now, I can't believe you actually said that. Maybe Rattner got confused because you drop a lot of F-bombs, or maybe your assistant was trying to order lunch and you said (to Rattner) "Fuck you" and then to your assistant "A&W, no fries."

Or maybe you did mean Fuck the UAW. If so, let me give you a little fucking lesson (a lesson I happen to know because my fucking uncle was in the sit-down strike that founded the fucking UAW).

Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn't get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own fucking home, nobody could take a fucking day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their fucking job.

Then working people organized themselves into unions. The bosses and the companies fucking hated that. In fact, they were often overheard to say, "Fuck the UAW!!!" That's because the UAW had beaten one of the world's biggest industrial corporations when they won their battle on February 11, 1937, 44 days after they'd taken over the GM factories in Flint. Inspired by their victory, workers struck almost every other fucking industry, and union after union was born. Had World War II not begun and had FDR not died, there would have been an economic revolution that would have given everyone — everyone — a fucking decent life.

Nonetheless labor unions did create a middle class for the majority (even companies that didn't have unions were forced to pay at or near union wages in order to attract a workforce) and that middle class built a great country and a good life. You see, Rahm, when people earn a fucking good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good paying jobs, and then the middle class grows fucking big. Did you know that back when I was a kid if you had a parent making a union wage, only one parent had to work?! And they were home by 3 or 4pm, 5:30 at the latest! We had dinner together! Dad had four weeks paid vacation. We all had free health and dental care. And anyone with decent grades went to college and it didn't fucking bankrupt them. (And if you ever used the F-word, the nuns would straighten you out in ways that even you couldn't bear to hear about).

Then a Republican fired all the air traffic controllers, a Democrat gave us NAFTA and millions of jobs were moved overseas (hey, didn't you work in that White House, too? "Fuck the UAW, baby!"). Unions got scared and beaten down, a frat boy became president and, like a drunk out of control, spent all our fucking money and our children's money, too. Fuck.

And now your assistant's grandma has to work at fucking McDonald's. Ask her for pictures of what the middle class life used to look like. It was effing cool! I'll bet grandma doesn't say "Fuck the UAW!"

Hey, don't get me wrong, Rahm. I fucking like you. You single-handedly got the House returned to the Dems in 2006. But you and your boss better do something fucking quick to put people back to work. How 'bout making it a crime to take an American job and move it out of the country? In other words, treat it as if It were a fucking national treasure like you would if someone stole the Declaration of Independence out of the National Archives or some poacher stole eggs out of the nest of an America bald eagle.

Or how 'bout arresting some of those Wall Street guys who fucking stole our money, the money that ran the American economy. Now that would take some fucking guts.

And maybe, just maybe, that one act of real guts might save your ass come November 2nd.

Oh, I can just hear you now: "Fuck Michael Moore!" No problem. But Fuck the UAW? How 'bout if I just leave off the ‘A’ and the ‘W’?

Yours,
Michael Moore

P.S. I'd like to pass on something that Rep. Alan Grayson wrote today:

Here is what Robert Kennedy had to say on Labor Day, 42 years ago:

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.

"It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

When Robert Kennedy said these words, the unemployment rate in America was 3.7%. Today, it is almost three times as high. Too many of our working brothers and sisters are out of work, thanks to over a decade of economic mismanagement. 10% of us are unemployed, and the other 90% work like dogs to try to avoid joining them. Which is just what the bosses want.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I look forward to a Labor Day where every worker has a job, every worker has a pension, every worker has paid vacations, and every worker has the health care to enjoy life. Our Republican opponents call that France. I call it America, an America that is Number One.

Not #1 in wasted military expenditures.

Not #1 in number of foreign countries occupied.

Number One in jobs. Number One in health. Number One in education. Number One in happiness.

As Robert Kennedy famously said, "I dream of things that never were, and ask 'why not?'" Why not? Let's make it happen.

And then all of us who are Americans, including the ones today who are jobless, homeless, sick and suffering, we all can then say, "I am proud to be an American."

Original.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Uygur: Throw a Punch!

Martin Luther King taught that love is the best (and only) weapon for the dispossessed. Would expressing love towards our Republican opponents produce a positive result? In this current climate, no fucking way.

I have lost track of how many times over the years that I bemoaned the fact that Democrats would not fight back against the (of
ten) lies and distortions of Republicans and the media. Are Democrats forever doomed to play the battered woman to the Republicans abusive men?

Unilateral Disarmament Has Destroyed the Democrats

OpEdNews: Cenk Uygur - Writer

President Obama spent the first two years of his administration practicing political unilateral disarmament. He laid down his arms to reach out to Republicans, and they ripped his arms off and clubbed him over the head with them.

This idea of playing patty-cakes with the Republicans is enormously naïve. When is this administration going to get it through their thick skulls that they will never work with you?!

Now, if attempts at bipartisanship had no downside, then of course I'd be in favor of it. As a theoretical matter, trying to reach out to the other side and reach consensus sounds lovely. But it does have a downside. You don't get to make your own case as you're playing nice with the other side. They're hammering you day in and day out, and you keep your powder dry. You know what that ends up in -- a massacre.

And that's exactly where we are now as the Democrats are looking to get slaughtered in 2010. Gallup says the Republicans have a historically large 10-point lead in generic Congressional matchups. The president has gone from a 68% approval rating to the low 40's. He's lost nearly 25% of the country in his approval rating. That's a disaster.

So, the president has fallen and he can't get up. But more importantly, he can't figure out why he fell. It's because you let the Republicans push you down and you never even fought back. You only have two months left -- take the f'in gloves off, Queensberry.

Here are how many people you will convince if you don't argue your side of the argument -- absolutely zero. Is the president aware that the Republicans are in the opposition party?

Now, it's almost too late for this election. Partly because it's hard to make that turn at this late juncture and because this is something you should have been doing all along so it's already in people's heads. But much more importantly, this isn't about how you campaign; this is about how you govern. He needs to govern with an agenda of change -- remember, that's what he originally campaigned on? He needs to implement his agenda, whatever the hell it is.

Let me be specific. The CBO just came out with great numbers on the stimulus package. They said that it created up to 3.3 million jobs and added 1.7 to 4.5% to the GDP in the last quarter alone. How many Democrats have you heard talking about that? I haven't heard any. Why?

Because they're scared of their own shadow. Fox News beat them up on the stimulus package and a poll came out saying people are unsure whether it worked -- and that was enough to send the Democrats scrambling. Hey, you know that you might win on that issue -- if you actually fought!

I'm not convinced that a second stimulus is the way to go. It would depend on what they spent the money on. But if the president is convinced that we should try it, then he should convince us. If he doesn't have the courage of his convictions, how the hell are we supposed to believe in them?

They should brag about what they got right, but it's even more important to lead in the right direction from now on so we can have a reason to get excited about you. If I was the president, I'd nominate Elizabeth Warren, tell the big banks that there's a new sheriff in town and if they don't like it, they can eat dirt. Every poll in the country says the American people can't stand Wall Street -- and they're right.

This isn't about senseless populism. The big banks did rob us blind through the bailouts (AIG still owes us $178 billion that got funneled to the banks on Wall Street) and they continue to do so with nearly zero percent interest rates (and no lending to businesses in the meanwhile). Is the president going to do anything about it? Of course, not. Because that would make some people mad, and Obama hates that. This is the downside of No Drama Obama. A fight has drama, and a fight is what we need now. Punch them in the mouth. Leave a mark.

If the Democrats keep rolling over and being polite to Republicans because Obama wants to chase the myth of bipartisanship, his four years in office will be a colossal disaster. Here's what happens when you lay down your arms in any competitive arena, you get your head removed. Pick your arms up, and throw a goddamned punch.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur

Cenk Uygur is host of The Young Turks, the first ever live, daily web television talk show. The Young Turks are on XM/Sirius Satellite Radio 8-9PM ET on XM 167. The Young Turks is one of the Top 100 You Tube Partners, with over 13 million views a (more...)

He's always watching

He's always watching