The Google looks down on Adler Planetarium

From Adler Planetarium.

[D]uring the presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, Senator John McCain made the following statement:

McCain: “While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere.

[Read more →]

My copy of LIAR mag came today; well; actually that’s a lie. Click it.

The McCain-Palin team of mavericks is on a lying jag this week. First out of the chute was Six-pack Sarah, paintin’ Barack Obama as pallin’ around with terrorists, like that William Ayers guy.  John Wilson was on it, though:

As part of a larger project where I’m compiling a long list of all the lies and smears spread about Obama, here are 30 lies about Ayers and Obama.

And here are just a few of those, to give you the flavor:

LIE: Obama and Ayers “appeared together at various public engagements…it would seem that they are more than just a little bit friendly.”(Sean Hannity, Hannity’s America, October 5, 2008, “Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism”)
TRUTH: Appearing on a speaking panel is not a sign of friendship. There is no evidence that Obama had any role in ever inviting Ayers to speak.

LIE: Jerome Corsi claims about Obama: “either he did not know Ayers and Dohrn are still radical leftists–in which case he is implausibly naive–or Obama did know, which would confirm he joined with Ayers and Dohrn because Obama too continues to believe, albeit silently and secretly, in the Far Left’s radical agenda.”(p. 140)
TRUTH: Obama probably knew Ayers was a leftist, but he didn’t care. Obama believes in the notion of a free society, where you work with people you disagree with.

LIE: “Even today, Ayers appears to hold the same radical political beliefs he did in the Weather Underground, and Obama had to know that was also the case when he first met Ayers in 1995.”(Jerome Corsi, p. 147)
TRUTH: Corsi doesn’t explain how Obama “had to know” Ayers’ views on politics when he first met him. Telepathy? Mind-reading?

The rest of them are nearly equally repugnant, but if you can stand it I recommend you peruse them to get a real sense of the scope of the rapaciousness of the effort to paint Barack Obama as an evil man.  The in-your-face hypocrisy of those involved in this effort— including the supposedly wholesome hockey mom/pitbull from outback Alaska— is soul sickening.

But to all but the bottom feeders of the gene pool, to anyone with a sense of honor about their true perceptions of persons through the tee vee— Barack Obama does not present a picture of a dangerous terrorist;  rather does his calm demeanor and poised persona seem increasingly presidential, which cannot help but salve the growing fears over our progressing economic catastrophuque.

Meanwhile, the flailing of hockey mom mud will almost certainly stick on the ignorant, misinformed, and bigoted. But make no mistake: uncritically embracing such deception and viral hate invariably binds it to your own soul.  The increasingly ugly and desperate prevarications of John “straight talk” McCain reveal a soul already decaying and dying under the dual allegiance to self, and evil.

May he rest in peace.

“Happy are you when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be
exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
—Jesus

One of the greatest attractions of patriotism— it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling we are profoundly virtuous.
— Aldous Huxley

“Country First” John McCain: “I am not a perfect vessel.”

I’ll see your “Country First” and raise you a McCain:

I’ve always had 100 percent absolute truth. That’s been my life of puttin’ my country first, and I’ll match that record against anyone.  And I’m proud of it. And any assertion that I’ve ever done otherwise I take strong exception to.”

Wuh oh. I think there’s a “Come to Jesus” moment comin’.

It’s not “gotcha” journalism to not assume it’s not a given when John McCain says he’s “always had 100 percent absolute truth“—  that he understands he’s saying something that’s only relatively true.  If you asked him directly when he says he put’s “country first” if that means there’s some area of reality where God pulls up in second place, do you think he’d say yes?  Or is his country assumed to be synonymous with God?  What? . . .

In McCain Cosmology, you wont hear him qualify that God, in fact, comes first, then his country; can this be his attempted appeal to secular Americans?  But give him the benefit that God comes first. He is still clueless about the nature of Truth.

John McCain believes he tells “100 percent absolute truth,” when no where on this earth is that simply even possible.

Can you  think of any denomination of Christianity, including John McCain’s version of yet-to-be-baptized Baptist belief, which doesn’t recognize that God is “absolute truth”?
John McCain, like all of us here, is a finite creature of time;  God as the source of, and as an absolute and infinite personal reality, is the only one capable of speaking absolute truth 100 percent of the time.  End of story.  But don’t assume most Christians grok that simple fact of reality;  it’s absolutely relative, dog.

That means John McCain is really talkin’ truthiness, and we all know it except him — and those who will vote for him. [Read more →]

A “Team of McMavericks.” What are they good for? Really?

•

•

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death.”

•

•

•

The little man rises up on his toes again.  It’s an uncontrollable urge to be bigger than he really is, if even for a split second. The little arms shoot out in tandem, fingers splayed as wide as they will go;  the gesture is brief, tentative, and awkward, out of sync with his emphasis:  “Sentor [sic] Obama took a very different approach to the count- [sic] crisis our country faced [sic]. (Loud Boos)  At first he didn’t want to get involved.  You may have noticed it’s not my style to phone it in. (Cheers) I went to Washington last week;  to make sure that the taxpayers in Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made in [sic] Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington.” (Cheers)

But just like Sarah Palin knows foreign policy because of her state’s proximity to Russia, John McCain solves economic crises by moving his phone closer to Washington.  That means he got involved, and that he didn’t “phone it in” like he claims Obama did, because he made a “local” call.

Stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity
What happened on Capital Hill today was the stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity. House Republicans threw a shit-fit because Naughty Nancy insulted them by having the cojones to actually blame them for the mess their deregulation of the banking industry has created.  Of course there were Democrats who were complicit;  there always are. But all these incompetent politicians are reflective of the dominance of mediocrity in government, and now, as someone has famously said, “The chickens [have come] home to roost.”

Anyone who can dress themselves knows we’ve had evil idiots at the helm for nearly eight years; but what is not more commonly understood is that no state can transcend the moral values of its citizenry as exemplified in their chosen leaders. Ignorance and selfishness will insure the downfall of even the highest type of government.

But America is still determined to flirt with impending disaster by electing to its highest office an angry little midget, a small and arrogant-minded little weeny of a man, who masquerades as a hero, a man of the people, as “one of us.” As “anything” that will garner him a few more votes. And to add catastrophe to injury, he has selected a total incompetent to step in when he strokes out.

He has said he will do whatever it takes to win, including the worst that boundless selfish ambition can dredge up, and he’s proving it day by day. His ridiculous antics of the past week should leave every rational American indignant that a prospective president would grandstand in such a juvenile fashion, and in thrusting himself into a problem beyond his abilities to comprehend let alone resolve, to do absolutely nothing to solve the problem.

Wall Street may yet burn to the ground;  good riddance. The banking industry may get the ass-whipping it has deserved for decades, and the middle class may finally rise up and make it clear whom these mediocre little pricks work for. Whatever happens, make no mistake:  the change we need has come very much closer.

Ex-president Bush shakes hands with ex-president McCain, who was officially replaced as president today, after a stroke left him with the communication skills of a very bright rutabaga, (a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.)  McCain’s wicked shiner was not explained.

Excerpts from Mark Crispin Miller:  (my emphasis)

The choice of Sarah Palin has been widely and repeatedly assailed as evidence of John McCain’s “bad judgement.” Certainly that choice was very bad. Indeed, it may prove to be catastrophic. But to take it as a sign of John McCain’s mere recklessness is probably a big mistake. First of all, there is no reason to believe that the decision really was McCain’s, since Karl Rove’s minions are in charge of his campaign, which means that Rove himself is running it (as he evidently has been from the start). And while it surely was a rotten choice in moral and/or civic terms, it certainly was not an instance of “bad judgement” in Rove’s moral universe, where winning is the only thing that counts; and Sarah Palin was selected so that (she and) John McCain could “win”—and, even more important, get away with it.

They picked Palin not because she is a woman, and might therefore appeal to diehard Hillary supporters. They picked Palin because she is a theocratic true believer, who has the Christianists all swooning at the prospect of her reign (which will commence as soon as Jesus answers all their prayers for John McCain’s quick death). To get some sense of their millennial excitement, read this excerpt from an email recently sent out by one of them, to others of her kind:

I believe you are aware that Dutch Sheets [http://www.dutchsheets.org/] was used by the Lord to call prayer before the 2000 election that was so close. He said this morning that this election is perhaps even more critical than 2000 because of the Supreme Court. If the right political posture is not elected, we stand to lose decades of progress and the results could be enormous. Last year Chuck Pierce and Greg Hood prophesied that in 2008 we would not be electing a president but a vice president. Dutch said he could get no release in his heart to back Huckab[ee] even though he was pressured by many in the body of Christ. Huckab[ee] is a good man and a strong believer, but he was not God’s choice. Dutch also told us that he knows a man who gave McCain a prophetic word that McCain had made a vow to God when he was at the bottom during his POW days and now God was calling in that vow. McCain was visibly moved by this word. Dutch was traveling to Texas on Friday and when he landed in the airport his wife called and told him to get to the TV asap. He watched McCain introduce Governor Palin and he said he began to weep, even though he knew nothing about her. He asked God, “What is the significance of this 44-year-old woman?” And he saw the clock said 4:44. He asked the Lord what that was all about and the Lord said, “Ezekiel 44:4.” “He brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the temple; so I looked, and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD; and I fell on my face. NKJV ….. North gate representing Alaska [sic].

And so on.

We could take his arrant fetishism in a positive light, and reason ourselves lucky he didn’t take all those 44’s to mean a 44 caliber Peacemaker to blow the toes off McCaint or even sister Sarah; sometimes these things can go every which way.

Such fervor, which now unifies the Christianist community, was not stoked merely by the sight of Palin’s glowing kisser on TV. More importantly, the governor became the instant darling of the Christianist far right once all the top dogs of the theocratic movement looked at her, and pronounced her good. To some extent, she was their choice—and so it’s wrong to claim, as some indignant pundits have, that Sarah Palin “was not vetted.” The governor was vetted by the Council for National Policy, the secretive and highly influential steering committee of the Christianist far right, which seeks to junk the Constitution and replace it with Leviticus and other flights of Holy Writ.

[Palin's] reckless policies derive from an apocalyptic wish to see the planet die, so that Lord Jesus will come back here, and start kicking ass and taking names.

[Read more →]

Guess who took this picture.

John McCain still thinks someone wants to put him in a box.

“When you’ve lived in a box,  you “only have time for right,” says a deep cowboy voice oozing authenticity, while the orgasmically large flat screen shows the aged maverick returning to his Vietnam prison cell and “forgiving” his captors— and their nation— for, well— sparing his life— after napalming their city, their children, along with their mothers and fathers; you know— WAR.  As McCain says, WAR is:

. . .terrible beyond imagination.

Ya think? This is the (maverick) man who can casually imagine a hundred more years of WAR.

. . .I’m running for president to keep the country I love safe, and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military and the power of our ideals — to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

“Build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace“?  The foundations have been built since the end of WWII;  if anything they’ve been  scorned, ignored and abandoned;  but they still exist.

The 72 year old maverick says:

We’re going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again, and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.

Willing. Patriots. Only. Willing patriots say: The senseless conflicts we are now engaged in with random individual terrorists throughout the entire world, whom we are sworn to track down and kill or imprison at our leisure, are not “the road” to world peace. And a “willing patriot” interrupting a Republican acceptance speech being given by a candidate who sees “more wars,” but never mentions specifics on how we are to actually pursue and achieve peace, is not incivility.  [Read more →]

Sarah Palin lets a parrot give her talking points now;  she’s saving her voice for the debate with Senator Joe Biden. (Not everyone can see the clownface on the candidates;  it’s not your fault; blame it on the MSM.)

Palin:
“As fur foreign policy, you know, I think that I’m prepared and I know that on January twintieth, if we are soo blessed as to be sworn into office as your president and vice president, certainly we’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. I hiv that confidence. I hiv that ridiness.”

How will she get that “ridiness”? Well, she said she has “confidence,” which leads directly to “ridiness.” And of course, she “thinks” she’s prepared, which is a necessary first step to readiness. What other “verbiage” do you need to know?

McCain:
“A large contingent of the Alaska guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them,” he said, “so I think she understands our national security challenges.”

Yes, this sounds like more visual foreign policy cred, i.e., if you can see Russia from your balcony, then you have foreign policy cred;  likewise, Palin can handle “Pooty Poot,” because her son wears government issued camo— because he’s in the United States Army— not the Alaskan National Guard (McSlop clean-up crew, take note). So what other “verbiage” do you need to know?

“Wauuck! We’ll be riddy!  Hello. . . I have teh ridiness.”

“We’ll be riddy.  Hello. . . I have teh ridiness.”

“. . . I have teh ridiness. Wauuck! We’ll be riddy!  Hello.”

•

No, it’s not the slimy severed trunk of the GOP elephant;
it’s “Blackberry” the giant leech.

WASHINGTON — Standing in front of an estimated several hundred thousand skittish supporters at the Succachogie, West Virginia Town Hall, John McCain held a giant leech up as high as he could, telling the anxious gathering our economic woes would soon be over.   The giant leech, which he affectionately refers to as “Blackberry,” would quickly turn our ailing economy around by sucking out the bad economic blood that has been poisoning our national economy.

Notes in one hand, leech in the other, McCain read, “Black Berry will, Black Berry loves the taste of greed, and he’ll suck Wall Street dry until it’s fixed!” Some in the crowd thought McCain was referring to Obama, and a ripple of laughter worked through the half-filled hall, capacity 120.

This latest load of dung was flung against the news that Wall Street would continue its self-immolation until every day of the week would be prefixed with the word “Black.”  McCain surrogates immediately denounced Barack Obama for having engineered the ongoing financial debacle just so “He could associate his race with the days of the week.”  The Obama Campaign officially laughed out loud, but refused further comment.

The Obama folks once again understate the obvious.

Black Monday rolls into town today with a distinctively oily hue and cry, and that fulminating hoard of rats you see running along the bulwark are not rushing out to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean folderal, but are enjoying a bout of panic brought on by another classic Film Noir: The Ship of Fools.

Help!! A black man is trying to destroy my portfolio!!

And just like the telling lines from The Who’s cautionary rat-tale ballad from the seventies, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” the McCain Campaign is too busy plumbing heretofore unexplored depths of political depravity and deception to notice the financial sky is falling. And so what if he did notice?  We’d just get an add blaming that “uppity” Obama for his mismanagement of the financial interests of kindly white folks trying to wrest a living out of Wall Street; who now must send the bill for McBush’s economic clusterphuque to Middle Class taxpayers, and hope there’s enough blood left in their collective turnip to bail their asses out yet again.

Oh, and get ready for Black Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday;  Black is Back, my puppies.

DEADMOOSE, Alaska (C.U.News) Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin said she told Congress “No thanks” to The Bridge To Nowhere, and plans to sell it and other items on Ebay.

Returning from a short hunting trip to the Alaskan wilderness, Palin spoke to a handful of respectful and deferential reporters at a small airfield in this isolated Alaskan township.

“Along with my fellow maverick John McCain— did you know he spent 5 1/2 years as POW in Vietnam?— I promise to retroactively end pork barrel spending in Washington, just like I did here in Alaska with that stupid bridge, and airplane, not to mention that froofy little chef.”

The perky Alaskan governor added with a wink: “A little stock tip, folks. Buy up as much Ebay stock as you can.”

“Hey, that beats John’s barbecued ribs any day,” said one reporter, drawing hearty laughs from his fellows.

Another scribe asked what she was wearing around her neck. Palin held up a necklace of freshly severed wolf paws and beamed:

“Bounty, my friends. Bounty. At $150 bucks each, I’m going to need a second Christmas tree just to put all the additional presents under. Did you know I have five kids and a grandchild on the way?”

“You’ll have to excuse me, now. I have a wedding to plan,” she said, waving her shotgun playfully as she made her way over to her up-armored Humvee.

But now you’re on your own.  Deal with it.

The Commander-in-Chief has other things to do.

• • •

For over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy — give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is — you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

That’s the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.

That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now.

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise — that American promise — and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

— Barack Obama