POLITICIANS DON'T HAVE TO LIE!!!

Politicians never ever lie. They have a talent for telling the truth that makes it unnecessary to fabricate anything.

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Congressman Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor. The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.

On the back of this picture which Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

So Judy e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.
Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'

NOW Thats how it's done Folks. That's real POLITICAL SPIN.

Chaos runs rampant

I've been dealing with quite a bit of chaos lately and this morning I'm feeling incredibly philosophical, so I ponder these questions ...

Why is it so acceptable for people to be basically full of shit most of the time?
How can you maintain a respectable relationship if you keep secrets from those closest to you?
What does that mean? Lack of trust? Lack of conscience? Lack of moral value?
What DOES love have to do with it? Can you love someone and still cheat on them?
"It was only physical...it didn't mean anything".
What the fuck does THAT mean?
Does it mean anything when I'm the victim? (I use victim here because that's how the "it was only physical..it didn't mean anything" comment makes me feel!)
Is it acceptable to behave like animals?
I thought we had brains to assist us from displaying barbaric behavior on both the physical and mental levels.
Or maybe I just don't get it.
My own mother used to call me a "prude" ... perhaps she was right.

Having a VERY bad day

I went back to work this morning after taking a short vacation to visit with my son and his wife who traveled here from San Diego. We had a great time. Giles made sure we got tickets to the Husker game versus Baylor last Saturday. Getting game tickets for a Husker game is not an easy feat by any means. It was very thoughtful of him. Sunday I went to church with Chris then we drove to Mondamin to pick apples. Tom and Giles stayed in front of the HD TV watching football. Monday we all tried to find some ducks or geese to feed bread to but the ducks are already gone South, and the geese we did find were definitely not hungry. Still, I think they had a good time. I do miss my kids a lot.

I think sometimes, about moving back to California to be closer to them. I have a son & daughter-in-law and my own daughter plus 4 grandchildren (and they're growing like weeds)...I'm missing it! But then, I came to my senses. I couldn't live in Southern California again any more than I could sprout wings and learn to fly. There's just too much traffic, too many ambivalent people, too much crime and road rage, etc., etc., etc. I'd just rather not have that to contend with along with everything else it takes to get by these days. I'm still homesick though, for my kids, for the beautiful weather, lovely landscaping, beaches (ah, the beach), mountains, (I miss skiing), for a lot of the good things San Diego offers.

Maybe that's why I'm having such a bad day. I'm homesick, and I'm tired!

Going back to work after taking ANY time off is always a bummer. No one does your work for you unless you’re a clerk in a grocery store or something like that. Postal workers I guess wouldn't have 6 days of backed up mail to sort. Anyway, the day at work was awful and the politics is killing my spirit. I need to get out and play some kick ass guitar (preferably with another picker) and refill my spiritual gas tank.

I met Giles (late, because of work again) at the Chesterfield so we could get our Halloween costumes. We drove to our destination and did our thing. In the process, I had a short but nasty tantrum trying to get a piece of fabric unhooked from a hanger and the look I got from that man could've burned a hole through asbestos. I calmed down because it was just ME and I was getting it on him. I felt badly but didn't apologize. Anyway, when I dropped him off at his truck he said "I'm getting as FAR away from you as I can!" So, now I'm having a GREAT time and feeling FABULOUS about everything and he iced the cake with one sentence.

Now I'm sitting here writing this instead of packing. I'm supposed to move this weekend. But honestly, with everything that's going on at work, and personal family stuff that's going on, it's been a real challenge not to just throw my freakin' hands up and say,
FUCK IT!
Peace!
Patio Patty ©

If you're able and ambulatory, get out and VOTE!!

What would happen if the entire world could vote in our election? One guess
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

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The entire world is, apparently, full of whiny no-good commie liberals.


It's true. This is the only logical conclusion, the only way you can possibly parse the piles of (largely unscientific, but still pretty damn convincing) numbers and data and full-blown emotional consciousness now pouring in from all over the world, pumping our little presidential election full of all sorts of cosmic meaning and profundity and oh-my-God-can-it-be-true.


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Check that: Maybe it's not the only way to parse it. But if you're a hard-core McCainite and/or are under some sort of unfortunate, chemically-induced delusion that Sarah Palin is just exactly the sort of dangerously harebrained, folksy, winking, nonsensical political confection we all really need right now, well, you might be more than a bit peeved to learn that the entire world has already cast its vote for our next president.


And of course, the world wants Obama.


Overwhelmingly. Crushingly. Rather staggeringly. By quite possibly the largest margin you will see anywhere except maybe Hawaii and D.C. and, well, San Francisco.


Did you already suspect? Could you not already guess? Because despite how here at home Obama is pulling nicely ahead by anywhere from five to 10 points almost across the board, we still call that a relatively close race. It's still "anybody's game," with both candidates currently whipping the battleground states into a frenzy and spending millions in a mad-dash sprint to an extraordinary finish.


The rest of the world? Not quite so divided. Not by a long shot.


Just look.
Over at The Economist, they put together a rather ingenious tool, this Global Electoral College tracker thing, wherein we can ask, well, exactly that: What would happen if the nations of the world were divvied up in a way similar to our electoral college, with each nation getting a certain number of votes based on population? How might the world choose? Whom would they pick?

You might think the answer fairly obvious, given how many nations have been so violently insulted and ignored for the past eight solid years, and that the world's current shocking fiscal meltdown can, at least in part, be traced directly to Bush administration incompetence. It's no stretch at all to see McCain as merely a clone, more of the toxic, poisonous same, if not worse.


But come on, it can't be that much of a global landslide, right? Surely there must be some stiff, stoic nations out there who'd want a grumpy, tempestuous military man to lead the U.S.
, if only to have someone to play with in the grand sandbox of war and intolerance and oily greed?

Is there really no military junta, no dictator, no incensed bomb-gathering nation that really wants McCain, if only for the joy of mutual saber-rattling and for refreezing the Cold War? Putin fanatics? Tories? Papal knaves? Anyone?

Nope.


McCain gets Georgia (of course). And maybe Macedonia. Slovakia is relatively close, but leaning Obama. And, well, that's about it. At last tally, of the 9,875 available global electoral votes (195 participating nations, including the U.S.), Obama has 8,482.


McCain has 16.


It is not even a contest. It is not a question. The world sentiment is so devastatingly in favor of the calm, stable, intellectual Harvard-trained senator over the cantankerous Bush-loving war hawk that, well, it can only make you wonder.


Is the planet simply turning into one giant blue state, more tolerant and fluid and less combative overall, more eager to work together to solve the myriad problems facing humanity, as opposed to fracturing off into bitter, fear-promoting rogue nations? Or was the world leaning that way already, and we've had these blinders on for so long we forgot how to see it?

Or maybe the conservative political parties in these nations, the ones you'd expect to support McCain's style of isolationist, military-first governance, have become just as splintered and out-of-touch as our own, and therefore can't muster enough unity to cast a vote for a fellow old-school war hawk?

Or is it merely because all those educated international readers of The Economist -- not to mention all the other international newspapers of note, nearly all of whom see Obama as a historic, positive step, a true world-changer -- are really just a bunch of namby-pamby gay-loving tofu heads who should put down the pot pipe and pick up a Bible and a gun?

Wait: Perhaps it's something even more frightening and nefarious. Maybe the world wants Obama simply because they see him as weak and conciliatory, as easy prey, and so of course the perverted, terrorist-choked world wants him, because then they can more easily bomb our cities and steal our women and drink our oil and force us to marry gay people and enjoy universal health care and drive girly little hybrid Eurocars to the soccer game.


Whoops. Channeling Rush Limbaugh for a horrible second there. Sorry.


I realize, at first glance, this entire question might be just ridiculously lopsided, a bit loaded, sort of like asking the world if they would like another presidential term for, say, Iran's Ahmadinejad, an extremist demagogue widely ignored and scoffed at by his own citizenry, but who makes headlines by catering to his militant, fundamentalist base. Hmm. How oddly familiar that sounds.


Then again, the truth about this global sentiment might be even more obvious, compelling, simple.
It's a truth in two parts:

One: No matter where you live, no matter which nation you hail from or to which political ideology you tend to adhere, the Bush/McCain approach to leadership -- belligerent, militaristic, religiously closed-minded, culturally stagnant, environmentally reckless, fiscally irresponsible -- has resulted in one of the most epic collapses of a world power in modern history, which in turn has made the rest of the world a more volatile, hostile place for all.


Two: Maybe it's the Impossible Thing. Maybe Barack Obama himself, while still only a politician, still flawed and human and not, in fact, a demigod, maybe this man really is capable of inspiring not just intelligent progressives, not merely normally apathetic youth, not merely women and minorities and academics and moderates and a jaded, wary media, but the entire unpredictable, contorted, diverse planet.


In other words, maybe he really does have something profoundly important, something rare and exceptional, to offer the world, and the world -- like the majority of us here at home -- recognizes a once-in-a-lifetime shot at enriching its destiny when it sees one.

This might give you a little perspective .... ahem!







Peace!
Patio Patty ©

JUMP YOU FUCKERS!!!

Jump

by Leon Fisher

Jump, capitalist pig -- the party is over!

Jump, because you do not deserve any bailout, especially with what remains of the taxpayers' money.

Jump, it is only right, as you have looted and plundered the land of your birth without any regard of the consequences for your friends and neighbors or the future of our children.

Jump, you rotten bastards in your three-piece suits, your wingtip shoes, your Rolex watches and your damned suspenders, you who threw good hard-working men with dirt under their fingernails out of work.

Jump, you stinking rats who lied to the American worker, who bribed and corrupted the representatives of the people to send Americas good paying jobs to sweatshops in Mexico, China, to India, leaving in their wake minimum wage jobs while you stuffed your pockets at the expense of your fellow Americans.

Jump, you bastards, who called it business when it was really treason when you sold out your Nation for profit.

Jump, you miserable scum, as you have destroyed the American family, forcing mothers to leave their children with strangers to make ends meet.

Jump, for having sold your fellow human beings into financial slavery, chained to a lifetime of debt without end.

Jump, for making Americas currency all but worthless.

Jump, for throwing families off their farms, for taking away peoples homes, for the stagnating wages.

Jump, you bastards for influencing the foreign policy of America to make war in order for your corporations and banks to seize and control the resources of other nations.

Jump, for you have the blood of the innocent on your hands, murdered in the name of corporate greed.

Jump, you bastards, for helping to give us Bush and Cheney who would turn America into a corporate controlled fascist state.

Jump, you capitalist exploiters of humanity, at least give us, your victims, the satisfaction of seeing you jump, along with all the other Wall St practitioners of soulless greed and exploitation.

Jump!

FITNA -- The Movie WATCH THIS HERE OR BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK!

I hope this works. Everyone needs to see this!

Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues) on Palin

I had to repost this ...

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.



I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.



But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.



I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.



Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.

'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.



She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.



Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.



Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.



Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.



I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.



If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.



Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008