lickety jackblog: September 2005

sept 24th

bostonians, please explain:

chewbacca a southpaw? what next!?

in light of tommy's misfortune, it's worth revisiting that lovely onion 'what do you think?' feature of april 05.

"I'm telling you, if Tom DeLay would come out and say, 'Screw it, I'm just in it for the cash and the bitches,' his popularity would skyrocket" - "tanya wilkinson"

and the classic "guess what--it's tom delay's frisbee now":

Against the law? Pfft. I don't need some smart-aleck, Frisbee-tossing kids to tell me about the law. I'm Tom DeLay, the House majority leader. Who are you? I've been wheeling and dealing in this town longer than you bastards have been eating solid food. I was elected to a seat in the Texas State House in 1978. That's right, 1978! I was House majority whip in 1994. And now, in 2005, I have the Frisbee and there's nothing you can do about it.

Labels: congress

delay indicted!

Labels: congress

fun with disaster relief bills:

"Buried in what might eventually total $200 billion in federal spending for Hurricane Katrina is $488 million for what would be the nation's largest school voucher program."

Labels: congress

surprised?

"RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today."

-link.

Labels: religion

jackblog stats: september edition.

top search strings:

1. 26.67% how to ask out a guy
2. 20.00% batdog
3. 13.33% peanut guy
4. 6.67% laura scudiere and mentzer
5. 6.67% lickety jackbarn
6. 6.67% mark mathis charlotte
7. 6.67% rob mentzer
8. 6.67% serenity
9. 6.67% talawanda ninjas

what a piece of shit mike brown is. everyone down here knows who fucked up. i just hope the rest of the country doesn't buy this.

conspiracy tyme

pat tillman: football star ; army poster boy war hero cum embarrassing friendly-fire victim cover-up story and anti-iraq war chomsky reader. what was the army trying to hide?:

According to testimony, Tillman, who along with others on the hill waved his arms and yelled "cease fire," set off a smoke grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers. There was a momentary lull in the firing, and he and the soldier next to him, thinking themselves safe, relaxed, stood up and started talking. But the shooting resumed. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel and in his body armor with numerous bullets.

The soldier next to him testified: "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, 'Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f-ing Tillman, dammit.' He said this over and over until he stopped," having been hit by three bullets in the forehead, killing him.

The soldier continued, "I then looked over at my side to see a river of blood coming down from where he was... I saw his head was gone."

Labels: iraq

WELCOME TO HELL, PART THREE

i can't believe this fucking horseshit happened again. 2 in. of rain an hour. tornadoes. non-stop wind. no t.v. we truly are a sportsmen's paradise.

speaking of new year's, why don't y'all come down here? when the urban homesteading progam begins, i'm going to take my oxen and wagon team and claim the larry flynt barely legal club. it should be a helluva place to have a party. seriously, though, when the city opens up again, i'm going to take my ass down there, and, in the words of mr. flynn, "get fucking destroyed."

we should secede.

the following are two emails sent out to a bunch of dudes, but i wanted to post it here for those who may not have gotten those emails. anyway:

**********

i think that jeannie and jimmy nominated themselves to the ny2k6
planning committee but i can't find their email addresses right now
and need to stumble to bed. they had suggested the city of brotherly
love as an aspirational destination if lorraine could host, and then a
fall-back of either cinci or chicago since many of us have family in
the midwest/live here.

i'll put deciphering/organizing people's email addresses on my list
somewhere. please forward this (at least as far as jb & jg)

todd.

On 9/22/05, Kypeach1@aol.com wrote:
> Hello friends,
>
> Please forward this to anyone not included in this mass e-mail who should be
included. I don't have everyone's e-mail. I just wanted to send a quick e-mail
out to ya'll to see what any of you were thinking for New Year's Eve. I think
our tradition of getting togther every year is fanfuckingtastic and don't want
it to end.
>
> A few of us discussed some ideas when we were together in Cinic recently, but
nothing seemed to really come of it.
>
> I know Maggie is going to Vegas and has suggested everyone go there. I have
also heard some other ideas...
> What are your thoughts- I would love to hear them...
> I know this is really early, but the sooner we get the ball rollin, the
better chance we will have of seeing more people.,,,especially since everyone is
crazy busy and relocating all over the place.
>
> Love,
> Kelly

Mission Man prepping to "take that leap."

Labels: mission man

file under george pizza

i just got a resume from a guy named 'ben coffee'. what's with these a-holes?

Labels: food

hamilton!

(they better fucking feature ohio lunch).

Labels: ohio

great.

I just got this email:

Isaac Bloom to me
7:55 pm (5 minutes ago)

I'm engaged. Tell the world. -IWB

...and so I have...

a) who is this?
and
b) I like my drinks kaffenated

who dey? the bengals....thats who.

Labels: bengals

JFF- I'm calling you out.

Dude, is your website ever going to have any substance? I love you and Nebs, but come on, give me something to procrastinate with, please...that goes for the rest of you as well!

On a totally unrelated note, I miss Chicago and everyone who lives there.

Skirt

Due to recent security issues at miami university discovered by an alumini who decided to "google thyself" and this recent string of doppelgangin in and around the jackblog, I have decided to invest in protective measures. . . namely. . . this guy.

His resume speaks for itself. He knows George Clooney. . . and probably Chuck Norris.

STEP UP!

doppelganger alert, september edition pt. 2:

pribble, unmasked.

Labels: doppelgangers

doppelganger alert, september edition:

cold cowboy, creationist preacher.

Labels: doppelgangers

ralphnsocks updated.

this will cheer you. (i'm sorry)

it looks like someone knew what they were doing

what would we do without the mainstream media?

the hurricane katrina investigation: incandescent bullshit!

in the house of representatives we have an adorable little treasure called the rules committee, whose job in recent years is to change the rules of the house before each individual bill comes to the floor for debate in order to block popular democratic amendments to bills so they can't be voted on (they kindly allow wildly unpopular democratic amendments). naturally this is done under the guise of expediency, but who needs a guise when nobody knows it exists, including reporters?

today the rules committee announced the new rules for consideration of "the select bipartisan committee to investigate the preparation for and response to hurricane katrina," which could just as easily be called "the select republican committee to blame ray nagin". the bill creates a commission consisting of members of both houses but chaired and heavily weighted towards republicans. the democrats, having recently discovered their long-hibernating sexual organs, introduced a bill last week that establishes a commission modeled word for word after the 9/11 commission. as you recall, it was split evenly between the parties and was staffed by congressional outsiders who - in theory at least - would lack the convenient ability to relieve the federal government (entirely controlled by their shitty party) of all responsibility and blame the local and state governments (controlled by that less-shitty party) for everythig.

the rules committee's bill naturally allows for no amendments whatsoever. but it doesn't even allow for a minority substitute, which is standard practice, common courtesy and established precedent. in short, the republican plan will tie up congressional business in order to save its own ass on taxpayer money. they are scared shitless.

the reason is simple: if they were on record voting against a commission that could actually investigate the truth rather than find clever ways to cloak it, the 2006 elections would be a democratic cakewalk. the arguments these people are coming up with to support this are staggering. right now i'm watching david dreier (r-ca), chair of the rules committee, make his case by pointing out the tragic cases of republican reps and senators who lost homes in the gulf. see? they must care about finding out the truth!

but i guess it would be too much to ask lazy-ass journalists to do some research rather than "reporting" what they read in the blogs last week.

google blog search!
try it out folks...

Labels: blogs of glory

Nation's First Bladder: Full

"At one point during the Council's debate on international security and UN reform, Mr Bush picked up a pencil and wrote a short note to Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State.

'I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible?' the note read."(link)

All of the ridiculousness rolled into one quote filled article. Somehow reading all of these is tragically amusing. http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/currentevents/a/katrinaquotes.htm?nl=1

one last morsel before i adjourn to ohio for the weekend bash:

FEMA kids rap.

enjoy it.

bizarre. from today's "Last Call", an 'inside the beltway' daily bulletin news briefing for DC bureau media and capitol hill staff published by the national journal's hotline:

Under the "Inverse Petrol-O-Matic Beer Pricing Scheme" at the Handlebar in Chicago, $4 gas means $2 beer, $5 gas means $1 beer, and $6 gas means free beer (Chicago Sun-Times)

michael brown lied on his resume.

what a downer. to offset the bad karma on the jackblog, i present the following:

the daily kitten

kitten war

cats in sinks

mr. winkle

who's in charge of what? nobody knows!

this feature article from national geographic is a bit creepy... and disappointing of course.
i don't know if i should tell you before or after you read it that it was written in 2004, about one year ago. here's the link.
prophetic.

maybe someday i'll stop being so pissed off... but not today.

let us finally put to rest this ridiculous notion of the free-market ideologues that "the invisible hand" will fix all our problems. for evidence, one need look no further than cuba 2004:

At least 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm, and early Monday, Cuban President Fidel Castro toured parts of western Cuba, which was ravaged by Hurricane Charley a month ago.

oh, and deaths in Cuba's category 5 storm? a whopping 0. none.

it's worth echoing that churchill quote thrown out by olbermann (whose video timeline is available here):

"The responsibility of government for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact the prime object for which governments come into existence."

image is everything. action is nothing.

i can't help it! mike brown must be fired or i'm moving to southeast asia where they know what they're doing when disaster strikes.

Cowboy, did you see this from Nancy Pelosi?

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ''absolutely no credentials.''

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

''He said 'Why would I do that?''' Pelosi said.

'''I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'''

''Oblivious, in denial, dangerous,'' she added.

From The Times

Labels: congress

the hurricane katrina timeline

loud and clear.

the hits keep on coming:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon's chief of staff, Casey O'Shea.

"We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won't let helicopters fly," O'Shea said Friday afternoon.

Labels: food

What do you think, Sarge?

From The Times:

"For a week Baton Rouge, the state capital, home of Louisiana State University and a place that sees itself as a less raucous cousin to what had been the kingdom of sin and merriment to its south, has been trying to come to terms with its sudden status as the state's most populous city.
...
At the height of the post-storm panic last week, people waited in line for three and a half hours at Jim's Firearms, a giant gun and sporting goods store. Many were people from New Orleans with their own safety issues. But many were local residents jumpy about the newcomers from New Orleans and stocking up on Glock and Smith & Wesson handguns.
...
Patricia Perry, a postal employee from New Orleans, said anyone with a wristband from the River Center shelter was being stereotyped outside it as one of "those people" - looters, criminals, outcasts.

'It's like a stigma,' she said. 'All they really want to do is get us out of town. Well, I'm from Louisiana. I work hard. I pay my taxes. Surely, this state can find a place for us to live.'"

i'm not sure if i appreciate your sarcasm, jeanne. perhaps you've been eschewing our leader's enchanting daily press briefings. therein lies the comfort you seek. for instance, quoth our president today:

"We've got to solve problems. We're problem-solvers."

what more can you ask of this noble man?

on a lighter note, though hundreds of thousands of poverty stricken minorities remain homeless, we can all take comfort in the following:

"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house--he's lost his entire house," cracked Bush, "there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

(TIME)

me too, mr. president! me too...

update: Dan Froomkin's article in the Washington Post today is worth your time:

President Bush somehow missed the significance of what was happening on the Gulf Coast last week as he and his political guru, Karl Rove, flitted between Texas and California and, finally, Washington.

But now, facing what is clearly a full-scale political disaster, Rove and a handful of other masterful political operatives have gone into overdrive. They are back in campaign mode.

This campaign is to salvage Bush's reputation.

Like previous Rove operations, it calls for multiple appearances by the president in controlled environments in which he can appear leader-like. It calls for extensive use of Air Force One and a massive deployment of spinners.

It doesn't necessarily include any change in policy. It certainly doesn't include any admission of error.

It utilizes the classic Rovian tactic of attacking critics rather than defending against their criticism -- and of throwing up chaff to muddle the issue and throw the press off the scent.

It calls for public expressions of outrage over the politicization of the issue and of those who would play the "blame game." While at the same time, it is utterly political in nature and heavily reliant on shifting the blame elsewhere.

But in some ways, this post-Katrina campaign poses Bush's aides with unprecedented challenges.

The problem -- an achingly slow federal response to what has turned out to be one of the greatest natural disasters this country has ever faced -- can be traced at least in part to one of the Bush White House's most defining characteristics: The protective bubble within which the president operates.

Bush's aides intentionally keep him mentally and physically aloof from any ugliness -- political or otherwise. It lets them keep tight control over the presidential imagery and stay on message.

But inside his bubble, Bush first failed to recognize what was becoming clear to almost anyone watching the news: That Americans needed help. And in his two meticulously staged visits to the Gulf Coast on Friday and Monday, it is precisely because Bush was kept so far away from dissension or mess that he appeared so out of touch.

He cracked jokes on Friday, including one about his drinking days in New Orleans, but has yet to confront the true horror of the situation so widely seen on TV. He has yet to acknowledge the disgrace of a major American city being rendered uninhabitable on his watch. He has yet to come face to face with people left to suffer for days in hellish conditions and explain to them why their government failed them. And he has yet to demonstrate the strength that Americans require from their president in a time of crisis.

This crisis finds the president looking impotent at best, incompetent at worst. And there is an element of whining to Bush's refusal to shoulder his responsibility -- especially should the press continue to make it clear how intensely he and his top aides are trying to pass the buck.

The men behind Bush's bubble are clearly hoping that their tried and true methods will serve them well yet again and that over time, Bush's reputation will recover.

But with every body removed from the attics of New Orleans over the coming weeks, America will remember the colossal failure of government to protect its people.

WELCOME TO HELL, PART TWO

the topic is still the same as yesterday: chaos. Only now the chaos is really beginning in baton rouge. the city is running out of gas. parts of the city still do not have electricity, and it has been 95 degrees with a heat index approaching 110. there is serious talk that by next week our population will double to one million. almost all of the apartments in the city are gone, and houses are being bought sight-unseen. there are simply not enough resources to handle all of them, and i have no idea what we are going to do.

i was out and around the shelters yesterday, and it is simply unbelievable. it is really quite something, to say the least, to see your basketball arena converted into a goddamned field hospital.

the city of new orleans is now burning in some parts. 50% of the NOPD has walked of the job. those that are left have had to defend their command centers which are now being fired at by the looters. (it should be noted here about some of the history of new orleans. Nola has always been a violent city. it recently became the murder capital of the U.S. again. if you've ever taken a tour of the cemetaries, you know that those groups have to have armed escorts because of the large amount of gang activity. you may also remember that there were a number of shootings during Mardi Gras this year.) babies don't have food, and the infirmed are dying in bunches. there is an oil-spill in the gulf. and now the Feds are beginning to show up. it is not better late than never. this gigantic fuck-up has cost lives. apparently, the next time this happens the city should make sure to keep rich people there and have "York" in its name.

WELCOME TO HELL, PART ONE

hey everyone,

instead of constantly talking to people on the phone, i'm going to post a semi-regular "column" about some of the things going on around here as a result of the hurricane. and i'm doing so for a couple of reasons: 1. after talking to many of you, i've found out that a lot of the things being reported down here don't get up there. 2. hopefully, it will be somewhat therapeutic for me.

i guess the topic for this post is the current state of the State, which is complete and utter chaos in parts. it is becoming increasingly apparent that the State might have planned what to do up until disaster struck, but gave little consideration to what would happen after. i know many of you have wondered what would happen if people had to live without a governmental infrastucture looming over them. well, c'mon down and bring your kevlar vests with you. it is insanity in New Orelans. For those of you without a real background of what's going, i would recommend this article.

as many of you know, the entire city is without power and water. the mayor is holed up in the hyatt building downtown, (that's the black building which looks like its been bombed out), doing the best he can, but losing. as a result, people are literally fighting for survival. the looters have armed themselves. the cops are so outnumbered that they aren't stopping people walking down the streets with weapons, so long as those people aren't murdering anyone. the cops themselves have engaged in the looting, because they were so underprepared for the storm that they need food and water. one officer claimed that there has been no communication with the deputy chiefs and little with the chief of police. there are many reports that corpses with bulletholes are floating in the city. the looters attempted to storm the Ritz Carlton, because many well-to-do guests were still inside. they have also stormed the hospitals looking for drugs (these are hospitals that the State believed had been evacuated. oops!). resuce crews have reported being caught in the crossfire of gang fights which are occurring on rooftops. people have fired at the rescue choppers. there were gang-rapes and -beatings in the Superdome. one evacuee even claimed that children had been kidnapped and raped within the building. paraphrasing one officer, the cops aren't doing anything either, because 45 bullets doesn't mean shit when there are thousands of people around you.

and what is the State's response? Well, as regards the looters: kill 'em. the implication is rather clear from Blanco's statement in the above article. apparently 30 SWAT teams are being brought into Orleans, and a SEAL unit has been mobilized for when the Navy reaches the state. and hey, what better way to cover it up than with a giant flood. but on the other hand, the City does really need the rule of law restored. so martial law probably is a step up. As regards everything else: very slow. there is an overpass which some people have been able to wade to and which search and rescue teams have dropped people. One problem, though. Nobody's there to pick them up. people have died due to heat exhaustion on the overpass. One man killed himself by jumping off it. Baton Rouge and the State are fighting now. B.R. is pissed because the State hasn't given them enough resources to deal with the 100,000 new residents of the city.

additionally, the further east you go in the state, in some of the hardest hit parishes, nobody has shown up it. these citizens are doing the best they can, but with no relief groups, it is, to say, at least difficult. For example, in st. bernard parish, there is one person out there assessing the damage to the oil refineries.

Which leads me to my next question: Where in the FUCK is the Federal Government? can't get much done when the State which has the biggest disaster ever is left to totally pick up the pieces. all of these promises have been made, and Mayor Nagin is stating that none of it has been delivered yet, which is great considering more people get to die for it.

Oh, well. this real long now. One last thing: FUCK DENNIS HASTERT. HARD. NAGIN FOR PRES IN '08.

lickety jackblog

Friday, September 30, 2005

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Friday, September 23, 2005

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Monday, September 19, 2005

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Friday, September 16, 2005

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Friday, September 09, 2005

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Friday, September 02, 2005

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