Friday, October 30, 2009

Drunken Ewoks throw food, moonwalk, drink, dry hump Al Roker on Today show

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy


---o0o---

Joe Lieberman has finally made Richard Nixon seem warm and cuddly

Reporting and analysis By Pablo Fanque, All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Illustrations and digital art By Jack Brummet, All This that creative director

Sen. Joe Lieberman ("Independent," Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill. The most shocking thing about the fallout from the left is that they were surprised when one of the most despicable and treacherous turncoats in the history of the Democratic Party stuck it to them once again. I wrote about Lieberman's duplicity here, in December, 2005: With Friends Like Joe Lieberman, The Democrats Need No Enemies.

The sawed-off turncoat appears to have second
thoughts as he marches onto the Senate floor
to vote against his former comrades in arms

Lieberman, caucuses with Democrats (but officially broke away), and positions himself as a fiscal hawk on health care on any bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out, as Reid's Senate bill will. Whatever the Dems propose will come out watered down, a husk of the dream. And yet the battle is not over. Who knows, we may see defections on both sides of the aisle. It's that kind of year.



"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now." Interestingly, he fails to mention reduced profits for his good friends in the insurance business, or that he enjoys his gold-plated government health insurance just fine.



When asked about Lieberman’s threat to filibuster a final vote on the Reid plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "I haven't seen the report from Sen. Lieberman or why he's saying what he's saying. I think Democrats and Republicans alike will be held accountable by their constituents who want to see health care reform enacted this year.”

Lieberman said that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line." His comments confirmed that Reid is probably still short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate






Lieberman said he “very much wants to vote for health care reform but that he’s worried about stifling “the economic recovery we’re in” or adding to the federal debt. Really? It doesn't have anything to do with the dozens of insurance companies headquartered in Connecticut, or the "donations" from those companies that flow so often and richly into his campaign coffers

You know from previous articles on All This Is That that we consider him a Republicrat at best, and at worst, a rat, a Judas Goat, and a turncoat spoiler, leading Democrats astray in the guise of moderation. Is anyone even listening to him except the Republicans? No. And the GOP don't trust him anymore than they do their own turncoat, Senator Arlen Specter. Any sane Democrat wrote him off years ago; he reinforced our thinking with his bumbling and pathetic run for the Presidency in 2004. He was a disastrous pick as Gore's Vice President in 2000, and his 2007/2008 defense of, and cozying up to The Bush White House was a clear signal that he would switch parties the moment it was most politically expedient for him to do so.

The Democrats continue to caucus with him for no other reason than he votes with us once in a while. With friends like this sawed-off weasel, who needs enemies? It's difficult for even the most conservative of Democrats to forget his spirited defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and his continual toadying up to President Bush and his hatchet-man, Dick Cheney.


And still, Joe Lieberman lives.

---o0o---

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Sargeant and Gomer Pyle - a hi-fi clip from a show I watched in my youth

Oddly enough, Jim Nabors (Gomer), who was (is?) a good pal of Burt Reynolds, got his start on the Andy Griffith Show (or was it called Andy of Mayberry?). This show was his spinoff/star vehicle. It's right up there with some of the other shows we watched, like My Mother The Car, Car 54 Where Are You. Gomer Pyle was something else. Someone mentioned this show on the WFMU blog, because this is the Sargent's 85th birthday...



---o0o---

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Governor Schwarzenegger sends a hidden message (F*** You!) to Tom Ammiano

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a hidden, but very public message (F*** you) to Tom Ammiano, the San Francisco Democrat, in a letter vetoing a bill Ammiano sponsored. You may remember Tom Ammiano from the movie Milk, in which he played himself. You can find the details of their feud elsewhere, but the imbroglio started when Ammiano heckled the Governor during a speech...

Here is the letter (emphasis added by us).


click to enlarge
---o0o---

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Alien Lore No. 161 - Alien Implant Rejection Techniques



Cerebral eviction was in times past
Always fatal.
You used an axe
To force open the skull
And remove the ganglion.
There was no question
Of the “patient’s” survival.
In our enlightened times
The Alien Rejection Technique is employed.
The ganglion is poisoned within the host
And half the patients survive.
As the alien ganglion is rejected
Or forcibly removed,
It emits a distress pulse
On the Hive mindband
And every hive member
Within five miles
Responds to the call to arms.
Within minutes the Hive swarms
To the location of the distress pulse
And instead of one alien,
You are now faced
With dozens from the Hive
With one purpose:
To end your tenure on earth.
With unfeeling insect eyes
They march dead ahead,
Converging upon you.
---o0o---

Digital art: Link (a/k/a President Abraham Lincoln)


click to enlarge
---o0o---

Monday, October 26, 2009

Poem: The Mission


click to enlarge

Poem: The Mission

The President
And the Masters of War
Don’t tell you

As they bob and weave
To finesse the mission,
That the army,

When all is said and done,
Has two duties:
To break things, and kill people.
---o0o---

Friday, October 23, 2009

Asleep at the wheel? Stoned? An Northwest Airlines jet misses runway by about 150 miles



The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a runaway 'plane flight Wednesday night where Northwest pilots approaching Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in an Airbus A320 overshot the airport by around 150 miles. They had to circle back to land. To the panic of the air-traffic controllers, they also lost radio contact. Controllers knew the plane hadn't crashed, but there was no response for an alarming period of time. The NTSB is trying to figure out exactly what really happened up there.



It happened on another plane recently, as well.



According to the Associated Press, the crew claims they were distracted by a heated debate on airline policy and lost track of where they were. Really?


Were the pilots momentarily abducted?

Northwest had another snafu this week when their crew on a 767 from Brazil to Atlanta landed on the taxiway instead of the runway.
---o0o---

Thursday, October 22, 2009

You never stop being a hero - an 86 year old veteran speaks up on Gay and Lesbian rights


An American hero re-emerges and gives a heartbreakingly great speech




"The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?"
---o0o---

Poem: The Reverse King Midas Touch

Sending out feelers
And testing the ground,
The right place was the one
Place he couldn't be found.
---o0o---

Patti Smith music video 2006: Because The Night

Patti performs an awesome acoustic version of the tune she wrote with The Boss. This had to end he biggest, or maybe only, "hit."




---o0o---

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Horsing around: Co-conspirator in Enumclaw beastiality/horse sex case arrested in Tennessee

By Jack Brummet
All This Is That Social Mores and Ethics Correspondent

Illustration by Jack Brummet


click to enlarge the horsef***er

As you may or may not know, All This Is That has [too?] extensively covered the Enumclaw beastiality/horse sex case over the last four years. I grew up in that neck of the woods, and while a lot of my friends had horses, we never really considered them potential f*** buddies.

But once again, the Enumclaw beastiality case makes its way back into the news as two men face animal cruelty charges for sex acts with a horse. The "authorities" found more than 100 videotapes showing Tait and others engaging in sex with animals.

According to the Columbia [Tennessee] Daily Herald, authorities arrested 58-year-old James Michael Tait and charged him with three counts of animal cruelty. Fellow horse f***er, Kenny Thomason, 44, faces two counts. Thompson, according to authorities, was actually not involved in the sex acts, but allowed the crime to continue. Tait is in the Maury County, Tennessee Jail, in lieu of the $125,000 bond.

Authorities say Tait repeatedly engaged in sex acts with a stud horse [ed's note: why wouldn't you select a filly?] at a farm. A police captain reportedly discovered pictures of Tait in flagrante. They didn't mention how the Captain found the photographs--on the internet?, or perhaps he was called by a clerk at the local Foto-Mat?



In 2005, the Seattle Police charged Tait with making a videotape of a friend engaging in sex acts with a horse. The friend died from internal injuries. However, due to our state's laws at the time, authorities could only charge Tait with trespassing. He pleaded guilty, served a year of probation ,and paid a $300 fine. Since then, the Washington State legislature actually enacted a law prohibiting beastiality here. Apparently Tennessee has dealt with this issue before.

Other horse love stories appearing on All This Is That:

Further ruminations on Enumclaw
Horsin' around: update on Enumclaw
Another shocking revelation
Beastiality in south King County
The final horse/beastiality update
Enumclaw Story To Become A Movie
Seattle Horse Sex Film Is Selected For Sundance!
---o0o---

Grin/Nils Lofgren Sad Letter slideo



---o0o---

The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset -- an old school music video, by one of the great British Invasion bands

A gem of a tune from this tragically underappreciated band (I only got to see them once, at the concert hall in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the summer of 1977). I kind of fell out with The Kinks after Schoolboys in Disgrace (a great album to part ways on), but they have to definitely be somewhere in the top-twenty of my all time rockpile.




---o0o---

A list of famous Jacks - even includes an All This Is That editor

This is kind of interesting. I can only assume I made the 1039 Jack-FM list because they stumbled on my name in various work capacities on the Internet, and the fact that my name is attached to this blog, and the like 3,700 articles that have been posted here. Anyhow, that's some nice company mostly...

http://www.1039jackfm.com/friends/famous/


click to enlarge
---o0o---

Bad Hallowen Costumes, Part 3: The Illegal Alien costume, sold at Target



We have recently published numerous examples of bad, and tasteless Halloween costumes. But now, in Los Angeles, (at a Target store) they are selling a costume called "The Illegal Alien."

"He didn't just cross a border, he crossed a galaxy!" according to the costume's description. "He's got his green card, but it's from another planet!" The Illegal Alien Adult Costume includes an orange prison-style jumpsuit with 'Illegal Alien' printed on the front, an alien mask and a 'green card.'"

Naturally, this pissed off numerous special interest groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles,who asked Minneapolis-based retailer Target to remove the costume from its website. Target spokesman Joshua Thomas told The Associated Press that the company is removing the costume after receiving several complaints.

Other recent costume posts on All This Is That:

Halloween Costume Ideas 1
Strange Halloween Costumes 2
Weird Halloween Costumes From The All This Is That Inbox
---o0o---

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Video of the drunkest guy ever attempting to buy even more beer

It looks like they probably didn’t sell him the beer. I wonder if he hopped in his car after this?



---o0o---

Monday, October 19, 2009

Federal Government stands down in the war against medical marijuana



By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor



In a surprise ruling today, the Justice Department said that citizens who distribute and use marijuana for medical purposes should not face federal prosecution. The directive has far-reaching political and legal ramifications.

A high government official reportedly urged the Department of Justice to draft and release these new guidelines.


---o0o---

"We did it for the show," which must go on, and conversely, The Piper must also be paid. The Sheriff commences payback time for the Balloon Boy Hoax



By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

The authorities who assured us Friday that the Balloon Boy episode was not a hoax, were actually hoaxing all of us, and have in the meantime, scrambled hammer and tong for evidence to prove otherwise.

In order to get to the truth, Sheriff Jim Alderden of Larimer County said, "it was very important during this time that they [the Heene family] maintained their trust with us." The investigators misled the media (which really means you and me) while they carried out their "game plan," gathering the truth [?]. And now, the cops say the whole thing was staged.


The famous balloon at the sheriff's department in Fort Collins, Colorado, this weekend. Click to enlarge.

After young Falcon Heene [ed's note to Ex-Governor Palin: file that name!] told Wolf Blitzer of CNN "we did this for the show," the authorities, and news media went ape, and two days later, Sheriff Alderden is calling the incident a "hoax," confected by the Heenes in hopes of landing a reality show based on their kooky family.



The parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, "put on a very good show for us," Alderden said. And now, cops and prosecutors have dropped hints of various possible charges, up to and including:

- Child endangerment [Because Falcon was hiding in the attic?]
- Conspiracy to defraud law enforcement [does this mean the kids should also be charged?]
- Contributing to the delinquency of a minor [one charge per child]

- attempting to influence a public servant [Uh, wouldn't we also need to arrest about five thousand lobbyists, the heads of any corporation doing more than, say, $50 million of business a year?]
- Filing a false police report

The sheriff now says charges will be filed in the case, and says he is concerned about the safety of the youth, ages 6, 8, and 10. The local CPS (Children's Protective Service) is also making rumblings about an investigation.

Hell hath no fury like a bunch of bamboozled cops, editors, CPS workers, and a scandal-starved general public.

---o0o---

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Storyboard: sketches of the news this week


click to enlarge
---o0o---

The English Beat play Stand Down Margaret [Thatcher!]

This video clip must be from the current English Beat tour...Dave made a point of mentioning Margaret's birthday and failed memory last week in Seattle too. Stand Down Margaret is one of my favorite EB tunes, since I well remember the dreaded Thatcher-Reagan years. . . and they always pair it with Whine and Grine or another tasty tune.

I wonder how long it will be before people like Steve Earle and Neil Young start writing Stand Down Barack songs?


The English Beat - Whine and Grine & Stand Down Margaret
by Rikardo1980
---o0o---

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Friday, October 16, 2009

The balloon boy fiasco & aftermath

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor



After yesterday's balloon boy news day, today we experience an amazingly pointless and endless postmortem of the balloon boy "story," including some serious rifling of the family's figurative underwear drawer. All in all, this was a pretty good installment of America's short attention span theatre...


---o0o---

Strange Halloween Costumes 2


Click to enlarge

OK. This one's pretty weird. It might have been funny without the kids. The daughter holding the costume junk just makes it flat out sick.



Click to enlarge

Now, this one. . .show this to your youth if you want to be done with the whole tooth fairy nonsense. I don't think anyone wants this cat flying in through their window.


Click to enlarge

Doll Man even gives me the heebie jeebies.


Click to enlarge

Again, verging on the improper.
---o0o---

Paella Recipe.




Although I often cook and come up with new recipes, I've only published a few recipes here in five years--mainly because I'm good at lists of ingredients, and bad at instructions. This is a tried and true one I often make for friends and family...

You can make this recipe using only the shellfish or the chicken and sausage, or any combination you like. It is gluten free. I have made a vegie one a couple of times. For 6-8 people:

Paella

12 pieces chicken (I usually use thighs and drumettes) or 1-4 lb chicken cut into 8-10 pieces
1 pound raw shrimp, shelled (if you have the time, simmer the shell, tails, and even heads for ten minutes in the chicken stock and then strain out the shells ).
½ - 1-pound Chorizo, cut into ¼ inch slices. I like the cured kind, not the grainy, bulk version you usually find.
1 lb small clams (steamers or manila) in the shell, lobster, mussels, or cockles, conch or snails.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp saffron, (more, if you love saffron: I do) soaking in 1/2 cup hot white wine
2 cups Valencia or Arborio rice
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tomato chopped
4-6 cloves minced garlic
3 ¾ cups homemade chicken stock (canned/cartoned is OK but not the same)
optional: 2 tsp, smoked hot Spanish paprika (it’s good, and you can find it everywhere now)
1/2 to 1 cup of peas
1 1/2-teaspoon salt, a few healthy grinds of fresh pepper

optional: Spanish piquillo peppers – they only come jarred

I've made a vegetarian/vegan version for friends substituting a pound of mushrooms (halve them and saute them in butter or olive oil), green beans, artichoke hearts and piquillo peppers. But you have to make your own vegie stock, because commercial ones are almost all pathetic.


Preheat the oven to 375.

Brown the chicken in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the paella pan. Set aside. Brown the chorizo in the same pan. Remove to a plate and keep warm with the chicken (cover it loosely with foil).

Heat the white wine with the saffron and let soften for a few minutes.

Add two-three tablespoons of olive oil to the paella pan and heat to medium.

Mince the garlic, and chop the onion, green pepper, and tomato roughly. Sweat the vegetables for a couple of minutes and add the rice. Stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the saffron-wine mixture, and, optionally, the smoked paprika. Coat the rice well and stir for two minutes more.

Add the chicken stock to the rice and stir. Add the salt and pepper. Now, add the chicken, and sausage. Stick it in the oven.

After fifteen minutes, take out the paella, add the peas and tuck in the shelled raw shrimp and scrubbed clams (or lobster or crab or mussels).. Toss in a handful or more of chopped piquillo peppers. Cook ten to fifteen minutes more.

After cooking 20-25 minutes total, remove from oven and let sit five minutes before serving. If it is too wet after 25 minutes, stir, and give it five more minutes.


Garnish with parsley and lemon or lime wedges and serve with a hearty red Spanish wine and a simple salad. I usually open the meal with a tiny cup of gazpacho. For desert, do a caramelized flan, or pears poached in white wine with sugar and vanilla (Julia would tell you to make a sabayon [zabaglione] sauce for this).
---o0o---

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hallowe'en Costume Ideas 1




One of our favorite costumes. . .from All This Is That, October, 2007:

Jason Larsen sent this picture, found somewhere on the internet. I don't know if the youth in the picture was in training as a young Nazi, or if this was a Halloween costume. It reminded me a little of the time in South Park where Eric Cartman dressed up as Hitler for Halloween. The principal made him take it off and gave him a ghost costume instead. Of course, the ghost costume looked exactly like a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe...



---o0o---