Prius Kicks Explorer Ass

Financial Times: Americans bought more Toyota Prius hybrid gas-electric hatchbacks last year than Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles, the top-selling SUV for more than a decade.

...While Americans' love for powerful gas guzzlers remains strong, a slowing economy and high gasoline prices are forcing buyers to lower their sights.

When are US car manufacturers going to figure out that they need more R & D and make hybrids for the US market? Looking at Chevrolet for example, they have one hybrid on the market. The fucking Tahoe! It's their second largest truck which can now average up to 21 mpg. We're supposed to get excited about that? ...woo-friggin'-hoo...

Ford comes out with a Focus averaging 35 mpg, the current CAFE standard goal for 2020 thanks to the new energy bill. Make it a hybrid averaging 50 mpg and now we're talkin'. You'd see Ford sales shoot through the roof along with Ford stock and we wouldn't have to bail them out year after year.

At least the consumer is finally starting to get it.

Weekend In Hell's Kitchen

Corpse Wheeled to Check-Cashing Store
Leads to 2 Arrests

Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check, the police said.

When Virgilio Cintron, 66, died at his apartment at 436 West 52nd Street recently, his roommate and a friend saw an opportunity to cash his $355 check, the police said.

...There was no sign of foul play in Mr. Cintron’s death.

The roommate, James P. O’Hare, and his friend, David J. Dalaia, both 65 and unemployed, placed Mr. Cintron’s body in the chair and wheeled it around the corner, south along Ninth Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, the police said. The men parked the chair with the corpse in front of Pay-O-Matic at 763 Ninth Avenue, a check-cashing business that Mr. Cintron had patronized.

They went inside to present the check, but a clerk said Mr. Cintron would have to cash it himself, and asked where he was, the police said.

“He is outside,” Mr. O’Hare said, indicating the body in the chair, according to Mr. Browne.
The two men started to bring the chair inside, but it was too late.

Their sidewalk procession had already attracted the stares of passers-by who were startled by the sight of the body flopping from side to side as the two men tried to prop it up, the police said.

I love this town!

T Minus 374/373 Days

"We thought long and hard about what to propose. We proposed a bold initiative that takes equities out of the system, so people are treated fairly."

-Lee's Summit, Missouri, January 2007

Bush: US Should've Bombed Auschwitz

AP reporter Aron Heller described a teary eyed George W. Bush visiting Israel's Holocaust Museum. Bush said the U.S. should have sent bombers to prevent the extermination of the Jews.

That's not the funny part. This is the funny part.

[Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner] Shalev quoted Bush as asking Rice, "Why didn't Roosevelt bomb it?" He said Rice and Bush discussed the matter further and then the president delivered his verdict.

"We should have bombed it," Shalev, speaking in Hebrew, quoted Bush as saying.
Briefing reporters later on Air Force One, Rice said Bush was talking about the rail lines to the camp.

Maybe someone should give li'l George a History 101 lesson and tell him that FDR was DEAD in 1945. Truman might have bombed it, but he was too busy exterminating the Japanese.

Giuliani Uses Olbermann In Commercial...

... and Countdown re-edits it. Just watch and enjoy.

Lawrence O'Donnell Is An Idiot

I just read a post by Lawrence O'Donnell (at Huffington Post no less!) calling John Edwards a loser and that he should get out of the way for the "black man."

Read these words of pundit wisdom:

If John Edwards stays in the race, he might, in the end, become nothing other than the Southern white man who stood in the way of the black man. And for that, he would deserve a lifetime of liberal condemnation.
Maybe Edwards is already not a factor in the campaign because Edwards voters would split evenly between Senators Obama and Clinton if Edwards dropped out. But we'll never know unless Edwards does the right thing and gets out of the way of the only two candidates who have a chance to get the nomination.

I'm wondering if Lawrence O'Donnell was asking Hillary Clinton to make way for the Obama train after Iowa. What a schmuck.

It looks like the readers are fighting back in the comment section.

"best thing to happen is more and more establishment commenters and pundits telling americans that can't handle having a choice, ordaining the frontrunners. inciting backlash.this is a brilliant reverse psychology ploy to catapult edwards to the nomination. well played o'donnell"

"I think it's worth examining Mr. O'Donnell's personal motivations in writing this piece, as his conclusions do not follow from the current facts."

Jane Smiley, also writing for HuffPo has a bit of a rebuttal: Shut Up, Larry

(H/T to Bob Cesca for bringing attention to the O'Donnell post.)

The Surge Protectors

If I hear one more politician or pundit or wingnut talk show host say the words, "The surge worked," my head is going to explode. It doesn't matter who says it or how many times it is repeated. THE SURGE DID. NOT. WORK. The surge is not working. The surge will never work.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of President Bush's "surge" speech in which he laid out the ground work for troop escalation in Iraq , thinly disguising it by calling it a surge. Do you remember that fateful night? I certainly do. I was sitting on my living room couch, wondering what Raisinbrain was going to say. After all, the Democrats had just taken over in Congress after a stirring election in November of 2006, and it looked like we were turning the tide.

There was President Bush, looking all presidential in his purple polka dot tie, standing in front of a library of books he'd never read, that vacant stare in his eye. And then he said this: "The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

Whaaaa?! Holy shit! For the first time in six years, the man actually took responsibility for something. On national television. Did some left-wing operative secretly change the script on the teleprompter? Was this a speech, not calling for more of the same, not asking for the American people to continue to trust him, but actually admitting accountability? Could this be the turning point of a bad administration gone mediocre?

Wait, he wasn't finished: "So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq."

What happened next remains a fuzzy mystery. I think I knocked myself out for a few seconds because my jaw hit the floor. Literally. I can still see the indentation of my chin on the living room floor. Ah, memories.

I did wake up just in time to hear this: "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people..."

Well at least he got something right. Not the "open-ended" thing, the "support" thing. And there was Bush listing the conditions for the Iraqi government to adhere to if they wanted our continued support:

- Iraqi government must establish authority by taking responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November

- pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis

- spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs

- empower local leaders by holding provincial elections later this year

- reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution

-deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts for a total of 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades

That was one year ago yesterday. Let's see, check, check, check, check, check and... check. In one year, the Iraqi government has accomplished NONE of those benchmarks.

President Bush was basically giving cover to Iraq with our troops. We needed to give them more time to secure Iraq and lead them towards the path of political reconciliation. That has not happened. Therefore, the surge has NOT worked. The surge has FAILED.

And now John "100 Years in Iraq" McCain and Holy Joe "Bomb Iran" LIEberman write an op-ed piece in the Murdoch Street Journal titled... wait for it... "The Surge Worked." (Boom!)

Here are a couple of tidbits from that stellar article:

"...conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge."
Well, how the hell can you argue with that?

"...Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency's core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst..."
Could that be because we're paying them?

"...violence across the country has dropped dramatically..."
Well, when there's no one left to kill due to ethnic cleansing and with over 4 million Iraqi refugees since the war started, it's not a surprise that violence has dropped. And let's not get carried away with that drop. As Thomas Ricks stated on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, "I think Iraqis recognize that large parts of Baghdad are more peaceful than they were, but violence is basically back to 2005 levels. And that was no picnic, 2005; it's just that 2006 was pure hell."

"As the surge should have taught us by now, troop numbers matter in Iraq."
We knew that from the beginning. So did Generals Shinseki and Zinni. Remember General Shinseki? He was forced to resign after disagreements with the greatest defense secretary ever, Donald Rumsfeld.

So the next time someone tells you "the surge worked," maybe you could explain to them that the whole point of the ESCALATION was to give the Iraqi puppet government time to get its shit together, which hasn't happened, and will never happen while we are still there. Use the list of unattained benchmarks above as talking points. Help them understand that a falsehood repeated over an over doesn't make it true.

Or better yet, just punch them in the mouth and walk away. You'll probably feel better.

Oh, and by the way Wall Street Fucking Journal: stop calling LIEberman and "Independent Democrat." There's no such thing. Either you are a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, a Libertarian, a Constitutionalist, a Green, a Socialist, a Communist, etc. There is no "Independent Democrat" Party. It doesn't fucking exist! And if it did, LIEberman would be kicked out of that one too!

John Kerry Backs Obama; Attacks Clinton

2004 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator John Kerry endorsed Barack Obama today in Charleston, South Carolina in front of 1000 Obama supporters at an outdoor rally at the College of Charleston.

It didn't take long before the arrows flew at Senator Hillary Clinton.

Asked about Clinton’s argument that talking change is different than producing change, Kerry said,“[Obama] produced one of the most significant ethics reform bills we passed. He has been a legislator longer than Hillary Clinton.” And then this zinger: “Health care didn’t pass in 1994 if I recall.”

T Minus 375 Days

"Rarely is the question asked: 'Is our children learning?' "
- Florence, South Carolina, January 11th, 2000

Sir Edmund Hillary Dies at 88

“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.”


NY TIMES: Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, died Friday in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 88.

Music Break! Mel Tormé

Piss and a Crapper, Two Bits!

Pay toilets in New York are back, hopefully permanently. When visiting Italy this past year, I was surprised to see so many public toilets and then it dawned on me that New York City had tried to do this repeatedly and failed.

I'm so happy, I could shit!

... city officials reveled in the toilet paper roll-cutting ceremony (which, fittingly, they did with their hands) on Madison Avenue, between 23rd and 24th Streets. But they couldn’t resist the temptation of scatological humor: “No. 1!” (Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner), “in loo of” (Adrian Benepe, parks commissioner), “doesn’t block pedestrian movement” (Daniel L. Doctoroff, outgoing deputy mayor for economic development).

One wonders where the rest of these toilets will be installed (no specific loactions are mentioned in the article).

Mike Malloy on Strait of Hormuz Incident

On January 8th, Mike Malloy received an email regarding the Iranian boat incident. Mike cranks it up and responds to it. Here's the transcript (including the email):

MALLOY: I received an email from "Guy." He writes, "Hi Mike, I've spent time in the Persian Gulf on various US Navy vessels and I wanted to remind you that the USS Cole was damaged using a small boat. Size does not define threat. Even a small boat needs to be taken seriously. I wasn't in the Persian Gulf last weekend and do not claim to know the details of what happened, however, that there was not at least an exchange of small arms fire illustrates great restraint, especially compared to the (inaudible).

I am not a big fan of violence but I would not have the slightest problem sinking any small vessel acting provocatively. If the Iranians come out looking for trouble, it is a shame to disappoint them."

Um, okay, but like I mentioned earlier in the program, you know, we are the ones who have gone into their front yard and decided to pee all over their roses. So if they come out waving a broomstick saying, "Get off my property!" then what, we have the right to machine gun them on the spot? What the hell is wrong with this mindset?!

Where does this come from? I guess it come from 110 years of just absolute violent US imperialism. I'm sorry, you pick a different term. If you don't like to hear your American talk show host use the term "US imperialism", then by God, give me a new one.

That's exactly what it's been, since the Spanish American War. UNITED. STATES. IMPERIALISM. Now we have placed our big, white ass in the middle of the Middle East. And we have made claims against other peoples' natural resources. And we have overthrown governments and we have invaded nations to make certain everybody in the Middle East knows we are by God serious about taking their natural resources. And because one country steps out and says, "Uh, we're gonna send little boats after you," after we have threatened to NUKE THEM?!

GET REAL, GUY!

I mean, good God in heaven, WE ARE THE PROVOCATEUR in this situation, not these dumb ass little Iranian boats! Bzzz, bzzzz "I am coming to you." Bzzz, bzz. If the Iranians come out looking for trouble?! Oh my God!

I'll tell you what, Guy, I would prefer that you not email again because I think you're a little bit twisted, I really do. I wrote back to you and said if I come to your backyard and threaten to kill your family and you come out and wave a handgun at me and tell me to get off your property, or get out of the alley behind your house that's neutral property but I stand out there and say "NO, I'M GONNA KILL YOUR FAMILY!", and you're waving the handgun at me, which one of us is being provocative, Guy?

We're Number 19! And Yet, Cheney Lives

Of 19 Industrialized Countries, U.S. Has Highest Rate Of Preventable Deaths Before Age 75, Researchers Report

CBS News: The U.S. today finds itself last on a new list of countries seeking to curb preventable deaths in people younger than 75.

...From 1997 to 1998, the U.S. had a high rate of preventable deaths, but it wasn't the worst-ranked country on the list. By 2002-2003, preventable death rates dropped in all 19 countries, including the U.S.

But the U.S. had had the mildest rate of decline -- 4% -- compared with a 16% average decline among the other countries. That's how the U.S. wound up with the highest preventable death rate in 2002-2003.

...the slow decline in U.S. preventable deaths "has coincided with an increase in the uninsured population," write the researchers.

Here's the stellar list in which we come in NINETEENTH!

1. France
2. Japan
3. Australia
4. Spain
5. Italy
6. Canada
7. Norway
8. The Netherlands
9. Sweden
10. Greece
11. Austria
12. Germany
13. Finland
14. New Zealand
15. Denmark
16. U.K.
17. Ireland
18. Portugal
19. The U.S. of Fuckin' A


CHENEY CARE
"If he were anyone else, he'd probably be dead by now."

In a related story that I don't remember the MSM picking up, the California Nurses Association placed in ad 10 Iowa newspapers during the first week of December suggesting that Dick Cheney would probably be dead by now had it not been for his federally funded health care. Sweet!

The ad states:

The patient’s history and prognosis were grim: four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, angioplasty, an implanted defibrillator andnow an emergency procedure to treat an irregular heartbeat.

For millions of Americans, this might be a death sentence. For the vice president, it was just another medical treatment. And it cost him very little.

Unlike the average American, the president, vice president and members of Congress all enjoy government-financed health care with few restrictions or prohibitive fees. They are never turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied care for what an insurance company labels “experimental treatments.”

The rest of us deserve no less.

The ad then calls on the presidential candidates to support HR676, the National Health Insurance Act. Of all the candidates running for in the primaries, only Dennis Kucinich has co-sponsored this bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers. It currently has 88 co-sponsors... out of FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE FUCKING MEMBERS. And what are the chances that it'll pass even if it gets to the Senate?

Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA, refutes suggestions that the shock-value of the $55,000 ad could prompt more discussions on it rather than the underlying health care proposal. “The ad is about the substance of the debate. The ad says Democrats are bad, and Republicans are worse,” she said. “Dick Cheney is just the exemplar of what it means to have a double standard.”

The vice president’s office said the ad isn’t worth more than a no comment. “Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney.

Fuck you, Megan Mitchell. You're right, it is outrageous that douchebags like Cheney get A1 health care that they don't pay for while his crony insurance friends bilk billions out of the rest of us.

Of course Cheney's office isn't going to comment. What are they going to do, deny the fact that this walking lab experiment wouldn't be six feet under by now if he'd been Joe Average? Give me a fucking break.

Ru-9/11-dy 9/11 Giu-9/11-li-9/11-a-9/11-ni

Giuliani's response to Clinton's emotional display in New Hampshire:

“This is not something I would judge anyone on... The reality is, if you look at me, September 11 — the funerals, the memorial services — there were times in which it was impossible not to feel the emotion."

Un-fucking-believable.

T Minus 376 Days

"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection - an election - in Iraq at this point in history?"

- Washington DC, January 10th, 2005

El Vampiro,Seňor Nueve Once

As an hispanic, there's something disturbing about this:

...Mr. Giuliani was asked at an Elks Lodge here about what he would do to end illegal immigration, he ended with a familiar applause line: “The final end result about becoming a citizen – you should be able to have to read English, write English, and speak English if you want to become a citizen,’’ he said.

Now watch this Giuliani ad, one of three currently running in Miami, Florida.

Way to go, Rudy. Que hombre imbécil. ¡Sinvergüenza!

"Provocative" Iranian Boats: "We Are Coming To You"

With all the primary commotion the last couple of days, I didn't learn about this incident until this morning.

WASHINGTON — Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (meters) of the U.S. ships in international waters in the strait on Saturday, and U.S. sailors came close to opening fire.

...U.S. military officials told CNN the boats were “attack craft” that they believed were operated by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard.

The Iranian boats made threatening maneuvers against the U.S. warships and threatening radio transmissions, the officials told CNN.

The captain of one U.S. vessel was in the process of giving the order to shoot when the Iranian ships began turning away, CNN said.

A radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said, “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,” CNN reported, citing a U.S. official.

After the threatening radio communication, U.S. sailors manned their ships’ guns and were very close to opening fire, it said.

Strait of Hormuz... Gulf of Tonkin... Strait of Hormuz... Gulf of Tonkin...

Sounds eerily familiar. To top it off, the Pentagon has released video of the incident. In it, small speedboats do come close to the US ships, and at the very end of the video, there is added audio of the supposed radio communications. "I am coming to you..." Is this supposed to be an Iranian? Sounds like a cheap imitation.

Bush called it a provocation today in Israel and warned Iran that all options were on the table to "protect our assets... our ships were moving along very peacefully off the Iranian border in territorial water -- international waters, and Iranian boats came out and were very provocative. And it was a dangerous gesture on their part. We have made it clear publicly, and they know our position, and that is, there will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple. And my advice to them is, don't do it."

Iran has stated that the video and audio is a fabrication.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards has said that its high-speed boats never threatened the U.S. vessels during the encounter, insisting it only asked them to identify themselves, then let them continue into the Gulf.
Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar called Western news reports that the boats threatened to blow up the U.S. warships "mischief."
...He said the encounter was normal.
"The identification of vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian navy units is a natural occurrence," IRNA quoted Najjar as saying. "Islamic Republic of Iran navy units always put questions to passing vessels and warships at the Strait of Hormuz and they need to identify themselves. This is in accordance with the normal procedures."

Call me cynical, but it all sounds fake to me. And you can blame my cynicism on the jokers in the White House. Another thing to think about is what would we do if foreign navy war ships were in international waters just outside, oh I don't know... lets say the Gulf of Fucking Mexico?! How would we react?

Bill Richardson Drops Out Of Race

AP: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ended his campaign for the presidency Wednesday after twin fourth-place finishes that showed his impressive credentials could not compete with his rivals' star power.

UPDATE: Katie Roberts, deputy communication director for Richardson's campaign, denied the report to MSNBC.
However, analysts said after the two key contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is only a matter of when to quit for candidates who did poorly in the two contests like Richardson.

T Minus 377 Days

"I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous spacial entreprenuers who set such a wonderful example for the young of our country."

- Washington DC, January, 2004