You knew it and I knew it. And now we all know it.

We’ve got trouble folks. We’ve got trouble – right here in River City. Trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for . . .

Herewith some serious fine journalism from CNS News, a rather interesting ‘news’ outlet, owned by the Media Research Center, a non-profit dedicated to proving there’s a librul media. Got that?

Bill Gates does like his little jokes, doesn’t he.

I am dying here as I try to adapt myself to Word 2010 after being a WordPerfect user for over 20 years. When my laptop hard drive died, my data files were safe on Mozy, but my software was gone. So I had to make a decision about what to install on the new machine. I chose to ‘bite the bullet’ and – for the sake of compatibility – left my beloved WordPerfect behind and got a full Office 2010 suite.

Before 2010, I was able to use 2003 when I had to and though I didn’t much like it, I could manage whatever needed doing. No more. If you’re upgrading, think twice.

Word 2010 was apparently designed by 500 monkeys who delighted in  complexity. Be gone intuitive functionality! Welcome multiplicity! If two keystrokes were needed before, there are four now – to do the same thing. If one pull down menu for tables or formatting worked well, why twenty of them must surely be better! And why use the same old words? Let’s rename everything. Who needs a task bar? Such a pedestrian word. Let there be a ‘ribbon’. Much better word (for the same thing). Choosing key words for searching “Help” is now an interesting (and mostly unsuccessful) exercise.

‘Help’ also assumes the user is trying to do the most complicated thing, not the simple thing. To find how to do a simple thing is like a kid’s game of tag. Look here, look there, look everywhere.

And of course there's this nonsense

There is no ‘format’ tab. Excuse me, no format ‘ribbon’. Things like fonts, margins, spacing, inset pix, even copy/paste are all located on different ‘ribbons’. If I am creating a document and want to perform a function within it, I must search the other ribbons and their attendant pull down menus – which are full of new words and phrases – in order to find what I need.

A simple example: remember choosing optional security settings? In 2010 it’ll take you a while – that happens now in the ‘Trust Center”, once you find that and figure out what the Elvis it means.

By the way, anyone know what a banded row is? I’ve been trying to create a very simple table – three columns, indeterminate number of rows, nothing fancy, plain old 12 point Ariel. Plain, plain, plain. This appears to be a very difficult thing to do. I’ve been at it for almost half an hour and have more questions than when I started.

What we have here is a tool designed to make the task more difficult. Well done Microsoft.

I’m right here! Look over this way! Here I am!

I’m an old fan of Bartcop  and once in a while I jump in to try to provide the correct answer to one of his ‘mystery cities’ or ‘mystery cars’ quizzes . . . Yesterday I got one! The “mystery food”. A little thrill for sure, but check the name:

For those not familiar, Bartcop has been around since the 90’s posting cartoons, commentary and quotes from around the web, plus original stuff – including some wicked funny and original photoshopped offerings. A fine place to lose yourself for a few minutes every day.

Two years ago, I got linked from Bartcop (one serious OMG moment) and on that day racked up a record number of views – a number I’ll never reach again. This time though, no linkee. 😦

Irish President lectures a Tea Partier and in so doing pays homage to the America I grew up in.

From Kay this morning:

If my Irish father were still alive, he’d be bursting with pride in Irish President Michael D. Higgins. As am I – for both his sentiments and because  he speaks in clear full sentences and doesn’t pause for applause, something that is absent in our country today. Our public political languages are now Bumpersticker and Gasbaggery. We have no orators.

I especially like his outrage at our moral failure regarding health care.

What to do? What to do?

This story is of course everywhere, but it still bears repeating.

After a speech in Dallas on Thursday, Jeb Bush also recoiled: “I used to be a conservative, and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective.”

The establishment is taking to their fainting couches again.

Is there an awards ceremony?

Here come the Annual Rotten Banana Awards – given to the “20 Most Unbearable Movies of 2011” by Dr. Ted Baehr, media critic and founder and publisher of Movieguide. From World Net Daily:

Sex, homosexual affairs, heavy drinking, gruesome violence and anti-human and anti-God themes – it’s all featured in [Kevin Smith’s Red State] winner of the Vile, Vulgar & Anti-Christian Award and dubbed Worst Ultimate Christian Bashing Movie of the Year.

The film heads his list of the 20 Most Unbearable Movies of 2011, each receiving the Annual Rotten Banana Awards.

Other films earning the disgraceful designation include: “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star,” which won the Slimy Pornification Award for its lewdness; “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy,” which received the Abhorrent Sexcapade Award; “The Skin I Live In,” which earned the Lurid Transgender Abuse Award; and “Happy Feet Two,” which was given the Environmentalist Hysteria Award.

“Most of these movies made very little money,” Dr. Baehr noted, “which shows the good taste of not only the vast majority of Americans but also the vast majority of moviegoers overseas.”

“Most of these movies” have never even been heard of either, except perhaps for “Happy Feet”, the second installment in a popular children’s animated film series, which has also drawn attention from a few FOX-heads who either don’t like penguins or don’t have children. Or perhaps don’t like penguins or children.

Once again, Christians are under attack but this time dammit, they stepped up and found some low-lying fruit to blame! So take that.

 

Well done! We’re right back in 1979; this time in Afghanistan

From today’s story in The Washington Post about the growing demonstrations in Afghanistan following the burning of a pile of Korans.

Nine Afghans were killed Friday [in Kabul]. . . [and]  six protesters and a police officer were killed in Herat Province when demonstrators tried to storm the U.S. Consulate. . . at each demonstrations, protestors shouted ‘Death to America’. . . More than 20 have been killed since the burning incident.

Remove this ‘causus belli’ of the Koran burning and that could have been written in 1979 about Iran, when 52 American Embassy employees were taken hostage.

While I’m on the subject: I haven’t posted that tally lately – Today is the 119th day of the 11th year of the War in Afghanistan.

The auto bailout from someone who was there

An op-ed in today’s Times from Steve Rattner, who served as lead advisor on the 2009 Auto Task Force. He is, however, a Democrat so my conservative friends are free to disagree with every word.

Without government financing — initiated by President George W. Bush in December 2008 — the two companies would not have been able to pursue Chapter 11 reorganization. Instead they would have been forced to cease production, close their doors and lay off virtually all workers once their coffers ran dry.

Those shutdowns would have reverberated through the entire auto sector, causing innumerable suppliers almost immediately to stop operating too.

Despite the relative health of its balance sheet, even Ford would have been forced to close temporarily, because critical parts would have become unavailable. And service providers — trucking companies, restaurants and more — would have been severely affected.

More than a million jobs would have been lost, at least for a time. Michigan and the entire industrial Midwest would have been devastated.       . . .

I consider myself an ardent capitalist, and well recognize the risks of government intervention, particularly the “moral hazard” of rewarding failure and the scary prospect of politics’ entering private sector decision-making.

But when markets fail, as they did for both autos and banks in 2008, government should have the ability — in fact, the obligation — to step in.       

Architectural malpractice

If seeking medical help for hallucinations or delusions, I think this is exactly what I’d want to see. Exactly.

Friday oldie for Barb and Jim

This is a special one for Barb and Jim who are getting married today.  It’s all syrupy and corny and almost a cliché, but hey, I think it’s just right.

My first ‘dedication’ – now I feel like a DJ! (I know, this is far from Elvis at his best . . .but still . . . )

 

Joe the frackin’ plumber? Amongst us again

I thought he’d gone away. I hope he appreciates that Obama made him.

Mme, Mlle, Mrs, Miss, Ms

It’s way past time, but the French language police have finally determined that a word meaning “young female virgin” might be inappropriate on a job application. Happy to see them catching up to the 20th century (not knocking France – a wonderful country, except for those very uptight defenders of the language). Can’t find the news story, but here‘s a prior, albeit somewhat dated, one.

That story today reminded me of how our own efforts to replace the words “Miss” (unmarried female) and “Mrs” (married female) with the single designation of “Ms” (female), in order to align with the male “Mr” (which reveals nothing of that person’s marital status), went awry.

Instead of simplifying, we managed to replace the previous two  categories with three. The ladies are now classified as Mrs (she’s just a bit old-fashioned), Miss (such a shame dontcha know) or Ms (none of your fracking business). Of course, the men are still Mr (a male person – and that’s all the information you need so butt out.)

FAIL.

Goldwater on the religious right (hint: he didn’t like them)

I kind of wish Barry Goldwater were still around:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

When you say “radical right” today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.

The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that’s what brings me into it.

Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn’t they serve? They’re American citizens. As long as they’re not doing things that are harmful to anyone else… So I came out for it.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

Oh, let the good times roll !!!

In Oklahoma, Constance Johnson attached an “every sperm is sacred” amendment to the GOP’s Personhood bill.  The amendment would have construed any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina as an action against an unborn child.

From here. For the theme video? Here.

The 19th century continues to spill into the 21st

Ed sent this:

Several Girl Scout troops in Chantilly, Va., have been banned from meeting at a local Catholic church and a neighboring school.

St. Timothy Catholic Church said that scouts won’t be allowed to meet or wear their uniforms on church property. The edict also applies to the adjacent St. Timothy School, which enrolls students from preschool to eighth grade.

According to the Arlington Diocese, the pastor did not believe the National Girl Scouts membership to the World Association of Girl Guides & Girl Scouts aligned with the message of the church, stemming from a perceived connection between WAGGGS and Planned Parenthood.

Happily, I think we’ll see a steady stream of comic relief.  Susie sent this:

A group of female Democratic legislators in the Georgia House of Representatives has proposed a bill that would ban men from seeking vasectomies.

“Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies,” said bill author Yasmin Neal in a statement

What are all these men afraid of? Giggle, giggle.

What Kevin Drum and I share

My lamb Pinky. Back when.

Liberal fans of the blogsphere probably know Kevin Drum. He launched his independant blog Calpundit around ’02. He later moved to Washington Monthly, where he wrote Political Animal, and a few years ago took up residence at Mother Jones.

The most important thing to know about Kevin Drum is that he invented Friday catblogging (now an actual verb). Before Atrios’ normal and handsome cats began making regular appearances, or the  intoduction of John Cole’s appalingly fat cat Tunch (who now has his own product line) – even before TBogg and his bassett hound  – Kevin was showing us the kitters every Friday.

Turns out we have something surprising in common. He posted this yesterday:

My memory has always been terrible. My mother is nearly 80 and still remembers classmates from her kindergarten days. I barely even remember going to kindergarten. Actually, that’s too charitable: I don’t remember going to kindergarten. Or first grade. Or fifth grade. Or high school. Or college. Or, for that matter, stuff I did two years ago.

Is this an exaggeration? Only barely. I remember occasional shreds from years past, but that’s about it. On the bright side, this means that if I had a nasty fight with you a few years ago, there’s a good chance I have no memory of it. On the not-so-bright side, it means that if we were close friends in high school, I might or might not even remember knowing you, let alone remember anything substantive about what we did together.

Most people don’t believe that an otherwise intact person can have such a profound disability – and I do consider it that, though not the kind that gets one special treatment. In fact, I’ve never met another person whose memory is as lacking as mine.

I sometimes slight people or insult them or even astonish them. It didn’t go down well the time I forgot I’d been an attendant at the wedding of a woman I saw at our 30th HS reunion. I still don’t remember that. I’ve since learned to fudge and be non-committal – I let the other person do the remembering. I figure they’ve probably got it right, so I nod my head. It covers the awkward moments anyway.

Adding to what Kevin said . . . before my father died at 98, I used him as my resource in matters of memory – I turned to him for dates and names and chronologies. He never forgot anything. Like Kevin’s mother, to the day he died he was able to recall all of his schooling, teachers, classmates. I’m kind of jealous of that.

The modern Republican Party

FROM the front page of Little Green Footballs at 11:55pm. Here are screen shots of five of the seven stories.

The man is obsessed

Someone tell Rick Santorum that Woodstock was nearly 50 years ago . . .

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. The prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

Nevertheless, as a Democrat, I’m happy to be credited for that supporting sexual freedom part.

If Mitch Daniels keeps saying no, perhaps . . .

Only The Onion.

Want to guess the outcome?

Another big case for the Supreme Court this session: they’re going to look at a case with . . .

. . .  the potential to undo an accommodation reached in the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger: that public colleges and universities could not use a point system to boost minority enrollment but could take race into account in vaguer way to ensure academic diversity.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the majority opinion in Grutter, said the accommodation was meant to last 25 years.

Kagan has recused herself because her office at the White House was involved with this a few years ago. So that makes for a 5-3 conservative majority, a majority by the way that is entirely Catholic and entirely male (that seems to be the theme of the day, doesn’t it..

Impatient, aren’t they.

Blog here, elsewhere is me

Understand this, Yoda would. Lately my blog posts have been either derivative or stuff I’ve posted because I think I should post. My heart is perhaps tired. I’ve even just re-blogged for the first time (new WordPress feature that is very very easy and very very tempting).

I’m  not going  to go dark here or get all unbloggy . . . but nor am I going to just toss stuff up. I must set out to find my mojo. It may have been used up for now by the astonishing tone of the GOP race and the more astonishing and bold steps by Republicans to reign in we ‘uppity’ women.

Find it, I will. Lost, it is not. Hiding, it is.

Mitch Daniels just went on the teevee

Is somebody peeking over the fence a bit? Have the grand poobahs of the Grand Old  Party been hanging around Indiana again?

 “Let’s not kid ourselves: this is the worst recovery ever from a serious recession, and history says the deeper the down, the sharper the up,” Daniels said on CNN’s State of the Union. “It should have been a very vigorous one. Hasn’t been.”

An  appearance on the second tier of the Sunday gang-bangapaloozaa – and CNN’s State of the Union is certainly that – might mean nothing other than that the Governor of Indiana is concerned about the  economy. (And he really really meant it when he said last time he wouldn’t be a candidate.)

I’m genuinely surprised

My Congressman, Vern Buchanan, occupies a permanent place on CREW’s list of the top ten most corrupt Congress critters. We are of course quite proud.

Vern sends out regular insta-polls to his flock down here (more during election season of course), in which he humbly and sincerely seeks our ‘guidance’. I respond every time, even knowing that these polls are designed to elicit reaction from a target audience and therefore provide the desired answer.

I think ole Vern may be as surprised as I was by today’s vote.

When Bruce speaks, a lotta people listen

Haven’t been paying much attention in recent years to popular music. I do notice when something happens (RIP Clarence et al) but don’t generally pay a lot of attention when soemthing new is published.

Here’s what The Guardian has to say about Bruce Springstein’s new album, Wrecking Ball.

Indeed, [the album] is as angry a cry from the belly of a wounded America as has been heard since the dustbowl and Woody Guthrie, a thundering blow of New Jersey pig iron down on the heads of Wall Street and all who have sold his country down the swanny. Springsteen has gone to the great American canon for ammunition, borrowing from folk, civil war anthems, Irish rebel songs and gospel. The result is a howl of pain and disbelief as visceral as anything he has ever produced, that segues into a search for redemption: “Hold tight to your anger/ And don’t fall to your fears … Bring on your wrecking ball.”

Springsteen plunges into darker, richer musical landscapes in a sequence of breath-taking protest songs – Easy Money, Shackled and Drawn, Jack of All Trades, the scarily bellicose Death to My Hometown and This Depression with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine – before the album turns on Wrecking Ball in search of some spiritual path out of the mess the US is in.

I may have to borrow a dime for this one. Here’s a cut.

Friday night oldie

Been a time-travelin’ kind of week to be a woman. Especially for those of us who’ve been there and done that – already. But those boys – especially the chubby grey haired white ones – keep popping up hoping it’s 1950 again. (Sorry boys. All over.) When I get a yearning for some 1950s kind of love, I know I’ll find it only if I travel in my own special way-back machine.

Maybe Margaret and Helen will join in

Kay has a post up today on yet another legislative proposal from the American Taliban that is moving through the Virginia legislature –  it would require women to undergo an ultrasound probe before an abortion. That is, “a trans-vaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced”.

(The second-to-last-Republican-President-in-waiting tried it in his State last spring. I’m thinkin’ that’s why he did so well in the recent primaries and why he’s now running up a whopping 30% approval rating at home.)

It could pass. From Kay’s post:

[A different lawmaker suggested that women who consent to sex also consent to vaginal probing.]

Well then, let’s have us a consent form – consent doesn’t count without a form, makes it all nice and legal. To whom exactly do they consent I wonder? A petitioner? Must the petitioner be the one who is hoping to penetrate? Can a parent stand in to petition? Or to consent?  This part is a little confusing.

(Of course, no signee, no sexee . . .that’s the one weapon we know works.)

I’m really getting tired of this shit. Women may need to go back to the streets and remind our vice police wanna-be’s of a few things. I know Margaret and Helen* would help!

(* Margaret and Helen, they of the nearly 5 million blog hits. America does love its old ladies.)

In defense of Pat Buchanan

For a long time, old Uncle Pat Buchanan has been my favorite misogynistic anti-Semite. And credit where it’s due: he is definitely America’s most polite racist. Pat lives happily in Leave-It-To-Beaver-land, where the men are strong, the women know it and the children say thank you. They’re all nice and white, go to Church together on Sunday and then, for a treat,  have breakfast at Howard Johnson’s.

Ole’ Pat, second left, back in ‘the day’

For years, he’s been a regular panelist on MSNBC shows but now they want Pat to go away and stay in his own yard,  because his new book has offensive chapter titles.

They can make a case for their actions. I know that. Even though there’s nothing new here. He’s been called ‘racist’ and ‘homophobic’ and ‘anti semitic’ on air many times – because he is. But he was not brought on air to speak for their brand or their network (were that the case, it would have been an entirely different thing);  he was put on air to provide political commentary. And in that, he is one of the best.

So I’m pissed off this time: warts and all, Buchanan is one of the few in cable-TV land who isn’t entirely enthralled with himself and who is not vapid. He is also one of the sharpest political observers in cable land. He has keen insights and his institutional memory of American history – political and otherwise – is sharp and always at hand. He is classically educated, a rarity in teevee land, and that informs his commentary as well.

I don’t need MSNBC to insulate me from Buchanan. I can separate the baby from the bath water just fine. And I’ll wager so can other viewers.

UPDATE: Buchanan has an explanatory column up at The American Conservative. Quite a few commenters, many of htem liberals, agree with me. This one is pretty representative:

Paulo, on February 17th, 2012 at 10:28 am said:

As a good Progressive, gay man I happen to disagree with Mr. Buchanan almost constantly. I do however buy his books and on the rare occasions when I wander into the cesspit of cable news I listen to his opinions. He makes me think rather and in this soundbite driven would that is a true gift.

When I walk away from a Buchanan argument I feel called to do my homework, to iron out and resolve my moral and political stances in response to his critiques. I have seen enough value in this that I use his book on WWII as critical reading for a small history class I teach. As I tell my students “Disagree, I do! Now go out and tell me why.”

I am deeply saddened that he has fallen victim to a PC witch hunt on the left in the ongoing tit for tat. I expect another left wing thinker will soon fall in retaliation.  Exceptionally sad and I plan on telling my local HRC coordinators exactly that.

The Fifth Column

Mario Piperni

Make sure you circle March 1 on your calendars. It might very well turn out to be the most earth-shattering day in U.S. political history.

The results of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “investigation” into whether President Barack Obama is eligible for office are set to be announced.

MCSO spokesman Jeff Sprong tells New Times the findings are set to be released on March 1.

Arpaio’s been mostly hush-hush about the probe, but has promised his “birther” posse will deliver a “shock” with its findings on the conspiracy theory that’s been continuously debunked for several years now.

And it all comes down to twin babies and something you probably last heard of in a 1970s spy movie…microfiche!

Arpaio told New Times in November that the key to investigating whether Obama’s eligible for the office of the president deals with twins born at the same Hawaii hospital as the…

View original post 218 more words

This may be one of the best political ads I’ve ever seen

Thanks to Unedited Politics for finding this when I couldn’t. He’s got lots of political video if that floats your boat (it does mine!).

Part 5: Where are the women?

Didn’t think the Republicans would hand me a brand new graphic to add to Tuesday’s series of posts. I really thought I’d drained that pond. But no . . . Rep. Darryl Issa (multiply charged criminal-CA) had him a little panel today. He didn’t want any girls to mess things up though cuz it was all about religious freedom. He even has a rabbi and a black guy, so it’s the real thing.