Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

My old friend Jason told me years ago that watching Raising Arizona is completely different after you have a baby. God damn, there ain't much truer than that (watching it now on TV). I've loved this movie for 15 years and watching it now, it's like watching it for the first time.

On March 27 at 10:46am, I commented on my own blog:

I think these people just don't have the balls for an attack of any significant sort. Think about it: that militia leader in Alabama (Vanderbough?) basically said "we're cleaning our guns ..."" and urged people to throw bricks through Democratic offices. Oooo, I'm so scared; a bunch of dumb-ass rednecks are wacking off to their guns and encouraging petty vandalism. Pussies. I say to them, bring it, bitches. You do, and our excellent law enforcement system will lock you up for a long long time.

Then, two days later, from NYT, on March 29:

Militia Charged With Plotting to Murder Officers
In an indictment against the nine unsealed on Monday, the Justice Department said they were part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising, the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity.

See ya, suckers. Enjoy prison.

You'd have to sort through youtube all day to find the number of quality sailing videos you can find on Vimeo in 15 minutes. That's why when I'm longing to get back on the water, I troll Vimeo; you just can't top their production quality, despite being made by amateurs. Below are a few of the good ones.This was shot in the Azores, in a port that's one of the last stops for people heading out of Europe across the Atlantic. Seems like a port I want to visit one day. And the sound track is quite nice as well:

The most colourful marina in the world from Alexandre Jesus on Vimeo.

I'm not much of a cold weather sailor but if I had a motor-sailer like this one, I might consider going to Antarctica aboard this boat:

Antarctica 2008 yacht expedition from Blazej Pyrka on Vimeo.

I'm not crazy about the song in this video, but this definitely took a lot of work and the boat is beautiful:

Sean wants to take you for a ride on a sailboat. from Sean Aiken on Vimeo.

Bill Clinton got tons of shit from the right because of his 1994 crime law which restricted assault rifles. The far right will never forget this as long as we live, but here are a few quick reasons why Obama has no interest in doing anything about guns in the US: he doesn't need to. Crime is on a major downswing and has been since the mid-90s.



(Link)

It's obvious Clinton tried to restrict weapons, not because liberals hate the 2nd Amendment, but because crime was at an all time high in the US in 1992:



I'm not saying Clinton's weapons restrictions reduced crimes; let's not confuse correlation with causation. I'm just saying that in the reality of left wing politics in the US, gun restrictions is sooo 1992.

The CEO of the company whose product I sell invited me for a week-long trip to Alaska to fish for halibut and salmon in the Cook Inlet in early June.

I am a sucker for product packaging design. That's the only reason I bought a bottle of Kraken Rum, pictured here.

And what a cool looking bottle! A black rum with two built-in finger handles with a picture of a mythically large kraken with an ancient sailing ship in its evil tentacles. How could I NOT purchase it.

I even purchased the bottle knowing that it's a "spiced" rum -- long derided by cocktail snobs like myself. After all, spiced rums are sold to be mixed with cola, and rum-and-coke is a pretty uncreative drink and is one of the few alcoholic concoctions that nearly makes me puke. See, I enjoy the raw taste of straight rum and don't need the manufactured spices to make me enjoy the basic flavor of distilled molasses spirit and whatever woody sugary notes and color picked up from the barrel.

The taste of Kraken Rum is simple to describe: moderately high-proof base spirit with vanilla. Seriously, I could duplicate Kraken Rum simply by buying a cheap bottle of vodka, some black food coloring, and a two ounce bottle of McCormick's vanilla extract bought at Safeway for $7.99.

If you're ever in the mood for vanilla-flavored liquor, have a glass of Kraken on the rocks. Otherwise, stick to real rum. There's not much more to the story than that.

Yesterday I biked down to the US Capitol to see for myself the Teabagger crowd on the day the historic healthcare reform bill passed.

Whenever I had posted pictures or videos from Tea Party protests or Sarah Palin rallies in the past, I would get the same comments from my right wing friends: that the photographer or video producer had only published the images and interviews of the most extreme elements that the protests had to offer and the most extreme posters, and that somehow the intellectual or reasonable people were not being shown. There are crazies in every crowd -- so the argument went -- and all video is biased.

Well, take my opinion for what it's worth, but the negative stereotype of the Teabagger we've seen in the media is highly accurate. This is a movement whose origins are not in mere response to Obama's policies; they are the same exact angry, sometimes racist, often religious and conservative protests we saw during the 2008 election, which are the clear roots of the Tea Party movement.

I walked around with an Obama t-shirt on and spoke to many people -- perhaps two dozen. Some folks were polite, some folks not, but many of the signs were offensive, comparing the Obama administration to some of the worst governments known to modern man. Here are some photos I took:







The comparisons are, of course, completely ridiculous and not worthy of much comment. However, having visited the physical evidence of Nazism when I visited Auschwitz and been highly emotionally affected by the experience, I would like to extend my sincerest fuck you from the bottom of my heart to the types of people who wrote the above signs. Granted, those types of signs were not the majority, but coupled with the intense anger exhibited around me that day, there is something different about these extremist reactions. I've been to many many protests in Washington DC from over 10 years, but I haven't seen this level of anger, threats of violence, and demonization of the presidency, ever. Plus, the widely-reported shouting of the words faggot and nigger at members of Congress carrying out their democratic duties. I mean, even the enormous anti-war protests under Bush didn't yield more than two signs comparing the presidency to regimes like Stalin or Kim Jong Il. You can even see my photos from those protests back in 2005 here.

What's most disturbing and should be understood by any thinking person, is that this isn't just the fringe elements of right-wingism in 2010. This is no longer the big tent party of Ronald Reagan. My favorite economist, Paul Krugman, put it very well in a recent op-ed:

And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”

This is what pisses me off so much. What's going on here isn't that old saw that "both parties are guilty of the same behavior." Bullshit. One party is dedicated to whipping up fear by spreading lies and misinformation, regardless of its sometimes violent effects, and the other is trying to move the country into 2010. Until Republicans change, that is my assessment of a wide swath of their party (yes, I know not 100% of Republicans are like this; that's not my point).

One great part of the day that made me feel proud of my democracy was the fact that the congresspeople walked from their offices across the street to the Capitol building, boldly walking past screaming Teabaggers. And this picture of Pelosi and her entourage with the fucking big ass hammer is just awesome:



I was standing with the mob of angry screaming teabaggers a few feet from where Pelosi walked in to vote. She walked right past them in bright sunshine, without security, and without fear, despite the violent rhetoric and insults. It was a great democracy-will-prevail moment that few people get to see in person. And now the US will have universal healthcare. It's hard to believe, but it gives me chills still.

Most of the people calling the new healthcare law "socialism" have no idea what socialism really is and the view that true Marxists have regarding medical care and capitalist systems. This is the case because the Teabaggers and other misinformed people with no understanding of history who are screaming socialism have never met a real socialist in their entire lives, nor have they likely read Marxist literature, ever. (Perhaps if they are calling American healthcare reform a move toward European-style systems, they are more accurate, but those are not truly socialist systems, so the term is being misapplied in that case).

Here is the important point: starting well over 150 years ago, the Marxists' key point was that capitalism could never and would never provide universal healthcare because of its core nature; the only way to provide healthcare for all, in the traditional Marxist view, was to destroy capitalism and implement state socialism.

So the fact that many advanced capitalist countries have been able to successfully provide medical care to all of their citizens, while maintaining industry overwhelmingly in private hands, is nearly the biggest blow to the Marxist worldview that has ever occurred. This is a major devastating reality to the entire Marxist ideology, and further drives home the point that regulated capitalism is the most superior economic system that has ever existed.

More people probably agree with me than disagree on this one.

Through some connections on the Hill my wife was invited to a press conference given by the most powerful woman in the United States. And no, I'm not talking about Oprah; I'm talking about Nancy Fucking Pelosi -- the woman who has enough power to alter 350 million people's lives with her influence and is third in line to the president. Here she is looking at my son Elliot and reaching to give him a pinch in the toe! That's my wife Katie holding him. (Original picture here).

And my son has already got that Ann-Coulter-wannabe, Michelle Malkin, up in arms. She's ranting about it on her blog here!

I love Antiques Roadshow, or more precisely, any show having to do with antiques. And I love when something really rare and expensive is appraised like this:

It's weird that people rock out so hard and happily to Springsteen's Born in the USA because it's a song about a Vietnam Vet who's been in jail, been denied a good job, is probably nearly homeless, and whose brother was killed in the war. Take a look at the song if written in a prose style without the chorus:

Born down in a dead man town. The first kick I took was when I hit the ground. You end up like a dog that's been beat too much, till you spend half your life just covering up. Got in a little hometown jam so they put a rifle in my hand, and sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man. Come back home to the refinery: hiring man said, "Son if it was up to me ..." Went down to see my VA man, and he said "Son, don't you understand?" I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong. They're still there, he's all gone. He had a woman he loved in Saigon. I got a picture of him in her arms now. Down in the shadow of the penitentiary, out by the gas fires of the refinery, I'm ten years burning down the road. Nowhere to run, aint got nowhere to go.

Gets me choked up watching the video having read the song like that. Watch it here.

A friend on Facebook asked me for my recipe for a Mint Julep so I thought I'd transcribe it here too:

March 8th: first sail of the season on the Lonnie Bruner II. Sadly, no pictures, but do have my whomper (185 genoa) in my basement with an 8-foot rip in it. Damn, I always fly that thing when there's too much wind and the boat is heeling over at 25 degrees and the weather helm is working my flabby, winter-starved muscles.

It was a good quick sail -- not another sailboat on the water, just a small fleet of crabbing boats heading for Galesville for some reason.

And this winter was hard on the boat. My depthfinder transducer is broken off, the CD player got waterlogged and don't work, the head intake valve froze up and broke, and now this 8-foot tear in my most powerful sail.

I gotta say, I like sailing better in warm weather. In the fall, I quite like the colder weather coming on and the hot bowl of Dinty Moore cooking in the cabin while the leaves blow by, but I really love seeing other boats on the water, catching crabs at the dock, and trolling my two lines in hopes of catching a rockfish for dinner. All that's just around the corner right now.

And I hope I can pull together everyone for my annual guys' trip. I'm having some difficulty coordinating the usual suspects to commit to a weekend in May, but it'll work itself out -- even if I have to take everyone out sans toilet or radio or big whomping genoa sail.

My wife's cousin works at a Northeast Washington DC public charter school and she sent me this internet GOLD today. This lengthy note was found on the floor of a 3rd grade classroom. Luckily the teacher saw its worth and scanned and emailed for posterity.

Here we have a 90-point list of "Types of Bitches" -- unfortunately, page 4 is lost. It speaks for itself:







In case you can't read the above, it says:

Types of Bitches

1) Dirty dumb assbitches
2) aint got no ass bitches
3) Dusty trick bitches
4) Fishy bitches
5) dont know how to figh bitches
6) got all that mouth but cant step bitches
7) ugly looking bitch that think they all that.
8) cant keep a man bitch
9) track wearing bitches
10) bitches that be trying to steal your man.
11) hoche looking bitches
12) aint got no damn sense bitches
13) stupid bitches that act dumb
14) bitches who can only get a dirty boy
15) want to be jocking bitches
16) bitches who think their man love them but get pregnent be left alone
17) bitches who thing they better than me
18) inste geting bitches
19) Talking behind your back bitches
20) loud mouth bitches
21) pissy bitches
22) stingy bitches
23) Funky looking bitches
24) Short hair bitches
25) Spanish bitches who think they all that cause of their hair
26) Bitches that be ignoring you when they know they can hear you.
27) Staring in your face bitches
28) big eyed looking bitches
29) crazy bitches
30) napy tender headed bitches
31) booty shorts wearing bitches
32) Coast signing bitches
33) dick riding bitches
34) whiped bitches
35) buck tooth bitches
36) Chesesy teeth bitches
37) Same wearing clothes each day bitches
38) getto bitches
39) hair dying bitches
40) Wearing shoes that be talking bitches
41) bitches who think they hard
42) bitches that think they get money
43) bitches that go to a dirty school
59) Gay bitches
60) Stanky fishy coche smelling bitches
61) tom boy bitches
62) Stain on your pants bitches
63) dry scap dandruf bitches
64) drity hair bitches
65) Stealing bitches
66) Stinky feet Bitches
67) big gap bitches
68) protecting their store bitches
69) pajamas out side bitches
70) ragly braid bitches
71) Stanky but bitches
72) greedy bitches
73) Slimy girmy bitches
74) Phyco bitches
75) drug dealing bitches
76) geeken bitches
77) Suntanning bitches
78) goofy looking bitches
79) triflin bitches
80) Skankishy bitches
81) mugging bitches
82) Sloppy bitches
83) dirty fingernails bitches
84) dirty sock wearing bitches
85) un creative bitches
86) White bitches that think black people poor
87) Concetied bitches
88) tall bitches
89) Short bitches
90) Jelous bitches

Think about a time when you ordered something from a company and you received the wrong product in the mail, or Fedex messed up the shipment somehow. Most likely, this was a small item, like clothes from the Gap, computer parts, or a used book on Amazon. Probably made you irate, and was annoying to deal with because you had to return the shipment and you lost time dealing with it waiting for the product you actually wanted.