Things that make you go WTF?!?!?...

As I was driving home from work yesterday along the tree-lined streets of my hood, this car in front of me caught my eye.

While a Prius is not by any means a terribly unusual sight in Alexandria - Hell, there's three or four on my block alone - this one was different. Oh so very, very different.

What? You can't see it in this picture? Let me blow it up for you...(it's clickable if you want a really good view)

Do you see what I see? Yeah, that's a Prius with a Palin bumper sticker. Isn't that like matter and anti-matter? Good and evil? Intelligence and American Idol? Chocolate and peanut butter? (Oh, wait, strike that last one, I got carried away).

Shouldn't this combination cause some kind of massive conflagration as one obliterates the other? A microscopic supernova (femtonova??) in Del Ray?

Seriously? As crunchy as owning a hybrid is, and as smug and pretentious as their owners can be (some, not all), it's still a good choice for a car when it comes to lowering the carbon footprint. But then you go and ruin all that good karma by supporting a deluded, vacuous demagogue like Sarah Palin?

I weep for the future.

Grab your torches and pitchforks

Anyone up for a walk down to the Hill tomorrow night? I'm wondering if looking out their windows and seeing something like this:

might inspire our elected representatives to put aside their petty differences and actually do the People's business. Seriously, do you think we'd get our point across if we surrounded Capitol Hill with people carrying torches and pitchforks? And just stared.

Really hard.

The people we need to get through to are the ones in the middle - no matter how small it is these days. There should be just enough of them to balance out the idiots on the fringes of the left and right to actually get together and actually Pass. The fucking. Budget!

This situation is ridiculous. We are the laughingstock of the world right now. A hard look does need to be taken at the entire budget, but not this one - this year is already shot, just pay the fucking bills and move on. And probably not the next one either - not enough time left to get that done. Now the 2013 budget that's a whole 'nother question. It needs to be looked at now. All of it: Defense, entitlements, social programs, pork. Especially the pork. Get out the knives and start cutting. When we - as a country - owe the world more than $14 trillion we can't even think about a tax cut. I don't care if you believe with all your heart that it will stimulate business. As my dad reminded me and my brothers growing up when we asked for something expensive "We can't afford it."

The 535 "representatives of the People" need to pull their heads out and remember that while they represent the 500k or so people in their individual districts, they work for all of us. And all of us are a bit pissed right now.

And they can be replaced. All of them. And they probably should be.

Here endeth the rant.

Equal time for mocking the left

Don't ever let it be said I'm afraid to dish it out to stupid democrats.

Have you seen the footage of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) ranting on the House floor yesterday? The first 45 or so seconds of this clip are pretty funny, he really goes a bit insane:



So let me get this straight Mr. Kennedy you, a member of Congress, are ripping the media? You, a member of a profession - if you want to call politics a profession - held in lower regard than the media, are ripping them for giving ink and air to another lying, disgraced, former member of your august body? You who have admitted to abusing illegal drugs and recently crashed your car into the anti-terror barriers of the Capitol while under the influence of prescription drugs then avoided responsibility by running off to rehab? Why should they bother taking anything you say as important and then wasting their time reporting it?

I'm willing to bet that while there are only two members of the media in the House chamber, they're probably not outnumbered by elected officials by very much. In fact, I'd bet that besides you, Mr. Kennedy, there may, may if you're lucky, be two or three other House members in that chamber.

And, if you didn't notice the little AP bug down there, The Associated Press was there. It covers you and your colleagues for the rest of the media so they don't have to waste their time listening to useless speeches. So you're just playing to the C-SPAN and Associated Press cameras, and you know this you coke-snorting, pill-popping drama queen.

The shallow end of the N.C. gene pool

I generally read/glance at the headlines of a couple of newspapers Web sites every day. A couple of the papers are ones I’ve worked for, others are from places of interest in my work and the others are from places I’ve lived.

It’s this third group, as an adopted son of the Old North State, I’m going to address today. Here’s a headline I was greeted with at www.newsobser.com:

"McHenry's initiative: Put Reagan on $50 bill"

Yes, yes my friends, Patrick McHenry, another Reagan-worshipping legislator has weighed in. Instead of President Ulysses S. Grant who, you know, LED THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC TO VICTORY IN THE CIVIL WAR!, McHenry would prefer our 40th president, Ronald Reagan.

Don’t get me wrong, the Great Communicator wasn’t a bad president in my opinion, and I should know. Unlike the gentleman (using this term ver, ver loosely) from the Tar Heel state (yep, two words: Tar Heel), I was able to read when Ronnie was elected in 1980.

Reagan’s presidency lasted from years 5 through 13 of the 34-year-old McHenry’s life. So it may be understandable, although not really since he's a fucking U.S. representative, that he wouldn’t know that while Reagan was a good president, he doesn’t come close to being a great president. Grant wasn’t a great president either, but he was a much, much more important figure in American history.

In McHenry’s own words: “Every generation needs its own heroes. One decade into the 21st century, it’s time to honor the last great president of the 20th and give President Reagan a place beside Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy.”

Moron.

The N&O points out: “President Franklin Roosevelt’s likeness is on the dime, and President John F. Kennedy’s is on the half-dollar.” I feel I should point out that both of the presidents he mentions here died in office, so Reagan does have that in common with them. Oh, wait a minute. I meant their brains stopped functioning in office, so that’s the common factor. (Also, strangely, they’re both democrats).

Basically, the guy’s too stupid to pull the names Jackson ($20) and Franklin ($100, and not a president Rep. McHenry in case you’re reading) off the top of his head.

Among things named Reagan are a building, aircraft carrier and an airport. I don’t think we need to slap his face on the fifty.

The genetic wading pool is warm for a reason
Another of North Carolina’s mentally challenged reps, Tim D’Annunzio, has laid out a platform that calls for abolishing much of the federal government. According to the N&O: The plan states, in part: "Abolish the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, and Home Land [sic] Security. Any duties remaining that are Constitutional should be rolled into other Departments.”

I was all set to mock him, and then I found his blog. So, so much material here that I can’t go on. I only took a glance, but I’ve gotta read through it to do it justice.

But here’s a preview from D’Annunzio’s blog, “I don’t just hope the Obama fails, I pray many times a day for it.”

Classy dude. Pray for the failure of the president. And you call yourself an American.

I can’t wait. I’m feeling my political mojo returning.