Happy Halloween!

My favorite holiday, bar none!

Here’s one of the great street parties I once attended and here is more on it; la, la, la. While there exist real, fucked-up freaks everywhere, and truly disturbing people always about, at least for one night we can appear to be crazier than them.

(And no, I won’t tell you who I went as this year.)

Light some candles... arrange some pumpkins, and pray and hold faith for the redemption of the monster our country has become.

Just Because

A cat after my own heart. Have a drink on me!

Photo courtesy icanhascheezburger

“Mammon Over God”

To nation’s relief, Religious Right racketeers lose influence

And so it has come to pass, finally. The fall of the right wing’s great Hypocritical Hate Machine, and at the hands of Rudy! himself, no less.

Backing a loser, they know, would even further diminish their waning Washington status in a post-Rove, post-Bush G.O.P. The more they shed their illusion of power, the more they imperil their ability to rake in big bucks from their apocalyptic direct-mail campaigns. They must choose mammon over God if they are to maintain the many values rackets that make up their various business empires.

Frank Rich has the details.

Quiz Time

What breed of liberal are you?

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

h/t: Tristero

Beware of The Blob

Mass of toxic sludge a perfect metaphor

A friend who shares the same politics and I were talking the other day about what image, what photograph, could best sum up the current administration when the sad, inevitable day arrives that either of us are forced to explain to some inquiring kid about what the hell happened to America in the last eight years. It wasn’t that the photo had to be specifically related to something the adminstration had done, per se, or been directly involved with (though its penchant for extreme secrecy and malice precludes ever ruling that possibility out), but a single image that conveyed all that needed to be said about this presidency. There was this, or perhaps this. My friend thought this would be as good a candidate as any.

And then, lo and behold, the always great Mark Morford appeared and tipped the country off about this. A 1,500 mile-wide, rank, shapeless mass of putrid junk—a floating landfill—far out in the Pacific Ocean; an amorphous blob composed mainly of the plastic ephemera we throw away that traveled from land to sea to end up as this giant clump of toxic nastiness so foul, so unnatural, that Mother Nature herself had to banish it out into the farthest reaches of the open ocean.

It was then we both decided that this thing, this revolting ugly mass, was the perfect metaphor for the Cheney administration and all the misery it had caused. Some things are just too much for a single photo.

What in the hell Is Wrong With These People?

Rightwing bloggers go off the rails

Update: Tom Tomorrow, as always, nails it.

So, let’s see; it’s now acceptable among the eye-bulging, froth-spewing Right to attack a seriously injured twelve-year-old boy and his little sister if their parents have the effrontery to make use of a government program designed explicitly to help people precisely in their situation.

I could link to various blogs, Michelle Malkin’s first among them, to make a point, but neither she nor any of them deserve the traffic. They’ve been given, via the intertubes, enough rope to hang themselves and I’m certainly not going to contribute to exposing anyone to their brand of hateful, toxic waste. There was a time (I came of age in the ’80’s) when people like Malkin and her mouthbreathing followers were called the “fringe”; respectable newspapers and magazines saw their letters as the ravings that they were and tossed them where they belonged: in the trash can beside the desk, and that was that.

Now, however, everyone has the power of the press online (provided anyone reads what you have to say). This is a good thing, considering the authoritarian direction our government has been sliding into in recent years, but as human nature dictates, there’s always a nasty underside. Hence Malkin and Townhall’s attempts (no links provided as I’m not going to give them credence) to demonize this little boy in order to keep their own bizarre version of “reality” true. Everything is falling apart around them and the desperation is setting in.

I’ve often said online and in conversation: these are hideous people, worthy of nothing but contempt.

The always terrific Eric Boehlert has the defining word on the subject.

Congratulations

America’s real President wins Nobel Peace Prize.

You didn’t honestly think, though, that the press would be mature and gracious about this, did you?

Photo: AP/Wilfredo Lee. Courtesy Salon.