Whiskey Fire

Burning Flag Birthday Suit

I've never much hidden my overall dislike of the US constitution.

As a general rule, large groups of upper class Englishmen are incapable of producing anything except a bunch of crap you can never clean up properly, and the Founding Fathers were nothing if not upper class Englishmen, and hence, hateful twerps.

That an allegedly free people cannot stop unironically using puerile, self-abasing terms like "the Founding Fathers" speaks to our to our perdurable national mania for tongue-bathing obvious moral degenerates as long as they have some type of "patriotic" pedigree. That an allegedly free people cannot put a stake through the rotten heart of such vampiric malignancies as the Electoral College, the Senate, and (shudder) New Jersey speaks to the undeniably ossifying effect of our continued braindead, onanistic adoration of a shoddy, slapdash, cloddishly compromise document written by a gang of wig-wearing, fractious, syphilitic, slaveowning dickheads.

So much is clear, uncontroversial, and refreshingly devoid of hyperbole.

Hence I found this op-ed in the NYT more than a little surprising, yet quite welcome.

AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

Shit yes!

To quibble, "evil" is useless as an analytical criterion, so I'd pinch-hit "undemocratic" for "downright evil." But the rest is unexceptionable.

Not kidding here, either. There is an intense censorship effect in Our Free Society against the idea that it is at all fair game to, of all things, think critically about the US constitution. This to me is the most interesting part of Seidman's piece:

Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is.

Bold mine.

You're just not supposed to think of the constitution as something certain people thought of and put into practice in specific historical circumstances. Even though that is all that it is. It is not Holy Writ, and to think of it as such is one of the following: childish, wicked, or dickish.

Childish.

I like liberty and the Constitution is its bulwark.

Wicked.

And if the Constitution is this obsolete and “evil,” then maybe secession isn’t off the table after all? . . . .

Dickish.

I big strong go boom-boom. (Paraphrasing)

Because democracy demands that if you wonder why Wyoming has the exact same Senate representation as a state where people live voluntarily, you've just peed on Jefferson's grave.

I would cheerfully pee on Jefferson's grave. And on Wyoming.

MAS. PowerTools provides the definitive case for why you can't entrust the defense of a stupid church to its halfwit clergy.

But the Founders built well, knowing that the Constitution—the documentary embodiment of the Rule of Law replacing the Rule of Man (or Rule of the King, as practical matters had it in the 1780s)—would work only if it became an object of reverence in place of a monarch among the people.

As a matter of history, this is fanciful garbage. As a matter of exemplifying modern "conservatism" as nothing more, or less, than dickless, vaginaless, mindless, conformist idolatry... well done, PowerLine!

I mean...

Hence most constitutional law professors treat the Constitution as a plaything from which to extract whatever outcome they want.

Because, you'll never catch out a "conservative" jurist ever doing anything of the sort.

These fuckers, they snort what they sell, and then they tell you, like butter wouldn't melt, that their powdery nostrils and red-rimmed crazy eyes simply prove that they so very dearly love the Jelly Doughnuts of Freedom.

 

 

This I Believe

If you look at the current state of the economy and conclude that old people have too much to eat, you're an asshole.

Classic Dumb

One of the most enduring yet stupidest bits of fake-argument garbage is "the government politician workers get paid too much dagnabit." Hello Weekly Standard! Joe Biden gets a "cool" 6K a year raise, that is communism.

And the timing isn't great either: Just as President Obama and Congress try to avert going over the "fiscal cliff," he doles out pay increases to federal workers.

Yeah, that sucks ass. Federal workers should be paid by getting routinely kicked in the crotch. Just like private workers!

Public employees, federal, state, and local, should be getting pay raises, and we should have hired tons more of that. If we'd done that a few years ago, depression over.

But we can't do that because bullshit.

The Point!

Here is the entire extent of the wingnut grasp on Civility:

"Here are thoroughly random individuals on the Other Side saying Bad Things. This scores us many Civility Points. Hence, we are right about the Estate Tax, excuse us, Death Tax."

Nuts.

Tweety: Liberal Hero!

The things you learn. Apparently, Chris Matthews is a Liberal Icon.

Matthews symbolized MSNBC's growing comfort in being a liberal alternative to Fox News Channel. He engaged in an uncomfortable on-air confrontation with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, seemed nearly apoplectic when President Barack Obama flubbed his first debate and had to apologize for appearing grateful that Hurricane Sandy might have helped Obama's re-election effort.

With Keith Olbermann out of sight, Matthews essentially replaced him as the commentator that most annoyed conservative viewers.

Chris Matthews is the liberal alternative to, well, anything? How surprising. I personally have always considered Matthews a shouty shithead.

Though of course in the carnival world that is cable news, Matthews is a "liberal statesman," and the opposite of"conservative statesman" Sean Hannity.

Hooray!

It's all very depressing. Get a load of this:

"During the run-up to the Iraq War, he just became really, really partisan and became even more so when MSNBC decided to become the anti-Fox," said Geoff Dickens, who used to watch Matthews as a fan and now monitors him regularly as part of his job with the conservative Media Research Center.

"During the run-up to the Iraq war," and during that bullshit,  Matthews was a cheerleader for that stupid war. I was there! Here, Mission Accomplished.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

Like, what a tit.

And then the misogyny.

Let the record show that Chris Matthews is a fucking imbecile, never mind the dingbats.

Certain Web-Sites Are As the Knocks of Beggarmen

And ought not be minded.

Shocking Political News That Will Shock You

Shockingly, to win statewide office in New York, it turns out that a candidate need to be against the idea that one ought to be able to readily purchase a machine capable of the bulk elimination of schoolchildren.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand vigorously championed Americans’ right to carry high-powered guns — before she turned against them.

Since the Newtown massacre, the senator has been at the forefront of the national campaign demanding stricter gun-control laws — including her own legislation to prevent gun trafficking....

“I think gun owners probably view her in ways they view Mitt Romney. How do you trust someone when they change their stance and politics?” said Richard Feldman, head of the Independent Firearms Owners Association.

Truth. I confidently predict that this flip-flop has completely destroyed any hope Gillibrand may have nursed of winning the 2016 Republican primaries.

Merry Birdmas!

Pileated Woodpecker:



Carolina Wren:


White-breasted Nuthatches:


And a Happy Orb Year!




(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)
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THE FUCKING QUAKERS HAVE BAZOOKAS

HOLY SHIT

The NBC host would go on the rest of the segment to suggest that armed guards might not be effective in preventing mass murders at school. Which is perhaps an interesting theoretical argument.

But when it comes to Gregory's own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.

The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends.

According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.

Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well.

WE SHOULD ALL FUCKING DO THAT

ALL THE QUAKER TEACHERS SHOULD HAVE FUCKING BAZOOKAS = THAT IS FUCKING SAFE!!!!!!

Smutty Limericks and Socialism: Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

Breaking News: Erik Loomis continues to not be fired. This has been reported by one "Oliver Darcy," pictured.

But of course there are even greater threats than Loomis out there. For reals. Believe it. There is, for instance, Alessandro Porco of UNC-Wilmington, who has published poetry. Or even worse: poetry verse.

The University of North Carolina-Wilmington has hired an English literature professor whose pornographic poetry verse include fantasies of sexual relations with freshmen female students, an education watchdog reported this week.

In Prof. Alessandro Porco’s poem “Hot Girl-Girl Action University” the fictional university president Jill Kelly offers a welcome to the freshman class.

“Who would say No to a gang-bang?
Who would say No to Prof. Poon-Tang?
Who would say No to my scholarly toungin’?
Thank you fathers for your daughters.”

That poem is part The Jill Kelly Poems, ranked 3,963,932 on Amazon, which chronicles the life of a porn star through poetry.

In an interview on PopMatters.com, Porco describes it as “my book-length ode to the adult-film star affectionately referred to as ‘the anal queen.”

Another of Porco's sexually explicit pieces included in The Jill Kelly Poems is “Ars Poetica.”

“Breakfast in bed & down on all fours;
You’re eggs-over-easy, muchin’ for more.
Vegans protest & brand it obscene;
But there’s no starving my anal queen.”

In another collection, Augustine in Carthage, Porco included what he describes as the “21 of the filthiest limericks I could think to write.”

Jay Shalin, of the watchdog group the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy pointed out the controversial hiring in an opinion piece earlier this week and argued that parents should be wary of placing their young adults in the classroom with Porco.

Indizzle. Likewise,

J. Joyce rakes hell, and the sewers, for dirt to throw at the fair face of life, and for poison to make beauty shrivel and die.... and Dr. Yeats undertakes that no citizen of Dublin shall fail to know his name. In season or out of season he has proclaimed him a genius... But there have been geniuses who have wallowed in the mire before, though any quite equally foul-minded, who shall say?

1. I have never heard of Porco until these idiots trying to get him fired brought him up. Now I'll buy one of his books. If it's good, I have read good poems. If it sucks, I have pissed off a dink. I win.

2. I don't know if Porco is as good as Joyce or Yeats; probably not, but who knows? Saying "you can't go there" and actually making it stick has not as of yet worked as far as discovering genius goes. Quite the opposite.

3. The "taxpayer" argument is ridiculous. I pay my taxes and consider dropping bombs on foreigners for obscure and probably counterproductive purposes "obscene." You have your priorities, I have mine. Yay America!

4. Also, Yeats got Joyce a modest payment from the Civil List; in the long run, totting it all up, that worked out to a tidy long-term public profit that is still paying dividends and is likely to do so for centuries to come.

5. It is inane and offensive for anyone to say that Porco is unfit to teach because of what he writes. He freely and openly produces poetry. Lots of folks, in the public and private sectors, consume pornography. And what he does isn't even pornographic -- you'd have to go to court there to prove strictly prurient intent, and good luck with that. (St. Augustine? Even in this decadent age... people masturbate to poetry among all available options? Really? Really?)

6. My "impressionable offspring" will, when they are of the age to encounter Mr. Porco, be old enough to handle college. If they aren't, I won't send them there, and I will likely also deny them the use of forks without corks affixed to the tines.

7. That said, I personally deplore foulmouthed limericks.