Wonder if they will serve Ham at the Hanukkah reception?

LET SANTA LIGHT THE MENORAH

WHITE HOUSE IN HANUKKAH TREE GAFFE

From the New York Post

Merry Hanukkah from the White House!

The president and the first lady invited leaders of America's Jewish community for a Hanukkah reception at the White House next month - but raised more than a few eyebrows by putting a picture of a Christmas tree on the invitation.

The message reads that the couple "requests the pleasure of your company at a Hanukkah reception," written beneath an image of a Clydesdale horse hauling a Christmas fir along the snow-dappled drive to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

read whole story here

Dig the Dems...

Hello. From time to time, I will be reporting from the roadways of America: truckstops, Wal-Marts, and Applebee's will be thoroughly douched. Their bathroom graffito shows an overwhelming bias against gays and Obama most recently. The Heartland may be unjust, but, in the cold room of comedy, we warm ourselves by a little fire of truth. Cheers.

-Did anyone ever accuse Jimmy Carter of having “pee-nuts” in his pants after he went to the urinal?

-Bill Clinton didn’t inhale? Come on. Liars are common, but BAD liars should be stoned to death.

-Lyndon Johnson donated his body to a 96 ouncer steak house? Who knew? No one? Delicious.

-Michael Dukakis once tucked his junk into his trunk and sat cross-legged on a wooden barstool, rocking from cheek to cheek until well past midnight--all done in the name of Charity. Is she back in town?

-While in ‘Nam, John Kerry supposedly contracted a taste for monkey. Stewed, pickled, or raw…with lots of ketchup.

-Did you know that FDR declared war on the Axis powers, not because of Pearl Harbor, but because Hitler had criticized his posture?

-“Joe” Lieberman? More like Benedict Arnold Lieberman.

-“Who killed the Kennedy’s? Well after all, it was you and me.” Mick Jagger should really stop including us.

-Al Gore…his name sounds like a cheap Italian horror film.

-It’s little known that Hubert Humphrey’s tongue was barely long enough to lick his wounds.

-Hillary Clinton is a real stand-up lady, that is until she sits down…on her throne of bitterness.

-John Edwards put his head in-between someone else’s legs, and magically kissed his own ass goodbye.

-Walter Mondale is to George McGovern, what Woodrow Wilson is to an opium pipe.

-If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton both fell out of an acorn tree, which one would become upset and try to cut its nuts off?

-Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi, we are told, are from this planet. Both represent California in the U.S. legislative branch. So…what if they had a shower scene together in a women’s penitentiary movie? And then while they were knocked out during a riot, a scientist switched their brains, and hearts, and genitalia with those of two skinny hens? And then Gay marriage was only allowed in El Pollo Loco. Delicious.

-Betting dollars to donuts Howard Dean feels like the blunt instrument used in a botched nation-wide prostate exam.

-Sen. Robert Byrd of WV, once a dues paying KKK member (no joke), has been in office since 1-3-59. That’s 50 FUCKIN YEARS!! This year let’s hope he finally passes something…a bill, a stone, some gas, or just away into the clouds with his oldness.

-Someone tell Joe Biden he’s got to stop making so many obscure work-out videos. The Delaware Deltoid was painful to watch.

-From a scientific vantage, it was interesting to observe Gary Hart’s political career implode like a bottle of Viagra ejected into deep space.

-Harry Truman, as vice president, had heard others before him mention the VP job to be unworthy of “warm piss” or “warm spit”. Truman quickly sent out his own rejoinder, “Indubitably droll. Sirs, the piss and spit gab stops here.”

-[Scene 1 (office/DAY)

Boss: I wouldn’t hire Tom Daschle to lick my postage stamps!

Secretary: Well, hows about to kiss your pimply ass then?

Boss: Only if he has soft health-insured lips.

End scene.]

-Who’s left, Barack Obama? Nothing funny about that guy…not unless he has one half of the White House painted black.

Next time...Liberals.

In honor of....

Barack Obama Elementary School....already!?!?!?!?!


In related news....

Voters Flush George W. Bush Sewage Plant Proposition, Ruin Backers’ Plans for Double-Entendre-Laden Victory Speech

By Joe Eskenazi - sfweekly.com

Gathered in front of a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln conveniently sitting, yet leaning forward – not unlike someone in the midst of utilizing the toilet – backers of a proposition to rename a Parkside sewage plant after President George W. Bush waited out a cold night.

While Barack Obama stormed to victory and re-defined the term “blue state,” there was no joy in sewageville. When all the dust – we’ll assume it was dust – settled, they’d lost by roughly a 70-30 ratio.

This came as a blow to Bob Katz, who flew in all the way from Florida to be here for what he assumed would be the Proposition R victory party. Katz had been telling anyone who’d listen how a sewage plant should be named after the president for years, so when he found out such a plan was in the works in San Francisco, he enthusiastically lent his support.

Brian McConnell and Michael Jacinto, the proposition’s co-authors, weren’t ready to retrace their steps yet. But Jacinto noted that the Public Utility Commission’s oft-repeated estimate of $50,000 in city money to accommodate the name change was “pulled out of their posterior,” while both men were surprised at the Guardian and others rationalizing that christening a sewage plant after the president would be disrespectful to its employees – after all, the SEIU Local 1021, the sewage workers’ union, endorsed their proposition.

Peaches Christ, the Prop’s spokeswoman – and a basketball player-sized drag queen – was bummed, but kept things in perspective. “If Prop R passed it’d have been neat and fun, but I don’t think there are any tears being shed,” she said. “If it had passed I had a speech planned. And [now] I’m heading to the Castro to party.”

Not all of the folks gathered near the Abe Lincoln statue voted for the proposition -- or even knew about it. Barbara Coleman said Bush didn't deserve the honor of having anything named after him.

"He done fucked the country up. What I want is for him to pack up his shit and get his ass out of the White House so Barack Obama can move in -- tonight!"

Jacinto and McConnell quietly puffed on cigarettes and sipped from clandestine beers in the shadow of city hall. “We gave it the college try,” noted Jacinto, a city planner when he’s not writing ballot propositions. “We got our message out far and wide to get people thinking about George W. Bush’s legacy.”

It was a thought many voters probably shared on a night when Bush and his ideological companions were flushed down the drain.

full story here

Heavy-Metal Attack on China's Venom/Lead Free Society

from BBC News

China has dismissed the new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, as a "venomous attack" on the nation.

An article in the Global Times, published by the ruling communist party, says the album, launched this week, "turns its spear point on China".

Made In China?

The title track of the album, which has not been released in China because of the sensitive material, refers to the banned Falun Gong spiritual group. The album's official website has also been blocked in China. Chinese Democracy is the band's first album since their covers collection The Spaghetti Incident? in 1993.

On the title track, lead singer Axl Rose sings: "If your great wall rocks, blame yourself."
Artwork for the album includes the oil painting Red Star by Beijing artist Shi Lifeng - which depicts Chinese people as powerless.

Photographs of the Chinese military and the Hong Kong skyline also feature in the artwork.
When asked about the record, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told the BBC's James Reynolds: "According to my knowledge, a lot of people don't like this kind of music because it's too noisy and too loud."

China frequently bans the release of foreign films and albums, although they often appear in pirated form and are sold in shops and by street vendors. Live performances are also closely monitored with artists forced to supply set lists for approval in advance. In July, the Chinese government said that any foreign entertainers who had attended events threatening "national sovereignty" would be banned from the country. The ministry of culture said that any artists that "whip up ethnic hatred" during shows would also be banned. The announcement came after Bjork shouted "Tibet, Tibet" at a Shanghai concert in March.

Brother George and Sister Sarah are both coming to Thanksgiving dinner!

The sideshow continues to be strung along one injection at a time. The most recent injection occurring on Thursday as Sarah Palin ceremonially pardoned a turkey in Wasilla, AK. This being the intended spectacle, provided a sound foundation for the real, unintended spectacle. The intensional being her mandatory show of light-hearted governing where her words farted out of the corner of her half crocked smile and some witnesses surely played involuntarily in their heads, "All turkeys are created equal, but some are more equal than others...." Palin then injected the MYTH further by fielding questions from reporters as the 'less equal' turkeys were sentenced to the guillotine in the background. *wink* *wink*

What is this MYTH? The myth that she has any shred of competence. A myth that surely only she believes anymore. So now comes the question, with a nation, or actually a world of non-believers surrounding her, why are these injections fueling the buzz of fascination so potent? Her family holds the answer. No, this family is not her snow machine humping husband or the five clones of themselves they've popped out into this world. I'm referring to her political family. And one only has to look as far as her brother, George W. Bush for reference. He too has had his fun with turkeys.

Brother George and Sister Sarah have a little less to be thankful for this year. George will leave the worst presidential legacy in American history. Topping Hoover, topping LBJ, with not only an economy in the shitter–soggy stuffing, but an unpopular war as garnish–sour cranberry salad. Sarah saw her one chance at a national political career slip away by her poor masking of her own incomptence. Think of it as the Brussell Sprout Casserole that lacked all deflecting ingredients leaving all of America with nothing but the after taste of rotten mini-cabbage heads. 

However in January it will be Mr. Obama's chance to put on the bib and pull himself up to the table to dig into the results of right-wing extremists tinkering in the kitchen. Never trust a skinny cook but more importantly, never trust an oblivious religion-exploiting war-mongering cook.

Why do we still pay attention to these folks? Well, with the same fascination that prods us to laugh at relatives who have a little too much Thanksgiving wine resulting in an unfortunate fall down the stairs at Grandma's house, we all love, love, love, with the utmost affection, a good old fashioned family train-wreck. And no matter how much we'd like to disown them, Brother George and Sister Sarah have that same American blood trickling through their veins as we do. Ah, family.

A Time to Invest in Shoulder Pads?

2025: the end of US dominance

The United States' leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being "taken over and run by criminal networks".
The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama's intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to "call the shots" alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane.
Looking ahead to 2025, the NIC (which coordinates analysis from all the US intelligence agencies), foresees a fragmented world, where conflict over scarce resources is on the rise, poorly contained by "ramshackle" international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict grow more likely.
"Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed" warns that the spread of western democratic capitalism cannot be taken for granted, as it was by George Bush and America's neoconservatives.
"No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term," the report warns.
It adds: "Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control," giving the examples of China and Russia.
"In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world."
At the same time, the US will become "less dominant" in the world – no longer the unrivalled superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War, but a "first among equals" in a more fluid and evenly balanced world, making the unilateralism of the Bush era no longer tenable.
The report predicts that over the next two decades "the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships."
It is a conclusion that meshes with president elect Obama's stated preference for multilateralism, but the NIC findings suggest that as the years go by it could be harder for Washington to put together "coalitions of the willing" to pursue its agenda.
International organisations, like the UN, seem ill-prepared to fill the vacuum left by receding American power, at a time of multiple potential crises driven by climate change the increasing scarcity of resources like oil, food and water. Those institutions "appear incapable of rising to the challenges without concerted efforts from their leaders" it says.
In an unusually graphic illustration of a possible future, the report presents an imaginary "presidential diary entry" from October 1, 2020, that recounts a devastating hurricane, fuelled by global warming, hitting New York in the middle of the UN's annual general assembly.
"I guess we had it coming, but it was a rude shock," the unnamed president writes. "Some of the scenes were like the stuff from the World War II newsreels, only this time it was not Europe but Manhattan. Those images of the US aircraft carriers and transport ships evacuating thousands in the wake of the flooding still stick in my mind."
As he flies off for an improvised UN reception on board an aircraft carrier, the imaginary future president admits: "The cumulation of disasters, permafrost melting, lower agricultural yields, growing health problems, and the like are taking a terrible toll, much greater than we anticipated 20 years ago."
The last time the NIC published its quadrennial glimpse into the future was December 2004. President Bush had just been re-elected and was preparing his triumphal second inauguration that was to mark the high-water mark for neoconservatism. That report matched the mood of the times.
It was called Mapping the Global Future, and looked forward as far as 2020 when it projected "continued US dominance, positing that most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US".
That confidence is entirely lacking from this far more sober assessment. Also gone is the belief that oil and gas supplies "in the ground" were "sufficient to meet global demand". The new report views a transition to cleaner fuels as inevitable. It is just the speed that is in question.
The NIC believes it is most likely that technology will lag behind the depletion of oil and gas reserves. A sudden transition, however, will bring problems of its own, creating instability in the Gulf and Russia.
While emerging economies like China, India and Brazil are likely to grow in influence at America's expense, the same cannot be said of the European Union. The NIC appears relatively certain the EU will be "losing clout" by 2025. Internal bickering and a "democracy gap" separating Brussels from European voters will leave the EU "a hobbled giant", unable to translate its economic clout into global influence.
Disaster diary
An imaginary diary entry written by a future US president, produced to illustrate a climate-change disaster:
Those images of US aircraft carriers evacuating thousands in the wake of flooding stick in my mind. Why must the hurricane season coincide with the UN general assembly in New York?
It's bad enough that this had to happen; it was doubly embarrassing that half the world's leaders were here to witness it. I guess the problem is we had counted on this not happening, at least not yet.
• Read the full National Intelligence Council global trends review (pdf)

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 20 2008 19.05 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/barack-obama-president-intelligence-agency

REAL PIRATES! YES!

Here's some back story on the Somali pirates. Whether you are rooting for them or not; whether you believe they are demanding ransom as payment for many years of environmental abuse on their coastline by big corporations or they are just taking the money for themselves or their people; one has to admit this is a fascinating story. And if nothing else good comes out of it, at least this story is raising more awareness about corporate abuse on developing nations.

_____________________________
From Al Jazeera......
Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste.

The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years", Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for the pirates, based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said.

"The Somali coastline has been destroyed, and we believe this money is nothing compared to the devastation that we have seen on the seas."

The pirates are holding the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and military hardware, off Somalia's northern coast.

According to the International Maritime Bureau, 61 attacks by pirates have been reported since the start of the year.

While money is the primary objective of the hijackings, claims of the continued environmental destruction off Somalia's coast have been largely ignored by the regions's maritime authorities.

Read the whole story