This Land

As well as le quatorze juillet, today is Woody Guthrie's hundredth birthday, or would be if he were alive, or something. Wevs.

Use your guitar or other machine to kill a fascist money-grubber.
LOCAL ACTION UPDATE (1405PDT 15 July 2012): The Woodman in L.A.

Today In Total Buffoonery

Via Political Wire, a state Senate candidate in Iowa has ended her campaign. Nothing too unusual there, except that she quit because she was appointed as a United States Senator.

In a letter dated July 4, the candidate, Randi Shannon of Coralville, argued that the legitimate federal government of the United States was replaced by illegitimate “corporate” government in 1871 and has been operating since then in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

She learned this fact just recently, she said, and has come to believe it after months of research.

Dropping her bid for state office was a rejection of that illegitimate government. Now, she said she has been appointed to serve as a U.S. senator in the recently revived and constitutionally legitimate Republic of the United States of America. She was placed in the office, she said, by Iowa’s four U.S. House members in the “Republic” government.

OK, not exactly an official or legitimate United States. These look like a literal United Snakes. Here is Senator Shannon's letter announcing her appointment. And here is candidate Shannon's web site.

The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law, administered by representatives who are Constitutionally elected by the citizens. In such a Republic all Life, Liberty and Property are protected because law rules.

Got it?

Uh Oh

This flight path from LAX has been making us a bit nervous since the mid-'80s when we worked downtown & first wondered why that sucker was so low. Events in 2001 haven't lessened our worry any.

There Goes The Light

Bomb Run

We were just reminded (via the ball game on the telebision) that the big deal w/ Hangar 1™ Wodka is that it is "made in California in a real airplane hanger." In Alameda, to be specific.

Yeah, that & a fucking blimp have sold us.

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet!

We don't give enough of a shit even to link to any of our previous Bastille Day items. Find 'em yourself if you care, although a more useful observation of the event would be to kill an aristocrat or noble. Or the king.

Sky And The City

A Multitude Of Faces

Not even the contrarians at Slate can spew "Both sides do it!" when confronted w/ Romney's dog-whistling, fudging, & coded messages decipherable only through a seer stone.

Dog-frequency vocals (over honkieized ska):

It’s obvious from these four episodes that Romney, contrary to his boast, does say different things to different audiences. Among politicians, that’s nothing unusual. What’s unusual is that Romney, for further advantage, told each audience what he wouldn’t tell the last one. First he talked pro-choice Republicans into giving him millions of dollars. Then he told the gay-rights guy he was pro-life. Then he told the NAACP he was against gay marriage. Then he told the Montanans he had pissed off the NAACP. Romney didn’t just hide things from each audience. He dissed them.

The problem with this behavior, politically, is that once you recognize it looking backward, you can anticipate it going forward. If you’re black, and Romney sucks up to you by standing up to gays, you shouldn’t be surprised when he sucks up to whites by standing up to blacks. Today you’re the audience. Tomorrow you’re the prop. It’s one of life’s oldest rules: You can learn more about somebody by what he says about other people than by what he says about you.

The AM music of our youth really was concerned w/ the issue. (Also, forgot how good the hook & general rocking is.) Sop for the younger generation's musical tastes.

Exceptionalism

Only in these United Snakes, my friends.

We are the only society in the world that looks to universities and colleges for primary sources of sports entertainment. I pray that I am wrong, but I am convinced that the Nittany Lions will take that field. There will no doubt be a moment of prayer before the game for the Sandusky victims, as if that means anything, lessens what happened to them. Then it will be time for the home opener. The 110,000 strong of Beaver Stadium, who like their university haven’t learned anything, will roar and bellow and get drunk. And the Freeh report will fade into the midst, like most reports do.

So, What?

Also not giving much of a damn about 50 yrs. of the Rolling Stones. And when did TPM decide on slideshows of not overtly political events?

Holy Crap!!

Fri. 13 already?

Statement On Joe Paterno

Fuck you in the ass in a shower*, Joe Paterno.

The former Joe Paterno Child Development Center.

W/ the former Joe Paterno.

Fuck you too, Nike.

---

*Not that two wrongs necessarily make a right; we aren't, however, always opposed to the punishment fitting the crime.

Patriotizm

Grasping At Straws

Pollak: Dense, not evil.

Horse-faced ninny Joel B. Pollak's rich fantasy life:

The 2012 Summer Olympics begin in London on July 27 and will run through early August. The entire world will be watching, including large television audiences in the United States. Many viewers tune out political advertisements while the Games are on. But these Olympics are unique, because one of the presidential candidates--Mitt Romney--has a close tie to the Olympics: he was president and CEO of the committee that organized the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, turning that event from a disaster into a great success.

In that sense, the Olympics will be one long commercial for Mitt Romney. Republicans who have fretted that Romney is failing to tell voters who he is, while the Obama campaign paints its own caricature, can take heart from the fact that the Olympics are a big part of Romney's resumé, and they will be on the air continuously for two weeks. Romney's supporters aren't simply leaving it at that: his super PAC has already announced that it will be running television ads during the Olympics--in swing states--that focus on Romney's Olympic career.

So while President Obama has been able to use the bully pulpit of the White House to command free media at whim, Gov. Romney has a unique "incumbency" of his own to exploit, during a period in which voters would otherwise be ignoring political advertising. Obama's only connection to the Olympics was his failed attempt to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago (disappointing the real-estate hopes of many of his cronies in the process). Nothing better illustrates the different pasts and priorities of the two contenders for the presidency.

Olympic "career?" Perhaps young J.B. will discover somewhere that it was Federal money that saved the Mormon Olympics, not anything that Romney may have done. Even the headline is inane:

THE OLYMPICS: ONE LONG, PATRIOTIC COMMERCIAL FOR MITT ROMNEY

What has "patriotism" to do w/ any of this? Especially as some might say serving as President is (slightly) more patriotic than grubbing taxpayer money to bail out your incompetent co-religionists. One could even opine that organizing a community rather than organizing lobbyists is more democratic, but small-d democracy is about to be separated from patriotism in Mr. Romney's circle of cronies, who don't have real estate hopes but do control the world financial system.

Noted at TPM.

Lens Cleaning Time

Pigs & Fairies

If it were several thousand words longer & a bit more stylized it'd be in The New Yorker under the "Annals of Crime" rubric.

As it is it's not really here, even, but here.

We were most amused by this nostalgic slice of WeHo:

Ghost Bank

Au reste, après nous, le Déluge.

French Dip Pastrami

Aw-reet, a post for Wednesday.

Hot Club de LA

There's one in every town.

Monday 9 July 2012, The Cinema, Culver City, CA

Ghoul Of The Day

We don't know which is more stupefying, pretending to give a flying fuck about America's sad collection of loser baby-killers or turning the phony concern into publicity for a corpse that never served, &, while it was alive, was pretty much opposed to whatever the troops delude themselves they're fighting for.

One can only wonder what Mrs. Breitbart & her children think of all this. Do they not care as long as the income insulates them from working? Maybe Andy sold the rights to himself to the ghouls carrying on his frauds & deceptions. All's fair in love & "Fuck you. War."

"What are your thoughts on George Soros and his agenda for America?"

Yes, Brad Thor, what are your thoughts on the Soros agenda? Are these thoughts any different from the Glenn Beck fantasies you've swallowed whole? No?

Moving on then, could you advise us which subway stations should be reinforced against impending invasion by the mole people? Sasquatch? Does the Loch Ness monster disprove evolution? Today's the 65th anniv. of the Roswell, NM flying thing whatever. Where do you think Obama is hiding the aliens? How far up your ass does your head go?

We could go on, but why, when Mrs. Thomas's ghost-writer will take it from here, in Ginni's inimitable (What, seventh-grade?) book report style?

Brad Thor [Stop it! You're killing us w/ this "Brad Thor" bit. — Editor/Publisher] is a conservative literary culture warrior.

If you liked Jack Bauer and the TV series “24,” you’ll love the best-selling stories Thor weaves about warriors in the intelligence world waging battle to maintain our freedoms.

Thor, 43, is an old-fashioned patriot and political thriller author. His last book, “Full Black,” pits a former Navy SEAL Team Six member against a George Soros-like character who seeks to destabilize America. His next book, “Black List,” comes out later this month.

Noting Thor’s propensity to insert so many facts into his fictional novels, radio host Glenn Beck said Thor’s books should be referred to as “fact-ion.”

Wait, the guy typesweaves a best-selling story containing such facts as "The sky was blue-ish & the sun was warm," so it's all true?

PT 73 Sinks At Cedars-Sinai

Say what you will about Marty, yada, for this reporter Ernest Borgnine's defining rôle was always Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale. Simply because there are few telebision/film genres more amusingly inane than the service comedy, & McHale's Navy was our first exposure to the one-time Mr. Ethel Merman.

Now looking for an illustrative image — Oh for fucks' sake, did this load have this ready to be published this soon? OK, Ernie was 95, fair enough having an obit at the ready but Cheeze Louise, fuckit. We can't make that crap up. Literally.

Joe Flynn: Funnier than you thought.95. Mmhnh. Too long?

Maybe this will spur us to watch The Wild Bunch, which has been sitting in the DVR since 2 February. Not getting any younger, it appears.

Plus Which

Couldn't embed Brad Thor babbling to Ginni Thomas's head shot at Whiskey Fire, so we typed some crap mostly not at all the same there while pimping the item below.

Frankly, Internet, we're disappointed that this uncivil ugliness hasn't received the attention it deserves.