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Christopher Hitchens gets to the heart of it with these words from a Slate column titled “White Fright:”

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It’s not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention.

Mr. Fish doesn’t need words.

And take a look at this video that was embedded in the Hitchens column. 

This guy looks like he’s trying to be Benjamin Franklin, but he’s no Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin was enlightend.  This guy is not.  Neither are most of the other people interviewed in this video.

It’s late summer, and you know what that means.  It’s time for y’all to go to a state fair and gorge yourself on all kinds of things that have been submerged in a vat of very hot oil.

Used to be just donuts and other doughy things like fritters and elephant ears, but over the years the stuff they deep fry at fairs has gotten weird:  like Twinkies and Snickers.

Well as the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

The guy that invented deep-fried beer is a pro.

Story here.

Protesters from both sides met in New York City on Sunday at the site where a Muslim community center may be built two city blocks away from where the twin World Trade Center towers once stood.  The New York Times reports:

Other protesters insisted that while they supported religious freedoms, the location of the planned Islamic center was an incursion on the rights of those who deemed ground zero a hallowed space. “It’s a disgrace to have a mosque at this sacred site,” said Kali Costas, who said she was a member of the Tea Party.

But how hallowed is the block where the center would be built?  What sort of establishments are there now and how would the addition of the Cordoba Initiative’s Park51 Center desecrate the memory of those slain on September 11th?

Kathy Gill at The Moderate Voice reports:

First, I knew that the neighborhood included the New York Dolls “Gentlemen’s Club” — courtesy of Jean Marbella at the Baltimore Sun. According to its website, it is “The Ultimate Ny Strip Club.” As you can see, it’s around the corner from Ground Zero. It’s next door to “Uncle Mike’s” where the bartenders “make amazing CockTails” and “wear Sexxy & Naughty Costumes EVERYDAY!”

The Burlington Coat Factory that is to be the new home of the community center is next door to the Amish Market (misnamed) and the Dakota Roadhouse, “Where too much is never enough.” Miller Lite is only $3.00 from Opening-5PM from Monday-Wednesday and on Thursday
 “BUCKETS OF BUD AND BUD LIGHT $13.00 ALL DAY AND NIGHT!”

Yes, the “sacred site” two blocks from Ground Zero is no place for a community center that will have recreation facilities, an auditorium, a restaurant and culinary school, a daycare facility, a library, and a mosque open and accessible to all.

If there were plans for another bar, strip club, or even a Starbucks, would they be protesting?  Would these types of businesses be honoring the memory of the victims of the attack?

Opposition to the Park51 project is contrary to what many of those who protest against it claim to stand for:  The Bill of Rights.  The very document that grants them the right to assemble and peacefully protest against the mosque gives Muslims the right to practice their religion.  The anti-mosque crowd claims they believe in religious freedom and that they oppose the Park 51 project only out of reverence for the location.  If they could be honest with themselves they would have to admit that the 2-1/2 block radius around where the twin towers once stood is not hallowed ground.  If it was, it wouldn’t be home to bars and strip clubs.   So if the “hallowed ground” argument doesn’t hold up, what’s the real basis of their opposition?  I would have to say it’s bigotry and religious intolerance.  Same as it ever was…

Al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center towers, not Muslims.  But the members of al Qaeda are Muslims!  They follow the teachings of the prophet Muhammad and worship the Islamic god Allah! 

And that’s supposed to be the reason for halting the development of a Muslim community center two blocks away from Ground Zero?

Are you familiar with the Army of God?  It’s a Christian terrorist organization that’s responsible for attacks against doctors that perform abortions.  In 1998, Eric Rudolph, one of their members, bombed a clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.  The explosion killed a security guard and maimed a nurse.  Because the Army of God is a Christian organization, shouldn’t we use the same logic the anti-Ground-Zero-Mosque people are using to ban all Christian churches built near medical clinics that perform abortions?

And what about Fred Phelps?  Because Westboro Baptist Church is made up of xenophobic, homophobic, Jew hating, Catholic hating, Muslim hating followers of Phelps, then aren’t all Christians, regardless of their interpretation of The Bible, tainted by the hateful actions and beliefs of the members of Westboro Baptist Church?   If they are, then Christian organizations should be banned from building churches or community centers anywhere near the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. or any memorial to a slain homosexual.

These are just two examples of this game that anyone can play, including Jon Stewart, who did a fine job connecting Fox News to terrorism last night.  The point is that just as the followers of Christ are divided into hundreds of sects and denominations, some of which are hateful and violent, so are the followers of Muhammad.

As William Dalrymple pointed out in a column for The New York Times earlier this week, the Muslim group that plans to build the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero is lead by Abdul Rauf who is:

…one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra.

Dalrymple points out that Sufis are despised by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and that the Pakistani Taliban has attacked Sufi shrines with suicide bombers and rockets killing dozens of worshippers.

Sounds to me like Rauf and his followers are our allies in this “war on terror,” not our enemies.  Are we to deny them their right to freely practice their religion anywhere within our borders?  I don’t think so, and neither does the mayor of New York City or the neighborhood association that approved the mosque project.  But many Republican politicians are against it.  They love this conflict because it gives them yet another issue they can use to drive a wedge between conservatives and liberals. 

Just what is it with Republicans?  Why are they against religious freedom? Why are they against local control of commercial lands?  Why are they against the U.S. Constitution?

Why do Republicans hate America so much?

Americans need to face a hard fact: we almost certainly dodged another Great Depression by a hair’s breadth thanks to the combined efforts of Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the Obama administration and the much maligned Democratically-controlled Congress. But the fallout from the near economic collapse and financial meltdown is likely to endure for years and not months. The problems are deep and widespread, global and not merely national in scope

Whilst our government is not entirely helpless in the face of this recession, neither does it have in its bag of tricks a silver bullet or a magic wand to make it disappear. Unaccustomed as they are to an unemployment rate near 10%, Americans are unlikely to see a dramatic improvement any time soon no matter which party rules in the White House or congress.

In Europe, the harsh consequences of recession-induced joblessness is ameliorated significantly by a substantial social safety net that provides a livable income, retraining opportunities and housing assistance.  America’s Swiss-cheese version offers few such protections. The fact is Americans are just a pink-slip away from personal catastrophe, where a job lost can mean no health insurance (although thanks to Democrats that will change by 2014) and perhaps homelessness for themselves and even their children.

On NPR recently I listened to some bright spark from one of the right-wing think tanks explain why extending unemployment benefits is a disincentive to those who have been unemployed longer than a few months to search vigorously for a job – this despite credible estimates that there are five job seekers to every available job in the market. Is $300 a week a fortune to people who were earning $50K just year ago? Not on the planet most of us live on, that’s for sure. He went on to suggest more of the unemployed should be willing to uproot their families and move; or be prepared to take a job at McDonald’s at minimum wage, as though you can support a family that way.

Appalling, outrageous and shameful though it may be, this is the prevailing view on the right and among congressional Republicans. It highlights the extent to which most Republicans are completely out of touch with the way most Americans live, and lack any ability to empathize with those in distress.

So it does matter which party steers us through the hard times and best prepares the country to take advantage of the global recovery when it does come. And that, ladies and gentlemen, would be the Democrats.

American families that are hurting need help not platitudes. Yes, they need jobs. But these do not grow on trees nor appear on government demand. In the short term unemployed Americans need government assistance to ensure they have basic financial assistance, can keep a roof over their family’s heads and for re-training where that is feasible.

And as the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman endlessly preaches, we also need to take advantage of the low cost of government borrowing to invest heavily in our human resources through increased spending in education, and on needed infrastructure improvements.   To cut spending now on these essential engines to our future prosperity as states struggle to balance their books is myopic and idiotic.

As for the deficit, we don’t need lessons on fiscal rectitude from a party that:

1. Drove us into two wars (and botched both of them),
2. Turned a budget surplus into a deficit quicker than you can say “Bush tax cuts for the rich,”
3. Passed into law an unfunded Medicare drug benefit to pander to and keep seniors in their political column,
4. Calls for fiscal austerity, but still wants extend Bush’s tax cuts for the rich even though their expiration would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the treasury,
5. Wants more spending on an already bloated Pentagon budget and on border fences with Mexico, and finally,
6. Whose deregulatory zeal got us into this mess in the first place.

Dick Cheney was wrong; deficits do matter – but not now.

I understand that Americans are unhappy with the Obama administration and congress for not fixing the economy. The fact is there are no easy answers or quick fixes to our economic doldrums, and much depends on what happens outside of our shores and beyond our control.  The impulse to hold someone, anyone, responsible for what ails us is strong.

Yet to elect more Republicans, a party bereft of ideas and only able to obstruct and impede government, is to invite paralysis to our policy making machinery and the infliction of more pain on those Americans who need our help in these times.  Please, let’s not cut off our noses to spite our faces in November.

The Captain is in town tonight. Throw Rag is playing at El Corazon. I wish I could go but I can’t. Damnit!

The rest of you should go. You should all start getting shitfaced right now start stumbling towards The Seattle Tattoo Expo After Party featuring The Generators, God Spit, The Spittin’ Cobras, Zeke, and THROW RAG!

I recommend that at least one of you take an extra tighty whitey, because sometimes The Captain loses his.

My excuse for not going? None of your busiiness.

I’ll settle for this video tonight.

From and advertisement in today’s printed edition of The Seattle Times:

My name is Abdul Maalik Hosseini, and I am running for US Senator representing Washington State. It’s not an accident that our nation is having so many problems at this time. Allah is trying to get our attention and if He doesn’t get it soon, our nation’s woes can get a lot worse. Allah has the answer for all our problems, but first He wants to correct our attitude, as a nation, toward Him. I believe the best way to do that is for us to understand our creator’s heart. Allah’s desire is to bless our nation to the point of making the rest of the world envious of the blessings He is bestowing on us. The catch is, we are tying his hands by our actions. When we allow sin to prevail over our nation, we open the door for evil to take hold. When we call what is evil, good, we cause Allah’s wrath to overshadow us. Our leaders and much of our nation are not seeing the connection between abortion, a homosexual agenda being pushed on us as an acceptable lifestyle, pornography that is invading our lives and the removal of prayer, the Quran and the teaching of Allah out of our schools systems. Allah is trying to get our attention through many of the problems we are having today in our healthcare, energy, economics, weather, debt and problems in our school systems. There is a disconnect through the human mind between these ideas but direct connection through The All Knowing One’s. Man’s plans will not fix our nation’s problems. Only Allah’s plans will. If I am elected for the U.S. Senate office, I will strive, with The Almighty’s help, to bring the changes that will bring Allah’s favor on our nation again. We need leaders that hear Allah’s voice and will follow His leadings.

What?  Really?  An Islamic fundamentalist is running for the U.S. Senate and wants us to vote for him because he will serve the citizens of Washington State through the will of Allah?

Not really…  I edited the text of the ad.  I replaced the name “Mike Latimer” with an Islamic name and replaced “God” with “Allah,” “Bible” with “Quran” and “His” or “He” or “Lord” with synonyms for Allah.  You can read the original text by visiting his website.

The point is that the real Mike Latimer or the fictional Abdul Maalik Hosseini has no business being a member of the U.S. Senate.  Anyone who campaigns as a religious fundamentalist who wants to impose the will of his god on the rest of us should automatically be disqualified from the election.

From a column by Kenzaburo Oe in today’s New York Times:

Sixty-five years ago, after learning that a friend who was reported missing after the bombing of Hiroshima had turned up in a hospital there, my mother put together a meager care package and set out from our home in Shikoku to pay a visit. When she returned, she shared her friend’s description of that morning in August 1945.

Moments before the atomic bomb was dropped, my mother’s friend happened to seek shelter from the bright summer sunlight in the shadow of a sturdy brick wall, and she watched from there as two children who had been playing out in the open were vaporized in the blink of an eye. “I just felt outraged,” she told my mother, weeping.

From a speech delivered by President Barack Obama in Prague, April 5, 2009:

Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked -– that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.

Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. (Applause.) And as nuclear power –- as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.

Thank you Mr. Fish for searing images into my brain of a camouflaged genitals and American GI’s traversing a hairy ass.

I’ve always thought war was way more disgusting than romantic, and now… even more so.

I never had any doubts that the federal government’s financial bailout and the stimulus bill were needed to weather the economic storm that hit us in 2008.  Many people disagreed, but as the New York Times reported this week:

Now, two leading economists wielding complex quantitative models say that assertion can be empirically proved.

In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.

In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.

The paper, by Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton professor and former vice chairman of the Fed, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, represents a first stab at comprehensively estimating the effects of the economic policy responses of the last few years.

“While the effectiveness of any individual element certainly can be debated, there is little doubt that in total, the policy response was highly effective,” they write.

That’s right.  If those who wanted our government to act like some dumbass tightwad had gotten their way, we would be in a depression now instead of working our way out of a recession.

I was one, and still am one that thinks the stimulus bill wasn’t big enough.  More government spending on much needed infrastructure projects would help create jobs, which would in turn create demand for goods and services, resulting in more economic growth.  Obama requested just enough stimulus money to weather the storm, but the storm has not passed, and he needs to ask for more to pull us out of this mess, but he won’t in this highly partisan environment, especially in a mid-term election year.