The Latest from the Giant Phallus (UPDATED)

That's also known as the Florida Capitol Building, in Tallahassee.

Earlier this week the State Senate, but a 2-vote margin, showed Governor Scott's whore mouth the backs of their pimp hands by voting down the scheme to privatize a good portion of the state's prison system. What this would have done was put a small county-sized lump of cash into the pockets of private prison companies (like Corrections Corporation of America) while enabling them to fire all the state corrections officers.

Oh, they'd hire them back, of course, but at lower pay and (much lower) benefits, while sacrificing things like training, safety and ethics on the altar of the bottom line. So congratulations to the State Senate! You finally did something right for a change.

Which leads me to the next bit out of Tallahassee.

Namely, State Senator JD Alexander (R-Lake Wales).

Alexander had wanted to see the University of South Florida's adjunct campus in his neck of the woods split off from the main university. The school, named USF Polytechnic, would be independent. University President Genshaft said no.

In a fit of mean-spiritedness worthy of Newt Gingrich's shutdown of the Federal Government after having to sit in the rear of Air Force One in the Clinton Administration, Alexander put forth a proposal to cut USF's budget by 58%. Naturally, he says it was not a retaliatory measure.

Come on, JD. Not all of us watch Fox News.

Naturally the teachers are up in arms about this, as are the students. Important things like tuition, salaries, facility upkeep and the university's hospital are at stake here.

At a public hearing up in the capital today a well-groomed and politely attentive group of students from USF watched as the State Senator from Tampa vainly tried to get the chairwoman of the committee to listen to him, at one point throwing his pen on the table in frustration.

One can only hope that the rest of the Senate will see Alexander's move for what it truly is, and bring out the pimp hands again. The man needs to be slapped, hard and frequently, by people who know how.

UPDATE: Yeah, the State Senate decided to go pimp hand on Alexander. The 58% budget slash will not be considered.

Wow.

Just. Effing. Wow:

Pass the Moist Towelettes

May as well get out the bleach, too.

There was a slick, slippery, filthy surge of Santorum all over Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last night, as Republican voters representing minor fractions of actual registered GOP voters went to caucus in those three states. In a bizarre twist, there were no actual delegates granted to any of the candidates; those will be granted later, making these three states largely a popularity contest.

But it wasn't a good night for Mr. Inevitable, the firebrand populist from Massachusetts, Willard 'Mitt' Romney.

To begin with, he lost. All three state contests: in Minnesota, he had expected to do well, since he was born in neighboring Michigan where his daddy was Governor.

No soap. Ayatollah Santorum romped to a 45% win, with Ron Paul coming in second at 27% and Romney managing a sick third with 17%.

Same story in Missouri, where Santorum crushed Romney 55% to 25%.

And more of the same where Romney expected a solid base of support, in Colorado: 40% Santorum, 35% Romney.

The American Taliban and the Tea Party have found a new darling out in the West, and his name is Rick "I Want Christian Sharia Law!" Santorum.

But what of last week's darling?

What about Newt?

What about him? Gingrich wasn't on the ballot in Missouri, and managed to eke out the booby prize in Minnesota and Colorado. He took it hard, from behind - with ground glass and rusty nails in the lube, too.

In terms of committed delegates, Romney still has 84 delegates to Santorum's 14 or so, but it's time to open up the money taps for Mr. Inevitable. Arizona looms, and those people down there are crazy - Santorum speaks their language, and they'll be in the mood to lap at the ooze like heroes.

Now for the comedy:

1. Obama was also in the voting, running unopposed in Missouri - where he still got more votes than Romney.

2. Remember all those high-octane endorsements? Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, etc.? Didn't mean a fucking thing.

3. Santorum has now won in more states than Romney, four to three (Gingrich has one).

It's going to be a lot of fun, so brace yourselves - oh, and don't forget plenty of disinfectant wipes.

If Today's Tuesday . . .

That means that the Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that California's Proposition 8 - defining marriage by statute to mean one-man, one-woman - is unconstitutional. The entire decision of the Court is here, and the Court ruled 2-1.

While this is a victory for the forces of tolerance, modernity and overall good sense, the conservatives who initially backed the measure have gone into their usual hate-frenzy. I confidently expect them to file for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court. Based upon the US Supreme Court's ideological and religious composition and their recent decisions, I expect the Ninth Circuit's decision to be reversed.

(For extra fun points, look at how the Court defines marriage: "... symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships." Which is what marriage is, despite what the God-botherers screech about.)

So the war's not over, although a battle has been won.

***

In Syria today, the shells still fall and the bullets still fly. The United Nations failed to pass a resolution calling upon the Assad Government to stop fucking over its own people, mainly because Russia and China refused to back it. Both states have their reasons - Russia sells a lot of guns to Syria and resents any growth of Western influence into the region, while China thinks that it's a purely internal matter.

Meanwhile, the Turks are starting to get antsy about the idea of a civil war spilling across into their country (they're Syria's largest trading partner), and I'm sure there's a lot of Viewing With Alarm in Beirut and Tel Aviv. This will get worse before it gets better, folks.

***

Iran continues to develop a nuclear capacity. Now, this isn't the same as building a bomb; building a bomb requires highly-enriched uranium or plutonium, which it doesn't have. That's what came from our own Secretary of Defense, dear readers. Iran has low-enriched uranium suitable for running a reactor (and has managed to create one - one! - fuel rod element).

But fear is a great motivator. Fear can motivate otherwise reasonable people to buy guns and shoot people if they feel they're being threatened. The US and the EU have instituted an oil embargo on Iran in an effort to economically strangle the country into giving up its nuclear ambitions, and Israel has been making noises about bombing the nuclear sites for a few years now.

Be wary of backing Iran into a corner. It has stated that any attack on it by either the United States or Israel will result in retaliatory action against the Sunni Arab Gulf states - which supply us with a lot of oil. And attacking Iran may cause it to do what it's been saying it doesn't want to do.

Build a bomb.

***

There's an old Far Side comic that has people arriving in Hell and getting a complimentary accordion. Well, Hell might be in North Korea:

One in the Pink Makes a Stink

Take a look at the object depicted above.

Go ahead, take a long smouldering gawk at it.

It's a Walther P-22 semiautomatic pistol.

With a pink slide (that's the bit that holds the barrel, and goes back and forth when you pull the trigger).

But it's the pink I want to talk about. Specifically, the reason Walther allowed the slide on the P-22 to be colored pink.

Walther decided to be one of the corporate sponsors of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a charity dedicated to fighting breast cancer in women.

Now, I have a bit of ambivalence about attacking a breast cancer charity. My sister-in-law passed away two years ago after a long and bloody struggle with the disease, and the SGK Foundation helped out.

But there's a reason to rant now, as the SGK has put its collective charitable foot in it, big time.

Let's follow a few dots and see where they lead, shall we?

First, SGK appoints a new executive vice president, a woman who had earlier run unsuccessfully for office in Georgia on a brutally anti-choice platform. How anti-choice? She was endorsed by Sarah Palin, that's how anti-choice.

Second, there is a change in the Foundation's bylaws to deny grants to any organization under investigation. A board member admitted that the change was solely to target one organization.

Third, enter US Representative Cliff Stearns of Flori-duh, who obligingly starts an investigation.

Fourth - hey, presto! SGK cuts off its grant funding to the organization.

What organization, I hear you ask? Planned Parenthood, the successor to ACORN as Number One on the GOP/US Taliban Alliance's shit list. You see, they don't like Planned Parenthood because it (gasp!) provides abortions, it (gasp!) provides birth control, and (gasp!) it helps poor women get breast exams that could spot cancerous growths early and help them get treatment.

So SGK shuts down about $700,000 in funding to Planned Parenthood. The dots are simple to follow, eh?

Despite the angry denials by the founder and CEO of SGK, it's too easy to see the linkage between the Foundation and the efforts by the Right to shove women back into the Dark Ages. There's a lot of yelling going on, as donors start pulling money away from SGK and sending it directly to Planned Parenthood

The Foundation issued an apology, but still isn't going to give grant money to Planned Parenthood because "it's under investigation."

Perfect logic, isn't it?

Meanwhile, women who are poor and at risk for breast cancer might not be able to get examinations, which means they could get breast cancer and not know it, which means that by the time they do spot it it'll be too late to treat it, which means deaths by breast cancer could go up among poor women.

Which, again, is perfectly logical.

Florida: Mitt Romney Is All Like

Yes, the Well-Coiffed 2x4 managed to pull out a win against ethical loser and relentless degenerate Newton Gingrich. It was a close victory, 46% to 32%, with Ayatollah Wannabe Santorum and Doddering Fool Paul splitting up the booby prize.

Romney managed his win (still failing to get 50% of the voters) by basically outspending Gingrich by a six-to-one margin. Gingrich got funds from his bagman, Las Vegas Rich Nabob Adelson, and sounded a defiant and downright surly note in his post-election speech. He didn't congratulate Romney, which merely illustrates how classy Newt is.

Mittens collects a massive nut of 50 convention delegates (marked down from 99 after Florida's GOP decided to fiddle about with the primary calendar), which outweighs what Gingrich won in South Carolina and what Santorum was finally given after they unearthed the stuffed ballot boxes in Iowa.

The Nevada caucuses loom now, on February 4th. Romney can expect a massive boost from all the Mormons bused in from neighboring Utah to work for him. Paul is feeling bullish on the caucus states, feeling that he's in with a chance in these contests, and Gingrich will probably be licking Adelson's taint for more bucks.

But at least we poor people in Florida can be granted at least a temporary respite from all of the pointless ads, mailers and robocalls.

A Miscellany

Back in the 1880s or so (1889) the absolute high-tech sound gadget to have was an Edison phonograph, with recordings made on wax cylinders. It was astoundingly simple to use, although not really very portable.

Once people realized the awesome implications of the device, everyone clamored to have their voices recorded. There were probably millions of variations of "I sound like that?" all over the place.

In 1957 a box of wax cylinder recordings, some in very bad condition, were found at the Edison laboratory in New Jersey. It took a while, but thanks to modern digital technology, they were able to resurrect the content on the recordings.

One of the voices captured for prosperity is Prince Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian chancellor who unified Germany; another is Helmut Graf von Moltke, the commander of the armies that defeated the French in 1871. There are also songs and instrumental music.

A real blast from the past.

***

In 1976 (before things went horribly wrong over there), an archeologist in Iraq unearthed a tablet that displayed examples of 'wisdom literature,' a collection of pithy sayings that could be used as guides in living. Such things were used as writing exercises for students. The tablet dated to ancient Babylonia, about 3500 years or so ago, Daylight Savings.

One has to do with beer: In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at you, the measuring vessel of your lord. (-What is it?) Beer.

(The scientists who are translating this assure us that the cuneiform symbols for 'teeth' can also translate as 'urine.' I'm sure it was a real rib-tickler.)

Another is a bit odd: ...of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it? [No answer]

Could this be, dear readers? Could it be that these enterprising scientists may, in fact, have unearthed the World's Oldest Yo Mama Joke?

The Primaries as Theater of the Absurd

(This will be my final political post before the actual voting takes place in Florida.)

For those who are not versed in the theater, Theater of the Absurd is a drama genre where plays express the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence.

I refer the reader to the plays of Ionescu or Pinter for examples.

The reason I bring the matter up - a genre where there is no plot, the characters feel lost because the world around them is incomprehensible, and dialogue lapses into strings of non sequiturs and uncomfortable silences - because of an article I linked to.

The article is from the German website Der Spiegel, and it is a searing indictment of how much the GOP primaries are degenerating into absurdist theater.

I highly recommend linking to the article and reading it in its entirety, but here are a couple paragraphs to give you the flavor of it:

"In fact, there was a lot at stake, much more than the 55 delegates that the sunny American state has to offer at the party convention in August. The debate was really about whether Mitt Romney can secure the nomination now, or if he'll have to endure a long, expensive and punishing primary odyssey."

"But was there enough material to make it worth watching, even though it was number 18 of the campaign season? No, the anticipation proved too much, though there were some meaty skirmishes and well-planned attacks between the top two candidates and the other two on the stage, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. But there were also more lies, half-truths, and window dressings."

It's getting nastier, as Romney starts to pull slightly ahead in most of the polling and Gingrich picks up more worthless endorsements from the Bull Goose Loony Wing of the Party.

It's going to be interesting on Tuesday.

Castro Was Right

The Republican candidate field is down in sunny Florida, so you know red meat is going to be tossed out to the voters.

We know most of the flavors of red meat: anti-abortion sirloin, anti-tax filets, a lovely great slab of corporatist meat loaf.

For Florida, though, we have to have another strip of red meat tossed out to the usually quite conservative Cuban-Americans - the anti-Castro T-bone.

It's been a Republican mainstay in Florida to bash the hell out of Castro and predict the imminent collapse of the Communist government there. Oddly enough, we've heard that rhetoric ever since the Cuban Revolution back in 1959.

Which leads me to Fidel Castro.

Fidel has outlasted US Presidents from Eisenhower to GW Bush, and I think that his position as America's favorite bugaboo has given him a unique perspective on Presidential politics.

So in response to the usual rhetorical bashing, Fidel penned an editorial that the Cuban press duly transmitted. He stated in his editorial that "The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

I'll stress one line: " . . . the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

Like I said, he has an interesting perspective on matters, doesn't he?

Now, two days ago, GOP candidate Newt Gingrich opened his gaping maw to more than justify Fidel's statement.

In a statement to a group of Hispanic leaders here in Florida, Newt said, "So one of my goals would be to flood the island with enough cellphones that are video cameras that any act of oppression is filmed by 30 people, and they start posting them: this person will be on the list after the revolution. You watch the morale of the police force drop dramatically as they are no longer all powerful."

Got that? Flooding Cuba with cell phone cameras will topple the Cuban government.

If it confuses you, it also confused the hell out of the audience.

In the same article, we also have Mitt Romney talking to the same group. He sounded like he was wishing the Eighties were still here, as he gawped that Castro's Cuba and Chavez's Venezuela pose existential threats to the United States and cited possible influence by them upon Ecuador and Guatemala.

Things aren't going well for the GOP Clown Car, but you gave to agree:

Castro was right.