Some Random $#!t

Just a hodgepodge of random shit as The PC counts down the hours to the blog's one year anniversary...

On The Subject of Anniversaries

40 years ago tonight, the band formerly known as Wicked Lester played a show in a small New York club to an audience of three. One member of that audience was up-and-coming record mogul Neil Bogart.

The rest was, as we fans like to say, (to the annoyance of non-fans)...

                                                                          KISStory

That's right.

FORTY years!!!!!

Get Well Soon!

A few posts back, The Blog paid tribute to one of the colorful characters that touched his life.

Today, it has come to The Blog's attention that another of those characters is in need of prayers, positive thoughts, good vibes, or whatever you like to call them.

Porn star, character actor, reality show personality, gadfly and purveyor of rum...

                                                                        Ron Jeremy

... drove himself (presumably to save himself the cost of an ambulance, because that is how Ron is) to Cedar-Sinai hospital, yesterday, suffering from chest pains.

Today, he underwent two surgeries, the first for a heart aneurism, the second, a perforated aorta.

He is listed in critical but stable condition.

Ron has sometimes been described as "fat, hairy, greasy, cheap and creepy."

And those descriptions come from those of us who love him.

We would also describe him as a great friend and generous to a fault. He would give you the shirt off of his back, even when you would rather that he keep it on!

For the second time in as many weeks, I type the phrase, "He is a character, but he is my character."

My thoughts go out to Ron and I hope that yours will, too!

Guns (I Know. Again.)

Today, advocates and lobbyists for and against stricter gun regulation in America, testified before Congress.

National Rifle Association shill, Wayne LaPierre, opened our eyes by explaining that [paraphrasing] "... background checks are useless, because criminals do not submit to background checks."

Mr. LaPierre has made it so simple for us to understand.

Laws are useless, because criminals do not obey the law.

How did we Liberals not see this before?

Oh. Wait.

What LaPierre actually demonstrated was, he is either utterly clueless, or he just doesn't give a fuck.

The Blog's money is on the latter.

Right-wing mouth piece, Gayle (who the fuck is she?) Trotter, spewed this... um... interesting bit of testimony in favor of the AR-15.

This has gotten The Blog thinking.

The aforementioned Mr. LaPierre, in his "Everything is responsible for gun violence, except guns" speech, laid a whole lot of blame at the feet of Hollywood movies and television.

After hearing Ms. Trotter's testimony, The PC thinks that there may be something to LaPierre's claim.

While the scenario that Ms. Trotter lays out in defense of high capacity assault weapons happens several times a week in prime time television, it happens in the real world, pretty much, never.

Did Adam Lanza watch too many episodes of "Law & Order?"

Maybe.

Has Gayle Trotter seen too many episodes of "Criminal Minds?"

Almost, certainly.

On the other side of the argument...

If you can not watch the testimony of Gabriel Giffords without tearing up, at least, a little bit...

Then you have the soul of one of the zombies from "The Walking Dead."

Speaking of Clueless, Soulless, or Just Plain Not Giving a Fuck

Check out this Teapublican's theory about children who receive Welfare.

Quickies

Just a couple of quick hits...

                                                                          This...

                                                                         And, this.


To end on, as they say, a lighter note...

Here is a collection of amazingly funny cat videos.

See you tomorrow night!

No Posts For the Next Few Nights

Why?

Because The Blog is resting his ass up for the next few days...

Getting ready for January 31, 2013.

The one year anniversary of the birth of The Blog's blog.

Stay tuned.

Because we are going to party like it's 1999!

Who Did Not See This Coming?

If The Blog was inclined to make New Year's Resolutions, (which, he is not) his resolution would be to avoid arguing politics with his right-wing friends on Facebook.

The PC will make that resolution.

He will hold his tongue on Facebook, then move over to The Blog's blog to address his friends ideological stupidity.

Not 24 hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the kangaroo court made up of a whole ass-load of angry, white men, the right-wing spin machine has gone "Code Red" and given their own interpretation of of what went down.

More disappointing, but not surprising, has been the reaction of The Blog's republican friends, who NEVER watch Fox "News" or listen to the pundits, but "think for [themselves]."

Unlike his conservative friends, The Blog actually watched the hearing.

Secretary Clinton handed this bunch of grandstanding dick-heads their asses.

Succinctly and factually.

Anyone who actually knows recent world history, knows that American embassies have endured far worse attacks than the one on Benghazi, most of them under the watch of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Last night, The Blog posted this on Facebook...

A conservative friend responded, thusly...

I don't believe the circumstances are the same. I don't recall this coming after repeated pleas for more security and I don't recall pleas for help during the attack were denied. And.....I don't recall them blaming a movie for any of it. We can't control terrorists attacking embassies or, anything else, for that matter. We can control how we handle the situation.

She "doesn't recall" because, more than likely, back in those days, she wasn't paying attention.

Whatever happened on Dubbya's watch, including the attack on the World Trade Center, was someone else's fault.

She has drunk the Kool-Aid and lapped up the propaganda.

The fact is, the worst embassy attack in American history occurred in 1983 in Beirut, Lebanon, when Reagan was president. 63 Americans died in that attack.

But, I guess, that was different.

Whatever.




Secretary Clinton held her own, admirably, against the like of TeaPublican Rand Paul, who put this image into our heads...

Seriously.

It was all going so well.

Until this happened.

Sec. Clinton asked, "What, at this point, difference does it make?"

Oh shit!

The Blog heard it and thought, "Why did she have to ask that, in that way?"

The Blog immediately recognized that she just provided the right-wing chatterers with a ten second sound bite that they could exploit, out of context.

And exploit it they did!

After hours of questions and testimony, this is the only thing that The Blog's right-wing, free thinking, never listen to the right-wing radio talkers, or Fox "News," friends came away with...

What an amazing pile of steaming bovine excrement!

The Blog wonders when his "conservative" friends will finally get tired of being lied to by the corporate media.

The Blog won't hold his breath.

Ted. We Knew You When.

I remember a time when Ted Nugent was opposed to guns.

An assault rifle wasn't "sportsmanlike," when hunting game.

He was all about the bow and arrow.

To this day, he ends his concert shows by shooting the shit out of a guitar with a compound bow.

So, what the fuck happened?

Why is he, now, so all about gun rights?

A paycheck from the NRA, is my guess.

Because, in the year of 2013, no one is paying to download "Wang Bang, Sweet Poon Tang" or his peon to pedophilia, "Jail Bait."

That is my guess.

Fuck, Ted!

Your screaming guitar riffs on the likes of "Cat Scratch Fever" enjoy a prominent place on my iPod shuffle.

You are a rock god.

But you are no longer relevant,

Today, you are just an asshole.

Live with it.

Did You See It? (Part Two)

"It" being the inauguration of the second term of President Barack Hussein Obama.

The Blog got to watch most of the festivities, in bits and pieces, while he worked.

The parts that he missed, he has been spending the last two evenings catching up on on YouTube.

The most important 20 minutes of the ceremony was, of course, the President's speech.

If you have not heard it in it's entirety, then...

Good news!

The PC did your homework for you.

Here is the speech.

Go and listen to it.

Listen to it twice!

Yes, it is just short of 20 minutes long. But what else are you going to do for 40 minutes?

Watch "The Real Housewives of Wherever?"

Go ahead.

I'll still be here when you get back.

Oh good! You're back!

Now we are on the same page and we can talk.

In The Blog's not so humble opinion...

The POTUS' speech was not only powerful, concise, full of truth and general awesomeness...

If you cannot process this as fact, then you are not only blinded by your ideology, you are also deafened by it.

The President gathered up damned near every piece of feces that the primates in the GOP have flung at him over the last few years, and shoved each piece, one by one, back up the orifices from which they originated.

The PC is pretty sure that the only piece of ape shit that the President did not touch was the "birther" shit.

Because, why should he?

The POTUS made it clear that he is done with futile attempts at "reaching across the aisle." (A noble experiment. But, one that should have ended about six weeks into his first term, when it became obvious that the GOP was not interested in reaching back.)

The Blog would like to say that the reactions to the speech from his critics were "predictable."

Some were. Others were beyond anything that The Blog could have imagined.

For a bit, leading up to the taking of The Oath, the pundits were screaming about the planned use of Obama's middle initial, "H." instead of "Hussein." In order to "hide who he really is."

It is true that he was introduced as "Barack H. Obama."

But, when the time came, The Man himself said the words, "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear..."

Making that point moot.

"His speech wasn't bipartisan!" The GOP whined.

Considering that the President has spent the last 4 years up against Republicans whose mantra has been "Just Say No!" That would be understandable.

But, the fact is, he repeatedly used the word "together" in his speech. That means you and me, right and left, Democrats and Republicans, all of us, "We The People."

Together.

Seems pretty Goddamn "bipartisan" to me.

Unpredictably, a number of "conservative" pundits and politicians conceded that the speech was good, and signals the need for a reassessment of the GOP zeitgeist.

Others have disagreed, and have called for the heads of those pundits and politicians on ideological spikes.

And then there was the NRA's Wayne LaPierre who, in a speech to a gathering of gun fetishists demonstrated that he, either, thinks that his base is made up of a bunch of gullible morons, (which may be true,) or, he has blurred the line between narcissism and paranoid tin-haterey, by claiming that the POTUS' comment about "absolutism" (a comment, clear to any sane, thinking human being, was directed at the obstructionists in Congress,) was directed at him and his disciples.

If you can stomach it, you can watch and listen to that speech here.

But, enough about the professional "talking heads."

The real eye openers came from The Blog's right leaning Facebook friends who, essentially, "live blogged" via Facebook, during the ceremony.

There was the professor at the evangelical university who, first, posted this photo...

The above photo brings to mind one of the things that sticks in The PC's craw about the "Christian Right."

It's the whole "Love the sinner, hate the sin," thing.

Sanctimonious bullshit, I say.

In response to the ceremony's opening prayer, the same professor posted the following...

"Public prayer is a curious thing to observe. Sounds more like a speech."

A "curious thing" at the inauguration of the "Democrat" president.

But, a good thing in public schools.

Whatever.

Speaking of praying...

It gets worse.

The Blog, Jr., shared this tidbit that showed up on his news-feed, preceded by his own comment...

So lovely. A friend of mine posted that no matter what political party you are a part of, the President needs our prayers today, and the next comment from one of their acquaintances was "Oh, I'm praying... Psalms 109:8" The line being, "May his days be few; and let another take his office". What they like to leave out is the rest of this that is truly offensive:

Being his father's son, he replied...

"Oh, I'm praying...

Psalms 109:8" The line being, "May his days be few; and let another take his office". What they like to leave out is the rest of this that is truly offensive:

9 Let his children be fatherless...,
and his wife a widow.

10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg:
let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

The Blog could not be prouder of his son!

And, 

                                                                                               This

resurfaced on The PC's news-feed.

*Digression*

For eight years, from the year 2000 to 2008, The Blog was regularly told by his right-wing friends that, "no matter what you think of the President, you must respect the office."

Okay, fine.

Whatever The Blog thought about Dubbya, personally, (and yeah, he couldn't stand the arrogant, ignorant bastard,) he never once prayed that "his children be fatherless or his wife a widow."

"Respect for the office went out the window when the "Socialist, Fascist, Kenyan, Nigger" took office.

Double standard, much?

*End Digression*



And then there was this bon mot, addressing the inauguration party featuring performances by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett that night ...

Alright! This president is doing such a great job! I mean the economy must be doing awesome the way he parties! Look at all those rich people live it up while the rest of us struggle!

Because no other president has ever thrown an elaborate inauguration party.

Paid for by private donations and not one cent of taxpayer money.

Seriously, my Republican friends, are your auditory canals so blocked by the thin tissues of your inner rectum?

Moving on...

The poet did his thing,

Whatever.

Poetry, in my opinion, belongs in an open mike club. Not at a 20 degree fahrenheit  inauguration.

But, it happened and we let it happen.

So, fine.

In the end, only one controversy remained as the inauguration came to a close.

"Beyonce was lip-syncing the National Anthem!!!!!!"

Yeah.

That's the best that they could muster.

The Blog likes Beyonce. He has a few of her songs on his iPod™.

Here is a fact about singers performing in a large forum on television.

They all use something called a "scratch track" or a "back track."

The sound engineering on television is a dicey proposition.

And, if you have ever attended a concert by your favorite performer in a sports arena or stadium, you know what an acoustic mess that can be.

Without a little bit of "sweetening" (as we call it in the biz) music, and especially vocals, can sound like shit.

The Blog has watched Beyonce's performance over and over, on YouTube.

She was NOT lip-syncing. In my professional opinion.

But, if that is the only credible criticism that you can come up with re: the ceremony...

Then you've got nothing. 

Kelly Clarkson did a nice job on "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

Understand that she had a "scratch track," too.

James Taylor, who went full acoustic, (and,who I have to assume, was there for Joe Biden's benefit,) demonstrated why one should have a "scratch track."

The real rock stars of the ceremony were The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

Look at those faces!

A multicultural group of, mostly, untrained singers, rocking the house, while sending a not so subtle message to the "conservatives" from The South.

Try to ignore the spot at the 00:57 second mark, where the cameraman seems to fall in love with the Anne Hathaway look-a-like. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the PBS director yelling, "Move on to the rest of the choir, you pervert!"

No. You can't really hear that. But, The PC has worked in television long enough to know that that is what went down.

But, I am digressing, again.

The Tabernacle singers stole the show.

Someone wasted no time getting that track onto iTunes.

And The Blog wasted no time downloading it to his iPod.

One last thing.

The photo below is not a pic of the inauguration.

But, rather, a reconstruction of the inauguration, built entirely from Legos™.

The builder is totally awesome.

And, has way too much time on his hands.

Did You See It?

Yesterday's Presidential Inauguration ceremony was so chock full of awesomeness, and the response from the various right-wing pundits and propaganda outlets, so full of monkey fuck bat-shitterey, that it is going to take your Old Uncle PC a couple of nights to write about it.

Be patient, my blogglitts! And stay tuned!

There is so much to comment on.  And, those comments are coming.

Tonight, just to get it out of the way...

 The Blog, a professional beauty expert and licensed cosmetologist, loves the First Lady's new hair do.

"Halle Barry-esque," I say.

Her critics, including Mrs. Blog, can suck it.

The extremely straight, yet, totally in touch with his feminine side, PC says...

"You go, girl!"

I Nearly Missed It

It's true!

January 19, 2013 has come and, here on the west coast, nearly gone and The Blog, only a bit ago, realized that he had nearly missed this historic day in America.

The Blog is a bad American.

Because, while other fine patriots spent the day flocking to gun shows, gun shops and Wal-Mart and others gathered proudly, openly carrying in public places to celebrate their God given right to bear arms, The PC spent the day alternately taking down Christmas lights and dozing in front of the TV with The BlogDog in his lap.

I feel like the Ebenezer Scrooge of National Gun Appreciation Day.

*I know. I told you a couple of days ago that I was going to stop posting about guns for a while. Sorry. Hopefully, this will be it. Probably not.*

In the 221 years since the Second Amendment was ratified...

*Fun Fact*

The Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, fifteen years after the birth of the country and five years after the adoption of the Constitution and was not written by "The Founding Fathers."

*Just thought you should know*

... laws have been written, regulations imposed, repealed and imposed again.

But it wasn't until early January of 2013, just weeks after the deadly shooting of twenty school children, six faculty members and the shooter's mother in Newtown, CT by a madman who had access to a legally acquired arsenal, that fine, gun appreciating Americans, led by a for-profit, Republican consulting firm and sponsored by such odious organizations as the White Nationalist Party, The Oath Keepers and Tea Party Nation, determined a need to rise up, en mass, and...

...Uhm...

                                                                                     Appreciate guns.
 Anyone else find the whole thing a little bit creepy?

The Blog hasn't seen the final numbers, but he is wondering how they stack up next to the crowds who spent an artery clogging day appreciating Chick-fi-La, last year.

Like that day, not all of the appreciaters (appreciators?) came away unscathed.

To end on a lighter note...

The Huffington Post shared the following YouTube video, in honor of National Gun Appreciation Day.

"Gun Fails: Second Amendment Rights Gone Wrong"

As far as The Blog knows, No morons were harmed (or, at least, mortally wounded) in the making of this video.

The PC Explains It All

Because, it would seem, he has to.

This graphic has been going around on the internets since the last Debt Ceiling debate.

It has been shared on Facebook by friends on both the right and the left.

True bipartisanship!

But, the central idea contains a flaw.

Because it seems to be The Blog's lot in life, he is compelled to explain something.

Social Security and Medicare are not tied to the debt ceiling. Soldier's pay is, sort of.

But, because the debt ceiling is about paying for debts already incurred by Congress in the past, not future spending, not raising the ceiling (as has always been done without controversy before this past year, when the Republican members of the House decided that it would make an awesome political hostage,) it isn't that there will be no money for Social Security and Medicare recipients, that money will still be there. (Soldier's pay is a little more complicated, but that money is still there, too.)

The problem is with paying the employees who process, print and mail the checks. If they aren't in the offices to do that, then people won't get their checks.

"Why not stop your pay, your staffs pay, or Congress???"

(That is some seriously bad sentence construction! Did the original poster sleep through Sophomore English? The Blog is thinking, yes. History and Civics, too.)

But, to answer the semi-literate question...

If the debt ceiling raise doesn't pass, that is exactly the result that will be achieved.

Not the Congress' pay.

And, probably, not the President's.

But their staff?

Yeah.

They would be, pretty much, fucked.

This is not unprecedented.

Back in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich's Congress shut the government down in a political hissy fit.

The result wasn't pretty.

For, pretty much, anybody.

Especially the Republican party.

Social Security and Medicare recipients, and soldiers, didn't get their checks.

                                            Newt was forced out of Congress in disgrace.

And, at the mid-term elections, the American voters handed the Republicans their asses and gave us a Democratic Party controlled Congress that balanced the budget and left the country with a surplus.

Newt has, recently, tried to take credit for this. As if he was the Messiah of the Clinton years, rather than the Scaramouche of that decade. 



The new Tea Party Republicans have a short memory.

On the other hand, withholding Congress' pay until they resolve the mess isn't a bad idea.

And The World Moves On

One of the things, I think, that has made my life such an interesting ride, has been the unusually large number of colorful characters that have passed through my world.

Among those colorful characters, Fred J. Lincoln was a Techicolor™ peacock.

Fred passed away this morning at the age of 75.

It may seem like I am being callous when I say this, but if you knew Freddy, you would know that he would tell you this, himself...

It's a miracle that he made it this far.

Freddy spent a good chunk of his life cheating death.

*Note*

The following is neither a biography or a eulogy, but, a recollection. Some of what I am about to write may be inaccurate, or even false. Freddy was, among other things, a gregarious raconteur and may have been prone to telling a few tall tales. There are some things that I have never been able to verify.

*End Note*

Born in Hell's Kitchen in NYC, Fred has been credited as one of the pioneers of the New York porn scene in the 1970s. For a time, he was the owner of New York's infamous sex club, Plato's Retreat.

He moved to Los Angeles where he worked as an actor and stuntman.

Freddy is probably best known to horror movie buffs as the rapist/killer Fred "Weasel" Podowski in Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left."

In that film, Freddy's "Weasel" becomes the recipient of one of the most cringe inducing, revenge killings in cinematic history.


Let me describe it this way...

                                                           It's all fun and games until someone loses a penis.

Let's leave it at that.

Some years later, Wes Craven gave a shout-out to Freddy by naming his most famous "boogie man" Freddy Kruger.

But, (and as I said earlier, I have never been able to verify this, so I am not going to name the film, but I have heard the story from several sources, including Fred, so I will take him at his word,) Freddy may have had an impact on me as an early teen, with his involvement in one of the most bad-ass car stunts, ever.

*Digression*

The Blog thinks that he may have just set a "personal best" record for the most commas used in a run-on sentence.

*End Digression*

It was a cop movie. If I remember correctly, it took place in San Francisco, where you just can't do a car chase that isn't awesome.

But, it was the chase's climax that blew the young Blog's mind.

The cop's car plows into and under a semi-trailer, pealing the top of the car back like a sardine can.

                                                                                                This.

In The Blog's not so humble opinion, the most bad-ass car stunt in movie history, until John McClane launched a car at a helicopter from under the 105 in "Live Free or Die Hard."

Freddy, (I am told, but cannot confirm,) was the stunt driver for that scene.

You would think that that would be the crown jewel of a stunt driver's resumé.

But, according to Fred, it was actually a magnificent fuck-up.

You see, the scene, as envisioned by the director, had the car skidding to a stop, front end under the trailer, stopping just as the edge of the trailer tapped the windshield.

But, as Freddy told it, "I drank a bit, at the time."

This comment would spark gales of laughter.

More on that in a bit.

Fred continues...

"I didn't take into account the loose gravel on the road. If I had noticed it, I would have refused to do the stunt, until the stones were cleared away. But, I didn't. So, instead of slowly skidding to a stop, I just plowed right into the truck. I realized what was happening just in time to drop below the dashboard. If I hadn't, my head would have ended up in the back seat."

Still.

Bad-ass!

Fred, eventually left the high stress stunt business and returned to his roots, producing and directing adult videos.

Fred didn't so much battle a substance abuse problem.

Rather, he embraced it.

Until the late 1980s, when his doctor told him that his liver "had more holes in it than a wheel of swiss cheese." (Freddy's words.) And, would not live to see the new year if he did not take better care of himself.

With the help of his wife Patty, Fred got clean, and mostly sober, (he still had the occasional drink, and still smoked like a chimney.) But, he got his health back.

The last time I saw Fred was, almost exactly, ten years ago, at the Adult Video Convention in Las Vegas, that coincides with the Consumer Electronics Show and culminates with the Adult Video News Awards.

The Blog was there, working for the cable network that covered the awards show.

I spent some down time on the convention floor, saying "hello" to old friends from the biz that I had not seen in nearly a decade.

There he was, his mane of white hair flowing.

He greeted me with a hearty hug.

He said, "God damn! You got old!"

I replied, "God damn! You're still alive!"

And, God damn! It was good to see him!

Whatever your opinion of porn and pornographers may be...

The PC really doesn't care.

Back in the day, The PC made a good living working in that industry.

And, he made some good friends.

Fred J. Lincoln was one of the good guys.

He was a  character.

But, he was MY character.

And, my world is a bit emptier without him in it.

The world moves on.

One more quick obit...

Pauline Philips...

aka: Abigail Van Buren...

                                                                                        aka: "Dear Abby..."
... also passed away today.

The PC never knew her, but he grew up reading her column.

Several years ago, she turned her column writing duties over to her daughter, Jeanne Philips.

The Blog had the pleasure of working with Jeanne on a TV pilot.

She is one of the nicest people that I have had the honor of working with.

My condolences go out to her and her family.

One Last Post About Guns (for now)

The Blog is seriously sick of posting about guns and gun control regulation.

He hopes that this is the last post on the subject for a while.

But, today, January 16, 2013, our president put on his leadership pants and laid out his plan to do something about gun violence.

Predictably, the right-wing pundits, politicians, propagandists and conspiracy theorists are shitting their paranoid, obstructionist, in-the-pockets of the weapons manufacturers diapers.

And, so are the right-wingers who, regularly eat that shit up.

So, while The Blog's right-wing/republican/libertarian/gun fellating friends have their apoplectic melt-downs and post on Facebook about the demise of the Second Ammendment, the tyrant Hussein Obama, and make their comparisons to Hitler and Stalin...

                                                      This graphic was actually posted on Facebook by a FotB,
                                                            because, while he is a nice guy, he is also an idiot.

And all of the dick-heads that have clogged The Blogs email inbox with their bullshit.

People like the cumbersomely named...

The other night, The PC mentioned "organizations" that are, most likely, individuals in cabins in the woods, with internet access.

The "CCRKBA" seems to be one of those.

Why do I think that?

Because, when The Blog clicks on the "view as a web page" link, he gets a "page not found" message.

But, let's take a look at a portion of the email that The Blog received from this basement dweller.

                                                                      Click to enlarge. But, you know that.

It goes on and on. But, you get the idea.


The PC suggests that those friends learn a thing or two about recent (by "recent" I mean "the last hundred years," history. And see if it is not too late to enroll in a "Civics 101" class at their local, tax-payer funded community college.

That same request can go out to some of our Republican Congress people.

Our President put forth 23 Executive Orders.

Orders that legally bypass the Congress.

23!

Goddamn! That a lot of Executive Orders signed in one day!

But, do you know what?

Even with those orders, all legal and with precedent (despite what the right-wing pundits and politicians claim) ...

"Emperor" Obama has signed fewer "Executive Orders" than any of his predecessors.

This is what I'm talking about.

That's just a fact.

Every one of his "EOs" make simple, common sense.

His four requests to Congress are, also, sensible. But they will be up to Congress to decide on.

There was one thing that the President didn't demand.

What was that?

Oh, yeah!

He didn't demand that anyone take away your guns.

Got that?

The Blog is pretty sure that he has shared this before.

But, he feels that it is appropriate to share it again.

Watch and enjoy.



And, freaking learn something.

Sing along.

Ladies and gentlemen, "The Clark Kent of folk music..."

Mr. Roy Zimmerman.

Taking a Break. But, Just One Thought

The Blog is coming up on one year of blogging.

January 31st will be the first anniversary of "The Premature Curmudgeon" blog.

"Time flies when you're having fun," they say.

And, "They" are right.

The Blog will get weepy, on the night of the anniversary, about the amazing, worldwide readership that The Blog's "stats" counter has kept him apprised of.

But, not tonight.

Tonight, just one, clear-eyed observation...

One of the things that the PC has, unexpectedly, enjoyed most about blogging, has been finding the graphics that he has found to illustrate his posts, via Google Image Search.

A small handful of the graphics on the blog were put together by me, thanks to the magic of Photoshop™.

But, the majority of them were born, fully formed, from a simple Google search.

The Blog had this epiphany last night, when he found an actual can of bat shit.

                                                                        Because, who would have thought?

And, rest assured, The Blog has saved that image and will use it many times in the future, whenever someone opens a "can of bat shit."

                                                                                   So, a big "tip o' the hat"

To Google Images from The Blog for all of the awesome images that they have supplied!

Oh!

One more thing....


A quick plug...


Tomorrow night, Jan 16, 10:00 PM / 9:00 PM central.



The premier of "Fix My Family," on We tv. (Check your cable listings.)



Starring Dr. Tara Fields (and featuring *ahem* my make-up.) 



Dr. Tara tackles the problems of eight families that have gone way past the point of disfunction. (The network's tagline... "Some families are broken. These are shattered.")



If you love my other shows, ("Dr. Phil" and "The Doctors,") then "Fix My Family" is right up your alley!



I'm not just plugging this because I worked on it.

I am plugging it because it is a project that I am proud to have been a part of.



The Blog says, "Check it out!"

And It Just Keeps Coming

Last night, The Blog posted a right-wing email that was, just about, the bat shittiest pile of bat shit that he has ever received over the last several years of receiving bat shit from the shitting bats.

(Pardon me for a moment, while I rest up from that last sentence...

... Okay, I've recovered. Moving forward.)

The PC even gave himself an excuse to skip posting tonight.

Today, The Blog receive this little number from...

And, if anyone thought that that email couldn't be topped...

The folks at "Conservative Contacts Alerts" took it to the next level.

Bat shit just got real.

*Digression*

Unlike many of the wing-nut emails that The Blog gets in his inbox everyday...

Which, The Blog suspects are sent out by creepy loners living in heavily armed cabins in Minnesota (or some such place) with a wood stove and internet access...

"Conservative Contacts Alerts" seems to be a "legitimate" business. A clearinghouse for email distribution to conservatives and promiscuous email sluts, like myself, who engage in unprotected, written intercourse with all the wrong people.

Unlike many of those other spammers, one can never be sure what will be found inside a "Conservative Contacts Alerts" email.

                                                                                "Momma always said..."
Life is like a box of toxic chocolates.

One message might be from Newt Gingrich, pleading for money for his failed presidential campaign.

One might be from Mitt Romney... doing the same thing.

Another might be from Donald Trump, spreading his "birther" theories.

Or Ted Nugent. Enough said.

*End Digression*

Today's came from a "prepper" web site.

(The Blog uses the term "prepper" because "survivalist" just feels like it gives these astoundingly paranoid monkey fucks too much credit.)

The subject line reads...

Obama Steals Your Guns

Typical stuff.

It's what follows that dropped The Blog's jaw to his chest.

Dear Patriot,

With the way our government is heading it could only be a matter of days until you kiss your second amendment rights goodbye.

But here's the question...

Do you know how to defend your family using nothing but primitive weapons?

Click the link below to see the truth about 21 deadly weapons the government could NEVER take away:

See with the way things are heating up between North Korea, Iran and the everyday threat of a terrorist attack you could need to defend your family sooner than you think.

And in a disaster situation can you guess what one of the first things to go is going to be?

AMMO.

Which means you'll be forced to rely on the same kind of weapons our ancestors used for thousands of years...

Weapons that a small group of men would use to hunt and kill anything from a wild elephant to a lion!

Click the link below to discover the truth about these 21 long-forgotten weapons:

Remember, we're all in this together!

'Above Average' Joe

P.S. Be sure to pay attention to the one thing NEVER to do with a glass bottle... and how to make it into a 9-knife weapon instead!

P.P.S. You've already got 6 weapons hiding in your garage (not power tools). Don't be left helpless if the government ever decides to confiscate your guns. 

Man!

Those preppers may be bug fuck paranoid, but they sure are creative!

I have removed the links to the promised site, as well as the actual name of the "organization" that sent this out.

For a couple of reasons.

1.) The Blog does not wish to direct traffic to this site.

b.) The Blog does not wish to put whatever information this site promised to share out to every nut-case that can operate Google.

Tres.) The Blog "took one for the team" and clicked on the link, himself.

Here is what happened...

The Blog was taken to a web page that demanded his email address, before sharing the valuable information.

Since The Blog learned his lesson all those years ago, he pulled on an internet condom and entered a web based email address that exists, solely, to protect himself from the D.T.Ds (Digitally Transmitted Diseases) that such contact may expose himself to.

From there, The PC was taken to a web page that reiterated everything in the email, then offered to sell him a book, for the price of $7.99.

The Blog took a pass.

But, he is pretty sure that every creepy loaner in a cabin, etc. will happily shell out  the eight bucks to learn what "six deadly things are in [their] garage" that they can use when Obama takes their guns, might be.

So...

Not just bat shittery.

Bat shittery for a profit.

Surprise, surprise.

One more thing...

FotB, Teresa, commenting on last night's post, asked...

OMG.. first off are they even allowed to "sell" your email.. I would be all over their crap for THAT.. and what a bunch of NUTTERS... that is all.

Yes.

Yes, they can.

A bit about that.

The PC began getting a "newsletter" from a local, "conservative" pundit about ten years ago.

The PC didn't know who this asshole was or, at first, how he got on this guys spam list.

After much thought, I will tell you that the "pundit's" name is Steve Frank. He is a self-styled Republican commentator with a mediocre resumé.

The PC has decided to take the high road and not share his email address. Nor will I drive any traffic to his blog, by posting it's name, here.

If you want more information on this guy, a couple of minutes on Google will probably do the job.

Before he had a blog, he sent out a daily "newsletter."

It was an amazing compendium of right-wing buggery.

The Blog endured his daily dose of nonsense for quite a while, without acknowledging it, for an impressive amount of time.

But, one day, this idiot made the most amazing claim!

He said that the "impending Social Security crisis" was a direct result of "the legalization of abortion."

Two bats with one stone.

The PC could no longer contain himself.

He emailed Mr. Frank and asked him who he was, and who did he think he was?

The PC received a prompt response. A copy of Mr. Frank's hilarious resumé.

Which, explained a lot.

Mr. Frank is a retiree. But, his last job was as professional spammer (my words) for a printer ink refill company.

Mr. Frank, apparently, appropriated the email listings of his former company and used it to spam people like me.

The two of us had a few lively email exchanges. Each of which ended with Mr. Frank calling The PC some choice names.

When he caught up with the internet technology that had long been mastered by jr. high school students several years prior, he moved away from the email "newsletter" and started a blog.

While his blog's privacy policy claimed that it would not sell user information, a point that The PC called him on, he informed me that he had merely "rented" his email list to various web sites, to finance his new blog.

Point One.) The Blog's blog costs him nothing, aside from his ancient computer, an internet connection and a bottle of moderately priced scotch.

Point Two.) As a retired, professional spammer, Mr. Frank knows damned well that there is no such thing as "renting" an address list. Once a list has been "shared" it has been shared on a permanent basis.

What an asshole.

One last thing...

Just a bit of "inside sports" between Teresa and The Blog...

Once The PC understood who this ass-wipe was, he had a realization.

Back around the year 2001, Mr. Frank was a last minute booking on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect."

During that appearance, during a debate about the public school system, Mr. Frank got his clock cleaned by a certain, cute little, blonde actress friend of ours, whose initials are L.L.

I thought you might enjoy that. 

This One's a Doozy

Well, The Blog's three long weeks of winter unemployment vacation come to an end tonight.

Back to a regular work schedule in the morning.

Posting will probably be sporadic for the next week or so, while The PC settles back into his regular work routine.

But tonight, one delicious piece of bat shittery.

As The Blog has mentioned in the past, he once sent an email to a local Republican pundit. That, it turns out, is about as safe as having unprotected sex with heroin using, Haitian monkeys, in a public bathhouse.

The Blog's email address is now on the spam list of every wing-nut in America.

The PC would love to "unsubscribe" to these mailings. Or, at least, relegate them to his spam folder.

He would love to send each and every one of them daily emails telling them what bug-shit motherfuckers they all are.

But, looking forward to seeing what they will vomit up the next time that they stick their fingers down their throats, has become something of a "just can't look away" addiction for The Blog.

And today, Sunday January 13, 2013, The Blog received one of the most balls-to-the-wall insane right-wing emails that he has ever gotten.

Proving, once again, that "conservatives" are irony deficient, Conservative-Daily.com spewed up their daily "newsletter" entitled...

The headline...

Obama’s Plan Positions Tyranny To Takeover

Followed by the following ideological diarrhea... 

Make no mistake.  When President Obama says, “We have more work to do,” he’s not talking about jobs or the economy.  He is talking about literally DISMANTLING the United States Constitution!  Yes, he wants to “change” America and transform our republic to even go against our Second Amendment and YOUR right to bear arms!
Let’s look at President Obama’s own words:
“The Constitution keeps getting in our way.”
“The Constitution is a flawed document.”
All I know is that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other framers of the U.S. Constitution, are turning over in their graves when they hear a sitting U.S. president come against the United States Constitution.  Regardless of what has happened:  The United States Constitution IS the supreme law of our great land!  We need to try to remind liberals of that fact!
NOW, because of the tragic murder of 20 school children in Connecticut, the current Administration wants to DISARM YOU!  In the wake of the heart-wrenching massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, screams for gun control abound from many sectors of our great society.  However, in light of the overall situation, many of these screams are misdirected!
Due to the pressures being put on the nation by our current administration, YOU and I must work twice as hard to keep your God-given rights that our Founding Fathers fought and died for.  Yes, the U.S. Constitution, and its amendments, including the Second Amendment, is a supposed written guarantee that protects everyone from a tyrannical government.  This must be passed on, in its entirety, to our next generation.
The Second Amendment protects you, as well as everyone who believes in the right of the individual to protect his or her life, liberty and property.
But President Obama has other plans!
Banning guns in order to protect children from getting murdered by a crazy gun user is what is “heavy on the heart” of the occupant of the Oval Office.  However, his policies necessitate that public schools continue in defenseless, unprotected, gun-free zones.  Ironically, he sends his two daughters to a private school that has nine security guards, many of them who are armed.  His preposterous plan:  Take guns out of our society so children can live!
However, it is up to Congress to uphold and protect the Second Amendment, regardless of what our Commander in Chief thinks or how he acts.
Obama’s cohorts, the mainstream media, are presently ganging up on YOU, by vilifying you and treating you like a “bad guy” or some criminal, because you may own a gun (as guaranteed by the Second Amendment!).  The Obama Administration is rushing to judgment to supposedly “act decisively” to counteract the tragedy in Newtown.  Over ten bills were introduced last week on the very first day of the 113th Congress!  These legislative bills want to ban gun sales, seize your weapons, permit the United Nations to control your weapons, track every gun sale, but in any case – to make you defenseless of your family in a time of crisis.  Don’t wake up “unarmed” by our own government!
The Washington Post reports:  “A working group led by Vice President Biden is seriously considering measures backed by key law enforcement leaders that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks, and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors…”
V.P. Joe Biden’s report is to be presented to President Obama by the end of January.  That is why your fax is absolutely critical to let every Member of our U.S. Congress to remind them to PROTECT and UPHOLD the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution! 
Here is the bottom line:
1.     Law-abiding citizens will be spied on
2.    Sweeping new restrictions on firearms
3.    Enormous new database created to track gun sales and usage
All of this is contrary to the United States Constitution.  You MUST notify every Congressman right away.  Your Second Amendment rights are literally at stake.

Can you see why I am hesitant to give up on this flow of hilarious entertainment?

But, while The Blog laughs, he is reminded of one sobering fact.

There are enough mouth breathing ditto-heads, Glen Beck listening, Alex Jones fellating, paranoids (and all too many intelligent, but uninformed voters) out there to justify the existence of "The Daily Sanity."

So, maybe it's not so funny.

Hunting Humans

The Blog is having a lazy night.

The following was not written by me.

It was written by a military vet, who has a thing or two to say about weapons that are intended to kill fellow humans.

It is pretty intense, and well worth the read.

From one of our members <William Brown>
Hunting Humans.

I was a soldier.

... I was taught to hunt humans who were taught to hunt me. I was taught to hunt humans with firearms designed exclusively to hunt humans. Other humans were taught to hunt me with weapons designed for hunting humans. I am grateful and fortunate to have never been put into a place where I would have to hunt humans and where other humans hunted me.

When I enlisted into the Army at the age of 17, I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. To this day and 30+ years later, I still take that oath very seriously; I will always defend and understand the only written document in the history of the world that created a country.

Within that document are two paragraphs that define us as a nation, a culture and our way of life; the freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.

I am going to use the former to discuss the latter.

The right to bear arms was written into the Constitution for several reasons, the two primaries were for self defense and the other was to feed a family.

The King was in charge of the United Kingdom, which included the colonies of what would become the founding states of America. Due to several minor clashes between his soldiers and colonists prior to 1774, the King made it a crime for non-official representatives of the Crown to own firearms. The King also wanted to protect the British economy and therefore made it illegal for the Colonists to use firearms to hunt for their own food, as he had official hunters for the Colonists.

Therein is borne the 2nd amendment, adopted in 1791: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The first part of that paragraph defends all of our rights from foreign and domestic threats. The second half of that paragraph provides that, as private citizens, we have a right to own firearms.

With rights though, come responsibilities. Each of us has the responsibility to defend the rights of others, who in turn have the responsibility to defend our rights.

When the Constitution was written, firearms were of a different design than what we have today; in 1791 there was one design with multiple uses – hunting, self defense and military combat. in time designs diverged for different uses. One design group was created for military use, simply put; these were specifically designed to hunt humans in combat. This weapons group is appropriately and intentionally called “Combat Assault Weapons”.

Combat Assault weapons were designed to hunt other humans during combat in times of war. When these were first invented in the late 1800s, the military maintained exclusive ownership and possession of these particularly dangerous weapons until the early 1900s, not even law enforcement had these. By the 1920s these firearms were in the possession of private citizens who were intent on committing crimes. It was the activities of these gangs through the 1920s and 1930s that caused laws to be put in place that made it illegal to own firearms designed for hunting humans privately.

This remained the law of the land until the 1970s. After combat assault weapons became legal for private owners, no single year has gone by in which hundreds of innocent people are killed by other people using firearms designed to hunt humans; under the pretense of the 2nd amendment of the United States Constitution.

I have met lots of responsible hunters in my 50 years, not one of them ever said “I love shooting my AK-47 at elk, moose, deer and bear.” No single responsible game hunter would ever use a combat assault weapon for hunting game for one simple reason; “I don’t want to destroy the animal, the idea is to have steak for dinner, not ground meat.”

In 1980 I was trained to be a soldier by men who hunted humans during the Viet Nam and Korean wars. Over the years I have met other men who hunted humans in Germany, France, England, Spain, Italy and Japan between 1942 and 1944. At the end of the day these men and some women must justify this in their hearts and souls as patriotism. They have seen death first hand because their job was to hunt humans. I have seen the guilt, shame and stress in my son’s face who hunted humans in Iraq for a year.

Hunting humans is not a sport for the private individual; it is the distasteful job of a soldier.

When I, or you, sit and talk with these men and even women who hunted humans because it was their job, they do not do it with a smile, they don’t laugh about it; their faces show their own feelings of guilt, shame and stress. Some won’t speak of it, because the horror of hunting humans still haunts them. These men and women must also face the fact that they had to violate God’s 6th commandment – “Thou shall not kill”

As a nation we cannot speak of human rights violations of despots and dictators when we as a nation make legal in our neighborhoods hunting humans a sport, violating the very human rights we decry of others. Owning and using weapons designed for hunting humans in the name of “my rights” is in violation of the rights and freedoms of others.

Before you buy a firearm designed to hunt humans, sit with a man or woman who has hunted humans. Look in their eyes, those eyes are not smiling or laughing, they are crying even if you can’t see the tears.

For over 40 years, half of the men, women and children in our country who were murdered, were murdered by stolen weapons designed for hunting humans; many of them were murdered with their own firearms designed for hunting humans.

Not long ago 26 people were murdered with a firearm designed for hunting humans; among those who were murdered, the owner of that very firearm designed for hunting humans.

Today, millions of Americans were not murdered by millions of other responsible Americans who own firearms that were not designed for hunting humans, because these gun owners understand that combat assault weapons were designed to hunt humans, and they are not interested in hunting humans; they are interested in protecting their hearth, home, family and or they hunt to feed their family. Thank them for exercising their rights with responsibility.

 Read. Think. Feel free to share your thoughts.

A Respite

The PC's blood pressure is up.

So, let's take tonight to chill out and ignore the mind boggling amount of bug fuckery going on in the world today, and allow The Blog to indulge in a bit of pointless rambling...

According to numerous sources, the average working life span of a home computer is four years.

Last month, my first generation Mac G5 turned ten years old.

That is ancient in tech years.

The first gen G5 was made with the old Motorola processor. Later models replaced the Motorola processor with an Intel processor. For that reason, Apple's newer operating systems, (Leopard, Snow Leopard, or whatever the fuck jungle cat that latest version of OSX is called,) can't be used on my old warhorse.

And, for that reason, about a year ago, certain out of date programs (or "apps" as the kids call them) could no longer be updated on my machine.

Out of date web browser plug-ins cannot be updated.

The two, new printers that replaced the two that crapped out last year have some serious communication failures that have required The Blog to deploy some ingenuity to come up with work-arounds to force the printers to, well, print.

                                                            "What we have, here, is a failure to communicate."


(Sure, The Blog could have used a different still from "Cool Hand Luke." But, why would he?)

But, the old Mac plugs away, still.

Around this last Thanksgiving, The Blog noticed a loud, random "tick" sound coming from somewhere near the top of his computer tower.

Couldn't pinpoint the source of the tick, but The PC knows that clicking sounds usually signal the imminent death of a hard drive.

So, he has been backing-up files like a madman.

Tonight, the ticking was especially pronounced.

"Shit!" Thought The Blog.

"On top of every other unplanned expense, (car troubles, Mrs. Blog's medical bills, a neighbor threatening to sue if The Blog doesn't hire a tree service to remove the branches of his majestic bay laurel tree that are intruding onto his property, because the falling leaves are fucking up his pool filter system. [The PC would like to tell neighbor to "buy a fucking pool cover, asshole," or "The branches are over your property. You have every right to cut them, yourself. You're a fucking lawyer, so surely you know that!" Or, "At least, since you didn't have any late night pool parties last summer, we were spared that noise every God damned weekend, not to mention your wife's hyena cackle." But, I did not say that.])

Wait... What was I talking about?

I wanted to keep this post "anger free," But, I lost it for a minute.

Sorry.

Oh, right!

Picking up where I left off...

"Now I have to fix/replace a computer?!?!"

That's just fucking great!

And then, it happened.

The Blog's ear focused in on the ticking noise.

Like Jamie "Bionic Woman" Sommers.

                                                                         "Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot."

The ticking noise is coming from the halogen desk lamp that sits on top of the computer tower.

The PC keeps his den a bit colder than the rest of the house. The better to keep his ancient computer working semi-efficiently.

When the light is turned on, the glass lens heats up and the contraction is the source of the ticking sound.

*Whew!*

Some welcome good news for The PC, for a change.

The PC's Mac keeps on keeping on.

And, The PC breathes a sigh of relief.

Another School Shooting

Today's CNN report about VP Joe Biden's meeting with the pro-gun fetishists lobbyists to discuss sane solutions to gun violence, was interrupted by the "breaking news" that a student at a high school in rural Troy, CA (Just north of Los Angeles, just south of Bakersfield) shot a student and a teacher, (one critically wounded, the other dead,) this morning.

Read the story here.

The school (Troy Union High School) has a full time, armed Sheriff's deputy on duty.

The young shooter, according to reports, was using a non-assalt rifle, but had 20 rounds in his pocket.

He was not stopped by the armed law enforcement agent, but rather, talked down by the unarmed faculty member that he had just shot.

Irony, much?

Fuck! The Blog is tired of talking about gun violence!

But, it just keeps on coming.

Can we, please, have a sane conversation about ending gun violence?

Now?

Please?

The Blog would really rather talk about how much he loves "Once Upon a Time."