Okay, so Sandy said it better than I will.

I usually don't cut and paste from other people's blog posts (and yeah full disclosure I am an Aristocrat my own self) but Sandy Underpants said it best:



And I wanna bring up what Fairlane said in a BG comment:

What about a blogswarm against the Democrats Blue Gal to put pressure on them?

I know I've made myself unpopular among the "Liberals" for criticizing them, but are they not equally culpable?

You, me, everyone who criticizes this government can be spied upon, arrested without due process, have our assets seized without charges, etc.

This could not happen if the Dems stood up to Bush, filibustered, stalled, spoke out en masse, but they have not.

They have capitulated, and soon there will no way for us to undo what Bush and Co. have done.

The Dems joined in yesterday to help Bush pass his modified surveillance program. Why? Why, after so many abuses have already been uncovered?

There are more troops in Iraq than before the 2004 Election. The funding for the war was increased, Bush has issued more executive orders with little to no resistance, Bonzo committed perjury, Libby was set free, on and fucking on.

Do you think the average German anticipated what was to come under Hitler's reign? Do you think they knew that one day the phrase "Enemy of the State" would mean potentially everyone?

Where is the line? And once it's crossed what do we do then?

It's not like we're eating our own here. The Democrats we supported are betraying us. They are betraying the Constitution they swore to uphold. I don't have any hope for a single soul in the White House. But dammit I thought electing Democrats was a good thing and now I'm cynical and mad. Maybe the Italians have it right and the best answer is to elect prostitutes and strippers to the legislative branch...they'll feel right at home.

The latest is the British stripper/phone sex operator who was elected town councilor in Britain:


...she said her business is 'not incompatible with being an elected councillor and it's not illegal'.

I'm sorry the photo in that story looks like somebody photoshopped his sister-in-law's head over the body for spite. Just saying.

Boomer chic or sign of the times?

When peace sign necklaces are for sale in the airline skymall catalog, I scratch my head and wonder.

In other news, I find it highly ironic that my hit counter TOTAL from 2004 to the present now matches the number of people reading Crooks and Liars right this minute.

No need to thank me for the linky love, Amato honey.

UPDATE: Shunra got Viagra spam with the subject line: Impeach Bush! Oh man it's out there now.

Salon tonight here's the link again.

Salon is here. 9 PM Eastern.

Download Skype here first if you haven't already.

And I love what D-Cup at Politits hadda say about our Mondays:

On Monday evenings, I participate in Blue Gal's Skype salon. It's a fun, chatty, exchange on all sorts of topics. Nothing like a bunch of brainy, language freaks and political junkies in one place, all talking at the same time. It's done in real-time chat, though Skype has voice over internet capability for free - how cool is that? But for all these not-shy, mouthy people, the voice over seems hard to manage without it sounding like the monkey house at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

She says that like it's a bad thing? No way.

The Bin Laden PDB blogswarm

Fax of the actual PDB is here. (thanks Doug) You can check the

Google Blog or

Technorati

searches to see who else is blogging. (There's no need to send post to me, just make sure your post includes the term PDB blogswarm to be included in the searches. I'll be checking them out.)

Tengrain from Mock, Paper, Scissors did a logo for the blogswarm. Word has it Harriet is handing George the Bin Laden memo right 'chere.

More: Paul at Aristocrats found this at Center for American Progress: talking points for your post if you need some writing prompts.

This Monday, August 6 is the six-year anniversary of the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

This story from Alternet confirms the date of the PDB and points out that Presidential intelligence is one more thing that's being outsourced (she said without irony).

Join our little blogswarm if you like and watch this space.

BTW credit where credit is due the original idea is Ripley's from Zen Cabin.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It's too late to put together a blogswarm site with links so please include "PDB" for Presidential Daily Briefing in your post or tag. Technorati and/or Google Blog Search will pick these up. Thanks.

Salon tonight I'll have link up below in a few. Thanks.

pdb blogswarm

Splainin' to do. Salon tonight.

Namely Senators Nelson of Florida, Casey of Pennsylvania, and Webb of Virginia, for voting to increase this President's power on the FISA bill this weekend.

The netroots supported you guys big time and you're making us cynical way too early.

Salon link is here.

Hadda grind my teeth on this vid but it's only three minutes and has some fun news and a quasi-strip tease on it. Enjoy.

Blue Blog Porn.

Just saying. These have been all over the blogosphere if you actually made them let us know in comments so we can say thank ye.

Woot!

Okay obviously Technorati is having a few technical difficulties today. But I'm gonna go with it while it lasts:

Eat my dust, Michelle Malkin.

Nice.

If you like pictures of pretty flowers check out The Pansy Bastard.

And Bastard? We usually don't address trolls directly in posts, it just encourages them. But the line,

What a sad and pathetic existence you must lead. Kevorkian is out of prison now. Contact him.

is pretty good. You're from Iowa? Can we convince you to support Kucinich?

BG's Saturday Song - Fred and Ginger

Gonna start posting a song on Saturdays because I can. Put the key in the minivan after getting back from our trip (yes it started, thanks) and this song came on the CD player. I picked this version because I LOVE the Ginger Rogers closeup on this one, plus when you look at Fred Astaire smirking, does he look like he's never gonna see her again? Ha. And older versions are always, always better.

From "Shall We Dance," 1937:



Oh and while we're talking Astaire, he was FORTY THREE, a year younger than I am now, when he did this. I could just plotz. From "You Were Never Lovelier", 1942:

Is there a box big enough

To ship Tom Tancredo to some Middle Eastern country where our government has "plausible deniability" of any torture actually occurring on our behalf?

I will seriously pay the shipping. Charge me.

It's about tax breaks for the super rich and screw poor children, stupid.

And Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, but who are we kidding, we'd trade one of Bernie for say, seventeen Joe Liebermans any day, Vermont) gets it. Well worth watching for how he takes down this Bush nominee for, pardon the expression, Budget Office.



Senator Sanders is now filibustering this nomination. Hat tip David Sirota at Working for Change. I usually don't send people to the US Senate website but Bernie's page is probably worth bookmarking for the next eighteen months.

Welcome to the blogroll

Distributor Cap NY.

And it's not because you blogrolled me first it's because damn baby you know how to write.

Evil Spock writes about vlogging...

"It is logical that this red visor allows me to see Blue Gal's panties."

Evil Spock at Needs of the Few winds up writing a piece on vlogging which does not mention me or Pammy but does talk about anonymity and also somehow works in a tie to hip hop music and Slate. I wanted to comment on this part:

Will regular blogging become obsolete? It is a lot easier to watch a video than to actually read.

In the case of the right wing vlogger mentioned above it is simply easier to make a video than to spell correctly. And don't even mention going back to fix the "typos" when several commenters point them out. As I've said before, she clearly doesn't think her blog is as much an extension of her selfhood as her face. But for me, it is. (Please report any typos or mistakes in grammar, at this blog, not Pammy's, sheesh, to bluegalsblog AT gmail.)

I am not going to vlog all the time. Sure it's my new toy and I'm playing with it. It will take time to work out the kinks and get it so it's actually good. But this here blog took time to be any good as well. Art is about making mistakes, and throwing in kiln devils so the pots don't break.

Before I go to bed, the end of the world as we know it.

OMG. Some publisher is producing ABRIDGED versions of DICKENS, THACKERAY AND GEORGE ELIOT!?!?

...in the first series of Compact Editions Anna Karenina, Moby-Dick along with David Copperfield, The Mill on the Floss, Vanity Fair and Wives and Daughters will be 'sympathetically edited' down to fewer than 400 pages.

WTF? I mean, Eisenhower always said if you can't say it in a page don't say it and I always said if you can't say it in 475 pages don't say it. Especially if you're saying it in a nineteenth century novel, for Crispy Kreme sakes.

But I gotta say while I love me some George Eliot, Mill on the Floss needs some serious editing. It's like she got tired all of a sudden and spent the last fifty pages saying "and then everyone died in a flood the end." Hey don't listen to me the Guardian Unlimited lit blog says the same damn thing:

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot is a case in point. While the first two thirds of the book is a wonderful, if leisurely, evocation of a small English market town at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the last part is a rushed, breathless, melodramatic affair with an entirely unlikely tying up of plotlines.

In other words, everyone dies in a flood the end.

Give that one the Eisenhower treatment.

Eisenhower in his days as President (not of the George Eliot Fan Club).

Which David do you love to hate the most? Pffft.

D-Cup at Politits asked the question (while pimping my Monday salon, thanks hon) and I almost choked on my Juicy Fruit. I can't think of a single David I know that I hate. And more specifically, I am passionate about Junior Dude, who happens to be a David.

Oh. You're talking about BRODER. Nevermind.

By the way. It is 2:03 in the morning. But we're home.

Blogging from the plane.

12:55 Pacific Time. Until we take off. Then my laptop has to be stowed.

If we crash I was in seat 6F on Southwest Flight 749, Seattle to Phoenix. Blue Gal was said to LOVE wifi.

4:44 Pacific Time. By the time I get to Phoenix, I'll be blogging. Okay the deal in Seattle was pay eight bucks for a full day of internet and they have live wifi at the in-airport playground which has an ajacent family restroom clean enough to actually use.



Phoenix has free wifi but you can't access blogs like Balls and Walnuts because PHX Airport thinks it's porn. (Well, he does love the camel toes.) No playground, not even a cheap plastic slide in the waiting area. I'll pay eight bucks for the playground internet, thank you very much.

Observations on my journey. WTF is it with women and cosmetics? Thanks much to the lady who spilled red nail polish in the fore washroom on the plane. A chipped nail is a big deal when you're using Revlon's "Cherries in the Snow" in the summer, I guess.

And I could make a big deal about how people now sit on the floor in airports because that's where the plugs are but I do that too. I'm one of the few women though, which is interesting. So then I wonder why I'm so hard on women who bring electric curling irons in their carry on so they can touch up between flights. Not making that up. It's not like they're maintaining this.

I'm just an internet geek. I don't understand grown women owning anything "Hello Kitty" either.

Christians? Happy?

There's an interesting post over at Quaker Street (BG linking to Quaker blogs? Get used to it.)

Apparently Jean Paul Sartre wrote about Christians coming out of church with smiles on their faces and deduced that happiness was a hallmark of Christian living or some such nonsense. Any quote from French philosophes of the twentieth century prompts "the taking of the Advil" at Chateau Blue Gal. Here is my comment from there:

I have known Christians who felt some obligation to be either happy or sad but I'm with the Buddhists on this one: mere human emotion is Monkey Mind.

I think the hallmark of a true Christian is both a broken heart and a joyful one. We've been to hell and come back. We know the pains this world can produce and we know the way out is hard, but we're not alone and we don't have to be afraid.

My recent leadings (and yes I'm a newly Convinced Quaker) have been both sad and joyful.

Other things to read today:

Manila calls the founders of Live Earth, "the Man." He's right.

Blogenfreude loses it. And shouldn't we all?

Are you an English teacher? Please prepare your red pencil and give Mitt Romney's finance chair an "F". Then expel her. From the English-speaking world.

Off to the airport and lots of waiting. Should have wifi but may not have power supply. We'll see.

Caption this photo

Loved your speech at the Joe Lieberman fundraiser!

Got the picture from Al Jazeera*, h/t John Geraghty.

*Bite me, Bill O'Reilly.

I loooove buyin' me some books.

And gotta say something about the shell. Shells cheer me up and I sense protection and a calming influence from them sometimes, especially when I worry the universe is talking directly to me. It's the Cancerian in me, no doubt.

I also have to apologize that my webcam kept wanting to look upwards. Yeah there's big meaning on that too, namely darn gravity.

On a plane all day Thursday to get back to Alabama. Have a good one.

Bonus Skype Salon tonight

Who cares that it's not Monday? Salon tonight is here. So am I.