Johnny Depp is keen on teaching his children to handle guns.

The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star, who learnt shooting at the age of six in Kentucky where he grew up, wants to pass on his experience to his kids.

“We would just go out and line up a bunch of cans and shoot with rifles, handguns and at times, submachine guns......

Other than him living in France, I don’t see a problem with it.

Melissy in Texas

Guess how much money is in Karl’s Obama cuss jar and win prizes!

Happy Independence Day from GoDaddy.com!
GoDaddy?
Yeah, GoDaddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons did a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1969, serving as a rifleman in the 26th Marines in Quang Nam Province. He was wounded and spent two months in a Naval hospital.

Nah, me neither.
Six New Personality Disorders Caused by the Internet

An NPR report worth listening to. (NPR? Yeah, I know.)

Our job is to get in there and get it back [from the Taliban] ... We don’t want to give the enemy one second to think about what he’s going to do. Because we’re going to be pushing so goddamn hard on the enemy. Our job is to go in there and make contact with the enemy — find the enemy, make contact with the enemy and then we’ll hold on. This is an enemy that’s used to having small-scale attacks and having the coalition pull back. There is no pullback. We will stay on him, and we will ride him until he’s either dead or surrenders.

All too often, it is us who have to think about where we’re going to go, where we’re going to attack, what we’re going to do. In this case, we’re going to be so thick in his AO [area of operation] that he’s going to have three choices: Stay and fight, which we hope he does; try to blend into the population and just pretend he’s a local, in which case the Afghan army and police can sure as hell help identify that along with local leaders; and the third thing is run. And if he tries to run, we’ve got people waiting for him.

We’ll kill and capture a hell of a lot of enemy over these next couple of weeks, I’m confident of that. And I hope the enemy does try to go chest-to-chest with you. It would be a hell of a big mistake, and I don’t think his last mistake. And I suspect we’ll see some of that.

Thank you, General Nicholson.
Godspeed, Marines.
via SupportYourLocalGunfighter

run Sarah, run!

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race..........

If [it] were a long race that required a lot of endurance I’d win.........

BTF

......... U.S. President Barack Obama, at number 49........is the first sitting head of state to appear in the Forbes celebrity survey.......

Rush

I’m a dull guurl

I’m feeling energetic but decidedly uncreative… Planning the Independence Day Picnic Menu:

Various appetizers/snax
[maybe fresh salsa, if I can find good ‘maters]
[otherwise boring ol’ cheeze ‘n’ crackers… *sigh*]

Tri Tip slow-cooked to juicy-rare goodness
“Baked” Tater salad [with onions, bacon & sour cream dressing]
>>>___________!_!_!___________<<<

Watermelon Chunks
Chocolate Cake [with whipped cream frosting and strawberries 'n' blueberries in the traditional pattern]

That blank space?  A desperate cry for another salad/side dish.  Or two. Last time the green salad didn’t go over so well.  Nor did the pasta salad.  I need something new and interesting. 

Ideas?  Salads?  Appetizers?

Panic NOW *runz in circles*

July [is] “Cankle Awareness Month” ...

The ... plan to “prevent, treat and minimize the appearance of cankles” focuses on three areas: exercise, diet and style (avoiding skinny jeans, [avoid capri pants, wear] bright sneakers ... to “draw attention away from the ankle”).

“Cankles are the fastest growing ‘aesthetic affliction’ in the United States … even ahead of other bathing suit killers like Muffin Tops, Saddle Bags and Moobs,” says Gold’s new cankle Web site http://www.saynotocankles.com. “Millions of people across the country are currently affected by Cankles and millions more are ‘at risk.’ In fact, it is estimated that if current trends continue, by the year 2012 Cankles will surpass Love Handles as the number one aesthetic affliction in the world.”

Ohdearheavensabove!!!  How will we survive?!?!?!?!??!!?!??!

Stepperg

If you are keeping clippings about the blogosphere’s Palin Derangement Syndrome in a shoe box or something, let me kick in one for your collection. A so-called expert conjectures that Sarah’s “over the top” response to Letterman’s “joke” about her daughter may be attributable to one of her toes..........

srsly.  take off yer shooz and drop yer drawers to add this up

So what’s 3.2 percent of 0.038?  I came up with not a lot.

Carbon dioxide ... accounts for ... .038 percent of the atmosphere. According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, a research wing of the Department of Energy, only 3.2 percent of that thin atmospheric component is created by anthropogenic emissions.

... [way more at the linky]

on pages 1014-1016 of the [Crap & Raid Bill] is the “Monthly Energy Refund.” According to this plan, for those with a gross income that “does not exceed 150 percent of the poverty line...a direct deposit,” of an undisclosed amount of money, will be sent “into the eligible household’s designated bank account...”

Could be 30¢—could be $30,000.  Who knows?

do they come in pink?

I heard this somewhere on the raadio today and this is the only mention I could find online.  Odd, that…

Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, a bill that would expand the authority of the federal government to prosecute hate crimes, and include “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability” in the protected classes.

[*Clicky* thru for links to the vid of Holder’s testimony and Sessions’ kickin’ his protected arse.]

It’s actually based on the perceived race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, whatever of the victim.  What the perp thought of the victim is the issue that triggers the federal intervention; otherwise it’s just a regular violent crime.

“We’re looking at people who actually commit physical acts of violence,” said Holder. “However deplorable … speech with which I would vehemently disagree [is] not cognizable under the statute.” [emph mine e~C]

Duu-uuude… Arrogant much?

Under questioning, Attorney Gen. Holder was surprisingly forthright in admitting that the hate bill is not intended to protect everyone, or even the majority. He said only historically oppressed minorities were to benefit. This means Jews, blacks, homosexuals, women, etc. Holder made it clear that if a white Christian male, including a serviceman or police officer, was the victim of a violent hate crime by any minority he would have to find redress from traditional law. He could not avail himself of the triple penalties and rapid government/justice system response given a protected minority.

And you white, Christian boyz are the only non-protected class; though you are not the majority.  We Porchettes qualify.  Anyone with any type or sort of brown in ‘em qualifies.  Anyone with any sort of disability, gheyness, Jewishness—real or perceived—you’re covered.

It’s kinda like affirmative action for victims.  Cuz the first kind worked out so fairly…

Feel safer now?

Yeah… me neither.

I don’t remember where this linky came from, but it’ll make ya feel even safer.

Which pop sensation ran off stage at Glastonbury for one of her many costume changes and proceeded to strip off in front of the whole crew - changing her tampon at the same time - much to their utter horror?

AgentBedhead

ToDaZeD Glad a Republican Didn’t Say That

Asked in an interview with the Associated Press about his pet peeve in the White House, President Obama targeted his makeup people – whom he called “the shine police.”

Guess that one’s now okie-dokie.

And, say—helluva great job of jouuuurnalism, there, AP.  I mean, really—screw that silly Honduras story, that bothersome Iran item, that nonsense NorK Missile question.  Whoinhell cares about that US soldier captured by the TallyBans?!?  Rly.  But whyinhell didn’t you use that time to ask the all important Question Of The Day:  will ∏eh iW∅n©^DM be going to the Jacko Funeral?!? 

Srsly, fulks.  Step up.

ch-ch-chaaanges

Gettin’ ready for the regular Independence Day Pick-a-nick, I went to CostCo.  Barely made it out with [the tri-tips and] my life.

Caution:  Raaacist Post Below

If anyone ever doubted the West faces sheer insanity in the fight against the most extreme of the Muslim extremists, consider a discussion that recently erupted on a jihadist Web site based on the writings of one of al Qaeda’s leading theorists. The thrust of the debate was that Muslim fighters may be justified in cannibalizing U.S. soldiers if they find themselves with nothing else to eat.

But we can’t make their faces wet to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians.
Perhaps we should condition our future policy on how the soldier captured in Afghanistan is treated.

“The Koran” It’s, it’s… a cookbook!
(cultural reference BTF)

...as a lover or as an orgasm faker.
I suspect there may be some disagreement on which is more likely.

TORRINGTON, Conn. – A group of teenagers misunderstood a woman’s screams during sex and, thinking they were stopping an assault, beat a 25-year-old man in her bedroom, police said.

David Taylor, a business psychologist, told workers at design and marketing onebestway, in Newcastle upon Tyne, that a Naked Friday idea would boost their team spirit.......

British performance artist Alice Newstead, is suspended from then ceiling with hooks through the skin on her back in the window of a cosmetic shop in Paris, Thursday. Alice Newstead, a member of the conservation group Sea Sheperd, wants to illustrate how sharks are caught and killed for their fins.

It is so pathetic to me how the right wing, mainstream media always spreads the fear factor.

Ignorance is unpatriotic.

Public financed health care is socialism? Oh, be afraid, be very afraid.

Now let’s examine this more closely. Public funding a necessity to every American is socialism. We don’t want none of that “ism” in our country.

Wait, bailing out big corrupt corporations with our tax dollars, while the CEOs walk away with big bonuses, is that socialism?

Congress has premiere health care, paid for with our tax dollars. Hmmm.

My street was recently repaved as part of renovating the LOTT processing plant. Who paid for it?

Do we have public schools, a military, Social Security, Medicare, Food and Drug Administration, National Security Agency, police and fire departments? When we lose our electricity during a storm, and it is restored, who pays for it?

Many who do have health care, are denied coverage by corporate greed. Many die or go bankrupt under the current system.

Stop screaming “socialism.”

Acknowledge that Halliburton and Blackwater and every oil company have made a bundle off of the war in Iraq.

All we ask is the ability to be healthy — the same ability that every other industrial country on earth already has.

IT IS OUR RIGHT!

Call Congress. Demand justice.

Karen Millikan, Olympia

or how we all feel about him?

Ahhh - fame ... ever ephemeral fame… power fleeting and payola transitory ...

“Chairman Waxman did not feel well and fainted in his office,” ...Waxman, 69, was not feeling well Tuesday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for “routine testing,”

Give him some of that nationalized, gubbmint rationed health care.  We really wanna kick his piggy arse around some more.

note the shape of the logo—familiar?

Just saw this on the TeeVee.  So weird, Teh Mister called me in to replay it for me.  WTF?!?!?

The president’s senior adviser and friend, Valerie Jarrett, insisted that President Barack Obama had no idea what questions were coming his way today.
“"I want to emphasize that the president has not seen the questions ahead of time, absolutely not,” Jarrett said at a “town-hall’’ styled forum on healthcare reform today at the Annandale, Va., campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

~ * ~
The president’s staff chose the questions - the first from a woman with her hand up and aides pointing at her.
.
Debby Smith, 53, of Appalachia, Va., was fighting tears as she told the president of suffering from renal cell carcinoma in 1998. The tumor was treated with radiation, but she was no longer able to work and has no health coverage now.

“Now I have a new tumor,” said Smith, explaining that she cannot get treatment, cannot get disability from Social Security, cannot get Medicaid, has dependent kids at home.

The president listened, gazing at Smith with a slightly
furrowed brow.

“Come on over here,” Obama told her.

The woman made her way from the seats and to his side, the president hugged her and promised to seek information to help her. Hugging the woman, Obama called her the “perfect example’’ of why healthcare reform is necessary.

“You are Exhibit A.’’

As my mama once said about this stuff ... Whatathey think we’re stupid????????

~ * ~

If I recall correctly, she even used the “F” word....

knowing what it is is the key to fighting it

Feeling overwhelmed by the nooz, bombarded with all the gubbmint changeyness, swamped with all the nonsense?  [and I don’t mean “nonsense” as a dismissive pejorative; I mean to describe the piles and piles of stuff we see daily that just doesn’t make sense.  Like politicians calling voters “terrorists” or saying that “living within your means has no meaning”—or ‘economists’ saying that voting against Crap&Raid is “traitorous to the planet”.]

Yeah.  Me, too.  I think that sense of overwhelm is called Cloward-Piven-itis…

Yeah, GBeck is a DQ* --- but ya gotta admit, he’s got a point there, somewhere.  Here’s the “Editorial Review” of a book he’s been talking about.  It’s already big in Frants, and coming here on Amazon now [gift wrap available!]

The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord—and with comparable elegance—it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as “the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to “spread anarchy and live communism.”

Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 [I thought those were “disaffected jihaddis youths?”] and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the “war on terror.”

Hot-wired to the movement of ‘77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized forms-of-life. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those—in France, in the United States, and elsewhere—who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.

Swell.  I recently overheard someone [forget who] theorizing that, before long, there will be groups of sorry, disaffected Uh-bama voters [the not-so-dead ones] hitting the streets to demand their free ponies and unicorn skittles.  And those “demonstrations” will be planned.  Here’s your literary justification to take that a step further.

*Drama Queen