Presented without comment

Except to say skip forward to about 1:10 to skip the interminable opening credits.

Why I should never be a parent

because, based on things I've said to or thought about my friends' kids, I'm pretty sure I would say things like this:

Oh, sorry  kiddo. Didn't you hear? Yeah, the Disney Channel went off the air. But don't worry, they're showing a John Ford marathon on Turner Classic Movies!




You don't like Taylor Swift. No, you don't. Now go to your room and listen to your Wilco CDs!





No, they don't make Barbie dolls anymore. But here, I got you this cool Michone action figure! Check out her awesome katana!



No, I didn't get you a princess costume for Halloween. You and your brother are going as Franklin and Eleanore  Roosevelt. Yes, again!

Harry Potter? Never heard of him. But since you seem interested in magical realism, may I suggest The House of the Spirits?


The Times was right, it is quite spectacular.

Oh my God, will you grow a fucking spine?

I saw two stories today dealing with President Obama's response to Ferguson.
They were not encouraging.

Story # 1:

President Obama to order more training, oversight for military gear to cops

President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order to encourage more oversight of federal programs that dole out military gear to local police departments, senior administration officials said Monday.(emphasis added)

Oh my God, you are the commander in chief! Just tell them to stop giving military equipment to law enforcement agencies. Don't "encourage" them to maybe be a bit more careful handing out the assault weapons and armored vehicles, just order them to stop it.

“There is a big difference between our military and our local law enforcement, and we don't want those lines blurred,” Obama said at the time.

But it's unclear if the president's actions will have any effect on the amount of military-style gear the federal government doles out to local cops.

Of course it won't! Why would it have any effect? 

 

Story # 2:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama asked Congress on Monday for $263 million for the federal response to the civil rights upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, and is setting up a task force to study how to improve modern-day policing.

Let me save you some money:  STOP MURDERING PEOPLE. Don't let cops who murder people walk free. Arrest them, charge them, try them and jail them. Do you really need a task force?

Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a George Mason University professor who is a former assistant attorney general, will lead the task force on 21st century policing, officials said.

Really? You're going to have the task force headed up by a police commissioner? That's like putting Ray Rice in charge of domestic violence prevention.  You couldn't find a critic of police tactics to chair this charade?

 So, how are you going to spend all these millions of dollars?

 The funds would pay for body cameras for police officers to use and expand training for law enforcement in an attempt to build trust in communities such as Ferguson

 Which won't do much good unless the cops are required to wear them and forbidden from shutting them off.


 Please, Mr. President, grow a spine. I know you have good intentions, at least I assume you do, but they don't do much good unless you are willing to take a stand now and again.

The War on Thanksgiving.

About this time each year, the FOX crowd starts trotting out their "War on Christmas" bs machine.



 Oh, they will fight to the death to defend Christmas from the imagined "attacks" it faces from people who, um. . . are willing to acknowledge that some people celebrate other holidays?

Or folks who want to maintain the separation of Church and State?
Oh no,  wait, I mean INFIDELS!!!! AMERICA-HATING INFIDELS!!!!!


And every Spring they pretend there's a "War on Easter" to be fought.

Heck, they've even discovered a "War on Halloween"



Even though the only people who tend to object to Halloween are evangelical Christians who object to the holiday's pagan roots and scary "occultic" overtones. In other words, FOX news viewers.

But what about Thanksgiving?

Because Thanksgiving is actually under attack by the obscene spectacle known as "Black Friday." People are actually having their Thanksgivings taken away from them by stores who now not only insist that their employees be at work before the crack of dawn the day after, but now don't even close for Thanksgiving itself.

Where is the outrage on the right?

Why does the "pro-family" crowd raise no objection to people being deprived of family time in the service of feeding America's frenzy of acquisitiveness and materialism?

What's a bigger affront to holiday tradition, a cashier wishing you "Happy Holidays" or having a Thanksgiving that goes like this:  "Gee, Grandma, everything smells so good, you've really outdone yourself this year. . . well, got to go sell some cheap electronics or I'll be unemployed. See you at Christmas hopefully!"

 

See you later. Those robot dogs aren't going to sell themselves!

Every year it gets worse and worse. The entire concept of "Black Friday" is grotesque enough to begin with. Once the term "Black Friday" went from being backroom retailer jargon to part of the everyday lexicon of normal people, we lost a part of our national soul. Once flyers began proudly announcing "Black Friday Sales!" we as a society should have stood up and said "No! We will not create a holiday based on celebrating your corporate profitability!" But we didn't. We allowed this indignity to infect our culture and it quickly spread like a cancer.

First it spread to Midnight of Thanksgiving day. Which of course meant that store employees were forced to leave their families by 10 or 11 that evening.

Then the stores began opening earlier and earlier Thursday evening until they got to the point where many stay open the entire holiday. As if it were just another day to make sales.

So where are the FOX News special reports on the "War on Thanksgiving?" Why does the one holiday that is actually under attack not see the same umbrage raised  as those holidays whose attacks are pure fiction?

Could it be because this war is being waged by large powerful corporations in the interest of increased profits? Instead of by "secular humanists" or whichever right-wing bogeymen are launching the imaginary wars on other holidays? Nah. . . couldn't be.

Asshole Response of the Day

Representative Peter King somehow managed to outdo all the usual suspects with his assholish response to Darren Wilson's . . . not acquittal, exactly, but being allowed to walk free after having committed murder.

Sure, your Coulters and your Nugents did the expected bald-faced racism thing, but King took being a disgusting prick to a whole new level.

Peter King: President Obama should invite Officer Darren Wilson to the W.H.

By Kendall Breitman

11/25/14 1:56 PM EST

Wow!

Okay, first of all, the last time President Obama invited a racist cop to the White House, you right-wingers went apoplectic. 

Second. Why the fuck would this guy get an invite to the White House? He killed an unarmed kid and you want to treat him like he just won the Super Bowl?

Even if you're enough of a racist toolbag to believe Wilson's story, there was certainly nothing heroic about what he did. In his version, he was so scared by Micheal Brown's "angry face" that he emptied his gun into him from 35 feet away. Even if you're able to do enough mental gymnastics to convince yourself that this wasn't murder, it's pretty shcoking cowardice.

“I think it would be very helpful if President Obama went and met with the police officer, or invited him to the White House and said, ‘You’ve gone through four months of smear and slander, and the least we can do is tell you that it’s unfortunate that it happened and thank you for doing your job,’” the New York Republican told Fox Business on Tuesday

The late Micheal Brown has gone through 4 months of smear and slander in addition to having been murdered. Wilson has been on a paid vacation during which some people have pointed out the he killed an unarmed kid who was no threat to him which is totally what he did. But sure, obviously he deserves the thanks of a grateful nation for doing his "job." Why the fuck not? Brown's family hasn't had enough metaphorical slaps in the face, let's have the President treat his kiuller like a national goddamm hero. 

“I thought it was terrible how, over the last four months, a narrative was put out there by our national leaders and by many in the media presuming that the police officer was guilty,” King said.

Name one.

Name one "national leader" who made any comments presuming Wilson's guilt. Name one.  And name me some of the "many in the media" who didn't go with the old "he says A, the witnesses say B, I guess we'll never know!" Go ahead. I'm all ears.

King was not happy with Obama’s remarks, and said, “I wish he had said one good word about the police, one good word about Officer Wilson, who has gone through all this.”

Jeezus Christ! Wilson has "gone through all this?" Wilson has? See. I would have thought that the people who have "gone through" a lot would be those who lost their son, those who lost their friend, and all the people who have been told once again by the "Justice" system that their lives don't count. That they can be shot down in the street at any time and no one will ever be called to account. I would have thought that those people had gone through a lot these last few months. But obviously I'm wrong. Obviously, it's much tougher to have kllled a person and have to worry that there's an off chance that the prosecutor might accidentally get an indictment. That's what's really tough.

Even by Republican standards Peter King is a sick piece of shit.