This weekend, we put a rain barrel in the front of the house (already had one out back) for Granny’s latest garden project. Had to dig out a level spot and then build a platform out of concrete blocks and pavers to get it off the ground. Doesn’t quite fit in, in our ticky-tacky suburban neighborhood, but then, neither do we. Fuck ’em.

Managed to mess up my arm pretty good trying to get a 1 5/8″ hunk of nylon reinforced tubing onto a barbed plastic fitting. Between pushing and twisting, something bad happened. Hurts like hell, especially when I type. Good thing I don’t type for a living.

Have a good Monday.

My mom passed away nine years ago today. Odd. In some ways, it seems like yesterday, yet in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. That’s how it goes, I guess. Still thinkin’ about ya, ma!

Anyhow, today’s Press the Meat is possibly the best ever. That’s ‘cuz Wimbledon is on instead.

Over at CBS, they either have the same guests lined up again this week, or Faze the Nation is back in “stealth” mode, where they don’t bother to update their web page.

On Fux News Sunday, creepy Brit Hume takes over for Weaselface Wallace, hosting an “All-Star Power Panel” of Fuxheads: asshole Fred Barnes of The Weakly Standard, NPR’s Mara Liasson, scumbag Bill Kristol (also of The Weakly Standard), and token Juan Williams, who really ought to know better.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalfagus has Obamite Jack Reed, his assholiness, Joe Lieberman and Libertarian candidate, zany Bob Barr. Then, on the “Roundtable,” it’s SU grad Ted Koppel, Johnathan Capehart, Michelle Cottle, and Mark Halperin.

On CNN’s Late Emission, they’re celebrating 10 years of Wolf. Or something.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper finds some Mountain Gorillas high in the African jungles and reports on why they have become so endangered. Steve Kroft listens to Douglas Feith’s lies. And Morley Safer wants to know if we should quit minting pennies. Wow, talk about investigative journalism.

Enjoy your Sunday, everybody.

I hope everybody had a good holiday yesterday. I pretended to be a good little American, and had a barbecue in my back yard. Of course, it was a barbecue for one, and there were no horse shoes or volleyball or frisbee or anything. I did play solo catch with the lacrosse stick and a tennis ball for a while, so that was fun.

The big news of the day seemed to be that Cindy Brady had a hangover and had to leave a radio interview to go puke. I guess that’s somewhat apt, since Cindy Brady always made me feel like puking too. Her and that smarmy Kathy on Father Knows Best. It’s no wonder Robert Young was hitting the bottle pretty good back then.

I wonder what exciting news today will bring?

Ah, July 4th, when we honor the great white men who forged an astounding democracy in North America. A democracy that considered black folks to be livestock (except when it came to apportioning representatives to Congress, of course, when they were counted as 60% human). And a ‘democracy’ that didn’t consider women – not even the white ones – as worthy of the vote. And, really, people like Adams were so terrified of the common people (the dirty fucking hippies of the time, I suppose), that they came up with the electoral college nonsense, with which wee are still saddled.

Problem is, there already was a democracy in North America – a confederation of the six Haudenosaunee nations – upon which the government of the United States of America (absent that pesky equal rights and womens’ vote stuff) would eventually be based.

Anyhow, back in 1763 or so, the Haudenosaunee had secured from the British a royal proclamation outlawing intrusions by the colonies onto Haudenosaunee land and creating formal procedures by which native nations could, if they desired, sell territory – as long as the sale was endorsed by the British government.

Needless to say, this pissed off our forefathers to no end (maybe even more than that tea tax you hear so much about). After all, this was their goddamn land to steal and kill for, and those bloody redcoats should just stay the fuck out!

So, the fine leaders of the colonies (mostly a bunch of land speculators), in the finest tradition of god fearing white men everywhere, ignored the new laws and encouraged settlement into native lands. Although they were far superior warriors (especially on their native land), the Haudenosaunee, wishing to avoid involvement in a conflict that would strain their confederacy (the Oneidas and Tuscaroras tended to side with the rebels, while the rest of the six nations sided with the British), made two treaties with the colonies in order to guarantee its neutrality.

The colonies, of course, failed to live up to their end of the treaties, and in 1777 the Haudenosaunee took up arms to thwart an illegal military venture into their territory by the “Americans” at the Battle of Oriskany.

The great white father George Washington decided to send General John Sullivan into Haudenosaunee territory in a “preemptive attack” (sound familiar?) to break the back of the Six Nations. In fact, the most significant US military venture of 1779 was not against the British, but Sullivan’s raids against the Haudenosaunee.

Sullivan and his 3,500+ troops were ordered by Washington to “lay waste all settlements around…so that country may not only be overrun but destroyed.” Sullivan launched a “scorched earth campaign” (a lot like US tactics in Vietnam), torching over 40 Haudenosaunee communities and destroying thousands of acres of crops. During the following winter of 1779-80 – among the most severe of the time – thousands of Haudenosaunee men, women and children – deprived of food and shelter – died of starvation and exposure. Their determination to carry on the fight remained, but the British eventually decided to cut their losses, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the US and Britain ended the war, but neglected to offer any protection to the Haudenosaunee. Veterans of the Sullivan raids snatched up huge amounts of Haudenosaunee territory, and the rest, as they say, is history

So, happy Independence Day, everybody! Well, to all us descendants of white Europeans, anyway.

Even four days this week were too goddamn many. I can’t wait to get today over with. I sure picked a lousy time to quit sniffing glue.

Don’t forget (as if you would), Maron on again for Hartmann today. I generally download Hartmann, ‘cuz I can get it for free. He drives me up the friggin’ wall if I sit and really listen, but it has kind of a numbing affect if you leave it on in the background while you, for lack of a better term, work.

Of course, hearing a real radio show that’s actually funny and entertaining makes it that much tougher to go back to listening to the Hart Man.

Remind me again, how come Maron isn’t on every day?

So, I’m on my way out to the park yesterday, driving past the “DEMAND DOMESTIC DRILLING NOW!” signs (not just support it, mind you, but fucking DEMAND) it, and I’ve got the radio on. Apparently I’m officially old now, because if I don’t have NPR on, I’m generally listening to the oldies station (not even the “Classic Rock” station, but the oldies station that used to play, like, Elvis and Frankie Lane and Johnnie Ray and Theresa Brewer and the Ames Brothers and Pat fuckin’ Boone, fer chrissakes, when I was a kid, and now plays – talk about depressing – the music of my life).

In my defense, radio around here really blows, except for some of the weekend shows on the SU station, so there isn’t much of a choice.

Anyhow, they have this regular little banter on with the DJ and the guy who flies around in his airplane giving traffic reports, where the DJ asks a stupid trivia question, and the pilot (who apparently doesn’t have enough to do flying his plane and trying to spot traffic in a town that has none) tries to answer it. So yesterday’s question is:

“Only one crime is defined in the US Constitution. Is it: a) Murder, b) Treason, or c) Stealing.”

OK, I’m no constitutional attorney like Barack “Warrantless Wiretapping is Cool with Me” Obama (BTW, if you think the only thing wrong with the soon to be enacted FISA update is telco immunity, you haven’t been paying attention; the wonderful “compromise” that makes immunity oh-so-worth-it is worse than the immunity itself), but I can make a pretty good goddamn educated guess at that one.

So the pilot says,

“What was b) ?”

And the DJ says, “treason.”

“Huh?”

“Treason”

“Freezin’?”

“TREASON!”

I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s noisy in the plane.

“Huh?”

“Treason. T-R-E-A-S-O-N. Treason.”

“Gee, I dont’ know what ‘treason’ means.”

You don’t know what fucking treason means? WTF? Are there, like, no minimum requirements whatsoever to get a pilot’s license? I’ll tell ya, this explains a lot of these midair collisions. Find it in the freakin’ dictionary, dude; look for the picture of George W. Bush, and it should be right there. I mean, c’mon, I’m no William Saffire, but, jeezus, treason isn’t a “big” word, is it? It aint exactly antidisestablishmentarianism (or even supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). I don’t know. Maybe this guy was home schooled or something.

So, the dude guesses “stealing” (since he apparently knows what that means). Oy. Even if you don’t know what treason means, don’t you thing it’s a safe bet that murder and ‘stealing’ are common enough that the friggin’ Constitution isn’t going to go out of its way to make it the one goddamn crime it mentions?

I’ll bet this fella’s DEMANDING domestic drilling, too, damnit! And demanding it NOW!

I’m telling you, as a species, we really deserve what’s coming to us. It’s just too bad the rest of us have to get caught in the fallout.

Happy July, y’all!

So, I’m driving back from the park yesterday, and I see a lawn sign that says, “Support Domestic Drilling NOW!” or something to that effect. It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant and easily manipulated people are in this country. Certainly, everybody here knows that there isn’t a moratorium on drilling for oil in the US. There’s a moratorium on new leases, but since the oil companies are just sitting on the leases they already have – some 68 million acres, or over 80 percent of US oil reserves – waiting for the price of oil to go even higher, handing over more leases to them isn’t going to make the price of gas or home heating oil go down. Not even a little bit. It would probably make the Exxon Mobil stock price go up, but that’s about it.

Hell at the House hearings on the “use it or lose it” bill the other day, and oil industry executive testfied that every piece of equipment they had was in use, so they couldn’t possibly be expected to drill for more oil on the leases they already own.

Even if they could magically find some hot pool of oil just waiting to be sucked out of the ground, it’d be a decade before we’d see any of it anyway. That’s ten years better spent developing alternative energy resources, not trying to make gas cheaper. I don’t like paying more for gas – and everything else either, but it’s the only way to wean this country (and the rest of the world) off an unhealthy addiction to a substance that’s both limited and toxic. That doesn’t do much to help working class folks who are just trying to get balc and forth to work every day, and put food on the table and a roof over the food. Forget the environment; the sad truth of it is that there won’t be any noticeable reduction in gas prices whether we allow the oil industry to rape our wilderness areas in search of greater profits or not.

But even if drilling did lower prices substantially and give working families much needed short-term relief (and not even the dubya believes that) we all know that oil won’t last forever. Whether we’re at “peak oil” at the moment or not, we certainly will be soon. So why not get off our addition to oil altogether (and make some money while we’re at it)? Fuck dumping more and more money into our oil infrastructure (and paying $12 Billion a month to protect oil industry investments in the Middle East). Take that money and invest it in clean renewable technologies. We may need oil at the present moment, but why spend the next decade focusing on making oil cheaper, when what we really need to do is make oil – and the dirty industry that has spread so much death and destruction across the face of the planet – obsolete.

But, of course, nobody wants to hear that. Gas is too expensive so fuck it. Drill. And then feel really, really confused when the price only continues to go up – almost as quickly as oil industry profits do.

So, another Sunday, another morning filled with pompous windbags. First up, on Press the Meat, it’s the only man who could possibly fill in for the godlike Tim Russert, NBC News God, Tom Brokaw. Today, Tommuh is at the Western Governors Association Annual Meeting in (Michael) Jackson Hole, Wyoming with Arnold “the pig” Schwarzenegger, Wyoming’s Governor Dave Freudenthal, and Colorado’s Bill Ritter. Oh, and sphincter-faced twerp Chuck Todd, too.

On CBS, Bob Schiefer hosts Wesley Clarke, who will hopefully strangle Joe “droopy dog” Lieberman (or at least shove something down the slimy bastard’s throat so nobody has to listen to him; frankly, I have no idea why they give this little sideshow freak any airtime at all). Along for the ride will be David Sanger,
Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times.

Fux News Sunday and Weaselface Wallace have Obamabot Ed Rendell, St. McCain boot (et. al.) licker Rob “Natalie” Portman, and everybody’d favority lunatic, Bob “Roseanne” Barr. AS if that wasn’t enough, there’ll also be the usual Fuxheads, and “Power Player of the Week” Carol Joynt, who owns Nathans Restaurant.

On This Weak, George Snufalufagus hosts the rather icky Rahm Emanuel, and the very icky Tim “Bridges? We don’t need no stinking bridges” Pawlenty. Then professional narcissist Ralph Nader will teach George some “black” talk. Then, on the “Roundtable,” it’s Arianna Huffington, Byron “dork” York, the very disgusting Hugh Hewitt, and editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel. Holy Shit! No George :jerk: Will? It just won’t feel like Sunday.

CNN’s Late Emission mit Wolf Blitzer has Mitch “the prick” McConnell, Jersey Jon Corzine, LA Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal (they’re outsourcing all our jobs these days, aren’t they?), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan “don’t call me Betty” Crocker, my homeboy, Terry McAuliffe, and Sy Hersh, on to cheer us up with some happy news, no doubt.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Lara Logan isn’t on, so who really gives a shit?

Enjoy your Sunday, everybody.

It’s Saturday! Yay! Two “days off” that will go by in a blur, where I’ll either do absolutely nothing and feel guilty about it, or I’ll accomplish about a tenth of what I intend to, and feel terrific because I managed to both cut the grass and do my laundry. Well, OK, “feel terrific” is stretching it a bit. I guess terrific is beyond what I’m capable of feeling these days. At best, maybe I won’t feel like a worthless piece of shit. That’s about as good as it gets – and even that doesn’t seem to last very long. Oh well. Beats going to work