As Charlie Pierce notes, the Numbnuts-in-Chief has found another puddle of gasoline to chuck his tiki torch into.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night? Jesus wept.
• Editor’s note: Here’s the first version of this tune I heard, on the CD of the same name.
Mad Blog Media 
“Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”
― Frank Zappa
Lots of money to be made in the Middle East selling them all the shit they need to kill each other. You need to stir them up every now and then. More hate and more fear means more sales. If we don’t sell to them, the Russians will. Don’t we want to be winners?
Nothing like piissing off the majority of Arab nations to keep friction between the US and the Middle East. With ISIS on its heals the right wing is in danger of not having an identifiable enemy. Add this to trying to back out of the Iran nuclear deal and problem solved.
off topic but aren’t you a tom waites fan?
https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2017/12/06/tom-waits-weird-tales-from-a-cracked-jukebox-documentary/
Hah. Funny you should mention it. Just yesterday I loaded a bunch of old Waits CDs into iTunes. I’m listening to “Mule Variations” as we speak. This doc I gotta check out.
It’s striking how much the young Waits looked like Mark Cavendish.
And RCS recently announced the 2018 Giro d’Italia will be starting right in this viper pit. I bet they’re already regretting this stupid decision, no matter how much dough the Israeli Donald Trump used to bribe them.
https://cyclingtips.com/2017/12/qa-sylvan-adams-billionaire-behind-giro-ditalia-start-israel/
I just finished a class centered around how Judaism was changed by the Hellenistic world. The professor is an atheist Jew, and a very pro- Israel guy.
His opinion was that if you consider over the long term, neither accord or in-your-face actions have changed the political climate in Israel.
My opinion is that the pres want to throw more shit in the fan, and see if any bits of gold can be plucked from it.
What is it about monotheism? Nothing but fighting over how “my god can beat up your god!” I’m pretty much with Bill Maher when it comes to religion though I disagree with his claims that Islam is any more violent and misogynistic than the rest of ’em.
I hear you. The 3 main religions claim the same god, but the factions don’t agree on anything else. And I don’t want to go into the divisions within those factions.
“When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.”
Chapter 38, Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu, Translation by Stephen Mitchell
Ritual is the foundation of monotheistic religions. Their dogma convinces the believers that they are right and everyone else is wrong and damned. What absolute arrogance.
I’ll just leave this here:
That is one of my very favorite Carlin bits. Man, he could cut through all kinds of bullshit.
“40 Years of Comedy,” for my money, was some of the best work he ever did. But he had so many keepers over the decades. His observation on Muhammad Ali’s refusal to accept induction was priceless. And of course his fascination with language and the abuse thereof makes him the patron saint of copy editors everywhere.
I LOVED the Italian subtitles though I’ve never heard an Italian say “Santa Merda” as in Holy S–t.