Four Years Hence And It’s Still The Same As It’s Ever Been

I was Inspired by Bijou’s posting of Doktor Zoom’s tweet yesterday:

So because I’m feeling lazy this Labor Day, and because it’s been nearly 4 years to the day that I originally posted “Once in a Lifetime”  I decided to repost this classic from my vault. Be sure to turn the music player on, it’s way more fun that way:

“Once in a Lifetime”

Originally posted August 30, 2010. I think you’ll remember the occasion:

This is so-ooo embarrassing. Here I am, thinking that the strange dress that looks like it’s already been caught in the rain was my biggest problem. So naturally that’s what I focused my circuitry on, the dress; I failed to consider the whole frame. Nor did I feel I had to as the one thing Big Guy is really good at, as a rule, are the visuals, so I totally was not ready for this:

“I was told there would be no geometry”

Vanderleun even gave it a musical reference, in case you missed the point:

You may ask yourself
How do I work this?
You may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
You may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
— Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime 1984

Inspired by Vanderleun’s insight, I took the opportunity to illustrate the long version, with music - in case you still don’t get it:

Once In A Lifetime (click button above to play)

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

 
And you may find yourself in another part of the world

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house,

with a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down

Letting the days go by/water flowing underground

Into the blue again/after the money's gone

Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?

 
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?

 
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!

  
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

 

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?

 
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?

And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...Am I wrong?

And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Cartoon: Dan Collins Cartoons

  
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...

Same as it ever was...

Like I said: with Big Guy, it’s all about visuals.

Wow! 4 years later and everything - the economy, the national debt, the confusing strategies - is still…same as it ever was, only worse. Especially the Jimmy Carter part: apparently both he and Big Guy still believe that Israel is the only thing standing in the way of peace on earth good will towards men.

Jimmy Carter, more delusional than ever, at the annual convention for the Islamic Society of North America on Saturday.

*sigh*

Same as it ever was...

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls” I think you know...

“Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.” - Jean-Francois Revel

Although it’s the wrong holiday,the theatrical reference of the century comes to us this Labor Day weekend via Instapundit’s Facebook friend:

“What is happening now is basically America’s version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The President of the United States — supported to an exceptional extent by an electorate both uncomprehending and untrusting of the outside world — is Clarence the Angel, and he’s showing us what the world would be like if we’d never been born…”

Although this version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” it is a tragedy and the fallen Angel reveals not Bedford Falls without George, but the world without America.

 

Coming soon to a theatre near you

Wait…didn’t somebody already do that?

Anyway, don’t forget: every time a bell rings,

That’s the wrong bell, bozo.

…an angel gets his wings.

Yeah, sometimes they’re black. Don’t hold that against him.

Calvin tries to imagine Obama’s America:

So far, it’s working.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network

If wishes were horses our cart would have a driver.

At the #BeigePressConference, it became eminently clear that “the strategy thing” is above Big Guy’s pay grade:

“I don't want to put the cart before the horse. We don't have a strategy yet,” before elaborating, “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks
are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we
currently are.” 

Imagine if Donald Rumsfeld had uttered that line! Or better yet, George W. Bush! Butt I digress; since we prefer to be led from behind,

Head ‘em up, move ‘em on!

and since Val is still on vacation, and since we were speaking of horses, BO handed the ISIS strategery-thing off to his Secretary of State for handling. John “F” Kerry is reporting for duty:

Unfortunately, citizen-of-the-world and fellow traveler John eFfing Kerry sincerely believes that global warming presents our most serious existential threat. Sheeze, you can lead a horse to water, butt you can’t make him drink.

Look at what Global Warming is up to now!

I really don’t think this is going to turn out well; butt I guess we can’t change horses in mid-stream can we? Nay, I didn’t think so. 

Click to hear the horse neigh

So we’re more or less stuck for now: a President who has no clue and no strategy and his Secretary of State who has no clue and the wrong strategy. We’re left holding the bag, wishin’ and HOPEin’ for the best; of course if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, wouldn’t they?

Leading from behind: photoshop h/t BKeyser

Wishin’ and Hopin’: Dusty Springfield

This post of useless aphorisms was sponsored by the Office of the President of the United States of America.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network

A New Game Show: Tweet Like Your Favorite Famous Person

In case you missed it, GreetingsFromYonkers posted an insightful comment late Wednesday night on the limitations of Twitter in a semi-illiterate age:

“Gosh, wholly apart from whether we do or don't know what we do or don't know, I have an even more basic issue with Twitter.

It's the 140-character limit. Frankly, most people are not literate enough to work around this roadblock, which calls for exceptionally high vocabulary and syntax skills. Thus tweets end up being an incomprehensible mélange of clichéd abbreviations, or extremely superficial.

Let's all close our eyes and imagine what Twitter would be like in the hands of Dorothy Parker: a weapon of mass destruction! Can you imagine her tweeting this on September 15, 2008:

LEHMAN BROTHERS IN FLAMES. DID NOT KEATS WRITE "OZYMANDIAS" FOR EXACTLY SUCH AN OCCASION?

Jesus would have been a natural on Twitter too. His philosophical statement that became the cornerstone of Christianity, the Golden Rule, is also less than 140 characters.”

And then, yesterday, Sowsear posed the quintessential DP question: “What fresh hell is this?” I took the arrival of two Parkerisms in less than 24 hours as an omen of some kind, so I’m rolling with it; let’s all play “Famous People’s Tweets.” I see multiple ways to construct this; you can recycle famous people’s exact quotes as retweets on current events – let’s use one of Dorothy’s for illustration purposes (and speaking of illustrations, the use of a picture with your retweets is optional, butt welcome).

“Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough.” 

Or, you can re-write a famous person’s original quote to suit current events. For example, Ernest Hemingway, commenting on the ease of tweeting: original quote: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

The 21st century retweet translates to:

 #TweetingYourThoughts: “There is nothing to #tweeting. All you do is grab your #SmartPhone and #Bleed.”

Alternatively, you can use the style of a famous person to tweet on current events; Winston Churchill on #StopTweetingNow:

“#Never, #never, #never, #never, #NeverTweet!”

Or perhaps e.e.cummings on the demise of proper grammar in the Twitterverse, #usepropergrammar

 “#idon’tcare #doasyouplease”

Or, equally fun, take a famous person’s actual quote and repurpose it into a similar but more contemporary observation; F. Scott Fitzgerald original quote: “You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” 

Repurposed modern sentiment expressed in a tweet:

“You don’t #tweet #BecauseYouHaveSomethingToSay, you #tweet #BecauseYouDon’tHaveAnythingToSay.”

Okay troops, carry on: this could get interesting.

or not…

Thanks, Yonkers! What a #GreatIdea!

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Cross-Posted and Featured on Patriot Action Network

Truthiness or Consequences

Take a bow Stephen Colbert, your fake news show term “truthiness” has just been adopted by your government. It’s been shortened to “truthy” and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the old “Attack Watch” organization which was later acquired by the newly incorporated “Truth Team.” (I explained how this worked back when the merger was originally announced in 2012.) 

In case you’ve forgotten, the role of those totally impartial organizations was to turn Right Wingers in to the authorities for telling lies about Big Guy - so the IRS could audit them.

 “The Truth Team is a network of supporters of President Obama who are committed to responding to unfounded attacks and defending the President’s record. When you’re faced with someone who misrepresents the truth, you can find all the facts you need right here—along with ways to share the message with whoever needs to hear it.”

The newest formulation of the Truth Team is a science project at Indiana University funded by the National Science Foundation to “monitor “suspicious memes” and what it considers “false and misleading ideas,” with a major focus on political activity online.” Because we don’t already have enough college kids in Washington messing with us yet.

Butt don’t worry, the science project’s overseer assures us his intentions are pure:

“Truthy” claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority.

So don’t worry, fellow travelers will continue to have their right to express themselves with impunity. However, if your choose to express yourself in a fashion that we’ve deemed to be “hate speech” (criticism of BHO) or “misinformation” (non-progressive ideas) you will be tracked down by the “Truthy” Team and turned over to the IRS for auditing.

Sounds like Big Guy just used his magic pen to create a new Federal Department: the Ministry of Truth.

Maybe I should reactivate the MOTUS Truth Team, just to help sort out the TRUTH from the non-truthy truth.

 

 

Truthiness or Consequences: It’s not just a game show anymore

“You can use hate speech if you want, but it will bankrupt you.”

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In Which We Wonder About Things

My high school physics teacher used to tell us that in order to understand physics you first had to be curious.   His First Directive was “wonder about things.” 

I bring this up only because it is a source of constant amazement to me how uncurious everyone around the Big White is - and by “everyone”  I do mean EVERYWON. They receive a lot of information in their newsfeed that they tweet, text and Instagram on to others, along with an original witticism when the spirit moves them. If the “news” comes from a trusted source, i.e. somebody in their Twittersphere, they consider it “solid.” When they receive their own tweet back from someone else, they consider it confirmation. It’s the perfect closed loop information system.

Everyone is in constant contact with 100,000+ other people around the globe who are equally uncurious; everybody sending and receiving the same thing without wondering about what it means, or questioning its veracity. That’s why most White House staffers eventually end up with media jobs.

Unfortunately this type of closed loop information system can have drawbacks; like your talking points might be contradictory or work at cross purposes. Or your message gets garbled somewhere along the re-tweeted chain of added witticisms: 

Like when you send someone out for a good high fiber cereal… and they come home with gay Cheerios.

At its worse, a closed loop system can result in a situation where nobody knows what to do about anything, as they suddenly discover they are devoid of any actual information that would allow them to know what they are doing. At that point the value of wondering about things you don’t know anything about becomes obvious.

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.” – Donald Rumsfeld

 

Suffice it to say we are now operating firmly in that most dangerous quadrant: “we don’t know what we don’t know.”

I wonder why the whole world is still following us.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network

Pimp My ‘Died’

August 25 shall henceforth be know as the "Day of Rage" (brought to you by the Justice Brothers®) – a day on  which we commemorate the slaughter of Michael Brown, the "gentle giant" who was just starting to get his life back together after graduating from Anger Management class.

Given that Michael roughed up 2 men in less than an hour before he was gunned down after assaulting a police officer in cold blood we can only assume he didn’t graduate in the top quintile of his class.

Butt this isn’t about Michael, it’s about the men who came to honor his memory by continuing to keep the the racial flames burning bright in America. I’m talking about the Reverend Al of course.

Did you hear his soaring oratory? His eloquent speechifying? That man has a gift; if he hadn’t decided to go into pimping civil rights activism he could have run for president. Oh wait…

And before you criticize the Reverend for fanning the flames of racial animus for personal gain, allow me to remind you that this is what Al does for a living. Were he not so successful pimping for the “No justice, no peace” crowd he’d likely be running for public office.

So count your blessings, and the next time you’re tempted to criticize the Reverend remember -  as any aspiring young rapper can tell you - “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” and cut him a little slack. He’s just trying to make a living.

Chorus (which is the only printable part) from Al’s theme song, the 2006 Oscar winning “Best Song”

You know it's hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin' to get this money for the rent
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent
Because a whole lot of bitches talkin' sh*t

“Pimp we Much”

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State Department Barbie: She’s Come Undone

Okay, I ignored your complaints at first. I resisted your demands that the spokesmouths for the State Department be demoted from their JV status to intramural. However, based on this recent statement by Marie Harf –  darling of the Mo Beta Sorority of the Traveling Pants – I’ve been forced to reconsider my position:

Thursday at the daily briefing, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to acknowledge ISIS’ declaration of war with the Untied States of America.

When a reporter said,”The reality is ISIS has announced it’s in a war against America,” adding, “Right or wrong that is what they are saying.”

Harf replied, “Well, they can say whatever they’d like, but what I am making clear is that’s not what ISIL represents. And they don’t represent any religion. They are at war with everybody they come into contact with.”

Now, before you all pile on State’s Ms. Harf, let me point out that she’s only 33 years old – which translates to about 14 in sorority-girl years. How much intellectual maturity can you expect, really?

“Well, you can say whatever you’d like, but what I am making clear is that there’s no ‘I’ in ISIS and your insistence that it stands for ‘Islamic’ does not change that fact.”

I’m as mystified as you; I don’t know how Marie got her job as Deputy State Department Spokesperson either. Maybe - like Tommy “Hey Dude that was like two years ago” Vietor and Anita “From Campaign Driver to top Obama aide” Breckenbridge -  she used to drive Big Guy around too. Apparently chauffeuring is a real resume builder and a great career path:

This should remind readers that the boyish and immature Tommy “Hey Dude, that was like two years ago” Vietor also went from driver/flunky to a top post at the National Security Council.

No military, geopolitical, diplomatic, intelligence experience required.

Apparently a good driving record and the ability to spend hours with Obama in a car are what qualifies one for the great responsibility of running and defending our nation.

My only other issue concerns Weasel’s original source for this report: Breitbart. Is this a Freudian slip, or political commentary?

“Thursday at the daily briefing, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to acknowledge ISIS' declaration of war with the Untied States of America.”

It could just be Freudian, on the other hand, one might argue that we are starting to come undone:

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