So that means Republicans will drop the meme that Democrats are weak and can't fight wars and stuff?

Update 6/10: Chris Hayes of UP discusses this. Will post the video as soon as it is released. Update 6/11: This video and this one both pertain to this.

I remember when... not too long ago...

Our government worked. Yes, yes, of course there have always been problems and disagreements (and riots and crimes and all the rest). But Democrats and Republicans actually worked together and delivered laws that made our lives better. We had no established religion in our nation so all religions thrived. We listened to our conscience and challenged hate speech and racism. We questioned the wars we had been in and ended one that was without end. We regulated banks and corporations. We respected education and the educated. People could send their children to school and expect the next generation would do better than the last. The American dream seemed to be working.

And then something broke.

Now we have people insisting that a shutdown of the government is a good thing. (To teach us not to rely on the government? The very thing we as a nation organized and paid for with our tax dollars to work FOR us?)

We have people insisting we are a Christian nation. (No. We are not. And I don't think you guys have thought it through. Exactly WHICH Christian religion are you going to establish as the one true religion? .... Check out Europe's history for the consequences.)

We have people who are feeding the flames of hatred of anyone who has brown skin, a 'different' name, an 'odd' religion. Often these are the same people who claim they are Christian. Hate is in. (Do you think Jesus would recognize these people as followers?)

We have people denying rapid global climate change as the permafrost melts and methane clouds fill the atmosphere, as floods get worse, snow gets deeper, deserts get larger... and people die. (But Al Gore is fat and he wears beige!)

We have people who mock the educated and education in general, yet have an embarrassing lack of knowledge about the history of our own country, about science and why the word 'theory' is used, about other cultures and countries about the world. (But they're keeping it real!)

We have people in government who lie, change their minds, lie about that, lie again. Even when their own words are played back to them, even when YouTube runs loops of their malfeasance, they will deny all and lie. Because there are people who will ignore all facts and all proof and decide they must be telling the truth. (And your side never lies to you, right?)

We have people who are actually corporations. Mega-monolithic-multi-billion dollar corporations who pollute and contaminate and poison and kill their customers with indifference and greed. And no one holds them accountable because of the money. (Money controls everything.)

And these people are now in power.

Remember who is fighting for us.

And bring them home.

If gay soldiers were in the Greatest Generation war...

How come we won?

Blog sprinkles

• The Cave of Crystals: Naica Cave. Some of the largest natural crystals ever found, up to 10m long.


• Don't we find ourselves feeling the slightest bit sorry for Bill O'Reilly?

O’REILLY: So 48 years ago — 48 years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. … We could make fun of people in a general way, and certainly, Ahab was the Arab was a general parody. But now, we can’t. What has changed in America?

• Gosh darnit, why can't we make the two wars we started under Bush and Cheney into holy wars? They said we could!!1

• Dancing Dave proves how Obama will NEVER win over the bigots and other Republicans and it's time to cut the losses and do what he can with what he's got.

• Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors slaps some sense into us.

• The reason God made the Tree of Knowledge.

• Photoshopping disasters make you want to stop buying clothes.

Maps of wars

Cool map of the rise and fall of empires over the centuries. Rather tough to be Baghdad or Jerusalem....

More wars and less jobs!

Have you ever dreamed you were IN a video game?

And you didn't know whether you were the hero or one of the extraneous side kicks? And realized there was no reset button?

Via Monkeyfister "Frontlines: Fuel of War", wars over oil:



This isn't a game.... it's our future.

Wars from the past

Still have an echo:

A ceremony has been held in Belarus to bury the remains of 224 Napoleonic soldiers killed in 1812 as the French imperial army retreated from Russia.

Their bodies were discovered last year and their regiments identified from remnants of their uniforms.

The soldiers were buried on the River Berezina, east of the capital Minsk.

The ceremony took place on the 194th anniversary of the crossing of the Berezina by Napoleon's troops, as Russian forces shelled them.

Religious wars as the new Survivor series

Read Taking Stock over at Drunk Duck: