I thought the alleged "party of Individual Liberty" didn't want to intrude into your bedroom?

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. This is special and it needs to be seen as special." 

You Tube

There's no way that this cannot be good.....

Uncommon Brewers: Organic Bacon Brown Ale


Yes, this is a meat beer. The Santa Cruz, Calif., brewery chucks in hunks of applewood-cured pork into the process to give this sweet brown ale a smoky, meaty taste. "I enjoy bacon and I thought using a nut brown would be the way to do it," said brewmaster and founder Alec Stefansky. Stefansky developed the beer with fellow brewer Reed VanderSchaaf as a companion to yet another strange brew, the Rubidus Red Ale. They weren't pouring it at the festival, but Stefansky said the latter was made with candy cap mushrooms, which grow wild in their area and give off notes of maple. The best part, he said, is that if you drink a few pints at night, then in the morning, you smell like maple syrup -- with the bacon beer, it's a complete meal experience.


Link

The Perfect Day

It is possible to take something beautiful and lasting out of the heart-wrenching experience of seeing the animal you love move inexorably toward death. Nobody can take the grief away, nor should anyone try, but our love for animals is nothing but a gift, and it keeps on giving, even when they go home.

A man named Harry, an Iraq war veteran and tennis coach from Minnesota, hit upon a simple and profound idea to transform this otherwise sad experience into a blessed one.

Read the rest here 

Nevermind.......20 years later

This is a little bit of genius, the actual baby from the original Nevermind album re-creates his infant-swimming iconographic album cover two decades later to celebrate the anniversary of Nirvana's classic rock album. Time flies.

Crap, I feel old......

This is the Party of Pretend Patriotism

Gay soldier booed at GOP debate; candidates stay mum

Some members of the GOP debate audience booed a gay soldier who asked via video whether the Republican candidates would reinstitute the recently repealed "Don't ask, don't tell" policy of banning openly gay soldiers.


After Stephen Hill, who is serving in the Army in Iraq, asked his question, a handful of members of the audience booed loudly. None of the Republican candidates responded to the audience's reaction.


I won't even broach the dishonest idiocy of Santorum's response, because he's at least entitled to his opinion.


I'm amazed at how diligent the GOP is in pushing me farther and farther away from ever casting a vote for national level candidates.


The Hill

Man's Very Best Friend

Scout and another unknown dog lie among the rubble at Ground Zero, just two of nearly 100 search and rescue animals who helped to search for survivors

During the chaos of the 9/11 attacks, where almost 3,000 people died, nearly 100 loyal search and rescue dogs and their brave owners scoured Ground Zero for survivors.

Now, ten years on, just 12 of these heroic canines survive, and they have been commemorated in a touching series of portraits entitled Retrieved.  The dogs worked tirelessly to search for anyone trapped alive in the rubble, along with countless emergency service workers and members of the public.

Traveling across nine states in the U.S. from Texas to Maryland, Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas, 34, captured the remaining dogs in their twilight years in their homes where they still live with their handlers, a full decade on from 9/11.

Their stories have now been compiled in a book, called Retrieved, which is published on Friday, the tenth anniversary of the attacks.

Noted for her touching portraits of animals, especially dogs, Charlotte wanted ‘Retrieved’ to mark not only the anniversary of the September 2001 attacks, but also as recognition for some of the first responders and their dogs.

‘I felt this was a turning point, especially for the dogs, who although are not forgotten, are not as prominent as the human stories involved,’ explained Charlotte, who splits her time between New York and Amsterdam.
‘They speak to us as a different species and animals are greatly important for our sense of empathy and to put things into perspective.’

MMA

Today is Constitution Day

Were you even aware? Have you heard anything in the media? Political blogs?

Me Neither.

Constitution Day

Heroes are too rare indeed.....Dakota Meyer, MOH

For a man to charge into fire once requires grit that is instinctive in few men; to do so a second time, now knowing what awaits you, requires inner resolve beyond instinct; to repeat a third time is courage above and beyond any call of duty; to go in a fourth time is to know you will die; to go in a fifth time is beyond comprehension.

Dakota Meyer's performance was the greatest act of courage in the war, because he repeated it, and repeated it, and repeated it.

- Bing West

Duck Fan Quide

Since we all don't have Uncle Phil as a wardrobe sugar daddy....here is a handy guide to wear the correct color on game day.

Gauche......and American Ideal?

Ten years have passed and we still clutch pearls at the notion of a terrorist attack......not because of any increased capability by an extreme minority of Islamic radicals, but because it's been creatively and intrinsically tied to our sense of nationalism.

Case in point - the boorish hissy-fit the right wing punditocracy is throwing over Krugman's column. Not that Krugman said anything factually incorrect mind you....but that he dared utter sentiments that are not politically correct. The same stripe of 'patriots' who gush over the fact and principle challenged screeds of Pamela Gellar, now question Krugman's patriotism, mental health  and sanity. These same sycophants are heard to scoff and roil at speakers such as Jeremiah Wright offering opinion that we have been complicit in our own turmoil......but are never heard to question those fundamentalists who preach these attacks are God's vengeance for the 'sins' of homosexuality and 'faithlessness'.

We have terrorized ourselves far beyond that which al Qa'ida could have dreamed of. We have utterly failed in the cost-benefit analysis of the threat of terrorism. We are positioned to view even usurpation of tyrannical despotism [in the form of the 'Arab spring'] as ominous warnings of extremism morphing into statehood.........utterly oblivious to the actual condition of even the boogeyman specters, much less the motivations of the citizens who pursue any semblance of democracy.

Simple introspective analysis is discarded for talking points and patriotic catch phrases. Ritual defamation is chosen over rational debate. Politically correct is favored over political risk, which ironically circles back around in the form of politics of fear.

Many Americans feel no need to lead by example, or show any decent human trait of humility....they wish for Team USA to take the field and entertain their sense of infallibility, while distracting them from critical thought. We've set a trap for our constitutional principles and liberties, disguised as 'safeguarding' and 'protection'. Once we finally [if ever] awaken from the stupor that blinds us to the realistic level of threat terrorism poses....we'll realize that we've been our own worst enemy all along.

Terrorist groups who attack us or our allies must be ruthlessly eliminated....but that would require a significant shift in national policy. A shift that doesn't quite abide by the playbook.