The Watering Hole: Wednesday, February 29, 2012: Captain Kirk to vie for RNC nomination!

William Shatner, best known for his role as Captain Kirk of the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise, issued a press release this leap day announcing his intent to seek the Republican Nomination for President, in the event none of the current candidates go into the RNC Convention with the nomination locked up.

“I look at it this way,” Shatner said in a recent interview,

Nobody in the current Republican field has more foreign policy experience than I do. I was battling Klingons and Romulans while Santorum was still in grade school. And Romney may be a captain of industry, but I was Captain of a Starship. Romney led Bain Capital that bought up companies and bankrupted them. I helped take a defunct science fiction TV series to a successful franchise that had multiple successful spin-offs and created numerous jobs.

I will lead the Republican Party, and this Country into the future. The Republican Party ended slavery. I had the first inter-racial kiss on TV.

I have dealt with illegal aliens on a galactic scale, and I always win.

When it comes to the economy, who…has a better reputation than…me … “THE … NEGOTIATOR” for the best rates for flights and lodging…anywhere!

And … like that Great Republican, Ronald Reagan, I … too … am a movie star. But where Reagan co-starred with a monkey, I … co-starred with a Vulcan. That’s gotta count…for….something.

Shatner’s announcement, coming on the heels of Super Tuesday, caught the Republican establishment totally off-guard. When asked for comment, Santorum said, “Captain Who?” Romney said “I’m good friends with the producers of Star Trek.” Ron Paul said, “Why do we need a Federation of Planets, anyway?” And Newt Gingrich said “Shatner’s a bad actor from a bad TV series that would lead our country in the wrong direction. I’m the only candidate who has promised to build a base on the Moon, because I know that obelisque is up there in the Tycho Crater.”

Sarah Palin issued a press release of her own stating, “Bill Shatner’s no big deal. I can see space from my front porch in Alaska!”

THIS IS OUR OPEN THREAD. ENJOY “LEAP DAY”. WOMEN, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE: GO OUT AND PROPOSE TO SOMEONE TONIGHT!

Ain’t I a Woman?

Alfre Woodard reads Sojourner Truth’s speech from the Women’s Convention in 1851.

Scare tactics — WORKING!

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

Working hard toward a permanent Democratic majority on a daily basis

Created for TheZoo by Paul Jamiol
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

Clean up on Aisle Republican

Created for TheZoo by Paul Jamiol
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

Let’s not go down this road again — no matter who’s President

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

GOP listens to the Generals on the ground…when it suits them

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

Killed in the line of duty

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

The Watering Hole: Tuesday, February 28 – EPIC

HT to @KathyAngel over at Twitter and democraticunderground.com who had it first. I had to repost this, it will cleanse our souls until we get the results for tonights primaries.

This is our Open Thread. Ranting is welcome.

Watering Hole: Monday, February 27, 2012 – Birth Control All Female Panel

This speaks for me and for itself.

Some of you may have seen this before.  I wanted to share it again because the birth control issue is NOT going away.

Here’s a link to a good rant on how women really feel about the War on Women.  On April 28, there will be a protest rally/march in all 50 states.  And for the men that love women, we would love to have you join us.   🙂

This is our Open Thread.  Speak Up!

Shameless plug: Paul Jamiol’s World 2008-2010

Friend of TheZoo, Paul Jamiol, has put together a new book containing the collection of some of his awesome ‘toons!  It’s so cool to re-visit Paul’s cartoons and see the progress we’ve made — or not — over the years.  TheZoo and a couple of the Critters are even mentioned on the acknowledgments page, which is SO awesome!

Paul is a special friend of TheZoo, hence this shameless plug.  If you’d like to explore the options of obtaining this really cool book, and learn a bit more about this amazing man, you can go to Paul Jamiol’s World, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.  I’m sure loving my copy!

Sunday Roast — Get your government hands out of my vagina

RMuse over at PoliticusUSA has written a great post about the Republican/Religious war against women, entitled Republicans Have [Awakened] a Sleeping Giant and She is Furious.*

The true motivation for a war is not always clear in spite of proclamations by a nation or its leaders…

…Over the past couple of weeks, there have been important clues to what the conservative’s endgame is and although contraception, abortion rights, and women’s health issues are at the forefront, it is male dominance that drives the assaults.

There it is, right there.  Male Dominance.  Of course, not all men want to dominate women; I would say that a majority of men don’t want to dominate women, but a bunch of loudmouths in the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party (i.e. all of them) and the ever-present blowhards in the American Taliban-wannabe religious right have declared outright war on the women of this country.  Apparently, we have forgotten our “place” as second class citizens, and they are determined to force us into that position again.

We can’t ignore them and expect them to go away — too many of them are in positions of power, and there’s a lot of money invested the Republican agenda.

The rightwing (I’m not going to use the qualifier “extreme,” since only a few sane Republicans exist anymore), in addition to their decades-long attack on our reproductive rights, now they’re attacking the Girl Scouts.  Cuz why not wage war on female children, as well as female adults?

One Republican from Indiana claimed Girl Scouts “promoted homosexual lifestyles” and although there is no truth to the Planned Parenthood connection or promoting homosexuality, it is stunning that the claims were made in the first place.

Beat ’em down while they’re still young, right?  “Tradition” is all important to these ideological freaks even (and especially, it seems) when it simply doesn’t work.  There might be quite a few women out there who would like to have babies and then stay home to raise them, but in today’s world, unless the spouse or partner has a large income, it simply isn’t possible.  It doesn’t matter how much they beat the old “women should be at home caring for their children” meme, it is not economically possible.  Or desirable in many cases.

Now we have the ridiculous contraception flap.  Again, it’s the control and dominance; keeping women in our place.

The Watering Hole: February 25 – Excommunication

On this date in 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated
Queen Elizabeth I from the Roman Catholic Church.

Isn’t Rick Santorum ripe for a similar fate? He has ignored the following principles ordained by The Pope and/or US Catholic bishops.

1. Against the Iraqi invasion.

2. Universal health care for everyone.

3. End the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations.

4. That the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor.

5. Welfare for all needy families.

6. The basic rights of workers to bargain and to work in a safe work place.

7. Israel withdrawal from Palestinian
territories occupied in 1967.

8. Against denying services to children of illegal immigrants born or brought up in the US.

9. Against treating illegal immigrants as criminals.

10. Against the idea of a preventive war.

11. Women’s rights.

Elizabeth was a saint compared to Ricky.

This is our Open Thread. What do you think?

Music Night, February 24, 2012

Freshly spun off from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, a very different Fleetwood Mac. Hot stuff.

The Watering Hole: February 24 — Home

Hi, all.  I made it home at about 10 p.m. last night.  This may have been posted before — maybe even by me!  But I’m very tired…

I think I’ll sleep in this morning.

This is our daily open thread — What’s going on around here?

The Watering Hole, Thursday, February 23rd, 2012: I Have a Thesis. And It’s Mine.

Governor Bob McDonnell (R-Virginia) is currently in the process of reviewing the Commonwealth’s restrictive new “personhood” law prior to potentially signing it into law. This is the bill (SB484) that contains the “informed consent” language, which (translated from the legalese) “[R]equires that, as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion.” I’m sure that pregnant women of Virginia will be ever-so-thankful if Bob grants them a free poke-and-a-prod prior to having an abortion. (Yes, that was snark.)

You may remember Bob McDonnell as the newly-minted and previously unknown Governor who provided the Republican rebuttal to President Obama’s first State of the Union speech. (Or you may not – he was not impressive.)

Well before Bob McDonnell acquired the power to possibly make a lot of women more unhappy than they already are, he had ditched his job and decided to attend Regents University. His recently resurrected 1989 thesis, titled “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade”, is a frightening vision indeed. I’ll just give you the introductory “Abstract”, and let you read the entire work for yourselves:

“The traditional family is the cornerstone upon which Western civilization has been built, but changes in demographics, ideology, and political philosophy during this century have resulted in the decline in the strength of the family institution. The model relationship among church, state, and family, based on history, law, and scripture, is presented as a framework in which legitimate public policy decisions must be made to facilitate family restoration.

“Fundamental Republican Party principles concerning the family and the role of government are articulated, and recent federal legislative initiatives are analyzed for consistency. Political factors affecting family policy development are examined to determine why Republicans are not more successful. The paper concludes that Republicans must stay consistently committed to their principles, communicate more effectively with the American public, and take bold action to restore the family to a position of strength in modern society.”

Between the Abstract and the Introduction, McDonnell includes a quote from, inevitably, Saint Ronnie Reagan.

(Sigh) I’ll leave you to it, then.

This is our Open Thread: have at it, folks.

Oh, and my apologies to John Cleese’s character Ann Elk and her theory.

The Watering Hole: Wednesday, 2-22-12: A Limerick for Your Thoughts?

The candidate Richard Santorum,
Touts the ’vangelical forum;
He’d ban birth control,
With great vitriol,
To women who like sex, he’d whore’m.

Mitt Romney is just such a blast,
Once you get over his past,
He’s on every side,
Like the ever-changing tide,
Schizophrenic’s the role he’s been cast.

Now Newt Gingrich, what can I say?
Shut the government down in his day.
It’s not his fault,
He rubs wounds with salt,
And derides all who stand in his way.

Libertarians stand by Ron Paul,
And surely he gave them his all,
Legalize pot,
Smoke all you got,
But his poll numbers still fall.

The drop-outs are there by the score,
Cain, Palin, and Bachmann and more,
Perry said “Oops”
While Palin did loops,
And Cain’s 9-9-9 hit the floor.

Dear Friends, here’s the GOP pool,
Each one sounds a 1 percent tool,
But lest you should dread,
Tis our Open Thread,
Where Comments are really quite cool.

Now this debate was one year ago today. What do you think?

TheZoo

UPDATE:  Live blogging has now concluded.

View original post

The Watering Hole: Tuesday, February 21st – The Common Cold

This little bugger looks quite impressive and from an aesthetic point of view I like the look of him. Everything else about him, I don’t like. Mostly the fact, that he caught up with me again. Snuffle, sneeeze, cough….

This is our Open Thread. It’s contagious..

an-otter day at the beach

A cormorant guide was on hand…

Returning to the wreck of a fishing vessel, I was focused on it when another  beachcomber swam into view. Very elusive on this part of the coast, I only got this slightly blurry photo before it went back the otter way.

Seagulls swallow starfish alive and whole, taking sushi to another level.

On the rocks in a hard place, the boat was approximately 30 feet in length, there are numerous other pieces of it on the bottom of the tidepool.

In a crevice at the pools edge lays one of the spark plugs from the engine, which somehow ended up around the point about 100 yards away.

A fun day, had a couple of good conversations with other beachcombers. Sat with one fellow for awhile as we sifted for agates and discussed rocks and unemployment, another gentleman came along later, looking for the humming boxes recently dropped off by UFOs here on this stretch of the coast. Told him I hadn’t seen any. “Some people find all the good stuff, eh?” We laughed.

Watering Hole: Monday, February 20, 2012 – Republican Wars

The Republicans have declared war on the majority of Americans.  Here are some examples:

• War on Women – Virginia’s State Sanctioned Rape by forcing women that are seeking an abortion to undergo an unnecessary, vaginal ultrasound probe WITHOUT informed consent.  The Nazis subjected women to various “experiments” without their consent, too.  The war on women continues with the Republicans pushing to make birth control illegal.
• War on Immigrants – Republicans have passed “show your papers” laws in Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia.  The Republican controlled state government of Missouri is currently pressing a slew of anti-immigration laws.  These anti-immigrant laws have cost the taxpayers money.  Then again, since when have Republicans been truly concerned about spending taxpayers money?  NEVER.
• War on Marriage/Sexual Identity – The Republicans want to decide who should be allowed to be married.  Love has nothing to do with marriage.  They want to tell you who can marry and who can’t.  It’s the bible or some verse in the bible that dictates marriage to Republicans.  Even if you don’t believe in the bible, you are still screwed.  They are at war with people’s sexual identity.  Why are Republicans so obsessed with sex and sexual identity?
• War on Latinos/Hispanics… see above War on Immigrants.
• War on Seniors – The voter ID laws disenfranchise seniors that are unable to get to a state sanctioned photo ID location.  These seniors will be denied their right to vote.  The Republicans want to dismantle Social Security through privatization and they want to dismantle Medicare by giving seniors discount coupons to be used to purchase high premium, private health insurance.
• War on Young Adults – Republican controlled state legislators and Republican governors are cutting funds for higher education which will make college more difficult for young adults to afford.  It will also deepen the debt for many college students that are already up to their noses in debt.  When college students exceed the amount of money that they can borrow through the federal government, they turn to banks which charge them a higher rate of interest.  The rate is variable so it can increase over time and private student loans are the ONLY loans that are not forgiven in a bankruptcy.  Default on a private student loan will follow them to the grave and payment can be taken out of a seniors Social Security check to pay back a private student loan.

Republicans have been waging wars on women, immigrants, marriage, Latinos/Hispanics, seniors and young adults.  Who is left to support the GOPers?  As far as I can tell, it would be racists, bigots, fundies/evangelicals, and the tea bag party.  Can they win an election with just that group of voters?

The Republicans are always screaming for smaller government yet all their “wars” sound like big government to me.

Late entry:  I forgot to mention the War on Gays.  This has been going on for as long as I can remember.  The link to yesterday’s Zoo post.  There are that handful of gays that think being “left” isn’t proper enough so they choose the people that hate them the most, the “right”.

This is our Open Thread.  Did I miss mentioning any “Wars on…”?  It’s your turn to Speak Up!

Sunday Roast, February 19th, 2012: I Couldn’t Have Ranted Better Myself

Our old friend Jurassic Pork posted a fantastic rant at his blog, as a response to the following GOProud tweet:

JP’s post, if it were a TV show, would be rated “TV-M: L/S” – “contains adult language and sexual situations” – but here’s a bit of his lead-in to probably the single most comprehensive commentary EVER concerning gay Republicans:

“GOProud, the conservative gay rights organization…decided at their soiree today in between privately making fun of the busboy uniforms and hotel decor, that we and not the right they try to represent are the enemy, the “we” being “teh Left.”

Read the rest here – this one is a keeper.

GOProud's Headquarters ("Not meant to be a factual Statement")

This is our Open Thread: feel free to discuss this issue, or whatever else is on your mind.

The Watering Hole: February 18 – Frederick II and Barack Obama

Hohenstaufen Family Coat of Arms

Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, was the creator of the Obama technique of winning a War with a minimum investment (human and financial). During the 6th Crusade, he managed to gain HRE control of Jerusalem along with a narrow corridor to the coast, using ink. Frederick had the diplomatic fortitude to use alliances and a bit of arm twisting to secure what he wanted, 15 years of governance over the Holy Territories. This is much like Barack Obama’s success in the Arab Spring and in Libya.

One thing that you can expect from a Democratic administration is the assumption that diplomacy will be tried before armed conflict becomes fact. After diplomacy fails or an actual attack has been opened, is war an option.

The clear division of the Democratic Party was precipitated by the Civil rights movement which converted Old South Democrats into either Republicans or DINOs. Somewhere between 1994 and 2004, the Republican Party assumed cult status.

The only plus from a Republican administration would be a softening of the unemployment issue when 20% of civilians are drafted into the armed forces.

Frederick II died in peace at the age of 55. Not to bad at that time when medicine was only in it’s infancy.

This is our Open Thread. Now, it’s your turn to debate.

Music Night, February 17, 2012

Because a little bit of British strangeness should creep into your life from time to time. (Was originally looking for Pink Fairies video but they were all rubbish.)

The Watering Hole: February 17 — California Dreamin’

Well, my Critters and Zoosters, I am California bound first thing this morning.  I figured out that I haven’t set foot in the state of my birth for over 23 years.  It’s about time I went back, even if it’s a quick trip.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but it should be within the week.  The computer is staying home, since space is limited.  I feel a twitch under my left eye already.

I’ll miss y’all like crazy!  And seriously, try not to miss me too much.  **dodging rotten eggs & mushy tomatoes**

Hee hee…

This is our daily open thread — this place better not be broken when I get back!