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A couple of things before 2009

one-more-thjng A couple of things before 2009Just a couple of items tonight have caught my eye.

First, (someone break out the orchestra and start the sympathy music), former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asks, “What did I do that was so fundamentally wrong that deserves this kind of response to my service?” He said this in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.  If I can stop laughing long enough I should be able to also mention that this is part of the Bush administration’s “charm” offensive.  They are trying to become more likable.  Whatever.

Some of Alberto Gonzales’s history that clearly explains what he did that was “fundamentally wrong” from Think Progress:

Politicized the DOJ: – Gonzales approved the firing and hiring of federal prosecutors for political reasons and lied to Congress about the scandal.

Approved torture: In 2002, Gonzales “raised no objections and, without consulting military and State Department experts in the laws of torture and war,” approved an infamous August 2002 memo giving CIA interrogators “legal blessings.” Gonzales witnessed an interrogation at Gitmo in 2002 and approved of “whatever needs to be done” to detainees.

Lied about warrantless wiretapping: Gonzaled lied to Congress multiple times about the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping program, saying there wasn’t “any serious disagreement” about the program (there was).

Distorted pre-war intelligence: Last month, the House Oversight Committee revealed evidence showing that Gonzales lied to Congress in 2004 by claiming that the CIA “orally” approved Bush’s claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

Jon Swift is a popular conservative blogger who never seemed to really go over to the dark side (become a neoconservative). I frequented his blog numerous times before he took a sabbatical. I thought he was reasonable in many of his discussions and I applaud him for that. He has asked several, if not hundreds, of bloggers to submit their “Best Blog Posts of 2008.” He put all the submissions together in one post. Unique idea (also drives traffic to your site).  Well worth the read.  Here’s a small section which includes what I thought was my best post. (This is not in the order in which he posted them. Oh, and the blurbs are Jon’s.)

Where’s the Outrage?
Supply-side Economics Never Made Sense
“Maybe this ‘Me First, Everything Else Second’ mentality helped cause the craziness that we’re seeing on Wall Street,” writes Errington Thompson. Personally, I think it’s the “Me first, Jon Swift second” mentality that’s the problem.

skippy the bush kangaroo
8-8-88: it was 20 years ago today…everything changed - a skippy musing
skippy remembers a day that will in infamy.

Daily Kos
Three Times Is Enemy Action
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga nominates Devilstower’s post, which links our economic woes to deregulation that began in the 1980s. But just because something doesn’t work out the first few times doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it again.

The Agonist
Who Got It Right
Numerian points out modestly that The Agonist predicted what would happen to the economy long before many of the experts did. OK, smart guy, what’s going to happen next?

Rude Pundit
Time to Rub Their F—ing Faces in It
Rude Pundit reaches across the aisle in his own special way.

Tbogg
Your Mumia Sweatshirt Won’t Get You Into Heaven AnymoreTbogg visits some Ralph Nader voters in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land and kills them.

A Blog Around the Clock
The Nobel Prize Conundrum
Coturnix explains the negative side of the Nobel Prizes, besides the fact that there isn’t one for blogging.

Informed Comment
Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes
Juan Cole says that Barack Hussein Obama should be as proud of his name as Abraham Hussein Lincoln and John Hussein Adams were.

Firedoglake
Iqbal And The Question Of Accountability For Torture Decision-Makers At The Top
Christy Hardin Smith says that one question the Iqbal case will answer is “What is justice here — and is it even possible to accomplish?” I agree with President Nixon: “When the president’s men do it, that means that it is not illegal.”

The Moderate Voice
Obama’s Election: A Sea Of Shattered Assumptions
Joe Gandelman lists 12 assumptions shattered by Obama’s election, not to mention the assumption he couldn’t win, and provides an exhaustive roundup of news media and weblog reaction on the day he won.

Pam’s House Blend
Thoughts on Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’
Pam Spaulding muses about the impact of Obama’s speech “in terms of the relief it gave me to hear someone articulate so clearly the need to have a discussion about race because I felt like I was screaming into a void.” Conservatives are just happy we never have to talk about race again.

Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008
Breakfast with Jon Stewart, Part One
Dennis DiClaudio experiences “second most fascinating, most I-can’t-believe-I’m experiencing-this, thing I have ever witnessed in my admittedly very unfascinating and inexperienced life.”

Wonkette
Your Lengthy Guide To The Insane McCain-Palin Cold War
Wonkette details the inside story of the brilliant, hard-fought campaign McCain and Palin aides waged against each other.

Happy New Year

fireworks1 Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

Good Luck In 2009

So much for 2008

 Good Luck In 2009

Good luck to you and yours in 2009

ABBA_-_Happy_New_Year_%28Brazil%29 Good Luck In 2009

Hillary, it’s time to be great.

Eight years ago, when many in the US thought that it really didn’t matter who was president and that the country could run on automatic pilot, George Bush was elected. At the time, he was thought to have had the greatest foreign-policy team of all time. Colin PowellDick CheneyCondoleezza Rice. Incredible credentials. Yet, after the last eight years, to describe President Bush’s foreign-policy as being a disaster is simply being kind. He’s made little or no progress in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, some may suggest at this point that his administration has actually taken the peace process backwards five or ten years.

On January 20th, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have to hit the ground running. The lack of American leadership is palpable around the world. Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip for the last four days. They did this in retaliation to multiple rocket attacks into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. This is a typical scenario. Israel takes a pounding and then retaliates disproportionately. The retaliation inevitably causes an international outcry. Sometime soon thereafter, Israel stops the offensive and we go back to square one. Soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must break this cycle.


Personally, I think it is important that we support Israel. The Palestinians, though, are living in abhorrent conditions. Their standard of living must be raised. If you have something to live for, then you are less likely to want to turn yourself into a human bomb. Hillary Clinton must find the balance that has escaped George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and her husband, Bill Clinton. She must find a way to get all the parties involved to begin the discussion and to find a solution to the problem. This means including Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. (Some of these Arab countries have treated the Palestinians like unwanted stepchildren.)

From a political standpoint, this is a huge time bomb. If Barack Obama spends a lot of political capital early in his presidency on trying to fix the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and can’t find a solution, that will hurt some of his domestic agenda. On the other hand, we have seen what eight years of neglect does. On the surface, this seems to be a lose-lose proposition. But, as an optimist, I think that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will need to (and, with luck, will be able to) balance this with the many other crises around the world. We do need to defeat Al Qaeda. We do need to do better in Afghanistan and make it a functioning nation.  We also need to help Pakistan, not only with its relationship to India, but also with its relationship to Afghanistan. We need to get out of Iraq and develop a presence in Africa. We need to bolster Africa’s attempt to control some of its violence within its own continent (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Darfur for come to mind). As a nation, we cannot ignore the problems of South and Central America. In addition, the growing challenges of Asia, which include the vulnerability of some Asian countries to Al Qaeda, may be as daunting as any challenge that I’ve yet mentioned. I have to make a special mention of North Korea, of course, since it was an original member of the Axis of Evil.

If history shows us anything, it is two definitive paths which have not yet led to the settlement of this long conflict. The first path was taken by President Clinton, which was to wait to the end of his presidency then throw his whole weight behind the peace process. He, like Bush, was a lame duck and, because of that, could not get an agreement. Then there is President Bush’s way… ignore the problem and hope it will go away, which doesn’t work either. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton must choose a different path. It is time for Hillary Clinton to be great.

What’s going on - News Roundup

Tuesday Evening News Roundup

Probably the biggest news of the day was that Governor Rod Blagojevich has appointed former Lt. Gov. Ronald Burris to replace Barack Obama in the Senate. One thing I can say is that I would not want to play poker with this guy. This guy has nerves of steel, no doubt. (The other possibility is that he’s too stupid to understand that no one is going to accept this appointment.) The only winners here, seems to me, are the Republicans in the state of Illinois.

Mychal Bell, the teenager involved in the Jena Six debacle, has reportedly tried to commit suicide. Just last week, he was allegedly arrested for stealing clothes worth about $370. As you may recall, this young man was at the center of a media storm 18 months ago. The whole tale is so sad and so tragic.

Remember John Bolton, the really crazy guy in President Bush’s State Department who was appointed to the UN but never could get certified by the Senate? He stated yesterday on FOX’s Hannity and Colmes that we should attack Iran right now. At least John Bolton is consistently crazy.

I’m not sure that there is anything that Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson has done that has “fixed” our ailing economy. I guess the widespread panic we saw in late September and early October has somewhat subsided. Was that worth over $350 billion? (Note that this does not include what the Fed handed out in cash, which came out to over $1 trillion.) The Treasury Department is injecting $6 billion into GMAC. GMAC is being allowed to restructure the company so that it will now be a bank and able lend to a larger variety of customers… in theory. All of this is theoretical. We thought that infusing the banks with cash would “in theory” loosen up banks’ lending and it didn’t happen. GMAC should be able to lend more money to auto customers. That might help the auto industry.

Home prices dropped in 20 major US cities. It was the fastest drop on record. This kind of drop it has only been in the picture since 2001. The index dropped 17% from October last year to October of 2008. More details here.

Remember the lobbyist who was rumored to have had an inappropriate relationship with Senator John McCain? Vicki Iseman. She appeared in a New York Times article which I’ve mentioned occasionally. I considered the important thing about the article to be that John McCain was still extremely close to lobbyists. Well, Vicki has just filed a $27 million defamation suit against the New York Times. Where’s Judge Judy when you need her?

Senator John Cornyn (Republican, Texas) has suggested that the Republican Party intends to obstruct the seating of Al Franken in the Senate. Senator Cornyn, a George Bush protégé, sent out a inflammatory statement, basically accusing Al Franken of trying to steal the election. As this long recount continues Al Franken appears to be closer and closer to victory. Currently, it appears as if Franken is ahead by 4950 votes. There is still a dispute, though, about how to count some of the previously discounted absentee ballots which probably should not have been discounted. Question: Shouldn’t we have an election system where all of this would have been worked out a long time ago? Shouldn’t we know which ballots to count and which ballots not to count? We been electing people for local, statewide and national office now for over 250 years. Why don’t we have standards?

On a sad end note, the final report on the Space Shuttle Columbia was issued by NASA today. The most surprising thing in the AP account of the report was that “the spacesuits, restraints and helmets of the Columbia crew were not equipped to handle such an extreme catastrophe.” I find such a statement mind-boggling. Even the most novice of scientists (this includes me) knows that the two most dangerous times of the whole shuttle flight are takeoff and reentry. The fact that their protective equipment did not really protect them makes me sick to my stomach. The full report can be found here. MSNBC has a nice interactive of the whole disaster here.

Nothing to say…

Still recovering from some type of GI thing. With luck, I’ll have something thoughtful and intelligent to say tomorrow, what with Israel invading Gaza, the economy still in the tank, oil prices increasing

Finally, the jazz great Freddie Hubbard has died.

From Wiki:

Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his school band, studying at the Jordan Conservatory with the principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In his teens Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery and worked with bassist Larry Ridley and saxophonist James Spaulding. In 1958, at the age of 20, he moved to New York , and began playing with some of the best jazz players of the day, including Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Eric Dolphy , J. J. Johnson, and Quincy Jones. In June 1960 Hubbard made his first record as a leader, Open Sesame, with saxophonist Tina Brooks, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Clifford Jarvis. Hubbard recorded his second album, Goin’ Up, with saxophonist Hank Mobley and a rhythm section consisting of Tyner, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. His third album, Hub Cap, featured trombonist Julian Priester and saxophonist Jimmy Heath. Then in May 1961, Hubbard played on Ole Coltrane, John Coltrane’s final recording session with Atlantic Records. Together with Eric Dolphy, Hubbard was the only “session” musician who appeared on both Ole and Africa Brass, Coltrane’s first album with ABC/Impulse! Later, in August 1961, Hubbard made one of his most famous records, Ready for Freddie, which was also his first collaboration with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Hubbard would join Shorter later in 1961 when he replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He appears on several Blakey recordings, including Caravan, Ugetsu, Mosaic, and Free For All. Hubbard remained with Blakey until 1966, leaving to form the first of several small groups of his own, which featured, among others, pianist Kenny Barron and drummer Louis Hayes.

It was during this time that he began to develop his own sound, distancing himself from the early influences of Clifford Brown and Morgan, and won the Downbeat jazz magazine “New Star” award on trumpet.[2]

Throughout the 1960s Hubbard played as a sideman on some of the most important albums from that era, including, Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, and Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil.[3] He recorded extensively for Blue Note Records in the late 1950s and 1960s: eight albums as a bandleader, and twenty-eight as a sideman.[4] Though Hubbard never fully embraced the free jazz of the ’60s, he appeared on several landmark albums in the genre: Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz, Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch, and John Coltrane’s Ascension.

Hubbard achieved his greatest popular success in the 1970s with a series of albums for Creed Taylor and his record label CTI Records. Although his early 1970s jazz albums Red Clay, First Light, Straight Life, and Sky Dive were particularly well received and considered among his best work, the albums he recorded later in the decade were bashed by critics for their commercialism. First Light won a 1972 Grammy Award and included pianists Herbie Hancock and Richard Wyands, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Airto Moreira.[5] In 1994, Freddie, collaborating with Chicago jazz vocalist/co-writer Catherine Whitney, had lyrics set to the music of First Light.[6]

Big Days Ahead!

Monday, January 19, 2009 is Martin Luther King Day.  Tuesday, January 20, 2009 will be Inauguration Day for Barack Hussein Obama.

I’ve taken these two days off from work.  What great days they shall be. Take them off work if you are able and enjoy the holiday and the great events of the inauguration.

Of course, some get King Day off in any case. Though many do not. In 2009, take the day if you don’t get it and enjoy a holiday of history, justice, and hope.  Take the next day as well and celebrate with freedom loving Americans such as yourself!

Below—True Blue Americans will be taking both these routes come the third week of January. Maybe a new sign and a new route will have to be made where you can get off at the same exit for Martin Luther King and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

dc-295_from_i-295 Big Days Ahead!

Cowboys are looking really bad

It seemed easy to predict what the Philadelphia Eagles were going to do. They had to dial up the pressure and run the ball. They needed to run the ball well and beat the pressure. It hasn’t happened. The Cowboys looked awful.

And that’s the ballgame. Clemons just ran back a Romo fumble.

The key to this game was turnovers, which is always the key to beating the Eagles. Romo had a fumble and an interception. The Cowboys will have a long, long off season to figure things out.

So disappointing.

Marion Barber has been a very good back for the Cowboys for the past three years, but his Achilles heel is fumbling. He just fumbled for another Eagle touchdown.

The Errington Thompson Show, sort of…

Here are pieces of my show for tomorrow.  

 
icon for podpress  ET Show segment 1 [13:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
icon for podpress  ET Show segment 2 [13:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
icon for podpress  ET Show segment 3 [11:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 
icon for podpress  The ET Show closing segment [9:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here’s your pardon…oops, my bad!

This should be of no surprise to anyone by now, but President Bush can’t seem to do anything right. On top of the fact that Bush has given out fewer pardons than almost any president in modern history, this latest pardon was given to Isaac Toussie. This one is interesting, to say the least. Mr. Toussie was a real estate developer who defrauded the Department of Housing and Urban Development out of millions. SeemsToussie was ahead of his time. He inflated applicants’ income in order to get them to “qualify” for housing loans. He and his father were so “great” that Business Week did a story back in 2002 titled The Housing Boom’s Dark Side, featuring Toussie and his father.

President Bush has said that the nation’s housing crisis is a combination of greed and Wall Street excess. Yet, Bush pardons this man? The uproar has caused Bush to reverse course and reconsider his pardon. Yep, Mr. Stay the Course is reversing.

I wonder if the fact that Toussie’s father gave over $28,000 to the RNC may have influenced Bush’s decision. What do you think?

Merry Christmas

couple-carries-christmas-tree Merry Christmas

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and very Happy Holidays.

Please Have A Good And Safe Holiday

To Errington and to all–Please have a good and safe Christmas or whatever it is you observe.

From Texas Liberal in Houston, Texas!  

black_imagery_gallery_08 Please Have A Good And Safe Holiday

Contest winners

contest-winner Contest winners

I have been a little slow at announcing some contest winners… sorry.

The last weekly winner is pinkpigscanfly@ymail.com.

All of the close to 100 people’s names who signed up for my podcast were put into a hat and one name was pulled out. foliagehouseplant@yahoo.com is the grand-prize winner of the iPod Nano!

Congratulations to the winners and genuine thanks to everyone for signing up. I hope you enjoy my podcasts.

Obama angers many with choice of Warren

rickwarren111607 Obama angers many with choice of WarrenAs everyone knows by now, Barack Obama has chosen the hugely successful but quite controversial Reverend Rick Warren to perform the opening invocation at his inauguration. The gay and lesbian community has been outraged over this choice. It has been noted that on his website he has stated that unrepentant homosexuals will not be accepted as members of his Saddleback Church. These harsh statements have disappeared from his website, but does this mean that the Reverend Warren has changed his mind about homosexuality? I doubt it.

This has become a very big deal in the Progressive community. The dustup over Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich really did not affect the Progressive community. Republicans were up in arms, but Progressives really did not believe that Barack Obama or anyone within his inner circle would be involved in selling Obama’s Senate seat. On the other hand, true Progressives believe in equality. We believe in equality amongst the races and in equality concerning sexual orientation. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have clearly stated that they also support gay rights but do not support gay marriage. (I’m not sure that I have yet resolved this conflict in logic but many “progressive” politicians have these illogical thoughts. “I support gay rights, but I can’t support gay marriage.” It doesn’t make a bit of sense to me, but then again, I’m not a politician.)

Here’s the problem. The gay and lesbian community embraced Bill Clinton and his presidency. In 1996, the Republican Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act.  Republicans were hoping to trap Democrats and a weakened President Clinton into arguing against this bill, but Democrats supported this bill overwhelmingly and President Clinton signed it into law. The gay and lesbian community thought that they were thrown under the bus, and they were. So now, 12 years later, the gay and lesbian community thought they had an ally in Barack Obama. (see Rachel Maddow’s video clip. She is really pissed at Obama for choosing Rick Warren.)


Personally, I believe Barack Obama was caught between a rock and a hard place. Because of his choice in Jeremiah Wright, I think Obama and his team must have thought that choosing a well-known black minister would have brought Obama’s old Reverend again to the forefront. Choosing an unknown minister would have caused everyone to scratch their heads and ask why Obama couldn’t get someone with “star power.” I think that Barack Obama sought, therefore, the least offensive popular (white) minister. (I understand that “least offensive” is subjective and really depends upon who is being affected by it.) I’m not saying that this was the best choice or even someone I’d have considered. I’m just saying that I think I understand the reasoning behind it.

I also believe that Barack Obama continues to support legitimately the cause of equality for the gay and lesbian communities. I think that he supports 95% of the gay and lesbian agenda but that this is the way it’s going to go over the next four years. Not just for gays and lesbians, but for all Progressives. Obama is really going to try to walk the tightrope between progressive and conservative Americans. The black and Latino communities, as well as supporters of women’s rights, will get their (our) feelings hurt in the coming months and even years. In spite of some hurt feelings,though, I think Barack Obama will do more for our collective causes than any other president has over the past 30 years.

What going on - News Roundup

Tuesday Morning News Roundup

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post much over the last couple of days. Part of the problem has been a persistent bug in my blog. The other part of the problem has to do with being too busy… and mourning the Dallas Cowboys’ last disaster.

  • If I see another commercial for Tom Cruise’s new movie, Valkyrie, I may feel compelled to storm City Hall, asking them to pass a law banning the movie from being shown anywhere within the city limits. I understand the concept of saturating the market but this is ridiculous.
  • The New York Times has another excellent article on our financial crisis. It’s another in a series called The Reckoning. This article outlines how the White House and George W. Bush wanted to increase home ownership at almost any cost. It discusses how White House ignored warnings. One of the most interesting contrasts in this whole story is how Mr. Deregulation, George W. Bush, wanted tougher regulations on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae but was unwilling to compromise with Congress. This article is worth reading in its entirety.
  • For those of you conspiracy buffs, you’ve probably already read about the death of Michael Connell. I’d never heard of him. Mr. Connell was a top Republican information technology consultant, the IT guy for Karl Rove. Cornell’s company, New Media Communications, did the website for George Bush’s 2004 campaign and also for John McCain’s campaign. He had been subpoenaed to testify in Ohio to talk about some of the shenanigans that went on within the campaigns, but his single engine private plane crashed about three miles shy of the Akron runway. Was he killed because he was going to talk? I’m sure that we will hear a lot more on this story.
  • Do you remember the five Muslims that were going to attack the Army base, Fort Dix? After a 14-month investigation and a trial, all five were found guilty of conspiracy to kill US soldiers. Well, this is a step in the right direction.  Now, can we go after bin Laden?
  • Toyota has announced that it expects to post its first quarterly loss in its 70-year history. Well, I guess it is now official. The economy is really in the tank.
  • Israeli archaeologists have found over 200 gold coins in an early seventh-century collapsed building. Excavation of the site is ongoing.
  • A Continental 737 jet slid off the runway at Denver International Airport on Sunday. The circumstances of the crash are unclear but the NTSB has released a statement saying that neither the wheels nor brakes caused the crash. Although it appears there were injuries, as of now, no one was killed.

My blog

Some funny (not funny ha ha but funny weird) things have been going on with my blog. I couldn’t post anything over the weekend. I’m hopeful that my web guru is fixing the problem. 

I’m hoping to post a lot of stuff over the rest of this evening/night.

Ravens beat up Cowboys

I’ll have a lot more to say about this game a little later. I’ll need to be a little less emotionally involved. For the Cowboys it is very simple. Their offensive line needed to block and, again, they were unable to do it. Romo was running for his life throughtout the game. For Romo, again, it was very simple. Don’t turn the ball over. He did. I have no explanation how the defense, who’d been controlling the game for three and half quarters gave up two runs, over 70 yards, in the last three minutes of the game. Finally, special teams, who have hurt the Cowboys all year, gave up a fake field goal. It was a pretty terrible performance all around. The Cowboys cannot win playoff games playing like this.

Maybe it is possible for us to cancel the rest of the season. We could then heal in the off season. Next year, with better offensive and defensive lines, we might be able to play football the way it is meant to be played.

Obama - Time’s Person of the Year

Barack Obama was the obvious pick for Time’s Person of the Year. Sometimes Time misses the obvious and chooses something else, so no one could be sure until it was official.

 
icon for podpress  Obama" Time Person of the Year: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rahsaan Roland Kirk

A friend of mine pointed me to this gentleman recently. I hadn’t ever heard of him. Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an amazing and intense man and this is a great performance… with an introduction by Quincy Jones.

Red State Update - Blagojevich

Travis and Jonathan of Red State Update have been cracking me up for years. I’ve posted many of their videos. This time they call up (not really) Governor Blagojevich and he gives them an earful of cussin’. Very funny. Enjoy.