Saturday, January 31, 2009

Us Too-ism ctd.

It got real weird in the room.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Us Too-ism.

So Michael Steele is the first African-American head of the RNC.   Call me cynical and myopic but this is the kind of move that just doesn't feel real.    Its isn't that Steele is not qualified but its hard to imagine him being elected to the post if there had been no Obama.  In much the same way Palin owes at least some of her juice to Hillary's primary success. 

It speaks to a kind of simplistic political calculus  that values the symbolic over the substantive and simply seems unable to grasp why  the Democratic primary and Obama's candidacy captured  so many imaginations.  Conservatives dismiss these as nothing more than identity politics and in doing so reveal a profound misunderstanding of legitimate issues of gender and race.  Which is how they find themselves essentially saying "hey we got a black guy too"

I don't know who the first out gay national politician will be.  But I'll bet the second one is a Republican.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

House GOP. Some ideas would help.

With a vote that broke down largely  on party lines Obama's stimulus package passed the House and moves on to the Senate for certain tinkering and also likely passage.  However Obama's attempt at bone throwing by massaging the tax cut to spending ratio and condom dump was rewarded not at all by  the righties who are suddenly deficit hawks again.  Not one vote.  This isn't principal, its short term political gamesmanship of the variety most of the country says  they're sick of.  And it didn't create one job.

So its more than fair now to ask for the GOP's better ideas and I don't mean simply demagoguing the margins.  Now I wont go to the mat on every spending point in the bill , and heck I'll even fess up and say that at this point in the crisis I don't give a damn whose idea works as long as something does, but you cannot simply be obstructionist to appease your AM radio over lords while thousands of people lose their jobs everyday and call it leadership.  "No" isn't an answer here.  "No, but....." is.  Waiting for the "but"



Blagojevich. Don't hate the playa, hate the game

Maybe  Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom are more accomplished evil geniuses, maybe, but our Guv is not to be underestimated.   After bowing out of the J'accuse portion of his impeachment trial  and presumably  having a  fit of remorse he's decided he'd like to humbly  speak on his own Capra-esque behalf. And of course they'll have to let him.  After a self serving national media blitz where he did a surprisingly good job of making his case and generally upstaging his trial he's going to get another bite at the apple in a heavily convered 90 minute monologue without getting bogged down in that awkward having to 'splain hisself.  As I don't look for a confession I have to admit; this is pure brilliance.

He'll be impeached but that's not his concern.  Given how uncharacteristically clumsy Fitzgerald has been in rolling out this complaint and how deftly Blago has responded I'd say that he's got at least a %50 chance of avoiding jail.  At least.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Please no fuck no.....

Serial rape at the CIA??  Lets hope not.

Take your medicine??

The argument for letting us eat cake is beginning to take shape vs. the depressing but quite possibly true assertion that $1 trillion aint going to cut it or even come close.

The primary weakness in the "let things run their due course" argument it seems to me is that it is entirely theoretical and never attempts to factor in the back side social costs of massive unemployment or foreclosures.  In fact the right barely acknowledges that these costs might exist.  Deficits?  Clearly immoral.   Standing idly by and not intervening to offset the impact of economic disaster?   Well, that's Free Market America.  Why do you hate America?

So far this week we've had +50,000 layoffs announced in one day and before Friday comes we could be well above +70,000 layoffs for the week with the worst of the worst still ahead of us in all likelihood as labor is a lagging indicator.   Lets not pretend that there are no costs or moral consequence in those numbers.  Rather lets look for balance.

Monday, January 26, 2009

A woman can't be a priest....

But this guy can have his excommunication overturned by the Pope.  Boggles the mind.   Is it just a coincidence that a German Pope supports a Holocaust denier and bigoted anti-semite? 

More Al Jazeera Please.

You should give some serious thought to reading and watching Al Jazeera more and here's why.
Yes the reporting is slanted, essentially the FOX News of the Middle East, but they do not pre-sanitize events before broadcasting.  Al Jazeera will present images and opinions you'll never get out of CNN or any other news source in America and that's a problem.  

We have an obligation to actually view how our policies are impacting people around the world and we should have a desire to see ourselves as we are seen.   Now this isn't a back handed attempt to argue any particular policy point either pro or con.   Perhaps we view the ramifications of our actions and feel just fine about it, that's okay.  The larger issue however is that we can't make reasonable value judgments about  leaders or policy if we continue  to look the other way.

We should seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our media does a poor job of that.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Blagojevich is a genius.

About my impeachment...uh... yeah.  I wont be there.... got some other stuff to do.

This guy  is a world class shyster with a pair of one ton testes.  And we thought Clinton was full of shit?   Merely a poseur.   Blago is far and away the finest bullshiter walking the earth today.  

At today's  news conference he stood up in front of a room full of adults and asserted that the rules for his impeachment violated his Constitutional rights. (!)  Now of course he knows that basically  he's being fired for cause and the Constitution is irrelevant.  But guess what?  He doesn't fucking care!!  Whoooopeeee...... In fact he pegged his don't-give-a-shit meter into the red when he claimed this whole episode was a legislative power grab to raise income taxes by %4, %5, %33, %66 or some other number maybe.   But that's not the point.  The point is that he is willing, nay EAGER, to look you in the eye and say the craziest shit he can think of and dare  you to call him wrong.  Who among us is man enough to do it??  

Now there are those  who will say that the man is crazy.  Uh-uh.  If he were this crazy he'd be leading his invisible pet goat on a leash all around town and as far as I know he's not.  He knows exactly what he's doing and there is a damn good possibility it'll work, not for his impeachment but for his criminal trial.   He's counting on our stupidity, playing to a potential jury pool who might seat one dumbass that will buy into his populist victimhood and hang the jury.    Anybody have Bobby Rush's phone number?

The man is brilliant.  Tell me Im wrong. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Financing the Cubs sale IS life. The rest is details

I love it when baseball teaches us how desperately fucked we are

Sour Grapes continued

His teeth will be ground down to nubs before mid-terms

Right Wing Sour Grape Watch

Giddy  though I am Im not without some measure of sympathy for my  conservative friends in these times.    I know how hard it is to be on the outside looking in, trying to understand how I got electorally crossways with so many of my countrymen.  I voted for Dukakis after all.   

But I think its especially hard for a point of view (that insists on calling itself a movement) defined by its intellectual and moral superiority to come to terms with the fact that no member of its tribe anywhere on earth can inspire people to their better selves the way Obama has.   In the wee small hours of the night they must  ask "when did we start sucking?"    Well, some anyway might, others just can't breathe into reality and for them there's no such thing as "too petty".

Over at  the Chicago Boyz feedback loop they're harumphing about Obama's reading list but not thinking it through too well.

This guy is in a lot of pain.  In fact that entire blog needs a tissue.  The quality of thought (ahem) expressed here is the same kind that conservatives call anti-American when it pops up on the left, but these are not the sorts of things that come readily  to mind upon finding one is living in a fantasy.

Michelle is always angry but her lip seems to have an extra curl lately and it can't just be due to her jealousy of Ann Coulter

And for good measure the semi-sober ramblings of Viagra addicts brought to you from the finest trailer parks in America

Friday, January 16, 2009

If you can find something crazier than this I'll send you $20

It can't be real. Except it is.   

Krispy Kreme is offering customers a free donut of "choice" on Inauguration Day and really they should know better.

Because as Judie Brown of the anti-abortion American Life League points out: " the unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that" choice" is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of "freedom of choice" is a tacit endorsements of abortion rights on demand".

So enjoy your donut I guess.

But seriously.... if you can find something crazier than that I'll send you $20 US.  There is no statute of limitation on this but I am the sole judge so thats  dicey and I may or may not have stamps on hand so that'll slow things down a bit but otherwise the double sawbuck is yours.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Still sucks to be that baby.

Accurate yes.  Simple?  Not so much.  If it were we'd be into our 60th year of Arab/Israeli harmony.     

Ted Haggard needs new friends.

He can call himself what he likes and I don't really care.  In fact he can do what he likes and I wont care much about it and neither should anyone else.  Ahhhhh  but therein lies the rub.   As it turns out his only real "issue" is that he can't get adequate perspective on the hypocrisy Christians wallow in on the matter and he's letting it ruin him.   Agreeing to a 100 mile non compete clause for speaking engagements wasn't a good idea either but we live and learn.

For the sake of discussion lets buy into the  Christian view that homosexuality is a sin.  Well and good.   Of course from the Christian view a good many things are sin including our very nature.   Galatians 5 :19-21 gives you a real handy list of specific  transgressions should there be some confusion at any point: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and so on.  And while here we can file gay sex under the general heading of sexual immorality the bible speaks specifically to homosexuality several times and of course its never good.

But what the bible doesn't do is create a special category of sin for homosexuality.  Just isn't there.   No such verse as "blah blah blah are sins but homosexuality is the worst."   Romans 3:23 puts it more succinctly, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".   "All".  Not" all but especially homosexuals". Just "all".   So if you're God generally speaking sin is sin is sin, ignoring for a moment the dreaded blaspheme against the Holy Spirit which apparently is worse than anything even if nobody really knows what it is.


But you'd never in a million years discern that from the actions of Christians who generally give the impression that two boys kissing is mankind's undoing.   There is no Prop 8 type  campaign against drunks.  No effort to keep those of a jealous nature from adopting children.  In fact you can be a selfish witch who sows dissension and Christians wont use public policy as a tool to limit your range of societal  options at all.   That they  reserve for gays.  Because the bible tells them so? Not really.   Because religion can be  a powerful tool for rationalizing prejudice and bigotry??  You're getting warm.  And  its too bad really because its this puritanical score keeping  that drives people like Haggard  to struggle with levels of guilt they shouldn't have to deal with.  He's no worse than the guy in the pew next to him but neither of them will ever believe it.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Dios Freakin' Mio

A stretch?  Maybe.  But when you  start to think about  ways  in which the situation in Mexico is different from Pakistan the only obvious missing component is radicalized religious nonsense.  Granted, no small factor.  But the potential for extreme chaos on this side of the Rio Grande is so great that the possibility, however small, shouldn't be completely discounted.   Re-read your Huntington and finish The Black Swan