Occasionally, regular, hideous life takes a front seat to blogging. This past week has been, collectively, one of those occasions. I promise to return soon in order to provide more of the mature commentary and creative fugues that you have come to expect.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Will return soon
Occasionally, regular, hideous life takes a front seat to blogging. This past week has been, collectively, one of those occasions. I promise to return soon in order to provide more of the mature commentary and creative fugues that you have come to expect.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Executive summary on Reaganomics
*
Jane Smiley is a novelist who writes really clear-headed and lively commentary for HuffingtonPost. Her latest post is a brilliant and concise description of... well, just go read it. I have some younger readers, and I hereby command them to click through and get a short course in post-1970s American political economy. Don't worry, kids: it's actually quite entertaining.
In my opinion, Smiley's column covers everything a regular, everyday person needs to know about Reaganomics, other than the self-evident observation that it has been a miserable failure in all it ever has attempted, even by its own standards, except its efforts to dismantle U.S. democratic institutions, transfer public wealth to private corporations, and maintain a perpetual state of war. And fear. And pestilence.
I do disagree with one detail in Smiley's analysis, though. The ultimate problem really isn't the sociopathic economists, but the transformation of the free press into a house organ for the Reagan Revolution over the past 25 years. These free-market goons would have been humiliated and laughed off the stage by real, two-fisted reporters even before they had their right foot out of the green room two decades ago.
Jane Smiley is a novelist who writes really clear-headed and lively commentary for HuffingtonPost. Her latest post is a brilliant and concise description of... well, just go read it. I have some younger readers, and I hereby command them to click through and get a short course in post-1970s American political economy. Don't worry, kids: it's actually quite entertaining.
In my opinion, Smiley's column covers everything a regular, everyday person needs to know about Reaganomics, other than the self-evident observation that it has been a miserable failure in all it ever has attempted, even by its own standards, except its efforts to dismantle U.S. democratic institutions, transfer public wealth to private corporations, and maintain a perpetual state of war. And fear. And pestilence.
I do disagree with one detail in Smiley's analysis, though. The ultimate problem really isn't the sociopathic economists, but the transformation of the free press into a house organ for the Reagan Revolution over the past 25 years. These free-market goons would have been humiliated and laughed off the stage by real, two-fisted reporters even before they had their right foot out of the green room two decades ago.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Funny
Hillary Clinton supporters are staging a writer's strike at DailyKos. They feel they are victims of meanness.Doodooodoot duhdootdoot! I interrupt this blog to bring you a special bulletin: No One Cares.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Geri Ferraro: bigot
*
Much comment on the racism of our first-ever female vice presidential nominee (1984), Geraldine Ferraro, can be found on the web tonight. Here's a representative one --- a Daily Kos link with commentary from Bob Cesca, illustrating that Ferraro has a long history of this kind of race-baiting.
Obama's campaign doesn't need to be demanding resignations from Hillary's campaign, but they do need to point out what the Clinton campaign has become: monstrous. And then they should hire back Samantha Power and give her a raise.
Erratum and update: Well, it appears that Geri Ferraro was not the first-ever female vice presidential nominee after all. StuporMundi apologizes for his error. However, Ms. Ferraro was, as far as StuporMundi knows, the first-ever female vice presidential candidate to end up being such a clueless, bigoted asshole.
Much comment on the racism of our first-ever female vice presidential nominee (1984), Geraldine Ferraro, can be found on the web tonight. Here's a representative one --- a Daily Kos link with commentary from Bob Cesca, illustrating that Ferraro has a long history of this kind of race-baiting.
Obama's campaign doesn't need to be demanding resignations from Hillary's campaign, but they do need to point out what the Clinton campaign has become: monstrous. And then they should hire back Samantha Power and give her a raise.
Erratum and update: Well, it appears that Geri Ferraro was not the first-ever female vice presidential nominee after all. StuporMundi apologizes for his error. However, Ms. Ferraro was, as far as StuporMundi knows, the first-ever female vice presidential candidate to end up being such a clueless, bigoted asshole.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Warrantless wiretapping thought experiment
*
It's audience participation time! You are invited to help with my domestic wiretapping thought experiment! Let's get started!
Suppose you are the U.S. Attorney General, in charge of a Justice Department that believes it has the power to conduct warrantless wiretaps of any telephone conversation that takes place in the United States. Suppose further that your department has in the past investigated and prosecuted domestic political enemies for the sole purpose of removing them from elected office. Also suppose that you had spent the previous 20 years as an ultraconservative judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and may or may not harbor feelings of animosity about a flashy, arrogant liberal prosecutor (now the Governor of your state) who in the recent past caused considerable trouble for some of the nice men who toil on Wall Street.
Given those assumptions (here comes the audience participation part), could you think of any reason not to allow the G-men to prosecute Eliot Spitzer on the basis of evidence that may have originated with an illegal wiretap? As a corollary experiment, can you think of any reason why Pat Fitzgerald's investigation of Karl Rove may have gone suddenly, inexplicably limp a coupla years ago?
All this is just the basis for a "hypothetical," of course, not a "conspiracy theory."
Update: Well, dagnab it, Jane Hamsher beat me to the punch with this nice post at FireDogLake that includes other, more wonky, Spitzer-type hypothetical questions for you to ponder. I hope our heroes at TPM Muckraker dig into it.
It's audience participation time! You are invited to help with my domestic wiretapping thought experiment! Let's get started!
Suppose you are the U.S. Attorney General, in charge of a Justice Department that believes it has the power to conduct warrantless wiretaps of any telephone conversation that takes place in the United States. Suppose further that your department has in the past investigated and prosecuted domestic political enemies for the sole purpose of removing them from elected office. Also suppose that you had spent the previous 20 years as an ultraconservative judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and may or may not harbor feelings of animosity about a flashy, arrogant liberal prosecutor (now the Governor of your state) who in the recent past caused considerable trouble for some of the nice men who toil on Wall Street.Given those assumptions (here comes the audience participation part), could you think of any reason not to allow the G-men to prosecute Eliot Spitzer on the basis of evidence that may have originated with an illegal wiretap? As a corollary experiment, can you think of any reason why Pat Fitzgerald's investigation of Karl Rove may have gone suddenly, inexplicably limp a coupla years ago?
All this is just the basis for a "hypothetical," of course, not a "conspiracy theory."
Update: Well, dagnab it, Jane Hamsher beat me to the punch with this nice post at FireDogLake that includes other, more wonky, Spitzer-type hypothetical questions for you to ponder. I hope our heroes at TPM Muckraker dig into it.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
A little Obama history
*
The link below goes to Bob Cesca's blog. It reprints an October 2002 antiwar speech by Barack Obama. Read the text. At the time Obama gave the speech, while he was still serving in the Illinois legislature, Senate Democrats were falling all over themselves to stand up and be counted by President Bush. (Yes, that's right: falling all over themselves to stand up.)
Then, if you like, you can follow another link provided by Cesca, this one directing you to the text of a speech Hillary Clinton gave on the floor of the Senate about a week later. It includes this line:
If we get the resolution and Saddam does not comply, then we can attack him with far more support and legitimacy than we would have otherwise [emphasis added].
She made that foreign policy speech less than 2 years after her first election to any public office. Some may attribute the poor judgment shown in that speech to her lack of experience.
The link below goes to Bob Cesca's blog. It reprints an October 2002 antiwar speech by Barack Obama. Read the text. At the time Obama gave the speech, while he was still serving in the Illinois legislature, Senate Democrats were falling all over themselves to stand up and be counted by President Bush. (Yes, that's right: falling all over themselves to stand up.)
Then, if you like, you can follow another link provided by Cesca, this one directing you to the text of a speech Hillary Clinton gave on the floor of the Senate about a week later. It includes this line:
If we get the resolution and Saddam does not comply, then we can attack him with far more support and legitimacy than we would have otherwise [emphasis added].
She made that foreign policy speech less than 2 years after her first election to any public office. Some may attribute the poor judgment shown in that speech to her lack of experience.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Today's doke
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
A difference between Clinton and Obama
*
Putting aside ideas and policy, an area where political competition is obscured by pointless nuance and deliberate ambiguity, I see one revealing difference between Clinton and Obama. It is evident in the basic strategy and tactics used by each campaign.
Obama seeks support through his personal charisma and giving inspirational speeches. He puts together strong local campaign organizations, including effective get-out-the-vote operations. His goal seems straightforward: to attract the most voters and make sure they get to the polling place on primary day. His campaign treasury is rich largely because hundreds of thousands of everyday people are contributing small amounts in direct response to the message they hear.
Clinton relies heavily on party establishment types and their established political organizations, which can be assumed at least in part to depend for their power on patronage at the city, county, and state levels. She entered two rogue Democratic primaries, in Michigan and Florida, in defiance of the national party and all other competing candidates, and is now lobbying to change the rules pertaining to whether her delegates from those states may be counted. Behind the scenes, her campaign has been trying to lean on party "superdelegates" to snatch the nomination if Obama gets to Denver with more regular delegates than she has.
In other words, Obama is working hard and playing by the rules to win the nomination; Clinton is working the establishment, gaming the system, and operating through back-channels to get what she wants.
Putting aside ideas and policy, an area where political competition is obscured by pointless nuance and deliberate ambiguity, I see one revealing difference between Clinton and Obama. It is evident in the basic strategy and tactics used by each campaign.
Obama seeks support through his personal charisma and giving inspirational speeches. He puts together strong local campaign organizations, including effective get-out-the-vote operations. His goal seems straightforward: to attract the most voters and make sure they get to the polling place on primary day. His campaign treasury is rich largely because hundreds of thousands of everyday people are contributing small amounts in direct response to the message they hear.
Clinton relies heavily on party establishment types and their established political organizations, which can be assumed at least in part to depend for their power on patronage at the city, county, and state levels. She entered two rogue Democratic primaries, in Michigan and Florida, in defiance of the national party and all other competing candidates, and is now lobbying to change the rules pertaining to whether her delegates from those states may be counted. Behind the scenes, her campaign has been trying to lean on party "superdelegates" to snatch the nomination if Obama gets to Denver with more regular delegates than she has.
In other words, Obama is working hard and playing by the rules to win the nomination; Clinton is working the establishment, gaming the system, and operating through back-channels to get what she wants.
Monday, March 3, 2008
"I heard it on NPR"
*
Back-to-back stories on All Things Considered this afternoon:
First, a strangely objective update on an under-reported story about a "loner," found comatose in a Las Vegas motel room, in possession of (1) firearms, (2) undisclosed amounts of the neurotoxin Ricin, (3) castor beans, from which Ricin is synthesized, and (4) an "anarchist-type textbook." Although the man's ethnicity was not reported, we can be fairly certain that he does not come from any brown-skinned, funny-accented region of the world. Why? Because, according to ATC co-host Melissa Block, Vegas police have stated that "it doesn't make you a terrorist to have an anarchist-type textbook." No word from John Law on whether it makes you a criminal to possess a deadly illegal poison previously used in terrorist attacks.
The frame for this first NPR story was something to the effect that, 'well this is certainly an interesting mystery, isn't it?' The report does represent an admirable presumption of innocence by an often-hysterical press in This Time Of War. They give us this tale of a simple country pizza delivery guy, living in his cousin's basement, taking his anarchist's cookbook and his castor beans and his guns along with undisclosed amounts of illegal neurotoxin on a road trip to Vegas, just minding his own business and living there with no visible means of support, when he mysteriously goes into a coma. Maybe he was "just trying to do harm to himself," one reporter mused. There are probably easier ways to do that, but who knows?
Second, a strangely sanctimonious story about a New York cabbie, briefly hailed as a hero for having rescued an infant abandoned in his taxi, until it was discovered that he was indirectly acquainted with the baby's father. NPR calls the story "Taxi Driver Arrested for Helping Girlfriend Ditch Kid." Nice. ATC co-host Robert Siegel clumsily walks the listener through the convoluted facts by asking the New York Daily News police reporter he's interviewing questions such as, "Is he from Ecuador, is that what I read?" Ah-HA! (How the hell should the police reporter know what Siegel read?)
As near as I can tell, here's the story. The father of an "angelic" 5-month-old baby girl tells his sister he can't care for the baby himself because he works construction and the underage mother has left him. This guy's sister tells her boyfriend, the Ecuadoran taxi driver, that they must bring the baby to a city fire station, which is reasonably in sync with the intent of the city's safe harbor law if not the letter of it. The immigrant does this, but he fabricates a story about how the baby was abandoned in his taxi, presumably to protect the brother of his girlfriend. Bad call, of course. But before the cabbie confesses to his fib, the heartwarming story hits the press: Ecuadoran Samaritan Toast O' Town --- Read All About It! But then the fairy tale is spoiled by an inconvenient detail, and everybody feels chumped. So the cabbie loses his livery license and faces prosecution for filing a false police report. Forget about the fact that this guy actually did take charge of an abandoned baby and did the right thing --- he made an error doing it. Let's pile on and strip him of his livelihood, then send him back where he belongs. Unless he has an apartment full of guns, castor beans, and an anarchist-type textbook.
Back-to-back stories on All Things Considered this afternoon:
First, a strangely objective update on an under-reported story about a "loner," found comatose in a Las Vegas motel room, in possession of (1) firearms, (2) undisclosed amounts of the neurotoxin Ricin, (3) castor beans, from which Ricin is synthesized, and (4) an "anarchist-type textbook." Although the man's ethnicity was not reported, we can be fairly certain that he does not come from any brown-skinned, funny-accented region of the world. Why? Because, according to ATC co-host Melissa Block, Vegas police have stated that "it doesn't make you a terrorist to have an anarchist-type textbook." No word from John Law on whether it makes you a criminal to possess a deadly illegal poison previously used in terrorist attacks.
The frame for this first NPR story was something to the effect that, 'well this is certainly an interesting mystery, isn't it?' The report does represent an admirable presumption of innocence by an often-hysterical press in This Time Of War. They give us this tale of a simple country pizza delivery guy, living in his cousin's basement, taking his anarchist's cookbook and his castor beans and his guns along with undisclosed amounts of illegal neurotoxin on a road trip to Vegas, just minding his own business and living there with no visible means of support, when he mysteriously goes into a coma. Maybe he was "just trying to do harm to himself," one reporter mused. There are probably easier ways to do that, but who knows?
Second, a strangely sanctimonious story about a New York cabbie, briefly hailed as a hero for having rescued an infant abandoned in his taxi, until it was discovered that he was indirectly acquainted with the baby's father. NPR calls the story "Taxi Driver Arrested for Helping Girlfriend Ditch Kid." Nice. ATC co-host Robert Siegel clumsily walks the listener through the convoluted facts by asking the New York Daily News police reporter he's interviewing questions such as, "Is he from Ecuador, is that what I read?" Ah-HA! (How the hell should the police reporter know what Siegel read?)
As near as I can tell, here's the story. The father of an "angelic" 5-month-old baby girl tells his sister he can't care for the baby himself because he works construction and the underage mother has left him. This guy's sister tells her boyfriend, the Ecuadoran taxi driver, that they must bring the baby to a city fire station, which is reasonably in sync with the intent of the city's safe harbor law if not the letter of it. The immigrant does this, but he fabricates a story about how the baby was abandoned in his taxi, presumably to protect the brother of his girlfriend. Bad call, of course. But before the cabbie confesses to his fib, the heartwarming story hits the press: Ecuadoran Samaritan Toast O' Town --- Read All About It! But then the fairy tale is spoiled by an inconvenient detail, and everybody feels chumped. So the cabbie loses his livery license and faces prosecution for filing a false police report. Forget about the fact that this guy actually did take charge of an abandoned baby and did the right thing --- he made an error doing it. Let's pile on and strip him of his livelihood, then send him back where he belongs. Unless he has an apartment full of guns, castor beans, and an anarchist-type textbook.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
International Journal of Nana Studies 1(4)
*
Proposed: A Fifth Law of Thermodynamics
Background
Nana has developed and proposed a new Law of Thermodynamics, the acronym for which is DENOLT (Double E's Negative- Oneth Law of Thermodynamics. This new law of physics, in its draft form, may be described as follows: The entropy of an isolated thermodynamic system decreases in direct proportion to the amount of time heat transfer occurs within the system.
Discussion
Initial development of DENOLT took place at a traditional American pancake house located in Champaign, Illinois, on 10 February 2008. The thermodynamic system described in the original embodiment of the theory consisted of natural gas from a conventional municipal gas main, a small source of heat to ignite the gas into a sustained flame, a steel restaurant cooking grill, a film of vegetable-based cooking oil, and diced Idaho russet potatoes.
Nana [poking at hard potato cubes within a "Farmer's Scramble"]: This is why we waited so long.
SM: What do you mean?
Nana [continuing to poke at the hard potato cubes]: They started with raw potatoes.
SM: They always start with raw potatoes.
Nana: No they don't.
SM: Are you saying that they grow potatoes already cooked?
Nana: No. But they had to cut them up.
SM: Do you mean that they can't cut up well cooked potatoes?
Nana: Oh, you know what I mean!
Analysis and Conclusion
Because cooked-in-the-dirt russet potatoes harvested from Idaho are demonstrated to become more heterogeneous the longer they are grilled at high temperature, the entropy of the system of which they are a part has been demonstrated to decrease in proportion to the amount of heat transferred. The proposed new thermodynamic law, DENOLT, assumes that said precooked-by-nature potatoes are cut up at some time between when they are harvested and when they are introduced to a hot grill.
Although DENOLT may currently be regarded only as a hypothesis, it is considered probable that research scientists and engineers will be able to test and replicate the initial results through controlled experiments at any traditional pancake house. Theoreticians may be expected to employ these data to codify and refine DENOLT as a scientific theory. Upon subsequent rigorous testing and observation by the scientific community worldwide, confirmation of DENOLT as the fifth confirmed Law of Thermodynamics should be expected within the century.
Afterword
"Double E" is an alias by which Nana is sometimes identified for purposes of confidentiality and protection of intellectual property.
Afterword II: Erratum
A commenter who should be able to grasp esoteric thermodynamic theory was confused by this account of the draft DENOLT. Part of the confusion may be attributed to the author's incomplete description of the cubed potato (CP) properties. The CPs were not cold, and their hardness was attributable to a state of rawness not explainable by the established Laws of Thermodynamics (Nana 2008a).
Proposed: A Fifth Law of Thermodynamics
BackgroundNana has developed and proposed a new Law of Thermodynamics, the acronym for which is DENOLT (Double E's Negative- Oneth Law of Thermodynamics. This new law of physics, in its draft form, may be described as follows: The entropy of an isolated thermodynamic system decreases in direct proportion to the amount of time heat transfer occurs within the system.
Discussion
Initial development of DENOLT took place at a traditional American pancake house located in Champaign, Illinois, on 10 February 2008. The thermodynamic system described in the original embodiment of the theory consisted of natural gas from a conventional municipal gas main, a small source of heat to ignite the gas into a sustained flame, a steel restaurant cooking grill, a film of vegetable-based cooking oil, and diced Idaho russet potatoes.
Nana [poking at hard potato cubes within a "Farmer's Scramble"]: This is why we waited so long.
SM: What do you mean?
Nana [continuing to poke at the hard potato cubes]: They started with raw potatoes.
SM: They always start with raw potatoes.
Nana: No they don't.
SM: Are you saying that they grow potatoes already cooked?
Nana: No. But they had to cut them up.
SM: Do you mean that they can't cut up well cooked potatoes?
Nana: Oh, you know what I mean!
Analysis and Conclusion
Because cooked-in-the-dirt russet potatoes harvested from Idaho are demonstrated to become more heterogeneous the longer they are grilled at high temperature, the entropy of the system of which they are a part has been demonstrated to decrease in proportion to the amount of heat transferred. The proposed new thermodynamic law, DENOLT, assumes that said precooked-by-nature potatoes are cut up at some time between when they are harvested and when they are introduced to a hot grill.
Although DENOLT may currently be regarded only as a hypothesis, it is considered probable that research scientists and engineers will be able to test and replicate the initial results through controlled experiments at any traditional pancake house. Theoreticians may be expected to employ these data to codify and refine DENOLT as a scientific theory. Upon subsequent rigorous testing and observation by the scientific community worldwide, confirmation of DENOLT as the fifth confirmed Law of Thermodynamics should be expected within the century.
Afterword
"Double E" is an alias by which Nana is sometimes identified for purposes of confidentiality and protection of intellectual property.
Afterword II: Erratum
A commenter who should be able to grasp esoteric thermodynamic theory was confused by this account of the draft DENOLT. Part of the confusion may be attributed to the author's incomplete description of the cubed potato (CP) properties. The CPs were not cold, and their hardness was attributable to a state of rawness not explainable by the established Laws of Thermodynamics (Nana 2008a).
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Beyond "Good to Great"
From The Salt Lake Tribune, via TPM and reader DB (where I saw the relevant Trib excerpt), comes an account of a next-gen employee motivation program.In the long term, employee motivation through management-initiated waterboarding is probably a welcome development for several reasons. First, it will weed all the sissies out of the sales team and put them on the streets where they really belong to begin with. Second, it will finally rid us of impermanent, namby-pamby management fad thinking epitomized by Harlequin-style boardroom romances such as Good to Great. Third, it will help to rip the grinning, baboon-like happy-mask off the Reagan Revolution and reveal just what it's always been about: applying wealth and brute force to deceive the innocent, intimidate the weak, and redefine human beings as an expendable capital resource for use by a handful of degenerate plutocrats and their enforcers.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Bottom-feeding on the irony circuit
Since the following morsel is too small for the heavy hitters of political blogging, I suppose it's up to me to put it on the record. This, from President Bush's White House press conference today (transcript excerpt from Fox News, to which I will not link):
Question: I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of insight into your thinking about this, and just explain to the American people what is lost by talking with those with when (sic) we disagree.
Bush: What's lost by embracing a tyrant who puts his people in prison because of their political beliefs? What's lost is it'll send the wrong message. It'll send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It'll give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.
As if you, my most sophisticated and highly intelligent reader, need me to interpret for you, I will just point out that Bush's words could just as appropriately have been aimed at his own administration by the leader of any democracy that still abides by the Geneva Conventions and the various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
The President's words were evidently a swipe at Barack Obama, who would glorify dictators by considering the use of diplomacy to solve international conflicts. Now, is anybody really worried that a competent Secretary of State couldn't easily achieve all key U.S. foreign policy goals with Cuba, Iran, and North Korea within a year? I'll bet it wouldn't take much more than secretly offering Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Kim each a few boatloads of swag, a bottomless expense account, and carte blanche at David Vitter's favorite brothel. Seriously.
Question: I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of insight into your thinking about this, and just explain to the American people what is lost by talking with those with when (sic) we disagree.
Bush: What's lost by embracing a tyrant who puts his people in prison because of their political beliefs? What's lost is it'll send the wrong message. It'll send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It'll give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.
As if you, my most sophisticated and highly intelligent reader, need me to interpret for you, I will just point out that Bush's words could just as appropriately have been aimed at his own administration by the leader of any democracy that still abides by the Geneva Conventions and the various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
The President's words were evidently a swipe at Barack Obama, who would glorify dictators by considering the use of diplomacy to solve international conflicts. Now, is anybody really worried that a competent Secretary of State couldn't easily achieve all key U.S. foreign policy goals with Cuba, Iran, and North Korea within a year? I'll bet it wouldn't take much more than secretly offering Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Kim each a few boatloads of swag, a bottomless expense account, and carte blanche at David Vitter's favorite brothel. Seriously.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Good riddance...
...to Bill Buckley, whose Cold War-era hallucination of conservatism (e.g., blacks shouldn't have civil rights, government spending is Socialism except when it's an investment in Empire, corporations shouldn't have to follow laws or pay taxes) played a key role in helping to create half a dozen intractable real-world national and international crises. His charming, polysyllabic patrician demeanor and "genius for friendship" was eulogized by David Folkenflik on NPR this afternoon. (Click the "Listen Now" link at the NPR page if you can stomach it, but I don't recommend it.)"He drove the kooks out of the [conservative] movement," said Buckley's son, Chris. "He separated it from the anti-Semites, the isolationists, the John Birchers. He conducted, if you will, a kind of purging of the movement." Well, actually, no he didn't, Chris; he only got rid of the isolationists because they're not good allies when a guy is trying to intellectually justify turning a republic into an empire. And all those other "kooks"? They've been ruling us for 28 years.
I'm not a person who believes we are obligated to be polite about the dead if we strongly feel they were premeditated assholes who left the world a worse place than when they entered it. I will, at least, wish Mr. Buckley luck with his "genius for friendship" as he shakes hands with The Devil.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Dodd's an Obamaniac
This morning I received an email from Senator Chris Dodd informing me that he is endorsing Barack Obama for President. What's that? You haven't received your email from a U.S. Senator today? You must be a bad citizen!
I hope that Senator Dodd has extracted a promise from Obama to support all of his (Dodd's) efforts in the Senate to avoid further erosion of the Bill of Rights, and to withdraw the carte blanche for domestic surveillance that the Congress has "granted" the Executive Branch in recent years. (I put scare quotes around granted because the Congress has no more authority to "grant" the Executive Branch permission to ignore the Constitution than the Judicial Branch has to "grant" the presidency to its favorite candidate before all the votes have been counted. But, whatever.)
Anyway, Senator Dodd urges me to become involved in Obama's campaign. We'll see.
I hope that Senator Dodd has extracted a promise from Obama to support all of his (Dodd's) efforts in the Senate to avoid further erosion of the Bill of Rights, and to withdraw the carte blanche for domestic surveillance that the Congress has "granted" the Executive Branch in recent years. (I put scare quotes around granted because the Congress has no more authority to "grant" the Executive Branch permission to ignore the Constitution than the Judicial Branch has to "grant" the presidency to its favorite candidate before all the votes have been counted. But, whatever.)
Anyway, Senator Dodd urges me to become involved in Obama's campaign. We'll see.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Troubling development that bears watching
At least this is getting some media play, if mostly only in political blogs. If you're younger than 45, you do not know what it's like to see three of the most charismatic leaders of your young life be gunned down in cold blood over less than 5 years. And that doesn't include Malcolm X. The Secret Service needs to know the whole world is watching (as they said in 1968, in Chicago, where there was teargas and blood). As Big Otis notes, we need to hope that Dion DiMucci never sees a need to reissue Abraham, Martin and John with a new verse. (Reproduction of picture believed to be fair use for same reasons stated on Wikipedia, from whence the image was borrowed.)
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Prelude to "today's doke"
In order to move this blog a little further away from mediocrity and more in the direction of charming idiosyncracy, I have decided to change the title of my "humor corner" from "Today's chuckle" to "Today's doke." A fast search of The Google tells me that everybody and her giant embryo is using "today's chuckle" to flag their own so-called humorous content. Well, StuporMundi don't roll that way, mostly because everything he finds on the web tagged as "today's chuckle" just really sucks.
So starting now, and until such time as I realize that this is stupid, I hereby re-christen my funny stuff as "Today's doke." A doke happens to be anything that is very funny, especially to a childish person, whether it is a joke, peculiar-sounding flatus in a somber setting, or a frat boy driving to Foosland with sand in his gas tank. As far as I know, the inventor of the doke is Big Otis, who known by many names (as is Lucifer). We experienced many dokes from the time I was a toddler. Often they involved such merriment as my breaking Nana's tear-shaped eyeglasses from the top bunk bed, or putting a thumbtack on The Music Man's kitchen chair before dinner. And to inaugurate "Today's doke," as a matter of fact, I present an original portrait of The Music Man, by Big Otis (c. 1964). It was probably BO's response to some long-forgotten humiliation, or maybe to having his little head put through the Beatle drywall one Beatle time too many during a fab Beatle weekend. All this should serve as more than enough information on the topic. And the image is copyright 2008 by the artist known as Big Otis.
So starting now, and until such time as I realize that this is stupid, I hereby re-christen my funny stuff as "Today's doke." A doke happens to be anything that is very funny, especially to a childish person, whether it is a joke, peculiar-sounding flatus in a somber setting, or a frat boy driving to Foosland with sand in his gas tank. As far as I know, the inventor of the doke is Big Otis, who known by many names (as is Lucifer). We experienced many dokes from the time I was a toddler. Often they involved such merriment as my breaking Nana's tear-shaped eyeglasses from the top bunk bed, or putting a thumbtack on The Music Man's kitchen chair before dinner. And to inaugurate "Today's doke," as a matter of fact, I present an original portrait of The Music Man, by Big Otis (c. 1964). It was probably BO's response to some long-forgotten humiliation, or maybe to having his little head put through the Beatle drywall one Beatle time too many during a fab Beatle weekend. All this should serve as more than enough information on the topic. And the image is copyright 2008 by the artist known as Big Otis.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The passion of St. McCain
Snarky bloggers call John McCain "Saint" because the establishment press worships him. Because he's a war hero. Unlike John Kerry or Al Gore or George McGovern or John F. Kennedy or Walter Mondale. (Gore and Mondale might not be "heroes," but they're veterans.)But McCain's "story of redemption and rectitude" has more holes in it than Albert Hall, to quote the Beatles and the Firesign Theater. And the McCain campaign's response to this first salvo, which was undoubtedly ginned up by the right-wing McCain-haters' club, invokes the Senator's "hero" status and claims that St. McCain has never "violated the public trust" or "the principles that have guided his career." Well, depending on what those principles might be (e.g., venality, opportunism), the second statement may be true. But I doubt that the first statement really is.
Now we have an allegation, from unnamed New York Times sources from McCain's 2000 campaign, of some potentially Bill-Clintonian behavior with a female lobbyist. If this story plays out to be a sordid mess for McCain, I wonder if you'll see lefties wearing purple band-aids of mockery on their double chins like wingnuts did when the Bush campaign's surrogates repeatedly smeared Kerry in 2004. Heroes....
Rapid-fire update: Wow, now the Washington Post is piling on, too. We may be be headed for a deadlocked GOP convention yet! I'd almost feel sorry for St. McCain if he wasn't such a sleazy and dangerous man. One can almost hear the slabs of plaque spalling off the artery walls right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
