Leave Herman Alone!

Pizza magnate Herman Cain has had a rough week. Republicans are attacking him, he is trying to smooth over the discovery of a 20-year-old sexual harrassment incident by Politco, there is a scandal involving the serious misuse of political donations, and he revealed yesterday that he thinks China doesn't have nuclear weapons and he must stop them from getting some.

9-9-9 people! None of that other stuff matters! As president he will work with the congress that is attacking him (whoever is running it by then) to fix the tax code. If there is anything going on internationally, we can just, you know, sit it out for a few years. What this country needs is a guy like Cain, who knows how to create jobs, and put him in a position where he believes that he mustn't do anything to effect the creation of jobs.

Look, if Cain is out of the race, then it's a choice between a centrist who leans to the right and Romney. We can't let this happen. Let it be a choice between a black man with experience in governance and black man without any.

NoNoNoNoNoNo

Wonkette was right, I shouldn't have clicked on this NSFW link. No, I'm not at work, but because Guy Fawkes masks creep me out under the best of circumstances.

Yes, it's one of the mild ones.

Watch That Pause

Rick Perry, inverviewed by Neil Cavuto:



ThinkProgress characterizes it as Perry refusing to answer. I say it's the pause of a guy who isn't sure what he just said and needs to process it because he doesn't want to consider the possibility that he IS one of those Occupy Wall Street Guys.

Anyway this is a sign that the Tea Party has decided Rick Perry is no longer their BFF and in fact, their best chance to win the presidency is whatever black man they have available, no matter how ill-informed or nutty. It's a good strategy: the American people seem to like black people nowadays, and it worked so well with Michael Steele.

Don't Listen To This Guy!

He's probably a muslim extremist.

Unemployment - Embrace It!

Look, what are you 99 percenters upset about? If you don't have jobs its your own fault! If more of you are unemployed then in 2007, it's because more of you are lazy bastards who don't want a job.

Still that doesn't mean the Republicans aren't in there doing what they can to get you more jobs. For one thing, they're refusing to allow a vote on Obama's Jobs Bill. For another, Tea Party Nation is demanding that small businesses stop hiring people. WHERE ARE THE JOBS, MR PRESIDENT?

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

Also until Sharia law is banned, I resolve to blow up all public buildings! And until my wife apologizes for accusing me of kissing other women, I will sleep with other women!

It seems a little over the line but you know what? Sometimes you have to take extreme measures to keep people from wrecking the economy.

(Side note: check out the quote at the begininning of the manifesto - from the movie of Atlas Shrugged. Does no one say it in the novel? Like the guy who wrote the Call For a Strike, I've never read it either.)

A Startling Glimpse Into The Afterlife

It's curious that they thought Quadaffi would hold onto his looks like that but hey, details.

The Future of the GOP

Who's going to win the Republican primary? I don't know exactly, but this is what it's going to be like

The majority of people who vote for that candidate will hate them and wish one of the others had won. Even if they despise the winner, they will vote for them, because they'd rather have someone they despise and disagree with in every way than Barack Obama.

Oh and Herman Cain will drop out of the race for reasons that no one will quite be able to explain.

Obama Should Be Very, Very Frightened

Well, the primaries are coming up and more and more it's looking like your choice is as follows:

A cult member who champions abortion and authored an even more socialist version of Obamacare.

A man who wants to eliminate your tax deductions and raise your personal tax bill to 18%, (and corporations to 9%) plus is in favor of spending your taxes on bailing out banks.

A guy from Texas who strongly reminds you of... uh... I just can't remember. He was president some time in the recent past. Never forget!

A guy with fake eyebrows.

Oh, and Newt Gingrich. He's looking good!

There IS A Republican Jobs Bill!

President Obama's comprehensive jobs bill was killed yesterday in the Senate. WHERE ARE THE JOBS, OBUMMER? Or as Mitch McConnell more subtly said, "Democrats' sole proposal is to keep doing what hasn't worked, along with a massive tax hike that we know won't create jobs. Why on earth would you support an approach that we already know won't work?" Indeed, it's just common sense that if we lower taxes down from where they were in say, the nineties, then unemployment will finally fall.


But the Republicans haven't actually put fourth a jobs bill with the vital lowering taxes component. Even in Congress, where they run the place. You might think they don't actually HAVE a jobs plan. You're wrong! A very sensible plan that is guaranteed to increase employment has been proposed, by state representative with the zen-balanced name of Ritch Workman.

So Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, filed a bill this week to bring back "dwarf tossing," the barbaric and dangerous barroom spectacle that was imported from Australia and thrived briefly in Florida before it was outlawed in 1989. "I'm on a quest to seek and destroy unnecessary burdens on the freedom and liberties of people," Workman said. "This is an example of Big Brother government. "All that it does is prevent some dwarfs from getting jobs they would be happy to get," Workman said. "In this economy, or any economy, why would we want to prevent people from getting gainful employment?"

I'm all for this - if the dwarves are willing to do this kind of work, I say let 'em. Of course, the non-dwarf community is unlikely to benefit from this, and on a national scale, we might have to expand it to include, say, software-specialist tossing or real-estate agent tossing. But on the whole, a worthy plan Republicans! I'm sorry I doubted you.

Quote Of The Day, Makes Its Own Gravy Edition

"Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans."

-Eric Cantor, talking to the Values Voters summit last Friday.

Liberal Media Outrage - Hank Williams Jr. Fired!

It's official - apparently appearing in a drunken rambling live television interview and comparing the president to Hitler IS enough to get you knocked off a lucrative royalties-saturated gig in an unrelated field. Hank Williams Jr. is out! 

Tea Party nation demands that you stop watching Monday Night Football. Football has a liberal bias!  Perhaps they will devise their own football, using patriot-styled uniforms and no dusky players. Maybe they can call it the TPFL. 

Good news though! From the Tea Party Nation link:

Hank Williams, Jr. is rumored to be thinking about running for the US Senate in Tennessee. As a Tennessean, all I can say is, “Run Hank Run!”

I see a LOT more money coming in for Mr. W. Jr. Can you say, "HankPac?" Hey it worked for Sarah Palin. If he doesn't run, he can always go the Charlie Sheen route and make his money back in frivolous lawsuits.

Can't We Fix This With CGI?

I don't feel like addressing Steve Jobs yet, but remember if it hadn't have been for the iPhone, all cel phones would look like this. (Of course they wouldn't. I just said...!)

Important Thinking From The Other Blog

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo - what did he MEAN?

Plus Ca Change C'est la Meme Chose

Cake anyone?

I Don't Need To Wear Myself Out Hammering Nails Into THAT Coffin

Herman Cain saying it, that's just primary campaign talk. But this is FOX NEWS talking.

So we're back where we started! Who is the Republican nominee? Better answer quick because from the looks of things, some states are threatening to have their primaries in December.

The New Christie Minstrels

My vlog Wednesday night, about Chris Christie's expected entry into the Republican primary, drew criticism. And I was expecting some - it was a cheap shot about how awful all the other Republican candidates are, and how Christie's weight made him a terrible choice for President of the United States. I'd expect people to rise in the defense of the slate of candidates and rip into me for my juvenile "comedy" argument, making fun of a fat man without even taking the trouble to enumerate his positions on the issues.

Interestingly, this is not the approach that my (limited) readership took.

Rather than address my points, they chose to tacitly agree with them and point out that I, too, am too unattractive to run for president. In fact, if I'm misreading their arguments correctly, I have no right to criticize Christie because I am as fat as he is. I'm a little taken aback by that notion - the man doesn't look like he's 155 pounds to me.

But I'm biased. Maybe he is the same weight as I am, which begs the question: is America ready for a president who's only 4'3" tall?

Anyway, even though they wouldn't address my points directly (or even tell me that they HAD failed to address them) it's nice to know that I and my 'bagger friends agree that there are no electable Republicans running right now. And none on the horizon. They'll find their shining star like they did last time - three weeks before the election.

Actually three weeks is a little too much exposure - expect the real nominee to emerge around noon on Election Day.

Welcome Chris Christie

Frequent Debates Raising Awareness of Republican Candidates

Yes indeed, the RNC was wise to schedule so many debates with all the Republican candidates.

 

And even wiser to have them so early!

Candidate for Next Government Shutdown Issue

You know why this happened?

Too much regulation. If we'd just stop insisting that companies use public lands with an eye toward safety, we'd all be better off! I bet you could save a couple of bucks a month on natural gas for starters. And you'd need it, to put toward property insurance.

The Power Of Positive Thinking is Nil

Gov. Nikki Haley wants state workers to answer their phones, saying, “It’s a great day in South Carolina. How can I help you?”

Tuesday, Haley instructed the directors of Cabinet agencies, which report to her, to change the way their employees answer the phones. Haley said the change will boost the morale of state workers, remind them they work for the callers on the other end of the line and help her sell the state to employers.

...However, Dick Harpootlian, chairman of the S.C. Democratic Party, said Haley’s approach is silly. “She believes that if you say the lie enough, people may begin to believe it. But we know the state is in the toilet,” Harpootlian said, referring to the state’s 11.1 percent unemployment rate, the fourth-highest rate in the nation.

To be fair, it's a way to fix all the state's problems without paying a dime. It's worked before! Claiming that there is no longer any racism in America has completely eliminated the need for Affirmative Action quotas. Rick Perry's innovative climate initiatives (to solve a drought he held a state-wide prayer meeting to entreat God for rain) prevented having to pay money to help farmers. Saying there were WMDs in Iraq made the country dangerous enough to invade! See? And all for free.

Occupy Wall Street, Or Whatever

Hey, did you know this was going on? Probably not. After all, a few thousand people is hardly a thing worth covering. It doesn't DESERVE national attention. A protest that small is obviously the work of a tiny, insignificant minority.

People who shouldn't be influencing the policy of the whole nation.

Oh, THAT'S The Tea Party Agenda!

Michelle Bachmann, the Tea Party's most articulate spokesperson now that Sarah Palin has dropped out of the race (Yes she has. Don't argue with me.) has finally put it out there, the crazy underlying code that explains their weirdo behavior.

"So we don’t have to go to the side, we don’t have to sit on the back of the bus in this election."  (italics mine)


The Tea Party sees itself either as the negroes of 2011, marginalized, brutalized, ignored by society; OR more likely they resent the fact that the Negroes were given special laws and quotas and this is their way to call attention to the horrible injustice of it. This is why they coined the term "teabagger" and then shrieked at you if YOU used it. Sounds like that other word with the double G in the middle, right? Get it?

If so when will they stop? Probably when the Negroes are put back in their place, and things go back to the way they were in the fifties. Life was great in the fifties! Then, a negro rose on the basis of his merit! If very few of them rose, well, there's obviously a reason for that, right?

They wouldn't even have brought it up if a common street negro hadn't been elected President.

As usual in posts of this kind, I'm looking forward to the commenters proving me wrong. Because honestly, I hope I am.

A Thing In The Woods

 Just a little somethin' for the people I once argued with who don't think their side demonizes opponents.

At Last, It's Safe To Boo Active Duty Service Men

Before DADT was repealed, you never knew which were the gay ones. You might boo a straight active-duty serviceman by mistake!



Kudos to Santorum for pointing out that sex has no place in the military. Any kind of sex. If you are in the Army, thinking about women, you should GET THE HELL OUT NOW.

And Note, She Still Doesn't Answer It

You shouldn't have to pay any taxes!  But you need to pay some taxes. But Obama is for taxes, so no taxes! But you need to pay some taxes.

Hey, why did Fox News make her look like she has crazy eyes?

Shmisaster Relief

Not rebuilding after natural disasters - it's good for the economy!

Nothing Infuriates Fox More than Any Random Thing

If the 2008 financial crisis caused the nation to tighten its belt, the Justice Department didn’t get the memo.

The federal agency spent about $490,000 on food and beverages at 10 conferences, including $16 apiece for muffins, more than a dollar an ounce for coffee and $32 per person on snacks, according to a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The half-a-million-dollar tab represented more than 10 percent of the $4.4 million total cost of the events that were held between October 2007 and September 2009.

Wow, the Fox news guys are pretty worked up about this! I can't remember when I've seen them so worked up about something! Oh wait, yes I can.

Quote Of The Day, Only You Can Prevent Edition

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke with his unenviable job of trying to save the crumbling American economy with interest rate tweaks and twists is sort of like a firefighter standing before a Texas wildfire who gets to shoot at it with a water pistol while everyone yells at him about the size and type of his water pistol. The GOP leadership, on the other hand, is more like a different firefighter who stands a little further away and fires torpedoes into the blaze in the hopes that he will be elected winner of the smoldering remains after his colleagues have been burned alive.

-Kristen Boyd Johnson, Wonkette

If Buffett Can Do It So Can You Pal

Tree Of Liberty

OMG! Bringing the rich's taxes back up is CLASS WARFARE!

That seems a little extreme to most of us, but not to a handful of crazies with Glochs. Once you start throwing that kind of rhetoric around, well, there's no way of telling how those people will react. Probably a handful of them will attempt to kill some Democrats, and probably the pundits will claim that they themselves were Democrats.

Breitbart Calls For Pre-Emptive Killing of Liberals

Hey, he comes right out and says he's not kidding. It seems a little harsh, shooting people because they are going to insult you. I suppose you could call it overkill.

Crazy-Eyes Thing Still Goin' Strong

Poor Michele Bachmann can't win! First bloggers make her look bad by circulating pictures that make her eyes look crazy. Then Newsweek does the same thing, putting a crazy-eyes picture on the cover.

Now her own publisher turns against her by using pictures that Michele Bachmann naively approved, that make her eyes look crazy. What's next? Public appearances where the stage lighting make her look like some crazy-eyed person. Is EVERYBODY trying to make Michele Bachmann look crazy?

Ron Paul Is No Hypocrite

That clip I ran yesterday, in which Ron Paul said that it's not his responsibility to care for the uninsured, was based on a hypothetical guy. Let's take a look at a real one!

Back in 2008, Kent Snyder — Paul's former campaign chairman — died of complications from pneumonia. Like the man in Blitzer's example, the 49-year-old Snyder was relatively young and seemingly healthy when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder's surviving mother, who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations.

Charity fell short in this case, by about 9/10s of what was needed. If Paul seems a little more troubled in the clip than your typical Tea Party candidate, that's probably why; the question wasn't hypothetical at all. Tentative props to Wolf Blitzer for bringing it up.

I know that bad things happen to good people, and no system is perfect, but we're the only Western nation in which this guy couldn't receive care. On the whole, Germany's economy or France's or England's is no worse off than ours is, and they manage to provide medical care for everybody. When you're figuring death panels into your policy decisions, keep in mind that one hero of the Right is absolutely okay with trimming you from the herd.

Quote of the Day, Priorities Edition

"I am not positive that Gohmert is serious about this particular bill. It may be more of a finger in Obama’s eye because he was so incompetent as not to have introduced his own bill... What ever Gohmert’s real intentions, it is delicious political theater, regardless.

- Warner Todd Huston, Publius' Forum

Yeah, thanks for the delicious political theatre boys! Hey, I know it's hard to produce top-drawer entertainment when you're distracted but I wonder if maybe you could put someone to work on reducing unemployment and preventing a recession. I know that's not what we elected you for but it's just... there are so many of you and you can probably spare someone. As it is, you're asking the President to take up the slack and WRITE YOUR BILLS FOR YOU.

The War On Objects

Look, we know Americans want the government to do something about jobs, and they will! As soon as the Republicans stop the other things that threaten our way of life: Tire Guages, CFC light bulbs, teleprompters, and now paper clips.



Quit laughing, this is IMPORTANT. If George Bush were running the country this report would have been printed on gold leaf and bound with the finest silk, woven by a thousand virgins worms. And the plan would have been cut taxes and go to war with Iran.

Reagan would never have used paper clips or teleprompters!!!!!

There Is No Tea Party, So There Was No Debate Last Night

Though if there WAS a Tea Party, hypothetically they would drive by you as you lay bleeding in a ditch.

Because you were, you know, too stupid to avoid an accident.

Meanwhile, how are those Tea Party policies playing in America? Let's just say swell, shall we? Americans love the refusal to govern, and they don't want Government meddling in unemployment. Yeah, let's say that.

Power to Me!

I don't know how it happened, but I'm thrilled to report that my portion of Southern California HAS power,  Other's don't!

As I write this I'm using my big screen TV as a monitor while air conditioning AND a fan blasts me with coolness. I have a couple of Omaha Steaks Filet Mignons in the freezer, and for kicks I'm running one of those Van De Graaf generators with a Jacob's Ladder zzzzzzzt zzzzzzzzt zzzzzzzzt things buzzing away in the corner.

Look, lay off, it helps me sleep.

They Could Have Had This AND The President's Speech

Ironically, Reagan signed several tax increases into law. True story!

Rick Perry Panics, Gets Off Message

From today's Austin-American Statesman:

Three days after fires started to burn in Central Texas, Gov. Rick Perry today expressed frustration that federal firefighting support, including equipment from Fort Hood, has yet to make its way to the firefighters. Perry said the firefighters could use heavy equipment such as bulldozers to clear fire breaks. “It’s more difficult than it should be,”he said. “When you have people hurting, when lives are in danger, I don’t care who owns the asset.”

Rick! Can I call you Rick? Rick, you'll get your federal aid as soon as we decide what federal programs to cut to offset the cost. What about this don't you understand? In the meantime, use your own fire department. Those guys are equipped to -- what? You did WHAT? Well all right then. Your problem isn't that you can't fight the fires, it's that you're not willing to gracefully give up the stuff that's burning. Stop complaining and start making plans for your charred earth. Hope local businesses aren't hurt! They say immolation is bad for employment.

Good On Ya, Sarah Palin

Meanwhile, former beauty queen and occaisional Fox News contributor Sarah Palin shows remarkable restraint by not commenting about Eric Golub's comments over the weekend. He compares Trig, her "special needs child" to stupid America-hating terrorist sympathizers for a laugh, and she allows it. Why? Because free speech is more important to Sarah Palin than the honor of her family.

Tea Party Just Kidding This Time

The Tea Party Express has called on President Obama to “condemn this inappropriate and uncivil rhetoric,” saying it “has no place in the public forum.”

“Jimmy Hoffa’s remarks are inexcusable and amount to a call for violence on peaceful tea party members, which include many Teamster members,” Tea Party Express chair Amy Kremer said in a written statement.

Of course, they don't mean it, because if the government criticizes uncivil rhetoric, it's ABRIDGING FREE SPEECH. So Amy Kremer is only kidding folks. Ignore her.

Oh, I almost forgot to include what Hoffa said, speaking before President Obama at a Labor Day rally yesterday. Not that it matters.

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. President Obama, this is your army...We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.

Running It Up The Flagpole is All

Now this is an interesting idea!

Doesn't go far enough though. Sure the poor vote in their own self interest, but what about the middle class! They do too, and there's a lot more of them! Allowing the poor and middle class to vote is un-American!

The Final Solution

Yep, that's it right there, my Roomba. I turned the thing on before I left and it was crawling around for an hour or so, ample time to nudge a very light timer all over everything. I was just lucky it didn't wind up under the bed!

I suppose if there's any moral to take away from this incident, it's this: If I guy comes up to you on the street tells you that robots are hiding his stuff...you know what, just get away from him. Your first impression is usually right.

Mystery Part 3 - One Final Clue!

Look, I'm sorry it isn't a more compelling mystery you guys. By "you guys" I mean YOU Karen!

Anyway, you can conclude this from what I said: the timer fell off its magnet to the floor, and something moved it around the apartment, leaving it to rest 20 feet away. If you're into this stuff, you've already figured it's a gadget of some kind, because I love them so much. And it's a gadget I didn't mention in the paragraph about my gadgets, because I already told you that I didn't tell you enough.

So your job now is to consider what kind of machine does that.

Mystery Part 2

See the last post, to which this is the continuance.

You probably haven't found my Chinese Cooking Timer yet, because I haven't given you enough data. If you have been to my place you might have figured it out but otherwise no.

Recall that I said there was an important clue in the second paragraph: this will rule out pets. I don't have a dog or cat (or lorakeet or monkey, like my neighbors - oh wait, that's a teenager) and didn't allude to any such thing in the paragraph. More clues? Okay, here's one. It's where I found the timer.

Apologies for bad photography - the timer is face down in the living room, by the front door, around 20 feet away. Interestingly, it could have been on the floor ANYWHERE IN THE APARTMENT.

More soon.

Me and My First World Problems: A Mini-Mystery

I ran into a problem tonight that was interesting, in the sense that everything about it wouldn't have been possible when I was growing up and what's more, it couldn't happen to people much poorer than I am. And I'm not exactly rich, people!

You need to know this before I start - I loves me some gadgets. I live alone but I own two computers and a big-screen TV with a 240 mhz frame rate, because I can't tolerate 60 frames a second. If I felt like it, I could be watching that TV now as my second monitor. I have a GPS in a car and a digital speedometer on my bike. The pictures that I illustrate this with were taken with my iPhone. Only one phrase in this whole paragraph is a clue to the mystery that follows.

A few weeks back I ordered up a Digital Cooking Timer from eBay. It's Chinese and it would have cost me a dollar if it wasn't for shipping. It looked like this when I left for work this morning:

There it is, stuck to my freezer door with a magnet.

I came home from work and I decided to cook up an Omaha Steaks hamburger patty with some roasted potatoes I buy from Trader Joes. I was melting butter in a skillet when I moved to set the timer and I saw this:

What you're looking at there is a magnet, no longer attached to a timer. A tiny bit of adhesive facing out suggested the magnet was inadequately glued in place. My eyes went to the floor only to find... floor.

Where was my timer? I live alone, and I determined that no one had been in my apartment since I left at 8:00 am. The answer will be in my next post but I want to encourage guessing in the mean time.

A Seething Miasma Just Below The Surface

Look, I know she's not ever going to be president but sometimes you have to listen to Michele Bachmann because she is the standard-bearer for a significant segment of the American right. That's why this stupid thing she said matters.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann wants oil drilling in Florida's Everglades. That's not sitting well with many Floridians. Bachmann told the Associated Press: "The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades... we need to go where the energy is. Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it." However, geologists believe there's not much oil under the Everglades anyway. Collier County's Sunniland Field, the only significant oil field nearby, doesn't produce large quantities of oil, and a former employee tells 10News the oil is difficult to refine. ...Bachmann hasn't been deterred by any naysayers, telling 10News, "The radical environmentalists put up one road block after another to prevent accessing American energy. We also have oil in the Eastern Gulf region."

I say we keep after her until she insists that we need to drill into the side of Lincoln's face on Mt. Rushmore, in case there's some oil there.

But the larger point is now these guys are starting to insist on drilling for oil even where it will never be profitable to do it! Is there any clearer sign that the right values their own talking points over what's best for the country?

BTW, A Morbid Obesity Diet? Really?

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people, because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet, and we've got to rein in the spending."

-Michele Bachmann, in Florida over the weekend

Considering that the hurricane wasn't as severe as advertised, I'm thinking this is what God was trying to tell people. "People who predict dire consequences for things that usually have none are often embarrassed. For example, Gay marriage has no potential to ruin straight marriage. Raising taxes on job creators won't stop them from creating jobs. Oh and if you can't use incandescent bulbs 20 years from now, it's no biggie. Believe me."

The Weather's Grim / Ice On The Cages

Goodness! Here in the San Fernando Valley it's 90 degrees and cloudy! I even got a little rain on my windshield! Of course, I hear it's a little worse on the east coast.

I'm gratified that Eric Cantor's policy is to not send Federal money to the disaster areas until congress can agree on offsetting budget cuts. Hahaha! It'll play out this way: the Right will insist that the money comes out of social security. The Left will fight them for about, oh, six months. Then they'll cave and the Right will say, no, we need to get the money out of social security and also impeach Obama! That'll delay the aid for another six months or so. Everyone's poll numbers will plummet, and they'll finally just approve the money but by then the east coast will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland because all the industry has moved to China, where there are roads and electricity.

And in the meantime, NO BUDGET CUTS! Whoo hoo! California wins for a change.

Props for Consistancy

That big earthquake this week was centered in Eric Cantor's district. I want to praise the guy for not abandoning his principals.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Wednesday that he intends to look for offsets if federal aid is needed to help areas of his Virginia district that were damaged in an earthquake Tuesday.

“There is an appropriate federal role in incidents like this,” the Republican said after touring the damage in his district. “Obviously, the problem is that people in Virginia don’t have earthquake insurance.”

The next step will be for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) to decide whether to make an appeal for federal aid, Cantor said. The House Majority Leader would support such an effort but would look to offset the cost elsewhere in the federal budget.

“All of us know that the federal government is busy spending money it doesn’t have,” Cantor said in Culpeper, where the quake damaged some buildings along a busy shopping thoroughfare.

Of course, the hard-line Republican position is "Tough, sucker! You don't want earthquake damage, you shouldn't have lived there!" but at least he's not just cold demanding Fedbux and conveniently forgetting the way he treated storm victims a month or two ago.

Of course, I'm not in a position to vote for him. And at the moment I don't know if he's going to greedily snatch up money for my highway retrofit to repair Virginia's privately-owned buildings. But for now, good on ya Eric Cantor!

Global Warming Deniers -- Problem Solved!

Good news - if someone says global warming isn't a man-made problem, you can ignore them. Because THEY DON'T EXIST.

Let's take James Inhofe (said to be a Republican Senator from Oklahoma) as an example. Inhofe gets a lot of press for being a "global warming skeptic". But let's face it, have you ever seen him? Most people haven't. There simply isn't enough evidence to conclude there is such a person as James Inhofe. Plus that name is pretty unlikely.

Now say you're at a party and a guy you DO know makes the same claims. It's true that most of the people in the room will vouch for the guy's existence, including you. However, there are philosphers who insist that you can't prove that anything exists outside of your own head. The rest of the world, to them, could just be an elaborate construct of their own imagination. So while this guy has 99% of the room vouching for him (let's say someone at the party is passed out and isn't voting), that's hardly a concensus. And as any global warming denier will tell you, if there isn't a concensus then you should simply ignore it and walk away.

The great thing about this construct is that the only people who would buy it is the global warming skeptics. That is, if there were any.

Chip Nostalgia

Man, this'll make you feel old, unless you aren't old. Then it will just mystify you.

So I grew up in Santa Cruz, which is just over the hill from Silicon Valley. A lot of my smarter classmates went straight from high school to the burgeoning personal computer business. At least one of them wound up marrying one of the founders of Yahoo and is, last time I saw her, a very very happy woman.

I'm going to quote someone anonymously from their Facebook comment here, and tell me that this isn't some unique new wrinkle on nostaliga.

One of my first jobs was working at Seagate, but that was before Seagate made HD's. They originally assembled computers and put a Seagate sticker on it.. nameing it a Seagate Computer... Damn those were the days.

I mean come on, this is a sea change of some kind, isn't it? RetroTechnoLust? Do you wish you still had that fax machine that was the size of a mini-fridge? Do you long for the days that you played Leisure Suit Larry in monochrome on your Gateway Palmtop? Do you wonder why they don't name modern CPUs the 1286 or the 1486? If so, it's not just me.

American Jobs Lost

Don't read that title as a plural!

PRESS RELEASE: Letter from Steve Jobs

August 24, 2011–To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Hopefully I'll still be using Apple products 5 years from now, instead of Google-branded things. Apple's nicer. I'm glad I didn't buy any Apple stock though, because tonight it's tanking.

Obama Makes Jan Brewer Hit Self

Jan Brewer's book, Scorpions For Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure the Border is scheduled to launch in November. But Brewer is letting you know now that she'll probably miss the deadline. Why? Like the economy and unemployment and global warming, it's Obama's fault.

"I'm working away, trying to get this all done on the weekends and late at night, trying to get it done, and all of a sudden, here we go: He starts it all up again,'' Brewer said.

The "he'' is Barack Obama. And what he restarted, the governor said, is what she sees as another hit to border security, this time with the administration's plans to stop deporting some illegal immigrants, focusing its resources instead on those with criminal backgrounds.

"To open up and give back door amnesty has got everybody outraged,'' Brewer said. "It certainly has me concerned.''

More to the point about her book, the governor said she cannot talk about her ongoing fight with Washington without mentioning -- and criticizing -- the latest move.

Brewer is working against a deadline."I have to have it done by Nov. 1,'' she said.

Actually, her deadline is quite a bit before then: That's the day the book is supposed to ship.

If the book ever does come out, and it fails to sell despite the appealing title of Scorpions for Breakfast, that too will be Obama's fault.

Earthquake Rocks Washington!

5.9 on the Richter scale, centered in Virginia.

This probably goes without saying, but obviously God is telling Rick Perry to keep out of the White House.

Golub Thought Number 2

A close reading of his editorial suggests that he's furious with rural America, for not moving to big cities. He's saying, you can retain your idividual regional identities if you want but NOT ON MY DIME, HAYSEED!

He's trying to kill the Tea Party!

Harvey Golub Won't Pay More Taxes Until You Sort This Out

Almost half of all filers pay no income taxes at all. Clearly they earn less and should pay less. But they should pay something and have a stake in our government spending their money too.

...Why do we spend billions on trains that no one will ride? Why do we keep post offices open in places no one lives? Why do we subsidize small airports in communities close to larger ones? Why do we pay government workers above-market rates and outlandish benefits? Do we really need an energy department or an education department at all?

...Here's my message: Before you "ask" for more tax money from me and others, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely. Then you'll need less of my money.

-72 year old billionaire Harvey Golub in the Wall Street Journal

I see your game. Get all the rural areas unwired from the grid then isolate them so they can't travel to retailiate, stop educating them so they can't learn HOW, then raise their taxes. And by then, you won't pay any because you're 72 years old for God's sake. It won't be YOUR problem.

A Couple of Counter Arguments

The five or so people who have commented in the last couple of days in defense of a particular act of incivility ("NUTS!") haven't brought these points up, but I will.

1. It would be helpful if CAIR would publish the letter it sent to Rep. Lieutenant Colonel Alan West (US Army, Retired)  (R-FL). I've seen excerpts that suggest that it was a reasonable request to disassociate from the more rabid anti-Muslim forces. But maybe it got ugly and personal, in which case Rep. Lieutenant Colonel Alan West (Us Army, Retired)'s terse response would be easier to understand. What about it, CAIR? Any name-calling in there? I'm not down with goading.

2. Similarly I've read some talk (all blog commenters) insisting that CAIR is nothing but a cover organization for the Muslim Brotherhood. If this is true, rLCAWUARrfl's response might be more appropriate but now might be a very good time to offer some proof. Or at lease rLCAWUARrfl should make that connection explicit.  All I've seen so far is that they're pro-Muslim, therefore they must be pro-Muslim-Brotherhood. That isn't enough for me.

Civil Discourse Pt 2

A comment from today's earlier post has given me food for thought.

General Anthony McAuliffe said...

You don't know much about military history, do you? Ever hear of a place called Bastogne?

Clearly not.

On the unspoken advice of the General, I looked into McAuliffe. According to Wikipedia is most famous for this: When confronted with a written request from German General Luttwitz for surrender of Bastogne, his reply was one word: "NUTS!" (the commander of the 327th GIR interpreted it to the German truce party as "Go to hell!").[3] After the battle, newspapers referred to the division as the "battered bastards of Bastogne". 

What this means is Allen West (and my commenter) equate a request to notch down the rhetoric with NAZIS DEMANDING SURRENDER. What's more, it's not exactly a well-kept secret that they regard the Muslim community as just like the Nazis, and Obama as a Nazi, and people on the left or left of center as being just like the Nazis. 

So if you wonder why sometimes the right seems a little nutty, it's because they think they're surrounded by Nazis. To me, they look like that guy who painted the Hitler moustache on Reagan, only they're not trying to be funny. They're deadly serious.

The last time a country was in a situation like this, believing they were victims surrounded by an insidious enemy that controlled everything, in a bad economy... oh you don't want me to go on. Honest.

Civil Discourse

Oh what a state we've come to!

The left in Tennessee finally jumps back in with the Hitler imagery:

Overnight Sunday someone spray painted Hitler’s infamous mustache onto the face of Ronald Reagan. The damaged mural covers a wall at the Putnam County Republican Party headquarters in downtown Cookeville.

“Ronald Reagan is really beloved by the Republican party, he’s our guy,” said county chairman Curtis Shinsky.

“I just think this is people who have it in for us. There’s a lot of folks who don’t like us being up here on the square because we really have a lot of visibility,” Shinsky explained.

Yeah, that's why people keep doing it to Obama... they resent his visibility.

Meanwhile, in Washington:

Earlier this month, a local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent Rep. Allen West (R-FL) a letter asking him to cut off ties with leading anti-Muslim activists like Pamela Geller and Brigitte Gabriel with whom he had shared stages before. “Muslims protect and serve our great country and are afforded equal protection under law,” said the letter. “We shouldn’t have to defend our rights to worship freely or participate in the governing of our society.”

West, who knows that the founding fathers were just kidding about "equal" protection and rights and freedom of religion, responded with this letter.

Look, don't get me wrong - I was 5 years old myself once. But now that I'm an adult, I think I'll side with the Reagan mural owners and the Muslims. I'd like to think I have more in common with them.

Nothing Can Stop The Shape Of Things To Come

Consider Wild In The Streets.



I finally saw this movie last night. it's surprisingly difficult to dig up! I put it on my Netflix wish list a year ago, and got tired of waiting so I hunted down a copy on DVD. The day after I order, I check Netflix -- and there it is, available for streaming. Doesn't matter, I'm happy to own a copy. Plus it's double-sided, bracketed with Roger Corman's G-a-s-s-s-s-s.

As an afficianado of kitschy hippie culture, I considered WITS to be essential viewing. It's kind of a science fiction tale, and nothing dates so badly as science fiction. And you can see from the trailer that this thing is saturated in Sunset Strip late sixties patchouli - light shows, love beads, youth youth youth, even Richard Pryor as a token negro. One could expect that the one thing this movie would not have today is relevance.

But it is, in fact, creepily relevant.

The trappings are late-sixties but the basic story is this: a senator enlists the help of an entertainer to bring out the youth vote. But he doesn't know the entertainer has political aspirations of his own. He manages to ride the coattails of this poor politico to get his fringe political views aired and even has crazy laws passed, which have the effect of giving him enough power that he can ascend to power himself and obliterate the American political system, becoming a dictator.

Max Frost even runs as a Republican!



It's pretty ironic that for years people mocked this movie for it's hit song promising that "Nothing can stop the shape of things to come" and then, 40 years later, it all started happening. Expect for spiking the Washington water supply with LSD. And those awful jackets.

Waterworld: The True Story

Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

I would love to see this. Like a lot of normal people, I have a secret desire to see libertarianism work somewhere.

Other than Somalia, I mean.

Color Me Surprised.

It's official: The Right hates America.

Comforting News About The Iowa Straw Poll

After this weekend you might conclude that a majority of SOMEONE is crazy enough to want Michele Bachmann to run the most powerful nation on Earth. Actually since she has said she'd "submit to her husband" on matters of importance, we'd be at the mercy of Marcus Bachmann. In any event, don't worry. Nobody really wants either Bachmann running things, despite her "winning" the Iowa Straw Poll.

They were passing these out before the vote.

Randy Travis, people! You wanna see Randy, you vote for Michele! And as Unelected Blog points out:

While Bachmann gave out over 6000 tickets(worth $180,000 at $30 each), she received ~4800 votes, so 20% of those who she bought tickets for voted for other candidates.

So is that really what America wants? Another Republican president who overspends on something that doesn't matter, declares victory and doesn't even keep track of where the money went? I think not my friend. Obviously the real winner of the Iowa Straw Poll is the next president of the United States, Ron Paul. Don't tell his kid!

People - People Who Need People

Expanding on Mitt Romney's remarks yesterday, private citizen Sarah Palin told Think Progress yesterday that yes, corporations are people.



She makes this distinction by pointing out that corporations don't pay taxes, people do. Therefore Romney is right, corporations ARE people.

You might find Rand Paul's opinion on this a little easier to parse:



Basically we are corporations, corporations are us.

What's fascinating about this Republican groundswell is that it crystallizes something they've been dancing around for a while: if it comes down to a fight between making the life of a corporation easier, or YOUR life, the corporation wins. Corporations NEED tax breaks, you get them if we can still afford them. Corporations can't go to jail for murder, YOU must be incarcerated for jaywalking. Oil companies must have $21 billion in subsidies, but we must not spend tax money on stimulus for your own individual job. Hopefully Exxon will hire you. But if not, whatevs.

I'm not making this up. Here's Sarah Palin supporting TARP in a 2008 interview.

Now, as for the economic bailout provisions and the measures that have already been taken, it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in playing an appropriate role to shore up the housing market to make sure that we're thawing out some of the potentially frozen credit lines and credit markets, government did have to step in there.

See? Even hardcore Republicans like George Bush and Palin are willing to part with some tax money if it helps the bank "people".

Because they just like those "people" better.

Mitt Newsflash!

This just in, courtesy Disalmanac! UPDATE: Mitt Romney has just named AIG as his running mate.

Quit Shouting, Mitt Has A Point

When all is said and done, corporations such as Ben and Jerry's and whatever things George Soros owns are as efficient wielders of power as, say, the American People. Better really, because there are fewer of them and it's easier to count their votes. Look at your corporations as electoral voters. You go to work for a company, and the company represents your interests as it sees fit. If you don't like it, go work for another company. It's just like if you don't like your state representatives, move to another state.

Obviously there are less liberal-leaning corporations than conservative, but as the dynamic changes towards a more corpo-centric control, that will change too. Because people run corporations.

Why should governing be left to the people any more? They don't know what the hell they're doing. Let politics be handled by entities smart enough to raise the big cash needed to do the real work.

Though politicians usually won't come out and say all this stuff, it's clearly where they want it to be going. I suppose it's not exactly what the founding fathers were aiming for (they were pretty clear about individuals having rights), well, they wouldn't have been able to see ATT coming from where they were.

CEO Advocates Taxing Everybody More In Red State

He's probably kidding, but I think we should go for it.

Let’s challenge the Democrats on this one. If they’re so committed to the idea that we need higher taxes, then let them propose a broad-based, regressive increase: either a VAT, or a large payroll-tax rate increase (which Reagan also did).

Just do it, Democrats. You want higher taxes? Then propose higher taxes that really will reduce deficits while minimizing the effect on job creation. Otherwise, shut up.

Let's face it, cutting funding to libraries alone isn't going to get us out of this multi-trillion dollar hole, and neither is simply letting Bush Tax cuts expire. We're going to have to cut some libraries, let the tax breaks expire, and raise taxes. It's possible to balance the budget, we've done it recently. So let's get on with it already.

Reince Priebus Knows Why The Public Hates Republicans

It's because they are disappointed that Obama isn't reining them in better!

Bachman Overdrive

Michele Bachmann is very upset that the President isn't forcing Congress and the financial community what to bend to his will.

"If I were president today, I would call all the members of Congress back into Washington, D.C., and I'd say this: 'Look, we are going to get this AAA credit rating back, and this is what we're going to do,' " Bachmann said Tuesday night on Fox News.

Bachmann said she would direct lawmakers to develop a plan to prevent default on U.S. debt, guarantee payments to members of the military and ensure seniors' current payments from Social Security and Medicare while reshaping those entitlement programs for future retirees.

Something Good Comes Out Of The Debt Ceiling Wrangle

According to a new national survey, for the first time ever most Americans don't believe their own member of Congress deserves re-election.

And the CNN/ORC International Poll released Tuesday also indicates that while Republicans may have had the upper hand in the recent battle over raising the debt ceiling, they appear to have lost a lot of ground with the public and the party's unfavorable rating is now at an all time high.

Only 41 percent of people questioned say the lawmaker in their district in the U.S. House of Representatives deserves to be re-elected - the first time ever in CNN polling that that figure has dropped below 50 percent. Forty-nine percent say their representative doesn't deserve to be re-elected in 2012. And with ten percent unsure, it's the first time that a majority has indicated that they would boot their representative out of office if they had the chance today.

"That 41 percent, in the polling world, is an amazing figure. Throughout the past two decades, in good times and bad, Americans have always liked their own member of Congress despite abysmal ratings for Congress in general," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Now anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong that most Americans are no longer willing to give their own representative the benefit of the doubt. If that holds up, it could be an early warning of an electorate that is angrier than any time in living memory."

Of course, it's too early to see if this attitude will hold until election time. However, assuming the parties hold onto their incumbents rather than run new blood in their place, this has got to be good news for liberals.

And bad news for stability, but that ship has sailed already.

We could also lose Obama next year but with Republican disapproval at an all time high, I don't think Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann is in line to replace him.

Obama Somehow Wrecks The Economy Again

You might have noticed today that the Dow is down 400 points and Standard and Poor's has downgraded the United State's credit rating from AAA to AA+. Curiously, I'm reading a lot of opinions that place the blame for this on President Obama.

If you don't like the compromise Obama brokered, then you must have preferred the plan that lawmakers had all agreed to before he arrived.

Mission Accomplished

Don't be too surprised:

The debate over raising the debt ceiling, which brought the nation to the brink of default, has sent disapproval of Congress to its highest level on record and left most Americans saying that creating jobs should now take priority over cutting spending, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.

Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.

The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.

The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved.

The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.

And why are the Republicans still acting this way? Because it's WHAT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WANTS!

This Headline Isn't Racist Either

Obama's Hip-Hop Barbecue Dopesn't Create Jobs

However it's inaccurate. Obama is probably the least hip-hop of all the candidates. Compare him to this guy!

More Republicans Voting Against Things They Are For

Iowa Governor Terry Branstead vetoes a tax break for Iowa families making under $45,000 a year.

Good News For the Jobless!

"Millionaires paid an average tax rate of 22.4 percent in 2009, down by a quarter since 1995, when they paid an average of 30.4 percent." And that's why unemployment is 8% lower now than it was in 1995! In fact, now everyone in America has a job, thanks to this policy of tax cuts on the the job creators. 

I'm pointing this out because some people insist that we have unemployment right now, and cutting taxes on millionaires is the only thing that can be done to get jobs moving again. Obviously, they're mistaken. There is no unemployment.

The Obameter

My liberal media choice is an hour a day of the Stephanie Miller radio show while I'm getting ready for work. It's funny and stupid like most morning radio, but it also has a comforting lefty bias that you don't get from most media. NORMALLY comforting.

Because this week, the show has been Stephanie arguing with her entourage about whether Obama is too far to the center to even be considered a liberal. Stephanie says he's doing the best he can with the climate we have nowadays, her people say he was never a lefty. Me, I always thought he was a centrist and he's giving us exactly what he promised. The proof that he's a centrist is that he's being reviled from both sides now.  The people who find him the least objectionable? Moderates.

Still, the rising force of dissatisfaction from the left is scaring me. I don't want the left to stop voting because it means President Bachmann. I'm going to stop saying Palin because, well, we all have.

Check Out The Banner At GOP.com!

The arrow is added by the people at Wonkette, but at this early morning writing, the screen grab is otherwise accurate. To hell with 2012!

Balancing Act

House Speaker John Boehner bowed to tea party congressmen on Friday when he agreed to add a constitutional balanced budget amendment to his plan to solve the debt ceiling crisis.

The move came 20 hours after Boehner was forced to abandon a vote on his proposal when he realized he could not get it through the Republican-controlled chamber.

Now the two-stage vote will include the constitutional amendment, announced House Rules Committee chairman, Rep. David Dreier.

...But even if the vote passes in the House it has virtually no chance of getting through the Senate and President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto it.

A national balanced budget amendment, you recall, will force Americans to choose. Want to go to war with Iran? Pull out from Iraq and Afghanistan first! More CIA? Less FBI! If you want subsidies for the oil companies better stop spending so much on repairing highways.

Of course, what will actually happen is the clock will run out, Obama will invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling, and all we'll remember is that Republicans can't even agree with each other enough to pass a law. And they're running for election again next year.

I'm For Not Raising the Debt Ceiling

Because if it doesn't happen, the economy will noticeably sputter and almost nobody will blame it on the President. Sure some will believe whatever Fox is saying THIS week, but the rest will remember. 2012 draws ever closer! Besides, he economy will tank anyway for all kinds of reasons, but this is a big dramatic event to pin it on.

Also A Jeer To Fox News Online

Roku has a Fox News channel, which I would watch only it's not the one you want it to be. It's this instead. Fox News has deals with cable providers but they have this little internet channel which runs for about eight hours a day. It's kind of a Fox News Bush League, where they try out their rookies to see if they can keep on message without the potential for damaging the brand, because nobody watches.

The one thing it doesn't offer is those signature O'Reillys and Hannitys and Friends. You know, the crazy stuff that everyone wants from Fox. So the Roku feed is really, really boring. It's like bland junk food. You can't blame me for preferring the BBC, which is boring but at least good for you.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Show

Another benefit of Hulu Plus subscription is that it's allowed me access to the only thing that I missed about giving up cable - The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They were the only things I watched on a regular basis.

I have to say, I'm still reacclimating to Jon Stewart. The mugging! Good lord, I don't want to second guess ratings success, but is that really necessary? Still, the writing is as sharp as ever, and it's nice to see that they still value laughs at the expense of hypocrisy over laughs at the expense of conservatives. Like any good comedians, they know that you have to establish a consistent character before you generate punchlines. The Daily Show is a character that ridicules politicians who lie. This remains an excellent choice, no matter how painful it is.

Then there's the perpetual tightrope walk that is the Colbert Report. Colbert has to simultaneously impersonate an ultraconservative Fox News host AND keep the audience on his side by letting them know that is is not one. But if he winks too much, it spoils the joke. I think the only reason he pulls this off is because right wing talking points are so absurd that, like certain dry dog foods, they make their own gravy. Colbert could just read transcripts straight and get an easy half hour of comedy.

But he doesn't do easy. So there's always the punchline that goes a half step farther, to push it over the edge. Plus Colbert really shines during the interviews, where he feels free to go full-bore conservative. These things are at least part improv (no TV interview is completely improv - the only reason anything unexpected happens in those things is because they don't get enough rehearsal time) and Colbert has a lock on his character. It's sheer magic to see.

Kudos To Our Media Friends Across The Pond

Last week, I got myself a Roku player, the cable box for people who are too cheap to pay for cable. Among the many charms of the device is that it gives me access to the BBC World News, a 24-hour news network. I can't watch Fox News, but I can watch the News Of the World hearings live! Which I wouldn't find on Fox News anyway.

Right now Rebekah Brooks (former NOTW chief)  is insisting that they only found out last December that there even might have been a a phone hacking policy at the paper, and only two weeks ago about the Dowler case, where freelance investigators hacked into a murdered girl's cell messages, and erased them to make room for new messages. As you'd expect, this assertion is being met with skepticism by the labor MPs and cautious sympathy by the conservative ones. It would be fawning sympathy if the polling was more on Murdoch's side.

The BBC is the only government-run news source I will ever trust. They have an insane policy of covering their own bosses as if they were any other corporate entity. Even if doing their job well means they could lose their job, they barrel ahead with fair and accurate reportage. In fact, in 2004 a BBC radio reporter was made to resign over reporting that later turned out to be true. It kind of reminds me of Bridge On The River Kwai, where Alec Guinness is a British POW who is charged by his Japanese captors with building a bridge to help their war effort. Guinness insists on his men doing the best job they can, to prove the moral superiority of the British.

This coverage of the hearings is a perfect example of BBC reportage - it's embarrassing to the highest levels of British governance, many of whom are very chummy with News Corp and probably owe their elections to it. If a for-profit were covering the story, you wouldn't trust them because they have a dog in the hunt - they want to demolish News Corp and get their market share. The BBC is paid for already, and doesn't need big numbers. On the other hand, they have a stake in honest fair reporting, because otherwise why not just turn the whole operation over to the commercial providers? The competition from SkyNews and Channel 4 and what have you does help keep them honest, as well as providing a place for potentially fired reporters to go, so they can afford to report honestly.

So the takeaway: BBC news - noble, honest, and a testament to the moral superiority of the British.  Good on ya, mate!

Some Guy Used To Own A Newspaper

Well, it turns out Fox News IS covering the News Of The World unpleasantness, after a fashion.


I just got a few questions:

1. If hacking is a serious problem, should we really just move on?
2. Is it illegal at all?
3. Who is this "Merdock" fellow? Does he own any other newspapers?
4. What are they, kiddin' me?

Some Guy Kept America Very, Very Safe For the Past Decade

With exception of a little thing.


Details, details...

If Elected, I Refuse To Serve

McConnell demonstrates the qualities that have made him a leader:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has proposed creating an escape hatch for Congressional Republicans, who have put themselves in a box by threatening not to raise the national debt limit if Democrats don't agree to trillions of dollars in cuts to popular social programs.

The plan would require Congress to pass a bill allowing Obama to raise the debt limit on his own, contingent on a series of steps: Obama would have to notify Congress of his intent tor raise the debt limit -- a high-sign to Congress that would be subject to an official censure known as a "resolution of disapproval," and which Obama could veto. If he vetoed the resolution, and if Congress sustained the veto, then Obama would also have to outline a series of hypothetical spending cuts he'd make, equal to the amount of new debt authority he'd give himself. Only then would the Treasury be allowed to issue new debt.

McConnell proposes rolling out this process in three tranches, to force Obama to request more borrowing authority, and to force debt limit votes in Congress, repeatedly through election season.

Here's how McConnell explained it at his weekly Capitol press conference:

"The way it would work is the legislation would authorize him to get to the amount he says he needs based upon the advice of his Secretary of the Treasury in three tranches: The first tranche, $700 billion, the second tranche $900 billion, the third tranche $900 billion.

Once the request is made it would be appropriate in either or both houses for a resolution of disapproval to be taken up on an expedited procedure. If that expedited procedure in both the House and the Senate -- if the resolution of disapproval achieved a majority -- it would go down to him where he could either sign it or veto it. My assumption is he would veto it. And that veto would be sustained by one-third-plus-one in either of the houses."

Please Mr Socialist, take care of our economy for us! And while you're at it, please rewrite Obamacare! And give more money to the automakers! WE NEED TO BLAME YOU FOR IT!

News Of the World From Outside the Bubble

Those who get all their information from Fox News may not be aware that Britain's venerable tabloid, News Of The World, abruptly ended publication this week. And if you read that final edition of News Of the World, you won't find any particular reason for the sudden demise, which comes in spite of a relatively high circulation numbers.

This is the reason.

Cheer up though! Any staff that has been fired over the incidents have been encouraged to reapply at Rupert Murdoch's other tabloid The Sun, which currently publishes every day except Sunday. NOTW only published on Sunday. Hey, here's an idea - why not expand the Sun to 7 days? It'll be almost as if NOTHING WAS DONE AT ALL!

Oh anyway, you can't blame Fox News for not picking up this story - really no one is involved who is even familiar to Americans.

Win!

It's so easy to reduce the size of government: just dig your heels in until it shuts down completely!

A couple of months from now, Minnesota Republicans will be reaping the benefits of goodwill from a grateful state. Who wanted state services anyway? Muslims and socialists, that's who!