“Soylent Green is made of people! Really OLD people….”

Is there a bottom in the well of insanity that is the Republican Party these days? This is really incredible. I knew that much of the Wingnut Nation would blow a gasket when a Democrat, and a black man to boot, became President. I mean, that goes against their view that it is the God given right of the Republican Party to be in control. Anything else is sacriledge. But I never really expected elected officials to follow their core supporters off the deep end.

We are still engaged in two wars that we still don’t seem to know what to do with (although we do seem to be finally beginning to get out of Iraq). Our country’s economy is still on life support. We have a health care crisis going on. Global climate change isn’t going away. And what do Republicans want to talk about? Whether or not Obama was born in Hawaii, even though that is what his birth certificate says. They want to demand that Obama apologize to the Cambridge police dept. over his “acted stupidly” comment, even though the PD in question has already pretty much accepted Obama’s follow up statements. And now, the latest thing is that they want to go into fainting spells about the Democrats health plan because it will kill senior citizens. No, really. From HuffPo:

Virginia Foxx of North Carolina … claimed that the Republican approach would be more pro-life because it, "would not put seniors in the position of being put to death by their government!"

And she is not alone in such nonsense.

You know, demogogary is one thing. Complete insanity is quite another.

Update: John Boehner gets into the act.

A provision of the House bill would provide Medicare coverage for the work of doctors who advise patients on life-sustaining treatment and "end-of-life services," including hospice care.

Conservative groups have seized on this provision as evidence that the bill could encourage the rationing of health care.... The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said, "This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia."

I keep remembering how patriotic we all felt when we cheered and clapped whenever George W. Bush wiped his butt with the Constitution. Anything and everything was not only allowed but was absolutely a necessity when it came to "defending this country." However, in today's world, trying to fix up a completely broken down healthcare system is now somehow equal to Democrats wanting to kill people.

Jake and Willie debate healthcare reform on Fox News.

Jake: Have you heard the latest, Willie? Obama is going to sign the death warrants for old people. They won’t be able to get life saving operations when they need them because they are too old!

Willie: That’s right, Jake. That’s exactly what I heard too.

Jake: And Obamacare won’t let doctors prescribe any treatments without first getting approval from the government!

Willie: Yep. Uh, huh. Exactly.

Jake: We cannot have a situation where the government rations healthcare! We must put that decision back in the hands of the people it rightfully belongs to!

Willie: Patients and their doctors?

Jake: The insurance companies! They are trustworthy and compassionate.

Willie: They are? I mean, certainly. That’s what I think too.

Jake: Government can’t administer anything! Leave it to the professionals! They are good at what they do.

Willie: Making money?

Jake: NO! Of course not! Well, yes. That’s what private enterprise does. That’s the reason our economy exists. The government should not be allowed to interfere.

Willie: Oh, right. Yes. I forgot.

Jake: Besides, if every American had access to healthcare, that would bog down the system and prevent those who really need healthcare from getting it.

Willie: Those who are really sick?

Jake: Rich, white people! We can’t have our healthcare system bogged down by giving access to the best doctors in the world to illegal aliens, welfare queens and terrorists.

Willie: Terrorists?

Jake: Yes! And abortions on demand! Don’t forget about that!!

Willie: Perhaps if you breathe into a paper bag, your face wouldn’t turn bright red like that.

Jake: And did you know that Obama isn’t really a citizen?

Willie: But didn’t the governor of Hawaii, a Republican, actually say that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was genuine?

Jake: It’s a forgery! He’s a witchdoctor from Kenya!! I’ve seen pictures! He’s got a bone through his nose and everything!

Willie: Yes, there certainly a lot of questions out there that Obama needs to address.

Jake: I bet Obama wants to give healthcare to gay people, too! How dare he!!

Willie: Thank you for your time, Senator. I am glad we could set the record straight on this vitally important issue. Time for a short break, and we will be right back with another informative segment on how the Jews caused the bridge to collapse in Minneapolis a few years ago, right here on Fox and Friends.

Photo still from Humaniods from the Deep, courtesy of the B Movie Graveyard.

I wish Barack Obama would make up his mind about what he is.

Is he:
• A radical pro-terrorist?
• The most liberal member of Congress?
• The anti-Christ?
• A concealed Muslim?
• The convert of a radical/crazy Christian pastor?
• Not really black?
• A Manchurian candidate plotting to destroy America from within?
• An citizen of Kenya without a true U.S. birth certificate?

I’m getting whiplash trying to keep up with all of this, and he has only been in office for six months. You would think the guy would have the courtesy, since we elected him, to decide what the hell he is, so the “loyal opposition” can settle on something and stick with it for more than several weeks!!

I am wondering how soon Barack Obama is going to decide he is actually William Shatner in disquise, a reincarnation of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China or a visitor from the fourth planet orbiting the star Regulus.

THIS is one reason that many think our current policy on guns is insane.

(I have the distinct feeling that I am going to annoy a number of people with this post. Talking about guns and gun control is about as risky as talking about religion, if you don’t know your audience. There are some very strong feelings on all sides of this discussion. However, I guess the point of writing on a blog is to say what you think. And, of course, having a blog means never having to say you’re sorry.)

From the Seattle PI:

Sound engineer fatally shot outside motel room

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TWISP, Wash. -- A sound engineer who worked on live performances by the likes of B.B. King, Nirvana and Alice Cooper has been shot to death at a motel in Twisp, Wash.

Tom Pfaeffle, 49, staying with his wife on vacation at the Blue Spruce Motel, apparently put his room key into the wrong door Friday night and was hit in the upper chest by a bullet fired through the closed door, Police Chief Rick Balam told KING Television of Seattle.

Pfaeffle died two hours later at Mid-Valley Hospital in Omak.

A second shot went through a wall into another room and landed harmlessly on a guest who was doing a crossword puzzle in bed, motel owner Randy Martin told The Wenatchee World newspaper.

A 57-year-old man surrendered without further incident and was jailed for investigation of second-degree murder and assault, Balam said.

I've been to Twisp. It's a very small town and it is very frightening to see this.

It seems to me that, by arguing greater and more lenient access to guns, gun rights advocates never make the concession that their some (not “all”, by any means and not even “most”, but certainly “some”) of gun rights advocates are also trigger-happy hotheads that support open ownership of guns because of the feelings of power and control it gives them. “Don’t screw with me! I’m armed!”

I have seen this up close and personal. I usually don’t go into too many personal details in this blog. That isn’t its purpose. But I think this time, I have some relevant personal information. When I was in my early 20’s, I guess it was, my younger brother and I were confronted by my stepfather, who was always angry and blamed everyone else for his supposed problems. He was very drunk, as usual, but this time he had a loaded pistol, which was decidedly unusual, that he kept waving in our direction. He would check that it was loaded every so often, either to reassure himself or to intimidate us, which is more likely. He kept waving this gun at us and demanding that we “love him!” Yeah, threatening someone with a loaded gun is a sure fire way to get someone’s love and admiration. We just kept him talking until he eventually passed out on the kitchen floor. We then hid the gun somewhere. During this episode, I really couldn’t believe it was happening. Thinking about it afterwards, I felt decidedly fortunate for my brother and me to have come out of the episode uninjured and alive.

That’s the mindset I see out there. Those are the people who desire that the entire population be armed; the kind of people who think the problem with our society is that we don’t have enough threats of violence and intimidation and general, overall high levels of testosterone. I would guess, but am not certain, of course, that this is the kind of guy who fired his gun through his locked door of his motel room at someone who was mistakenly trying to open the wrong door. I have done that myself. I guess I should count myself as being lucky I survived.

I have absolutely no hope that anything will change here in the U.S. Too much money, too much intimidation, too many people thinking about themselves and not about what else is really going on in the country, for anything to really change. “Those damn Democrats better not try to take my guns!” That’s the mindset, and no politician is going to pick that fight. It’s better to coddle up to the gun lobby and gun ownership supporters than try to perhaps do something intelligent.

I suppose the only lesson learned from this story is that you better be very sure what hotel room you are in before you start trying to open the door.

Ya say you want a giant rabbit? Waal, why didn’t ya say so? Got one right here.

His name is Herman, if you are interested. I am imagining rabbit droppings the size of ping pong balls.

Photo and story from here.

I want to say a word about Kindle, Amazon’s electronic book viewer.

I know that Americans are usually obsessed with owning the newest and hippest thing available. It doesn’t matter that the older thing is still quite functional. It becomes obsolete because it is deemed to be obsolete by the industry and the consumers.

On some occasions, this is warranted. No one really wants 8 track or even cassette tapes anymore. I keep hearing that the death of musical CD’s is imminent, although I have a feeling those are going to hang on for quite a while. I am still quite annoyed that my perfectly good printer/scanner/copier is obsolete and not supported and I can’t use the scanner feature anymore because HP decided they weren’t going to make a new application software for Windows XP and beyond. So, just because we upgraded our computer, we are now without a scanner. I find that infuriating.

All right, that was a bit of an unnecessary diversion. I wanted to talk about why Kindle is even a product available for sale. The base models cost about $300. Even with that outlay, you still have to buy the e-books, unless you are into the free classics. The hardware will, no doubt, need to have upgrades every once in a while. It will probably also do all sorts of cool stuff like be able to surf the internet and such, which a person’s cell phone or blackberry already does if that person is inclined to have the coolest thing.

My point being, this is rather a pricey proposition. Plus, we now need the manufacturing and support capabilities necessary to build and maintain these things. More toxic waste will be generated by the manufacture and disposal of these things. So, what the heck is wrong with just buying the damn book? Yeah, O.K., new hardcover books are expensive and they are printed on paper, which requires dead trees. But still, is just the fact that you have a Kindle, that you are among those who have the newest and hippest thing available, really that much of a rush that we have to have an entirely new and expensive electronics gadget to replace something, in this case, printed books, really necessary?

I admit, I am a book person. I have a nice little library where my shelves are full of books (and DVD’s), many of which are rather old. I didn’t buy them new. I would love to know the history behind some of the books I have. I have a number that were printed in the late 1890’s. I find that fascinating all by itself, much less the subject of the book itself. I just think we are losing something with this move. I frankly, just don't see the point.

Sure, printed books will always be with us. Hopefully, in the future, they won’t be looked upon as anachronistic antiques.

R.I.P. Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite has died at 92. This man lived an extraordinary life and was a journalist in every sense of the word. We do not have anyone comparable today in broadcast journalism. I am old enough to remember watching him on television giving us the bad news about John F Kennedy and the Vietnam War. However, my most vivid memory is watching the coverage of Apollo 11, which was just 40 years ago this past week. I just remember the thrill in his voice during the liftoff. I can't remember his exact words, but they were something to the effect of "Man is on the way to the moon!" HIs excitement was very real and was immediately transmitted to his viewing audience. He was held in such esteem that LBJ said something like "If we have lost Cronkite, then we have lost the country" when speaking about support for the Vietnam War.

This guy was a giant. It's too much to wish that we had some Cronkites around today. I would be satisfied with some of today's journalists stopping and reflecting on how journalists should go about their job.

Photo credit: CBS via Huffington Post.

UPDATE:

I wrote this original post immediately after seeing the sad news of Cronkite’s passing on HuffPo. I have seen, since that time, there are many posts about Cronkite on blogs large and small. Mad Mike’s America has a very good one. So does Glenn Greenwald, although the majority of the post is not so much about Cronkite but about the passing of true journalism. Here are a few samplings.

"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.



When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died, media stars everywhere commemorated his death as though he were one of them -- as though they do what he did -- even though he had nothing but bottomless, intense disdain for everything they do. As he put it in a 2005 speech to students at the Columbia School of Journalism: "the better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be . . . . By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are."

In that same speech, Halberstam cited as the "proudest moment" of his career a bitter argument he had in 1963 with U.S. Generals in Vietnam, by which point, as a young reporter, he was already considered an "enemy" of the Kennedy White House for routinely contradicting the White House's claims about the war (the President himself asked his editor to pull Halberstam from reporting on Vietnam). During that conflict, he stood up to a General in a Press Conference in Saigon who was attempting to intimidate him for having actively doubted and aggressively investigated military claims, rather than taking and repeating them at face value:

Picture if you will rather small room, about the size of a classroom, with about 10 or 12 reporters there in the center of the room. And in the back, and outside, some 40 military officers, all of them big time brass. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us.

General Stilwell tried to take the intimidation a step further. He began by saying that Neil and I had bothered General Harkins and Ambassador Lodge and other VIPs, and we were not to do it again. Period.

And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.

I said that we knew that 30 American helicopters and perhaps 150 American soldiers had gone into battle, and the American people had a right to know what happened. I went on to say that we would continue to press to go on missions and call Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, but he could, if he chose, write to our editors telling them that we were being too aggressive, and were pushing much too hard to go into battle. That was certainly his right.

Can anyone imagine any big media stars -- who swoon in reverence both to political power and especially military authority -- defying military instructions that way, let alone being proud of it? Halberstam certainly couldn't imagine any of them doing it, which is why, in 1999, he wrote:

Obviously, it should be a brilliant moment in American journalism, a time of a genuine flowering of a journalistic culture . . .

But the reverse is true. Those to whom the most is given, the executives of our three networks, have steadily moved away from their greatest responsibilities, which is using their news departments to tell the American people complicated truths, not only about their own country, but about the world around us. . . .

Somewhere in there, gradually, but systematically, there has been an abdication of responsibility within the profession, most particularly in the networks. . . . So, if we look at the media today, we ought to be aware not just of what we are getting, but what we are not getting; the difference between what is authentic and what is inauthentic in contemporary American life and in the world, with a warning that in this celebrity culture, the forces of the inauthentic are becoming more powerful all the time.

Glenn also spends some time about how the current crop of media stars fawned over Tim Russert when he passed away. Pfft. I’m sorry the guy had a heart attack and died. But Russert was no journalist. He was a compliant tool of the rich and powerful, which usually meant the Bush Adminstration and the Republican Party. If he had done his job and pushed back when he was obviously being fed a lot of horse hockey, maybe the country wouldn’t be in the position it is. And make no mistake about this. I don’t think the press should be a sycophant of ANY administration, Republican or Democratic. I have no illusions about the Democratic Party. It’s just that I think they have a little bit more in the way of principles and are looking out for the country far more than the Republican Party. But I also know this isn’t always going to be the case.

Bottom line, the press needs to do its damn job. However, with big money controlling pretty much every facet of mass media, I don’t really see this happening without a huge upheaval somewhere. Perhaps the internet and independent bloggers are the beginnings of this upheaval. I know that many people either already believe it is so or fervently hope that it is so.

How conspiracy theories really work.

"See! I was right all along! You can't see them because they are INVISIBLE! The aliens have technology that is far advanced from ours. Not being able to see them PROVES that UFO's are real!"

(In case anyone missed the connection, I am talking about the emerging "conspiracy" that, somehow, President Obama is not really a U.S. citizen and therefore cannot be president. The momentum this is gaining in the mainstream (e.g., Lou Dobbs) is insane.)

Photo still from Invisible Invaders, courtesy of the B Movie Graveyard.

The U.S. Air Force takes a more active role in seeking out possible terrorist sleeper cells.

Photo and story from here.

O.K., this is just wrong.

Just like there are people in the world who should not be allowed to be parents, there are also people out there who should not be allowed to have pets.

The Minutemen vigilantly guard our borders.

“Stop asking me if I want some cocoa! I don’t want any cocoa! Look, miss, I don’t care if you ARE from Switzerland. If you can’t produce a visa, I’m afraid I am going to have to shoot you!”

Photo still of Journey to the 7th Planet, from B Movie Graveyard.

We are going to spend a long, LONG time coming to grips with the Bush presidency.

There are just so many things that are oozing out from underneath the carpet that they are very difficult to ignore. Many people, including Bush/Cheney apologists, neo-cons, conservatives, and the well connected (both politically and powerfully) who are doing their utmost to keep all this crap that the Bushies swept under the rug from ever seeing the light of day. That includes, most unfortunately, many people within the Obama administration, including President Obama himself. The big question is, will we ever find out everything that happened during the Bush years?

I, personally, doubt it very much. There are too many people conspiring to keep everything hidden. I don’t know if Obama’s reasons are deeper than his professed position of “moving forward and not looking backward.” If that’s really it, then this is certainly an example of when obstinate pragmatism may serve the person well in the short term, but that might be a disastrous position to have in the long term.

So Dick Cheney lied again. He ordered people at the CIA to not Congress, which has, if I am not mistaken, a Constittuional obligation to oversee the CIA and to reign them in if they get too out of control. From HuffPo:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Subsequent CIA directors did not inform Congress because the intelligence-gathering effort had not developed to the point that they believed merited a congressional briefing, said a former intelligence official and another government official familiar with Panetta's June 24 briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Panetta did not agree.

Upon learning of the program June 23 from within the CIA, Panetta terminated it and the next day called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to inform them of the program and that it was canceled.

Cheney played a central role in overseeing the Bush administration's surveillance program that was the subject of an inspectors general report this past week. That report noted that Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, personally decided who in Bush's inner circle could even know about the secret program.

But revelations about Cheney's role in making decisions for the CIA on whether to notify Congress came as a surprise to some on the committees, said another government official. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

Wow, what a surprise. Dick Cheney in charge, and was being secretive. I really wonder if George really know what his VP was doing...

Photo from here.

Amazing astronomical photo

This is today's Astronomical Photo of the Day from NASA. Isn't that absolutely incredible?

And here is the explanation given:

The Pillars of Eagle Castle

Credit & Copyright: Emanuele Colognato & Jim Wood (Backyard Skies)

Explanation: What lights up this castle of star formation? The familiar Eagle Nebula glows bright in many colors at once. The above image is a composite of three of these glowing gas colors. Pillars of dark dust nicely outline some of the denser towers of star formation. Energetic light from young massive stars causes the gas to glow and effectively boils away part of the dust and gas from its birth pillar. Many of these stars will explode after several million years, returning most of their elements back to the nebula which formed them. This process is forming an open cluster of stars known as M16.

O.K., yes. This photo is under copyright. I am thinking it will be O.K. if I give them attribution and a link. Please go visit their home page.

Sarah Palin = Chance the Gardener?

See, this is a scary thought.

These two characters, Sarah and Chance, one fictional and one apparently very real, have quite a few things in common. Apparently neither read very much, but do watch television. Neither of them really have much on the ball upstairs, if you know what I mean. In fact, both have a tendency to say really strange and silly sounding things that other people who should really know better, amazingly enough, take as deeply insightful and full of wisdom. Both of them REALLY like to be on television. Both are plucked from relative obscurity by a stroke of fate involving very powerful and influential people. And both end up, due to this amazing stroke of fate, on the pathway to possibly becoming the President of the United States.

That's really scary.

Yet ANOTHER reason to hate the New York Yankees.

They have security people who won’t let you go pee during the singing of “God Bless America.” From Whiskeyfire:

Two uniformed cops who ejected a Red Sox fan from Yankee Stadium last summer when he tried to use the bathroom during "God Bless America" have cost NYC taxpayers some $20,000 in settlement money. But the good news is that Yankee Stadium will now allow attendees relieve themselves during the Seventh Inning stretch! You'll recall that last August, one Brad Campeau-Laurion refused to obey an NYPD officer who ordered him back to his seat when he tried to use the bathroom as "God Bless America" played. According to Campeau-Laurion, two officers then forcefully threw him out, with one of the officers telling him to "leave the country if he didn’t like it." In the wake of 9/11, Yankee stadium began requiring spectators to remain in their seats during patriotic songs, in some cases extending chains to block the ends of the aisles. But after a lawsuit filed by the NYCLU over "enforced patriotism," a settlement was reached yesterday whereby Campeau-Laurion gets $10,001 from the city, the NYCLU gets $12,000 for legal fees, and baseball fans are granted the liberty to micturate at will.

“Extending chains to block the ends of the aisles”?!? You have to be sh*ttin me.

Enforced patriotism = fascism, in my mind. No one is going to make me sing a crappy, simpering song if I don’t want to, just as no one is going to force me to say the Pledge of Allegiance if I don’t feel like it. And for some reason, I find it even more upsetting that this wasn’t a government entity trying to enforce this, it is a professional sports team!

Photo from here.

"I was going to clean this up, but I decided that NOT cleaning it up was the best for everyone!"

I absolutely refuse to continue to be the target of unfair media people who keep pointing to all these beer bottles in the road. Oh, and good point guards keep their head up for lame ducks that don't chase dead fish... You betcha!

I wonder if we can get Joe the Plumber to quit, too.

I mean, we would all have to figure out exactly what he IS that we want him to quit from first... I suppose he could just shut up and disappear, that would be good enough for me. Maybe Sarah Palin could give him some inspirational thoughts about quitting, stuff like dead fish and lame ducks, and how quitting from something you started and aren't done with is really a GOOD thing. More Americans should quit... whatever it is they are doing that they haven't completed yet.

So, Sarah Palin quits as governor 1 ½ years early and “bloggers and activists” are the reason?

There is lots and lots of speculation out there about Sarah Palin’s real motivations for calling it quits. She’s freeing herself up for a presidential run in 2012. No, she’s sick of politics, dislikes her life and wants to spend more time with her family. But she really wants to travel around the country, helping out Republican candidates. Which may be really difficult to do while spending more time with her family.

Here is one reason, as noted by Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republicans Governor’s Assocation, in HuffPo.

While Ayers may have had a direct heads up as to Palin's intentions, he wasn't entirely on cue with the Governor's talking points. Asked why Palin was stepping down as opposed to finishing her term (which ends in 2010), the RGA header cited pesky bloggers and activists as the reason. Palin had insisted she didn't want to put Alaskans through two years of a lame-duck governorship.

"I don't think this is buckling to pressure," said Ayers. "I think this is her coming to the realization that the legislature in Alaska and that some bloggers and activists in Alaska are going to do everything they can to stymie her progress. This is a governor who didn't run for the office because she wanted a title. She wanted to make significant change in the state. She realized that that was no longer going to be able to happen, because things had become so partisan there."

She can’t do her job as governor of a relatively small state (in terms of population) because bloggers and activists are giving her such a hard time, but she wanted to be Vice President of the United States? Does she not think that might be a little bit more visible position than governor? And as for the compliant that “things had become so partisan”, does she not remember her contribution to the entire “partisan” thing? Obama “pals around with terrorists” and such? People in the crowd at her rallies were recorded yelling, “terrorist” and “kill him!” That’s not partisan? By engaging in such tactics, does she not open herself up to criticism? By getting into a high profile dust up with David Letterman, after Letterman apologized several times for the rather nasty joke about one of Palin’s daughters, doesn’t she just add fuel to the fire? She’s the one who made her family into a campaign issue, after all.

I also think her use of the term “lame duck” is really unusual. I have never heard of an official call himself or herself a “lame duck” after only 2 ½ years on the job. That term is normally applied to someone in their last term in office and can’t run anymore, and everyone knows it so there is no real reason to go along with that person because everyone knows there will be someone new coming along very soon. She’s the one who said she wasn’t going to seek a second term, so that automatically qualifies her as a lame duck after 2 ½ years? That’s really weird logic.

I have no doubt that some “bloggers and activists” go beyond the pale when it comes to Sarah and her family, and they have the ability to make Sarah Palin’s life difficult, but only if she lets them. Myself, I have real doubts that someone as narcissistic as Sarah Palin appears to be would just step down voluntarily from the office to which she was elected, just because bloggers are saying nasty things about her. She said some pretty nasty things about others. I guess this means that if someone has particularly thin skin, then they shouldn’t be in politics. I couldn’t do it, for instance. But unless Sarah Palin goes into seclusion and stays there, I can’t see the scrutiny by all those pesky bloggers diminishing any time soon.

One way of looking at this is the old saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” A slightly different way of looking at that is this. If you are going to say and do things on a national stage that makes you look like a moron, but don’t like the negative publicity, then maybe you should either stop looking like a moron or else get out of the game entirely.

More thoughts on conservative desires for another terrorist attack in the U.S.

(This was originally an update of my earlier post on this subject. However, it turned out to be more angry and full of content than I had originally intended, so I decided to make this into its own entry.)

You know, after a day mulling this over, I am still unable to grasp the enormity of just how insane these people are. Sadly, No! posted some comments from some right wing site about this. There really are people out there hoping and praying that the U.S. gets hit again with another terrorist attack. One lady (I assume it was a female, by the name) said something like, "If it can't be Washington D.C., then I pray that it is San Francisco."

The psychological makeup of these people is incredibly scary. They are so lost, so upset that they are no longer in control and the world is not conforming to their very odd view of reality that they hope for a repeat, or even worse, of the absolute worst day in America since Pearl Harbor. Their emotional state is that fragile. They cannot cope with the fact that they are not "correct", so they wish for more mass casualties in the U.S., for the sole purpose of being able to have that feeling of self righteous anger, the kinds that burns in the breast that requires we go destroy someone or something. Last time, it was Iraq. Bombing the shit out of Iraq was cathartic to these people. It was just unfortunate that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the terrible events of 9/11. However, justifications could come later. All that was really necessary was that we go destroy something. It felt good to these people. They got their rocks off by watching the nightly pyrotechnics in the safety of their living rooms. "Yeah, we showed them terrorists!!"

Now that a Democrat, and a black man to boot, is in the White House and the Dems control both the Senate and the House, the coping mechanism of these lunatics is obviously on life support. They cannot deal with reality. They want to return to the safety of their constructed reality, where the United States of America (Fuck, yeah!) is the always the victor over ultimate evil. We smite the infidels with our righteous sword, because God is on our side! That is what they want. That is why insane people like William Kristol kept agitating to bomb Iran, after our "adventures" in Iraq were shown to be an unmitigated disaster. They needed that fix of self righteous anger. The same thing is going on now. A terrorist attack, and preferably a nuclear one (according to Michael Scheuer above), will make things simple again and put everything back in the correct order. Republicans will once again be in charge, Democrats will hide, whimpering in fear, in their closets, and the U.S. will show the world, friends and enemies alike, that NO ONE messes with us! If you do, the consequences will be terrible.

This is the same exact mentality of the schoolyard bully. He can't deal with his classmates on normal terms. He has to terrorize them in order to feel good about himself.

I tell you, if God DID create humans in His own image, then God must really have some deep issues that he needs to resolve.

Sorry for this early morning session in amateur pop psychology, but I am just incensed that these kind of people call liberals "anti-American" and being "for the terrorists." Man, if rooting for Osama bin Laden to detonate a nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city is not "rooting for the terrorists", I don't know what is. I am just astounded that these people can't even see how crazy they are. Which, now that I think about it, is the very definition of "crazy."

Well, it’s official. Conservatives hate Obama so much that they hope Al Queda attacks the U.S. again.

This is not some mindless ravings of a basement blogger. (I’m actually in my library on the second floor, and I am not wearing pajamas either.) No, this is actually what one Michael Scheuer said on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox “News.” From Crooks and Liars:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Did you get that? This guy is saying, on what is purported to be a mainstream media outlet, says that he hopes Osama bin Laden attacks the U.S. again so that true conservatives like himself can immediately start blaming Obama. Please note that Glenn Beck did not immediately jump in and tell this guy he was a lunatic. He actually agreed with him! They want another 3000+ innocent men, women and children, along with the heroic police and firefighters, to die just because they don’t like what President Obama is doing.

Besides sounding like the ravings of someone who should be in an insane asylum, this guy’s statement doesn’t make logical sense. Look at that last sentence. He is saying that Osama bin Laden should attack the U.S., which would no doubt result in mass casualties, because that is, after all, the point of such a terrorist attack, so that people will demand that the U.S. government protect them! That’s like burning down your house to get the fire department’s attention that they should protect your house from burning down! I mean, this is absolutely insane stuff. This is not anti-American? They are actively rooting for the epitome of a terrorist, those people for whom the U.S. must shred the Constitution and give up the very things that make this country free, to successfully murder 100's if not 1000's of American citizens!

I have said before, I know that every society has its fringe movements and individual lunatics. But how did this country ever come to the point where we have so many people who appear to be stark raving mad, and why are they now offered such a prominent soapbox as national television?

UPDATE: This story is starting to make the rounds in the blogosphere. Here is Steve Benen's take at Washington Monthly.

I was trying to think of how best to describe how spectacularly offensive this lunacy really is, but it looks like Adam Serwer beat me to it: "[U]nderstand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States."

I'd just add that there will almost certainly be no consequences for this. Two nutty conservatives can talk about the advantages of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- indeed, they can long for it -- without facing any real pushback at all. There won't be any suspensions or boycotts. No sponsors will withdraw. None of Beck's or Scheuer's allies will distance themselves, and neither one will be excluded from polite company.

Yep. That's totally true.

UPDATE II: From Sadly, No!

I can’t think of one other country in the entire history of the world where right-wing pundits go on TV and pine for a devastating nuclear attack on their own country just so they can say they were right all along. Not even Iranian government officials, crazy as they are, sit around saying, “Y’know, I hope the infidels bomb the hell out of us just so we can expose the Reformists as a bunch of wimps.”

Good Lord. Some policemen in San Diego are under the impression that the U.S. is a fascist police state.

Here are a couple of stories from Talking Points Memo about an incident that I doubt will ever show up in the big time MSM.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District and came close to winning in the 2006 special election and subsequent regular election, was raided by sheriffs after an unnamed neighbor made a noise complaint. Busby now calls it a "phony" noise complaint, and the article says that multiple neighbors said there was no great noise at all.

Here's the twist: The fundraiser was hosted by a lesbian couple, and shortly before the sheriffs came a particular neighbor had shouted anti-gay slurs at the assembled crowd. "It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes," Busby says.

As one neighbor told the paper: "We didn't hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter."
The sheriff's department claims that somebody kicked an officer. By the time it was over, multiple people were pepper-sprayed, one of the hostesses was arrested, and the whole neighborhood got to see quite a scene.

Eight patrol cars? Pepper spray?!? A HELICOPTER?!?! For a noisy party complaint? This seems it might warrant, at most, a warning for excess noise. And, although my little excerpt doesn’t say this, the gathering was made of up mostly middle age folks, you know, the kind of people who don't play Aerosmith at Extremely High Volumes and who really aren’t looking to get into a physical confrontation with armed police.

What the hell is up with the SDPD? Are the words “Democratic Fundraiser” so much of a warning signal that the police need to send out the riot squad, looking for trouble? And this person “behind the bushes” yelling sexual epithets and who is probably also the person who phoned in the noise compliant, what is his deal? Is he now proud of himself for disrupting a fundraiser for a Democrat, hosted by a lesbian couple? Does he feel he made a valuable contribution to society?

Stalin would have been proud. I now understand perfectly about how a monstrous government like the Soviet Union, along with their terrifying secret police, can come about. It’s because many people believe that they should behave like this. They enjoy causing pain, anguish and grief for people they deem as their enemies. I’ve said it again and again here. I have no idea how these people even live with themselves. They obviously have no idea of what democracy really means. None whatsoever. I hope several people lose their jobs over this one.

The Audacity of Dopes.

From the NYTimes:

“I disagree with the idea that this shows problems for the modern Republican Party,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that applauded Mr. Sanford’s attempt to refuse some federal stimulus funds earlier this year. In reference to the fiscally conservative philosophies of Mr. Ensign and Mr. Sanford, he joked, “I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.”

Ah, I see! Conservatism is really, really sexy, so that is why all these Republicans keep getting caught with their pants around their ankles! Women just can’t help themselves when they get around one of those masculine, virile, limited-government he-men. Governor Sanford had no choice in the matter of his infidelity and his unexplained disappearance off the face of the Earth for six days, with his staff saying that he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when he wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. Sure. That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Well, not really. But it certainly is to Grover Norquist, he of the “government, meet bathtub” theory of governance, if you ask him about it (and even if you don’t).

Yes, yes… Images of Kathryn Jean Lopez fondling her George Bush In A Jumpsuit action figure come flooding, unbidden, into my mind. I may have to take some Alka Seltzer and go lay down for a while. “Sexual attractiveness” certainly contains subjective elements, like personal taste, state of mind and, in the case of K-Lo, being a complete and utter imbecile. But when Democrats get caught with THEIR pants down (and they do), that’s because Democrats have neither values nor ethics, are scumbags, cannot be trusted with anything and should resign from their positions immediately. Otherwise, Republicans must impeach them (ref: Clinton, William Jefferson). But REPUBLICANS, well, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Women (and possibly other men, if Larry Craig is any example) can’t help themselves and prostate themselves at the feet of limited-government conservatives, literally begging to be sexually ravaged. (This explanation seems to leave a little something out, such as why said conservatives (especially those of the married variety) can’t seem to refuse those offers of ravagement, in spite of continual claims that they, and they alone, are the protectors of all that is moral in America. It also kind of seems to be missing something in regard to David Vitter and his fondness for prostitutes. They threw themselves at his feet, begging for sex, for which he felt compelled to give them large quantities of money? But these things are apparently trivialities that can easily be dispensed with when necessary.)

It’s just another fine example of IOKIYAR (It’s O.K. if you are a Republican). What hypocrites. Just say anything; it doesn’t really matter what, to excuse yourself and your colleagues from any sort of blame whatsoever. It doesn’t even matter if it makes sense. Even if that really was a “joke”, as the story says, it was a poor one whose only possible purpose could be to deflect the issue by ridicule and make it into “no big deal.” Donald “Gosh, Who Knew That Iraq Had So Many Vases?” Rumsfeld perfected this tactic. Just say anything that comes to mind, and then you can claim victory and go back to bashing Democrats, liberals, gays, Mexicans, Hollywood, whoever, claiming that they destroying this country.

“I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.” Ho-ll-ee cow. I am just in awe of that statement. Delusion, rationalization, deflection of blame, minimization of the real issue, pulling something/anything out of one’s ass… It’s all there, wrapped up in one nicely wrapped package, for all to behold in all its glory, not unlike Pigs in a Blanket at IHOP. One can only marvel at the audacity of anyone attempting an argument like that (hence, the title of this post).

UPDATE: More dope audacity. Rush Limbaugh blames Obama and the federal stimulus for Sanford's behavior. Unbelievable.

UPDATE II: And Michael Savage gets into the act, and actually goes even further than Rushbo. This is actually just one small part of Obama's grand plan to rid himself of his enemies. Obama somehow planted this "dear, dear friend" of Sanford's over eight years ago, so that Sanford would self-immolate NOW, just in time to jerk the rug out from underneath his presidential aspirations? My goodness, these people are either totally delusion or grasping at the very molecules that make up straw.

“Gov. Sanford Admits Affair with Argentinean Woman”

That’s the headline today at Talking Points Memo. TPM also outlines the history of this weird episode, from his gone “missing”, to his “hiking the Appalachian Trail”, to his being incommunicado with his staff and family DURING Father’s Day weekend and not telling his Lt. Governor about his absence, to his really being in Argentina after his staff had been saying that, oh sure, he’s just gone hiking, no worries there, to the admission that he has been having an affair…

This is, of course, very close on the heels of Senator Ensign’s admission of HIS affair with a staffer, which included bits of accused blackmail, putting the 19 year old son of his lover on the Republican Party payroll, etc. etc.

These guys are the ultimate “holier than thou” types. Ensign was all over Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinski, stating that Clinton should resign over it.

And this is just THIS year. Who could forget Tom Foley and his constant pursuit of young male teenage staffers? Or the “wide stance” airport restroom encounter of Senator Larry Craig and his subsequent arrest?

Does the Republican Party not realize they look like complete hypocrites, as well as raving lunatics? Why does ANYONE talk the Republican Party seriously these days? They gave us George Bush and Dick Cheney, and everything that entails. Their nomination for the presidency last year was a guy with reputedly a very terrible temper and a very short fuse (which is a bad combination for a President) and who sang “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” at a fundraiser, and whose VP nominee is a complete and utter ditz and who made her unwed, pregnant daughter into a showpiece for her campaign. I haven’t even mentioned Michael Steele.

It’s no wonder like more sane Republicans have either quit the party, left politics or have tried as much as they can to distance themselves from the lunatics that have taken control of the party. I have great respect for Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, even though I disagree with many of their political positions on real issues. I would profess some admiration for Colin Powell as well, except he squandered whatever admirable qualities he may possess for his role in the Iraq War, and for not saying anything about it publicly when he possibly could have made a difference. He let himself be used, and it is his eternal shame that he was a tool for someone who he knew was a liar and not acting with the best interests of this country in mind.

I hope that the next time one of these “family values” types tries to criticize Obama or Democrats again, that the entire country laughs in their face. “Hypocrite” doesn’t even begin to describe them.

I think the late, great George Carlin said it best. “Traditional American values: genocide, aggression, conformity, emotional repression, hypocrisy, and the worship of comfort and consumer goods.”

UPDATE: And, right on cue, Fox "News" labels Mark Sanford as a Democrat. This cannot be accidental. This is at least the third time they have done this. This time, I think at least twice during the Mark Foley story and I believe once when Larry Craig got caught in the MSP airport. Jeez. Do they really think that no one knows that these people are Republicans? Or is Fox required to do everything they can to piss off Democrats? That's my theory.

Do you get the sense that Republicans will howl in outrage about Obama’s actions, no matter what he does or does not do?

It’s the outrage that counts. It all about being able to be on television, casting as much criticism at President Obama as they can. That's all that matters.

John McCain criticizes Obama for not taking a stronger stand on the Iranian protests and in support of those demonstrators. The only problem is this is the guy who was singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” last year during the presidential campaign. McCain didn’t seem overly concerned about the Iranian people then. I guess it’s fine when WE kill innocent civilians of another country indiscriminately by dropping bombs on them, but we can’t let their own government abuse them! What an offense for not supporting them by… doing something! Dropping bombs on them, perhaps. Making as much noise as possible about how evil the Iranian government is, which would give said government all the ammunition it needs to make this into a U.S. vs. Iran confrontation.

To carry that point a little further, during the Iran/Iraq war, which side did the U.S. support? Why, Iraq, of course! That same country we pulverized into tiny little pieces just 10 years later! But who does the Iranian government blame for that war? The United States, of course! And who has been meddling in the politics of Iran since 1953? The U.S., when the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected government whose actions we didn’t really care for! Does the Iranian government remember that? You get they do! And yet, John McCain, and a whole host of other nutjobs like Lindsey Graham, Charles Krauthammer, etc., are agitating and demanding that Obama “do more!”

These people are not even making sense anymore. They just seize on whatever they can in order to bash the President. There is no consideration about how stupid they are going to look. You really have zero credibility when you desire to drop bombs on a country on month and then are hugely concerned about that same country’s civilians the next.

But, of course, if Obama had taken a different approach on this issue than he has and come out really swinging, going all Macho Cowboy, doing his best impression of George Bush and threatening the Iranian regime with death and destruction, do you suppose these same Republicans would be supportive? No, not for one second to I believe that. They would be out there again, full of outrage that President Obama was meddling and making the situation worse.

There is "outrage" out there that a reporter from Huffington Post asked Obama a question at his press conference. How dare Obama plant a question! That's over the line! Of course, everyone has completely forgotten how Bush used to plant softball questions at his press conference. Has everyone forgotten Jeff Gannon?

You know, I knew when Obama was elected, the Right was going to go nuts. I actually looked forward to it. I thought watching their impotent rage would be rather amusing. And it was, for about a week. Now, these lunatics are just tiresome. Tiresome and ridiculous. To have any credibility at all, you cannot protest every single thing the President does, and be totally outraged every time. It looks like an act. No one takes you seriously, except for the extreme base of the Republican party who will swallow anything and everything, so long as it is critical of Obama and Democrats in general.

This is an old story now, but did you read about the “Christian” who was praying for God to kill Obama?

From Pandagon:

Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God,” Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. “God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God.”

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying “imprecatory prayer,” Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. ”The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama,“ he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

“Are you praying for his death?” Colmes asked.

“Yes,” Drake replied.

”So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”

“Yes.”

..."You would like for the president of the United States to die?” Colmes asked once more.

“If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

This guy is totally innocent of anything, of course, because he is only “agreeing with God” via “imprecatory prayer.” There’s no problem with that at all, of course.

And these are the people who think they should be in charge of this country. You do anything they don’t like, God should kill you.

I really was not aware of how many lunatics were in this country who really don’t care about how insane they sound.

When you have a cold, sometimes your dreams look like this.

This country has lost part of its soul.

(Because blogging is international, I would like to make plain that the country I am referring to in the title is the United States of America. You can make your own judgments about your own country.)

I have no idea what our kids are really being taught in school these days. I do remember what I was taught when I was growing up. The U.S. was founded on very well defined principles, such as freedom, equality and justice. The system we had might not be perfect, but the ideals we tried to strive for were.

As with almost everything in life, what I was taught turned out not to be all that black and white. A lot of what we were taught about freedom, equality and justice was true, just as a lot of it was a combination of wishful thinking, self-delusion and propaganda. We really weren’t given the whole impact of having a large part of the nation’s economy based on slavery. We weren’t really told about the systematic extermination of Native Americans. Nor were we told about the interment of American citizens during WWII who had the misfortune of being of Japanese ancestry. The working class was treated as little more than trash during the Gilded Age. Intolerance and racism was not on the curriculum. Those things were kind of left out. There is, and always has been, a lot that is good about America. And there has always been a dark side that most of us would rather pretend didn’t exist.

Yet, given all that, it seems to me that our ideals still held true. Even after all those dark episodes, our better nature would ultimately rise back to the surface. Maybe I am just being naive. Maybe I have been so immersed in our idealized view of our country, I swallowed it, just like everyone else. I really believed that the U.S. was rather exceptional. Possibly, I was suckered.

Even given that uncertainty, it seems like to me the U.S. has changed. The principles we hold dear are worthy of slogans and sound bites, but are not things to be taken literally. Or perhaps the meaning of these words has morphed into something not included in their original definitions.

I would have never thought that our society would seriously be debating whether or not we should be torturing people, or that holding people indefinitely without being charged with a crime and not allowing them access to the legal system would not only be something we would ever consider, but would be held as a moral and patriotic imperative by some. There are some people in this country who would seriously try to make a case that Jesus would torture people, under the right circumstances.

Greed and the pursuit of more and more money override basic tenets of civilized behavior. I wrote the other day about insurance companies, to whom people have paid hefty premiums all their lives, that will drop coverage to people who are in desperate need of healthcare for the flimsiest of reasons. The whole Enron debacle showed us just how out of control people can be when groupthink sets in.

New behavior and attitudes that were once unthinkable have become normalized. Yelling and screaming at people who disagree with you is now commonplace. Attempting to steal elections is now just “part of the game” and the only sin is if you get caught. Blatant self-interest rules. The poor, the aged and the sick can just fend for themselves. It’s survival of the fittest (read: the wealthy and the powerful) taken to absurd extremes, to the detriment of everyone else. As a society, we aren’t even trying anymore to pretend to aspire to ideals. Our ideals have become nothing more than slogans to bash our opponents over the head with.

Like I said, maybe our country really was like this all the time and I was just taken in by very nice sounding propaganda. It’s always easy to believe the best about yourself. Maybe the symptoms just seem worse now because of the 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage of outrage.

Still, I can’t help believe that some fundamental change has occurred in this country. Torturing people is a good thing? How could that possibly be?

What I don’t know, nor does anyone, is whether or not the current attitudes in our country represent just a dip in the road, or is the start of a long, probably very painful, decline of our country as a power for good in this world. All civilizations, small, large, powerful and ineffectual, eventually come to their end.

Let’s hope we, as a society, can once again become what we like to believe about ourselves.

So you think our health care system is O.K. as it is?

This is from the Washington Monthly.

Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive. [...]

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

The insurance companies are as bad as our financial institutions. They are full of greedy people who have absolutely no other interests other than making money. This is sick. How could a company actually do this? And how can this really be legal? It seems to me that the insurance companies are breaking their contacts with their policy holders. How can they do this?

Here’s more.

The insurance industry -- you know, the one conservative lawmakers and the AMA are so desperate to protect at all costs -- has this unpleasant habit called "rescission." Customers have insurance, and they pay their premiums, but once they get sick and require expensive medical treatment, the companies drop the coverage.

And in testifying before Congress, executives of these insurers not only confirmed the rescission practice, but said they had no plans to change the money-saving tactic.

One executive said rescission is about "stopping fraud and material misrepresentations that contribute to spiraling healthcare costs." So, for example, when a woman in Texas was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, her insurer dropped her coverage because the company found an instance in which she visited a dermatologist for acne, and didn't tell the insurance company about it. This, the insurer said, was an example of "fraud and material misrepresentation."

Yeah, “stopping fraud and material misrepresentation.” Uh huh. God, what assholes. And they really don't even care what Congress thinks about this. No shame. No sense of wrong doing. Nope. We don't care that people are dying because of our actions. Not our problem. And we will praise our employees for saving us money!

We need a public option for healthcare coverage for every single person in this country. Perhaps when these insurance companies actually have real competition will they stop these tactics. I don’t even have an adjective that fits right now. I don’t believe in the afterlife, but if I did, Hell would be much too nice a place for people like this.

This is some of what I was referring to in my last post. A society that really cared about its populace would never allow things like this to happen. I am really pissed.

Cynical Sunday morning thoughts.

I haven’t written much of substance on this blog for over a year now. I used to write some fairly lengthy posts that took some thought and research to put together. There are some posts that I have written that I am actually quite proud of. Now, I just express an opinion, usually a rather pissed off opinion, about what is going on in this country. I also break it up with some cheap laughs when I find the opportunity.

I just haven’t had the energy or enthusiasm lately, especially since we elected Barack Obama as the first black man to be President of the United States. I was so upset with criminal and unethical doings of the Bush administration, all I could see was getting a Democrat into the office. I held out hopes that things might change.

It is terribly evident that, even though Obama’s election does indicate that some steps are made (and that is no small step, for certain), things in this country are not going to get much better. We can and should continually try, but things are never going to change significantly. Those with money and power are not willing going to give up what they see as their God given right to run this country, either by having one of their representatives in office or by manipulation behind the scenes. We are never going to get rid of people who cannot get past their ignorance, fear, petty jealousies and hatred of anyone and anything that is different from them. We are never going to do anything about the preventable deaths by nuts with guns. We are never going to have a system, including healthcare, that works toward the benefit of all people, not just the rich. It seems that we, as a country and a species, are never going to get past the limitations of our reptilian brains. Yes, there are individuals, groups and companies that are striving to become what we really could be. But as a whole, the human species is too damn stupid to become something else.

We haven’t advanced any since the time of the Romans. We just have better technology, better medicine, “better” weapons… I can imagine some of the people I see spewing forth their hateful rhetoric saying the same exact same things in the 16th century. I can see people today who would think the Inquisition would be a grand thing if only our government would allow it. I see people today who would make great SS storm troopers. I see people today who would arrest Gallileo for pointing out that Earth is not the center of the universe. It’s the Dark Ages with blackberries, cable television and high speed internet access. That’s how I really feel about our society today.

If this blog had any real readership, I suppose I would be deluged with comments. Since I don’t, I guess this just counts as me screaming at a hurricane. It does just about as much good. I suspect that, as I move more toward the end of my working career and into retirement, I am going to turn into an angry, cynical recluse. I will concentrate more and more on the trivial hobbies and activities that I have going that, essentially, do nothing but focus my attention on something enjoyable to me and to waste time until my eventual death. That sounds really horrible, but that’s how I see it. I really, really dislike society and I am feeling more and more detached from it all the time. Every time I explore the internet and read what is going out there in the blogs, I get a really sick feeling in my stomach.

The human species, in my mind, has so much potential. We have already achieved some astounding results. We understand so much that humans never did before. I am just so in awe of what we now know about the universe. We have robots on Mars and have taken pictures and mapped the surfaces of all the planets in our solar system, with the exception of Pluto and that is coming in a few years, along with numerous moons surrounding those planets. What we now know is light years from what even our civilization knew 100 years ago.

But unfortunately, knowledge does not always translate to intelligence. We are a stupid species that knows a lot. Although I won’t be around when this finally occurs, I wouldn’t really shed many tears at the prospect that our species may become terribly diminished due to global climate change. We are slowly killing ourselves with our stupidity. Oh, I think the Earth will survive, in some form or another. It has been undergoing constant change throughout its lifetime. I expect that to continue. However, what the Earth changes into might not be terribly conducive to the survival of human society in its present form. Who knows? In order to survive, humans may need to revert to our roots as hunter/gatherers in order to survive.

If that happens, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving species.

And now for something completely different, radioactive wasp nests.

From the Seattle Times:

By The Associated Press

RICHLAND — Workers cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation are going after radioactive wasp nests.

The Tri-City Herald reports 6 to 12 inches of top soil are being dug up this month from 6 acres near the H Reactor. And, workers will dig up more individual mud dauber wasp nests over about 75 acres of the nuclear reservation in southeast Washington.

The contractor handling the clean-up, Washington Closure, says the nests were all built in 2003 when water was used to dampen dust during demolition of an H Reactor basin. That attracted the wasps that used the mud to make tube-shaped nests for eggs.

Spokesman Todd Nelson says the nests are "fairly highly contaminated."

Well, that’s all we need. I think I read something a couple of years ago about radioactive bats at Hanford. Now, we have a story about radioactive wasp nests. Fortunately, it’s only about the nests right now and not the wasps themselves. I can’t imagine having a giant radioactive dirt dauber settle down in my yard and start burrowing under the crawlspace. I’m telling you, one of these days, Mother Nature is going to come back gunning for us. Global climate change is probably too slow a method, as well as not being terribly reliable, to really get rid of human beings. She might pick a faster method one of these days. Giant radioactive dirt daubers are probably as good a method as any. (No, the AP story didn’t say anything about “giant.” But really, is there any possibility, at all, that there might be a highly radioactive insect that ISN’T a giant monster?)

The poster is of the film, Monster from Green Hell. For a great review of that film, check out the B Movie Graveyard.

It appears the elections in Iran were, shall we say, not quite on the up and up.

Here's a blog entry at Washington Monthly that gives an overview.

Isn't it odd, though, how everyone can really wring their hands about how unfair it is that the ruling party in the government of Iran manipulated election results and thereby subverted the will of its people, but everyone in THIS country seems to be quite happy to turn a blind eye to all the voting irregularities and the possibilities of unscrupulous people being able to change the vote tally in electronic voting machines?

There are a lot of people, all over the world and including in this country, who have absolutely no idea what "democracy" really means. I know one thing it isn't. Democracy isn't, "win an election by any means and then you get to do anything you want for the next four years."

Another recent example of conservative cognitive dissonance.

A point brought up by Tom Tomorrow in his latest cartoon (see here) is one that I have thought of many times in the past. I find it absolutely astounding that, on one hand, conservatives can stomp about, complaining about how violent video games and rap music can negatively influence young people, but on the other hand, say that the crap that Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and other pond scum like them is “only entertainment” and they should not be held accountable for anyone actually acting upon all the egging on that they continually do.

Case in point, Bill O’Reilly has been vilifying Doctor Tiller, who was recently murdered by someone who looks like he has already confessed to the murder in the media and who has a lengthy record of violent acts and intimidation toward abortion providers. O’Reilly went after Tiller (calling him “Tiller, the baby killer) eleven separate times on his show. He used some pretty vile language and really went out of his way to whip up the already heated emotions of his audience. Then when someone actually does go out and murder the guy, O’Reilly seems surprised that anyone would actually try to hold him accountable for anything! My, my. Liberals should really be ashamed of themselves.

I actually do believe in the first point I made above. Constant exposure to violent video games and rap lyrics ARE probably harmful to young kids and teenagers who are still trying to sort out who they are. I’m sorry, but I think the human species is very easily manipulated. You can get a person to believe most anything, if you try hard enough and start early enough. Having a target who is emotionally confused about their identity and maybe in dire straights themselves just makes manipulation all the easier. So, I find it no surprise that kids constantly exposed to those influences would tend to be more anti-social and willing to resort to violence in order to resolve a conflict or just to get their way.

Another point here is that the advertising people have long known that advertising products actually does change purchasing habits of people. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake here. If advertising didn’t work, they wouldn’t do it.

So, to have O’Reilly argue that what he does is “just entertainment” is just absurd. Video games are just entertainment. Rap music is just entertainment. Violent movies are just entertainment. Yet, conservatives of this country flog Hollywood and video game makers to death anytime they want the country to conform to their view of reality. However, they feel they are free to say anything they want and no one should hold them accountable, in any way, shape or form, if someone actually acts on the hatred they spew out over the airwaves on a daily basis. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways!!

Michelle Malkin, among others, has a favorite trick she likes to use when someone displeases her. She puts up their names and addresses on a website. Now, exactly what does she expect to happen here? There would be absolutely no point in doing that unless the unspoken agreement with her followers is that they should go harass these people! That is the whole point! And if it isn’t, then why do it? That is completely insane to argue that she was not “directing” her followers. She didn’t need to say it! That agreement was there, on the table! It didn’t need to be said. The only thing that not writing it down gives someone like her is some sort of very implausible deniability. The mindset seems to be “Ha ha! You can’t absolutely PROVE I had anything to do with this so you could convict me in a court of law. Therefore, I am innocent of any of the scurrilous charges you are making!”

I don’t know what kind of psychological buffer this argument gives to these morons. Somehow, this point is central to convincing themselves that they really aren’t guilty of anything. They must be making these arguments solely for themselves and their followers. Have to be. They certainly aren’t convincing anyone else. This seems to be a repeated pattern in today’s conservatives. So long as they can say something, anything that they feel will get them “off the hook”, then they will say it. It doesn’t matter if it conflicts with anything else they have said recently. Just as long as they can say something, that’s all that matters to them. It doesn’t matter if it convinces exactly no one; all that matters is that they have built themselves a little barrier that helps protect the laughable notion in their own minds that they are in the right and everyone else is wrong.

If I remember correctly, Charles Manson was found guilty of murder, even though he did not participate directly in the Tate/LaBianca murders.

UPDATE: After the Jew-Black-Obama hater killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., what do you suppose the right wing media would do? Take a step back and look at what they have really been doing to incite their audience into taking action? Or would they call the guy a liberal and try to blame liberals?

If you answered number 2 (specifically Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck), you win the kwepie doll. God, these people are disgusting.

All you Wiccans out there, you are being targeted by the Republican Party!

From Washington Monthly:

Two leading voices of the Republican Party's evangelical wing visited Rock Church [in Hampton Roads, Virginia] on Friday for a forum aimed at recapturing some of the movement's political momentum.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Christians to get involved in politics to preserve the presence of religion in American life.

"I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history," Gingrich said. "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism."

“Surrounded by paganism…” My. I suppose that sounds terribly frightening to the 75 to 85% of the people of this country that profess belief in a monotheistic religion. I certainly have seen an uptick of reporting about Druidic rites being practiced in my neighborhood. One of my coworkers told me he believed in Odin and Valhalla. He is from Norway, you know. I was just asked if I would be interested in joining a coven, just last week! And I am almost positive my neighbor is a Wiccan! At least, they have a bunch of goats in their back yard. I am sure that means something.

Man, these conservatives are really going off the deep end. I think he is using the word “surrounded” as it might have applied to George Custer surrounding all those Indians.

The problem with ignoramuses is that they don’t know they are ignoramuses.

I suppose it is stuff like this that bugs me the most about Republicans and conservatives these days. They think they are brilliant when, in fact, they have about as much on the ball as a bag full of hammers. Michelle Bachmann is a really good example. Last month, she lectured Congress about how carbon dioxide is “natural” and therefore really good for us. It therefore can’t cause global warming.

Here’s someone else that I have never heard of before, but you can be sure he is a Republican, making really stupid statements about global climate change. From Washington Monthly:

"This whole thing strikes me if it weren't so serious as being a comedy, you know. I mean, we just went from winter to spring. In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that's a good climate change. I don't want to stop that climate change, you know. Who in the world want to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways? What a dumb idea. [...]

"Some of the models said that we're going to have surf at the front steps of the Capitol pretty soon. I was really looking forward to that. [...]

"We've been joined by another doctor, a medical doctor but also a guy who graduated from high school science as well, from Georgia, my good friend, Congressman Gingrey.... So to have actually a guy who's passed high school science is tremendously helpful. And Dr. Fleming from Louisiana."

These people aren’t even smart enough to recognize the fact that they don’t really know anything about the subject. That happens to us all the time. No one can be an expert in everything (except for Dr. Benton Quest, which is probably the subject of a future post), so not knowing something about a specific subject, especially technical or scientific, is nothing to be ashamed of. However, when rational people realize they are in that situation, they usually keep their damn mouths shut so as to not make total jackasses out of themselves. Yet, here are these elected officials making pronouncements delivered as if they were Zeus standing astride Mt. Olympus. And to make this guy look even stupider, he is standing up there, bragging about his friend that passed high school science! THAT makes someone an expert on global climate change!?!

It occurs to me that even a hard-core Republican ideologue should pay attention to a person banging on their front door at night, yelling at them that their house is on fire, even if the person banging on the door is known to be a Democrat. Yeah, you might not trust Democrats. But the situation they are being warned of is pretty dire, so regardless of who might be delivering the message, they better get their butt out of bed to go check out if their house really is on fire. But no. These clowns would prefer to pull the blankets up under their chins and tell their bed partner (whoever that might be, which is also may be the subject of a future post) about what idiots Democrats are. Their house couldn’t POSSIBLY burn down, because God won’t let it burn down! Or because flames are natural so therefore, flames are good for us! Or how burning houses are all a liberal plot to destroy the economy.

Ignoramuses are bad enough, but smug ignoramuses are insufferable.