There’s nothing like hyping a totally imaginary threat to get people worked up right before an election.

This approach has been the staple of the Republican Party for quite a while now. But it seems to me that, for such an approach to really work well, your “threat” that you are pumping, the one that only Republicans can save the country from, should at least have a hint of plausibility to it. Otherwise, it would seem that people would either ignore you or laugh at you.

This one from Newt Gingrich (from Washington Monthly) really takes the cake, it is so jaw droppingly stupid.

[P]erhaps the former House Speaker's loudest applause [at the Values Voter Summit] came when he weighed in on the controversial Islamic center and Mosque proposed to be built near Ground Zero, declaring, "We as Americans don't have to tolerate people who are supportive of violence against us, building something at the site of the violence."

"This is not about religious liberty, if they want to build that mosque in the South Bronx, frankly they need the jobs," he continued. "But I am totally opposed to any effort to impose Sharia on the United States, and we should have a federal law that says under no circumstance, in any jurisdiction in the United States, will Sharia be used in any court to apply to any judgment made about American law."

I won’t even go into the extreme effort being made by the wingnuts of this country to equate Islam with the crazy people who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Centers. That’s ridiculous. I could just as easily equate Christianity with Timothy McVie’s attack on the government building in Oklahoma City. Same thing, right?

But that’s not the point here. Gingrich, after setting up the table with a totally false equivalency, then makes an even more ridiculous jump to building a “mosque” (which it isn’t) to trying to impose Sharia Law on the United States. This is such a threat, in Gingrich’s mind, that he thinks we should have a federal law to prevent such an imposition of law based in religion.

My first response was, what the hell is he talking about? Is this a threat? Is anyone saying this at all? But then, don’t all our laws already have something like that as their basis? We have the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federal Code of Regulations, we have more laws than we can shake a stick at. They are all written down and cannot be just brushed aside, no matter what anyone would like to try to replace them with. They must be amended, each in their own particular way. Does Newt actually believe that some federal judge or something is, all of a sudden, going to just make a ruling and impose a system of law based on the Islamic religion on the United States? Does he really think it is that easy? He must, because he apparently thinks we need a new federal law to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I can’t believe this person was actually the Speaker of the House. Either he has absolutely no idea how the federal government actually works (which, I suppose, may be possible) or else he has decided that he is going to cynically try to hype up a non-existent threat to try to get the right wing base voters so scared of Muslims they are almost ready to crap in their pants. I just find this so pathetic and immoral. Gingrich knows that this isn't even a remote possibility, and yet, there he is, in the national press, saying this kind of disgusting crap.

Why is this man still considered a credible politician? A national press with any sort of self-respect would have called bullshit on this guy long ago. Yet, he continues to show up on television and hold press conferences where his insane ramblings are duly copied down by a willing press.

But I think the thing I am most disappointed in is that many of the people in this country actually believe this disgusting crap. A very large percentage of this country are perfectly willing to let themselves get manipulated and stampeded by very cynical and crass politicians. This country has willingly given up our ability to work in the realm of facts and logic. The United States is becoming the ultimate Skinner Box. Push a button, watch the freakout.

(Sorry for the light posting of late. I have been on a couple of business trips, back to back, and it took me some time to get prepared for them. I'll try to do better in the future.)

I am pretty much to the point.....

I think that we should just go ahead and give these stupid, hateful assholes the keys to the government and get it over with. Then, one of two things would happen. The first would be that the rest of the country would realize how crazy these hateful assholes really are and the adults would grab the reins of power back and never again let any of them anywhere a job of power, not even dogcatcher.

The other possibility would be that the United States of America would turn into a third world theocratic police state (with a huge military and nuclear weapons) where only white, rich people matter. Yeah, that isn't a very nice future, but crap, that's where a lot of the country wants us to go, so let's just get it over with. Then the rest of the world can ignore us or maybe even invade us when we start indiscriminately dropping bombs on countries we don't like. Mexicans would quite coming here looking for work, because there wouldn't be any. Our entire media would resemble Fox News and the rest of television would be "reality" shows where white assholes try to stab other white assholes in the back while trying to win lots of money by showing anyone watching what assholes they really are. Maybe the rest of us would then really pick up and move to Canada, Australia, Ireland or whatever country would put up with someone who hails from a country run by rich, white assholes with nuclear bombs.

I think we should elect Newt Gingrich president and get it all over with. He would probably have a job for Sarah Palin, maybe Minister of Propaganda. Everyone that hasn't left the country or is in jail or camps could have all sorts of fun tweeting each other about how patriotic they all are.

Bitter? Cynical? Me? Pffftt....

Todd Schorr, surrealist and observer of pop culture.

I saw an exhibit of Mr. Schorr's paintings in San Jose, California in 2009. It was pretty trippy, indeed. Being a film buff, and a 1950's bad sci-fi film buff at that, I found that some of his works just rang a bell with me. I love the one based around King Kong. You can see, if you look, Magilla Gorilla, the big metal Kong robot from that Japanese Toho release, "King Kong Escapes", and the artist himself as a little boy in front of a black and white television screen, watching King Kong. Click on the photos and get a larger version, and then go look at the detailed images in each of these paintings. There is a lot of stuff there. Even better, go visit his home page here.

Unorganized, completely random non-political thoughts on a dreary, overcast Sunday morning.

- I think that all the television networks should just go ahead and get where they obviously want to go, which is to take over the lower third of the television screen and broadcast commercials 100% of the time, even while the main programming is ongoing. They are almost there anyway. They might as well go ahead and go that last mile right now and get it over with. Hey, they could even run commercials DURING commercials! Just think of the additional revenue!

- Why does the Sci-Fi Channel (excuse me, SyFy) show professional wrestling? Does anyone actually watch those Ghost Hunter shows where all I can see happening on the previews is a bunch of people filmed with night vision equipment whispering to each other and yelling “What was that?!?” Why does the Arts and Entertainment Channel show absolutely nothing related to the arts, or even entertainment? Why doesn’t the History Channel show any history? Why is there a goddam reality show on every single specialty channel on television?

- Airlines are now charging 40 bucks if you would like “UP TO six more inches of legroom”, a chance to get in line early and if you want to pay more money to earn more frequent flyer miles so you can subject yourself to more of the same torture you are currently going through sometime in the near future.

- My computer keeps asking me if I want to download a new version of this or that, such as iTunes or my e-mail, without telling me what the new version is going to do for me or any existing problems that I might currently have that this new software will fix. Why would I want to install something that I don’t even know what it does for me and the current version works fine? Is our society now so spring loaded to accept anything new related to electronics or software that we don’t even ask WHY first?

- Do the voice actors and actresses that do English dubbing of Japanese anime feel stupid or foolish when they are making those really stupid, squeaky voices? The overbearing, highly authoritative and/or menacing voices sound pretty silly, too.

- Speaking of feeling silly, did Jimmy Johnson of NFL and NASCAR fame feel ridiculous when he was filming those commercials for Extendz, those “penis-enhancing” pills with that young, really nice looking female “reporter?” Because if I were to try something like that, I believe I would have died of embarrassment right there, on the spot.

- Except for people who own stock in the huge corporations that own movie studios, why does anyone care how much money a movie earned on any given weekend? Is this any indication, at all, about how good a movie this might be? Whatever happened to critical reviews as an indicator of the worth of any particular film. Money? That’s all it’s about, even for the audiences? “Ooohh! Iron Man 2 earned eighty trillion dollars this week! I have to go see that one!”

- Players fighting during a baseball game garners the participants a fine and a suspension. Players fighting during a hockey game earns them five minutes in the “penalty box.” Football players will do almost anything rather than admit they are hurt. They will continue to play through all sorts of pain and blood. Soccer players (the OTHER football players) will scream, collapse on the field (sorry, pitch) and writhe around for minutes, sometimes requiring people to come out and carry them off with a stretcher, all because they got bumped or clipped by a player on the opposing team. Universities pay millions of dollars for coaches’ salaries and for upgrades to stadiums, which mostly include luxury boxes for those wealthy corporate interests. Those same universities get millions of dollars from television contracts, wealthy donors and requiring “donations” for those sports minded individuals who would like season tickets. Yet, the players get absolutely nothing other than a chance at a mostly free education. Cities, communities and states build huge, lavish sports arenas and stadiums with all or mostly all public funds, all to benefit obscenely rich team owners. I have no real observation here, other than to say, not only are Americans way too into sporting events, we aren’t even consistent. But then, we apparently don’t care. Go team! Rah!

- eBay really sucks. I refuse to use Paypal, but they now require it. Why? Because they can make more money, as they just happen to own Paypal. What a surprise. Is there anything in this country anymore that isn’t driven by the desire to extort the maximum amount of money from the general public as humanly possible?

- And finally, a bit about the Hardy Boys. You know, those brilliant kids who solved every sort of mystery that came their way and apparently stayed in high school for about 45 years? Those books were one thing that really got me through childhood and also taught me that reading was enjoyable. I know that the target audience of those books were, shall we say, less than critical. But really... Frank and Joe were not all that brilliant. They were extremely lucky. “Clues”, as they called them, just fell into their laps. They happened to be walking along and hear a conversation that just happened to relate to the case their famous dad was working on. They just happened to find a notebook with everything that the criminal they were chasing had every written down or thought of. Everything that happened to them was related. And their parents! What terrible parents! Sure, let them go out at all hours of the night and end up getting tied up or shot at by desperate criminals. Sure, go explore some abandoned mines in the hope you might find some gold that has been missing for 40 years. Just be careful, don’t get caught in any mine collapses and be sure to be home for dinner. Sheesh.

Terrible truth in humor.

From Very Demotivational.

Who do conservatives hate? Mexicans or Muslims? I forgot.

They keep changing. For most of the summer, there was high hysteria about illegal immigrants and immigrants in general. It got to be where any immigrant was equated with illegal immigration. It was one big mass freak out where conservatives were howling about fixing the immigration problem, sealing the borders, building a fence, etc. etc. Mexicans were taking over ranches in Texas. Headless corpses were being found in Arizona. (Neither of which turned out to be true, of course.) Illegal immigrants were going to be the downfall of the United States.

Then came the uproar about the building of a mosque, which is really a community center with a swimming pool and a basketball court, at “ground zero”, which turns out to be two block away, further than a strip club and a couple of other, small mosques. That is now the freak out. People in Missouri, Wisconsin, Tennessee and California are so freaked out that there have been protests and violence against mosques in communities in those states, which are not even close to “ground zero.”




I was not around at the start of WWII. But this seems so much a replay of our fear, paranoia and xenophobia that occurred back in the 40's, after the start of the war. The Japanese Empire, being run essentially by the military, bombed our navel forces at Pearl Harbor. The national trauma and confusion was, no doubt, extremely high. We were hurt and wanted to hurt back. Luckily, there was the Japanese Empire sitting there, smirking at us. Declaring war on them was easy. But what else did we do? On the west coast of the United States, the government rounded up American citizens who just happened to be of Japanese heritage, made them give up all their belongings and forced them into internment camps. Let me repeat that. The U.S. government put American citizens, who had done nothing wrong except share some genetic heritage with our enemy, into camps. They were surrounded by barbed wire and guards with guns. Even small children were put away, all to help sooth our national hurt and suspicion of anyone who didn’t look like us.



Did the U.S. put people of German heritage in camps? No. But American citizens of Japanese heritage were rounded up and deprived of their liberty. What was the difference? The real difference, in my mind, was that people of Japanese heritage DIDN'T LOOK LIKE US. They were strange, they were foreign. We were hurting after Pearl Harbor and these people, these American citizens who owned their own businesses, paid taxes, went to school, had sons in the military, looked like our enemy. Japanese = enemy. It was so easy, especially since it reinforced the thinking of many people anyway. If Germany had bombed our Navy in a sneak attack that killed thousands of people on a Sunday morning who were doing nothing more than just sitting around or going to church, whatever one does in Hawaii on a Sunday morning, would we have rounded up American citizens of German heritage? We will never know, but I very sincerely doubt it. Germans looked like us. Japanese people, even third generation American citizens, didn't.

What is going on now? People are now trying to equate anyone of the Muslim faith with a bunch of evil terrorists. People are being attacked because they are Muslims. Politicians who should know better are saying, in the national press, that there shouldn’t be any mosques built in the U.S., period. And, for the most part, these are the same people who adore the Constitution when it comes to the freedom to own and carry guns. Brown skin, thick accent, "strange" religion (i.e., not Christian or Jewish) is now equated with terrorists. Yes, let's all focus our anger and hatred of anyone who doesn't look like us at another group of innocent people! That's the American spirit! Kill the infidel before he kills us!

If the current crop of Republicans were in total control of the government right now, meaning the presidency and both Houses of Congress, do you think there might be a danger of the government trying to do the same thing to people of the Muslim faith, even though they are American citizens, that the government did to people of Japanese heritage back in the 40’s? Because, based on the rhetoric that I am hearing, that would be a distinct possibility. Once a mob mentality takes hold, it is very difficult to stop it. I find this very reminiscent of an old Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters Are Due On Maple St." One line from that episode is very relevant in this discussion.

"You're standing out here all set to crucify someone! You're all set to find a scapegoat! You're all desperate to point some kind of a finger at a neighbor! Well, believe me, the only thing that will happen is we're going to eat each other up alive!"

Our country should be better than this.

Photos from here.

Ignorance is patriotic!

It must be, for a huge percentage of the population of the United States to believe what they do. I just do not see how people with any sort of power of rational thought to believe what they do and to be so easily manipulated by ignorant or immoral people. I knew that many people in this country were going to go bonkers when Barak Obama, a Democrat and a black man, was elected president. I actually thought at the time that this would be rather fun to watch. A right wing meltdown! Ha! Boy, do I regret that feeling now. I have never felt less like I am having fun, ever in my entire life. This is like watching the entire country go down Alice’s rabbit hole.

I was watching a number of older Daily Show episodes last night using the “On Demand” feature of my cable television. That’s kind of nice, as you get to fast forward through the commercials. I also don’t really like watching the interviews that he does as the last segment. I usually just watch the first and second segments, as those are the ones that contain the gems. But I was getting more and more depressed as I watched these last night. Yeah, Stewart is as funny and biting as always. But the targets of his derision were getting to me. John Boehner, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, tea-partiers, on and on, ad infinitum. That’s really depressing that we have so many seemingly crazy and/or moronic people (and, in Beck’s case, add “messianic”) in positions of power and influence. After watching about four or five shows, I couldn’t take it anymore, I was so depressed.

Democrats may be resigning themselves to losing control of the House in November, and the Senate now appears to be in play as well. This is beyond insane in my rational, logic-based universe. How can anyone possibly vote for Republicans, especially of the tea-party variety, after what happened during the Bush years? I cannot fathom how this can possibly be.

My erstwhile posting partner here at Barking Rabbits and good friend has expressed her opinion, when I have made similar plaintive wails in the past, that my problem is exactly because I am looking for answers in the rational, logic-based universe. The answers are not there.

That’s really what is the problem here and why this feels, to me, to be such a hopeless situation. There are essentially two camps out there, neither one of them understanding the other’s position. To me, many of the statements made and positions taken by the right-wing these days seems to be completely and utterly insane. Yet, they think the exact same thing about me. I had a conversation, and I use the word “conversation” in the context that words were exchanged, but exactly zero understanding was involved, with an old friend recently. He has turned out to be hugely conservative and I am pretty liberal, when measured against the rest of the country, I guess. When we were younger, perhaps our worldviews hadn’t coalesced to this point, or maybe it just didn’t matter, as we were concentrating on other things. We talked, and it got a little heated. Even several weeks after, I still do not understand his position, because many things he said seem to be completely contradictory. Yet, even though he is a very logical person in his engineering career, these contradictions either didn’t bother him or else he didn’t think they were contradictory. We had no understanding of each other’s positions, and never will.

That’s why I feel the current situation is so hopeless. It seems as if the polarization will only continue to grow. I see no way out of this, except for some not very pleasant resolutions. The one that I believe to be most likely is that our arguing, infighting, trying to minimize each other, will continue to grow until physical violence becomes the norm. We are on the brink of that right now. There are many good examples, almost all coming from the anger and hatred of the rightwing. The most recent example of this is the attack of a Muslim cabdriver in New York by a drunk, angry white guy who apparently harbored a deep grudge against Muslims. This is only going to continue to escalate until this country is so involved in our conservative vs. liberal free-for-all that this country will continue its slide toward complete irrelevance on the world stage. Our rich people will continue to get richer, our middle class will continue to disappear and our poor will continue to get poorer. In the absence of a French Revolution-style uprising against the gentry of this country, our society is going to evolve into this stratified, wealth/class based system of haves and have-nots. That it what I see as a likely outcome. That is, unless the looming catastrophe of global climate change doesn’t get us first.

Enough of this maudlin attempt at prophesying a very uncertain future, and back to more current, but still incomprehensible, events. Today, Glenn Beck is holding his “Reclaim Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. I won’t go over everything that has gone on to this point. I am sure, if you are reading something like this and have made it this far, you are well aware of what I am talking about. I just cannot fathom how Beck and his followers can possibly think that they are “reclaiming” the civil rights movement. A white guy with both national radio and television programs and who makes millions of dollars a year is actually comparing himself to Dr. Martin Luther King. This is the guy who said that our first black president has a “deep seated hatred of white people” and who thinks “social equality” is some sort of socialist plot. My reaction, in my rational, logic-based universe, is “What kind of lunatic is this guy? Does he know nothing of history?” Yet, he has sold this vision to thousands if not millions of his followers.

Back stated that he is not going to have a long prepared speech, but only going in with a few notes, so that if “He” wants to speak through Beck, “He will have the opportunity.” That is what Glenn Beck said on his radio program. I am presuming that Beck is saying that he is going to channel God during this rally, so that Beck will be the instrument of God’s will, or something like that. Again, my reaction is, “This guy is a messianic megalomaniac.” But hardly anyone except for people like Keith Olbermann points this out. Everyone else apparently either agrees with Beck or else prefers to just let him skate on this point. In my universe, Beck would be nothing more than one of those crazy people in need of a bath, shouting about the end of the world on a downtown street corner and a few passersby throw a few coins in the bowl in front of him. Yet, thousands of people are traveling a long way to here this guy speak.

I really thought I was overwhelmed with this insanity of this situation during the Bush administration. I didn’t realize that all these crazy people were being relatively well behaved, as “their people” were in power. I didn’t realize how much they could dial up “the crazy” when a black Democrat was elected to the presidency. I just didn’t realize how insane this situation could become.

This is why I haven’t been blogging recently. I feel overwhelmed, and cannot even begin to wrap my head around what is going on in this country. It is beyond my comprehension and therefore, I find it very difficult, as well as futile, to try to write anything about it. I am about to the point where all I am doing is hunkering down in my foxhole and keeping my head down. I am to the age where I can now see retirement from my job as a very real concern in a few years. Not for a while, but it is no longer a nebulous concept. I hope our society holds together for the next 20 years or so. After that, I suppose I can say that I had a good run and I was relatively lucky not to experience the huge upheavals that human culture goes through with more regularity than we would like to admit. I missed the Vietnam War. I was not in Europe during the first half of the 20th Century. I didn’t live during in the Middle East during the Crusades. I was not a Native American during the time that European settlers were taking their land and isolating and killing their population. No, I have had a relatively easy life. I never have had to worry about where my next meal was coming from and whether I was going to have a warm, dry place to sleep that night. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.

But I am very concerned about what kind of world my daughter is going to find herself in when she becomes an adult and has to face these issues for herself.

Random thought for Saturday morning.

The U.S. government seems to be really good at indicting famous people, such as Martha Stewart and most recently Roger Clemens. But it seems to really kind of suck at actually going after big time lawbreakers in the government. Torture became standard operating procedure when it broke all sort of treaties the U.S. had signed onto. Politicizing the Dept. of Justice under the Bush administration? No big deal. Illegal wiretaps? Yep, that's O.K. too.

Yeah, there have been a few elected officials that eventually serve time for their misdeeds. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is still in the clink, I believe.

I agree that lying to Congress isn't really a wise thing to do. But really, doesn't the government have anything better to do than go after Roger Clemens?

Whatever happened to.....?

I am introducing a new featurette here at Barking Rabbits, which may or may not go past this first entry. It's called "Whatever happened to...?" and you might be able to guess from the lead-in what it might be about.

Whatever happened to the time when public figures were caught, by indisputable evidence, contradicting themselves in public, and then that figure at least felt guilty enough or embarrassed enough to try to apologize, or explain, or maybe just go away for a while? Now, all that happens is that the contradiction is ignored by most everyone and it is quickly forgotten. If the guilty discusses it at all, it seems to always be in the form of blaming someone else for not understanding or being too sensitive.

An illustrative example of how the Republican Attack Machine works.

As everyone who is alive in America today, the “Ground Zero mosque”, which is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque, is a big issue. Just why it is a big issue is beyond the intellectual capacity for most of us to understand, but then, that’s probably our fault. We have tried to understand things that are going on in this country from a logical perspective. And that just ain’t happenin’.

So, here’s how this works. Some tiny little person with a loud voice (in this case, Pam Atlas of Atlas Shrugs, look up the link youself) generates some outrage over something ridiculous and even something that conservatives themselves had no problems with a few months ago. Keep at it until it seeps into more prominent conservative channels, and then, by definition, the so-called “main stream media” that everyone just KNOWS is quite liberal because conservatives keep saying so, must pick the “story” up and run with it. It becomes a snowball set rolling down a hill. In very short order, it has become an avalanche that no one, including the President of the United States and the Majority Leader in the Senate, can avoid.

However, in this case, it appears that things really are getting out of control. A pipe bomb was set off in a mosque in Florida, and it was just luck or bad planning by the bomber that people were not killed. Republican leaders who worry about how this might play out in the elections (I am pretty certain it isn’t because they have a conscience or a sense of right and wrong), have decided that this might be getting out of hand and are trying to pull this monster, which was entirely of their own making, back.

From HuffPo:

As the discussion over the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" has moved from a debate over religious freedom to one about the place of Muslims in American society, a question left largely unanswered is what role the issue will play in the 2010 elections.

In recent days, top GOP strategists have begun expressing a sense of caution about candidates for office pushing the issue too forcefully. On Monday, for instance, Ed Gillespie, the former chair of the Republican National Committee and current point man on a host of election efforts, told the Huffington Post that he expects the "mosque" debate to ebb as an a electoral issue.

"I suspect it does recede," said Gillespie. "But the long-term impact is that it is one more example of how President Obama views most Americans...

I love this. Fabricate a totally ridiculous outrage, get the entire country in a lather about it, and then blame the President of the United States for it. Yeah, this is ALL ABOUT how President Obama views “most Americans.”

What a goddam stupid country we live in right now.

Native American Paper Sculptures

Sculptures Designed and Made by Allen & Patty Eckman. Please visit their home page here.

















These stunningly detailed sculptures may only be made from paper – but they are being snapped up by art fans for tens of thousands of pounds. The intricate creations depict Native American scenes and took up to 11 months to make using a specially formulated paper.

Husband and wife team Allen and Patty Eckman put paper pulp into clay moulds and pressurize it to remove the water. The hard, lightweight pieces are then removed and the couple painstakingly add detailed finishing’s with a wide range of tools.

Allen said: "We create Indians partly because my great, great grandmother was a Cherokee and my family on both sides admire the native Americans... I work on the men and animals and Patty does the women and children" explains Allen. "I enjoy most doing the detail. The paper really lends itself to unlimited detail. I'm really interested in the Indians' material, physical and spiritual culture and that whole period of our nation's history I find fascinating. From the western expansion, through the Civil War and beyond is of great interest to me."

Allen explained their technique: "It should not be confused with papier mache. The two mediums are completely different. I call what we do 'cast paper sculpture. Some of them we create are life-size and some we scale down to 1/6 life-size. These sculptures are posed as standing nude figures and limited detailed animals with no ears, tails or hair. We transform them by sculpting on top of them - creating detail with soft and hard paper we make in various thicknesses and textures. We have really enjoyed the development of our fine art techniques over the years and have created a process that is worth sharing. There are
many artists and sculptors who we believe will enjoy this medium as much as we have."

More unusual art: Sand sculpting and beach art

Photos from Popular Mechanics, of all places.

Facts, data, opinions, yelling really loudly and multiple alternative versions of reality.

I'm sorry, but I seem incapable of writing anything. "Not being able to write" and "blogging" don't really seem to fit all that well together. Sort of like "wanting to be an actor" and "being overcome with stage fright." It doesn't really work.

I suppose part of this is due to the fact that my job mostly entails reading and writing stuff, all day long. It's rather difficult to work up the enthusiasm anymore to come home after work or get up in the mornings on the weekend and think, "Hey, I really want to write more stuff!" After eating spaghetti three meals a day for six weeks straight, you really don't want to have any more fu*king spaghetti.

But my big problem, as I have said before, is I am just overcome with the vapid stupidity (is there another kind?) of our society, and the devisions within in it that don't even seem to dwell in the same reality as each other, much less talk coherently and be able to find common ground. Facts are not facts anymore.... Facts are subject to whether or not they fit in with your current philosophy. Facts are now just heartfelt opinions. There is data out there on the internet that supports any damn position that you would like to take. Earth is warming up? Sure, there's lots of data to support that. Earth is cooling down? Yep, there's data for that. Unless someone takes the time to go track any piece of data (which I guess would be a datum) that they are using back to its original source, then you just stop looking when you find something that works for you. We have gone way past that old joke about lies, damn lies and statistics. You can no longer try to use data and facts to try to convince someone of the validity of your argument, because the person you are arguing with is probably armed with more "facts and data" than you are that are in complete opposition.

Is there even any such thing as "truth" anymore? Was there ever such a thing? I always believed there was. However, I am coming to believe that I was wrong. I have degrees in engineering and physics. There is a certain kind of thinking that is required to get a degree in engineering, one that starts with a set of facts or data that everyone can agree on in order to come up with a solution to any particular problem. But now, all that's out the window. It's like you got every single answer to your final exam wrong, just because your professor disagreed with your starting data points. "The Laffer Curve tells you everything you need to know about taxation!" "No, the Laffer Curve is widely discredited!" What is it? It depends on what you go read and want to believe in the first place.

The consequences of these dueling sets of realities is that the two sides, or however many there are, will never, ever be able to agree on anything. Never. We are all now obligated to view whatever facts and data might pop up in front of our faces through the filter of our already preconceived notions. It is fits, then great. We can absorb that new one for future use. If it doesn't fit, then you toss it out without thinking anything further about it, or else maybe chalk it up to the partisanship of the "other side," who are obviously a bunch of malicious liars and/or complete morons.

In my universe, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are morons, Beck is more unhinged than Palin, but morons all the same. Others, however, think that both of them are saviors and conveyors of the absolute and unvarnished truth. How can this be that people can have this big of a difference of opinion about something that I think is so cut and dried? How could ANYONE with an education over about the fifth grade thing that Sarah Palin is anything other than a lazy attention whore who usually has no idea what they hell she is talking about? It's beyond me, other than to go back to my original assertion that there are no absolute truths anymore. There is no such thing as unbiased, rational thought. Every single thing must be seen through the filter of preconceived ideas before any sort of judgment is passed. If your particular reality requires that Sarah Palin is some sort of Goddess for Truth, Justice and the American Way, then that is what she is.

This is not how I think a civilized, thoughtful society should function, but that's how it goes these days, even for most of our mass media. And without a responsible mass media that doesn't use those same filters as their target audience, I must admit, there is very little chance of this country ever having a knowledgeable population that elects intelligent and knowledgeable people to political office in order to solve the huge problems facing this country if our society that does not have an active, truthful media that will accept the notion that they are there to help uncover the truth and not just to report that every story has two sides. No, partially because of our incompetent media that loves conflict, juicy scandal and playing to the audience in order to make as much advertising dollars as they possible can for their corporate masters, we can't even agree on whether things are even problems anymore, much less come up with ways to fix them.

To get back to my original starting point for this point, it is a very long way of saying, of course, that it is extremely difficult for me to blog about much of anything anymore when I have completely given up hope for our society. I have absolutely no idea where it might be headed. It could be headed for some 1984-esque world where facts are things to be manipulated and no dissent or even appearance of non-conformity is tolerated. We could be headed for some complete meltdown of orderly society when global climate change disrupts our food and energy supply and distribution to the point that we have no functional government at the national or even state level, a la The Road Warrior or the myriad of other post-apocalyptic films of the past 40 years. We could keep stumbling around just like we are, slowly sinking into the morass of our own stupidity and inability to see past the ends of our collective noses in order to maintain the purity of whatever vision of reality to which we subscribe. It could be a combination of little bits of all of those, or it could be something completely different. Probably the one thing that won't happen is what everyone was worried about in the 50's and 60's, there won't be a global thermonuclear exchange by two or more superpowers that wipes civilization off the face of the planet. That's probably not going to happen anymore. But, whatever happens, I firmly believe 1) it isn't going to be pretty, and 2) nothing we can do now can change it and only part of that is due to the fact that we don't want to change it.

So, that's why my blogging has fallen off to a whisper these days. It's pretty difficult to write something snarky or insightful or hopeful or full of passion if I have given up hope. What's the point? The last few weeks, I have engaged in active isolationism, and I have found myself being a lot less unhappy, frustrated and angry than I have been. If our society wants to commit suicide by mass stupidity, then who am I to complain about it?

I am just going to go bury my head in the sand over here for a while. Poke me in the butt if something happens that you think I might need to know about.

Future mass migration of Mexicans to U.S. because of global climate change?

From a story in the Seattle Times:

Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires.
Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change — mass migration to the United States.

Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number could amount to 10 percent of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.

"Assuming that the climate projections are correct, gradually over the next several decades heading toward the end of the century, it becomes one of the more important factors in driving Mexicans across the border, all other things being equal," said study author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

Of course, Oppenheimer acknowledged, changes could occur in U.S. immigration and border policy or in Mexico's economy and its reliance on agriculture. But he said this was a simplified first step in studying the effect of global warming on migration.

Boy, I cannot wait to see what conservatives do with this one. On one hand, this feeds into their paranoia about Mexicans coming to “take over the U.S.” That’s what they are always warning us about. And this one actually might be based in some sort of fact and logic-based analysis! That certainly isn't the case for most of the other BS that they routinely become hysterical about. But, on the other hand, in order to use this as any sort of credible threat, those same conservatives must admit that global climate change is not some sort of liberal plot and will indeed have real and lasting effects across the world. Climate change will eventually lead to mass migrations of entire populations.

What’s a poor conservative to do?

Conservatives in this country want to be lied to.

I had been rolling this concept in my mind around for a bit, trying to get up the initiative to actually write a blog post about it. Of course, to quote Uncle Bonsai, “There’s no such thing as an original thought.” Doug J of Balloon Juice has it all right there.

I used to believe this sort of thing, that it was shameful, for example, that Fox provided such a low level of journalism to its captive conservative audience. My thinking was that conservatives watched Fox and listened to crazy conservative talk radio not because they enjoyed being lied to, but because they enjoyed overtly conservative media and Fox/Rush/etc. was what they had to choose from; the lying and low level of discourse, I reasoned, might very well be bugs rather than features.

Well, I was wrong, they’re features. Compare the ratings of Shep Smith with the ratings for Glenn Beck. Compare the traffic numbers for Hot Air, Drudge, and Instapundit with those of FrumForum, The American Scene, and Eunomia. And note that the Daily Caller traffic went way up with when they started in with the JournoList silliness (whatever one thinks of JournoList, the way that Daily Caller is presenting the story is extremely dishonest).

Given the choice, conservatives as a group will go for the dumber, more dishonest, more insane option. There’s a market for good-faith conservative media, but that market is liberals. Who watches/reads the faux-good faith propaganda of David Brooks? Totebaggers. Who reads The American Scene and Eunomia? People like me.

Conservatives, by and large, have no interest in what you or I or actual journalists consider journalism. It’s telling that when Clark Hoyt and Andy Alexander muse about pleasing conservative readers, they don’t talk about covering legitimate stories that conservative readers are interested in, they talk (exclusively) about following ginned-up Breitbart controversies.

And that about sums it all up, I think. There really isn’t any market for the truth these days, because somewhere between 25% and 50% of this country doesn’t want to know the truth. They really don’t want to know what was really behind the Iraq war, or how the United States of America came to be one of the world’s foremost proponents and practitioners of torture. They don’t want to know what caused the financial meltdown of a couple of years ago, and whether or not the policies enacted by some Republicans and then taken up by the Democrats really helped or not. They don’t want to know the truth that ACORN was a small, underfunded organization trying to help low-income people get their voices heard in government and was in no way some giant secretive monster manipulating elections behind the scenes.

No, apparently most conservatives of this country want to hear stuff that feeds into their already formed ideas and positions. Government is evil. Democrats are evil. Guns are great and everyone should be allowed to carry them anywhere they want. Big business can really do no wrong, and when something bad does happen (e.g., the huge oil spill in the Gulf, 29 miners killed in West Virginia coal mine explosion), then it was just “an accident”, “God’s Will” or, once again, the fault of the government for too much regulation. All events, everything that anyone has ever said or done, all can be manipulated to fit into these narratives, so that everything, absolutely everything, confirms to the conservative mind what they already “know.”

Now, this is not to say that there are not liberals and progressives that exhibit these same traits. No doubt, there are. I am always questioning myself about this. I don’t actually find anything that makes me change my mind on certain questions, I must admit, but at least I am asking myself the right questions. I think most liberals and progressives really do want to know the truth about their government and their country. If a Democrat is behind something underhanded, then I firmly believe that most of us would want that person gone, immediately. Mostly… Right now, many of us are torn by the Obama adminstration. They are making it mightily difficult for liberals and progressive to give their unbridled support to an administration that seems determined to always “go for the middle,” even when that means shortchanging the very people who supported them in the first place. And we really don’t like the fact that President Obama is intent on ignoring the wrongdoings and lawlessness of the Bush administration, and even carrying on some of the worst of the previous administration’s policies.

But, to go back to my original point, when conservatives will never, ever make any concessions of wrongdoing and try to use every single thing that happens as some sort of cudgel to bash the other side over the head, even at the expense of the country as a whole, then, ladies and gentlemen, we have an ungovernable country. We simply cannot fix the huge problems we are facing because one side doesn’t want to admit they are problems, or else they do believe they are problems but don’t have any policy that would actually address those problems other than to attack the Democrats for actually trying to do something.

I can’t say that President Obama and the Democrats haven’t gotten anything done in the face of this overwhelming opposition to everything. There have been a number of amazing achievements made since Barack Obama took office. But what could have been has been significantly watered down, and with the Democrats a sure bet to not have anywhere near the required “super-majority” in the Senate after January of next year, then it’s a good bet that major achievements will be few and far between.

I am extremely disgusted and disappointed by the almost everyone in our society today. I suppose I should consider myself some sort of wild-eyed idealist, as what I believe in seems to be so far out of the mainstream these days. By looking around the blogosphere, I can see I am not alone. There are many knowledgeable, educated and well spoken people that seem to believe in the same things that I do. But I have come to believe that we are not going to get there. Not in the time of Barack Obama, and not ever. The tide is just that overwhelming. Huge Money, in the form of powerful lobbyist groups, mega-corporations and wealthy donors that want to see their own agenda enacted, is just too much to deal with.

This country is on a path to mediocrity, and maybe even worse. But at the very least, we are on the downside slope of the curve. Yes, the United States will remain a power in the world, just because of the money and power that is concentrated here, along with a huge consumer market. (How long that huge consumer market lasts is an unknown, given all the forces that are at work undermining the capacity of 90% of the population of this country to actually be consumers of anything past the essentials for living.) The argument for “American exceptionalism” will become less and less persuasive, if it ever were a real argument, and more and more just some myth that hardly anyone believes in but keeps telling each other anyway, just like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

Here's what I find so discouraging about the Shirley Sherrod story.

It's the reactions, or non-reactions, from everyone after it has been laid out so plain about what went on and how it was exactly like what happened to ACORN and Van Jones. The reactions seem to be able to categorized like this:

1) Who, us? We didn't do anything. It's all Obama's fault anyway. Oooh!!! Look over here! Big Mexican women helping Afghans become illegal aliens! (Fox News)

2) Gee, I feel sorry for Ms. Sherrod. She certainly went through some tough times. It's the NAACP that's the racists, that's who I was going after! ((Andrew Breitbart)

3) I don't really care what the facts are, Breitbart was correct! Shirley Sherrod is a racist and deserved to lose her job! (Wingnut commentators)

4) YAWN! Well, the White House certainly overreacted, didn't they? Yes, black eye for the Obama administration. No, Breitbart is perhaps overly enthusiastic, but he really didn't do anything wrong. And we certainly aren't going to say anything bad about our brothers at Fox News. (95% of the national media)

5) Yes, we overreacted and we did Ms. Sherrod a huge disservice. It was all the media's fault, they made us overreact. (Obama administration)

6) Um.... What? We didn't see anything. (Elected Republican officials)

7) We don't care, Democrats are evil and deserve everything they get! (1/3 of the population of the United States)

I may have missed a few, but that seems to be about how it went. Yes, the left leaning blogosphere and most of the programming on MSNBC made sure that how this all went down was well documented. But in the end, no one really cared, because it STILL is not going to be the "learning moment" that we have heard mentioned. Breitbart and Fox News are not going to stop doing what they do, because that's who they are. The official media won't stop listening to them, because that would be impolite. Politicians looking to cover their butts will still overreact to really stupid fake news stories but will not work together to address the very real problems that this country has.

Geez. After everything we have been through in the last 10 years, and people are still going to vote for Republicans. I can't believe it.

"No, Buffy. You are at fault here and you must admit your mistake."

"After all, if it hadn't been for you falling in love with Angel, we wouldn't currently be overrun with good-looking, brooding vampires that attract young girls. The world would have never been exposed to Twilight, Underworld and the Wizards of Waverly Place if it hadn't been for your rash, impulsive behavior. I hope you realize that now."

Will the Shirley Sherrod story be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Will everyone finally acknowledge the agenda of the right wing media?

I rather doubt it. However, there are some signs of hope. For those who don’t know what this story is about, here are some good links to get the idea of what went down. This one is from Crooks and Liars and this one is from HuffPo.

The roles that Andrew Breitbart and Fox News played in this travesty are so egregious that even moderate conservatives are pushing back. Here is David Gergen, vaid Crooks and Lairs.

Cooper: Given what we now know, should Miss Sherrod have been forced to resign?

Gergen: Absolutely not... absolutely not. Anderson this is ripped away the veil and shown us all that is wrong with politics today. An ideologue injects poison into the Internet, other people rush to judgment on camera and then the administration gave its stamp to beat it and commits this travesty and injustice. What is needed now, the NAACP has at least had the courage to come back and say we were wrong and apologized. Now the administration needs to do the same thing.

I think the President tonight ought to order the Agriculture Department to reopen this case, give this woman a fair hearing and if the facts are as they seem, reinstate her with an apology indeed. I think she deserves a whole lot more than an apology. I think she deserves an honor for her attempts to bring people together.

Here is David Frum, via The Week.

But you’ll never guess who emerged as the villains of the story in this second-day conservative react. Not Andrew Breitbart, the distributor of a falsified tape. No, the villains were President Obama and the NAACP for believing Breitbart's falsehood.

CNN actually spent a good portion of one of its news days to debunk this story. So, finally, maybe everyone is actually beginning to be willing to recognize and point out the extreme agenda Fox News and people like Brietbart have. They aren’t there to report news. They are there to manufacture news that is to their liking and supports their agenda, which is currently to make Democrats and President Obama look as bad as possible. They certainly succeeded in this case, as they did in bringing down ACORN with the same type of video manipulation. That is what they do. They have no other reason for existing, other than making money, of course.

This is why I really hold out very little hope that this country will ever regain anything that looks to be an “even keel.” We have people in positions of power and influence that have absolutely no compunction against manipulating truths and spouting outright lies, as long as it gets them what they want. They don’t really even care if they are caught, because they know there will be no adverse ramifications for them. In several weeks, this little “dust up” will be all but forgotten and they will play their little game with someone else. There are no grownups in the room to stop them, and we certainly cannot count on any of these people to come to their senses on their own volition.

We have media who lie to and manipulate their audience. We have mega-corporations that rape the only planet we have while making obscene amounts of money, and they will lie and cheat in order to be able to make as much money as they can. Even when their misdeeds are out there for the entire world to see, they still cannot make themselves do the right thing. We have politicians that are in the pocket of these same mega-corporations and will vote anyway that their masters want them to. A significant number of elected officials continue to make statements that have people wondering if these elected officials ever made it out of high school.

This country is so screwed. The eight years of the presidency of George Bush only cemented that fact. All this that I am talking about was already around. It all became institutionalized during the reign of George Bush, however. I don’t see any chance of things really ever changing for the better.

Getting back to the original story, I hope that Ms. Sherrod finds another job, one that she finds very fulfilling and provides her the same or greater pay than the job she from which she was forced out. If the Dept. of Agriculture does offer her her old job back (after the appropriate amount of “study”, of course), I hope she throws it back in their faces and sues everyone involved. Fox News, Andrew Breitbart and the Dept. of Ag. Everyone. At least I will come away with some vicarious satisfaction that assholes and thugs don’t always get away with their misdeeds.

John Boehner proposes a moratorium on all new federal regulations.

From Talking Points Memo:

House Minority Leader John Boehner, fresh out of a meeting with business and trade group lobbyists, announced a new idea this afternoon: A moratorium on all new federal regulations, for a year.

"I think having a moratorium on new federal regulations is a great idea it sends a wonderful signal to the private sector that they're going to have some breathing room," he said, according to Greg Sargent.

This guy is the minority leader. He who supposedly speaks for the Republican Party. And here he is, actually proposing that Congress do nothing for a year. Oh, sure they hold hearings and supposedly approve the Presidential appointees (which doesn't seem to be happening either). But isn't that what Congress is supposed to do, make laws? That's why they are called "legislators." And he isn't talking just about Congress, but ALL government agencies that make regulations. That would include the FAA, FDA, EPA, TSA, etc. Everything that is there to protect the America and all her citizens, Boehner wants to put a muzzle on them. I have personal knowledge (as I work for the federal government) that many companies and individuals in industries that are being regulated have taken a position that if there isn't a regulation or guidance (how you comply with a regulation) about something that comes up, then they automatically assume that the government "does not care" about the issue and, therefore, they don't have to do anything about that particular issue. I have seen that time and time again, even on what might be very critical, safety-related issues. And Boehner wants all government agencies to essentially shut down their rulemaking process. That's insane.

"Breathing room?!?" These guys certainly have a much different idea about government than what I was taught in my middle school civics class. And, once again, I wonder what would have been the response of the Republicans and the media if Nancy Pelosi had proposed this in public.

Hell is full of sludge, tar and oil.

I hope this is the fate that awaits oil executives who deliberately press on with risky oil drilling adventures with no real idea what do to if something goes wrong, even if government regulations require such a plan. This is the place for those who deliberately require their workers to work around their own safety procedures, and for those who threaten to fire any workers cleaning up the horrible mess left if they wear any sort of protective gear or respirators while working in a toxic environment that could harm the worker's health. This is the place for those who pretend to have the authority to arrest people if they attempt to take pictures of the environmental catastrophe, even though the President of the United States specifically requested them to allow open access to reporters and photographers. This is for the executives that "earn" millions and millions of dollars but will find every single way they can to wiggle out of their responsibilities to pay for damages and loss of income to thousands of workers in the Gulf, even after they said they publicly said they would.

There is no Hell great enough for these rapacious thugs of the oil industry. However, as we have seen lately, what really happens is, when the spotlight gets too great, they retire to the English coast and go race their yachts.

There is no justice in this world.

The "Fire" Waterfall at Yosemite

From Wiki:

Yosemite National Park, California.

This park was gazetted as a national park in 1890. It is world famous for its rugged terrain, waterfall and century-old pine trees. It covers 1,200 sq km and the "fire" waterfall of El Capitan is one of the most spectacular of all scenery.

The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time ritual that lasted from 1872 until 1968 in which burning hot embers were dropped a height of about 3000 feet from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park down to the valley below, and from a distance looked similar to a glowing water fall because the people who dumped the embers made sure to do so in a uniform fashion. The ritual was performed by several generations of the owners of the Glacier Point Hotel. The ritual ended in January of 1968 when the National Park Service ordered that the Firefall be discontinued. The hotel burned down a year later and was never rebuilt.

The ritual was performed at 9 PM every night, to coincide with the end of a performance at Camp Curry.

This is where Rick Roberts came up with the name of the 1970's country rock band, Firefall.

UPDATE: I see by my Sitemeter that this post of mine got a number of hits from people searching specifically on "fire waterfall" or "El Capitan", and some included the word "hoax" in their search.

For those who are interested, no, this is not a hoax. Now, the original text of the e-mail that I received these in was totally wrong, in that it said this was some sort of natural phenomenon due to sunlight hitting the waterfall in just the right way. That's totally bogus. The text above that I lifted from Wikipedia is correct. I happen to know the members of the band Firefall (yes, they are still around), the lead guitar player being my older brother, and the current bass player was the one who sent me these photos. I am pretty sure that Rick Roberts, who picked the name back in the 70's, would have known if this were a hoax or not. One of these photos is actually in the inside sleeve of one of their albums, Elan (the old vinyl version, that is). Although, not being much of a photo bug, I suspect that most of these are time exposures, which gives the firefall its smooth, continuous look. Otherwise, it would look like a bunch of burning logs and sticks falling.

Besides, if you can't believe Wikipedia, who CAN you believe these days?

UPDATE II: Thanks to commenter Amanda. There actually is a waterfall in Yosemite that does catch the sunlight and look like it is on fire. Here is the link she provided. O.K., there are TWO versions of a Firefall in the same national park. Amazing. I stand corrected. Actually, I think these pictures are a mixture of both. The one taken at the side of the falls where it is obviously twilight is the actual 1968 version of the firefall. The others may be this sunlit version.

NASA study shows that first half of 2010 is the hottest on record.

Following fast on the heels of the hottest Jan-May — and spring — in the temperature record, it’s also the hottest Jan-June on record in the NASA dataset [click on figure to enlarge].

It’s all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming “because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect,” as a recent must-read NASA paper notes.

Remember last winter when the east coast of the U.S. experienced some pretty good snowstorms? And do you also remember the wingnuts, such as Rush Limbaugh and many others, screaming at the top of their lungs about how the presence of snow pretty much repudiated the concept of global warming and climate change? I certainly do, although I am pretty sure that Rush would never use the word "repudiate."

Well, where are they now? Are they going to say something about this data? No, I don’t suppose not.

Chart and quoted text from Climate Progress, via HuffPo.

And if that isn't bad enough news, here's some news of the near future from Stanford University.

Exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next 30 years, according to a new study by Stanford University climate scientists.

"Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades," said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and the lead author of the study.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Diffenbaugh concluded that hot temperature extremes could become frequent events in the U.S. by 2039, posing serious risks to agriculture and human health.

"In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heat waves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities," said Diffenbaugh, a center fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. "Those kinds of severe heat events also put enormous stress on major crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields."

I find it almost a relief that I won't be around to witness the worst of the looming environmental catastrophe. I do worry about what kind of life my daughter and her family might find for themselves.

Yeah, but can he do it for March Madness?

Paul the octopus predicts World Cup winners.

Probably related to Clever Hans.

Rush Limbaugh is a despicable human being.

Oh, I know that Rush must have a really tough job. After all, it can’t be easy to sit in the same chair, day after day, week after week, and come up with wild crap to spew, with absolutely certainty, about President Obama and Democrats. I mean, he must keep them fixated on how much they hate the Obama and the Democrats and just how different they are from “real Americans.” He needs to keep throwing them red meat, just like at a pack of dogs, to keep them in a frenzy. After all, that’s the only way his audience will keep coming back, day after day, week after week, and listening to him concoct ever more fantastic allegations about the greatest enemy that this country has ever known, i.e., people who disagree with Rush Limbaugh.

Every time I think Rush can’t go any lower, he does. This past week, he accused President Obama of tanking the economy of the country on purpose because… Well, I just refer to this column in HuffPo.

Rush Limbaugh said on his July 2 radio show that he believes Obama tanked the economy on purpose, both as "payback" for 230 years of racial oppression and because Obama simply doesn't like America.

He railed: "Who is Obama? Why is he doing this? Why? Why is he doing it? Is he stupid? Is it an accident? Is he doing it on purpose or what have you? ... I think we face something we've never faced before in the country -- and that is, we're now governed by people who do not like the country, who do not have the same reverence for it that we do. Our greatest threat (and this is saying something) is internal."

Limbaugh went on to compare Obama to the Black Panthers:

"So in this interview with J. Christian Adams yesterday talking about [how] he and his line attorneys were told to just drop the case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation in Philadelphia, he said that there were people in the office, DOJ, who said, 'Well, you know, those people suffered the indignity of slavery, discrimination, segregation and so forth.'


He said somebody else said, 'This is payback,' meaning, 'All right, look. We don't care if it's the New Black Panthers or whoever it is. Black people in this country have never, ever had a fair shake. This is payback. O.J. Simpson was payback. How does it feel?' That word 'payback' is not mine, [but] it is exactly how I think Obama looks at the country: It's payback time... There's no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily."

So, Rush’s premise is that Barack Obama becomes a senator and then runs for POTUS just because he hates America and wants to punish all Americans for racism. That’s what he is saying.

Can anyone beyond a fifth grade level of thinking actually believe any of that? Someone would actually want to become president because he hates America? Normally, that’s a pretty insane place to start a discussion. However, these are not normal times. Thinking is not required and it is actually frowned upon. Pure, raw emotion is all that is necessary for Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. etc.

I am in disbelief at where we find ourselves in this country today. People like Rush and Beck get national soapboxes to shout their insane venom, just because they make billions of dollars for their corporate masters. Those corporations don’t really care what is being said, although I suspect most of them secretly or not so secretly delight is skewering Democrats on a daily basis. I certainly don’t think that those corporations are headed by people who really believe that President Obama is actively trying to destroy this country because he hates America and wants to “pay it back” for decades of racism. All they care about is the activity at the cash register. Cha-ching! Money, money, more money. They continually need more money so they can keep doing what they do best, which is to make more money.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too angry at Rush’s audience, those deluded saps who actually believe crap like this. It’s just basic human psychology, really. People want to hear stuff that reinforces things they already believe. Mob mentality takes over a bit, which is an interesting subject since the “mob” in question here is dispersed and only connected by an electronic media. That’s not the historical view of a mob, but I think it still applies. Also, human beings are easily manipulated. Given enough time and resources, you can apparently get humans to believe in anything, no matter how insane it might be. And finally, human beings apparently need an enemy, someone to make their lives worthwhile. If people don’t have a specific enemy, then they must invent one. Illegal immigrants seems to be the latest invented enemy in the minds of quite a few conservatives.

But to believe that President Obama went through years of grooming himself for public office and to spend several years of his life running for President, only so he can “punish” the country for its inherent racism is nuts. Absolutely insane. Yet, we hear about crap like this every single day. The more outlandish the accusation, the better. And Rush and his ilk need to keep up “upping the ante” every day in order to keep their followers angry. People will just stop being angry if they get fed the same old stuff every single day. So, Rush must come up with even more insane accusations on a daily basis, just so he can keep his audience.

Rush must really have a tough job… But, in my mind, that really doesn't excuse him for being the despicable human being that he is.