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All the sharks, jumped

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

There was a time, on this blog, that I actually was capable of writing what passed, at least in my own mind if nowhere else, for satirical or humorously mocking pieces about Republicans, but I admit my powers seem to be fading. I’ve blamed myself, to myself, until today I had a revelation. It is, quite literally, impossible to satirize the self satirizing, or to mock the self mocking. At least it is if you presume your audience has the slightest shred of intelligence, for satire and political humor both involve the exposure of a target’s weakness, whether it be stupidity, hypocrisy, irrationality, paranoia or the toxic mix of all of the above that is the brand of the modern Republican party. But this presupposes the need to expose these things; that they are, at least to some extent, practiced in a nuanced enough fashion that they need exposure. But we are so beyond that point in this post-post modern age. This is the age of out and proud stupidity, full frontal hypocrisy, blatant irrationality, and open and notorious paranoia. What’s to expose? What is there to satirize? These barreled are shooting themselves.

Latest case in point is the right wing’s effort to blame the Obama administration for the Sandra Fluke episode. The specifics of the plot are many and varied, but apparently they are all variants of the theme that the Obama folks set up the Republicans to deny Fluke the opportunity to testify, planning in advance to have her testify before a rump hearing of their own, knowing full well that Rush would engage in a vitriolic disgusting attack on her, thereby forcing Republicans to choose between doing the right thing and defending, Rush, knowing that the Republicans would never offend Rush, and knowing also that they could then make contraception and the right of women to be treated as human beings an issue in the campaign. All this, the Democrats, the party that has never in my lifetime managed to push any talking point in unison, planned in advance, with the hapless and hopeless Republicans falling for it every inch of the way, with Rush dutifully stepping up to spew the expected vitriol.

Rush himself is getting into the act:

By the way, the movie Game Change, the HBO movie that premiered on Saturday night (that’s designed, once again, to castigate and destroy Sarah Palin all over again)? The same public relations firm representing Sandra Fluke represents Game Change. The same PR firm that handled Sandra Fluke’s episode is handling Game Change, and you know who it is? Anita Dunn, formerly of the White House! The Mao Tse-tung admirer, by her own admission. Anita Dunn, Obama’s former adviser, is the PR firm for the movie Game Change and for Sandra Fluke. It’s all part of a plan. It is not accidental. None of this stuff just happened. "Whoa, looky over there what just happened! It’s all orchestrated.

There it all is, a pile of warm and steaming stupidity, hypocrisy, irrationality, and paranoia that defies ridicule. It says to all and sundry: you cannot expose anything I have not already revealed. You cannot satirize me. I am beyond mockery. You might consider pitying me, but I defy even that.

 

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Arizona goes where Congress has not yet tread

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Do Republicans really think they have a winner here? Do they really think they can win by locking up the narrow minded white elderly, mostly male vote?

Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.

So, not only can they deny benefits for birth control used for contraception, they can make you prove to their satisfaction that you have a non-slutty need for the pill. Surely Ms. Lesko would agree with Ohio legislator Nina Turner that we men also need someone to watch over us. No doubt she’ll amend her bill, and her male compatriots will surely sign on, to incorporate Turner’s ideas:

 

Specifically, Turner’s bill would require men to receive psychological counseling to verify that they have a medical reason for taking erectile dysfunction medications, such as Viagra, before they can legally obtain a prescription for it. It would also require doctors to inform men, in writing, about the potential risks of drugs like Viagra.

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We don’t need no education

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

There are times when you really have to wonder if this country has a chance to survive.

I am a regular reader of Paul Krugman’s blog as well as his column in the Times. I would have assumed that his blog readers would, by a process of self selection, be relatively intelligent and somewhat comfortable with the maths. But apparently quite a few of them, but to be clear, not all, have math abilities that are fuzzy in the extreme.

The specific point at issue at the moment is as follows: North Dakota has a relatively low unemployment rate, thanks in part to a recent spike in energy related jobs (the state is allowing itself to be raped). The claim has been made that opening up other state to oil extraction would have similar results in other states. Krugman has been struggling, in multiple posts, to explain why an increase of X number of jobs in North Dakota might have a huge impact on the unemployment rate there, while an increase of that same X, or even a slightly higher Y, in, say, California, would be almost statistically meaningless. Apparently, some folks can’t quite wrap their heads around that, which makes you wonder if there’s any hope for a country in which so many people are so innumerate.

I had first hand experience of this phenomenon when I was on the Groton Town Council. People could not understand that the increase in their property valuations during a revaluation year did not necessarily mean an increase in their taxes. If all values rise in exactly the same proportion, the absolute tax would be dependent solely on the mill rate. If your valuation increases, but its percentage increase is less than the average percentage increase, then your taxes go down assuming a constant mill rate. It was absolutely amazing how the folks whining about their perfectly justified assessed value increases could not or would not understand this.

I guess we are all, or too many of us anyway, Mississippians now.

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It’s what’s in his lyin’ heart

Monday, March 12, 2012

Wow. Only conservatives get to be this disingenuous. A while back Rick Santorum lied about the Dutch euthanasia law. He said that one in 20 Dutch deaths are the results of euthanasia, many involuntary. A lie from first to last. Here’s his spokesperson not answering a Dutch reporter’s question about Little Ricky’s big lies.

 

 

Via Foreign Policy via Balloon Juice

 

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Consolidation in the world of god

Sunday, March 11, 2012

At the Washington Monthly, Ed Kilgore notes that there has been an uptick in church foreclosures in the past year. He notes that the usual suspects that see problems for religious liberty in Obama’s religious neutral requirements imposed on insurance plans, don’t seem to have a problem with the banks destroying the religious infrastructure.

Part of me is cheering on the banks. Every church that is boarded and shuttered is one less monument to superstition and ignorance. But there is a real danger here, for in the fine American tradition of monopoly building, it looks like what is going on is a consolidation.

The church foreclosures have hit all denominations across America, black and white, but with small to medium size houses of worship the worst. Most of these institutions have ended up being purchased by other churches.

Bigger churches, no doubt.

Many Protestant denominations have a tradition of local control, an outgrowth of the antipathy toward the bishops and Popes when Protestantism was young. Those were also days when very smart people engaged in endless religious debate, and even the lowly parishioner was well informed about these issues. Doctrinal disputes, at least among the evangelicals, appear to have receded in importance. A shared sense of victimization and fear of the rational unites the religious these days, to the point where the nutcase Protestants are perfectly happy to make common cause with the whore of Babylon. (That would be the Catholic Church, for the untutored) Religion is becoming commodified, and we may have reached a point where the average church going crazy will accept the Wal-Martization of religion with the same sheep like indifference with which he or she accepted the Wal-Martization of the rest of America. In other words, any purveyor of the toxic mix of hate, fear, superstition and ignorance that is religion in America will do.

Religion is big business, so these foreclosures may just be accelerating an inevitable trend: the concentration of religious power and money (in this country, is there a difference?) into the hands of a few powerful men (and as the last few days have proven, they will be men). This in turn poses a threat to the functioning secular majority, as the corporatized churches will make common cause to further their shared business plan. You can’t shear sheep unless you have sheep, and all religions depend on the manufacture of more sheep to grow their businesses. You can’t grow good sheep without inculcating superstition and preserving ignorance, a business plan that sits well with the Republican party and the corporations it is their true mission to support, both of which depend on those same sheep to obtain and preserve power. They may not be a majority, but they will work together to achieve their ends. It’s worked well so far, and as the Mom and Pop churches are replaced by the big franchises it will work even better, as church money flows toward the Republicans and as Republicans, as they have done for the banks and secular corporations, find ways to send taxpayer dollars flowing back to the churches.

 

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Friday Night VIdeo

Friday, March 9, 2012

This is a week late, but I would be remiss if I didn’t note Davey Jones passing with something by the Monkees. Now, to the purist they were not a group at all, being as they didn’t play their own instruments, at least at the start, but then, they did do their own singing, at least I think they did. Given that rather salient fact, it stands to reason there would be no videos of them actually singing one of their songs, so I shall break a rule here and play what you might call a music video, which appears to be an outtake from one of the shows. Yes, boys and girls, we really did watch this sort of thing.

One thing the Monkees had going for them is that their music was penned by some good writers, and the instruments were played by good studio musicians. They were a ginned up TV band, but all things considered, the music was pretty good. This song, one of the best, was, in my opinion, sung far better by its composer, Neal Diamond, who, in my humble opinion, has been somewhat underrated. But this is Monkees night, so here’s a Monkees version.

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Some things never change

Friday, March 9, 2012

So, since yesterday morning I’ve been spending most of my time writing under pressure, as I had two (actually one and a half) days to respond to something the other side had weeks to put together. The judge saw things my way, which was a relief, but I’m really in no mood to bend my mind to writing anything that requires actual thinking, as I’m about thunk out. So this is a no thinking required post.

My wife and I watch the Daily Show and Colbert on Hulu one day after the fact, so today we saw last night’s Daily Show, which included this skit:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Socialist Network
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

It’s not the fact that the right winger couldn’t cite an example of Obama’s socialism that struck me. That’s to be expected and is no longer worth noting. No, it was the very modern example of an age old problem for the left. This scene from one of the greatest movies of all time, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, immediately came to mind:

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Deja vu all over again

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Almost under the radar, the neocons are doing it again: setting us up for yet another can’t win military adventure in the Middle East, this time against the much tougher Iran, into which we will be dragged by the Israeli tail that keeps wagging the American dog.

Amazingly enough, we will once again be led into war by people claiming that a regime has nukes when, at least based on the evidence available, said regime does not, in fact, have nukes and all the people pushing toward war are once again pitting their own fevered fantasies against the best intelligence.

This may be Obama’s supreme test. If Netanyahu attacks Israel, he will come under tremendous pressure to join in. If he does, he will commit us to a war that will cost far more in lives and treasure than the Iraqi adventure, with longer lasting negative consequences.

It will be sickeningly interesting to see if the punditocracy and media once again mindlessly amplify the war drums-once again ignore the protests- and once again marginalize the well informed naysayers. If they do, then perhaps we can truly say that, as the right wing has so often proclaimed we must, we have unlearned the lessons of Vietnam, and the far more recent lessons of Iraq.

This might all be avoided, of course, if Obama simply agreed to attack, the sole condition being that William Kristol and Joe Lieberman’s be the first feet on the ground.

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So many suckers, so little time

Monday, March 5, 2012

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of Republican grifters. Republican/Fascist sheriff Joe Arpaio is investigating Obama’s birth certificate (any bets on what his conclusion will be?) with the help of allegedly renowned volunteer investigator, Michael Zullo, who, with the help of veteran grifter Jerome Corsi, has written a book to soak the rubes that still cling to the desperate hope that their firmly held belief that black people are ineligible for the presidency can somehow be legally established, at least in the present case.

Zullo’s book was co-authored by Jerome Corsi, a writer for the conservative website WorldNetDaily who has been hawking the notion of a phony birth certificate for years. Corsi published his own book last year called “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.”

Corsi also took part in last week’s news conference and said he fed information and documents to investigators.

He told the Phoenix TV station that he and Zullo are splitting the profits from the new book, which is similarly titled “A Question of Eligibility: A Law Enforcement Investigation into Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate and His Eligibility to be President.” Neither Arpaio nor the sheriff’s office would be making any money from the book, he said.

“Since he’s a volunteer, Mike owns his work product and as such, he’s permitted to utilize that work product for compensation,” Corsi told the news station.

Far be it from me to wish Corsi well, but as he’s going to spend his time smearing some Democrat, I heartily approve of him staying on the trail of the phony birth certificate and relieving the rubes of money that might otherwise go to real political campaigns. Someone, and apparently no one knows who, once said that there’s a sucker born every minute. Luckily, most of them grow up to be Republicans.

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A Quiz

Sunday, March 4, 2012

 

 

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