A Ballsy Ad

I'm not asking anybody to try to match the Repubs crazy-for-crazy, but I really would like it if the Dems could finally getup on their hind legs.



And BTW, Dems - when you don't stand up and make a lotta noise about the Repub Stoopids wanting nothing but more cuts, you're helping people make the case about "both sides", which adds to the gridlock in Washington, which adds to the paralysis of the electorate, which makes it impossible for cooler heads to prevail once the shit really hits the fan.

Step up or step aside.

La Musica

Sarah Jarosz and The Milk Caron Kids, Austin City Limits

Mile On The Moon




Years Gone By

Today's Jesus Ain't

Jesus ain't your toady, Huck.

The American ISIS

...meets the Islamic Klan(?)

Whatever I'm doing on any given Saturday morning isn't more important or educational than listening to The Professional Left podcast from driftglass and BlueGal.

Starting at about 37:00, they get to the meat of something that sounds about right.  Even if it does end up seeming a little obvious, when somebody connects a coupla dots for me, and there's the sound of a click in the upper part of my brain, I know I've become aware of something worth learning about.

Anyway, listen to it and then tell me there's nothing to worry about with something like the Bullshit Revisionist History Curriculum in Colorado (eg) right now.

It's important to believe as many true things as possible, and to not believe as many false things as possible. (paraphrasing Matt Dillahunty)

And Away We Go

Farther down that long and slippery slope.  From Rolling Stone:

"In terms of a clear national picture of what kind of military equipment is going to K-12 schools through the 1033 program, we don't have a 100 percent transparent picture," says Janel George, education policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That lack of transparency is one reason the Legal Defense Fund and Texas Appleseed are asking the DLA to end the 1033 program's relationship with school districts and school police departments. George also emphasizes that excessive force against students by school police is already far too common, with many school officers armed with weapons like tasers and pepper-spray. "The concern is not only the potential harm when you add in military-grade weaponry – we're talking about M16s, AR 15s and grenade launchers. It's also, how does this exacerbate existing school climates that are already tense? And how does that contribute to the criminalization of youth of color in particular?"

The disproportionate punishment of Black and Latino students for the same behavior as their white peers is so well-documented that, earlier this year, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education expressed concern that such disparities may constitute a widespread civil rights violation. The fact that students of color, as well as students with disabilities, are so much more likely to be referred to law enforcement leads advocates to wonder: On whom are such military weapons likely to be used?

"In LA, if you depend on public schools – and given that the vast majority of students are students of color – at the moment you walk into school, your interaction with police automatically grows," says Manuel Criollo, director of organizing at the Strategy Center. "You depend on a public service, and that public service is attached to the criminal legal system. Are the police there for [the students'] safety, or are they there because they perceive them as a threat?"

Like the man said - "this country is finished".



All we're doing now is arguing about who gets to do what with the corpse.

The KrugMan Speaks

I haven't put up any of Paul Krugman's stuff for a while, mostly because it gets pretty dense and since I'm generally likely to go along with the conclusions he draws, it doesn't seem necessary for me to keep flacking it.  But that's kinda the problem - I'm convinced, and so I have what I think is a reasonable expectation for certain actions to follow; certain policies to be put forward and debated and eventually enacted.  

I understand that "the other side" is thinking the same way, but c'mon - amending the US Constitution to ban abortion and same-gender marriage?  Killing unions by force of law? Denying working people a living wage while funneling billions of tax dollars into corporate off-shore accounts?  Slashing Medicare and poverty bennies?  Turning Social Security into a cash cow for Wall Street?  Privatizing the water supplies?  Ya gotta be some kinda serious butt-plug radical dip-wad to call any of that "reasonable".

So anyway, here's Krugman in Rolling Stone, defending Obama - something I've been reluctant to do (not that RS has ever asked me - ahem).  But y'know what?  With all the time we spend bitchin' about Obama's Neo-Liberal bullshit, I still can't see how those other guys are anywhere near any kind of an improvement.

When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.

And I wasn't wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions.

Today's Pix

 

My Country My Ass

"I feel like a stranger, in the land where I was born" --Quicksilver Messenger Service

• Vigilante "Justice"
• School kids and their teachers massacred
• Rise of Hate Groups
• Increase of 400% in death threats against the prez.
• Voting Rights legislation gutted
• Fracking
• Pipelines for the dirtiest oil on Earth
• Corporation = person
• Coat hangers for women stuck in poverty
• Disappearing middle class
• Schools for profit
• Wars for profit
• Prisons for profit
• Innocent citizens murdered by the cops
• Coin-operated politicians
• Deliberate Congressional gridlock
• Police Department funding by seizure of citizens' property
• Cutting benefits for the poor
• Subsidizing the rich
• Minority rule
• GMO gag rules
• Money = Speech
• Government by religion
• Death penalty and botched executions
• Guns Guns and More Guns

USAmerica, Inc - not brought to you by:

hat tip = Left Turn Only

Close Encounters

...of the ironic kind - from KPTV in Gresham OR:

GRESHAM, OR (KPTV) - A man openly carrying his new handgun was robbed on a Gresham street by a man with a gun of his own.

Police were called out to the area of 172nd and Glisan Street at 2:10 a.m. Saturday.

Investigators said the 21-year-old victim bought a handgun earlier in the day and was openly carrying it while talking to his cousin.

They said a man approached them and asked for a cigarette. Talk eventually turned to the victim's new purchase, before the robber pulled his own gun from his waistband and said, "I like your gun, give it to me," according to police.

The victim handed over his gun and the suspect ran away.

The suspect is described as a light-skinned black man, 19 to 23 years old, 6'1" with a skinny build. He had black, wavy hair and was clean cut, except for a small patch of facial hair on his chin. The man was wearing gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops.

The weapon he used in the robbery was described as a black gun, possibly semi-automatic. The stolen gun is a black Walther brand, model P22. It is semi-automatic and .22LR-caliber.

There's a rube born every minute - and 2 to steal the gun he thinks he needs to feel good about himself.

Bye, Felicia

Huckabee loves to whine about how Repubs are losing their "moral edge", and so he throws the usual fits and tantrums, but he's not about to give up his power.  He intends to do what losers always do - he's going to go sulk.  I'm pretty sure he has a decent enough organization in place by now - mailing lists and phone bank volunteers and operatives and ad makers et al - that he'll never want for money, and that he'll be a thorn in everybody's side for as long as he cares to draw breath.  That's how it works.  Money & Power - once you've got one, you can get the other.

And always remember that these guys want lotsa things, but the only reason "democracy" is  on the list is because it sounds good to the rubes who're constantly being duped into voting against it.

hat tip = Crooks and Liars

Happy Birthday, Mr Lennon

Whatever Gets You Thru The Night --John Lennon (w/ Elton John)

Small Wonder

I really don't get a lot of what Rush Limbaugh has to say.  And I'd like to think it's mostly because I'm just not that dumb.  But sometimes, it's even harder than usual for me to understand, unless I stop and remind myself that it's a show.  Like most of the wingnut junk out there, it's just a show.  The fact that millions of rubes gobble it up and then make voting decisions based on this bullshit is a disaster worthy of George Carlin's fondest imaginings, but that's a different puddle of puke waiting for us at a different subway station.

Today's wonderment is:  Limbaugh is always on some kind of rant about Political Correctness, but if he's so dead set against it, then why does he so often use the terminologies of Political Correctness?  In this clip, he even goes so far as to manufacture a phrase like "British African-Americans".

The guy is an obvious phony, but when I remember that he's been at it for 25 years - and that he's amassed a personal fortune of $400M doing it - I have to stand in awe of that level of hucksterism.

hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors

Some Day

...maybe we'll all have something to look forward to besides more of the basic "same shit, new day".

And if you've got kids in college - well, just make sure they know how to change a tire and work a cash register.

Gettin' It

From MMA via Crooks & Liars:

Get HBO Right Now

...if for no better reason that to catch John Oliver (most) every Sunday at 11pm.



And again - how come it seems like the "comedy" shows are the only ones on TV where you can get some real news about some of the real shit going on up in this joint?

hat tip = Wonkette

Results Matter

We're constantly being bitched at about how the results of what we're trying to accomplish are always a lot more important than just trying to do whatever it is we're trying to do.

OK - so this...

...has been going on for quite a while, and since abortion is still a major bugaboo for you Xianists, I'm just wondering - if prayer works, how come it ain't working for you guys?  Are you doing it wrong?

BTW - this seems like a reasonable response:

And actually, any response that isn't just automatically caving in and blindly ceding the "moral high ground" would be OK with me.  Cuz, y'know what - if the Rubes are always praying for Jesus to end abortion, and abortion just keeps rollin' on, don't we have to stop and at least consider that maybe Jesus is Pro Choice?

Hunting Season

The hacking cough and the stinging eyes of an allergic reaction to leaf mold; the clogged and overflowing rain gutters due to 3 days of drizzle; the joy of being awakened just before dawn by the dulcet tones of gunfire in the woods behind my house.  Ah yes - these are but a few of the glories of Autumn in central Virginia.

Let's be careful out there.

Listen To Charlie

Logical fallacy is the bread-n-butter of American Media.  Almost everything that goes out on TV & Radio, or into what's left of the Dead Tree Publications business is going to include some level of "Yeah but the Democrats" and "Both sides do it" and "It has to be all and only this way or all and only that other way".  

Wanna know where all that False Equivalence and False Dichotomy shit gets us?

Here's Charlie Pierce to 'splain some of it to us:

What we had in the AIDS epidemic was political opportunism married to what became obvious ignorance. What we are seeing now, promulgated by a conservative bubble machine that has built a self-sustaining universe around itself, is political opportunism married to an active campaign of disinformation. This is a terrible thing. The people making a profit out of it are people who are too lazy to mug old ladies or swindle the blind. The people making a profit out of it are people without consciences, people who are as free of patriotism as they are free of the inconveniences of having a soul. These are dangerous people, and it's far past time for the honorable people in my profession to stop treating them like the worthless hacks they are. They are no longer cute. They are no longer funny. They are no longer the respectable "other side" of some fanciful imaginary political debate. They are dangerous propagandists. They are peddling poisonous lies and putting people's lives at risk. Every journalist who treats them as anything else, and every politician who treats them as anything else, are actively abetting evil.

Take, for example, Laura Ingraham, who cashes a very nice check from ABC News in addition to her day job as a radio flamethrower. Ingraham has begun to traffic in "alternative" theories about Ebola, treating a virus as though it were another vote to suppress or immigrant to bash, and lending her microphone to fringe nitwits because panic is profitable, and because almost everything, even a rare disease, is worth throwing at a president you don't like.

Like the man said - the earth is a roughly spherical body that turns on its axis about once per day and orbits the local mid-sized star about once every 365 days, and while you're entitled to believe otherwise, your opinions to the contrary don't mean diddly-shit.

--and--

The country simply cannot go on this way, with one of our two political parties completely insane, and with a counter-cultural universe that claims the right to promulgate its own science as equal to the science produced by actual scientists, and with this dangerous lunacy treated as legitimate by powerful people who ought to know better. As I once wrote, it doesn't matter how many people vote for the anti-gravity party, you still can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. A dangerous disease is not a matter of debate. Your profitable fantasy and the reality of the disease do not deserve an equal place in the discussion of what we as a society will do about the disease. The response is going to have to be precise and empirical. It is going to have to be impatient with cant, and immune to the delusions on which demented ideology feeds.

It's kinda important to believe as many true things as possible, and to not believe as many false things as possible; and so it's really really really important to be able to tell the difference.

Listen to driftglass and BlueGal every Friday, and almost every time, you'll get a decent reminder on how to spot the "both sides" crap.

If It's Not About Football

One of my basic themes is "It's not about what they tell us it's about".

Things change, and that's a necessary thing - not necessarily a good thing, but a necessary thing nonetheless.  And it seems to me that we've changed our way into some weird place where we think we have it all figured out - eg: with computerized automation, we can build things to an amazing degree of accuracy, within tolerances that we only dreamed about 35 years ago.  Productivity is thru the roof and the costs of production are so low, we can afford to waste billions of dollars shipping goods from cheap-labor countries to low-price consumers and still turn record-breaking profits, etc etc etc.

And yet, with all our big-brain accomplishments, it would appear the world around us insists on going up in flames anyway, as we sit and wonder what we're doing wrong.  Which led me on a typically circuitous path to remembering the scene from North Dallas Forty (the book, which was pretty good; not the movie, which was bloody fucking awful) where the D Lineman finally goes off on one of the coaches, saying "Whenever we say it's a game, you call it a business; and whenever we call it a business, you say it's just a game."

So, maybe we could take a look at the NFL as an example of our obsession with a kind of robotic pursuit of smash-fitting people into a marketing department's spreadsheet model of perfection -  per Steve Almond:

What kept me hooked was the limbic tingle familiar to any football fan, the sense that I was watching an event that mattered. The speed and scale of the game, the noise of the crowd, the grandiloquent narration and caffeinated camera angles—all these signaled a heightened quality of attention. The players dashed about, their bodies lit in a kind of bright funnel of consequence.

There are all sorts of laudable reasons people watch sports, and football in particular. We wish to reconnect to the unscripted physical pleasures of childhood. We wish for moral structure in a world that feels chaotic, a chance to scratch the inborn itch for tribal affiliation. Sports allow men, in particular, a common language by which to converse.

When we root for a team, the conscious desire is to see them win, to bask in reflected glory. But the unconscious function of fandom is, I think, just the opposite. It’s a form of surrender to our essential helplessness in the universal order. In an age of scientific assurance, people still yearn for spiritual struggle. Fandom allows us to fire our faith in the forge of loss. Because our teams inevitably do lose. And this experience forms the bedrock of our identification.

Backing a team helps Americans, in particular, contend with the unease of living in the most competitive society on earth, a society in which we’re socialized to feel like losers.

That’s the special sauce that capitalism puts on the burgers. It’s how you turn citizens into efficient workers and consumers. You convince them that they are forever falling behind.

Today's Colbert

The Colbert Report
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