Hillary

I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I have to let it out.

Could we maybe try to get her to lose the Dr Evil look?  Just sayin'.

I know.  I'm a bad man.  I'm a very bad man.

Death Penalty

I have to admit I think there are people in the world we can do without - Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Justin Bieber - you know, the worst of the worst.  So it's hard for me to say we should lose the death penalty altogether.

That said, we need to take a good hard look at what we're doing and where we stand relative to the rest of the "civilized" world.

State-Sponsored Barbarism isn't exactly what we want USAmerica to be known for is it?

And when we're the only "free" country that still kills its own citizens on a regular basis, it seems American Exceptionalism is completely ass-over-apricots.

With Apologies

...to M Magritte.

The Treachery Of Images - 1928-29
("This is not a pipe")

His detractors all said, "Of course it's a pipe, you fool..."

And Magritte then challenged them - if it's really a pipe, then you should be able to pick it up fill it with tobacco.

"The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe?  No, it's just a representation, is it not?  So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe," I'd have been lying!"

The point is semantic (even a little pedantic maybe), but he was warning us that what we see is not necessarily what's real.  And he was doing that just as advertising was coming of age, and a good 5 years before Goebbels raised it all to a deadly art.

Great art is the act of telling lies in a perfectly truthful way.

The Man Factor

I posted a while back about some stupid dust up or another (wait a minute - this is a blog. All my posts are about some stupid dust up or another).

Anyway, one of the big Non-Troversies yesterday was that the White House had sent out "an obviously Photo Shopped" pic of Obama throwing a football.

(to wit:)

So actually, not bad - guy's got decent form blah blah blah.  Why are we attacking it?

Because The Kenyan Usurper must never be seen to possess actual Americanizing characteristics.

Because football good - Obama bad.  If Obama's good at football, then Repub Physics doesn't work anymore, and the pretend universe implodes.

Because part of that pretend universe is totally dependent on the DumAss Dems never thinking to ask, "OK - so what's your guy got?"

Where are all the pix of Romney doing manly things?  Go ahead - Google that one, and get back to me.