Here We Go Again

From The Guardian:

In a sign that Obama believes he has the legal authority, independently of Congress, to launch a strike, Carney said that allowing the chemical weapons attack to go unanswered would be a "threat to the United States".

It's not at all clear what we're fixin' to do, but when the White House intones a certain combination of magic words (eg: "threat to the US"), then it's pretty clear we're fixin' to do somethin'.  And never mind that some asshole Syrian colonel used poison gas to settle an old score (what? it's as likely as anything else we've heard).  The point is that it poses practically no serious "threat to the US".

(boiler plate): It's never about what they tell us it's about, so we have to assume we don't know what Obama knows.

Let's hope Obama knows a shitload more than I do; and that what he knows includes the very real probability that Assad might have something Russian or Chinese up his sleeve.  A piss-ant like Assad usually won't do what we tell him not to do unless he's got some real backup from some heavy friends.

Obama said he'd do something if illegal weapons were used, and now he has to follow through.  But if he goes in there with a big swingin' dick, he's likely to get a very rude surprise.  Since that's not Obama's style, maybe we can expect to hear about whatever we're planning to do after the fact - and it'll be like Osama bin Laden all over again.

Today's Pix

Today's Wonderment

So, tell me again - why is everybody always so down on The Media?

Outrage and shock and dismay, oh my! It was all over Facebook the last coupla days too.

C'mon - really?  With all the really weird and horrible shit going on in the world, Miley Cyrus is what we need to worry about?

And when I stop to think about it for a moment, maybe the people who're throwing their little hissy fits might wanna thank her for letting them retreat back into the fantasy of believing an exhibitionist teenager is at the root of all our troubles.

Today's Quote

God love Charlie Pierce, especially for having sense enough to love Little Jemmy Madison:

Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.  -- James Madison, Political Observations, April 20, 1795.

A Brief Moment Of Enlightenment

Libertarians (for lack of a better label) are opposed to ObamaCare because taken to the logical extreme - which is where an awful lot of 'em seem to be located now - they have to be opposed to any and all efforts to suck them into any and all kinds of Collaborative/Cooperative/Collective endeavor.

It's not that they object to ObamaCare per se - they have to object to the very notion of Insurance itself.  The idea of getting together with a bunch of people you don't know and can't trust is off-putting enough, but being forced to pool your resources with these unwashed, unwelcome, undeserving miscreants?  Child, please.

Insurance is the Communism of Capitalism, and it must be avoided by all self-respecting Rugged Individuals.

Pay What You Owe

So here we go again.  We're still in a position of having to borrow money from ourselves to pay the bills, and we'll have to raise the debt limit (again) in the next coupla months, and of course that means the Repubs are making noise (again) about "getting some concessions" from the president in exchange for their support.

OK - as if we weren't all just sick o' this shit - here it is (again):  The House of Representatives decides how much money we're going to spend on what things.  It's right there in Article 1 of the US Constitution - look it up.  The Prez and the Senate and your dead Aunt Tilley can submit budget requests until Michele Bachmann grows a brain, but nobody spends one brass farthing if John Boehner and his merry band of Sludge Divers don't agree to it ahead of time.

So Boehner says it's OK to spend the money; Obama spends the money; and then Boehner says whoa, you spent too much money - we'll have to punish you for spending the money we told you it was OK to spend, so instead of paying for all the shit we told you to buy, we're going to shut down the whole government until you agree to keep us from telling you to spend all that money next time, which will cause our credit rating to drop, which will cost us even more money - and it's all your fault.

How in the blue-eyed-buck-naked-fuck does this make sense to anybody?

Our Glorious Empire

If this pic doesn't enbiggen very well for you, go to Federacion de Asociaciones Cannibicus for a better look.

Today's Best Blog Line - #2

"Ignorance Arbitrage"

Here's the whole post from No More Mister Nice Blog:

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

EVEN THE TRIVIAL TALKING POINTS FROM THE RIGHT ARE DISHONEST

I saw that Newsmax was pushing this ridiculous story and wasn't sure it was worth a post, but now I see it's a front-page story at Fox Nation, so here's the ridiculousness:

'Butler' Box Office Sales Plummet by One-Third

The movie "Lee Daniels' The Butler" saw its weekend box office receipts plummet by nearly a third, from $24.6 million in its opening week to $17 million last week, after a storm of protests from Republican and veterans groups.

The film depicts a White House butler who served eight presidents, and has come under fire for its portrayal of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy as being racially insensitive and for casting Jane Fonda as the first lady.

Supporters of President Reagan and veterans groups especially have criticized the film, with some calling for boycotts....

Oh, its box office plummeted? By nearly a third? And it's all because of boycotts by Reagan lovers and Jane Fonda haters? (Or, as the Fox Nation headline implies, because America has suddenly become tired of Oprah Winfrey?)

Nonsense. Every movie that reaches #1 at the weekend box office "plummets" the next week. Boycotts aren't necessary -- moviegoers just move on.

Yes, The Butler's box office dropped 33.0% in its second weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. But the previous #1, Elysium, suffered a54.1% drop in its second week. Before that was 2 Guns: a 58.4% drop.Before that was The Wolverine: a 59.9% drop. Before that was The Conjuring: a 46.9% drop.

Do I need to go on? In fact, The Butler had the smallest second-week drop for a #1 movie since Identity Thief back in March.

This story is up at Fox Nation even though Rupert Murdoch runs a movie studio. It's not as if the moviegoing habits of Americans are unknowable to the Fox media empire.

But this is what I call the right-wing media's "ignorance arbitrage." The conservative purveyors of this nonsense know it's nonsense. But they know they can sell it to people who don't. And that's what they do.

Today's Best Blog Line

Actually it's more like the naming of a concept - something I've been trying to find for a very long time now:

Compulsory patriotism does nothing for soldiers who risk their lives -- but props up those who profit from war

So simple - like the Jitterbug - it plumb evaded me.

From a piece in Salon by an English professor at Virginia Tech:

In addition to donating change to the troops, we are repeatedly impelled to “support our troops” or to “thank our troops.” God constantly blesses them. Politicians exalt them. We are warned, “If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.” One wonders if our troops are the ass-kicking force of P.R. lore or an agglomeration of oversensitive duds and beggars.

Such troop worship is trite and tiresome, but that’s not its primary danger. A nation that continuously publicizes appeals to “support our troops” is explicitly asking its citizens not to think. It is the ideal slogan for suppressing the practice of democracy, presented to us in the guise of democratic preservation.

 --and--

In reality, the troops are not actually recipients of any meaningful support. That honor is reserved for the government and its elite constituencies. “Support our troops” entails a tacit injunction that we also support whatever politicians in any given moment deem the national interest. If we understand that “the national interest” is but a metonym for the aspirations of the ruling class, then supporting the troops becomes a counterintuitive, even harmful, gesture. 

Today's Freedom From Religion

This is Eddie Castillo - a student at Texas Tech:

Eddie is fighting the good fight.  The Texas DMV allowed him to wear his pasta strainer for his driver's license picture.

From Raw Story:

A Texas Tech student said that he was celebrating religious freedom for atheists when he fought to wear a pasta strainer on his head in his official driver’s license photo.

KCDB reported on Saturday that Eddie Castillo spent four months researching and contacting government officials before he got approval to wear the pasta strainer, which he claims is religious garb worn to “worship” the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Castillo is part of a group of “pastafarians,” a name coined by atheists protesting the Kansas School Board’s decision to teach intelligent design in 2005.

“You might think this is some sort of a gag or prank by a college student, but thousands, including myself, see it as a political and religious milestone for all atheists everywhere,” Castillo told KCDB.

Way to go, Eddie.