Little Jimmy (updated)

(update) - From a story at The Boston Herald site

James O'Keefe strikes again!  Except he doesn't.  Here's the video of O'Keefe's latest escapade, attempting to demonstrate the urgent need for Voter ID.



I'll certainly agree with the basic premise that we have to look after the integrity of our elections process - no argument there.  But this Voter ID thing is a solution in search of a problem.  And while we're at it, how come the "party of personal responsibility and small government" is being so adamant about getting Big Gubmint to step in on this one?  Can you say "Nanny State", bitches?

Anyway, Ryan Reilly at TPM has the breakdown.  (hat tip = Balloon Juice)

“Who in their right mind would risk a felony conviction for this? And who would be able to do this in large enough numbers to (1) affect the outcome of the election and (2) remain undetected?” Hasen wrote.

That quote hits it smack on the head for me.  Again - Voter ID (eg) is not about what they tell us it's about.  So what is it?

Pick Them Cherries

A facebook friend posted this.

When this kinda junk shows up, my habit is to put up some smartass comment on their wall, but this guy's not the usual brand of bible-thumper; I detect very little condescension in his attitude.

So I'll confine my own dismissive and condescending comments to my little blog here.

Anyway, using the formula depicted near the end of the video, we see that Hard Work = 98%, Knowledge = 96%, and Attitude = 100%; but Love Of God = 101%. Yay.

But wait - it gets better. Bullshit = 103%. And if you really really wanna score, then Pious Baloney = 139%. No wonder Gingrich was taking those shots at Romney the other night.

Miracle At Mile High

(posted by a facebook friend)

Iran

Sounds plain to me. Iran is not on the verge of getting the bomb. That means all the crap coming from guys like McCain and Lieberman (et al) is meant to focus attention on Iran for other reasons. (ie: this "issue" is in keeping with my basic premise that it's never about what they tell us it's about) So what is it?

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

We Are So Fucked

From Mother Jones:

For the German chemical giant Bayer, neonicotinoid pesticides—synthetic derivatives of nicotine that attack insects' nervous systems—are big business. In 2010, the company reeled in $789 million euros (more than $1 billion) in revenue from its flagship neonic products imidacloprid and clothianidin. The company's latest quarterly report shows that its "seed treatment" segment—the one that includes neonics—is booming.

The nexus of Crop Engineering, Corporate-Funded Research, and Regulation Capture scares the fuck outa me.

And BTW: Ain't no such thing as National Security when it's not safe to breathe the air, drink the water, or eat the food.

Double Speak

In the 40 years I've been voting, every time anybody runs for President, he ends up talking about what he'll do - or what we need to do - "to restore America to greatness".

When you say something like that, doesn't it have to mean you think America is a pretty crappy place right now?  I know it's just a rhetorical gimmick, but it seems like whoever says that kind of thing will always also say that he's 'plain-spoken'; that he says what he means and means what he says, and blah blah blah.  And then he'll turn around and say that the US is - not was, and not will be - but is the greatest.

So when do we get a guy who does actually give it to us straight?  We don't.  Well, we did let that guy in a coupla times.  Bobby Kennedy grabbed us by the collar in 1968 and made us look directly at our own shittiness in places like Appalachia and Viet Nam - we felt so bad about it, we had to shoot him in the head, and then vote for Nixon so we could get us a little law and order up in here.  We went back to the well in 1976 but that guy turned out to be Jimmy Carter, who also told us way too much truth about way too many things that really bummed us out.  Carter managed to avoid being shot in the head by being extraordinarily adept at shooting himself in the foot - but anyway, we went back to voting for guys who knew how to wave the Big American Dick; guys who could help a bunch of petting zoo ponies pretend to be racing studs.

They lie to us because we insist on it.

Pots And Kettles

I couldn't look at this and not see people like Willard and Lil' Newt.
(hat tip = Balloon Juice)

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If I Hafta Tebow 'Round The World

(my sincerest apologies to Marvin Gaye for the title)

Cults of personality are occasionally interesting, sometimes powerful, often dangerous - and generally hard not to watch.

Especially when they're more than a little weirdly ironic.

Smoke And Mirrors

I've been noticing lately that the officiating in the NFL has been something less than stellar.  This isn't a terribly new thing.  The players get bigger and faster, and the game speeds up, and it can take a while for the Stripes to catch up - pretty simple formula.  What really bugs me tho' is that I don't see any of the blown calls on any of the highlite shows, and I never hear any of the commentators talking about it either.  It starts to look a lot like a media blackout.

I'm not saying the games are rigged, but I will say that in the absence of scrutiny, the potential for dastardly behavior will flourish in sports, business, government, religion, whatever.

Connecting those dots with any of these other dots may a bit of a stretch, but it feels like there's a real corollary at work here.

(hat tip = HuffPo)

Chickens Come Home To Roost

Gee - it's just like 1970 again.  The cops are not your friends...

(hat tip = The Agonist)

From care2 make a difference:

Sometime between the time he was arrested on March 27, 2009 around 2:00 p.m., and March 31 at 1:23 p.m. when he was pronounced dead, Christie had been sprayed with ten blasts of pepper spray, also known as OC (Oleo-resin Capsicum), which is a derivative of cayenne pepper.

  ...and the world is a ghetto.

Today's Slogan

Corporations are made of people, but that doesn't mean corporations are people.

Romney Is As Romney Does

via Wonkette:



We've been told for a very long time that 'creative destruction is the natural order of things'; that if we go against the forces of the Free Market we'll only get bad results from our good intentions.

(I realize giving Romney et al the benefit of the doubt here is a huge strain on credulity, but I need to bypass the demonization for a moment.  Besides, I imagine it'll be a good long time before we see a shortage of opportunities to call him names.)

Anyway - the intent was not to stiff these guys and put them out of work.  The intent was to make the company more efficient - more competitive in a global market, to help it evolve, and thus at least to survive long enough to hire these guys back; or to thrive in a way that pumps enough dollars into the local economy so other companies could hire them.  That's how it's supposed to work.  That was the intent.

But I can't look at what actually happened to the people who made up that company and then make any credible claim that 'capitalism didn't fail those people, they failed capitalism'.

So if our intentions were good, and we got bad results anyway, then we have to examine our Methods and Practices to find better ways of doing things.

Today's Pix

Is This Heaven? No, It's Iowa

Santorum lost by 9 votes - here's how it happened (via Crooks and Liars).

Both Sides

Seems to me:

Dems tend to use polls to figure out what We The People are thinking, and where we might wanna go if somebody actually stood up and decided to lead us somewhere.  Maybe that's partly why the Repubs hate calling them democrat-ic.  Anyway, Repubs seem to use their polling to help them decide how to attack public opinion in order to change it enough to suit their agenda.

However slight you believe them to be, there are differences.

d r i f t g l a s s has a good look at it from a wider perspective (quoting a piece from truthout.com):

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.