Lax, Brah

A shot so wicked hot, it's got the defense duckin' for cover.

The Repubs' Closet

A Tea Party GOPer named Marilyn Davenport caused a ruckus over the weekend by forwarding an email featuring this picture:

And of course, the usual firestorm is in progress with local GOP officials calling for her to step down, while her supporters defend her.  And the comments sections of every story I've read so far are filled with righteous indignation and tit-for-tat name-calling, but also there's a shortage of the usual "both sides do it" bullshit, and I've seen only a couple of comments that try to rationalize Davenport's act.

So maybe there's something else at work too.

Scott Baugh (OC GOP Chair) says he thinks Davenport should resign despite her apologies, because "her presence on the committee would remain controversial and provide a distraction."  He goes on to acknowledge the email as "extremely racist", but somehow, the racism isn't why Davenport should resign?

Maybe the Repubs recognize they have a real problem with what their base has become - or at the very least that they have a huge PR problem when the actions of the Tea Partiers seem to confirm the Lefties' accusations that the GOP has been hijacked by a bunch of racist assholes.

I dunno, but the Repubs have to get a hold on this shit if they ever want a chance to win me back.  This is exactly what drove me away from the Dems when their fringey nutballs decided to challenge Carter in 1980, and then thought it was a good idea to nominate Fritz Mondale in '84.

A Poem

The Genius of the Crowd --Charles Bukowski

There is enough treachery, hatred,
           violence,
Absurdity in the average human
           being
To supply any given army on any given
   day.
AND The Best At Murder Are Those
   Who Preach Against It.
AND The Best At Hate Are Those
   Who Preach LOVE
AND THE BEST AT WAR
--FINALLY--ARE THOSE WHO
PREACH
               PEACE

Those Who Preach GOD
   NEED God
Those Who Preach PEACE
   Do Not Have Peace.
THOSE WHO PREACH LOVE
   DO NOT HAVE LOVE
BEWARE THE PREACHERS
Beware The Knowers.

           Beware
           Those Who
           Are ALWAYS
           READING
           BOOKS

Beware Those Who Either Detest
   Poverty Or Are Proud Of It

BEWARE Those Quick To Praise
For They Need PRAISE In Return

BEWARE Those Quick To Censure:
They Are Afraid Of What They Do
Not Know

Beware Those Who Seek Constant
Crowds; They Are Nothing
Alone

           Beware
           The Average Man
           The Average Woman
  BEWARE Their Love

Their Love Is Average, Seeks
Average
But There Is Genius In Their Hatred
There Is Enough Genius In Their
Hatred To Kill You, To Kill
Anybody.

Not Wanting Solitude
Not Understanding Solitude
They Will Attempt To Destroy
Anything
That Differs
From Their Own

           Not Being Able
           To Create Art
           They Will Not
           Understand Art

They Will Consider Their Failure
As Creators
Only As A Failure
Of The World

Not Being Able To Love Fully
They Will BELIEVE Your Love
Incomplete
AND THEN THEY WILL HATE
YOU

And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect
Like A Shining Diamond
Like A Knife
Like A Mountain
LIKE A TIGER
LIKE Hemlock

           Their Finest
           ART

from The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966, Black Sparrow Press

Try This One Out

I stumbled onto this blog today, and it seems worth a look.

A sample from one of the articles:

Humans can be an untrusting race. People are often very cynical about human nature, tending to think that strangers will happily lie to us if there is something in it for them.

We intuitive believe that being cynical is an advantage in detecting lies. Or so Nancy Carter and J. Mark Weber found when they asked a group of MBA students whether people high or low in trust would be better at detecting lies in others (Carter & Weber, 2010).

The results were as we'd expect: 85% thought low trusters are better than high trusters at lie detection.

Is this the right answer though? Are low-trusters really better at detecting lies?

Doing Well...

...by doing good.

My old friend Ed Freeman talking with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey about a lot of things, like reclaiming certain aspects of capitalism, and stripping away some common misperceptions of free markets and Adam Smith, and a bunch of other stuff.  I still don't agree with all of it, but I know Ed to be one of the good guys so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The suits at Darden School of Business don't allow embedding, so follow this link to YouTube.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KeaR0G-DxU)

Rand Of The Day

FIght The Power

The Sound Of Nausea

This is one of those times I wish I could spell the sound I make when I puke.

Matt Taibbi has another great piece in Rolling Stone.

...with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment.

-and-

This is the deal of a lifetime. Think about it: You borrow millions, buy a bunch of crap securities and stash them on the Fed's books. If the securities lose money, you leave them on the Fed's lap and the public eats the loss. But if they make money, you take them back, cash them in and repay the funds you borrowed from the Fed. "Remember that crazy guy in the commercials who ran around covered in dollar bills shouting, 'The government is giving out free money!' " says Black. "As crazy as he was, this is making it real."

Get Obama

Lots of talk about a primary challenge of Obama for the 2012 nomination.  I guess I kinda see what it's about - trying to get Obama's attention; trying to move him to the left a little; trying to get him to act like the guy everybody thought he was promising he'd be way back in 2008.  But it's a little weird.  In one way, a primary challenge is exactly what the Repubs would do, so it brings up the question: Why do the Dems keep insisting on acting just like the Repubs?  But the other side of it is that the supporters of a challenge are saying their point is to get Obama to stop acting like a Republican.

So it's all pretty convoluted and Judo-ey.

I've read some posts and comments saying it might be a good thing just to send the message to Obama that Bush Lite sucks as bad as Bush Regular did, and he needs to get on with making the changes we think he promised.  I'm thinking the last time they tried this, Carter got run over by Reagan and we all fell for a bunch of horse shit happy talk.

There's even a certain thread running thru some of the blogs that says we should let the Repubs get their way, and when the whole system collapses just like the lefties say it will, well that's OK - that'll show 'em.  It's tempting to go along with that, but I'm just not feeling up to the whole Armageddon thing right now.  And isn't the notion of some huge final struggle of good vs evil pretty much a Republican thing?  If you wanna beat these guys, ya gotta stop letting them set the parameters for the fight.

Little Education Is Required

We can kill public education all together now - we have the good people at Home Depot going out of their way to learn us up on the essentials.