Quote

Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Learn and grow evil.

Be Advised

Lots to do for the holidays and such, so I'll have to be away from the blog thing for a few days.

Watch for the new Christmas letter soon.

Have fun and I'll be back as soon as I can get my shit together.

A Short Battle

The War on Christmas is sometimes just a little hard to follow.  What if some Israeli settlers attacked a busload of Palestinian Christians (eg)?

Do ya think that's gonna find its way onto DumFux News? Yer right - prob'ly not. Ma'an News Agency

We Are So Fucked

The logical companion for Perpetual War is the Perpetual Election Campaign.

Simple arithmetic - and thank God for that cuz numbers ain't my thing:  If we get a huge turnout for 2012; something that approaches the 63% level of 2006, it still means the "majority" is actually comprised of just over 31.5% of the people who're eligible to vote.  In most years, that number is more like 23%.

Guess what?  A poll from USA Today/Gallup asking about the 2012 elections shows 70% "can't wait for it to be over".  Worse yet, that number goes to 75% if you're asking people in a dozen states that figure to be the battleground next year.

There's no such thing as "political coincidence".  If something happens, it's because somebody wanted something to happen.  That's not to say the Rule of Unintended Consequences has been repealed - it's only to say  that nothing in politics happens all by itself.  Cause and Effect is alive and well.

I'll say further that no matter what the prevailing sentiment is, somebody's gonna stand in front of it and tell us he's been leading that charge all along, or he'll point to it as an example of what we need him to fix for us.

After a good 25 years of Slimecasting, and Both Sides Do It, and They're All The Same, we have an electorate with no fucking clue what's going on and no fucking way to figure out what's going on, and that gives the smart politcos the opportunity to embrace the suck and turn Voter Alienation to their advantage.

First, you can make it harder for a lot of people to vote by passing Voter ID laws; by cutting back on Early Voting and Absentee Voting; by narrowing the window for voter registration; etc - and by making the process itself even more repellent, the people you're keeping out are less willing to fight to get back in.  Then you only have to concentrate on moving a couple of percent of the "undecideds".

We didn't just turn a blind corner and find ourselves in the shit - we're here because this is where somebody wants us to be.

A Question

If God sides with the Repubs, how come He put so many donkeys in His book?

The Good Samaritan 

Born in a manger

Palm Sunday, ridin' a what?

"...with the jawbone of an ass"

Where's alla elephants at?

Rick Perry

..is a total tool.

Perry officially retired in January so he could start collecting his lucrative pension benefits early, but he still gets to collect his salary — and has in turn dramatically boosted his take-home pay. (Texas Tribune, hat tip = Balloon Juice)

And also too:

The Free Market At Work

(hat tips = The Agonist and Hullabloo)

"Welcome to the AshleyMadison.com era"

From Media Bistro:

“Now that Newt is the leading contender in the race for the GOP nomination, we felt compelled to make a point to illustrate how times have changed when a serial divorcee/adulterer is capturing the hearts of the American people,” says Noel Biderman, founder and CEO, premier online affair service Ashleymadison.com.

One From Wonkette

Wonkette is on a roll.

...what we need is another ultimately unsuccessful Third Party Candidate to safely release the steam of rage from the national pressure cooker. It worked in the 1980s and the 1990s and all the way to 2000, heh heh. (Funny how Liberal Democrats kind of lost the taste for Third Party candidates after the GOP stomped back into the White House using Nader’s cover, right?)

La Musica

Too Typical

Did the KKK use the slogan "Keep America American"? Yes. Did the Romney campaign use the slogan "Keep America American"? Yes. Is any of that in dispute at all? No. But Tweety decides (for all of MSNBC, apparently) that they have to walk it back. And the reasoning is that MSNBC should have - but didn't - get a comment from Romney first. Really? Was yesterday the only chance anybody had to call Romney? Are all the phones broken or busy today? MSNBC has not been shy about reporting on Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968, or Reagan's dog-whistle speech in Mississippi in 1980. They managed to point out the Trent Lott / Strom Thurmond / Dixiecrat connections, and they took several opportunities that I recall to remind us of Robert Byrd's KKK past. Wanna know why "Independents" keep gettin' suckered by Repubs? It's because the Dems and the Librul Media are so easy to paint as appeasers and apologizers. Grow some hair on your sack. If what you said was true, then stand up and defend it.