Political Blackface

Whenever Ben Shapiro's paymasters get to feelin' under-appreciated, a little public fellatio is in order.

And this is precisely what Colbert does with regard to politics: he engages in Conservativeface. He needs no makeup or bulbous appendage to play a conservative – after all, conservatives come in every shape and size. Instead, he acts as though he is a conservative – an idiotic, racist, sexist, bigoted, brutal conservative. He out-Archie Bunkers Archie Bunker. His audience laughs and scoffs at brutal religious “Colbert” who wishes to persecute gays; they chortle at evil sexist “Colbert” who thinks men are victims of sexism. This is the purpose of Colbert’s routine. His show is about pure hatred for conservatives in the same way that blackface was about pure hatred of blacks. In order to justify their racism, racists had to create a false perception of blacks; in the same way, Colbert and his audience can justify their racism only by creating a false perception of conservatives.

And so, the message here is that "conservatives" are the real victims? Sounds like Shapiro is saying that Colbert's antics are somehow evidence that "conservatives" are being held down and oppressed, and treated unjustly simply for having suffered the great misfortune of being born to privilege? The (mostly) white (mostly) guys in the corner offices who came up thru the hard-knock ranks of prep academies and Ivy League-type business schools; the ones with the trophy (ie: heiress) wives and the obscenely fat bank accounts, and the fashionably skinny mistresses and the interlocking networks of wealth and power - those are the guys who're being mistreated?

What's your next column, Ben - "We are not amused!"?

From the comment thread:

Walkin' On The Sun --Smash Mouth

It ain't no joke I'd like to buy the world a toke
And teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
And teach the world to snuff the fires and the liars
Hey I know it's just a song but it's spice for the recipe
This is a love attack I know it went out but it's back.
It's just like any fad it retracts before impact
And just like fashion it's a passion for the with it and hip
If you got the goods they'll come and buy it just to stay in the clique

So don't delay act now supplies are running out
Allow if you're still alive six to eight years to arrive
And if you follow there may be a tomorrow
But if the offer's shunned you might as well be walkin' on the sun

Twenty-five years ago they spoke out and they broke out
Of recession and oppression and together they toked
And they folked out with guitars around a bonfire
Just singin' and clappin' man what the hell happened
Then some were spellbound some were hellbound
Some they fell down and some got back up and
Fought back 'gainst the melt down
And their kids were hippie chicks all hypocrites
Because fashion is smashin' the true meaning of it

So don't delay act now supplies are running out
Allow if you're still alive six to eight years to arrive
And if you follow there may be a tomorrow
But if the offer's shunned you might as well be walkin' on the sun

It ain't no joke when a mama's handkerchief is soaked
With her tears because her baby's life has been revoked
The bond is broke up so choke up and focus on the close up
Mr. Wizard can't perform no godlike hocus-pocus
So don't sit back kick back and watch the world get bushwhacked
News at 10:00 your neighborhood is under attack
Put away the crack before the crack puts you away
You need to be there when your baby's old enough to relate

So don't delay act now supplies are running out
Allow if you're still alive six to eight years to arrive
And if you follow there may be a tomorrow
But if the offer's shunned you might as well be walkin' on the sun

You might as well be walkin' on the sun
You might as well be walkin' on the sun
You might as well be walkin' on the sun
You might as well be walkin' on the sun

Friday Briefs

R-O-N-A-L-D = 6

W-I-L-S-O-N = 6

R-E-A-G-A-N = 6

Uh oh.

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Wasn't there a good guy with a gun at the high school in Pennsylvania where that bad guy with a knife stabbed 22 kids?

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Also too - aren't we wondering just a tiny bit about why nobody's jumping up and down trying to point out that every one of those kids is still alive?  Cuz it was a knife instead of a fucking gun!?!

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This Just In

From the fine folks at UC Berkeley (of course - where else, right?). Well, no - it's The Onion actually, but it'll be fun to see if any of the usual knot-heads feel the need to get crazy over it.

But since we know there's a double-digit percentage of mush-brained dopes who'll believe anything you tell 'em, why not go ahead and present this as just something else all them libtards are trying to force us real 'Murcans to take on faith...?  They're not likely to check it out for themselves (these are the geniuses who have access to practically every tiny speck of truth ever discovered, but who still believe in Bigfoot, ChemTrails and FEMA Camps for fuck's sake).  And even if they do check on it, part of their programming is to reject anything they hear that contradicts the crap they're being fed 24/7, because it's further evidence of how vast and pervasive and deep-rooted the lefty conspiracy is.  So yeah - why not just let it play?

Challenging long-held views on the origins of divinity, biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, presented findings Thursday that confirm God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, evolved from an ancient chimpanzee deity.

The recently discovered sacred ancestor, a divine chimp species scientists have named Pan Sanctorum, reportedly gave rise over millions of years to the Lord Our God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

“Although perhaps not obvious at first glance, there are actually overwhelming similarities between the Supreme Being of today and this early primate deity who preceded Him,” said Dr. Richard Kamen, a leading biologist who also heads Berkeley’s paleotheology department. “The holy chimp moved around on all fours, but its descendants eventually began walking upright to expend less energy while foraging across the infinite reaches of the universe. This of course led to the bipedalism of modern-day God.”

“In fact, you can see a distinct likeness to God in the chimpanzee deity’s skeletal structures, not to mention its prototypical expressions of vengeance and wrath,” Kamen continued. “The great-ape god was, however, considerably smaller in stature, having not yet developed the capacity to occupy all space and time simultaneously.”

According to experts, divine life began as a single-celled all-powerful organism roughly 3.6 billion years ago, eventually evolving into a multicelled, sponge-like deity that bobbed and floated across the chaos of the early universe. Kamen explained that over hundreds of millions of years, the godlike life form became more complex, with limbs that allowed for locomotion across the endless expanse of the heavens, and sophisticated photoreceptor cells capable of seeing all things.

Based on newly obtained evidence, the Pan sanctorum is thought to have first experimented with creation ex nihilo around 7 million years ago. Kamen noted that the chimpanzee deity made several early attempts to produce rudimentary solar systems, but on each occasion was spooked upon inadvertently creating fire, which is said to have caused it to screech loudly, angrily swat away the newly formed sun, and then scamper across the universe to hide from the flaming sphere.

“Natural selection played a huge role in the evolution of divinity, and in this regard, the adaptive value of Pan sanctorum’s immortality proved critical to its survival,” said Kamen, adding that with its opposable thumbs, the divine ancestor was eventually able to fashion primitive tools for creating crude oceans and basic mountain ranges. “Today’s Lord Almighty actually still has a small bony protuberance in the small of His back, the vestigial remains of a tail we believe was used by an even older, monkey-like god to facilitate climbing, allowing it to escape into the heavens when faced with danger.”
“That potential for threats made it an evolutionary imperative for the primate god to develop omnipotence,” Kamen continued. “As well as sharp claws and pointed incisors.”

Though its smaller brain limited its cognitive abilities, the chimpanzee deity is believed to have possessed not only self-awareness, but also spatial intelligence, object permanence, and a rudimentary capacity for knowing all that is, all that has been, and all that ever will be.

However, it was only relatively recently that the heavenly species developed the intellectual capacity for higher reasoning, critical thinking, and infinite wisdom, according to Kamen. For Pan sanctorum, he noted, the passage of divine judgment was “purely a matter of primal instinct.”

“While complex speech would not emerge until the evolution of the Cro-Magnon god from Pan Sanctorum, the chimpanzee deity was capable of using grunts and hand gestures to convey basic emotions such as happiness, anger, or the forgiveness of sin,” Kamen said. “However, it appears that the chimp deity often exhibited extremely aggressive behavior, in some cases unleashing its divine wrath with little if any provocation toward the mortal chimps it created in its own image.”

He added, “It is our understanding that these creatures lived in a kind of jungle-like forerunner to the Garden of Eden, until a day came when their enraged creator cast them out, flinging feces at them as they fled.”

Ending On A Happy Note

- not.  Sorry, but here's the bad news from those thousands of lying bastards who do all that stoopid science stuff that makes it hard to relax and enjoy my motor sports on TV - and they're gonna completely ruin it for everybody if they don't stop this left-wing conspiracy-ing which is really all about forcing us to drive little girlie cars and ride bicycles like a buncha those faggy French guys and we're not even gonna think about taking the bus cuz that's just icky, and they're all so nerdy and mean about it I could just spit:

"No one on this planet will be untouched by climate change," IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri announced. The report warned that climate impacts are already "severe, pervasive, and irreversible."

The IPCC report was one of many released in recent weeks, and all of them bring dire predictions of what is coming. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a report warning that "the rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades." The report went on to warn of the risk "of abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes in the Earth's climate system with massively disruptive impacts," including the possible "large scale collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, loss of the Amazon rain forest, die-off of coral reefs, and mass extinctions."

 --and--

NASA released the results of a study showing that long-term planetary warming is continuing along the higher end of many projections. "All the evidence now agrees that future warming is likely to be towards the high end of our estimates, so it's more clear than ever that we need large, rapid emissions reductions to avoid the worst damages from climate change," lead author and NASA climatologist Drew Shindell said. If he sounds alarmist, it's because he is, and with good reason. The NASA study shows a global increase in temperatures of nine degrees by the end of the century.

This is consistent with a January Nature study on climate sensitivity, which found we are headed toward a "most-likely warming of roughly 5C (9 F) above current temperatures, which is 6C (11 F) above preindustrial" temperatures by 2100. Bear in mind that humans have never lived on a planet at temperatures 3.5C above our preindustrial baseline.

Charlene Dill

A 32-year-old woman with 3 kids has died in Florida because she couldn't afford the medication for her heart condition.

She had 3 jobs at the time of her death - somehow scraping by on $9000 a year - and she died in the middle of demonstrating a vacuum cleaner in somebody's home, trying to make a few bucks.  So let's not pretend she was just another loser, looking for taxpayer freebies because she was too lazy to work.

From Orlando Weekly, via Wonkette:

Dill, who was estranged from her husband and raising three children aged 3, 7 and 9 by herself, had picked up yet another odd job. She was selling vacuums on a commission basis for Rainbow Vacuums. On that day, in order to make enough money to survive, she made two last-minute appointments. At one of those appointments, in Kissimmee, she collapsed and died on a stranger’s floor.

Dill’s death was not unpredictable, nor was it unpreventable. She had a documented heart condition for which she took medication. But she also happened to be one of the people who fall within the gap created by the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, which was a key part of the Affordable Care Act’s intention to make health care available to everyone. In the ensuing two years, 23 states have refused to expand Medicaid, including Florida, which rejected $51 billion from the federal government over the period of a decade to overhaul its Medicaid program to include people like Dill and Woolrich – people who work, but do not make enough money to qualify for the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies. They, like many, are victims of a political war – one that puts the lives and health of up to 17,000 U.S. residents and 2,000 Floridians annually in jeopardy, all in the name of rebelling against President Barack Obama’s health care plan.

And from an Op-Ed piece in Roanoke Times, here's Andy Schmookler:

Imagine that the American people elect as president someone promising to institute an important reform to address an obviously major problem - a problem that every year costs the nation a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of lives.

Imagine further that, once elected, the president tries to fulfill his promise with a moderate solution based on ideas from the other party - more moderate than the policies of all the other major democracies on the same matter.

How do you think our nation's Founders would feel about an opposition party that responds to all this by going all-out to block enactment of these reforms, making the reform worse, trying to overturn the reform even before it's tried and hindering its proper implementation?

I think our Founders would be outraged. They'd say that once the people make a fundamental choice, the question then is what is the best way to implement what the people have chosen?

Our Founders gave us a system combining two important virtues: giving the people ultimate power to make fundamental decisions about what kind of society we'll be and providing for thoughtful deliberation on the best way to realize the people's goals. That's representative democracy.

Let's also not pretend that the stupid political games being played in state capitals and Washington DC had nothing to do with the death of Charlene Dill.  It seems important to me that 3 kids in Orlando have lost their mom because politicians in Tallahassee were busy scoring points by blocking everything that could've prevented it.

So it comes down to this: Some of us are trying to do something to keep Ms Dill and her  kids from having to go through that kinda shit, while some of us are doing exactly the opposite.

Logical Fallacy #9 - Special Pleading

Wikipedia: Special pleading (also known as stacking the deck, ignoring the counterevidence, slanting, and one-sided assessment[1]) is a form of spurious argument where a position in a dispute introduces favourable details or excludes unfavourable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exception.[2]

The lack of criticism may be a simple oversight (e.g., a reference to common sense) or an application of a double standard.

A more difficult case is when a possible criticism is made relatively immune to investigation. This immunity may take the forms of:
--unexplained claims of exemption from principles commonly thought relevant to the subject matter. Example: I'm not relying on faith in small probabilities here. These are slot machines, not roulette wheels. They are different.
--claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhaps because too remote or impossible to define clearly. Example: Cocaine use should be legal. Like all drugs, it does have some adverse health effects, but cocaine is different from other drugs. Many have benefited from the effects of cocaine.

In the classic distinction among informal (material), psychological, and formal (logical) fallacies, special pleading most likely falls within the category of psychological fallacy, as it would seem to relate to "lip service", rationalization and diversion (abandonment of discussion). Special pleading also often resembles the "appeal to" logical fallacies.[3]

In medieval philosophy, it was not assumed that wherever a distinction is claimed, a relevant basis for the distinction should exist and be substantiated. Special pleading subverts an assumption of existential import.

Today's Quote

“The organization of American society is an interlocking system of semi-monopolies notoriously venal, an electorate notoriously unenlightened, misled by a mass media notoriously phony” --Paul Goodman (American writer, activist 1911-1972)

A Quick Check

As of this morning, there are 18 states in the US where it's legal (in one way or another) to marry someone of your own gender:
CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, RI, VT, WA

There are also 8 aboriginal tribes in the US who say it's alright.

And, here's a list of other countries and/or cities with some kinda of accommodation for Marriage Equality:

Argentina
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark

England
France
Iceland
Mexico - Quintana Roo and Mexico City
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal

Scotland
South Africa
Spain
Sweden

Uruguay

Wales

I like to go back and check on certain things - particularly things that politicians say when they peer into the mists of the future and make bold predictions of outcomes and consequences when they're either in favor of or opposed to the enactment of policy.

So I did a cursory search, and I've found a coupla things I think are worth noting.

1) In places where Marriage Equality is the rule, more people are getting married, and the Marriage Failure Rate is unchanged. "Gay Marriage" is not destroying anybody's marriage or anybody's family.  Families and marriages are in fact being destroyed - by unemployment, PTSD, Wall Street leeches and phony foreclosures, boredom, doctor bill bankruptcies, infidelity (whatever the fuck that even means), etc - but people getting married to people they love?  That one just ain't on the list.

2) There has been no increase in the reporting of "Criminal Bestiality" - which happens to remain a legal activity in 12 states btw - so there's been none of the dread Man On Dog Sexual Perversions that all the "conservatives" knew had to follow closely on the heels of any and all attempts to pull the ginormous Religiosity Stick out of Rick Santorum's ass.

Can we get on to the important shit now, please?

Today's Quote

There is no peace, sir, in this land. Can peace exist with injustice, licentiousness, insecurity, and oppression? These considerations, independent of many others which I have not yet enumerated, would be a sufficient reason for the adoption of this Constitution, because it secures the liberty of the citizen, his person and property, and will invigorate and restore commerce and industry. An additional reason to induce us to adopt it is that excessive licentiousness which has resulted from the relaxation of our laws, and which will be checked by this government.  

-- James Madison, Speech To The Virginia Ratification Convention, June 6, 1788.

hat tip = Charlie Pierce

Econ 101

Hidden Costs - that's always one of the big bugaboos when somebody's trying to teach you about how to run a business.

What about the hidden costs to taxpayers, and the corrosive effects of so many tax dollars finding their way into the offshore accounts of people who run very big, very profitable companies?  We don't hear that one mentioned very often - mostly what we get is that crap about Welfare Cadillacs and Food Stamp Lobsters.

hat tip = HuffPo

Spending puts money into circulation, which creates demand, which causes prices to go up, which makes it profitable to hire more workers, which creates supply, which requires spending, which puts money into circulation...

Ya gotta be careful with sustainability - nothing can expand forever - but without some kind of growth, there is no life.  So ya still gotta make that big ol' wheel go 'round.

Also too - ya gotta be a little careful and at least not completely fucking stoopid when it comes to how you spend all those bucks.

Wal-Mart is a fair example of a company just pretending to be all about the free market, while actually being a multi-billion-dollar leech.

And speaking of leeches:  Kinda related, here's a quick look at the empty promises (and outright fallacy) of another type of outfit turning nice fat profits (mostly) by trying to shoehorn something into Free Market Principles that won't fit and doesn't belong there in the first place:

However, operating non-profit charter schools can be very profitable for charter school executives like Eva Moskowitz. Moskowitz earns close to a half a million dollars a year ($485,000) for overseeing school programs that serve 6,700 children, which is over $72 per student.

--and--

The head of the Bronx Preparatory School earns $338,000 to manage schools with 651 students or over $500 per student.

--and--

The head of the Our World Charterearns $200,000 to manage schools with a total of 738 students or $271 per student.

--and--

The local head of the KIPP Charter Network earns $235,000 to manage schools with 2,796 or $84 per student.

--and--

By comparison, the chief educational officer of Texas is paid $214,999 to manage a system with almost 5 million public school students(*).

 (* = less than 5¢ per student.  A little arithmetic reveals that if the guy in Texas was being paid half of what Eva Moskowitz averages per student, he'd be pulling down $180 Million a year)

So, the only way you're gonna get the top talent is to throw fuckloads of money at people; but that only works in the "private sector" (and it seems to apply only to upper management, and not to the people who're doing the actual work at places like Wal-Mart); and throwing fuckloads of money works in the "private sector" when it comes to "educating" kids in Charter Schools, but you can't possibly expect the same results in Public Schools, cuz hey - we already tried throwing fuckloads of money at public schools and it didn't work, so the only thing that makes any sense at all is to throw fuckloads of money at private schools, where I'm sure doing exactly the same thing will in fact achieve a different result.

This isn't about Free Enterprise or Entrepreneurial Spirit or any of that Harvard Business School bullshit - the whole point of the exercise is to figure out how to funnel tax dollars into your own pockets.  Oorah - git some.

We are so fucked.

Rain

It started raining very early this morning.  And from what I understand, it's raining all over the place.

It's raining on very rich people, and it's raining on very poor people, and it's raining on everybody in between.

How long must we endure the monstrous  tyranny of this evil socialist rain!?!

Too Typical

Sometimes, it looks pretty simple - spend 4 or 5 years convincing the rubes ObamaCare is a Job-Killing, Granny-Murdering, World-Ending monster, then make a very public show of voting to "repeal" it (50 times), all while continuing to make as much noise as possible about what a horrible thing ObamaCare is so the rubes continue to send in their money and forward all those idiotic emails and most importantly, turn out to vote.

Then, while they're all busy getting their hate on across the river at CPAC, do some very quiet mending of ACA - slip some amendments into marginally related bills in the house and get it taken care of before anybody notices you're doing exactly the opposite of what you say you're doing.

Just make sure you have some plausible-sounding bullshit to cover your ass - like you were only trying "to help the small business owner".

Here's the AP story from 4-1-14:

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the prodding of business organizations, House Republicans quietly secured a recent change in President Barack Obama's health law to expand coverage choices, a striking, one-of-a-kind departure from dozens of high-decibel attempts to repeal or dismember it.

Democrats describe the change involving small-business coverage options as a straightforward improvement of the type they are eager to make, and Obama signed it into law. Republicans are loath to agree, given the strong sentiment among the rank and file that the only fix the law deserves is a burial.

"Maybe you say it helps (Obamacare), but it really helps the small businessman," said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., one of several physician-lawmakers among Republicans and an advocate of repeal.

No member of the House GOP leadership has publicly hailed the fix, which was tucked, at Republicans' request, into legislation preventing a cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

It is unclear how many members of the House rank and file knew of it because the legislation was passed by a highly unusual voice vote without debate.

PoliticusUSA from March 11:

What makes this news all the juicier is that Boehner and company introduced these bills last Friday while conservatives were distracted by CPAC. The right wingers were screaming about repeal from across the river the Republican leadership was submitting legislation that improves the law. On at least fifty previous occasions, Republicans tried to pass off attempts to repeal the law as improvements. In this case, Republicans are actually doing their jobs.

The GOP is pretty sure the rubes can't handle anything more complicated than a 10-word bumper sticker; partly of course because that's what Repubs have been selling the rubes for a very long time - that all you need is some common sense, and if you ever need more than that, well then, it's just because those bad old Dumbocrats wanna make it difficult for hard-working real 'Mericans like y'all to understand it - so just send me a few more dollars and I'll keep fighting to take USAmerica Inc back from the dirty brown hordes who don't carry the right guns to the right church on Sunday, and even when they do, they don't worship in the right language or study the right book, and did you know some of their churches actually take Food Stamp money and pass it on to Obama's campaign fund? - or some other fucked-up mashup of god and Daddy Reagan and the sanctity of the 2nd amendment and Mom's home cookin' and FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It should be obvious that the GOP (I should say the not-crazy-as-a-bug-fuck wing of the GOP) does not want ObamaCare to go away for the same reason they don't really want Roe v Wade overturned - because they need the issues, which provide the heat, which sweats the bucks outa the faithful, which buys the advertising, which turns out the vote, which wins re-relection, which keeps them in power.  Unfortunately, Repubs have been catering to the crazy-as-a-bug-fuck wing for so long that they're in danger of being consumed by these Monsters Of The Id that they've created.

I don't like making predictions, but I like what probably happens if the bug-fucks get put in charge of the US Senate even less.

Sideliner Yeah-But: what if the group of Mega-Donor decisions by SCOTUS makes it even harder for the GOP to maintain their fictions about appealing to grass-roots voters?  I doubt that's a big concern because "conservatives" don't like to change much of anything - especially their way of "thinking" - even when new information comes to light, but sometimes, when the Big Money pops up, the little money shrinks back to where it all but disappears.  If you're a little strapped for cash to begin with, sending $20 to a political campaign gets a lot harder when you know there's somebody out there already pumping millions into it.  So why bother?

Anyway - these people still have no soul and no honor.

WWJD?

If Jesus worked in advertising or PR:



I'm not convinced Jesus was a real guy.  It makes more sense for me to go along with the idea that "he" was an amalgam - pieced together from a lot of old stories about heroes and newer notions of how maybe we could do things a little differently; that instead of always reacting in a knee-jerk way of meeting force with force, we should at least consider just being kinda relaxed and groovy.  I certainly prefer the Hippie Jesus of peace and love to the Badass Jesus that gets pimped at us constantly by One Million Moms - or Several-Dozen-Screaming-Twatwaffle-Goons - or whatever wacko faction du jour happens to have found something that offends them after deliberately going miles out of their way to find something that offends them.

A Moldy Oldie

Driftglass and BlueGal brought this up on their podcast this week - it's something I kinda remember now, but I'd forgotten about it completely.

The original isn't up at TPM anymore, but going thru the thing and clicking more or less randomly on some of the links, it's still intact.  And while it's old info, the principle is the same: Political Bait-N-Switch, and an awful lot of straight-up hypocrisy.


Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some expamples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy
You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a prlimentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) -- 114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hourswhen you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attemted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Moaist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn critizising the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of 'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconcilliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the madates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheatingon your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coherce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole
You really need to dissassociate with those among you who:
--assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";

--say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";
ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;

--liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";

--say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";
equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;

--say that the president wants to "annihilate us";

--compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);

--equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";

--call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";

--shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);

--prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;

--claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";

--question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;

--claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;

--call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;

--call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);

--call the Pope the anti-Christ;

--assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;

--accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers, drunk and suicidal;

--equate family planing with eugenics or Nazism;

--accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;

--accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and

--advocate a traitorous act like seccession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).

History
If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
--call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;

--elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";

--state that America has been built by white people;

--say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;

--call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );

--assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;
--declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
--joke about blindness;
--advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
--taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
--equate gay love with bestiality -- involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
--casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";
--assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testacles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
--attack children whose mothers have died;
--call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);
--condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
--complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americansbecause of their race;
--blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
celebrate violence, joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale);
and
--incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.

Oh, and I'm not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response: No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

John Allen :: An open letter to conservatives by Russell King

More Than Words --Extreme

Saying "I love you"
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew how easy
It would be to show me how you feel

More than words

Is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
'Cause I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying "I love you"

More than words

Now that I've tried to talk to you
And make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands
And touch me
Hold me close, don't ever let me go

More than words

Is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
'Cause I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real

What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying "I love you"

Songwriters
BETTENCOURT, NUNO / CHERONE, GARY F.

Published by
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

These Foolish Things --Ella Fitzgerald

The winds of March that make my heart a dancer

You've Been A Good Ol' Wagon --Dinah Washington

Nobody needs a clown when a good man can be found.

Google Dude

If Google was actually a research assistant.

Part 1




Part 2

Logical Fallacy #8 - Personal Incredulity

A form of Argument from Ignorance:

Arguments from incredulity take the form:
P is too incredible (or: I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false.
I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false; therefore P must be true.

These arguments are similar to arguments from ignorance in that they too ignore and do not properly eliminate the possibility that something can be both incredible and still be true, or appear to be obvious and yet still be false.