Sunday, October 31, 2010

Proofiness

Proofiness - Charles Seife - NYTimes.com


Elitists Find That Satan Creates Plagues, Elitists Who Don't Believe In Satan

Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds - NYTimes.com

At 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' by Two Satirists, Thousands — Billions? — Respond - NYTimes.com

At 'Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear' by Two Satirists, Thousands — Billions? — Respond - NYTimes.com: "“I’m proud of Obama, but the Democrats in Congress, they’re just running for cover,” said Ron Harris, a lawyer from Laguna Beach, Calif., who came to celebrate his 64th birthday. “They couldn’t sell bread to a starving mother if God was standing next to them.”"

Give Obama a Break - NYTimes.com

Give Obama a Break - NYTimes.com: "The sourness toward Mr. Obama reminds me of the crankiness toward Al Gore in 2000. We in the news media were tough on Mr. Gore, magnifying his weaknesses, and that fed into a general disdain. So some liberals voted for Ralph Nader, and George W. Bush moved into the White House."


It's Over, Maureen Dowd

Can the Dude Abide? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com:
"Sorry, but I can no longer stomach reading any more jibes from you..."


"Well Maureen, throw me under the bus too. I never thought that the average American would believe the death panel lies, support a political party that announced from day 2 of a President's new term that they wanted to see him fail, and not bother to cry out in protest when citizens were taking armed weapons to town hall meetings with their Congressmen/women! I now see that 50% of Americans are too stupid to realize or understand that they are currently paying the LOWEST taxes they've ever had to pay and yet demand that their uber wealthy 1% fellow citizens not have their taxes raised. Yup, cut those taxes even more and while you're at it, cut the deficit too that will only climb up while we support 2 wars the former President started and the tax cuts for the multi, multi, millionaires and corporations. Instead of calling these politicians on their lies and hypocrisy, the networks just gave them more media time.
Now those of us who have a brain are stunned to watch a Nazi impersonator, a former witch, a female wrestling groin kicker, a deranged desert racist, and a Medicare con-artist actually running for office and being taken seriously. Not only by the bumper sticker thinkers, but the media too.
Sorry, but I can no longer stomach reading any more jibes from you while you give these clowns a free pass on the eve of a crucial election that will determine whether or not we become a nation completely owned by corporations and closet PACs governed in name only by people who would fail with the first question on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" or a nation that values higher education, clean air and water, 21st century jobs, and compassion and support for its most vulnerable citizens."


 

Questions for Garry Wills - NYTimes.com

Questions for Garry Wills - NYTimes.com

Rather Amusing.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Explosives Could Have Downed Plane, British Say - NYTimes.com

Explosives Could Have Downed Plane, British Say - NYTimes.com

But to be fair, so could a flock of migrating geese.
"Pssst! I've got
200 yankee dollars
in my jockstrap."
Read a woman's mind in 60 seconds or less. Escape the friend zone and get her addicted. Click here to learn "One Minute Mind-Reading"






Thursday, October 28, 2010

Musings...

Ever get the feeling that the phrase "rammed down our throats" has been rammed down our collective throat?

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Job Losses Outweigh Administration’s Successes - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

Job Losses Outweigh Administration’s Successes - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

"I am just amazed, it took 4-6 years of the Bush administrations lack of enforcing regulations, unpaid for tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy, two wars paid for on the credit card and the list could go on to get our nation in the mess it is in and now somehow how Obama is blamed for the mess we are in and which somehow he could magically have cured it all in less than two years. We seem to be a country of very short term memories and have the ability to accept opinion and misinformation as fact. I can hardly wait to see what a Republican controlled House with do to improve the economic mess we are in. However, we will certainly blame a Republican House for not getting anything done for the next two years."

The David Brooks Guide To Loving David Brooks

by DAVID BROOKS


Rule One of Me Loving Me: When times get tough, it’s really important to believe in yourself. This is vital, because even if the public doesn’t love you, it is vital that you love you. 
And boy, do I ever approve of (love) myself.  Because no matter how little sense I make, it's okay.  Because it's an "opinion".  And as we all know, all opinions are valid.  It doesn't matter if they're correct.  And mine are here to make me feel better about myself.


So I think happy thoughts and avoid bad ones.  For example, I never read what I write--too confusing.  
Or: Think about the marvelous character of George Bush.  You didn't see him crying over a few dead bodies.  Well neither would I.  You won't see my worrying about the dead or wounded, the brain-traumatized for life, the emotional cripples, the suicidal and the suicided.  No, I really plain don't give a shit.  But the thrill of righteous American Fire Power does give me a bit of a boner.
Over the past year, many Democrats have resolutely paid attention to those things that make them feel good, and they have carefully filtered out those negative things that make them feel sad.  (I should write a childrens' books, shouldn't I? I guess a patronizing attitude comes naturally when you're as smug as myself.  You know what didn't come naturally? Admission to Harvard.  But then where would I find the bile to spew endlessly about the evils of Ivy Leaguers if I didn't hate them for keeping me out of their club? I'm happy about it, though, I really am.)
(That's why you won't see me on MSNBC where someone might actually challenge me.  Nope, stick to NPR and PBS and right here, where I can offer my highly-valid opinions without having to have supporting facts.  Why are they valid? Because I'm on PBS and NPR.)
For example, I could mention that right here in the columns of the New York Times, people like Maureen Down and Bob Herbert have regularly criticized the president. But that would be an obvious fact, and I'm really much more about opinions. 
Rule Two:  Always remember that many great geniuses were unappreciated in their lifetimes.  This is what Dubya and I regularly text each other.  It's good to know you've got a friend riding in the same life raft with you.
(Here's a fun party game--knock back a shot every time I try to breathe life into the Elitist/Meritocracy bogeyman.  You'll be fucking dead of alcohol poisoning by the time you finish the introduction to my book. (Don't blame me if you actually die, you've been warned.))
Rule Three: I will paint everything in black-and-white.  Because I'm not writing for the readers of the NY Times--I write for the people who will assure my soft-as-a-feather landing at a right-wing welfare institution for corporate shills like me who will say pretty much anything for money.
You see, loving yourself implies taking care of yourself.  No sacrifices for this Real American. Thanks for playing. 


Eugene Robinson - For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option

Eugene Robinson - For President Obama, a progressive blitz was not an option: "The votes for a full-fledged progressive agenda -- single-payer health care, for example -- simply were not there."


This Halloween: Boogeyman X - The Elitist

Regular (Real (White)) American  being observed by
one of The New Elite. (artist's rendering)
by CHARLES MURRAY
The tea party warns of a New Elite. They're right.  The tea party appears to be of one mind on at least one thing: America has been taken over by a New Elite.

"On one side, we have the elites," Fox News host Glenn Beck explained last month, "and the other side, we have the regular people."  How do you know if you're a regular person?  You're watching Glenn Beck. (Obviously.)

Regular people such as myself, Charles Murray (whoever the fuck I am--I mean, not even me has heard of me), who works for the right-wing libertarian Cato Institute, I'm just a regular person with regular values who works for a regular right-wing think-tank funded by a regular billionaire (Koch) and based on the philosophy of a regular atheist Russian ex-patriate/chain-smoking/philosopher/author/narcissist who believed that 'greed is the greatest good'.  Just like all the regular Americans out there.  I mean, go to any small town in the U.S. with more churches than bookstores and you freakin' know that this is atheist-libertarian territory.

The elites are "no longer in touch with what the country is really thinking," Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle complained this summer.  Simply because her opponent, Senator Harry Reid, grew up sand-poor but rich in parental beatings, went to non-elite, non-Ivy League colleges in Utah, this doesn't mean that he isn't one of them.

This is what makes Elitism so insidious--it can happen to anyone, at anytime.  Like Islam.  One day, you're receiving the Eucharist, and suddenly it's Monday and you're praying towards Mecca.

After all, did he stand up and proudly say, like Christine O'Donnell has, "Not only did I not go to Yale, I didn't even go to college."  This is the thing that regular Americans love: Ignorance.

But the Elite have fought back, sometimes even arguing that ignorance is a flaw, not a virtue.  But of course darlings you'll say that. You, The Elite, have struggled against ignorance all of your lives, and yet it rises up again and again like Hercules' hydra--one head is lopped and a dozen more sprout in its place.

What sets the tea party apart from other observers of the New Elite is its hostility, rooted in the charge that elites are isolated from mainstream America and ignorant about the lives of ordinary Americans.  And by observe I mean watch Glenn Beck et al and re-vomit his opinions.

Let me propose that those allegations have merit.

One of the easiest ways to make the point is to start with the principal gateway to membership in the New Elite, the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. In the idealized view of the meritocrats, those schools were once the bastion of the Northeastern Establishment, favoring bluebloods and the wealthy, but now they are peopled by youth from all backgrounds who have gained admittance through talent, pluck and hard work.

That idealized view is only half-right. Over the past several decades, elite schools have indeed sought out academically talented students from all backgrounds. But the skyrocketing test scores of the freshman classes at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and other elite schools in the 1950s and 1960s were not accompanied by socioeconomic democratization.




On the surface, it looks as if things have changed. Compared with 50 years ago, the proportion of students coming from old-money families and exclusive prep schools has dropped. The representation of African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans has increased. Yet the student bodies of the elite colleges are still drawn overwhelmingly from the upper middle class. According to sociologist Joseph Soares's book "The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges," about four out of five students in the top tier of colleges have parents whose income, education and occupations put them in the top quarter of American families, according to Soares's measure of socioeconomic status. Only about one out of 20 such students come from the bottom half of families.

The discomfiting explanation is that despite need-blind admissions policies, the stellar applicants still hail overwhelmingly from the upper middle class and above. Students who have a parent with a college degree accounted for only 55 percent of SAT-takers this year but got 87 percent of all the verbal and math scores above 700, according to unpublished data provided to me by the College Board. This is not a function of SAT prep courses available to the affluent -- such coaching buys only a few dozen points -- but of the ability of these students to do well in a challenging academic setting.

Surely this is insanity.  To allow students into college based on their ability to perform in college is...DISCRMINATION.  Against Regular (Real (White)) Americans.  The WASP aristocracy has been supplanted the WASP-Asian-Jewish-Catholic-And-God-Forbid-Even-Black meritocracy.

Far from spending their college years in a meritocratic melting pot, the New Elite spend school with people who are mostly just like them -- which might not be so bad, except that so many of them have been ensconced in affluent suburbs from birth and have never been outside the bubble of privilege. Few of them grew up in the small cities, towns or rural areas where more than a third of all Americans still live.

When they leave college, the New Elite remain in the bubble. Harvard seniors surveyed in 2007 were headed toward a small number of elite graduate schools (Harvard and Cambridge in the lead) and a small number of elite professional fields (finance and consulting were tied for top choice). Jobs in businesses that provide bread-and-butter goods and services to individual Americans, which make up the overwhelming majority of entry-level openings for aspiring managers, attracted just 1.7 percent of the Harvard students who went to work right after graduation.


After leaving their elite schools with their elite degrees, they then go to elite graduate schools, get elite jobs, live in exclusive elite neighborhoods, marry elite spouses, eat elite sandwhiches, wipe their asses with elite toilet paper, read elite books and magazines, watch elitist television, attend elitist sporting events, use elite bathrooms, go to elite hospitals, die in elite hospices, and are buried in elite cemeteries.

In brief, the system hates Real America. The America that loves to read and especially loves to read Ayn Rand (ask any pork farmer), is forced to work at the Cato Institute instead of Harvard (dicks).

The New Elite marry each other, combining their large incomes and genius genes, and then produce offspring who get the benefit of both.  With increasing cortical size comes increasing socialism and decreasing ignorance.  The ability tolerate the utter crap that the media shovels out by electronic bucketfuls such as game shows and Oprah are perceived as "not so interesting".  When I write a book that's essentially a racist diatribe about genetic differences between races, The Elite ignore it, using nasty phrases such as 'unsubstantiated', 'no evidence', or 'total crap'.

Unlike Regular Americans, The Elite will ply you with excuses when you try to talk them, claiming they are "on their way to perform surgery" or "have to litigate an appeal", even when you say you have beer and pretzels.

Regular Americans do not conform to others (go to any church); The Elite do.  And that is why you always seem them acting like elitists.

Therefore, The New New Elites are not really Americans.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com
"What rational person votes in a worse leader than the one they voted in before?"



Unfortunately we are seeing a lot of immaturity. Too many don't want to face up to their own failings.

The folks who voted for President Bush are unwilling to accept that he and his administration badly failed this country on many levels, from the atrocious deceptions perpetrated to allow him to order Invasion of Iraq, to the lack of real planning for anything after the invasion which has resulted in unprecedented use of mostly civilian armed forces reservists forced to do 4 or 5 tours, coming back to no jobs, no real medical coverage and as we just learned the situation in Iraq after the invasion was and is much worse than we feared. Then add in the severely failed economic policies of the Bush Administration on top of high financial cost of waging two ground wars coupled with nation building and Bush voters shut down totally, moving radically even further right to vote for people like Angle, or O'Donnell or Miller -- who are even less experienced and more incapable than the Bush folks. What rational person votes in a worse leader than the one they voted in before?

Congress also does not want to accept their responsibility in allowing the Bush Administration to act so long unchecked. They provided no oversight whatsoever - not over the White House, not over Wall Street, not over the Pentagon, not over the Office Attorney General, not over the SEC ... they have severely let this nation down. A majority-republican Congress gave President Bush everything they asked for, but not many Democrats spoke out loudly against Bush's policies either, being frightened by the 'if you're not with us, you must be with the terrorists' fear-mongering by Bush Administration and neocons.

And then there are the journalists - who no longer appear to do any investigative reporting at all unless it's about how Lindsey and Paris survived their jail time. Plenty of books come out after the fact, dissecting what happened, nothing beforehand questioning if the banking practices were out of control or if the Bush Administration was being fully honest as they geared the world up to 'save' America from 'mushroom clouds' coming our way from Saddam's nuclear weapons or their fear-mongering which caused massive sale of plastic sheeting and duct tape.

DAMN ME! DAMN ME TO HELL! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The Internet Doesn't Make Us Smarter - Education And Shit

What do the best classrooms in the world look like? - By Amanda Ripley - Slate Magazine: "Classrooms in countries with the highest-performing students contain very little tech wizardry, generally speaking. They look, in fact, a lot like American ones—circa 1989 or 1959. Children sit at rows of desks, staring up at a teacher who stands in front of a well-worn chalkboard."

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "If the Democrats are losing, it is because they have not yet learned to lie. As a 'reality-based' party that puts public interest ahead of power, they cannot compete with the Republicans cynical disinformation machine. The fact remains that, in 2010 America, most people are not that educated, and many people are not that smart. Advertising and marketing rely on such deficiencies to market their useless and, in some cases, harmful products, and the Republicans rely on advertising and marketing techniques to influence public opinion and, essentially, buy elections."

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

If the Democrats are losing, it is because they have not yet learned to lie. As a "reality-based" party that puts public interest ahead of power, they cannot compete with the Republicans cynical disinformation machine. The fact remains that, in 2010 America, most people are not that educated, and many people are not that smart. Advertising and marketing rely on such deficiencies to market their useless and, in some cases, harmful products, and the Republicans rely on advertising and marketing techniques to influence public opinion and, essentially, buy elections.

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - NYTimes.com

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - NYTimes.com: "Even as the G.O.P. benefits from unlimited corporate campaign money, it’s pulling off the remarkable feat of persuading a large swath of anxious voters that it will lead a populist charge against the rulers of our economic pyramid — the banks, energy companies, insurance giants and other special interests underwriting its own candidates. Should those forces prevail, an America that still hasn’t remotely recovered from the worst hard times in 70 years will end up handing over even more power to those who greased the skids."

Bush Was Right About Iraq If By 'Right' You Actually Mean 'Completely Wrong'

Over 100,000 Iraqi Deaths


"A massive cache of secret U.S. field reports from the Iraq war provides grim new details about the toll of that conflict, indicating that more than 100,000 Iraqis were killed during a six-year stretch and that American forces often failed to intervene as the U.S.-backed government brutalized detainees, according to news organizations given access to the documents by the WikiLeaks Web site."


As Maliki Clings to Power, Iraq's Fissures Deepen ...


"Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, all but assured of a second term, must now overcome Iraq's divisions."


Reversal by Sadrists Puts Maliki Closer to Returning to Power



"The compound of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose movement is backing Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki..."

Contractors Added To War's Chaos


"Contractors often shot with little discrimination — and few if any consequences — at unarmed Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces, American troops and even other contractors, stirring public outrage and undermining much of what the coalition forces were sent to accomplish."


Mix of Trust and Despair Helped Turn Tide in Iraq


"If Afghanistan is a war of small cuts, Iraq was a gash. In the war’s bloodiest months, according to the archive’s reports, more than 3,000 Iraqi civilians were dying, more than 10 times the current civilian casualty rate in Afghanistan, a country with a larger population."


Grim Picture of Civilian Casualties in Iraq


"76,939 Iraqi civilians and members of the security forces killed between January 2004 and August 2008" [official U.S. tally]


Detainees Fared Worse In Iraqi Hands



Hello America! We're back to pound you in the ass! (Again! (And again! (and again and again and again.........)))



G.O.P. Is Poised to Seize the House, if Not the Senate - NYTimes.com


Saturday, October 23, 2010

Clarence Thomas: "Please Remember All The Women I Didn't Rape"

Hi, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas here.  Just wanted to remind everyone, in spite of what certain ho's, bitches, and plain whack-ass cunts may have told you, I am not a creepy sex-pest.

After all, there are literally hundreds of millions of women in the world that haven't accused me of rape, fondling, stalking, sexually harassing, making vulgar and repulsive comments about their breast size, ass-grabbing, tit-smacking, crotch-holding, or proffering my self-published weekly newsletter  of porn reviews ("The Justice With Justice Thomas").


So just remember THAT.  And as fellow conservative David Brooks has noted, it's really all about character, isn't it?  And believe me, I'm still the electrocution-loving, justice-for-those-who-can-afford it guy I've always been. Besides, I have what ever black man dreams of--a REAL WHITE WOMAN.  I'M YOUR BOYFRIEND NOW BITCH nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom.

Iraq War Logs Detail Iran’s Aid to Militias – Iraq War Logs - Wikileaks Documents - NYTimes.com

Iraq War Logs Detail Iran’s Aid to Militias – Iraq War Logs - Wikileaks Documents - NYTimes.com: "Scores of documents made public by WikiLeaks, which has disclosed classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide a ground-level look — at least as seen by American units in the field and the United States’ military intelligence — at the shadow war between the United States and Iraqi militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards."

Friday, October 22, 2010

No Progress Please

by GEORGE F. WILL
Obama wants us to believe that energy comes form the sun.  However, Americans are too intelligent to fall victim to this insane fabrication.
As John Galton (superhero from the graphic novel, Fountainhead Rocks You, about a man who is capable of breathing only his own ego) would say, "Energy comes from burning stuff."  Just not where I live, I can afford to live well away from a power plant.

But with Barack Obama restoring solar panels to the White House roof--environmentalism as a didactic gesture--are we not witnessing evidence of a '70s revival? Even worse, Obama pledged he would do one thing during his campaign, but then--did a different thing.  What kind of topsy-turvy world is this where people don't always do precisely what they said they would do?

Witness my disgust at a politician failing to do exactly what he said he would do--surely this was the first in the history of the world.  Has anyone before Obama ever done such a thing?  And what am I complaining about? That he neglected energy policy? No. That he wanted to pass a health care bill before an energy bill.  The point is not that I hate everything he does.

It's just that I hate everything he does. And he shifted "priorities", changing #1 to #2, and #2 to #1.  Never mind that I hate, despise, and loath #1, #2 regardless of their numerical value.  The point is that I can insinuate that Obama is a duplicitous hypocrite.  Unlike every other politician I've ever opined about, apparently.

But never mind that, I have infinite amounts of disgust (after all, what else will make the world a better place?).

What further disgusts me is that not only did the Democrats fail to do anything to prevent Global Warming--which delights me--but still disgusts me that they would do anything for to try to make the world a better place--but now I'll do what I love to do.  Point out something Congress did  that was rather trivial (and disgusting) in order to contrast that with their failure to accomplish anything grander.  So not only the are the Democrats disgusting and repulsive to me as policy-makers, they're weak and spineless as well.  Not real men like the professional baseball players I love to watch for hours on end, observing their catlike grace and masculine agility in a totally non-homoerotic way.

For sheer annoyingness, the feminine weakness of the Democratics matches Congress's 1973 imposition of a 55 mph speed limit..  Is there anything more repulsive or disgusting than thinking that lives might have been saved by government?  If I had children now I would never employ a baby carrier or seat belt.  Better dead (or brain-dead) than Red.

And now the liberals decry the free use of free speech. (By which I mean speech that must be bought on TV/radio/websites.)  And everyone knows that the greatest form of communication is the 60-second commerical--who wants to read King Lear if you can get the same information in a 30-second spot sandwhiched between House MD  and a Family Guy rerun.

Furthermore, did you know that billionaires spend less on political advertising than they do on yachts and exotic foreign mistresses?

And Americans don't want help. They just want Medicare, Social Security, good roads, bridges, electricity, clean water, clean air, economic security, 24/7 access to cable TV and the Internet, and crime-free neighborhoods. And the government out of their lives.  (As long as it provides Medicare, Social Security, clean water, clean air....well you get the point.)

I hope you are as disgusted as I am.  For then we are both Americans.

Tuesdays With Tulrooney



Book Review - Daniel Patrick Moynihan - by DAVID BROOKS



Sometime in the late 1980's, I lunched (or had lunch, if you prefer) with Senator Daniel Patrick Sean O'Sean O'Shanuessey Moynihooney Tulrooney Toolrahlee.  Although most everyone seemed to call him 'Dave'.


Although outwardly liberal and eductated, he was also a Real (white) American, an elitist Ivy League intellectual liberal who was suspicious of upper-middle-class liberals (the worst kind).  Which really is the only reason why anyone cares about him today, because THANK GOD he was a Democrat.  Thus we can use quotes from his letters to bash Democrats over the head and then accuse them of supplying the blunt object.  Which is really a wonderful feeling.


For example, he argued that African-Americans had a weak family structure.  The fact that there are still poor people today--some of whom are African-American--proves his point.  The history of slavery, oppression, Jim Crow, and subtle racism such as denying loans to black-owned businesses, excluding them from better-paying union jobs, buying homes in white neighborhoods, or attending an Ivy League school with an Irish man...none of that matters.  Because money doesn't matter.  Only culture and philosophy matter.  


Sadly, the liberal elite failed to understand that racism born of ignorance is a valid opinion.  One of his few supporters was Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian whom I admire for some reason so I mention his name as often as I can.  (Although I also admire George Bush, so I would take my admiration with a rather large dose of sodium if you know what I mean.)


He became alarmed by the Democrats' abandonment of the working-class (black people don't work so they don't count, obviously).  By supporting unions and trying to stop people from being choked to death by lead, toxic waste, and air pollution, the liberal elites were hurting the working class. Somehow. 


Then came the most dreaded beasts of all--the hounds of hell unleashed: Hippies.  "The hippies have turned against mindless war and jingoism. What's next?"  


Unlike almost all other elderly people who look favorably upon the younger generation, he saw intellectual decay everywhere.  "Star Trek has been canceled. I shall never watch television again.  Not till they bring back 'Name of the Game'."


What went wrong? Partisan warfare--invented by the liberal elites.  As I recall, everyone pretty much agreed with everyone else prior to 1965.  And liberals failed to test their assumptions.  Do African-American children really need food? Who knows? We can't know for sure until this is tested in a double-blind controlled experiment with true random assignment of subjects.  


So, if you're like me, the neutral observer who just happened to have worked for a guy who wants to bomb every Middle East nation except the ones with casinos, you'll love Senator Daniel Whom-The-Fuck-Ever.



Making Ignorance Chic - Maureen Dowd

Making Ignorance Chic - NYTimes.com: "Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”"

British Fashion Victims - NYTimes.com

British Fashion Victims - NYTimes.com: "Both the new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis."

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Money Matters NOT

by YODA BROOKS
People want you to believe in many, many, many foolish things, young apprentice.  "Important is money."  "Important is food to us nourish." "Important is some action even from yonder walking syphilis vehicle, for drunk is she and therefore easy is she too."  Fools! Fools they are! Maketh a difference naught but THE FORCE.

Partisans political they are, and fools too they are.  For Americans Real (White), am I and are you.  Know thus that Swiftboating-believing am I not.

Money care for not, I do.  Yet hack am I, and so repeat same endlessly will I.  For hypocrite too am I, unless most sanguine you are.  And overpaid hypocrite likely I am, and yet gainful employment still I have though wit nor talent lack utterly do I.  Does not mine own doofishness the way of THE FORCE prove?

And yet, my young apprentice,  The Scientists Political, contend with them still I must.  For some say this, some say that, some say this and that--well I say neither (says I).

For Americans Real, money mattereth not, but mattereth only THE FORCE...and yet taxation resist they must, lest taxation upon us all THE DARK SIDE bring (it might).

For Partisan I am not, but humble Yoda I be, though media whore too am I. A FORCE WHORE.

May The Force Be With You,
Eternally Yours,
Yoda Brooks

From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of - NYTimes.com

From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of - NYTimes.com

Sunday, October 17, 2010

My Letter To Obama

Dear Mr. President:
Here's My Explanation Of It All...(being The Current Situation).

Ahem: Americans wanted FDR II, The Sequel, bearing a New New Deal...
And instead it feels more like Eisenhower II or maybe even The Phantom Menace.

P.S. The compromise thing ain't workin'. (Odd how that GOP 'respect the president' bit went out the window faster than you  can say "hypocrisy".)

Democracy For Sale! Democracy For Sale! Democracy For Sale! Free Matches And Bullets!

Return of the Secret Donors - NYTimes.com

Frank Rich - The Rage Won’t End on Election Day - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Won’t End on Election Day - NYTimes.com: "The rage was easier to parse at the Tea Party’s birth, when, a month after Obama’s inauguration, its founding father, CNBC’s Rick Santelli, directed his rant at the ordinary American “losers” (as he called them) defaulting on their mortgages, and at those in Washington who proposed bailing the losers out. (Funny how the Bush-initiated bank bailouts went unmentioned.) Soon enough, the anger tilted toward Washington in general and the new president in particular. And it kept getting hotter. In June 2009, still just six months into the Obama presidency, the Fox News anchor Shepard Smith broke with his own network’s party line to lament a rise in “amped up” Americans “taking the extra step and getting the gun out.” He viewed the killing of a guard by a neo-Nazi Obama hater at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington as the apotheosis of the “more and more frightening” post-election e-mail surging into Fox."

Jesus Wants To Know More About Jesus

Our Lord And Savior:
"I want to know more."


Jesus H. Christ, how do I find out more about Jesus?  Is there some kind of information out  there about me?  Perhaps people could come to my door and give me information? Or perhaps a web site? A web site would be cool.  

Or you know what? A book. A book with information about me.  Or better yet, a Kindle-format book so I can keep that book in my coat pocket and access it at any given time (like when I'm waiting in line for movie tickets to the next Lego Star Wars).

Or perhaps a radio show, or even a television programme, or hell, even an entire network, devoted to people to discussing me and whatever it was I did.  A few movies and musicals would be very nice as well and spread my message, although that message seems to be interpreted in radically different ways by different people.  Also something on iTunes about me would be good, why yes, even an entire radio station devoted to sharing information about me--but in musical form!

Well, I'm just throwing these ideas out there, although I'm afraid that no one is paying attention.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Condoleezza Rice Pt. 1 - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 10/13/2010 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

Condoleezza Rice Pt. 1 - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 10/13/2010 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

I can understand why she is on the show, but I cannot understand WHY she is on the show...Jon Stewart is the nicest guy in show biz; but I'd still be thinking how she told a staffer, "This war [Iraq] is going to happen." That was her response to the lack-of-evidence question. She sickens me at a gut level and I'm not even sure why--probably because she does make the effort to sound reasonable and highly educated, but as Maureen Dowd observed, she's basically a groupie.

Tea Party? Racist? No, We Just Like Racist Photoshop Jobs

  From http://obambi.wordpress.com, with the caption "Eric Schmidt's favorite photo."

But racist? Please.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

When I Talk, People Listen. As in LISTEN.

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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I'm Right Again, Even When I'm Wrong

Sometimes people come up to me and say, "David, why are you such a smug, mealy-mouthed bastard who cannot admit to ever being wrong?"

And I say, "Good question.  Probably because I've never been wrong."

Mistakes (and admitting mistakes) are not for people in my position.  They only happen to other people.  And that's why I like to simplify issues to two sides:  Because one day I might need a soft landing at some conservative think-tank.  But not because of anything I write here.  I'm far too much of duplicitous weasel to say something that can't be camouflaged as 'right-wing opinion'.  No, but someday I could have too much sherry and be caught on tape ranting about elitist Asian-Jewish lesbians have taken over America.  

You see, this is how you survive at the NY Times: Take two opposing viewpoints, imagine these are the only variables in the equation, and then feign that you (me) are (is) just an average joe caught in the middle, hoping that everyone will come to a reasonable compromise.  If this just happens to mean burning Rome to the ground, so bet it.

Speaking of averages, do I know the difference between a mean and a median? Probably not. But you probably don't either.  Some government employees might have better pay and/or benefits than some non-government employees.  The average pay and benefits of Obama runs literally into the millions--if this doesn't show that our system is broken, what does?  Since we're not talking about employers, we don't have to include them in this calculation.  The ruthless greed of our corporate leaders does not excuse the ruthless greed of our school janitors.  

And this flawless argument leads me, irrevocably, to the next step: Public employees are not entitled to any kind of job security or benefits of any kind.  In other words, they need to suffer just as much private employees do.  Sometimes I like to promise my maid a raise next week, and then the next day I fire her.  Mainly for my own sadistic enjoyment, but also to make an important point: Capitalism thrives on fear.  Therefore, fear is good.  And the more insecure and fearful all of America's employees are--the more they quiver in their boots with every outsourcing--the more they dread another medical bill--the more they worry that they won't be able to afford a pill to keep their child alive--then, America, the better off we all shall be.

And if that just happens to lower my tax rate, so be it.


Monday, October 11, 2010

More Depressing News But At Least It's Not About The FaceBook Movie

Op-Ed Columnist - Hey, Small Spender - NYTimes.com: "But if they won’t say it, I will: if job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it’s not because it doesn’t work; it’s because it wasn’t tried."

And a notable comment:
"For years Krugman has heroically, and patriotically, attempted to explain our deepening predicament using reason, facts, analysis and logic. But these cut no ice with a large minority of the American people, who prefer guns, bibles and political charlatans. It's striking that his penetrating, relentless and beautifully-written columns no longer attract even token argument from the right. It's thisl imbalance, this total lack of normal debate between the 2 sides, that depresses one most. It's like watching a game of tennis between Nadal and a frog, with the frog winning".

Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Playground Gets Even Tougher - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

The Playground Gets Even Tougher - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "Boy, I wish the Internet would stop creating such rotten parents."


Energy From The Sun? That's Fucking Un-American!

Op-Ed Columnist - An X-Ray of Dysfunction - NYTimes.com

Besides, everyone knows it comes from gasoline and whale blubber.

Something ALL Americans Can Agree On

Op-Ed Columnist - Facebook Politicians Are Not Your Friends - NYTimes.com: “THE Social Network,” you’re understandably sick of hearing, is a brilliant movie about the Harvard upstart Mark Zuckerberg and the messy birth of his fabulous start-up, Facebook, circa 2004."

The ZuckerBerg Mythos

Lord of the Internet Rings - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com:
Boy, do I wish the FaceBook Movie had never been made. Here's the REAL STORY. In a world of filled with failed dreams, misery, suffering and death, we need to have a villain, a scapegoat, a dark magician, a wicked sorcerer, a Sauron...someone TO BLAME. This week it's a man known as 'Zuck'. Next week it will be some other demon-magic, because beating a dead scapegoat gets old quick. And this one is really old. Can't we just get back to blaming the teachers' unions? (And now like the invisible Internet demon I am, I cover myself with my digital cloak retreat to my lair! Swoosh!!)

Wow, What A Surprise

Government had been warned for months about troubles in mortgage servicer industry: "Consumer advocates and lawyers warned federal officials in recent years that the U.S. foreclosure system was designed to seize people's homes as fast as possible, often without regard to the rights of homeowners."

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Rahm Emmanuel Is A Lovely, Lovely Wonderful Man Who Wants To Destroy America

by DAVID BROOKS



Enough of the Rahm-bashing! He is a wonderful man who just happens to hate and loathe America and wants to wipe it off the face of the planet. Other than that, he's a swell guy!

And of course, like all Obama staffers, he's worships the Obama and believes he is the Son of God and is therefore not only a hell-bound-blasphemer but also utterly delusional and an out-of-touch-with-reality elitist who hates Real Americans and Freedom.  And, I suspect, he once raped a freshly baked apple pie. (In fact, they say that to join Obama's inner circle, you must into the West Wing and rape an apple pie that has been decorated with an American flag while singing 'God Bless America'.  Also I have been told that you have to kiss Obama's ring while kneeling and there is a secret inner shrine with Obama on a crucifix before which every Obama staffer must genuflect.  I can't verify any of this but it all strikes me as plausible.)

So, in sum, Emmanuel and the rest of Obama's evil minions are warm, wonderful people who just happen to be hell-bent on destroying America and Christianity and everything that is good on this Earth.  We'll miss you, Rahm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/opinion/05brooks.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130452306

GOP Supports 'Tunnel To Afghanistan' Stimulus Plan

Right Now, You Could Be Watching A Movie About A Horse! How Exciting Is That? Pretty Goddamned Exciting, I Should Think, I Think You Will Think So Too.

Summing Up The Midterms 2010

Awful, Awfuler, Awfulest - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com: "Who would have thought two years ago that the election of the first African-American President would result in the resurrection of the extreme right wing cranks, the spiritual descendents of the John Birch Society? Historians will look back on our era as a time of temporary insanity brought on by a financial meltdown of epic proportions combined with the depressing human habit of placing blame where it does not belong exacerbated by a news network blaring right wing propaganda with all the subtlety of a Munich beer hall putsch."

Friday, October 8, 2010

FaceFucked (Or: I Saw It In A Movie So It Must Be True)

by DAVID BROOKS


Remember that capitalist system that I can't stop writing hopeless loveletters to, like some delirious school girl who's seen Twilight way too many times? Well it turns out that there is a downside to capitalism: ambition.

And the center of this new nightmare is Harvard: Once upon a time, it was a classy place where upper class WASPy children could drink, fornicate and knock up the girl they were then obliged to marry or at least pay for the abortion before going off to work for one of daddy's friends.

But nowadays Harvard is no longer a breeding ground for upper class inbred twits but a horribly serious place for extremely ambitious very NON-REAL Americans (cf. Elena Kagan).  In other words, not my beloved REAL AMERICANS, people who want to live sober lives industrious lives of chip-counting, union-busting, and church-going conformity.  Instead of being an elitist institution for the non-elite children of the elite (cf. Dubya), it is now an elitist institution for children fighting to their way into the elite.  Which is to say, people who rise on 'merit'.  (Many of whom come from NON-REAL-AMERICAN, ahem, "cultures".)

And as anyone who has read my columns knows, I've pretty much risen without any discernible merit or talent of any kind.  In fact my only noticeable skill is this: Turning everything in American culture into yet another dull treatise on how the world was so much better in 1959 and how much happier we would be if we would just accept that a certain amount of tuberculosis, lead paint, radioactive waste, and overt racism is good for you.

But that's not our world today--fortunately for me. I mean, what the hell else would I write about?  And as irrefutable evidence in this week's "What's wrong with modern America?", I submit a movie with a character named Zuckerberg.  Based on a real person, this movie is doubtless real, because as we all know Hollywood is the best place to learn about reality.  (Exactly why I crossed the Mines of Moria off of my places-to-visit checklist.)

So. Is  Zuckerberg, the FaceBook billionaire really an emotional cripple who cannot connect to other human beings and therefore is a living indictment of what's wrong with our Elitist Meritocracy?  Well, of course, it's everything I've been saying for years.  Because everyone was so happy in 1959.



Paul Krugman - The End of the Tunnel - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The End of the Tunnel - NYTimes.com: "We are no longer the nation that used to amaze the world with its visionary projects. We have become, instead, a nation whose politicians seem to compete over who can show the least vision, the least concern about the future and the greatest willingness to pander to short-term, narrow-minded selfishness."

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Arguing About The Deficit Is A Lot Like Sumo Wrestling


by GEORGE F. WILL
As usual, the stench of Democrats is filling my sinus cavities—yes, again.  The pig stink of their fecal hypocrisy rises from the waste pen of filth in which they live, brawling like mud-covered rikishi.  Like greedy hogs grasping for ever larger troughs, they love to spend money—our money, your money, my money—on trivialities such as keeping useless old people alive.

This is reprehensible, for this is the election where these useless old people have been more terrified of the Federal deficit than ever.  Which should be good for a good year for people who think like me (let’s call them the pure).  Why are they terrified? Because we keep telling them they should be.  Why? Because their Social Security and Medicare could disappear.  And why do we tell them that? So they will vote us into office in order that we can get rid of Social Security and Medicare.  How else will we be able to take care of useless old people?  Not with Social Security or Medicare.

I’ve Got Nothing New To Say And Now Is The Time To Say It!

by GEORGE F. WILL

 Or: If You Have A Deadline, Cherry-Pick Some Quotes From Someone Else.

(It Will Save You A Lot Of Time, And No One Really Seems To Be Paying Attention Anyway.)



On Jan. 9, 1969 (look, I just took up 15 characters of space by including an irrelevant date), (plus the comma that’s 16) Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Hmm, better have that middle name there, might have been a lot of famous Daniel Moynihans running loose at the time) wrote a memo (see, that date was important) to President-elect (he wasn’t the prez yet, but “-elect”, that’s five letters closer to me meeting a deadline) Richard Nixon (if I just said ‘Nixon’, people might be confused as to which president I had just referred), on whose White House staff Moynihan was to serve.  (See, he’s going to work for Nixon, that’s an important detail.) Moynihan wondered whether the disintegration of "private sub-systems of authority" presaged "the ultimate, destructive working out of the telos of liberal thought," in which case "we are moving from Locke to Hobbes." Imagine, if you can, Nixon's furrowed brow.  (I’m going to have this column knocked out by lunchtime!)

"Everyone," Moynihan liked to say, "is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."  This is a crucial: We don’t get to choose our own facts.  Then he added, “We are, however,  entitled to twist them into strange and bizarre logic-defying shapes that would explode MC Escher’s brain 
For example, one could make the preposterous argument that reality precedes morality.  My investigations into philosophy have found the opposite: Morality precedes reality.  Therefore, science is only real when it follows morality, and by morality I mean lowering my tax rate.  Because when my tax rate goes up, everyone suffers.

Today, seven years after Moynihan's death, conservatism's contention is that liberal politics produces a culture of dependency and a government riddled with rent-seeking -- the manipulation of government power for private advantage.  No, I’m not talking about Wall Street, or the defense industry, or the money we pay to oppressive warlords.  No, this is much, much worse: Poor people. 

Take, for example, the polio vaccine.  You may think that there is no downside to, say, public funding of nationwide or even worldwide vaccinations.  However, morality says nothing about  polio being right or wrong—it’s merely a disease.  But it does say quite clearly that stealing is wrong.  So when you steal from me, to give a vaccine to a child to prevent it from being crippled, what have you taught that child? That Government, that Science, that Reason will cure your ills.  By stealing. (From me—the most wonderful man in the world, perhaps.) 

And then what?  Why, the child will want to steal again—say to build prisons for people who will break into my home and rob me.  But how will that child know how wonderful it is to not have polio if no one has polio?   Now we have subverted God’s Will—and when it comes to stealing, He is deadset against it. Besides, if God wanted that child to not have polio, well then that child just wouldn’t.  I think that’s pretty clear.
By 1966, the civil rights movement's task was to become "a protest movement against situations rather than statutes" -- to change from upholding legal rights in the South to addressing problems of class in the North.  I mean, forget the South. That place is fucked. 


To some Indians, while Moynihan was ambassador to India: "Food growing is the first thing you do when you come down out of the trees. The question is, how come the United States can grow food and you can't?"  (I have to mildly chuckle about this, because outright laughter makes me uncomfortable and I’m suddenly possessed by a fear that someone has slipped some ether into my air supply.)  Apparently you cannot choose your own facts but you can choose which facts you ignore, since Moynihan didn’t seem to know anything about the history of either India, agriculture, or industrialization. Maybe if had looked out of the window of the embassy he would have noticed that India is overcrowded as fuck-all.  Or perhaps he would simply have chosen to ignore it.  After all, as noted above, morality precedes reality.  Reality is simply a post facto piece of detritus on morality, a superfluous growth on the body of the Divine Will.  Reality has a lot in common with cancer, when you get right down to it.  But I digress.

Okay, time to pad out the rest of my column here…On his 1974 decision to return to Harvard: "My only pleasure is that there is now a great deal of street crime [in Cambridge]. Privately the undergraduates are learning what we pigs have tried to tell them about the uses of order, as against their beloved disorder.  I heard a student was mugged and then raped in an alley. Most amusing.  Clearly she was asking for it, being a young person.”

Moynihan knew the error of the liberal expectancy -- the belief that modernity would drain the power of ethnicity and religion.  The truth of course (which I of course happen to be in on) is that people are foolish, brutish, nasty, and hateful beings for which there is absolutely no hope of improvement whatsoever.  That is why we need an elite of truth-knowers (me and everyone who thinks like me and is in the same social and ethnic group) who are able to dispense swift punishment in order to keep the truth-unknowers in line.  Though I’m really more of a middle-management functionary, passing on memos rather than signing orders for execution. That's Limbaugh's job.

Moynihan enriched America's political lexicon with "defining deviancy down" (defining as normal kinds of conduct previously stigmatized); for example, we used to know that being African-American was deviant.  Now the currents of political correctness have forced us to recognize them as fully-fledged people. 
"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of society.”  What looks like a “lynching” to some, is actually culture.  This is where the liberals steered so wrong it ain’t even funny, like an overturned turnip truck.
Okay, well I’ve put enough words in “sentences”, time send it to the editor and watch a ball game.
I love these days, it's almost like someone else wrote my column (well actually someone did).

Monday, October 4, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04krugman.html
A note to Tea Party activists: This is not the movie you think it is. You probably imagine that you’re starring in “The Birth of a Nation,” but you’re actually just extras in a remake of “Citizen Kane.”

Thank You, Ralph Nader, Thank You So Fucking Much

Let's see, what did your little presidential bid do for us, exactly? Iraq, Guantanamo, Military Tribunals, "Justice" Roberts, and then Alito. Good job. Way to go, shithead.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com


Crap That Won't Surprise Anyone Who Has Not Been In A Coma For 30 Years

Op-Ed Columnist - The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell - NYTimes.com: "O’Donnell is particularly needed now because most of the other Republican Tea Party standard-bearers lack genuine antigovernment or proletarian cred. Joe Miller and Ken Buck, the Senate candidates in Alaska and Colorado, actually are graduates of elite universities like those O’Donnell lied about attending. Rick Scott, the populist running for governor in Florida, was chief executive of a health care corporation that scooped up so many Medicare and Medicaid payments it had to settle charges for defrauding taxpayers. Rand Paul, the scion of a congressman, is an ophthalmologist whose calls for spending restraint don’t extend to his own Medicare income. Carl Paladino, the truculent man of the people in New York, grew his fortune as a developer with government handouts and favors. His California bookend, Carly Fiorina, received a golden parachute worth as much as $42 million from Hewlett-Packard, where she liquidated some 20,000 jobs."