Texas? This is why!

Apparently, the last time the State of Texas tried to legalize and legislate bigotry and stand in the way of social progress, there was a loophole that spared at least one group.  Well, seeing as how Texas has never been a State to allow a minority group to go unpunnished, it is now a top priority for them to fix this oversight.

Texas? This is why the rest of America hates you. Seriously.

And Conservatives? This is why you suck. Seriously.

All people are created equal, huh?  One vote, one voice, huh?  Freedom and small government, huh? (That's the BIGGEST joke with the RW fools!)  I just have one thing to say to all these flag-wavers on the Right who continuously wipe their collective, ignorant, backwards, back-sides with our Constitution:

GO FUCK YOURSELVES, YOU HYPOCRITICAL, SELF-RIGHTEOUS, UN-AMERICAN SCUMBAGS!

And... that's all I have to say!

Interesting Article, needs a better title...

Sorry for all the cracked.com article lately.  The real world is just so frustrating & depression that, yes, I've spent most of my time reading a comedy site that specializes in dick jokes.  BUT... They do do a good job writing pieces that are political in nature, although they (1) hardly ever realize it, and (2) IMHO, try VERY hard not to be liberal.  (Which makes them almost as bad as the MSM, but Cracked at least does some actual... what's the word?  Oh yeah: RESEARCH!)

Anyway, here's a really good piece on environmentalism, or rather, it sounds that way from the title: The 5 Biggest Backfires in the History of Disaster Relief.  BUT, if they had any real balls, and weren't so afraid of being accused of being liberal (or just embracing the liberalism that lies right beneath the surface of 99% of what they do, even though they can't bring themselves to just come out and admit it) they might called it: Four Ways Conservatives and Industry Fucked Up the Environment Even Worse, and what Happens when one Liberal Starts Acting Like a Conservative.

Or maybe: What Happens when Conservatives do a Half-Assed Job of Being Liberal and when a Liberal Out-Conservatives the Conservatives.

Read it with one of THOSE (far more accurate) titles in mind, and enjoy.  The moral: Industrialism, Unilateralism and Conservatism SUCKS, and people really need to start LISTENING to environmentalists.

Beautiful Song

So, there I was, at the gym, right in the middle of my second set of biangle presses when this... absolutely, amazingly beautiful and moving song comes across on Pandora.  Have you ever been brought to tears by a song while you're in the middle of lifting weights?  The irony of that juxtaposition of imagery is not lost on me, believe me. LOL.  But this song is just... incredible.  I'm not one of those who often  romanticizes the whole "greatest generation" thing - and I've had more than enough of the "baby boomers" to last ten lifetimes - but this was one of the most poignant tribute to the men and women who served in WWII that I've ever heard.  Here it is, The War was in Color, by Carbon Leaf:



I just find that so incredibly moving.

BTW...Speaking of WWII, here's Cracked.com doing revisionist history the CORRECT way, as opposed to the Glenn Beck way: Five widely believed facts about WWII that are bullshit. Three cheers for the American, jingoistic education system, huh? In all fairness, I'm not saying that we should now blindly treat all of these as facts. But they certainly are interpretations that warrant some serious thought and consideration. (As opposed to the revisionist crap that Glenn Beck vomits out, which is only food for thinking how mindnumblingly stupid and/or completely bat-shit insane Glenn beck is.)  Anyway, the article certainly gave me a lot to think about.  Very interesting.

Anyway, I declare April 20 to be National "Punch a Conservative who thinks Liberals don't honor the Troops" Day! Who's with me? LOL.

One last thing, going back to the music. A few songs later Great Big Sea's rendition (they sofa king rock!) of "Dunken Sailor" came on. You know:

What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
Earl-lie in the morning?

And the verses are along the lines of:

Shave his belly with a rusty razor!
Shave his belly with a rusty razor!
Shave his belly with a rusty razor!
Earl-lie in the morning!

And years ago a friend of mine who's also a huge fan of Irish music gave me an absolutely inspired LAST VERSE for the song. Whenever I sing it (car, shower) I always end with:

Put him at the helm of the Exxon Valdez!
Put him at the helm of the Exxon Valdez!
Put him at the helm of the Exxon Valdez!
Earl-lie in the morning!

Cheers!

Stuff my Dad Says

This post (and it's title) is meant as a somewhat satirical example of "false balance."  I had some fun with my mother the other day, so I've got to have something from good old Dad, right?  Well, yeah I do, but... Strangely the original statement in question was actually something I agreed with, 100%.

There he was reading the Wall Street Journal, when he comes across a story about the cobra that escaped from the Bronx Zoo.  Specifically, that someone had thought to set up a twitter account (@BronxZoosCobra) so the "snake" could tweet about it's ensuing adventures.

I don't remember his exact words, but they were something to the effect of, "What a stupid story.  What the hell is wrong with people?"

And... Yeah: I agree 100%.

Giant cobra escapes from the zoo? THAT'S a story.

Some numb-nuts opens a twitter account? Uh... No. Sorry.  That's not even all that clever, actually.

Yep.  We're getting pretty stupid as a nation, we both agreed.

Of course... We'd have a very different opinion about exactly WHY that is, and who's driving it, and what should be DONE about it.  As it was the conversation ended there. But I found great irony in the fact that it was lost on him that this was RUPPERT MURDOCH'S Wall Street Journal!

And you know what I think about all these stupid, bullshit stories about now only tweeting snakes, but all the inane celebrity bullshit stories - marriage, divorce, arrests, rehab...?  You know what that is?

It's CONSERVATIVE BIAS.

That may strike some people as an odd conclusion, seeing as how so few of these stories have much to them in the way of political overtones.  But that's just the point.  If we're constantly fed nonsense about celebrities, reality TV and tweeting snakes, not to mention truly anomalous court cases, and government "waste" which collectively adds up to about 0.001% of the overall budget, what are most of us NOT thinking about?

Well, just to name a few things: The War in Iraq, Global Warming, Gas Prices, High Unemployment, the Erosion of our Manufacturing Base, the Stagnation of Middle Class Wages, Discrimination, Inequity, Exploitation, Pollution, our failing schools, our crumbling infrastructure, the Right's war on Social Security, the Right's war on Science, the Right's war on Religious Freedom, every promise Obama broke, every lie the Right told us about Obama, the crimes committed by Bush & Cheney that Obama let go unpunished (shit: un-INVESTIGATED, even!), etc, etc, etc...

See... It's not a coincidence that the WSJ has to fill at least some of their pages with bullshit now.  (And to the extent that liberal publications do the same thing, just to bring in the readers, I lament the necessity, but say "shame on you" at the same time.  That's the biggest flaw with HuffPo, for example: Too much Celebrity bullshit.

It would be easy to say that the TWO biggest issues with the media are: (1) Conservative Bias and (2) Too many bullshit stories.  But IMHO, that's really just two parts of the same issue.  Keep 'em fat dumb and happy: That's the Conservative way.

Shit my Mother says...

(FYI - This was originally written ~April 2nd)

Ah. Today we set sail for the Western Caribbean aboard the beautiful Crown Princess. Although there is Internet Access from the boat, I am probably writing this at least a few days before I post it. So we’re on Vacation. And that’s good. As is life, for the most part. And taking a vacation like this means leaving the kids with my parents which is good for two reasons. (1) NO KIDS! Yay! And (2) Inevitably one of my parents is going to say something that ends up being worth writing about – either my dad, who gives insight into the mind of a staunch Republican, who actually has enough money to almost making BEING a Republican a rational thing (not really, I know, but in his case, I can at least see why he IS); or my Mother who gives insight into the mind of the absolutely clueless conservative who votes Republican and buys into all the Fox-News Republican propaganda simply because she has no clue. No fucking clue at all. No ability to think, analyze, debate, learn or understand. She is the quintessential example of the kind of person who “reasons” on either of the four level or ten-point scales that I’ve written about before. I love her. I really do. And she’s watching my kids right now. But Politically? Philosophically? She’s brain-dead. So, not much of a spoiler at this point, but this week’s gem comes from my mother.

See… My father got the movie “Fair Game” from Netflix. Hey: He was curious. Now, my mother didn’t know what it about. For those of you who are also scratching your heads (and that’s forgivable – it wasn’t in theatres for very long) this is the story of the outing of CIAgent Valarie Plaime, told from the POV of Valarie Plaime (played by Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (played by Sean Penn.) I’ll get to the movie’s strengths and weaknesses in a moment, but my mother’s reaction to that revelation, IMHO, was nothing short of priceless in revealing how conservative “think.” (I’ll just put that in quotes, but I swear it’s like I should spell it differently – ‘thynk’ maybe – because it doesn’t resemble any kind of real of rational thinking that I’ve ever come across!)

“Oh, I don’t want to watch that! It’s just going to be a bunch of Bush-bashing!”

What I unfortunately can’t convey in supplying that quote is all the dismissiveness, derision, condescension, distaste and indignation that was present in her tone. Basically? The movie sucks, because these two “traitors” want to make a point about Bush. Seriously.

And this is what I’ll never understand about conservatives. Valerie Plaime really does represent the ultimate pinnacle of IOKYAR. Apparently it’s her fault for getting outed, and his fault for… What? I don’t know? NOT finding a record or evidence of a sale of yellow-cake uranium that NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED. I suppose by that same logic it’s Albaerdai’s fault that Saddam wasn’t developing weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s really insane. Putting aside any distortions that the movie may put forth - and while it would hardly be the first time Hollywood embellished something for dramatic sake - it really wasn’t at all that far out on a limb with what we now know, and all but the dimmest among us could clearly see then, to be the FACTS. There is pretty much no denying any of the following:

1) There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

2) There was scant EVIDENCE of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

3) THE CIA sent Joe Wilson to follow up on a lead. (And who exactly sent him is completely irrelevant. Remember: At this time no one could know what he might have found! )

4) Joe Wilson found NO EVIDENCE of a massive sale of Uranium.

5) The Bush Administration lied about this, and about the possible used of several aluminum tubes in their case for going to war.

6) Joe Wilson called them out on their bullshit, when he realized they were lying.

7) His wife was outed in petty retaliation for this, as well as to squelch any and all other information that might have shown that the case for going to war in Iraq was based completely on bullshit.

8) Doing this was a crime. That’s a matter of fact, not opinion, BTW. For all the bullshit that followed, someone WAS convicted of this crime. Justice was never served, but there is no denying that what was done was, in fact, a crime… by definition.

9) When Joe Wilson didn’t take this nonsense lying down, the Right Wing press repeatedly slandered him and his wife, making the story about them rather than the fact that Bush was lying.

None of the above are matters of opinion. None of these points can be seriously debated. One can try argue that this was all somehow justified, due to the threat possessed by Saddam, but there’s a fundamental problem with that: What Joe Wilson, and pretty much everyone else involved in following up every one of Bush and Cheney’s bullshit leads was that Saddam didn’t pose a threat AT ALL! His infrastructure was crumbling, his economy was in shambles, he could barely muster enough spare parts to keep a few tanks running! And nothing, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, was ever presented that countered any of this! Bush and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld and Powell could make all the claims they wanted, but they FACT is that no one was finding ANYTHING! And the result of them vilifying anyone who dared hold a view that even slightly resembled REALITY (which, remember, has a long-established liberal bias!) our country was led down the rod of the single most disastrous piece of foreign policy in history.

Now THAT’S an opinion, I’ll grant you. But the facts simply aren’t there to debate it: There was no justification, no threat, and no reason to go to war. None. Much was lost, and the estimates of the costs of the war, both in terms of military casualties and tax-payer dollars given to us by the War’s REPUBLICAN cheer-leaders might be the single greatest example the Right has in terms of the Government underestimating something’s price tag. And can ANYONE tell me, what exactly we were supposed to GAIN from all of that? What was the BIG PLAN here? Because to me it’s like trying to figure out what the Villains original plan was in “Total Recall” – not only did the reasoning keep changing, but when you go right back to the start? There’s nothing there! It made Iran stronger, spread our troops too thin, destroyed out budget, destroyed our moral standing in the world, destroyed our credibility, hampered our military readiness - we saw that when Katrina hit, removed a SECULAR leader from power in a war against RADICAL RELIGIOUS THEOCRACY, so… WHAT THE FUCK WAS IT ALL ACTUALLY FOR?!

I’d say “blood for oil,” but I KNOW that can’t be right, because Dick Cheney said that was ABSURD, and I know Dick Cheney would NEVER LIE. (I mean… he swore an oath!) Of course, the same man, by the time the war was won and the peace was proving to be frustratingly out of reach, the new tune was “We can’t let these oil reserves fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda!”

So… yeah, it pretty much WAS, according to the guy who viciously attacked anyone ELSE who suggested it was. And, uh… IIRC, he was an oil man, right? Something to do with developing oil fields? Just sayin’.

So… consider all that for a moment. And let come back to the two people involved: Joe Wilson and Valrie Plaime. Why do Conservatives hate these people so much? Because they found out Bush was lying? OMFG! Really?! Of course… Bush gets a pass for the LIE and Wilson and Plaime are “traitors” because, this was such good foreign policy, right? I mean… it HAD to be! Because a Republican was driving it! And I’d love to take this insanity farther, but I really can’t. It’s just too absurd. What these people did, their great crime against humanity, was to FAIL TO FIND EVIDENCE THAT WASN’T FUCKING THERE.

And somehow… that makes THEM bad, rather than the guy who went to fucking WAR with a Sovereign Nation, based on the evidence that he insisted he had, but which no one could find. THAT GUY? That lying piece of shit? That war criminal? That mass fucking murderer? HE’S a fucking hero to these morons!

I’ve said it so many times, but THIS is why I’m liberal. It has nothing to do with any particular positions, but rather HOW THEY THINK. (Or THYNK, in the case of Conservatives.)

Liberals evaluate the evidence and then form a position based on it.


Conservatives form a position and then evaluate the evidence based on it.

Don’t get me wrong, I can understand why it bothers Conservatives that their leaders were exposed as liars, but… Fuck, you’d think they could muster at least SOME anger at those leaders for having LIED in the first place. Oh yeah, and then acted like petulant, spoiled children when someone revealed just ho full of shit they were. I’ll just never understand what anyone can see in a leader like that.

I’ll just never see it.

-----------------------------------------------------------

There is something else that this example reminds me of, and it really blows a gaping hole in the walls of the whole “both sides do it” argument. The idea that we all do the same thing, just with our own issues and people. It reminded me of a segment of the Rush Limbaugh program that I had heard many, many years ago, during the early days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (No, while I was more Conservative then, I was not a fan. My father however was and remains one to this day. I heard this segment while driving in the car with him.)

The Great Gastropod was calling, “hypocrisy” on the feminists, and the liberals, who were “throwing Paula Jones under the bus” simply because her story was going against Bill Clinton. (You know: Our ‘enlightened leader’ at the time.) The thing is? Did he play a single clip to back this up? (Are you kidding?) No, of course not. And I don’t know about YOU, but I don’t seem to remember a whole lot of liberals, or indeed ANY prominent Liberals or Feminists attacking Jones at the time. I guess not sharing his rabid, mouth-foaming irrational hatred of Bill Clinton was the same as “attacking Paula Jones” in his mynd, but in that Liberal paradise that the rest of us call REALITY, it simply ISN’T. What’s more, I don’t really think Bill Clinton was anyone’s great hero to begin with. Not LIBERALS anyway! Party DEMOCRATS maybe, but that’s not the same thing. And when you think about it, Obama pissed away his historic opportunity using pretty much the same tactics that Bill Clinton did: Move to the center, even the center-right and hope the hard-right plays fair. And the results were the same! Republicans took back the House within 2 years. They didn’t get the senate this time around, but when you look at the political landscape now, it hardly matters! So Clinton was not a ‘hero’ in the mold of a Roosevelt or a Kennedy (or in the mold of Reagan or Bush to the Right.) And Paula Jones was no villain. It’s a patently absurd suggestion! And REALLY neither was Linda Tripp.

Who were the villains, then?

The same people they always are: The Congressional Republicans who only seem to care about Sexual Harrassment, Adultery or Women’s Equality when it helps them impeach a Democrat that they can’t find any legitimate reason too. Jones was never the bad buy in our eyes. And while we made fun of her, and had little syp,mathy for the simultaneous fame, notoriety and isolation that she brought upon herself, neither was Tripp. And neither was Lewinsky, for that matter. The villain? They person we hated for all the bullshit that followed? Was NEWT GINGRICH and his Zombie-like cadre of Right Wing hooligans, who were ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE for it.

But for the Right? Wilson and Plaime were the VILLIANS. They were the bad guys. NOT the guy that lied. Not their ‘hero.’ The Liberals of today will NEVER be like that. If someone came along with something LEGITIMATE that would take down the Obama white House? (And I don’t mean phony Kenyan Birth Certificates or a picture of him in a turban.) The fact is that the person we’d blame FIRST would Obama himself for doing [whatever it was that was WRONG.] Because the only REAL ‘party of personal responsibility’ in this country, is not even a party: It’s LIBERALS. The Republicans are the party of EVERYONE ELSE taking Responsible.

It makes me sick to hear these lying scumbags talk about “values,” it really does. OTOH, the entrepreneur in me is think of making up some bumper stickers. I figure the Liberals would display them proudly, as a bit of a wink and a nod to each other, but they might be even more popular with idiotic Republicans and Conservatives who lack enough of a sense of Irony to understand the joke.

The first:

It’s O.K. If You’re A Republican!

And the other:

Being Conservative Means Never Having to Admit You’re Wrong

What do you think? You think I could sell those? Would you guys buy either of them?


----------------------------------------------------------


Oh yeah, as for the MOVIE…?

It was… OK. Worth seeing, like on Netflix, but really nothing special, story-wise. If there were any distortions or embellishments, I didn’t see any that the made the overall story particularly more interesting than what we already know about, and I didn’t feel that it really revealed or uncovered any territory that isn’t already common knowledge and taken for granted.

It did have several strong points however: Penn’s and Watts’ portrayals of Wilson and Plaime were both very strong performances, particularly Penn’s. (He’s come a long way from Spicolli! LOL) They captured the essences of these two human beings very well, and making them into people you could understand, relate to and sympathize with. The portrayals of Rove and Libby were also very well done, IMHO, and (what might the most amazing feat of all) these two were NOT made out to be scum-sucking demons or anything. Conniving, yes. Machiavellian, for sure. But this came through as little more than an overzealous dedication to the jobs they were doing, lacking only enough scruples to take on an “ends justifies the means” mentality about it. It really didn’t think the movie overtly vilified them. They really each played very minor roles in it, truth be told. Also, surprising, I didn’t find the film to really be overly political, considering the material being shown. Not in a truly PARTISAN / PARTY way anyway.

Really it was about the ideals and principles behind a Free Democracy. Not that it would surprise me that there might be a RW Conservative out there that would take issue with that, but they’d be rather stupid to do so (without irony.) Their objections sound more likes sour grapes to me: The just can’t stand that their guys SUCKED SO BAD, but they’re also so brainwashed that they’d rather be wrong than Liberal. And yes, it was ”biased,” (in much the same way that reality is,) but I defy anyone to show me how this was biased in any absurd or unfair ways. It was biased only from the fact that it was told from Wilson and Plaime’s POV. And really? I really didn’t think it made Wilson out to be any kind of Superhero. He was portrayed with a gruff, abrasive, outspoken personality, and was really a bit of a ball-buster than most people found hard to get along with. Plaime was portrayed as a very competent, professional and passionate Covert operative, who was very good at her job, and was the victim of something horrible being done to her. Is that biased? Perhaps. It is UNREALISTIC? Not based on anything I’ve read that wasn’t written by a RW stooge.

One other thing that was done very poorly – the sound mixing was AWFUL. I don;t usually notice thigns liek this, but in this movies, ti was TERRIBLE.  There were many abrupt transitions between very quiet scenes where people were talking so low that you could barely hear them, and loud thunderous, explosive scenes that scared the crap out of you. (You know: because you had to turn it up so damned loud to hear what was going on in the previous scene!) So watch the volume control, or you’ll rupture an eardrum at some point!

Overall, I would recommend that anyone interested in the Wislon/Plaime story see it, because it’s certainly not a BAD movie. It’s just not a GREAT movie. It’s also more of a personal story and not really meant to be a documentary of what went down.

Back again, just... not quite.

Yeah... That doesn't make much sense.

I was in the Caribbean last week.  Yeah, it rocked.

I also spent two days with my parents (who watched the kids for us) before and after.  As is par for the course when I spend time with family, I usually end up with some absurdly brain-damaged political opinions to use for soapbox fodder. And I wrote something regarding my Mother's opinon about "Fair Game," after hearing her loudly profess saidi opinion before actually SEEING the movie.  (Gotta love that, huh?) And while I wrote it like 10 days ago, I haven't proofread it or edited yet.  (Yes, believe or not, I DO actually do those things.) (I just really suck at it.) BUT... it was a long piece, and I very liked hopped up on tropical drinks while I writing it so I really do need to go over it again before I post it.  And I'll get to my Dad's gold and some gems from Fox after that.

In the MEANTIME, here's something totally unrelated to any of that, but still pretty damned funny, from Cracked.com:

Superman's Dark Secret: An Unaired Episode of Super Friends -- powered by Cracked.com

Please enjoy, and I'll be back tomorrow with some amazingly un-ironic political philosophy.

Later!

Silver Star Awards, March, 2011

OK, so it's been a really thin month.  By far the thinnest since I started blogging.  Only four pieces, and two of them were Silver Star entries. Which never seem to get ANY comments! :(

Oh well, at least March's will actually happen IN MARCH.  There were no HoF inductees in 1960, so the year is now 1961 and it saw two Veteran's Committee Inductees, so yeah: We're still on the funny stuff.  There are some really good ones coming in April, when there will be a GOLD Star or two, but we're still on Silver's this month.


The Max Carey Silver Star #25: Venus Envy

Another superb web-comic.  Mind you I don't really read it anymore, because the author, Erin Lindsey, kind of pulled the plug on it just over a year ago - and leaving her main character in a rather tight spot to boot!  Oh well.  In short, Venus Envy is a comic about a transgendered (MtF) teenager.  Believe it or not there are a LOT of TG Web-Comics out there, but I think Venus Envy deserves credit for a few things.  First of all, it's kind of famous in TG circles.  It was one of the first TG web-comics (if not THE first), remains one of the longest running, and from what I can tell was for a long time by far the most popular.  Which I think is due to the second reason: Erin Lindsey's powerfully compelling writing, her off-beat and sometimes self-depricating sense of humor, and her ability to create one of the most sympathetic characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading, in Zoe Carter.  Check it out - you'll laugh, you'll pretend not to cry, but most importantly of all, YOU'LL CARE.  You'll CARE about this character, and what she is going through and dealing with. Regardless of how you feel about the transgendered it is impossible to read this not pull for this person. (And not fear for them.) I'm certainly no expert on TG politics by a lognshot, but this 'strip served as the beginning of my coming to better understand TG issues.  As usual, I recommend reading this web-comic from the beginning but with this one, just be aware that the real story takes a little while to get going.  For awhile there, there are a lot of gag strips.  FUNNY gag strips, but not the profound stuff I'm referring to above.  Also - if the name "Erin Lindsay" sounds familiar, I've referred to her political writings / rants before, here and here.  What can I say? I love her stuff, I really do.  And I really miss 'Venus Envy!'


The Billy Hamilton Silver Star #26: DAMN YOU AUTO-CORRECT!

Screw doing sit-ups.  Just read this site and you laugh your way to wash-board abs.  O.M.F.G!  The main site is a collection of iPhone texts that have been 'auto-corrected' by the phone's auto-spell check / auto-fill-in random nonsense as you type feature.  Fucking hilarious!  And much like several other Silver Star winners from the Cheezburger Network (Failblog, Engrish, etc...) the site linked to several others that are every bit as funny, sometimes much funnier.  The Bad Gifts site is EPIC funny.  Bad Food was a riot as well. (I've eaten a lot of that stuff!) (Shit, I LIKED a lot of that stuff! LOL)  This site was sent to me a few weeks ago by a guy at my office.  I couldn't link to it form my desk (web-sensed) by I pulled it up on my phone and couldn't get any work done for three days. XD  So Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Another Brilliant Piece from Cracked....

It suffers rather a bit from the "false balance" problem... I don't care what they say, you simply cannot compare Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck objectively and conclude that both are "full of shit," implying an equality there.  That's just nonsense.  One makes a well-reasoned argument, based on evidence and principles, while the other just MAKES SHIT UP.  Beck's problem is not that he's Conservative, but rather that he's a PARANOID PSYCHOTIC.  Being CONSERVATIVE is the LEAST of his mental illnesses!

All the same, I think this article does a pretty darned good job at showing WHY WE SUCK SO BAD AT DEMOCRACY.

Been away...

Conchobhar sent me an email today and, reading it, I hadn't realized how long I'd been away - from IMHO and MMFA anyway.  I've been taking a break, trying to re-balance my life.  I'm taking an art class and going to the gym, but that leaves no time for this blog, or my web-comic, which hasn't been updated in over a month either.  (And I don't even mean the NEW one, Utopia, which I stalled out on page two with!) *Phew* It's been crazy and a lot of stuff is not going all that well to boot.  And my company is seriously cracking down on internet usage during work hours, so MMFA-time is pretty much out for me, for the forseeable future. :(

So with that in mind, and all the shit going down in the mid-east, the mid-west and Japan...

Here's a funny story from work today that has nothing to do with anything of any value at all!

As some of you may know, I'm an Engineer working in automotive safety restraints.  And today, we got to do one of my FAVORITE things: Tear-down and analyse WARRANTY RETURNS!

I live for that, seriously.

One of the things that makes it so rewarding, emotionally, is looking at the stupid shit people return stuff for, and looking at the various levels of abuse and mis-uses that they've put our products though. One of the most common issues is foreign objects getting stuck in buckles.  And for the past year or more we've been KEEPING all the little souvenirs that we've taken out of "damaged" buckles that came back through warranty.  I've got about 30 dimes, 20 Buttons (presumably from back-pockets: think about it), broken windshield glass, fake gemstones, staples, nails (both the kind you hammer, and the kind at the end of your finger) paperclips, zipper pulls, pebbles, a few tiny Lego's (including a star wars gun!), a blood-glucose meter testing strip (used)... and even some cool stuff, like a silver dove pendent and a gold cross!

But today I think we've got a new record holder for weirdness, uniqueness and unexpectedness.

I popped off the buckle covers, tapped the frame against the table and out fell some...

POT.

Seriously.  I wasn't 100% sure at first (although I was pretty sure) so I turned to my college who was up from our Mexico plant to train and simply asked him, "Is this what I think it is?"

He said he thought so, and then squeezed the bud in his fingers, smelled it and said, "Yes, definitely, it's pot!"  (I didn't even know to DO that, so I figured he knew what he was talking about better than I did,) (No moral judgement being made there BTW!)

And my boss happened to be walking by, so I asked HIM, "Hey look at this... It came out of a buckle... It this what we think it is?" (Again - asking without saying WHAT we think it is...)

And he just starts laughing. "Yeah... I think it is!"

Six or seven people later, and they all came to the same conclusion.  My director told my boss to make sure we got a picture of it.  (He always gets a laugh out the shit we find stuck in people's buckles.)

So that's my laugh for the day: Buckle didn't work due to POT being jammed in the mechanism.

I can't wait to heat what the customer says when we deliver that report!

LOL

Silver Star Awards, February, 2011

OK, they're a day late. Sue me. No one reads these posts anyway!

(Just has some deju-vu there... I think I've used that line before!)

OK... here we go.  We're up to 1959, which saw one Veterans Committe inductee, and none from the Writers:


The Zack Wheat Silver Star #24: Oglaf

Yeah, it's yet another web-comic that I'm crazy about.  Now... some of the stuff I've linked to, not to mention some of my own writing, has at time been a bit... risque.  I'll warn you right now: Oglaf is downright FILTHY.  It's filthy, dirty, rude, crude, crass, smutty and at times downright pornographic... and really, REALLY funny.  Although it's not a single, continuous story it will still make more sense (and be funnier) if you read it from the beginning.  Mind also, that it's a series of different stories, some of which have multiple pages.  So if the "next page" link is lit, hit that rather than the "next story" link.  I missed that at first, and it didn't make a lick of sense. LOL.

Odd picture choice...

The headline on mail.com (my email service) read: Protesters across US decry Wis. anti-union efforts.

And the article spoke of "Rallies held across the country Saturday to support thousands of protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol in their fight against Republican-backed legislation aimed at weakening unions."

And so on, and so on.

Needless to say, IMHO what Governor Walker is doing here is despicable and may even be illegal (a work force's right to organize IS, in fact, a matter of labor rights, codified legislation and common law, after all!) But at this point I don't really want to get into THAT part of things.  The Republicans spent years fucking everything up, finally got voted out, and then spent the last two years lying to the American public so effectively that [the American people] were stupid enough to put them back into power... And then have enough mind-numbing stupidity to actually be surprised that they've gotten right back to fucking everythingng up again! 


But no, I don't want to talk about that.  While it's what I spent most of last year doing, I no longer have the time, patience or emotional energy needed to continue to catalog all the ways in which the Republicans suck.  Especially given how spineless and useless Obama and the Democrats have been. Not to mention the media.

Which brings me to this:

Now remember, the headline read (and article supported): Thousands SUPPORT the Union Protesters!
 
Let's take a look at the signs in the above photograph that was attached the the article.  (And I've downloaded it, and pasted it here, in case they come to their senses and CHANGE the fucking thing!)
 
"Fight Union Thugery" (Spelled wrong, BTW! Two "g's" in thuggery! Maybe that one should have stayed in school!)
 
"Public Union 4th Branch of Gov't, Hell No!"
 
"Union Leadership Out of Control"
 
"Even FDR opposed public unions"
 
"Love my country, ashamed of Gov't" (what do you want to bet this red-neck hypocritically boycotted the Dixie Chicks at some point?)
 
4/5 of the legible signs are vehemently ANTI-Union!  And the last one?  Well... I can't necessarily tell.  One could argue that he ashamed of what Gov. Walker is doing, but given the crowd he's in, I'm far more inclined to say that it just more of the same anti-Big-Government paranoia and nonsense that the Right has become imfamous for.  (And notice how you never hear that talk when it's a REPUBLICAN who's expanding the Government? Real principled that lot!)
 
Big time FAIL on the part of mail.com's photo department.
 
I'm almost waiting to see a picture of Michael Vick attached to the next article about the Humane Society winning some award or something.
 
Oh yeah...
 
And BEHOLD, YOUR LIBERAL MEDIA!

Budget Priorites

So in the ongoing farce to avoid the inevitable necessity of raising taxes, the Republicans in the House first decided that tax cuts were more important than helping to provide poor people with basic health carer services.  This also serves as an example of what they intend to replace last year's health care law with, once they "repeal" it: No health care, for many people.

Wait.. wasn't that the problem BEFORE?  Sure was.  But that's hardly suprising... The First Rule of Conservative Problem Solving?  Deny there's a problem.  Second rule? Villify anyone who tries to solve the problem.  (Hence the vote to defund a 90-year old organization who provides Cancer Screening, HIV Screening, Contaception, Pre-Natal Care and basic well-women checkups to the poor.)

Remember folks: Helping other people IS NOT a "family value."

(And if Obama has any balls, spine, principles or values himself, he'll veto this abortion of a budget.) (Yeah: And the ghost of Franklin Roosevelt will fly out my butt!)

Cockmuncher Boehner: 1, American People: 0

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility?

I've done several pieces over the past year+ showing how absurd it is to consider the REPUBLICANS "fiscally responsible."  Whether it's showing what portion of our debt they're responsible for, or going year by year and showing the trends in deficit spending or even just recognizing the fact that they have been, in fact, actively trying to bankrupt the government in order to force an end to programs that they know they could never get away with, politically, cutting or eliminating.  And that last bit, while seemingly a bit paranoid, is on full display right now in the ongoing farce about trimming the deficit. And to understand just how big a farce this is, realize that you could take ALL of Obama's proposed cuts, ALL of the Republican's proposed cuts, and none of the Republican's propsed tax cuts (yeah - they're "serious" about the deficit, and yet they're STILL proposing tax cuts! That's liek getting "serious" about your credit card debt by working fewer hours!) and even wth all of that, you wouldn't even be HALFWAY to a balanced budget!
And what do we already see will be the result of all these cuts? Hospitals closing, schools closing, tens of thousands out of their jobs, no funduing for public broadcasting (the Right has to LOVE that one!) and the list goes on, and on, and on.

And on.

And for all that pain?  We're not even HALFWAY to a balanced budget?  You gotta be fucking kidding me!

And do you know what's not on the table? RAISING TAXES. Of course.  And there cannot be one person anywhere in the world with two brain cells to bounce together who thinks you can balance the budget on spending cuts alone.  But... this was the Republican's plan all along!  And Speaker Boehner can cry "We're broke!" all he wants, that doesn't make it true.  We're not broke.  That's a bald-faced lie.  We're in the RED, yes.  And that's not good, long-term.  (Although that being the case one has to wonder why the Republicans PUT US in the red every single one of the last 20 years in a row when they held the White House!)  But see... they don't want to raise taxes for two reasons and two reasons only, and neither of them has ANYTHING to do with harming the economy, or creating jobs - botho fwhich are pretty much bullshit.  In fact the same economic model that gives their tax-cut multipliers? (That would be KEYNES.)  Demonstrates that spending changes have a larger effect! (IOW: Those spending cuts will do more harm to the economy than the same level of tax increase. So says the model that gives them the tax-cut multiplier!) And I'm not going to debate that here, but it's a bullshit, nonsense point anyway.  If you want the details, email me or take a goddamned economics course.

The two reasons they don't want to raise taxes is:

1) The American public has grown so stupid and so greedy and so so shortsighted and lacks so much perspective that we're probably to the point where the fools WOULD actually lose their jobs if they did it.  Not that I care about the Republicans losing their jobs, but the bulk of America has grown so spoiled that they just have no clue. No clue at all.  I'll get to what I'd do with taxes in a moment, but the Right has dumbed down America so much, that it probably IS the political reality that raisign taxes is political suicide.  Even though it's needed.  Kind of like... REAL LEADERHSIP.

2) (And this is the important one) Raising taxes would LITERALLY FIX EVERYTHING.  Seriously.  And... they don't want that!  They've been trying to kill these progams for DECADES and they have finally CREATED an environment where they can claim that we have to! (In some cases, IN ORDER TO SAVE THEM!  Figure THAT ONE out!)  But finally, after 30+ years of crippling our governments finances, they finally have enough people fooled into believing that these things have to go. (Persoanlly, I'd say these idiotic Republicans are the ones that have to go, but the people have spoken.) The LAST thing they want at this point is a solvent federal government!

Think about it: How many times have your heard one of these fools, Democrat or Republican, claim, "We just can't afford it anymore?"  I hear it almost every day.  And while they're right, from a certain point of view, it's utterly shocking why no one ever asked about raising taxes back to the levels they were at when the country and its finances were doing just fine!  It's not like we've had these tax rates etched in stone since time immemoriam!  GEORGE W. BUSH created the current tax table, less than a decade ago! And, at least for the past two years, Obama's lowered taxes EVEN MORE!  It's hardly like were tapped here, folks!  It's like we're dying of thirst sitting in our kitchen, and yet refuse to turn on the tap!  It's psychotic!  And if they wanted to lower taxes repsonsibly, all these many long years, they'd have cut the spending FIRST thus keeping the taxes6 cuts deficit neutral.  But since the American people would never go for that, they had to plunge us into debt, creating this artificial crisis in order to confuse the public and get them on board! (And despite being 30 years in the making, with 20 of those years under Reagan, Bush and Bush, somehow this is all OBAMA'S fault!)

Now, I would like to take a look at some of the tax tables of recent past administrations, just to show you how "painful" (hah!) this would be.  As two examples, I'm going to use a household that makes $500,000 per year and my own (approximate) household income.  I'm not going to STATE my income, but I will be honest about what it would cost or save me if we were taxed at some of these older rates.  If you can calculate my income from that information? Congratulations. You pass basic Algebra.  And I'm also assuming that I don't have to explain to any of you how a MARGINAL SYSTEM OF TAXATION works.  So if you don't know where I'm getting my figures, try wikipedia.  One last thing, you can check my tax bracket info aginst the info available at the U.S. Tax Foundation, and my inflation calculatuions HERE.  One last thing: It's worth noting that, starting in 1984, the tax brackets were adjusted each year for inflation automatically.  I happen think this is a good thing, and would automatically adjust ALL fixed numbers in the tax code - including all maximums and minimums - the same way.  So for simplicity's sake, I'm using the last year that the given rates were in effect.

The current tax table is a legacy of the Bush'43 administration:
(Sorry, these run over.  If they were any smaller, you wouldn't be able to read them!)

This is the tax table that resulted in eight years of record deficits (record at elast when compared to any that came before him) under Bush, and another under Obama, and likely another one next year.  Now you hear a lot about eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but I'm on record many times as saying that we should eliminate them accross the board!  Clinton had two budget surplues at the end of his term.  And this was the tax table that created those:

If we adjust for inflation, and move the brackets into 2011 dollars, we get:

So what would all this bed-wetting about the Bush tax cuts cost the rich? Well, that family who's pulling in $500,000 would onlyhave to kick in an extra $12,33.64 a year.  That sounds like a lot, to be sure, but think about it: $500,000 a year!  Think about what you make, what you live on, and ask yourself how hard it would be to find an extra grand or so per month in your budget if you made that many times more than you make now!  You know what I say? Boo-fucking-hoo for the rich.  What would this cost ME?  An extra $1755 a year.  Now that would affect my lifestyle and spendign decisions far more that the $12-large would affect that other familiy's, but I'll be honest with you: $147 less a month?  I could afford it.  Actually? It wouldn't change by budget at all, nor would it impact my retirement savings. I'd still even have some decent cash going into my short-termsavings account. So it really wouldn't change much of anything.  (I guess it must just be good to be me!)  But whatever.  If that's all it cost to REALLY eliminate the defict and KEEP most of our social safety nets? FUCKING DO IT ALREADY!

Now, I will admit that Boehner & Co. may have a point when it comes to tax hikes.  After all, check out the table that got George "Read My Lips" Bush voted out of office in 1992:

adjusted for inflation:

Oh, my fucking god!  His top-rate is still less than his son's!  And he got kicked out of office for that!  Apparently we've been spoiled little cry-babies about taxes longer than I thought, the Clinton years not withstanding!

Now this will illustrate why the whole flat tax thing (and the arguments about top-tier rates) are utter bullshit.  This tax table? Would cost me another $1089 over the Clinton table. (and $2845 over the current table.) That's right: Bill Clinton LOWERED my taxes! (Hint: It was those extra brackets!)  Meanwhile, in all his generosity, Bush'41would give a $13,583 CUT to that family making $500K per year as compared to the Clinton table. (And $1250 less than than what his son's table taxes them at!) Talk about "rob from the poor and give to the rich!"

But how bad was that, anyway?  Why'd he get voted out over that? Well... it was replacing this absurd tax table from Reagan's second term:

Look at that!  A top-tier rate that's actually LESS than what he's taxing the middle class at! Can you believe it!  This is the Right's great hero, folks: Rob from the poor and give to the rich, and don't even try to hide it! Adjusted for inflation, it would look like this:

OK. Under this monstrosity, I'd be paying $3004 more than I'm paying now.  (And $1249 more than the Clinton table!)  Wait... I though Reagan was this great tax-cutter?!  Well... he was, if you were rich enough to afford him:  That family of $500K? Pays $4,872 less than they do now, and $17,205 less that they would owe under Clinton!  The middle class gets soaked for 3-large, so that some making $500K can have an extra 17-GRAND?!  What. the. fuck?  I'm liking Geroge W. Buch better all the time!  At least with him there was SOMETHING in it for me!  As far as I'm concerned Reagan and Bush were a bunch of working-class-people-hating cock-munchers!

There is one thing, however, about Reagan that his current cult-following will not tell you about.  In his first term, he actually signed a top tier tax rate of 50% into law.  It was a CUT at the time but still, let me say that again: Ronald Reagn signed a 50% tax rate into law!  And it was in place until 1986.  Here's what it looked like:

Adjust for inflation and you get...

Looks complicated, no?  Well... complicated can be GOOD sometimes.  Under this table I would owe $2566 more than I owe today, and just $810 more than I would under Clinton.  And those rich folks at $500K?  Would owe $64,798 more than the do now. Wow. And that's under a RONALD WILSON REAGAN CONSTRUCTED Tax Table!  Fuck Clinton! For an extra $810 a year?  I say: let's bring back the first REAGAN tax table!  Let's bring back that $64K tax hike that this great socialist would ask of the rich!

I mentioned that this was actually a reduction, and I've gone so far recently as to call for pre-REAGAN tax rates.  This was the last table under Carter:

Adjusted for inflation:

Do you notice how that top tier rate doesn't even kick in until well after $500K? Remember that the next time someone's making fun of that 70% tax rate.  Now... I'll admit that I could be pursuaded that 70% is too high.  We can argue it.  I'd be perfectly happy with a top tier rate of 50% - with that 1982-86 Reagan Table.

But just for shits and giggles, under Carter, I'd owe $4355 more than I'd owe today.  ($2600 more than with the Clinton table, and $1789 more than with the earlier Reagan table.) That's... a bit much, actually.  I could still swing it, without changing my budget, or my retirement investments, but... there wouldn't be ANYTHIGN left for short-term savings or emergencies. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.  So... yeah, bvioulsy that would eventually impact my budget.  And thus I might just have to back off from my calls of Carter-levels of taxation, even if it would squeeze an extra $117,708 out of those rich bastards down the street, over what they'd owe now. (LOL!) As much as I'd love to seem them pay that... We're getting into T.E.A. territory for me with with what I'd owe.  So, yeah, I'll admit this is excessive.

I'll bet you never thought you'd here me say this: BRING BACK THE REAGAN TAX TABLES!

(Just remember: I mean the 1982-1986 tables, not the 1987-1989 tables!)

What do my libral readers think?  Time to revisit Reagan's great tax policy?

A fuckin' hero...

How's that for a title? LOL.

I just got back for the gym.  Weights tonight.  I usually work out to my "Flogging molly" channel on Pandora.  Celtic Folk and Irish Rock is great music to work out to, whether doing cardio or strength training.  For cardio, it has some of the most hard-driving, up-lifting, foot-slamming, hand-clapping beats you could ask for.  Basically? It's impossible to feel fatigue when listening to Irish music.  For weight/strength training?  The bests are fine, but the THEMES are really what get you.  Good Irish music has some of the darkest, angriest, most bitter lyrics, chronicling their centuries of exploitation, suffering, violence and strife.  They laugh at death, while cursing their life, all the while singing about the cruelest injustices, mixed with powerful patriotic poetry and a love for country and fellow man, juxtaposed with the irony that some much of the recent violence against the Irish has been perpetrated... by the Irish.  Anyway... if the beat doesn't get your adrenaline flowing, the fighting words surely will. 

So for now, I'm hooked.

Anyway, tonight I heard a song that I'd never heard before, and it was like: STOP EVERYTHING.  I had to find out what it was, and who it was by.  It's called Luang Prabang (which is a place in Laos) and it's by Dave Van Ronk.  Anything I could say about it was pretty much summed up by some of the top YouTube comments on the version that I've embedded below:

Powerful..

~scrip7ki77y
 
Awesome! Reminds me of some of the darker Irish rebellion chants. Excellent.

~skelotan

my new task is to make sure this song is more well known.

~shaunathan05

Mine too, shaunathan, mine too.  So here goes.  (BTW, I've got a little bit more to say about it, so after you listen, please keep reading.)



Van Ronk himself described this as "An imperialist love song, and a protest against wimpy anti-war songs." And to that? I say, "Fuck, yeah!"

And I am reminded of something in its combination of powerful anti-war sentiment, while at the same calling for one to honor the fallen and broken soldiers - both in the ironic way that we do now, which the song parodies, but simultaneously with all due sincerity as well. Which, let's face it, we don't. Not when we send our boys on pointless boondoggles around the world, whether it's fighting to secure oil reserves, or merely interfering in another country's internal politics. Our near-schizophrenic hypocrisy regarding the principle of self-determination which we once stood for (and still claim to, whenever it's convenient for us) has cost us more blood and treasure than any post World War Two enemy could ever dream to. All we have to fear is fear itself, was right. We really should have listened.

What it reminds me off was a powerful statement made during the height of the Iraq and Afghan War but the former Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm. She ordered that all flags be lowered to half staff every time a soldier from Michigan was killed. Needless to say that for a good year or two, those flags were down at least once a week. And it sent a powerful statement. It reminded up, every time, of the cost of the insane foreign policy pursued by the Cheney/Bush administration, while at the same time, unequivocally honoring our fallen soldiers. It drove the pro-war crowd abso-fucking-lutely NUTS! And yet they couldn't say a damn thing about it, could they! Because they're always the ones accusing LIBERALS of "hating the troops" or whatever. So who among them was going to be stupid enough to suggest that we STOP honor these fallen men?

I loved it. Probably the best thing she did the whole time she was in office.

Anyway, this song kind of reminds me of that. It reminds us that anti-war is hardly anti-military and that the desire for peace is felt the strongest only by the strongest among us.

------------------------------

BTW... here's a more haunting, melodic version by Patrick Sky.  Full lyrics posted there as well, if you're interested.

Jesus Christ, What the hell is wrong with your followers?

OK, I'll admit that I'm incredibly late in coming to this one.  Over a year in fact.  But I came accross this article while looking for something unrelated.  And actually the article I found originally was not the HuffPo piece,  but I can't find the one I read originally and the HuffPo piece has all of the same quotations, so it will suffice.

Plus the headline was a bit more succinct: Religious Right Goes Nuts Over Transgender Appointee Amanda Simpson


(Though, to "go" nuts suggests that you were SANE at some point. Hmmmm...)

You gotta love the Right's all-American reasoning here:

"Is there going to be a transgender quota now in the Obama administration?" asked Peter LaBarbera, president of the anti-gay group Americans for Truth. "How far does this politics of gay and transgender activism go? Clearly this is an administration that is pandering to the gay lobby."

 
Right.  Because... it's not like we living in a representative democracy, where all people are equal in the eyes of the law, and everyone should have a voice, right?  Also... I love anti-(some group) groups who act like their all for protecting our rights.  (Our right to live in a world full of Jesus-freaks like them, I guess.)
 
But they go on...
 

Matt Barber, associate dean at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, said the appointment "boggles the mind" and said that while African-Americans might deserve special treatment, transgender people don't.


"This isn't like appointing an African-American in order to try to provide diversity and right some kind of discriminatory wrong," he said. "This is about political correctness."

OK, first of all, Liberty University teaches young-earth creationism as if it were a legitimate, evidence-based, scientific theory.  So care more about what my dog leaves in the back yard than I do about the opinion of their associate dean.

All the same, it's nice to see that he's at least (finally) willing to admit that discrimination against blacks is and was WRONG.  Even though the Republican's model of "diversity" is more akin to "tokenism," it's nice to at least hear him make the concession.  All the same, you've got to love how, in the same breath, he can then go one to completely justify (or at least attempt to) discrimination against homosexuals and transpeople.  (I mean, it's not like they were BORN GAY, right?)

*sigh*

One step forward, two steps back.  That's what passes for "progress" on the Right. 

And there was this from another one of my favorite hate-groups:

"Simpson's nomination was forwarded through to President Obama by a gay activist group, making it appear that this appointment of a male-to-female 'transgender' activist to a high level Commerce Department position to be payback to his far-left base for their political support," a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family said in statement.

(Those are James Dobson's fuck-wads.)

You gotta love how allowing discrimination, and actively discriminating against homosexuals and the transgendered by the politicians that these bigots support is somehow just par for the course, but allowing them to have a voice, to participate in our democracy and to treat them equal under the law is somehow "pandering."

Hey fuck-wads: You did this to yourself.  If you didn't PANDER to the anti-gay agenda, maybe you'd have gotten some of the gay vote!  Did you ever think of that?  Why is it PANDERING to the gays, but not to the Christians who want to continue their policy of discrimination?  (A policy admitted to, by the very fact that Ms. Simpson is, in fact,  the first TG's federal appointee!)

Because, hey: It's not like it's a FREE COUNTRY or anything, right?

And fine.  I suppose you could find a bible verse or two to support that.  You might find something anti-gay there.  But do know what my favorites are?

Does, "Judge not, lest ye be judge yourself," ring a bell?

Or, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?"

And then there was something about a rich-man passing through the eye of a needle, or something like that. Not really relevant to THIS issue, but it does make me wonder how the Religious Rights gets so wrapped up in MONEY.

In any case, do you know where you will NOT find these bible versus or any others?

In the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States.

Those radical, liberal and (obviously) extremely gay documents that this country was founded on.

The Genesis Code?!

I was playing a game on Sporcle just now, when an ad popped up for the "#1 Christian Movie of the Year!," The Genesis Code. 

Ugh.  Reading the wikipedia entry for it almost made me throw up in my mouth a little.

First of all, I'm sure most of us are in agreement that "Christian Movies" inevitably suck.  And it really has nothing to do with the message.  Lots of good movies have positive and, yes, even Christian messages. And do know what they're called? MOVIES.  Calling something a "Christian Movie?"  That's the advertisers trying to scare everyone away who won't automatically love the movies, solely on the basis of it's "Christian message."  You know... 99% of the population including EVERYONE with any taste in movies at all.

They want only that audience which will sit through two hours of glurgy crap, only to praise it as "uplifting" in the end, because it had something to do with God, Jesus, Miracles, or Faith.  And the more heavy handed the better with these people.  It's like for every poorly delivered line, or question directorial decision all the have to do is say "Jesus" five times, or "Miracles" ten, and somehow they've performed their artistic penance and all is well again.

The people THEY want to watch are the one's who would write a critique of a Miyazaki film, saying how they basically loved every single aspect of it, but in the end couldn't recommend it because it didn't have a "strong enough Christian message to it" or that's "it's spirituality was decidedly non-Christian." (You'd be shocked how often I've seen a review like that on Netflix.)

And did you notice the title? "The Genesis Code?"  I guess that's supposed to be in response to that horribly anti-Christian "DaVinci Code."  This is the M.O. with these people, and with conservatives in general.  Creativity apparently has a liberal bias, because everything they do that is so blatantly "Christian" or "Conservative" is always in response to something SUCCESSFUL that was done by a liberal. "Fahrenhype 9/11," anyone?

And they always love to paint successful movies that have a religious theme, as non-Christian or anti-Christian, don't they?  Think about it: The DaVinci Code, Dogma, The Last Temptation of Christ.... it's absurd.  There is nothing anti-Christian or anti-religious about ANY of those movies! Dogma unequivocally recognizes the existence of God and Angels, as well as the divinity of Jesus Christ!  All of these are central to the story, in fact! The DaVinci Code does the same thing!  And The Last Temptation of Christ?! That's one of the most Christ-affirming movies ever written!  But since it wasn't a word-for-word transcription of the bible? It's somehow satanic.  And do you know WHY? Because to these brain-dead fools, it's a sin to even POSE THE QUESTION, regardless of the fact that you ended up with "right" answer! It doesn't matter that, in the end, these works completely affirm all of these people's core beliefs, differing only on irrelevant details.  To them, the fact that the issue was even explored is a problem.  Why would they let THIS movie off the hook, you ask?  Well: It's a CHRISTIAN movie, isn't it?  They tell you right up front, that they're not REALLY exploring any significant issues related to Christianity.  They're just showing you how wrong the non-believers are.  And that's always OK.

Now, as one of my three heroes once pointed out, "All great works of art have a theme that holds them together." I guess Christian works of "art" need to have three.  This movie's?

1) Evolution vs. creation: A completely invented controversy, invented by funny-mentalists who don't know what the word "metaphor" means. (Or how meaningless the word "literal" is for that matter.)

2) End-of-life decisions: Better pray! Better believe! Better get baptised!  Wouldn't want to burn in hell, would you?  (Can we pull the plug? NO!) (Are they in pain? JESUS WILL COMFORT THEM, DAMMIT!)

3) Discrimination of Christians on the college campus: This is the one that makes me want to vomit.  This is so completely absurd. I would LOVE, absolutely LOOOVE for one of the whack-a-loons to give me one, single, solitary example of "discrimination" that a single Christian has EVER experienced on a college campus in this country. EVER.

This, right here, is the problem with these people's entire philosophy.  They LOVE to play the victim, when they are not only the oppressor, but in fact, in this country, the ONLY oppressor!  Their idea of "discrimination?" NOT BEING ALLOWED TO OPPRESS!  No, actually, even the SUGGESTION that what they do might be oppressive is enough for them to cry "discrimination," even as they write their congressman, or state representative urging them to oppose health care benefits for same-sex couples.

Based on the first "theme," and the movie's title,I'm guessing that what constitutes "discrimination" here consists of some poor Christian who's being "forced" to "give up his beliefs" and accept evolution as a fact, and Genesis as a LIE.  What fucking bullshit.  This is the problem with these people.  This is exemplary of their entire fucking mental illness.  They think that because GENESIS isn't being taught IN THE SCIENCE ROOM as undisputed FACT, that they are being "discriminated against."  (How much you want to bet that one of the characters turns in a paper trying to refute evolution with a summary of the Book of Genesis and gets an "F" on it?)  Never mind that evolution is a THEORY, based on observation.  And teaching evolution is teaching THEORY;  Teaching what other people believe happens, based on observation. Does the STUDENT have to BELIEVE it?  Does the student have to reject Genesis to pass a science class? NO and FUCKING NO!  All the student has to do is demonstrate that s/he UNDERSTANDS the theory!  DUH!  Acceptance and belief in it are not required!  I'm so sick and tired of these fuck-wads that don;'t understand this.  It is not a sin to understand a theory.  Nor does understanding that theory somehow mean that you must accept it any other.  And yes, a refutation of that theory must address the EVIDENCE IT IS BASED ON, rather than be made up of a repetition of your Christian dogma!

For fuck's sake, that does not constitute discrimination!

If you're asked to provide a summary of Darwin's theory and you can't do that, YOU FAIL.  End of story, boo-fucking-hoo!  "Disproving" it by evangelizing about Genesis is no more legitimate an answer than giving a review of a film you just saw, or listing the recipe for your Grandmother's Southern-style potato salad: IT DOESN'T ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.  And if asked to provide an alternative explanation? Requiring that it be evidence-based, as opposed to passionate defense of your FAITH, based solely on DOGMA? Can not possibly be discrimination, unless you believe the entire scientific method to be. And let's face it, if the scientific method, so completely destroys your ability to believe in your dogma?  It's time to reject the dogma, not the scientific method. 

Asking someone to THINK, and teaching them HOW TO is not a discriminatory act.  In fact?  That's exactly what you paid tuition for them to do!  To do otherwise? To teach dogma, that runs contrary to evidence? To tell students to ACCEPT, rather than question?  That IS a discriminatory act.  And any student who experiences THAT? Should demand his tuition be refunded.

Another One bites the dust...

One thing you can say definitely say about them: When the Republicans are in power, the stories about "family values" hypocrites seem to grow in both frequency and creepiness.  I'm not sure if Chris Lee (R-NY) was resigning over his solicitation of sex on Craig's List or just the fact that he appeared in this one photograph:

All I can say is, "Thank God he kept it classy."

TEA, Earl Grey, HOT!!!

I can't believe it... the Tea Party, or at least at least some of it's members, were actually GOOD for something!  (And any RW'er who assumes MSN is "liberally biased" can stick their "three ... tools that are crucial to the ... anti-terror law" in their pipes and smoke it.) 

Hey, we'll see.  It probably won't last.  But THIS LIBERAL applauds any "small-government Conservatives" who actually LIVE UP to their libertarian principles and actually vote down government powers that actually interferes with the freedom and privacy of Americans.  Because, far from being detrimental to our security, it is only with privacy and individual liberty and freedom that we can BE secure.  The FISA Court was little more than a rubber stamp anyway, and probably the most efficient part of the Government.  There ws never any reason to go beyond what they did and authorized.  If anything, they probably should have used MORE scrutiny over the years!  But in any case, bring them back, and scrap the god-damned Patriot act entirely! I've said oit many times, Al-Qaeda has NEVER been a threat to our freedom or our way of life: Only our own Government is, and only our own Government ever will be!

My bet?  These guiys will either (1) be branded as RINO's, be blacklisted by the party and get voted out; (2) Be corrupted by politics and slowly morph into BIG GOVERMENT Conservatives - like the ones who wrote, supported, voted for and slandered anyone who opposed the "Patriot" Act in the first place; or (3) THEY WILL CHANGE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FOR THE BETTER.

And hey... If the oppositon on teh Right is made of PRINCIPLED "small government" types, who will actually STAND UP for our freedom?  I can certainly live with that!

All that being said, I'm still convinced that 99% of the tea party and their supporters are no more than a bunch of ingnorant, racist, greedy, immature, same-old-Republican, clowns. But on this day, this Liberal applauds those brave few Tea Partiers who've done more in one vote to defend our freedom than President Obama has doen in 2+ years. 

(And I only hope that idiot [Obama] figures that out, because otherwise we WILL be looking at President Fucking Palin in 2012!)

Congratulations, Keith!

I just read that Olbermann's got a new gig.  I'll be sure to tune in.  For a little-watched channel, Current's really got some great content already.  "Infomania" was one of my favorite shows at one point, though I lost interest when they stopped doing Sarah Haskin's "Target Women" segment.  Hopefully Olbermann's presence will substantially elevate them in public's consciousness. 

(Though in the meantime, watch the Fox-zombies laugh at his "misfortune," at being force to go to such a minor cable channel.  Lost on these idiots will be that he'll single handedly make Current significant, while the likes of Beck and Hannity were put on the map by Fox rather than the other way around.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.  Hopefully he'll keep doing his "Worst Person in the World" segment.  That was the consistently the best two minutes on television each night!

...

One more thing...

The last line of that article is representative of everything that's wrong with the media:

Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBCUniversal, which is majority owned by Comcast. Comcast also owns a stake in Current’s parent company, Current Media.
I have no problem with the disclosure, but no good will ever come of the fact that a mere nine corporations (or just six: Time-Warner, CBS, NBC, Viacom, Walt Disney, News Corps - suprising that Comcast is left out.  Maybe that was written by a Comcast guy? LOL) own and control 99.9% of the media.

(Oh, and, BTW... I don't necissarily endorse every view expressed in that article; only the overall point that Corporate Media Monoploies are bad news.)

Misogyny.

(Please take the vulgar bits humorously, as they are intended, and bear with me for the overall point.)


Now that gays are allowed to serve openly in the military, it was not going to take long before the question of women serving in combat comes up. Well… it’s already come up informally, but I mean as a legislative measure. And I’m sure everyone who was around the last time the Republicans promsied us "something different" remembers Newt Gingrich's wonderfully awkward explanation of why women shouldn’t be allowed in combat:

If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.

Now, just for fun, and to drive home the point later, I'm going to address the… *ahem* questionable points, in the order that they appear.

“living in a ditch”

OK. I realize that our men in green DO spend some time in “ditches,” but LIVING IN THEM? I’ve heard of “always fighting the last war” but THIS GUY seemed stuck fighting World War ONE!  Newt: We don’t have too many men “living in ditches” anymore.

“biological problems” and/or “infections”

I didn’t SEE him say this myself, but I seriously wonder if he was blushing. Newt? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Is he seriously suggesting that the simple act of “living in a ditch” is somehow more likely to give a woman an “infection” than a man? Somehow I doubt he’s talking about the risk of stepping on a rusty nail on your trench-climbing ladder, but I also strongly suspect that he has no idea WHAT he’s fucking talking about, and that 99% of his audience will be too embarrassed to ask. (The other 1% were women, but the women in HIS audience apparently know better, or at least did way back in 1995, than to question the men.)

“they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare”

Nobody said the numbers should be 50/50, Newt. The INTEREST isn't even 50/50!  The question is why those “relatively rare” (not “rare” mind you, “relatively rare”) specimens of brute femininity are barred from combat operations. Unless you use your dick to load a rifle, I think you just shot your entire argument in the foot. (And I hence award it the Purple Heart, and you the Purple Brain.)

“men are basically little piglets”

The more I here assholes like Newt Gingrich speak, the more I tend to agree with this point, but don’t try to drag the rest of us down to your level, Newt.

“These things are very real.”

The last refuge of every bullshitter: Assuring you that he’s NOT bullshitting you! (And I PROMISE YOU: That’s a FACT!)

“a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time”

Did you ever notice how the only time a man like this asshole ever acknowledges that a woman might be even remotely competent at anything, it’s usually in a job that he figures most men wouldn’t want anyway? (And while it’s beside the point I’m trying to make, I think he’s severely underestimated the popularity of video gaming amongst our young male population, seeing as how the job in question was “managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets.”)

“because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes”

Who the fuck hunts giraffes? Seriously.

OK, THAT was fun. But what’s the POINT? (Apart from making Newt Gingrich look like a crusty old bafoon, which is about as difficult as poutting on a hat.)  Well… In thinking about this line of reasoning, something dawned on me. And I might be late to the party here, but I don’t care.  Maybe you'll all read this and say, "DUH!" But I thought it was rather profound, so please humor me. The chauvinists ALWAYS try to make this kind of an argument: That the sexes are equal, but not the same, and that they’re just good at different things. And USUALLY, at least to me, it seems that the things women are “good at” are generally things men don’t want to do. (Unless the job pays more.) (Which it certainly will, once more men start doing it!)

But it’s not about what women can or can’t do, or even can or can’t do better than men. That really isn’t part of the true reasoning at all. It’s completely irrelevant to them. And that’s evident even in Newt’s own rant: He acknowledges that some, “relatively rare” women, may in fact possess the necessary “upper body strength.” (IOW: Could probably DO this currently men-only job.) But he offers no reason why they should then just be written off. (Unless, as I said, a fifth appendage is somehow necessary to load a rifle and shoot someone.)

Now… give this same man a few drinks (i.e.: loosen him up) and ask him in all seriousness, if there’s REALLY anything a man can do passably well that women can’t.  See… I’ve (mis)spent a lot of my youth drinking with chauvinists and you’d be surprised how often (almost every time) I got the following answer: Pee standing up.


[tongue-in-cheek]

Now, putting aside the profound societal implications that upright urination otherwise enables, I’m sure these same men, in all their infinite wisdom, would be as surprised as many of you no doubt might be, to find out that woman CAN, in fact, pee standing up. With all the socially critical upright posture and politically important accuracy and stream velocity. In fact, with the slightest amount of practice, most women would find that they could “write their name in the snow” every bit as neatly and completely as most men can! (And that’s a critical, combat-related skill after all! I mean: What if your unit got lost in the arctic and you needed to leave a message to help your rescuers locate you?)

[/tongue-in-cheek]


OK, yes, I’m being a bit absurd. And more than a bit vulgar here. But in all seriousness, I am telling NO LIE in my evaluation of the human female’s potential aptitude for artistic expression in that particular media. And what do you supposed would be the answer received from these very same men, given evidence of that revelation?

Well… They’d probably say that it was disgusting. (As I’m sure many of you have also though once or twice by now, hopefully with a unwanted smile, at least on the inside.) But when THEY say “it’s disgusting” that a lot different from YOU saying it, and here’s why:

With you? It’s likely just because you don't appreca vulgarity as much as I hope you do. But with a "little piglet" like Gingrich? It’s because, just like with combat, it’s not about what women can or can’t do, but about what men like Newt Gingrich think they SHOULD be doing. Any woman who comes up against a piece of shit like [Gingrich] in their life, job, relationship, family, etc… will find a constantly moving set of goal posts. At first the man says, “No,” because, “you are not ABLE to do [whatever.]” Then, when a woman shows she CAN do [whatever], the objection becomes. “Men do it better” or (more PC) “men are biologically advantaged towards certain types of activities.” Then when a woman beats out every single man in the world in said activity? She still fails to gain appreciation or acceptance, this time for no reason other than “this is not something [they] think a woman SHOULD be doing.”

The woman’s aptitude for the task in irrelevant, because men like Newt Gingrich don’t really CARE about the task. What they CARE about is the POWER to determine WHO should be doing WHAT. The POWER to decide what tasks should be done by men, (i.e.: the relatively fun, uber-glorified, high paying ones) and what tasks men don’t want to do women are *ahem* better at. What women really can or can’t do, or what (or even IOF) they are REALLY better at, is secondary to these men maintaining their accumulated power over them.

It’s not about a woman taking a man's “job,” whatever that job might have been. It’s about a woman taking away a man’s power to decide where they belong, what a "man's job" actually IS, as opposed to their own ability and actual, objective evidence of their aptitude deciding. Like almost everything else with the Right, REALITY takes a back seat to the perpetuation of beliefs that are beneficial to maintaining their POWER.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear Rush Limbaugh, or any of these fools, talk about equal employment, equal pay, or other “women’s issues.”

(Which, despite what Newt Gingrich might tell you, don't generally have anything to do with “infections!”)