November 23, 2010

Bad Country. Bad!

North Korea has shot-up a South Korean island. An inhabited South Korean island. Two South Korean Marines are dead, a number of South Korea civials are wounded and wrecked numerous homes. What the hell? Between this and the incident where North Korea torpedoed a South Korean ship, it really looks like North Korea is trying to start some shit. We are talking act of war here.

Which is crazy. The North Koreans are out gunned and know it. A full blown war will be a bloody mess, but North Korean is sure to loose. So what kind of game are they playing? Are they trying to get as close to war as possible and then pull back? Keep everyone off balanced with the North under pressure over its nukes and impeding leadership change? I don't know, but this is a crisis, no doubt.

November 22, 2010

Gay Panic is not Freedom

Why is junk touching the last line to be crossed? We torture people. We fight wars. We get monitored on video. We get surveilled without warrants. Everything and anything get justified in the name of security, but a light brush past your crotch is the last straw? We give up all kinds of rights all the time, but the slightest hint of the wrong kind of sex (Dudes! Near my Junk!) and we suddenly turn into raging libertarians.

November 17, 2010

Dancing to Ruin

The metaphor is waaay to easy, but what is currently going down on Dancing with the Stars is too good to pass up. I'm getting all of this second-hand, by the by. I have yet to watch a single minuet of the show, but a full blown culture war has broken out. The single-mom daughter of everyones favorite half-term Governor is on the show. And despite the fact she's a terrible dancer, she has stayed on the show on the strength of an organized tea party effort to pump up her votes. This week Bristol made it to the finals, sending Brandy (you know, from the 90's) home despite the fact that Brandy is a great dancer. So here you have it - the essence of tea party and Palin - inflicting bad dancing on Country just to make the point that your tribe is better. The same people that will vote for a bad dancer just because she's a Palin will vote for a total disaster of a President just because she's a Palin.

November 16, 2010

Greedy Little Kids

My working assumption is that the GOP controlled House will be indistinguishable from a House controlled by greedy little children. Case the first, a newly elected Republican, who dedicated his campaign to screwing people out of thier health care, really wants his government health care right now.

November 9, 2010

Fast Sell-Out Rate

Rand Paul is selling out on earmarks already. At this rate, he should be in favor of deficits by the time he is sworn in and for single-pay health care by the end of the term

November 8, 2010

Trading Up?

Let me get this straight. Gavin Newsom has moved from running one of the premier cities of the world to a job where his only duty is to get up each morning and ask how Jerry Brown is feeling, and that's a move up?

Fast Return

Keith is back. I didn't even have time to print up my "Free Keith Olbermann" t-shirts. When I get in trouble on the job, a Facebook group doesn't form on my behalf. I need to become famous.

November 6, 2010

November 4, 2010

Oh to be Young...

...and only care about voting in Presidential electiona. In the course of breaking down Pot's current loss and future prospects, MY breaks out a chart showing that the under-30 crowd's share of the electorate dropped from 18% to 12% from this election to 2008. This isn't an unusual thing. Off-year elections always run older. But Obama's appeal is especially weighted to the younger crowd and away from the older. 65+ was the only age category to vote against him in 2008. When they go from 13% of voters to 20% of voters, we have trouble. Not just in votes on pot, but votes on everything. Including, for example, the House of Representatives! So for the next four years, find somebody under 30 and educate them as to the importance of voter in off years. Governors are important! House Members are important!

November 3, 2010

Hangover

Well, that's what it feels like to get your ass kicked. The GOP is picking up 60+ seats in the House which makes the tan one Speaker. The GOP picked up a bunch of Governorships and Senate seats, but the Dems took California and will hold the Senate. Thank the Tea Party for the Senate. In several states most notably Nevada and Delaware, conservatives picked out wild-eye maniacs who lost to incumbents in the best year the GOP will have in decades.

I really don't get California voters. Dems won top to bottom State-wide, but pot lost big, we lowered the budget vote requirement to 50%, but added at 2/3rds vote for fees and kept billions in tax cuts for corporations. We voted for climate change legislation and against State Park funding. We are everywhere and nowhere.

Welcome to the new gridlock. Remember how liberals complained about not getting what they everything they wanted as major pieces of legislation got passed? Well they are not going to do that anymore, because nothing is getting passed. The GOP is deep in the red mist right now, no deals are going to get done. We are at a standstill for two years.

November 1, 2010

What Do You Want?


This paragraph from Michael Kazin sums up pretty well my own problem with Jon Stewart:

Civility is a fine and pleasant thing, but it has never inspired a serious political or social movement—or revived the fortunes of a president. Irony and satire can be potent modes of persuasion, but what do Stewart and Colbert’s liberal supporters want to persuade their fellow Americans to actually think or do? The Comedy Central duo has done a reasonable job highlighting what they think is wrong with our system of government, the people seeking to influence it, and the media covering it. But time spent by liberal rally-goers and Daily Show viewers complaining about how politics is conducted would be better spent deciding what issues to promote, fight for, and win. In a time of economic crisis and fears of national decline, it is not enough to make fun of the lies and sloppy thinking of the right. People need to engage in the political process to reform and push it forward, not agree that we’re all more reasonable than the media portray us and promise to behave civilly.

If we fight for "common sense" and "civility" and they fight for their policy goals, then they are going to win. We can be civil when we fight. No need to compare our opponents to Hitler, just because they do it to us. And I'm all for using as much humor and satire as we can lay our hands on.But we do need to fight for what we believe in. John Stewart's recommended course of action seems to be "stop the fighting." His attack on Crossfire, his moment of seriousness at the rally, it all comes down to stop the fighting. But "stop the fighting" can quickly turn into "stop fighting." It takes two to make this stop and I for one have no intention of laying down for the right to keep Jon Stewart mellow.