Invasion of the Paul People

I recently wrote a post that I never actually posted which supported my theory that Howard Dean really never had very much support in 2004. Sure, the support he had was quite firm, but it was inherently limited to the small percentage of people who had already joined his movement. I didn't post it because it was too number-oriented, and I've found that you people don't seem to like my number-crunching posts (I, being an accountant, happen to love number crunching, but I understand why it's not so fun to read).

Basically, Dean had about a steady 14% of the voting-Dems. That was it: 14%. During the build up to the primaries in December, that number doubled, and stayed high going into Iowa. But after his dismal third-place finish in Iowa pulled the rug out from under him, he went back down to his original 14%. In contrast, the other candidates were fairly loose with the numbers, with Kerry never looking very good until his big win in Iowa. After that, everyone seemed to file in behind him, particularly the people who had temporarily joined the Dean bandwagon. Sure, none of this is conclusive, but if I posted the numbers I crunched, you'd see I'm not completely speculating.

And the reason was simple: Dean grabbed a certain segment of the population that he had tailored his platform on. But the other candidates were all fighting for the same crowd as each other, and that crowd didn't give a damn if it was Kerry, Edwards, Clark, or Lieberman who got the spot; just as long as it was one of those guys (I personally would have supported any of those except Joe, though I preferred Clark). And then there were the bandwagon people who joined Dean when he looked like he was the one, but would have supported any Democrat they saw as the front-runner. That's where a big chunk of Kerry and Edwards support came from after Iowa, as all the other candidates stayed firm in the polls except for Kerry, Edwards, and Dean (as well as Gephardt, who dropped out after Iowa).

But the main point is that Dean never was going to get those Kerry, Edwards, Clark, Lieberman people. He just wasn't. So while he looked strong throughout the pre-primary season, that strength was just based upon people who really weren't like the rest of the Democrats. Dean was the one guy who wasn't interchangeable with the others. While he wasn't going to get less than his 13%, he wasn't going to get much more than that either. And that's the reason he lost. My numbers show that of the first nine primaries, Dean averaged 12.7% of the vote, with his best showing in New Hampshire and his worst in Oklahoma. And that backs up much of what I'm saying.

It wasn't the "Dean Scream" or the Washington Establishment opposing him, because most people really aren't influenced by the Washington Establishment. It was just that he had a message tailored for a specific audience, and that message just didn't translate with the rest of the Democrats. Had Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman not been splitting Kerry's demographic, he would have been trouncing Dean in the polls, not lagging with the rest.

Losing Red State

But like I said, I decided to not post that post. But I started thinking about it again today when Carpetbagger made the mistake of writing a post about Ron Paul. As usual, the Paul People got wind of it and descended upon Carpetbagger with their usual tripe about how Ron Paul is the savior of the universe and the only true American in politics.

Sure, Carpetbagger's post was merely a note about how Ron Paul raised a bunch of money in a short period of time, but no matter. They descended all the same, imagining that they can convince liberals to support Paul because Paul wants us to be able to use gold to buy stuff at stores and some idiocy about how Social Security doesn't exist and how it's only our creditors who are paying the Social Security checks (despite the fact that Social Security is still quite profitable and is one of the government's creditors).

And so I wrote a comment there begging Carpetbagger to stop posting about Ron Paul because it makes all the loons come out of the woodwork and rant about Ron Paul. It's like these people are just desperate to find some forum to discuss him in. And I thought that was crazy, because if anyone was going to get into Paul's old school conservative platform, it certainly wouldn't be the liberals at Carpetbagger. So they were all wasting their time.

And then one of them dropped me the final clue: the conservative blog Red State already hates the Paul People. I couldn't believe it. This guy was actually suggesting that I go to Red State because of their anti-Paul policy. Holy shit! If they lost Red State, they're screwed. Because where does Paul go from there? He's an old school conservative further to the right than the Bushies (using the traditional Left-Right Index, of course, and not the revised Bush Loyalty Index).

I mean, the only thing about Paul that could appeal to moderates and liberals is Paul's anti-war policy, and we've got Democrats who do that. And once any moderate or liberal gets a load of Paul's other policies, they jump ship. So if they can't convert the freaks at Red State, what's the point? They could raise thirty million dollars in a week, and it still won't help them. They've already got all the supporters they're going to get and have got nowhere else to go.

Finding the Herd

And I started thinking about this Paul phenomenon and realized it was just like the Dean phenomenon, except worse for Paul. As I wrote at Carpetbagger's, the issue is that you have a certain number of disenfranchised people on the fringes who are lost in a national sea of moderation and compromise. They're all by themselves and need to feel like they're part of something bigger. It's part of our herd-like instincts, to have other people validate our beliefs and let us know that we're not crazy. It's sort of like a bat's sonar; it makes people feel better when they say something to hear the echo come back to them.

And so when they find some politician who will speak to them, they immediately are attracted like moths to a light, where they find each other. Finally, they've found a group of like-minded individuals. These are people who don't even get along well with people of their own ideology, and so they think it's something special when they can find so many people who think just like them. And the Internet is a big help in that, as now it's easier for thirty thousand people to get together and form a group. But while that's a lot of people, that's really not very many on a national scale.

In the old days, a local politician with a thirty thousand man army of supporters would be quite powerful, but if most of those people couldn't vote in his district, and if this was the most he could get out of the entire nation, it won't help much. Sure, the politician will look good, particularly in national polls, but all those people can't support him in individual state primaries. Nor is it particularly impressive in an age where a presidential nominee can get over fifty million votes and still lose.

While the Internet has been a big help in combining little guys into big forces, those forces can be deceptive. Atrios getting thirty thousand people to send letters might help sway a politician on a particular issue. But thirty thousand votes in a presidential election won't even amount to a small joke. Republicans can toss out more than thirty thousand votes before breakfast. Sure, it's better than being lost in the wilderness, but it still won't put your guy in the Whitehouse.

Nowhere but Down

And as I said, the other issue is where you go with your army. If you've got a solid 14% of the population as Dean did in 2004 and you're moving from a moderate position and can gather huge chunks of the other nominee's votes, you're sitting pretty. But if you got 14% from a fringe that is pretty much limited at 14%, you've got nowhere to go. Instead, you could get snookered by a moderate like John Kerry, who barely made it into double-digits and whose support was never as steady as Dean's. Because again, Kerry was sharing the majority of the Democrats with the other moderates; while Dean was usually grabbing a steady share all to his own.

And the reason Dean wasn't sharing those votes is the same reason he couldn't win: Because nobody really wanted his voters. He got all that support because the other candidates were neglecting that part of the population. But they were being neglected because they were fringe people who rejected moderation and compromise. They latched to Dean because he was the one guy telling them what they wanted to hear; accusing the others of being "Bush-lite". And if that was a smart position to take, you can bet that other candidates would have latched onto it and would have stolen much of Dean's support.

So in essence, Dean was only as popular as he was because he had adopted a position which wasn't very popular. As I suggested at Carpetbagger's, it's like being the only CB radio repairman in town. Sure, every CB owner will flock to you when they need repairs, but there just aren't that many of them. Getting 100% of six million people isn't as good as getting 40% of fifty million people. And that's what we're talking about.

Cheney Buttinski Wins

But for Paul, it's even worse. First off, we're already in November and he's still not polling as well as Dean was. By the end of October 2004, Newsweek had Dean at 13%, where he had been for months. They've got Paul at 3%. And for context, Dean was tied in first with Clark, and was only losing to the "Don't Know/None/Other" category, which stayed steady at 27%. Paul, on the other hand, isn't even included in the General Election polls I saw.

But even worse, the CB radio analogy is quite appropriate. Because the thing is, Ron Paul is an anachronism. He's not a fringe candidate because he's too radical. He's in the fringe because his entire party went off the deep-end and left him there. Sure, his ideas are radical and would be rejected by large majorities, if they were to know what he wanted to do. But the thing is, he's really no different than what most Republican politicians were saying just a decade ago. He didn't change, the party did. But he's just as loony as he ever was.

And just like with Dean, the only reason he's being noticed is because he's taking up a huge chunk of ideological real estate that's been abandoned. The only reason why he stands out is because no other major Republican is taking that stand, yet there are still quite a few diehard conservatives who are still there. Or who have come back from the deep-end, after they saw how much of a disaster it is. But while Dean was the fringe candidate who was too ahead of his time, Paul just stands out like a sore thumb and is a nasty reminder about how conservatives used to be, before the Bush-Cheney machine came along and ruined everything.

And while that should be a good thing, these are people who don't like to admit to mistakes and are still living in a fantasyworld. They don't want to hear about how they all went off the rails. They want Giuliani to torture the shit out of people (literally) and they want the guy from Law & Order to come riding in on a horse and save the day. They don't want small government and isolationism. They want a government that kicks butt, takes names, and then kicks some more butt.

And Ron Paul won't give that to them. Because that's one of the odd things about the Bush-Cheney movement: They're actually more moderate than the conservatives of the 90's. I guess it's that Compassionate Conservative thing. They believe in powerful government. They went global. They now think it's good to deny individual rights in order to benefit society, just like liberals; the only difference being that they think they own society and that society should work for them. The problem isn't that they're too conservative. The problem is that they're batshit crazy and they really don't give a damn.

And as it turns out, while conservatives liked the "I've got mine, leave me alone" rhetoric, they really liked conformity and butting into everyone else's business. Both those strands were within the crazy conservative ideology, but with Cheney at the helm, the Buttinski's won. They're now the Party of Big Brother and they like it.

The Lonely Paul People

And so all those poor Paul supporters just can't figure out what's going on. Finally, they've found a candidate who represents what they believe. And sure, while they themselves may have lapsed after 9/11, they're now back and have a candidate to support; the kind of candidate they used to have in the good old days. Yet he can't even bust into double-digits among weak competition. Everyone they know whose opinion they trust is supporting Ron Paul and this looks like the real deal. But alas, it won't be.

Again, the only reason why they all support Paul is because his position is so unpopular. Supply & Demand wins again. The bigger demand something has, the more suppliers will show up to fill that demand. But if demand is low enough, you'll be lucky to get even one supplier. And that's what the Paul People have: Their one CB radio repair guy who's getting all the business in town and still can't catch a break. And the more they rally behind him and insist that he's unlike all the other candidates, the more everyone else will reject him.

And that apparently includes the Red State people, who were really his only hope. The Paul People can try to pretend he's the next Dean and try to woo some anti-war support from the left, but all that does is remind us how crazy they really are. Paul may have a tight group of rabid supporters, but it won't do him any good.

My Daily Pick Me Up

I just gave myself the Presidential Medal of Freedom while listening to The Eye of the Tiger and smoking a fat cigar. I totally kick ass!


Update: My apology to the two readers who got brain aneurysms while watching the YouTube clip I linked to. You're right, I really should have posted a warning on that one. All the same, my lawyers have made certain that the double-secret hidden disclaimer on my website is absolutely airtight. I assure you, you will both be paying my legal fees, which will most surely be higher than your own. You've been warned.

Ideas Which Aren't Mine

You know something, I've been thinking about it and decided that there really isn't any difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. It's really all just different sides of the same damn thing, so what's the point? Sure, there are different shadings and approaches on a few issues, but I'm now cynical and don't like the fact that these people all aren't doing exactly what I want them to do. Because ideas can be broken down into two basic categories: Those that are mine and those that aren't mine, and in that context, it's obvious that neither side is really going along with all of my ideas.

And so if they're not responsive to my every need and won't choose the exact solutions for the very problems I think are most important, then I'm just going to toss them all away and insist that I'm better than all of them and that until they start obeying my every command, I will denounce both sides equally. Nay, I will hate the side closer to mine for being backsliders and/or ideological abominations. By misappropriating part of my platform, they are doing nothing but undermining my position and stealing my thunder. They are my true enemies and I will do my best to return the favor on every occasion.

When they try to steal poverty as an issue, I will blast their poverty plan for being far too inadequate. When they try to half-assedly save the environment, I will be right there to denounce them as corporate shills. No position will be safe for them. No issue will be their issue. Any issue they try to steal from me, I will steal right back with righteous indignation. And were they to steal my entire platform, I would go so extreme that they'd be begging me to pull back from the abyss of insanity. But that would do nothing but anger me further.

I won't be satisfied until I've gotten them to the point that I can drown them in a bathtub; which I will, before finally taking over the movement and making it right and holy. But until then, I wish a pox on both their houses, particularly the Democrats. While it's unlikely that my actions will do anything except help Republicans, it sure will make me feel good about myself. Tis better to be the infallible prophet than a compromised follower.

Glenn Gould Does Britney Spears

Carl Bernstein recently attacked "celebrity news" as one of the big problems with the media. But he insists that the media isn't the only one to blame for that. As the article says:

Bernstein, 63, said he believes an "idiot culture" is partly to blame for the dysfunction of political life in the United States.

"You can't separate the appetites and demands of the people themselves and what they are given," he said. "The blame simply can't all be put at the feet of those who present news."

But why the hell not? There have always been people more interested in gossip and celebrities than real news. There has always been a big market for salacious stories and juicy rumors. And without any doubt, there have always been idiots. And those idiots have always had sources to satisfy their need for news they can understand. So what? When did popularity become the standard for excellence?

Big Macs outsell filet mignons by a wide margin. Does that mean that fancy restaurants should start selling Big Macs? Or more appropriately, Britney Spears outsells Glenn Gould. Does that mean that Gould should start recording pop albums and hiring half-nude dancers for his concerts? Of course not. So why is it ok for "serious" news shows to cover Britney Spears stories, when there are obviously bigger problems on our plate?

The fact is that there are different audiences who want different things from different people. You go to McDonald's when want a fatty burger and a cheap toy for your kid. You listen to Britney Spears when you're a herd-like pre-teen who wants to bop around to fluffy music. And anyone who wants that kind of stuff goes to McDonald's or buys Britney's albums. In these circumstances, it would be inconceivable for higher quality establishments to sell-out and start pleasing the masses. And if they did, they would most certainly be loudly derided by all serious people and their reputations would go down the tubes.

Only with the media do we take this as a given that it's ok to sell-out. It's all about ratings and high readership. It's all about giving the people what they want. But that's not what journalism is about. It's not about ratings. It's about information. It's about giving people what they need. And if that means that your show won't get as high ratings, well tough shit. That's not what this is about. There is an audience for real news, and if that audience isn't as big as what you want, well that's just too damn bad. That's the business you're in and that's the product you're expected to provide.

We already have news sources that focus on entertainment news. That's why People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight were created. The E! Network even has a celebrity news crawl at the bottom of the screen, for those who want to watch Hef on The Girls Next Door, but are afraid to miss the breaking news on Lindsay Lohan's latest arrest. We already have plenty of celebrity news sources. Now we need real news sources. And if most people don't watch real news unless a big news story happens, well that's just how it goes.

Nobody asked them to make a 24-Hour news channel. But if they're going to have one and it's going to influence real news, which it will, then they have a responsibility to provide real news. And there are no excuses. Nobody promised them an audience. We owe them nothing. They went into the market as real news sources, and that's what they owe us. And hell, if they want to rebrand themselves into gossip news sources, I'd fully support that. I hate those 24-hour news channels and would be perfectly happy if they stopped covering real news.

But as long as they cover real news, they will have a strong influence on it. And as such, they are fully responsible for the crappy state of journalism we're in. There will always be fans of "idiot culture," but that doesn't mean I want to see Glenn Gould lip-synching pop songs while prancing about in a thong. News people can aim for a pop culture audience, but then that's how they should be treated. I have no problem with the existence of shows like Entertainment Tonight. I just don't want those fools picking my president.


P.S. I just saw that Gould died quite a few years ago, which would make it that much less desirable to see him prancing around in a thong. But I love his music and like his name, so I refuse to change this to whomever his living equivalent would be.

The Right of Preemptive Self-Defense

Guest Post by Doctor Snedley, Personal Assistant to Doctor Biobrain

I just read about how our terror watchlist is "ballooning" and let me tell you, I couldn't be happier. I mean really. Reading that there are now over 800,000 terrorists lurking in our midsts scares me shitless and I can't think of any better way to feel during times of such existential turmoil such as this. I mean really. What better way is there to reinforce the fact that we're all about to die and need Bush to save us than to find out that we're finding 20,000 more bad guys a month. That's the kind of thing that makes my blood rush and my bullets pump.

Sure, I can understand why the anti-American freaks at the Prospect are gnashing their teeth over this. And I'd be a bit scared if the authoritarian dungeon masters at the ACLU weren't throwing a hissy fit. Why shouldn't they? They were probably the first ones on the list! That'd be like Saddam's henchmen's complaining about the Most Wanted Playing Cards; but I suppose that was the ACLU too, huh.

But this surely isn't enough. By my calculations, John Kerry got over fifty-nine million votes in 2004, and even discounting all the triple-counted votes and ballots cast by the recently deceased, that still puts our terror watchlist as being short by about twelve million names (please note that this is the exact number of illegals currently parasiting off our fair country; not exactly a coincidence, I'd guess). So I say we've got a whole lot more work to do.

And let's just make this easy. First off, we know that white people don't become terrorists. I mean, why would they want to blow up their own people? Right? So we can just cross them off the list and enroll all the people who don't fit into that category; namely, all the black, brown, red, and yellow people out there. I mean, I haven't met one who I'd trust to carry my luggage and they're all so easily offended and rude to me. And let me tell you from personal experience, it's just one easy step from them tossing out phrases like "pendejo" to them physically attacking you. The Violence-First mentality is extremely common among primitive-minded people, which is why we need places like Gitmo to begin with. So we can deal with these potential terrorists before they can deal with us.

Next we go for the Feminists. I mean, why the hell not? We really should have done that a loooong time ago. And did I need to say it? Of course not. The non-Christians. They're definitely trouble. Especially as any non-Christian who isn't non-white or feminist has got to be bad news. That just goes without saying. In fact, I think it would be helpful if these people had their names on the list for each one of these offenses. So that a black atheist feminist would have her name on the list three times. That way, they stick out better, which is important as these risk categories multiply exponentially. If we assigned three points for each risk category, our black atheist feminist would sure score like a million or something; I don't know. I'm still working on that system, but it's somewhere in that range.

And hell, once we get down to it, it seems like it'd be a helleva lot easier to just come out with a list of the people we don't need to watch. And that would be the real Americans. The commonfolk, like George Bush and Dick Cheney and Bill O'Reilly, as well as myself, Doctor Snedley. The real salt of the earth people who are the obvious targets of all these sicko madmen. We should be able to do whatever we needed to with impunity, with it fully acknowledged that we are simply acting out of preemptive self-defense and know what's best.

Again, why would we attack our own people? We wouldn't. We love our people. That's what separates us from the terrorists. Well that, plus the color of our skin and our political and religious beliefs. But that just goes without saying. We're in an existential struggle to ensure the survival of the good people, and the only way we can do that is if we get rid of all the bad people. That's simply undeniable, and to do so would be the surest sign you belong on that list. I mean, who wouldn't want all the terrorists and terrorist-sympathizers to die in their own rancid feces than a fellow terrorist? That's just self-evident.

It'd be nice if all these people would just up and die for us; and thus allow us to live the peaceful lives we so desire. But as long as these monsters continue to offend humanity by their foul existence, we are left with no other choice than to remove their entrails with their own kneecaps and forcefeed their mothers' eyeballs into their rectums. By their wickedness, they have left us with no other choice. This is a disembowel-or-be-disembowled world, and I don't know about you, but I'm kind of fond of my bowels.

Remember, tis better to kill one hundred innocent men than to be murdered by one guilty one. Because that way, at least you're still alive; and that's a lot more than what most of the bastards can say once me and my buddies get our hands on that watchlist.

A-Holes for Jesus

Well I just got back from Sixth Street for Halloween, and if you don't know what Sixth Street is, then it sucks to be you. I went to my old pre-kid haunt Emo's for the first time in over a decade and actually took my daughter (she really wanted to go); and yes, we had the best costumes there (I was GI Elvis, and looked quite spiffy in my camos, purple shades, and fake sideburns). I'd tell you what she was, but I'm afraid you might not approve.

But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about religious people and why the hell they have to block up the street on Halloween. For those who don't know Sixth Street here in Austin, it's a street with a bunch of bars that they block off from car traffic on busy nights so drunk people can walk wherever they want without getting runover. It's usually pretty crowded, even in the street. and on Halloween, it's jam packed. It took us twenty minutes just to walk a few blocks.

But the worst part was the intersection where the Jesus freaks were. Now don't get me wrong, I'm cool with people believing whatever the hell they want to believe, just as long as they don't interfere with me. And that's exactly what these jerkoffs did. They were stopped in the middle of a huge pedestrian jam and beat their tambourines and wore their religious shirts. One guy seemed to be of the opinion that people don't know the Ten Commandments enough, so he had to wear it on a t-shirt. And thank god too, as I was just about to covet somebody's stuff until I saw that shirt.

And that just sucked. The pedestrian traffic went from slow to a complete stop, thanks to those bozos. Because they just stood there in a big group blocking a major part of the road. And what were they doing there? Did they really think they were going to convert somebody right there on Sixth Street? Did they imagine that they'd finally find that dude who would gladly convert to Christianity, if only a schmuck in a t-shirt blocked his path to the next bar? Is it possible that there exists somebody who hasn't heard of Jesus yet, and is just ripe for conversion...on Sixth Street?

I doubt it. I think they were just trying to be a-holes and to start a fight. Like it makes them feel righteous to piss people off and get yelled at. Not that I saw anyone yell at them. In fact, for as much as there is a "war on religion" and this being Austin...on Sixth Street...on Halloween, I think everyone was pretty cool with them. I mean, there were freaks dressed as devils and devils dressed as freaks, and yet I didn't see anyone mess with these guys. And if anyone deserved to be messed with, it'd be these guys. I'm telling you, I just needed to get my daughter home as she has school in the morning, and these guys were totally stopping that from happening.

And I saw something similar last year, except it was just one dude preaching really loudly. And while he personally didn't create too much of a barrier (except that he was standing on a platform), there were always people standing around with big smirks on their faces, and that blocked the road too. And from what I could tell, he wasn't even trying to convert anyone. He was just ranting about all the people with the smirks on their faces, which was everyone, and how he can put up with it. As if this was a test of his will power and faith in Jesus. As if this was all about him.

And it was. Just as it was about the jerks who blocked the way tonight. They weren't trying to save my soul. They didn't really believe they'd find that one guy who hadn't yet heard of Jesus Christ. They were just trying to feel holy and important. This was all about them, and we were just props in their little test of faith. They didn't care if they were blocking the road or preventing my daughter from getting home. They just wanted a little taste of martyrdom; to reconfirm their religiousity by going directly into the belly of the beast and confronting the Devil himself. That's all this was about.

Again, this shouldn't be construed as any kind of attack on religion, because it's not. Religious people do a lot of good things in the name of religion and I won't knock them for that at all. But these guys were something completely different. They weren't raising money for pregnant teens or building homes for the homeless. They weren't even trying to convert us. They were selfishly wasting my time in order to feel better about themselves, and that's just wrong. If they've got nothing better to do on Halloween than to stand around looking dumb, that's their business. But they've got no right to make the rest of us stand around with them. That's just not how this shit works. You mind your business, I'll mind mine; and if one of us wants to be converted to the other person's business, then we know where to find it.

And no, it's not on Sixth Street. That's just the place you go when you want to look like an idiot and have people compliment you for it. And yes, I got quite a few compliments as GI Elvis. But then again, I really did look pretty cool.


P.S. If you ever get the chance, I recommend seeing Nebula (though they sound much better in person than their lousy MySpace page would indicate (their music is like metally Hendrix)), and I strongly recommend seeing Static Static, even though we had to leave the show much too early. Good stuff.

Absolution

I grant you all immunity, so just tell me what you did in the comments section and you'll receive full protection; no matter how heinous the crime. And if you only want to give your side of the story, or don't really want to go into the full details, that's fine by me. Just so long as I get you to talk.


SPECIAL DEAL: For a limited time, confess to one crime, get absolved for a lapse in ethics free!

And don't forget to check out our hot deals on gross negligence!!

Bad Men Acting Good

Damn, I wanted to write more about this, but I have important things to do. More important, in fact, than writing blogposts to you, my loyal readers (yes, it's true). So I'm actually going to keep this one pretty short. I just read this story about how China is dealing with the news that their products are unsafe:

China said Monday that it had arrested 774 people in a crackdown on substandard goods, part of ongoing efforts to calm international worries over the quality of the country's products.

....
Nearly 200 illegal food companies have been shut amid more than 10,000 cases of violations of the law.

"We will ensure the results will be longer lasting," Gao told reporters.
The official Xinhua News Agency also reported Monday that China would raise quality standards for pharmaceutical licensing following a string of deaths and injuries from faulty drugs.

And this is exactly how things were expected to turn out. The world can't count on people wanting to do the right thing. But when people have a good incentive to do the right thing, they are much more likely to do it. And in this case, China has quickly learned that product safety is important, at least the apperance of product safety, anyway. And so they're acting quickly to fix problems that are hitting them deep in the pocketbook. But this is all something that wouldn't have happened unless they had foreign markets wanting their goods. And the more stuff we buy from them, the higher quality shit they'll be producing.

But this isn't just about getting stuff. This is how the world has always worked. If you buy someone's shit long enough, they will depend on you for more money/power. And then you have ties that can be used to force them to behave ethically and do to what's right. It doesn't happen overnight, but it happens. On the other hand, if a country is already rogue, they will have nothing to lose when you cut them off, and you're just empowering their wicked leadership. It may sound unethical to do business with a bad man, but it's often the only way you can make one behave.

And yes, this is the simple version of all this. But it's the best I could do on such short notice.

The Pravda Administration

Holy shit! Via Atrios, I see that FEMA is now staging fake press conferences with FEMA employees pretending to be reporters. This is simply disgusting. I can't believe this could happen in America. It's bad enough when reporters regurgitate the lines the Bushies feed them, but when the only people allowed to ask questions are government employees, we're only a few more steps from having the government directly write the news articles. And why not? That's what the Republicans think the role of the media is anyway. And unless the media starts to make a bigger fuss about this stuff, that's all it's going to be.

And the excuse for why they did this is entirely absurd. They insist that they were getting calls from the media all day long, but announced a press conference with only fifteen-minutes notice...and actually expected reporters to be there?? That's absurd. This could make sense if this was an issue that reporters weren't interested in. In fact, I've always wondered what you'd do if you held a press conference that nobody in the press bothered attending. But that clearly isn't the case. The media clearly wanted to be there for this and there is absolutely no reason why an emergency press conference needed to be called in the first place. This story has been on-going for a few days now and there is no reason why this press conference couldn't be delayed by an hour.

And their 15 minute deadline gives the whole game away. If FEMA actually expected the media to be there, how was it that the FEMA staffers already had questions ready? Tough questions like "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" That's the kind of question you ask a football coach after a big game, and even the coach is likely to insist that he's happy, even if he had just finished chewing out the team moments earlier. And with FEMA, the question is even more absurd, as he's basically being asked to evaluate his own performance. Needless to say, he thinks it was great. But don't worry, we are assured that the FEMA administrator didn't know the questions beforehand; despite the fact that reporters had supposedly been asking these questions all morning.

Gannon Media

And again, the fraudulent nature of this is exposed when they staged stuff like having the FEMA press secretary announce that the end of the press conference was coming. As if the fake reporters didn't already know that. But of course they did. That was all just part of the phoniness; giving realism to a bogus event. And according to the article, this press conferencc was televised; meaning that far more people are likely to have seen it than will read the WaPo columnist exposing the fraud.

I'm honestly sickened by this. This is horrible. Had they come right out at the beginning and apologized for the short notice, and let people know that no reporters were present, I could accept that. It would be the equivalent of a press release; and they could have done away with the fake questions and just had the man speak. But the fact that they staged a fake press conference with fake reporters giving softball questions...that is simply unacceptable. I really hope some people get nailed to the wall for this. But I doubt they will. Sure, reporters probably would have liked to have asked real questions. But honestly, any tough questions wouldn't have been answered anyway, and it was easier for reporters to not have to go all the way to the FEMA building.

So as with everything else, they're likely to let this slide. Had this been done by the Clinton Administration, the media would have a great time beating him up for it. But these are Republicans and reporters all know that Republicans are con-artists; that's why they love them so much. So this is probably going to be allowed to slide. This one fake press conference was a blow to democracy, and if they get away with this, they're likely to repeat it in the future. Hell, I'm sure Bush would love to have a roomful of his employees asking him questions, and we already know all about "Jeff Gannon," who strongly believed it was the media's duty to regurgitate the government's lines.

But again, why not? Bush doesn't answer real questions anyway and the media almost never mentions the fact, so why not just allow him to avoid real questions in the first place? What's the point? This is all just a game for the media and they have no problem when the Bushies play them for suckers. Even the WaPo columnist writing about this makes it sound more like a joke, with the phoniness of the event being saved for the end punchline. He's not outraged; simply amused.

For the Government, by the Government

And this just isn't how a democracy can work. In any government, the leaders need to have good information to know how to make good decisions, and in a democracy, the leaders are the People. And while we don't have time to go to the FEMA building to ask questions directly, we pay people to do that for us, and those people are reporters. Now the Republicans continue to try to abolish that system, and the media still doesn't understand why that's a problem; and are simply allowing the government to in-source their jobs by making journalism a government function (probably the only case that conservatives oppose privatization, I imagine).

And hell, at this point, wouldn't it be better if we just got the charade out of the way and outright admitted that the media works for the government? If reporters are content with allowing their names to be used on stories they didn't really write, shouldn't we just cut-out the middleman and remove their names all together? At least then people would know that they're being lied to by the government, rather than imagining that some third-party observer has verified the information being given.

But no. The Bushies insist on spoon-feeding propaganda to the media, and the media is perfectly content with eating it. We have met the Soviets, and they is us.

Feel the Magic

Despite the fact that I've never read a Harry Potter book or seen a Harry Potter movie, its influence on our culture is so great that I am now a gay magician. I just thought I should let you know.


Update: Nevermind. I just tried conjuring up a fancy German beer while having sex with a dude, and neither went as expected. The sex was awkward and unsatisfying and the beer was a Schlitz, which sounds German but isn't. Oh well, looks like it's back to being straight and mortal.

Commies v Freedom Haters (or: Why We Should Kill Iran)

Guest Post by Doctor Snedley, Personal Assistant to Doctor Biobrain

Only a leftist pinko freak like Fareed Zakaria could compare Stalin and Mao killing millions of Communists with Iranian Dictator Ahmadinejad's intended scheme to kill millions of Americans. As if! What Fareed fails to appreciate is that Americans value human life and think it's really something special and sacred, and that's what makes it so much worse to kill us than to kill godless warmongers like the Communists. We're just not like other people.

Sure, at the time we were a bit skittish that Stalin and Mao might break out of their commie-killing ways and start hurting real people, but history has shown that not to be the case. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, Stalin and Mao killed more communists between the two of them than The Duke himself (though this point is still hotly contested). In that light, I'm not exactly sure why we shouldn't be honoring these two for the fine work they did saving us from the Red Menace. Sure, some of their tactics may have been a bit on the harsh side, but that just goes to show how forward-thinking they were; which looks particularly prescient now that the world finally faces a real threat that might just undermine our very existence. Again, they usually just did those things to Communists, which is yet more reason to hail them as heroes.

Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, is one of history's greatest monsters (second only to Jimmy Carter). I once saw Ahmadanajed, or someone who looked alot like him, spit in an old woman's face while stealing the ice cream from a little kid...and it was nuclear-flavored ice cream. Just think about what he meant by that. I also saw him once cheat at Poker and then act all outraged when he got caught, the filthy liar. And then there was that whole visiting Ground Zero thing, which I have a vague recollection of turning out quite badly for freedom. I think he also insulted gay people, which is something only Americans are allowed to do. In other words, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a very bad man.

And so that's how things stack up. On the one side, we have a couple of flawed heroes who are most famous for killing millions of Communists, and on the other side, a monster who spits on old ladies and doesn't return the clothes he borrows. Sure, some people will say that Communists deserve to live as much as anyone else; and those people would naturally be Communists. They might also say that slaughtering millions of people is just brutal and unethical, and that Ahmadienjad's crimes pail in comparison. But the difference for me is how personal Ahmadenigad's offenses are. Anyone can decide on a whim to allow people he never met to be slaughtered wholesale. But it takes a real madman to be cruel in somebody's face.

And that's who we're dealing with when we talk about Ahmadienjad, even if I'm really just confusing him with that smelly guy from the dorms who kept beating me at pool all those years ago. I'll show you, my hairy tormentor! Sure, I may have kept choking when trying to sink the eight-ball, but at least my country isn't going to get the turds bombed out of it. And that's exactly what's going to happen to yours, by god, no matter how many of those pissant countries I have to bomb to do it! And that's why Fareed Zakaria can go stuff himself. Cause it's payback time, and I'm not going to let some commie-loving peacefreak spoil my good time. We'll see who'll be choking now.

Doubting Thomas

Conservatives are crazy. That's all there is to it. They're fucking crazy. Not that you didn't already know that, but I had to start this post off somehow. I was reminded of it this time when reading an article on Clarence Thomas' new book and how he is apparently still bitter about the fact that Yale admitted him based upon racial preferences.

As he said:
"I learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much any one denied it," Thomas writes. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."

Thomas says he stores his Yale Law degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.

What a schmuck. Who the hell cares how Thomas got into Yale? The point is he got in. Does anyone really believe that Bush could have gotten in if he wasn't a legacy? If anything, it may have lessened the achievement of getting into Yale somewhat, if he didn't really deserve to be there. But once he was there, he earned his diploma the same as everyone else.

And what's truly sad is that his real complaint isn't against affirmative action, but against the very racism that affirmative action is intended to fight. I mean, is he really suggesting that he would have gotten a job more quickly with a diploma from East Schboykin Community College? Of course not. His Yale diploma opened up many doors that would have been closed to him without it. If employers were doubting his intelligence, that was all him.

But he can't see it that way at all. The dumb schmuck has to blame affirmative action, rather than racism. The only one who downgraded the meaning of Thomas' diploma was Thomas. I'm honestly sad for him that he'd insult himself by putting that 15-cent sticker on his diploma. Hell, I don't even know exactly where my diploma is, but I sure as hell wouldn't put an insult on it.

Of course, the irony is that he likely only got on the Supreme Court because of affirmative action. And he knows it. He was picked because he was a loyal, but not too bright hardline conservative who would be difficult for the Democrats in Congress to shoot-down because of the color of his skin. And adding insult to injury, the people on his own team loathe affirmative action and insist that it's unethical and wrong; yet he owes everything to it. In that context, it would seem that perhaps he's so embarrassed by the problem that he'd rather have been denied the privilege of going to Yale, simply to avoid it.

And so while he probably earned that Yale diploma, his daily life is just a cruel joke mocking him. He still doesn't feel secure with where he got in life. He's still haunted by the ghost of affirmative action. He still feels like people are doubting his abilities. But this time, they're right.

World Peace At Hand

I did it! It's done. I finally found the perfect solution to the Israel-Palestine question that's been plaguing mankind for all these years. I can't go into any details at this time as negotiations are still on-going, but I have no doubts that the final details will be worked out in no time. There is still an issue of the people of Omaha complaining, but you'd be amazed about how quickly someone can pack-up and move when offered the proper incentives. And as we've seen in Iraq, there is no better incentive than a jack-booted thug kicking down your door at two in the morning.

Trust me, this one's in the bag. All you've got to do is to write your Senator, and we should be in the home stretch.

Messaging Matters

If you saw an email from Bill Gates where he explained that he preferred using Macs because they were safer, easier to use, and much cooler than PC's; do you think that might piss-off Microsoft's sales guys? What about if a video clip was released showing all the top execs at GM laughing about how they all drive foreign cars because they're better made, safer, and more fun to drive? Or if Ronald McDonald was seen eating at Burger King while complaining that Big Macs tasted like horse meat? Is there any doubt that the GM execs would find themselves in the same unemployment line as Ronald?

Naturally, all this would hurt sales. Not that we expect McDonald's execs to eat at McDonald's every day, but when an important person in a company undermines their sales pitch, it's not good for the company. Not that this changes the product at all, but it damages the messaging. And unfortunately, the message is usually more important than the product.

I've been wanting to write about this for awhile, but Atrios had a good post on this regarding Bush's embrace of Big Daddy Government. And sure, in the short term, this really helped them grab power after 9/11. But it undermined a core message that conservatives have been pushing for decades. Their pitch was always that you should solve your own problems, and not rely on the government to solve your problems; particularly because they can never do anything right and will just waste your money.

But thanks to Bush and Cheney, all that's gone. Now the question is no longer Big Government v. Small Government; but Good Government v. Bad Government. Once you admit that the government can solve your problems, it's just a matter of determining which problems should be solved. And while the Republican attacks on "Cradle to Grave" government were fairly effective, few people actually prefer the Republican idea of Big Government; particularly once it's discovered that, while the terrorist threat was grossly overstated, they can't actually protect you from real threats.

Craig v. Vitter

And that's why Larry Craig mattered more than David Vitter; and why they're not at all embarrassed by Limbaugh or Coulter. Because Republicans don't run on policies and platform. They run on character. The sales pitch is that you can trust them to do the right thing because they're good people. They have "Family Values", and that trumps anything they might do that screws over families. And it doesn't matter which Republican you vote for, because you know they're good people. They're just like you...assuming you were a millionaire.

But even bigger than the sales pitch of who they are; it's about who they're not and who they'll protect you from. They're not San Francisco Liberals. They're not hedonists or Muslims or Mexicans. And for god's sake, they're not gay. They're godly folks who obey God's Will, and so you can trust them, no matter what they actually do. And if they say their opponent's claims are baseless smears, you can trust them. Even their political votes are often more about sending messages about their character, than on what they're actually planning to do. They'll take a thousand votes reinstating the word "God" into the Pledge before they'll do anything to fix real problems.

And that's why Craig matters. Vitter was bad because he committed immoral acts. But Craig was worse, because he committed immoral acts and got caught wanting gay sex. And that's two things. More importantly, how can they raise funds and votes based upon their ability to protect you from the Gay Menace, if they can't even keep the gays out of their coalition? And it raises the obvious question: If some Republicans are secretly having gay sex, which ones can you trust? Allowing him to stay totally screws up their whole sales pitch.

I'm sure the Republican leadership wouldn't give a damn if Craig was a hamster-molesting cannibal with a fetish for sticking crosses up his rear, just as long as nobody found out about it. But the Republican base are authoritarians who strongly believe in Guilt by Association. And with Republicans, you're not voting for the man, you're voting for the party. And why not? They're authoritarians who take orders from above. They're just expected to say what they're told to say and vote how they're told to vote, and they like it that way. They don't care about what these guys think; they just want a warm body who can say "Yea" or "Nay" on cue; and I'm sure they're actively looking into getting rid of the warm body requirement.

Hypocrisy doesn't bother these people in the least, and the Republican base is quite good at ignoring anything they need to ignore. But anything that gets in the way of the sales pitch must be eliminated. That's also why they freaked so hard in attacking the Frost family. The Republicans are the party of family values, while Democrats are the party of freaks, hippies, and perverts. So to have a family help promote the Democrats? That had to be stopped.

Big Daddy Government

This is the same reason why they shouldn't allow Giuliani to win the nomination. Sure, he satisfies their authoritarian requirements, but he cedes the rest of their sales pitch. It's like the CEO of GM admitting that his cars suck, but that at least you're buying American. Sure, that's a big part of their sales pitch, but you still don't want to lose the other arguments.

Just like Bush gave away the Small Government message, which they're unlikely to get back any time soon; Giuliani will give away all the rest of them. All they'll be left with is "Vote Republican because we kick ass" which is a message that more and more people are running away from. It took decades for them to build their carefully balanced "Small Government Which Intrudes in Your Daily Life" identity, and guys like Craig and Giuliani tossed that away overnight. Particularly Giuliani, who tells people he'll protect them from space invaders and that everyone should butt-out of his personal life. Sorry, but that's exactly the opposite of the conservative sales pitch.

That's the weird thing about the left-wing support for Ron Paul. I remember him from back in the 90's, when I disliked him because he sounded exactly like all the other conservative jerks. It was only after Cheney got in office that Republicans started heavily pimping the Big Daddy Government message that makes Paul sound like a maverick. And now that decision is hurting the GOP more every day.

Again, it's kind of hard to attack "Cradle to Grave" policies when your leading presidential candidate is telling people that the government can protect you from a space invasion. Sure, they never really believed in small government or high morals; just as GM isn't really committed to quality or the environment. They just aren't supposed to tell anyone that.

S-CHIP Confessions

Dearest readers, I have a confession. I am a fraud and a phony. You see, at one point in my life I had my kids on S-CHIP. By itself, that's not a problem, were I homeless ex-stockbroker who was ruined by excessive taxation and a rampant case of lumbago brought upon by my pot smoking neighbors. But no. Not only did I own a home which was worth more than I paid for it, but I owned two cars, three televisions, and six cats. That's right, six cats. In other words, I was loaded!

And there I was, feeding my six cats and watching my three televisions; all the while Johnny Taxpayer was footing the bill for an expense that should have been all mine. Sure, I could try to explain that I was only working for a tiny bookkeeping firm at the time, and that while they did offer insurance, it was still far too expensive for us to get; but what's the point? I'd only be fooling myself. After all, I could have sold those three televisions, only one of which I actually paid for. And who needs electricity when you've got your health? But no. I made some bad, bad choices, like foolishly purchasing a house which greatly increased in value, and now I'm finally willing to admit to that. Take me away, boys.

What's that? Nobody's interested in my story because I haven't been used by the Democrats to show the real world implications of this policy? Republicans were only freaking out because they saw Dems stealing their props, and realized they couldn't counter this with an honest rebuttal? Ok, then. Thanks. Pretend I said nothing. I'm still safe...for now. I'll just keep my mouth shut and my eyes shutter.

Russian Bitch-Slap

Yikes. It's bad enough that the Bush/Cheney/Neo-Con Bully Offensive did little more than expose how vincible our seemingly invincible economic and military power truly was. And it's also bad that we're relegated to begging tiny nations I've never heard of for additional troops, all in the name of continuing the charade of the Iraq War being multi-national; particularly since the Bushies really just wanted to go it alone in the first place, and thought any multi-national presence was unnecessary. But the All-Mighty Neo-Cons have now gotten us publicly bitch-slapped by the Ruskies!!?! This is just too much.

I mean, these people cut their teeth on Soviets. Condi herself has supposedly written an expert book on the subject. The terrorists were just the post-Cold War consolation prize after the Soviet threat sort of fell apart overnight. And yet now I read of our Secretaries of State and Defense being forced to wait for over half an hour before Putin "harangued them as though they were underlings." Yowtch. Bagnews has the visuals on that one.

The article I linked to acts slightly confused as to what's going on, but has it right with this:
Also, there was the oddity of why there wasn't some prior understanding that disagreements would be kept private, while public statements would be positive even if they were vague to the point of meaninglessness. That, too, often is the pattern for meetings where agreement is unlikely on major points of contention.

Instead, Putin brusquely derided the GMD plan to Gates and Rice in public.
For Putin, this is understandable, and richly rewarding. It makes him even more popular with the Russian populace to hammer Americans, seeming to return the Moscow regime to the glory days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, when it was the only superpower to rival the might of the United States.

As well, Putin's coldly dismissive, perhaps even contemptuous, attitude toward Americans plays well in Iran, a rogue nation with which Russia has extensive ties.

I have no idea why they think this is an oddity. The truth is that America got screwed over by the Neo-Cons Bully Agenda, and now they're discovering that everyone hates bullies. As well as discovering why their predesscors refused to follow the neo-cons' idiotic advice of trying to bulldoze over all opposition. Even Patron Saint Reagan realized what fools these people were, and he was in the early stages of Alzheimers at the time.

The truth is that for all the bluster these people have always given for demanding that America take a harder stance against all other countries, it's obvious that they've done nothing but soften us up. And now two of our top officials are being harranged by the Ruskies and can't do a damn thing about it. They played out all our cards four years ago, and so we can't even bluff anymore. We've become the punching bag of the world, and rather than forcing everyone into the Big Bully's corner; we've made it a win-win situation for any dictator and/or madman to win support from his people. All they need do is denounce us and they score bigtime, and the best we can do is try to bribe them to stop. Thanks George Bush. Thanks media for giving him to us.

Imagining God

Wow, Neil the Ethical Werewolf, writing at Ezra's, gives us an LA Times column by TNR's former embarrassment Lee Siegal where he absurdly suggests that atheism is an assault on the imagination. And while Neil and his commenters do a good job skewering that idea, I'd like to take it further. I think religion is little more than a lack of imagination.

In fact, the very idea that, of all the infinite number of possible creators imaginable, you happened to find the right one is entirely absurd. Even if every word in the bible is historically accurate, that still leaves TONS of differing ideas of what Yahweh wants us to do and what is to become of us. And that's just one book, and a majority of Christians don't believe that every word in it is historically accurate.

And as I've said before, no two religious people think alike on every subject. You can have twin nuns who have remained together their whole lives and worshipped together in the same pew at the same convent, and still you are sure to find subtle differences in what they think God is up to. It's simply inevitable. People are more than just empty computers being filed with data. We think.

Who Made Whom

And so the only people who think they have the One True answer are surely the ones who lack the imagination to realize that there just might be something else out there. Hell, I can't understand how anyone can trust one word of the bible, at least as far as ultimate truth is concerned. I'm ok with a lot of the grander ideas in it, but even if Yahweh helped men write it, how do we know He was right?

For instance, how do we know that there isn't an even greater creator who created Yahweh without letting Yahweh know? Perhaps this is all some big test of Yahweh, one which he might just be failing miserably; and that the only powers he has are the ones they gave him. It's absolutely impossible for him to know; and that's assuming that the bible is right. Maybe our true creators are militant jerkoffs who despise Yahweh for being too easy on us, particularly after the whole Jesus debacle. Who can know?

And that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I can do this shit all night. My imagination can come up with all kinds of freaky-ass possibilities of what our universe is about, and they're all just as likely as any of the others. That's why I can't believe in any gods. Pascal's Wager gives us this absurd scenario, as if this is an On or Off thing; either you believe in God or you don't. But that's entirely bull. Stating a belief in a god just opens up a huge can of worms that only raises more questions than it solved.

No Answer

That's why the simplest answer is just to refuse to even bother. It's impossible to know which of these infinite scenarios you should follow, so the best thing to do is to live your life the way you want, and hope that if there is a creator(s), that he/she/it/they won't hold it against you. But really, that's all anyone is doing anyway. The only difference is that many religious people abuse their god by attributing their beliefs and actions to their god, as a way of justifying their lives and convincing other people to follow them. And as I've said before, if anything, I see these people as the true blasphemers.

And that's why we require scientific study. That's why we need facts. And if you don't have them, then you should avoid making the tough decisions as much as possible. If I died and some supernatural dude forced me to state which god I believed in, with the risk of going to Hell for picking the wrong one, I'd obviously have to give up my agnosticism and make a faith-based choice, until then, I'd rather just abstain. I don't have an info to make an informed decision, so I just won't make any decision at all.

Now, that's not to say that I want to deny other people their faith at all. If they think they've got the right thing going on, that's their business. I just have a problem when people try making it my business. While the bible says a lot about how people should live their lives, I've seen nothing in it to suggest that believers need to force the rest of us to obey. There is an issue of Freewill, from what I understand. And if God designed a world where I should have the Freewill to disobey him and act evil, I'm not sure why so many people invoke his name when preventing me from acting upon God's choices; as long as I'm not hurting anyone else, of course.

Religious Contrarianism

As for Lee's absurd idea that love and goodness are faith-based, that's just dumb. But he really didn't believe any of that. In fact, his entire column is a pile of rubbish designed to attack "militant atheists" but he never really does. I'm guessing that he just doesn't like them.

The main point of his piece seems to be that people don't need to write "anti-god" books because they're just preaching to the choir in a society that is mostly secular. As if there isn't some big movement with more power than Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and the rest of these god-haters combined, which is trying to make us far more theological. He points out that there are no important religious figures in political office, without mentioning that every important politician is a Christian, and that even that's not good enough anymore. Presidential nominees need to be very religious, particularly Democratic ones. Bush doesn't even go to church, but Obama and Dean have been attacked for going to the wrong ones. Can anyone seriously suggest that an open atheist could possibly win the nomination of either party? I think not.

Apparently, the fact that a handful of evangelical types are trying to dictate who can and can't be the GOP nominee is less important than the fact that Paris Hilton is popular. Hell, by Lee's reference to this as the "Age of Paris Hilton", you'd imagine that she was some sort of bigtime atheist power-player, rather than an empty-headed socialite whose fifteen minutes continues to be extended by dopeheads like Siegal who reference her as a person of importance.

And that's it. That's the crux of his argument. His column just island hops across tired culture war references before landing in a shallow bath of the routine "we're all faith-based" manure. But I don't think he means any of it. This stuff makes sense when it's repeated by the typical evangical types, but from Siegal, it's nothing more than standard contrarian BS by someone who feels some tinge of religiosity from his Christian upbringing of long ago, and just feels as if perhaps his team is under assault. Or perhaps he just doesn't like their strident voices, or resents the fact that their books sell better than his. But whatever it is, he never really did say what was wrong with all those books; not even from a religious perspective. It just amounted to a long piece on why these books didn't need to be written. I'm sure their publishers would disagree with that assessment.

As a blog post, Lee's piece would have been tedious and pointless. As a column in the LA Times, it's nothing short of a complete embarrassment. Lee indicated at one point that people should "cherish the idea of faith in the absurd." Perhaps he was just trying to show us how devoted he is to the concept.

Putin's Soul

I just looked into Putin's soul, right before pouring in the bleach and washing that nasty shit out of there. The stench was the worst part. A lot like when I had to open up Cheney and hose down that pacemaker of his. It's amazing how he even made that black as coal; and the smell of sulphur was simply undeniable. It could have been different, had that baboon heart not rejected him. But it surprised no one.

Nobel Gore

So Al Gore won my fricking Nobel. Well that's just great. My god, like all those trips through the time machine straightening out Bush's repeated nuclear disasters isn't enough anymore. Then again, I suppose there's nothing more peaceful than nuclear annihilation (after it's all over anyway), so I guess I'm really just causing a big ruckus with all my world salvations, huh. Oh well, at least I still have you, my loyal readers.

I thought Josh Marshall got the best analytical scoop on the whole thing. The two biggest losers of the day were Bush and Nader. Not that they're likely to see it that way, but it's a fact. Bush because the only way he could win a Nobel is if they came out with one for killing people and screwing everything up, and Nader for suggesting that Bush was the same as Gore. I wonder when Nader will get his.

Then again, it's not likely that Gore would have won the award if he had become president, and unless he could have prevented 9/11 (which isn't entirely unpossible), he would have gotten the blame for that, which could have been enough for him to lose in 2004 (after all, the only people who can be blamed for things are the people who are expected to get it right). Hell, I don't see how Republicans wouldn't have been forced to whip out the Double-Secret Immediate Impeachment that only they know about, just to get rid of him. Naturally, it also gets rid of his VP and replaces them both with Reagan's ghost, as re-enacted by Dick Cheney.

So maybe things all worked out for the best. And as long as you've got me and my trusty time machine to straighten things out, everything should be alright. And yes, you've been experiencing the absolute best-case scenario for a Bush presidency. The second-best scenario involved flipper babies and a global Buddhist takeover in 2011. Very bad. It was all downhill after that. You're welcome.

Library For Profit

Apparently there's some hot new trend amongst local politicians to save money on libraries by privatizing them. But this makes no sense at all. How on earth could privatizing a library save money, unless they were just cutting services? What else could they do? And that's all they're doing. According to the article, the private firm will cut hours, cut employees, and won't have union employees. Wow, the Profit Miracle wins again!

The example in the article shows how ludicrous all this is. It mentions how Jackson County, Oregon will pay a private library firm $3 million for services, as well as budgeting $1.3 million for building maintenance. And this is compared with $8 million they paid for libraries. But hours are being cut from forty hours per week to twenty-four hours, and staff is being cut from eighty-eight full-time employees to fifty. The private firm says they'll pay as much, but will provide less in benefits.

And the big question is: Did they county even try this approach? It really doesn't seem that difficult to figure out. If your expenses are too high, try cutting hours and employees. That's like straight out of Budgeting 101. And the thing is, once these companes are in, it's a lot harder to get them out. Anyway, dammit if I didn't start this post too late and now it's time for bed. I wanted to write about this before, but I've been too busy. Yes, I said it. I've been too busy to write to you. In fact, I've got several posts that I've been too busy to write. You're just going to have to deal with it. I'm sorry, but it had to be said. Good night.

The Last Solution

I just came up with a workable solution for all our problems! Here's a hint: It's the one that makes the most sense.


Update: Nevermind. Reader EB sent an email yet again reminding me that people don't really like dictators, even if they're me. Fricking bastards! When will they ever learn?

New World Idiots

Carpetbagger just opened a big can of worms when he wrote about how nutty Ron Paul is. And now all the nuts are coming out of the woodwork attacking all us ignorant folks for not supporting Ron Paul in his fight against one-world government and the evil Federal Reserve. Basically, the idea is that if you don't already agree with them then you just don't know what the hell you're talking about.

And so I came out with the idea that Ron Paul is an alien who wants to enslave us in order to benefit his alien race. I mean, it all makes sense. He's against a one-world government because he wants us to remain divided so we waste precious resources fighting each other, while being able to challenge their eventual attack. That's also why he's against gun control, taxation, and big goverment; so we keep killing each other and the government will be powerless. And he's against abortion because that kills off his precious slaves. It all makes perfect sense. He's setting us up to be captured! Possibly eaten alive!!

Needless to say, nobody has addressed this point yet and realize that I'm mocking them. But it's not just a petty knock against them. It skewers right to the heart of their argument. Because they have no proof that The Powers That Be are conspiring against them. It's all circumstantial stuff that only makes sense if you already agree with what they're saying. But if you don't already agree, then it's just a hodgepodge of random quotes.

Basically, because they can take an event or statement and tie it into their theory, that makes it true. But anyone can play that game. Hell, just try to prove that Ron Paul's not an alien. And even if he wasn't, his agenda clearly helps any would-be alien invaders. By their logic, that makes it all true and we should be destroying Ron Paul; not praising him.

Cronkite & Castro

One of the nuttier commenters at Carpetbagger's has this long timeline of all sorts of suspicious events and quotes. Like a book Walter Cronkite wrote in 1996 suggesting that a One World government was a good idea. How nefarious!

And then there are lots of quotes of people referring to a "new world order" which can obviously only refer to a one-world government takeover by the UN. Even when the limited context would indicate they weren't referring to anything specific, it's suddenly proof of the conspiracy. Like a quote from Castro in 1979 in which he was upset at American aggression and "demanded a 'new world order.'" Well, shit. If Castro's in on it, it must be a conspiracy.

But it's all stuff like that. Because something could indicate a conspiracy, it must be a conspiracy. And so based upon that reasoning, Ron Paul really is an evil alien. How can it be otherwise? The evidence fits. And any evidence that doesn't fit obviously should be ignored. And if you say otherwise, you're just ignorant. Life must be simple that way.

But truth doesn't really work that way. Sure, it's possible that they're correct. But that's the thing, lots of things are possible. But it's the same thing with any zealot, they only see what they want to see. If an unexplained event happens, then the explanation must be their pet issue. Weird lights in the sky are aliens. Weird lights in a house are ghosts. Somehow, ghosts don't go in the sky and aliens don't fly in houses; not even tiny ones. And the only way to be saved from peril is if God and/or your guardian angel intervenes. And you're just fooling yourself if you don't fit their theory into the paricular facts at hand.

The Most Perfect Slaves

One of the commenters quoted some dude mentioning some vague stuff that you couldn't disagree with. Here was the first quote:

“The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.”

And the thing is, I can't disagree with that at all. In fact, this actually makes the case against what these people say. If the Powerful People are already powerful and we're already working for them, why would they try to disrupt all this with some sort of New World Order, where they take our guns and openly enslave us?

I mean, we're already working for them. The International Corporations are already doing whatever the hell they want. I even agree with that to some extent, and these people think it's even worse than I think. Or perhaps it's not corporations, as many libertarians (including Ron Paul) actually want deregulation and want corporations to be more powerful than they already are.

But whoever is doing this, they're so powerful that they control all major media outlets and all major politicians in every major country. So why would they want to disrupt this? Why are they going to take everyone's guns, explictly remove our borders, and make us all aware of our enslavement? Doesn't that completely go against the quote from above? If we're already "the most perfect slaves", why would they try to change any of that?

UN v. the Peashooters

But that's the thing with all of their conspiracy stuff. They're so busy making the case that this stuff is true, they never really explain why it's a problem. There's always this implied idea that we'll be enslaved, but why? And how? I've always been of the opinion that if the shit came down and we needed to actually use our shotguns and pea shooters to fight against our military, it wouldn't be the shotguns that saved the day. It would simply be our military guys refusing to obey the orders.

And as far as a UN takeover, as one Carpetbagger poster mentioned, these guys have trouble with peacekeeping missions in tiny African nations. Now we're to imagine that they'll just conquer the United States? Right. Hell, a large segment of our military can't even subdue a second-world nation the size of California; yet we're to imagine that we'd be easily conquered by our military? I doubt they could even conquer California! Again, none of this is even mentioned. It's just on-and-on about how ignorant we are for ignoring the truth, when they can't even explain why the "truth" is important.

And why stop at a one-world government? These people don't even like a strong federal government, and would prefer a loose-knit federation of states instead. But why stop there? Why should I, as a citizen of liberal Austin Texas, be forced to obey laws instituted by Texans who I completely disagree with? And hell, my neighborhood is more liberal than most of Austin, why should I be bound by Austin's laws? And my family! Who died and made them kings? If I don't want to clean my dishes after supper, by god, my dishes won't be clean!

Perhaps we should just be hermits with shotguns; just waiting for some filthy mother to try to get what's ours, so we can blast them. But all this is dumb. It's obvious that the bigger your group is, the better. Tribes are more powerful than individuals. Cities are more powerful than tribes. States are more powerful than cities. And a one-world government would remove any need for fighting wars or wasting trillions of dollars on national defenses.

Locals v. The Feds

And sure, there's a balance with liberty and tailoring laws to particular communities, but no one said a one-world government couldn't do that. With these people, it's just assumed that a one-world government would also mean that we'd lose all rights and could no longer elect our leaders. For all the weak quotes they toss out on the subject, I've yet to see any explanation for this. After all, there are plenty of small towns who do a great job of stifiling liberties; particular small southern towns stifiling the rights of black people.

And who exactly has been the major force trying to put a stop to that? Why, I do believe it's the federal goverment. And for that matter, many of the people who complain about the federal government are actually complaining about this very thing. The rights they've had stolen from them is the right to steal other people's rights. But this isn't a surprise. It's actually much easier and more likely for a local official to screw with you than a national official. As we all know, you just can't fight city hall.

One commenter suggested that the European Union is a warning sign of what could happen to us. I fail to see how the EU wasn't a great idea that should have happened a long, long time ago. But I also fail to see why national boundaries are so important. The reason Europe was divided was just that nobody could maintain control over the leaders of these countries. But this wasn't for the benefit of the people. This was just powerful people acting out of their own quest for power; consistenly using the "people" as fodder in their games of conquest. So how was that such a good idea?

One World

And I, for one, think a one-world government can be an excellent idea. Sure, it could be bad. But it could be great. It could be the end of war. It could make it easier to distribute resources and could be a boon to mankind. What the hell's the problem with it? Again, I've never seen this really explained.

In fact, my extensive reading of science fiction even has me worried that there perhaps are alien races watching us, and we're the laughing stock of the whole galaxy. I mean, why should they invite us into their galactic federation if we can't even get along with our fellow humans and refuse to form a common government on our puny little planet? Then again, these people would probably be against us joining a galactic federation too. Gene Roddenberry must be rolling in his grave.

But no, these people insist that any attempt to combine us together under one government would only mean they were trying to enslave us. Again, we're already slaves, and most of us are happy with it. Sure, I'd rather not work for a living, but I like having good stuff. I like having cable and electricty and cell phones and internet and cars. I'm a slave to this stuff, but I'll accept it because it's better than the alternative. And this all benefits the ultra-rich much more than it benefits me, but as long as I get good stuff out of it, I won't complain...much.

Nuts R Us

And a big problem with talking about this stuff is that every one of these guys have completely different ideas of what they're really talking about. I once talked to a guy who insisted that we would all be enslaved and turned into chattel, which he explained meant "human cattle" (no, I didn't just make that up). He insisted we'd all be picking cotton on plantations soon. I mean, why the hell would they do that? I'm a well-trained accountant, and they're going to have me doing work that is more easily done by machine?? Right.

But if you ever talk to these guys and can surpress your Nutball Alarm enough to get the details of what they're talking about, it never makes any sense. But it's not supposed to make sense. It's just the ramblings of people who feel powerless and want to find some justification for why their lives aren't better. And to feel superior to us "ignorant" folks who just aren't knowledgable about what's really going on.

That's all this is about. It's not about finding a sensible theory. I mean, many of these people will denounce international corporations in one breath, and then attack government regulations with the next. And you're like "HUH?!?" But it does no good. You can't talk sense into them, because again, they're not looking for that kind of sense. They just want to rationalize why their lives aren't better and in a way that puts the blame on some nefarious group they'll never be a part of.

And frankly, I don't think it's such a bad thing. No matter how great an idea is, it really is necessary to have a handful of people oppose it, to provide a sort of ballast to prevent us from going too far or too fast in any one direction. The world needs all kinds of people, including the crazy people. We just don't need them for president.

Iraqi Jokes

Conservatives are weird, stupid people. Ezra at Tapped has a good catch from some dude named Mario Loyala writing a cover story for National Review. Unfortunately, I'd need to subscribe to the damn thing to read the article, and that's not something I'm going to do. But Ezra showcases this "Iraqi joke" Mario apparently told to some Baathists that made fun of Baathists.

Admittedly, I found the joke mildly humorous, partly because it was so macabre, yet was still a decent dumb person joke. And it's the equivalent of a Polish joke, or what people in Texas would turn into an Aggie joke. But that's the thing, the target of the joke is clearly Baathists who are as dumb as they are evil. Only a conservative could have considered it an "Iraqi" joke and told it to Baathists, oblvious to what he was saying.

But that's the mistake the they made going into this thing, and what they continue to make. They saw Saddam as being the evil one and think of his helpers as faceless evil people. Like robots following Saddam's orders. But they weren't robots. They were people. And many of them liked how things were. And so this dumbass comes along and repeats a joke that not only mocks them, but serves as a bitter reminder about the whole thing.

BTW, I'm having major keyboard issues, so I'm not posting as much or as long as I'd like to. This sucks. I really wasn't done with this one, but the problem just got a lot worse. But all the same, I'd just like to repeat one of the Aggie jokes I got from that website I linked to. What do you call a female Aggie with 2 brain cells? Pregnant. Funny stuff.

And the Losers Are...

Two things I'm already sick of: The presidential elections and being told that Hillary is leading the pack. Because for all the coverage they're getting, people really aren't paying attention. Nor should they. This isn't the real primary season. This is like the primary-primary season. Just as primaries generally only attract your more hardcore political watchers, and thus skew more towards the two fringes; this current political season is for the diehard of the hardcore watchers.

That's why none of this is really important. At this point, we're not looking for the best nominee. We're just weeding out anyone who makes huge blunders. But why? Any Democratic hopeful who's made it this far is going to be too slick to make any huge blunders. And while the Republicans have a few newbie candidates who repeatedly screw-up (Thompson, Giuliani, and the supreme screw-up Bush), Republicans are largely immune to that kind of thing.

And so at this point, the best we can do is "Gotcha" Debate Questions designed solely to create blunders, and nuanced tea leaf readings, like Matthew Yglesias criticism that Obama's attacks on Clinton are too subtle. But we're not going to find anything of real substance, nor should it matter. Because even primary voters aren't really paying attention, and the general population is REALLY not paying attention. Sure, they'll notice if any huge blunder occurs, but that's it. And as I already said, I'm already sick of it all.

The Dean Machine

Of course, that's not to say I'm blaming the candidates. In fact, I have no problem with them going around and talking to people and whatnot. I just wish people would stop pretending the horserace was already going on. It's not. At best, this is the equivalent of the qualifying round, with the various participants jockeying for pole position. Sure, one of the candidates is likely to have an early advantage over the others once the real primary season starts, but anything can happen after that.

That's what we saw in 2004. Dean was leading the pack throughout much of the pre-primary season. Why? Because he had the hardcore followers who knew they'd vote for him. He sewed up the progressive-activist vote fairly early on, and as I said, these are the people most likely to pay attention during the pre-season. And so early polls showed him leading, because he had a sizeable minority sewed up.

But the problem was that the type of Democrat he was appealing to were already supporting him, and he wasn't able to pick-up the more moderate Democrats. The ones who only really start learning about the candidates when the primary season begins. And while the Dems who supported him were much firmer in their support than the ones who supported Kerry, Kerry had more supporters in the end. And maybe they would have gone to Edwards or Clark, but they certainly weren't going for Dean. And that's all that mattered.

And so Dean had the pre-season wrapped-up, but with a strategy that wouldn't help in the primary season, and might possibly have buried him in the general election. And sure, there was a strong element of the media establishment being against him, but I really don't think that's what sank him. I think the problem was that he was never really as popular as people imagined. He polled well because he had hardcore supporters early on, but the more people started actually learning about the candidates, the less he'd pick anyone else up.

The Popularity Contest

And we see a similiar issue with Hillary Clinton, which is the reason I wish people would stop pretending the nomination is hers. Not that she has a loyal following like Dean did, but she has name recogintion. She's simply more famous than the other candidates. And that's important right now, because so few people are actually paying attention. And so if you ask the average Democrat who they'll support, Hillary's likely to be an obvious choice. But not because they've been studying the issues and know where she stands on Iraq and Iran. But because they know her name.

And we see the same thing with all the candidates. The famous candidates are leading the pack. On the GOP side, we currently see Giuliani leading with Thompson coming in behind. Big surprise. They're the two most famous candidates. But neither of them stand a good chance of winning. As Carpetbagger mentioned, people indicated that they liked Giulani for social issues, when that's actually one of his biggest weaknesses. And it's my opinion that they're picking him because they know his name. And that's also why Romney is polling in last of the top four GOP candidates; because he's the least known; despite the fact that he's going to be their next nominee (IMHO).

And that's my theory on all this. Most people just aren't paying attention. When asked who they vote for, most of them are just going with the name they recoginize. But that's not likely to continue. Not that I have the strongest faith in the electorate, but I'm confident that many people gain knowledge on this stuff when it's actually time to vote. Sure, there's some herd instinct and whatnot, but right now we're not seeing any of that. We're just seeing name recognition, and that's just about it.

So on the GOP side, we have the savior of 9/11 and a famous actor leading the pack. On the Dem site, we've got a notorious first lady and a good looking black guy with a funny name. And frankly, I think that looks much better for us. At least our top two stand a chance of winning and deserve to be considered top choices. Giulaini and Thompson are nothing but jokes. But as I've confessed to before, I had once imagined that Thompson was a good candidate, until I actually learned something about him.

And that's exactly what's going to happen with most people. They recognize Fred Thompson. They've heard some vague praise of him. And so they imagine he's a decent name to pick when asked who they'd vote for. But once the heat is on, that's all going to change. Same with Giulani. He's still coasting on the 9/11 thing, but that won't last. And so this whole prediction business is nonsense. While I'm fairly confident that Romney's getting the GOP nomination, it's still an open game on the Democratic side. And that's how it should be.

Political Stunts

One of the big problems in politics is that politicians are usually much more skillful at raising money and campaigning than they are at governing. And that's obviously a big (ring, ring). Sorry, hold on. It's my dealer. I have to take this. Uh huh. Yeah. Well, I'm writing a blog post right now. That's right. Here, why don't you say hi to my readers. No. Ok. Yeah, a quarter's all I need. Thanks. What's that? Mercury-Dipped Horsehair? Maybe next time. Ok, I'll be right over. Bye bye.

Sorry about that. Ever since he murdered the dealer I had on 9/11 he gets really upset when I don't answer his calls. But as long as he's taking care of my addiction to Radithor, I'm cool with it. Anyway, politicians, yeah, whatever. I've gotta go.

Crazy GOP Talk

Is it just me, or do you agree that all four top-tier GOP presidential candidates seem to be out to prove that Republicans can be far more flip-floppy and spineless than even the worst Democrat? I was just thinking about this when I read this from Mr. Straight Talk Express:

I admire the Islam. There’s a lot of good principles in it. I think one of the great tragedies of the 21st century is that these forces of evil have perverted what’s basically an honorable religion. But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles…. personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn’t mean that I’m sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don’t say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would–I just feel that that’s an important part of our qualifications to lead.

Which was followed up by this:
“McCain contacted Beliefnet after the interview to clarify his remarks: ‘I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.’”

WTF? And this is dumb, because you just can't put that genie back in the bottle. As George Allen showed us, once you make a bigoted comment, any correction will be ignored by the people you offended and will offend the people you were talking to. So anyone McCain didn't offend with his initial remark about how non-Christians don't have the "qualifications to lead," will certainly be offended by his remark that he thinks a Muslim could be a good president. And anyone who remembers how non-religious he was in 2000 will just laugh out loud at this latest turn of events. I know I did.

And the only people who won't be offended by either statement are the diehard McCain supporters who would have supported him even if he had kept his big mouth shut. So the whole thing was a big lose-lose for him. But then again, I have a hard time imagining that there were any diehard McCain supporters in the first place.

But it's not just him. It's all of the prime candidates, and it all just shows why the Republicans are screwed in 2008, and probably 2012 as well. Because as I mentioned before, the only way you can be considered one of the "top-tier" candidates of either party is to be mainstream and have a broad level of support. And for the Democrats, that's pretty easy.

Ah, screw it. You already know what I'm saying, and I really do need to go to bed. So I'll just let you fill in the rest, about how hard it is for Republicans, because of the crazies in the party...which is quite a lot of the party. And the more the top-tier have to bow and scrape to the rabid base, the less they'll look like top-tier candidates.