Archive for March 30, 2010
CNN is Dying
CNN is dying. More on that tomorrow but one immediate thought is why?
Because it can’t decide what it is.
Read This
I admit it. I have a hard time putting energy into knowing what’s going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am so tired of war and killing and death and I’m exhausted when I think about the money spent on keeping that machine going.
But every once in a while I drag myself to a post I know I must read – it’s my duty even if it’s only — shamefully — occasionally. If you’re like me, please read: Pacified.
Show Me a Left-Wing Militia
Keith Olbermann opened his show tonight asking, “Whatever happened to those left-wing militias?”
Good question. A free copy of Outfoxed to anyone who can name three of them.
Hate the Idea of Social Security?
Last night, on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Larry King hosted two Tea Party organizers. At one point the topic turned to Social Security. Dana Loesch, a Tea Partier from Missouri and “yes, absolutely” when King asked whether she would favor abolishing Social Security. When King turned to Wayne Allyn Root, he said, “I’d certainly like to. At best, I do away with it because I could find better ways to spend and save my own $15,000 a year.”
Again, life is so unbelievably simple for these people. Memo to Root: That’s precisely the problem. People find it nearly impossible to save $15,000 (?) A YEAR FOR 30 – 40 YEARS; THEY SPEND IT. And when they reach retirement age, they’re broke or they have very little. That’s why Social Security is such a good thing.
God! Why is that so hard?
Fox Caught Making Up “Breaking News” in Order to Cut Away From Obama
Fox is trying to figure out how to look “fair and balanced” while showing as little of President Obama as possible. Their priority No. 1 is not to let their viewers start liking the guy. Example: today they cut away to a “perfectly fine airplane landing” that turned out to be nothing, later justifying it by saying they “heard the plane might be having flap issues.”
Yeah right.
When George W. was president they covered his every breath. They would break away — with lots of patriotic fanfare (remember the waving flag graphics?) — to show his every move, even mundane things like Bush walking from the back door of the White House to his waiting helicopter. They would even break away to show Laura Bush doing this or that. They couldn’t get enough.
Love English Setters
A friend of a friend of a friend recently purchased an English setter puppy from the same breeder we got our setters from. This is a picture of the darling sleeping puppy on the first day at his new home with his older half-brother, who the friend acquired a few years go.
Is this precious or what?
Joe the Plumber’s Solution to People Coming Across the Mexican Border
Last weekend, at a — natch — Tea Party rally, Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher told the crowd what his solution is to people coming across the porous Mexican border:
I am not politically castrated — new word for political correctness by the way. I am not politically castrated. Put a fence in, start shooting. End of story.
(My emphasis.)
Oh to live in a state of mind where life is so, so simple. It’s a kind of insanity.
Break Time — Earth Hour 2010
Last Saturday evening people around the world turned their lights out for an hour beginning at 8:30 p.m. local time. Here are pictures as to what that looked like.
The caption reads: These two photos show Malaysia’s landmark Petronas Twin Towers before, left, and after being turned off its lights to mark Earth Hour in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday, March 27, 2010. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)
Yo, Michael Steele, Make it Rain!
Here’s a video from Katie Halper called, “Make it Rain: Michael Steele Voyeur Club Remix.”
Hey, he and the GOP have it coming after all their holier-than-thou talk.
If You Think We’re Getting Blanket Sarah Palin Coverage Now, Just Wait
Big news: Sarah Palin’s new Fox show, “Real American Stories” (gag me), debuts on well, Fox, this Thursday.
You know what that means? It means that ol’ Sarah will say or do one or two controversial things Thursday night and the “liberal” media will talk about it for a week until next Thursday when she’ll say or do one or two controversial thing and on it will go, week after week. She’ll never be out of the spotlight.
And of that isn’t enough, we have the debut of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on TLC to look forward to.
Ey ey ey. It’s going to be a long summer.
Tea Party Candidates Discover Hard Realities of Campaigns
Here’s a fascinating article about the dilemma faced by the Tea Partiers — and by many of us who are of a different political persuasion but who agree that “Washington is broken” — in terms of backing a traditional candidate from one of the two parties, or trying to run one of their own (and facing the extraordinary time and money commitment that entails):
Jason Meade of New Franklin, Ohio, is among hundreds of political hopefuls looking to ride the “tea party” wave to Washington this year. Like most, he’s finding it a tough go.
Mr. Meade is running in the Republican primary in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District against five candidates while juggling a 50-hour workweek at a plastics plant. His headquarters “is in the second-floor living room in the corner where the computer is,” he says. His campaign has $3,000 to its name.
Mr. Meade’s experience goes to the heart of a debate roiling the nascent movement: Should it back fervent long shots who hew to its antigovernment views, or should it rally around more traditional candidates, even if they don’t perfectly reflect the movement’s distaste for incumbents, taxes and spending?
The question is being asked as homegrown candidates confront brute realities of politics: reluctant donors, limited party support, inexperienced staffers and the uphill fight against incumbents.
At the root of a fix for this (and so much else) is the need for campaign finance reform which would be such a wonderful thing for our country but, sadly, I don’t think will ever happen.
Code Pink Tries to Make Citizens Arrest of Karl Rove
Rove heckled, called “war criminal” at book event.
Too bad they didn’t succeed.
Stretch of the Imagination
Doc Thompson, a radio talk show host who I’ve never heard of, substituted for Glenn Beck on Beck’s radio show today. No wonder. He’s as crazy as Beck is: “Tanning salon tax makes health care reform a ‘racist law’.“
I guess the point of conservative talk radio is to find a way to toss out hot-button words for two or three hours, never mind if they’re couched in a discussion that makes little or no sense.
Fox Moves Into Selling Tea Party Gear
Fox “News” has been promoting the Tea Party for nearly a year now, even providing its employees as featured speakers at their rallies (as in Sarah Palin last weekend in Nevada). Now it’s hawking Tea Party gear.
Hey, no problem huh? It’s all in the name of being a “fair and balanced news” organization.
God help us.
Wingers DEFEND Michigan Group That Planned to Kill Cops
This is how far they’ve sunk folks — the right is now defending the militia group that was arrested yesterday for their plot to kill a police officer and then mow down attendees at his funeral.
No Light at the End of the Tunnel
“By the end of 2010, about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater, said Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.
“They are [mostly] concentrated in the mid-sized banks,” Warren told CNBC. “We now have 2,988 banks—mostly midsized, that have these dangerous concentrations in commercial real estate lending.” As a result, the economy will face another “very serious problem” that will have to be resolved over the next three years, she said, adding that things are unlikely to return to normalcy in 2010.
Projections are that about half of all homeowners will be underwater by the end of this year too so the ripple effect of all this is going to be huge. Seems to me the worst is yet to come.
This Makes Me Nervous
Large Hadron Collider Smashes Protons:
The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva succeeded early Tuesday in colliding subatomic particles at three times the highest energy levels previously recorded.
[...]
Several experiments using the particle accelerator could help test for smaller particles, dark matter, other dimensions, supersymmetry and other theories in particle physics, researchers said.
Seems to me we’re playing with fundamental powers of the universe we don’t understand. I worry that we might trigger a cataclysmic explosion.
Fingers crossed.
