Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
More amazing truths
10 Amazing Truths You Already Suspected
Volume V! San Francisco brains, gay disco priests, Wikileaks sighs
Did you already know? I bet you already knew. Or at the very least, had a sneaking suspicion. Here we go...
1) I know what you're thinking: In these times of acrimony and divisiveness, is it still possible to find peaceful consensus? Can any group of educated individuals ever agree on anything worthwhile, besides Blue Bottle Coffee, the Fiat 500 and grilled sausages in summertime?
Good news: They totally can! Watch in awe as every one of the country's 238 respected presidential scholars recently agreed, without the slightest doubt or hesitation and despite all their varying backgrounds, ages, political affiliations, heights and weights and hairstyles, that George W. Bush really is the worst president in modern history, and the 5th worst of all time. Wonders!
2) It's entirely true that San Francisco can be a whiny, opinionated place, obnoxiously politically correct, sometimes a bit too passionate about issues and ideas for its own good. But really, it's all just a happy side effect of the fact we have such a huge and generous surplus of educated, active brains lying around.
It's true. Turns out SF has the highest number of college degrees per square inch, followed by New York, Boston, Chicago ... well, all the major cities, really. The locations with the fewest sophisticated brainstems? Why, that would be places like Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Birmingham ... all those burgs where books are scary, God is always scowling, and deep fried is the only way to cook your squirrel. It might even be easy to suggest that the smarter and more educated you get, the more liberal, healthier and generally less terrified you become. I mean, obvs.
3) Then again, maybe not. As I write these words, it's fairly clear that the BP oil spill, much to the disappointment of many on the far liberal left and the apocalyptic right, has not caused the end of the world via methane explosions, giant tsunamis, acidic toxic rain, or by way of a million horrific screams emanating from all those politicians who've had to swallow their "drill baby drill" chant like a greasy backwash poison.
Make no mistake: The BP spill ruined lives, coastlines, portfolios. It is an environmental nightmare unmatched in our lifetime. But somehow the world still spins; it's just a bit darker and greasier than before. What will the next apocalypse porn be? What will finally spell our doom? Let us ponder.
4) How clever you are, using your kid's birthday as your secret online banking password. Or is it your wedding anniversary? Is it 1-2-3-4? Oh, you silly thing. Don't bother fixing it now; research shows that frequently changing your password is pretty much useless. Here's the thing: If nefarious hackers haven't swiped your password by now, they're not really going to. Or if they do hack it, they'll use it immediately, and hence, changing it every month or two is, well, pointless. Did you already know?
5) Do you love yourself some Vitaminwater? Do you like to think that overpriced product is at least remotely healthy, better than, say, liquefying a Twinkie and injecting it directly into your eyeballs? Nope. Vitaminwater is just sugar water. It is junk food.
Proof: A federal judge has now ruled that a class-action lawsuit against Coca-Cola -- which owns Glaceau, which owns Vitaminwater -- can go forth and lay waste to Coke's insidious claims of Vitaminwater being a healthy happy gulp of drinking goodness. Now, go turn on your tap. Fill up a Sigg. Drink it down. There. About 20 times healthier. And it's free.
6) Your intuition was right all along: Mel Gibson really is a raging lunatic. You already knew his bloodfest slaughter porn movie about that sweet Jewish mystic was even more cartoonishly disturbing than an episode of Happy Tree Friends. But Mel Gibson might be one of the first modern megastars to go completely insane before our very eyes. Would that be something to behold? You can say: Sure my life's rough, sure I have some darker issues, but holy hell on a hand grenade, at least I'm not Mel Gibson. Far more frightening than Tom Cruise and his silly sci-fi cult. So reassuring.
7) "People who are untrusting, fear rejection, or are otherwise insecure about their relationships might be at a greater risk for health problems than their more secure counterparts." Thus spake a new study directly to your overwhelming sense of duh.
No matter. It's one of those delightfully obvious non-findings that tends to eat itself alive. Because upon hearing such terrible news, the fearful and insecure among us will of course only become more fearful and insecure, thus further elevating the risk of heart attack and illness, thus reinforcing the study's findings, thus perpetuating a lovely downward spiral of imminent self-fulfilling doom. Science is neat!
8) Another day, another hidden camera catching three young Catholic priests gyrating, groping and partying hard at a gay disco in Italy, then having hot gay sex in a church building. Dovetails beautifully with the recent tale of the Rev. Kevin Gray of Connecticut, busted for swiping $1.3 million from church coffers to pay for gay escorts, fine restaurants, Armani duds. Awesome.
Not to be at all confused with the ongoing churchly scandals about all the creepy old Catholic pedophiles who prey on young children, gay clergy are far more common, harmless, adorable in their wildly hypocritical, sinful debauchery, all underscoring what has to be the church's worst-kept secret: The Catholic seminary is like a big ol' gay bathhouse. Also: God loves mesh.
9) More than 91,000 classified military documents, one big scandalous info dump over at some site called Wikileaks.org that few have ever heard of, countless Defense Department officials and White House staffers scurrying about trying to do damage control, the NYT, Der Spiegel and the Guardian all happy as clams to be part of the headlines, and yet all of the secret documents about the "truth" of the Afghan war so far only seem to underscore the grand reality you surely already suspected.
It's this: Unwinnable wars are exactly as grueling, difficult, miserable, sad, brutal, dishonest, unforgiving, trivial, insane, damaging, surreal, bureaucratic, technically dizzying, numbingly tragic, and often downright criminal as they've always been. We just never had the Internet to back it all up.
10) Exercise for 10 minutes, and your body feels the positive effects for at least an hour. Exercise for an hour, your body feels good for a day or more. Exercise for six hours a day, consume copious gallons of powdered protein shakes, do a thousand crunches in five minutes and get that manic workout-freak look in your eye, and your body recoils and starts to shut down, spasms, gives you weird dreams, screams, "Knock it off already," urges your to seek therapy, have a pulled pork sandwich and get some sun.
Really now, exercise isn't meant to be all that extreme. Despite what you might've heard, life is not one giant, grueling, joyless endurance test. Well, not always. You're going to be just fine. But you knew that already.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Crazy-cons
A decent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by David Klinghoffer, a former editor of the National Review. He laments what has happened to conservatism. Read the short piece here.
While I still reject the basic tenets of conservatism, it is somewhat heartening to know that not all conservatives have descended into the demogogic world of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and Breitbart.
So, when will the conservatives take their party back from the Teabaggers? Better hurry. All signs point to a total disaster for Republicans at the polls in November (unless they can steal it with the rigged voting machines).
While I still reject the basic tenets of conservatism, it is somewhat heartening to know that not all conservatives have descended into the demogogic world of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and Breitbart.
So, when will the conservatives take their party back from the Teabaggers? Better hurry. All signs point to a total disaster for Republicans at the polls in November (unless they can steal it with the rigged voting machines).
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
119 rounds of golf?!
In a year? That's over two rounds per week!
Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) played 119 rounds of golf last year. 119!! That's around 3-5 hours per round. How can he find time to actually do his job? This is perfectly emblematic of the Republicans as a whole: hobnobbing with the upper crust on the golf courses while the people are suffering, and insisting on more tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting unemployment compensation for the unemployed.
Ed Schultz recently highlighted this story on his show. Watch it by clicking here. If you are a Democrat, you will LOVE it. If you are a Republican making less than $250K/year, WTF is wrong with you?! Boehner is ripe for the picking in Ohio's 8th.
Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) played 119 rounds of golf last year. 119!! That's around 3-5 hours per round. How can he find time to actually do his job? This is perfectly emblematic of the Republicans as a whole: hobnobbing with the upper crust on the golf courses while the people are suffering, and insisting on more tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting unemployment compensation for the unemployed. Ed Schultz recently highlighted this story on his show. Watch it by clicking here. If you are a Democrat, you will LOVE it. If you are a Republican making less than $250K/year, WTF is wrong with you?! Boehner is ripe for the picking in Ohio's 8th.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Zillow.com
Would you like to get a snapshot of the homes in your neighborhood and what they are "worth"? Check out zillow.com by clicking here and input your address.
Say, I didn't know Liz had her home on the market, and is asking over half a million!!
Say, I didn't know Liz had her home on the market, and is asking over half a million!!
Redistribution upward
If you make less than $250,000 and you vote Republican, you are, well, to put it nicely, not voting in your own self-interest.
There is so much propaganda media out there these days (think FOX and other Murdoch properties), people are constantly bombarded with crap. It can make it hard to think for yourself and find the truth.
Maybe look at it this way: the Republicans, from 2000-2008, drove our national car into the ditch. And now, they want the keys back again? Don't give it to them! It takes some time to pull that car out of the ditch and get it fully functioning again, and the Republicans are blocking anything and everything they can to keep the economy in the ditch until they can get back into power. It's shameful, putting their own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country at large.
In short, I know that, in many ways, the Democrats suck. But, quite simply, the Republicans suck FAR WORSE!
Krugman's Takedown of Ryan Demonstrates How Conservatives Are at War With The Middle Class
by Mitchell Bard
Conservatives routinely paint Barack Obama as a socialist looking to redistribute wealth in the United States. (Or worse, as Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) reported that tea party leaders, during a meeting, espoused paranoid delusions of a totalitarian takeover of the U.S. by Obama.) This charge is cynical and outrageous, not just because it is false and a naked attempt to use fear mongering to drum up votes, but because there is actually a group of Americans actively engaged in wealth redistribution, and they have been for quite some time.
Who are these people looking to move massive amounts of assets from one subsection of Americans to another? The conservatives themselves.
Beginning with the Reagan administration, and reaching its fullest realization during the presidency of George W. Bush, conservatives have systematically been acting to redistribute wealth from the middle class upward. The result has been the steady decay of the middle class, and it's all a result of conservative policies, specifically involving taxes and deregulation.
Bush successfully pushed through accelerated deregulation and massive tax cuts for the highest earners. The result was that while the wealthiest Americans saw substantial income gains, real income for the middle class was static (and far below the robust growth of the middle class during the Clinton administration). And when, in the absence of regulation, Wall Street's reckless bets nearly brought ruin to the financial industry, the result was a massive recession that severely hit the lower, working and middle classes.
As I lamented last month, middle and working class Americans have every right to be angry now, but that anger shouldn't be directed at the Democrats in November, but at the Republicans, whose policies created the economic mess the country finds itself in. Which is why I was so happy to see Paul Krugman's annihilation of the economic plan advanced by the so-called "intellectual" star of the Republican party, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Krugman exposed Ryan's plan for what it is, a replay of the Bush economic policies, only this time on steroids: A massive tax break for the wealthiest five percent of Americans that would cost the country $4 trillion over the next ten years, a tax increase for the other 95 percent of Americans, and monumental cuts in government spending that would cause catastrophic pain for the lower, working and middle classes (while having little effect on the wealthy, the primary beneficiaries of Ryan's plan). Oh, and Ryan's plan would add to the deficit, pushing it far beyond the current projections for 2020. (Of course, Ryan is touting the savings of his spending cuts without accounting for the costs of his tax cuts for the rich.)
I thought Krugman's exposure of the realities of the Ryan plan provided a solid summing up of current Republican ideology. On the surface, Ryan appears more reasonable than the more vocal leaders of his party. He tends to avoid the outrageous pronouncements of his fellow conservatives (think Sarah Palin, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his talk of "velvet revolution," Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN) and House Minority Leader John Boehner, not to mention the lies and vitriol spouted by pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, as well as the consistent national security fear-mongering of Newt Gingrich, and the out-and-out insanity on parade daily in the media, like the recent charge by Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes that his Democratic opponent encouraged bike use as mayor of Denver as part of a plan to convert the city into a "United Nations community," not to mention the possible Queen of the wackos, Nevada GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle, including her claim that the press should ask the questions she wants to answer.).
Ryan is the young, normal-looking and sounding face Republicans would like to send out in front of the public, but, as Krugman comprehensively laid out, his policies are no more mainstream or plausible than those of his more obviously extreme colleagues. No, Ryan, just like the others, is completely dedicated to policies that empower corporations and transfer wealth upward, at the expense of the middle class.
In short, Ryan and the rest of the conservatives are at war with lower, working and middle class Americans.
The Republicans would like to frame the November midterm elections as a matchup between a socialist party looking to redistribute wealth and engineer a government takeover of the private sector (the Democrats) v. a party defending traditional American values of free market, capitalist economics (the Republicans). Such a framing of the two parties is a Republican fantasy, as accurate as the charge that President Obama was not born in the United States (which, according to a recent CNN poll, nearly two in five Republicans believe to be true).
But one look at the reality of the Bush years and the behavior of Republicans during the Obama administration paints a very different picture. On issue after issue, the Republicans have sided against the middle class, whether it was opposing financial regulation (even after GOP-touted deregulation resulted in the near financial collapse that plunged the country into deep recession), pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, opposing any kind of job-creating stimulus (that didn't involve more tax cuts for the rich), opposing and delaying the extension of unemployment benefits to those out of work (and painting the unemployed as lazy), opposing state aid that would preserve the jobs of teachers, police officers and firefighters (even though it would decrease the deficit), opposing health care reform (except to protect private insurance companies), and even opposing aid to workers sickened by the toxic fumes at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.
The smoking gun of GOP dedication to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class (and the revelation that the party's supposed fanatical opposition to deficits is a facade) came when one Republican after another lined up to back Sen. John Kyl's position that it was okay to add to the deficit for tax cuts for high earners (something even conservative stalwart Alan Greenspan could not support).
The GOP record of the last ten years demonstrates that, in reality, the election in November will pose a choice between Democrats who support a free market capitalist economy, but with protections to prevent against its excesses (thus protecting lower, working and middle class Americans), and Republicans at war with the middle class, advocating policies that further their suffering while benefiting Wall Street, corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Conservatives are right when they say that there are those in Washington looking to redistribute wealth. It's just that it's their party that is all for the redistributing.
Original is here.
There is so much propaganda media out there these days (think FOX and other Murdoch properties), people are constantly bombarded with crap. It can make it hard to think for yourself and find the truth.
Maybe look at it this way: the Republicans, from 2000-2008, drove our national car into the ditch. And now, they want the keys back again? Don't give it to them! It takes some time to pull that car out of the ditch and get it fully functioning again, and the Republicans are blocking anything and everything they can to keep the economy in the ditch until they can get back into power. It's shameful, putting their own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country at large.
In short, I know that, in many ways, the Democrats suck. But, quite simply, the Republicans suck FAR WORSE!
Krugman's Takedown of Ryan Demonstrates How Conservatives Are at War With The Middle Class
by Mitchell Bard
Conservatives routinely paint Barack Obama as a socialist looking to redistribute wealth in the United States. (Or worse, as Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) reported that tea party leaders, during a meeting, espoused paranoid delusions of a totalitarian takeover of the U.S. by Obama.) This charge is cynical and outrageous, not just because it is false and a naked attempt to use fear mongering to drum up votes, but because there is actually a group of Americans actively engaged in wealth redistribution, and they have been for quite some time.
Who are these people looking to move massive amounts of assets from one subsection of Americans to another? The conservatives themselves.
Beginning with the Reagan administration, and reaching its fullest realization during the presidency of George W. Bush, conservatives have systematically been acting to redistribute wealth from the middle class upward. The result has been the steady decay of the middle class, and it's all a result of conservative policies, specifically involving taxes and deregulation.
Bush successfully pushed through accelerated deregulation and massive tax cuts for the highest earners. The result was that while the wealthiest Americans saw substantial income gains, real income for the middle class was static (and far below the robust growth of the middle class during the Clinton administration). And when, in the absence of regulation, Wall Street's reckless bets nearly brought ruin to the financial industry, the result was a massive recession that severely hit the lower, working and middle classes.
As I lamented last month, middle and working class Americans have every right to be angry now, but that anger shouldn't be directed at the Democrats in November, but at the Republicans, whose policies created the economic mess the country finds itself in. Which is why I was so happy to see Paul Krugman's annihilation of the economic plan advanced by the so-called "intellectual" star of the Republican party, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Krugman exposed Ryan's plan for what it is, a replay of the Bush economic policies, only this time on steroids: A massive tax break for the wealthiest five percent of Americans that would cost the country $4 trillion over the next ten years, a tax increase for the other 95 percent of Americans, and monumental cuts in government spending that would cause catastrophic pain for the lower, working and middle classes (while having little effect on the wealthy, the primary beneficiaries of Ryan's plan). Oh, and Ryan's plan would add to the deficit, pushing it far beyond the current projections for 2020. (Of course, Ryan is touting the savings of his spending cuts without accounting for the costs of his tax cuts for the rich.)
I thought Krugman's exposure of the realities of the Ryan plan provided a solid summing up of current Republican ideology. On the surface, Ryan appears more reasonable than the more vocal leaders of his party. He tends to avoid the outrageous pronouncements of his fellow conservatives (think Sarah Palin, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his talk of "velvet revolution," Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN) and House Minority Leader John Boehner, not to mention the lies and vitriol spouted by pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, as well as the consistent national security fear-mongering of Newt Gingrich, and the out-and-out insanity on parade daily in the media, like the recent charge by Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes that his Democratic opponent encouraged bike use as mayor of Denver as part of a plan to convert the city into a "United Nations community," not to mention the possible Queen of the wackos, Nevada GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle, including her claim that the press should ask the questions she wants to answer.).
Ryan is the young, normal-looking and sounding face Republicans would like to send out in front of the public, but, as Krugman comprehensively laid out, his policies are no more mainstream or plausible than those of his more obviously extreme colleagues. No, Ryan, just like the others, is completely dedicated to policies that empower corporations and transfer wealth upward, at the expense of the middle class.
In short, Ryan and the rest of the conservatives are at war with lower, working and middle class Americans.
The Republicans would like to frame the November midterm elections as a matchup between a socialist party looking to redistribute wealth and engineer a government takeover of the private sector (the Democrats) v. a party defending traditional American values of free market, capitalist economics (the Republicans). Such a framing of the two parties is a Republican fantasy, as accurate as the charge that President Obama was not born in the United States (which, according to a recent CNN poll, nearly two in five Republicans believe to be true).
But one look at the reality of the Bush years and the behavior of Republicans during the Obama administration paints a very different picture. On issue after issue, the Republicans have sided against the middle class, whether it was opposing financial regulation (even after GOP-touted deregulation resulted in the near financial collapse that plunged the country into deep recession), pushing for an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, opposing any kind of job-creating stimulus (that didn't involve more tax cuts for the rich), opposing and delaying the extension of unemployment benefits to those out of work (and painting the unemployed as lazy), opposing state aid that would preserve the jobs of teachers, police officers and firefighters (even though it would decrease the deficit), opposing health care reform (except to protect private insurance companies), and even opposing aid to workers sickened by the toxic fumes at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.
The smoking gun of GOP dedication to the wealthy at the expense of the middle class (and the revelation that the party's supposed fanatical opposition to deficits is a facade) came when one Republican after another lined up to back Sen. John Kyl's position that it was okay to add to the deficit for tax cuts for high earners (something even conservative stalwart Alan Greenspan could not support).
The GOP record of the last ten years demonstrates that, in reality, the election in November will pose a choice between Democrats who support a free market capitalist economy, but with protections to prevent against its excesses (thus protecting lower, working and middle class Americans), and Republicans at war with the middle class, advocating policies that further their suffering while benefiting Wall Street, corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Conservatives are right when they say that there are those in Washington looking to redistribute wealth. It's just that it's their party that is all for the redistributing.
Original is here.
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deja vu
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