Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hint: Giant Robot is the Democrats, Emperor Guillotine is the Republicans…and 2010 is whichever one returns from outer space intact.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/14/10 at 08:49 PM
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I have no idea what I clicked to get here, but now I can’t contain my excitement at the prospect of looking this professional and empowered, for only a penny-per-month more than the cost of a Glenn Beck-style Survival Seed Garden.

Plus, who could fail to be ensnared by compelling, hypnotic ad copy like this?:

A professional website design establishes you as a serious contender, and catches the eye of your supporters (and, likely, your opponents). More importantly, it gives you credibility. You know you are running a professional campaign, but the world needs to know it too.

Yes, by God, I AM serious…and the world MUST know who I am! Where do I sign…and does this deal include that Tweetie thing?

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/14/10 at 06:01 PM
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Sarah Palin hates Health Care Reform so much, she doesn’t care how bad it hurts you to tie your shoelaces or pick up the newspaper on your porch. Hell, she’s young, rich and healthy—and she’s probably never even heard of stenosis—so what does it matter to her as long as you twist your crushed nerves and scoliosis into an upright position to oppose the Dark Machinations of the Kenyan Usurper?

With a Stiff Spine America Must Stand Against Obamacare
Today at 11:24am

If Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and President Obama get their way, soon our country will be changed forever. Using every partisan parliamentary trick in the book (including some they invented just last week), Washington’s Left intends to ram through their takeover of our health care system regardless of the consequences.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I have to oppose Obamacare with a stiff spine, I might as well oppose it with my enlarged liver, predisposition to diabetes, diminished lung capacity and melon-sized prostate.

Snark aside, Sarah’s new Facebook emission is chock-full of warmed-over, debunked BOILERPLATE FAIL, which she has apparently recycled in an attempt to remain relevant to somebody, somewhere. I encourage you to read it, if only for the fun of hunting down the implied-Death-Panel “Easter Egg” she has cleverly hidden in the plastic grass of her crouton-padded word salad.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/14/10 at 03:25 PM
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As a tsunami of allegations of clerical sexual abuse—some directed at the Pope’s own brother—cascades across Europe, the Vatican has deployed its Supreme Weapon in the never-ending battle to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth: a “full-court media offensive to stem the damage.”

As part of its standing Crisis-of-Faith Response Plan, the Church has moved quickly and aggressively to assign blame to the root cause of priestly perversion—Satan. Teams of Guilt Deflection Specialists have fanned out across the airwaves to echo Vatican Chief Exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth’s dramatic revelation that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican.”

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict himself has assumed a lead role in marshaling the full force of Ecclesiastical Bureaucratic Dithering as part of an orchestrated effort to make this existential threat to the Church’s Moral Authority “go away”: 

He has promised to write a letter soon to faithful in Ireland about decades of systematic abuse in church-run schools, orphanages and other institutions in that predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where Benedict served as archbishop from 1977 to 1982, says that a working group, established last month after allegations of abuse in a church-run school, would be expanded to include an external, independent legal office.

No offense to Catholics or Catholicism, but until the Vatican drops the “few bad apples” defense and owns up to the fact that it has a serious systemic problem, videos like this one are going to continue to be funny…if only in a sad and deeply troubling way. Not even the Bishop of Rome owns a rug big enough to sweep this under.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/14/10 at 01:06 PM
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Maha, over at The Mahablog, is doing some myth busting on health care reform herself. 

She points out that, despite the Rethugs breathy claims that Dems will be totally screwing themselves in the 2010 elections if they pass health care reform (thanks for the disinterested tip, guys!), the polls in fact show that approval v. disapproval of reforms is just about even.  Additionally about 1/3 of those opposing reforms are against them because they don’t go far enough to reform the system (as am I but I still want to see the bill passed and at least get us on our way.)

Check it out, it’s a good read.

Posted by marindenver on 03/14/10 at 12:55 PM
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I knew nothing about Italian pianist/composer Einaudi before I saw this video so I looked him up via the indispensable AllMusic.com and found a quote from him describing the album this song can be found on: “A night-time landscape. A garden faintly visible under the dull glow of the night sky. A few stars dotting the darkness above, shadows of the trees all around. Light shining from a window behind me. What I can see is familiar, but it seems alien at the same time. It’s like a dream—anything may happen.”

Works for me.

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/14/10 at 08:04 AM
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Good morning, and I do hope you remembered to set your clocks back 1 hour.*

As is often the case in times of rapid momentous change, Twitter has stepped up to the mark in the face of these developments you may already have heard about:

It’s been a brawl for years, this education culture war that seems to take on a particularly vicious turn in the heart of Texas. The latest and most important round, a drastic revision of the social studies curriculum standards to put a conservative spin on history and economics textbooks, was given preliminary approval after a series of heated meetings of the Texas Board of Education that didn’t do much to improve the image of the nation’s second largest state as a sometimes small-minded political and educational backwater.

In a matter of days last week in Austin, the majority of the 15-member board, insisting they were only trying to offset liberal bias in textbooks, questioned Darwin’s theory of evolution and the constitutional principle of separation of church and state; debated hip-hop and genocide in Darfur; deleted Albert Einstein and Thomas Alva Edison from textbooks; emphasized Christian teachings and fundamentalist values; adopted conservative articles of faith like American exceptionalism; promoted right-wing leaders and organizations like Phyllis Schlafly and the National Rifle Association; and refused to give adequate attention to Hispanic and African American contributions to U.S. and Texas history.

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 03/14/10 at 05:56 AM
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Saturday, March 13, 2010

When you’ve smuggled your hairstyle out of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” music video from ‘83, I don’t think you’re allowed to make fun of Obama’s undershirt.

I’m just sayin’...

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/13/10 at 04:30 PM
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Normally I don’t like posting videos that have already gone wildly viral and the song doesn’t do a helluva lot for me, but none of the generally plugged-in semi-geeks I was out drinking with last night had seen this new entry from the band who delivered one of the best music videos ever and it just flat out fucking rocks in a million different ways, so here you go.  Enjoy. [via Ed at ginandtacos who asks A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION]

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/13/10 at 12:11 PM
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Trab Stupak (I refuse to call him by his proper first name because that was the name of my late boxer dog, who was a vastly superior creature) shares some plaintive thoughts with his fellow fetus fetishists at National Review Online:

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says… “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

Pesky unions! Always whining about trivial shit like benefits for union workers, non-union workers and even the unemployed! A Democrat in an anti-union, full-employment state like Michigan is wise to ignore them.

read the whole post »

Posted by Betty Cracker on 03/13/10 at 10:31 AM
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Meet the Republican who wants to take Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD8) seat [via the Washington Post]:

Murray Hill might be the perfect candidate for this political moment: young, bold, media-savvy, a Washington outsider eager to reshape the way things are done in the nation’s capital. And if these are cynical times, well, then, it’s safe to say Murray Hill is by far the most cynical.

Chris could be in real trouble, especially if Hill is tanned, coiffed and seriously cut.

read the whole post »

Posted by Hunger Tallest Palin on 03/13/10 at 08:38 AM
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Friday, March 12, 2010

After embarrassing Vice President Biden and mucking up delicate US back-channel discussions with the Palestinians, perennially fuckheaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself on the receiving end of Hillary Clinton’s famous “3AM phone call.” Ouch. 

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 03/12/10 at 10:05 PM
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I was totally happy to see this piece by Paul Krugman in the NY Times today.  It’s been driving me crazy to hear Rethugs repeat these lying talking points over and over.

Myth Number 1:  Obamacare will result in a government takeover of 1/6 of the U.S. Economy

Myth Buster from Krugman:

Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?

Myth Number 2:  Obamacare will do nothing to control costs.

Myth Buster from Krugman:

[C]ritics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.

read the whole post »

Posted by marindenver on 03/12/10 at 08:02 PM
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I’d like to send this one out to Basement Dwellin’ Andy Breitbart...

UPDATE: Above link fixed. Try again.

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/12/10 at 04:33 PM
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is, analytically, identical to—and as respectable as—malodorous Mark Penn’s “Invisible Americans” malarkey?

As this race unfolds, the winning coalition for us is clearer and clearer. There are three demographic variables that explain almost all of the voters in the primary—gender, party, and income. Race is a factor as well, but we are fighting hard to neutralize it.
    We are the candidate of people with needs.
    We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).
    Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).
    Edwards draws from these groups as well.
    Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.
    If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.
    The reason the Invisible Americans is so powerful is that it speaks to exactly how you can be a champion for those in needs [sic]. He may be the JFK in the race, but you are the Bobby.

Quelle surprise!

Too bad Lambert wasn’t an Obot.  A much more skilled operator like Axelrove would have been manipulating him by remote control to terrorize Hillary’s angel-like supporters by the time the Iowa caucuses rolled around. Thug 4 Life!

read the whole post »

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/12/10 at 10:54 AM
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