Patience is no longer a virtue

This is just a great post at Kos. We had to sit through years of Bush's crap regarding Iraq and we were constantly told to have patience. But now that Obama is in office, the right can't go two weeks without throwing a tantrum about the pace of things.

The endless asshattery of the modern GOP

The GOP, in an effort to offer a useful counterbalance to the crazy left-wing stimulus plan, has brought forth one of the most keen minds in economics.

Joe the Plumber

I would like to believe that this will represent the high-water mark for Republican stupidity. Yet, I am certain that this is merely the beginning.

stop looking!

It is official, I have found the stupidest f-ing person on the planet. I will provide the link here- but be very, very careful. The damage from encountering this much stupidity may be permanent.

The reason why this pregnancy means something is that it is the daughter of someone who is running for the second highest office in the land. That person also happens to be someone who is very much against teaching sexual education in public schools and only supports abstinence only education. When her underage daughter ends of pregnant, it is incumbent upon us to ask how this private behavior matches up with their public rhetoric. It is a very real example of how this person's judgment is deeply flawed.

Now this doesn't mean that we should all go through their private lives, but we should seriously discuss how this pregnancy reflects on their political agenda.

Tomorrow's conservative news today

They are going to scream and shout the following:

"Barack Obama is ANGRY"

Thoughts regarding warmongers...

When I read this stuff, the first thing that comes to mind is: Do they realize that when wars are fought, people die?

I know that sounds rather stupid, but it really seems like they believe that war exists purely to give their lives meaning.

Bob Casey Sr. was apparently the American pope

This is just layers upon layers of ridiculousness:

Sixteen years ago, the Democratic Party refused to allow Robert P. Casey Sr., then the governor of Pennsylvania, to speak at its national convention because his anti-abortion views, stemming from his Roman Catholic faith, clashed with the party’s platform and powerful constituencies. Many Catholics, once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, never forgot what they considered a slight.

I mean really, I would challenge the Times to present 50 Catholics who won't vote for Obama because Bob Casey Sr. didn't speak at the Democratic convention in 1992.

Feeling Despondent

I think it is time to talk me off of the ledge, as I think I am about to lose it. I have spent some time watching and reading about the latest press coverage of the 2008 election and I am losing all hope that this race will be covered with the type of care and thought that we deserve. This past couple of weeks, we have been treated to stories that defy reason. The talking heads debated whether Obama just hates the troops or REALLY hates the troops, whether he is arrogant, whether he is playing the race card and whether he is an elitist.

In general, I try to avoid all of this and am really fortunate that I live without a television. But, it is unavoidable to completely sequester myself from all of this crap. Whenever, I do see this stuff, I feel incredibly disconnected from all of it. As I view this election, I see a candidate (McCain) who cannot feasibly win and this is without considering the 'image stuff' (i.e. that he is old and awkward). He shouldn't be anywhere close to Obama when you look at the policies he is advocating and how poorly thought out they are and/or unrealistic to carry out. For instance, his expressed belief that he will balance the budget by winning the war in Iraq, his unrealistic belief that we can secure Afghanistan AND Iraq at the same time with troops that appear out of thin air, his advocating a gas tax, as well as offshore oil drilling, that will do nothing for the American consumer and his absolute refusal to consider the economic hardships that most Americans face. Furthermore, he is running with the legacy of the most incompetent presidency of all time and with a party that has shown itself to be inequipped to run the country.

Of course, I think that the Obama campaign must share a modicum of the blame here- but on the whole, I believe that it is the sheer incompetency of the 'new' press (by this I mean the press, as it has come to operate since the inception of Fox News) which shoulders the lion's share of the blame. They behave like children with undiagnosed ADHD and will focus on whatever shiny thing is laid out in front of them, they offer judgment on the issues by not offering judgment and they will debate, endlessly, any talking point which is shoved in their face.

That is all, time to get off of the ledge.

That seems about right...

While I think that the "this will help McCain" meme regarding the indictment of Ted Stevens is enough to make me move to Bangladesh, I have to agree with the folks at Pandagon.

If the elite press thinks that Joe Blow is going to make his voting decision based upon McCain's relationship with the senior senator from Alaska- because they have a long-simmering feud; then they need to stop eating so much paste and maybe think about spending some more time at a petting zoo instead of writing. Idiots.

I have met the enemy, and they are just incredibly stupid

oh my

Insurance Fun

My wife spent a significant amount of time on the phone today with our insurance company in order to resolve a charge that they put on our bill back when the little one was born. The insurance company is about to submit our bill to a collection agency because we refuse to pay it.

What is at issue? At our 40 week prenatal visit with our midwife (on April 21st), she scheduled an ultrasound and fetal stress test- IF we did not have the baby by the 27th. Amelia had other ideas and arrived on the 24th. The insurance company has insisted that we actually attended our appointment on the 27th for these procedures.

Now, to be clear- I am not a doctor. I have not studied medicine, nor have I even stepped foot in a medical school- so I advise you to take my words at face value. But I am pretty goddamn sure that the ultrasound and the FETAL stress test would have been considered moot three days after our daughter was born.

ARRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!one!1!!

Observation for the day

Free market fundamentalists are the stupidest f-ing people on the planet.

That is all.

Question

Has Jib-Jab ever been funny? Ever?

I am glad I do not have a TV

If I did, I would have lost my f-ing mind yesterday.



What is it with these people? How do they get from what Obama said on Iraq, which has been incredibly consistent, to 'he is adopting McCain and Bush's strategy'? It boggles the mind.

David Brooks is an asshat

Look, if you have decided that in your infinite wisdom you get to deem Barack Obama an out of touch elitist, the last thing you should do is extol the virtues of pomegranate water (:31 seconds in).

Just sayin'

Ugh

I am just going to put one of my pet peeves out there right now. I HATE this time in the election cycle, when the candidate starts gearing up for the general election and makes the shift to the center. The part I hate is when self-righteous liberals start whining that the candidate is selling out and is no longer worthy of any support.

To these people I say this- shut your cake hole- this is about building a movement. This is about changing the way politics works at the generational level. Obama is not going to be the perfect candidate, he might not even be a very good candidate (although I happen to think he is). But at the end of the day, we are that much closer to seeing universal health care, respect in the world community and the return of the middle class.

Just look at religious conservatives, the Republican party had them eating a bunch of shit sandwiches in the beginning- but they went on to become the most important constituency to the Bush administration. If we whine and throw tantrums like so many have in the past, we are going to be knee deep in McCain shit for the next 4 to 8 years.

Reason #2398 the press bothers me

A week or so ago, the public editor to the Times offered a well-deserved rebuke of (civilization ruining) Maureen Dowd, for her unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, that did not mean that Dowd would be relegated to her proper place in the press world, which would mean that her writing would be filling the pages of Maxim, People or Glamour.

Not to fear, however, as intrepid colleague-Gail Collins- publicly rushes to Dowd's defense:

As a Times columnist, I never envisioned myself writing a letter to a fellow resident of the paper’s opinion section. But I feel compelled to respond to your assault on Maureen Dowd.

Your complaint about Maureen seems to be that many supporters of Hillary Clinton found her columns offensive. As a former editorial page editor, I can absolutely assure you that supporters of many, many candidates from both parties have found Maureen’s columns offensive over the years.

The sharpness of her wit makes her commentary particularly painful to those who are on the receiving end. That’s also why so many readers love her and exactly what The New York Times pays her to do.

When the public editor laces into an opinion page columnist for making fun of a controversial political figure, it sounds like a suggestion that all of us tone things down. I hope I’m hearing wrong.

What I think this shows is two things. The first is the mindlessness with which members of the pundit class view criticism. They have one metric- are people from both sides angry? This is just stupid. Rather than splitting it down the middle, writers like Dowd would be far better served to take a look at the nature of the criticism. The complaint from the left is not that she skewers too sharply, it is that her view on the political stage is written for a grade school audience.

The second is that this episode shows quite clearly, that the pundit class doesn't do introspection. The problem is NEVER them.

Absolute Disasters of Human Beings

I don't want to wade too deeply into this, but the conservative blogosphere is made up of some pretty horrible people. Case in point, their recent all-out assault on a US soldier serving in Iraq (see madness: here*; see coverage: here here here here). In a nutshell, here is what happened:

1. Using a pseudonym, the soldier writes a story for The New Republic (TNR) detailing some rather disturbing behavior on the part of himself and fellow soldiers in Iraq.
2. Nutcases on the right, declare that because we don't know his name- the story is made up and demand that TNR apologize for making things up.
3. The soldier who wrote it comes forward to let the right wing know that he does, indeed, exist.
4. Nutcases on the right, from the safety of their parents' basements, personally attack the soldier going as far as to post pictures of him on their blogs and threaten him with physical harm.

My one thought in reading all of this is, who on God's green Earth behaves this way? These aren't some isolated crackpots who are doing this, these are people who guest host for Bill O'Reilly, appear on CNN and write for major American newspapers. Yet, when faced with the fact that they were 100% wrong, they don't kindly apologize and then decide to shut the F-up. Instead, they act like a pack of wild dogs who just got a taste of blood. As Digby notes, the fact that war makes soldiers do things which are morally questionable or downright wrong, is not a secret. But in listening to the right wing on this, you would think that war is all gumdrop bullets and lollipop IEDs.

*I don't often check out Malkin's blog, but doesn't it seem that she is coming unhinged? It is like reading something written by someone suffering from schizophrenia. It is both rambling and random, visually disorganized and is filled with paranoid delusions.

Perspective from CNN

This was not brilliant-



Too much more of this and I am moving in with Pork Rinds

American Taliban

Maybe someone can explain to me what the difference is between American Christian fundamentalists and all other types of fundamentalists. Because I just don't see how they are all that different, just change some choice words in this story:

Today was a historic first for religion in America's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began.

"This is an abomination," he continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."

To this:

Today was a historic first for religion in Pakistan's civic life: For the very first time, a Christian delivered the morning invocation in the Parliamentary chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Muslim activists.

The three protesters, who all belong to a fundamentalist Sunni sect, and who apparently traveled to Islamabad all the way from Karachi, interrupted by loudly asking for Allah's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Christian in the Parliamentary chamber.

"Forgive us for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began.

"This is an abomination," he continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."

Senate Republicans are Vile People

The Republicans have successfully filibustered Senator Webb's (D-VA) bill requiring troops get the needed resources to fight effectively. In their continued attempt to obstruct any bill that the President doesn't like, they have decided our soldiers should stop bitching about the fact that their tours are getting extended. How can these people sleep at night? They have a coronary anytime Democrats complain about the mission in Iraq, because it "undermines morale". Yet, when Democrats propose a bill that military officers heartily endorse, they stab them in the back.

Although, in their defense, I am sure a lot of them have yellow ribbons on their SUVs so their support of the troops is unimpeachable.

Jackasses.