Friday, July 22, 2011

Nobody Asked Me, But...

 
1) With respect to the rumoured debt deal, I keep in mind the argument made by many on the left that if we just eliminate the Bush tax cuts, just let them expire, most of our future deficits go away as well. If Obama and Boehner agreed to that, then this deal makes sense. Of course, you'll never hear either of them say that, but if that's what it takes to get rid of the Bush bankruptcy, I have little problem with this deal.
 
I know the argument will be made that there's no guarantee Boehner will keep his word on a deal like that. He is under enormous pressure from the Teabaggers. I can certainly see where he'd screw Obama and the nation to appease them. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. This is political Noh theater at its finest, replete with allowing Eric Cantor an opportunity to grandstand on behalf of Teabaggers.
 
2) I realize this is small beer for those of you in the Midwest and Southwest, but this morning felt like this afternoon should here in the city. We haven't had a day of 100° temperatures since 2002. Last night, I cut my bike ride short because I wanted to leave something in the tank for today. If I ride. Certainly for tomorrow's ride.
 
3) What happens when you let Republicans loose on medical research budgets: we go back three hundred years.
 
4) Interesting. According to this woman's lawsuit, you can be thrown off a plane for not wearing panties.
 
5) If you're not watching the Tour de France, you've missed a helluva bike race. The first week saw more top contenders eliminated that any mountain stage ever has, a near-unknown has sat in the yellow jersey as race leader for nearly two weeks after the world champion (and ersatz spinter) Thor Hushovd held the title for a week despite climbs that usually bomb a spinter out (he even won one of the Pyrennes stages!) And now, Andy Schleck has a fifteen second deficit on the overall lead and his nemesis (and doper) Alberto Contador is rattling cages left and right trying desperately to make up over four minutes. This is going to go right down to the sprint in Paris Sunday.
 
6) You'd think a journalist would have learned the lessons of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.
 
Oh wait! He's not a journalist! He's a Murdoch!
 
7) Gold's back up. The debt deal has to get done today.
 
8) Between the recent outrage over its price increase and Apple buying Hulu, I think you can say bye-bye to Netflix.
 
9) Could the infamous "Zodiac cypher" have been cracked, after 40 years?
 
10) Did Rupert Murdoch kill Elvis Presley?
 
11) BONUS: Today's Republican butthurt antiAmerica rant is brought to you by...Captain America.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

In Case You Missed The Memo...

 
 
Lemme start making the list.

Dare I Say It?

 

Why Bother?

 
Global climate change will do a far more effective job of destroying the power grid than any terrorist bomb.
 
Does no one remember August 14, 2003? Banana republics have more reliable power grids than we do.

Wanna Know How Old I Am?

 
I remember when the mail was delivered twice a day during the week.
 

Social Media: Yer Doin' It Rong

 
Did you know there was a Republican Presidential Debate last night?
 
Don't bother looking for repeats of it on CNN or video on YouTube.
 

Now there's the @140townhall, hosted by the Tea Party, for a few hapless GOP 2012 candidates.

I don’t think enough attention has been paid to how terrible, asinine and embarrassing it was. It was almost funny. The only way it could possibly have been worse would have been if Romney had showed up.

To give you an idea of the level of discourse, which you can read in less time than it took the candidates to misstype, Bachmann’s opening statement begins as follows: “TY for this forum. I’m running 4 POTUS 2 bring the voice of the people back to DC.”

How...dignified.

Now, in truth, Twitter may be the best venue for the GOP to debate issues: 140 characters means you can't explain anything, you can't easily obfuscate, and you have to create bumper sticker answers on the fly.

Plus, as I often say, Twitter is for twits. This is perfect!

Except what's the point of having an exchange like that if no one knows about it? What's the point of having a debate if it's going to become a muddled mess of snappy answers that you can't even really be certain thread to the other participants?

You might as well ask Dickie Goodman to sample the candidates' position papers and create a "debate" that way.

This points up the contrast in how social media is used by both parties.
 
The blogosphere/Blogtopia (© Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo) is well-established and-- as conservatives are wont to do-- pretty bipartisanly effective well after the blog-world lost its uniqueness.
 
Facebook is similarly fairly familiar now, and conservatives have made inroads there as well. Sarah Palin's Facebook page is among the most popularly and most carefully watched pages on the site.
 
This is a far cry from not too long ago, when Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace as an attempt to "FOX News" social media, thus abandoning hundreds of conservatives to a lonely outpost on the edges of the cybergalaxy.
 
Now we have Twitter. Twitter is great for alerting people: you need a quick fundraising hit, or an urgent policy announcement, you link to it on Twitter and it gets around. Twitter is great for a wiseass like me (even tho I don't Twitter) who can snap off one-liners.
 
Twitter is not great for a dialogue. And therein lies the problem for the Republicans. They bring a rubber band to a knife fight.

Memo To Allen West

 
I understand that many brands of decaf taste as good as the real thing

Shorter Noemie Emery

 
"Who cares that taxes pay for medical research? It's welfare, dammit!"

Do You Get The Feeling...

 
 
I recall similar rumours about Michael Huffington when he ran in California, just before he outted himself. And his was a very closeted life.

You Know This Guy

 
If you've watched any program about ancient Egypt, the Pyramids, King Tut or any number of shows about mummies in general, you've seen Zahi Hawass, best described as an arrogant pompous prick.
 
Well, he's been fired in the shuffling of the Egyptian cabinet.

Signal To Noise

 
Quantum computing takes a, errr, quantum leap forward.

Oh Great!

 
I quit smoking, stopped hanging out in the sun, get my prostate and colon checked regularly, but how the hell do I prevent this?

If Only There Was Some Way To Enforce Laws, Like A Government Or Something

 
 
Poor Laura Ingraham, butthurt again.