Beware The Man

Not until it is too late, and um, yeah.

Gee, I wonder why that is?

It’s the end of the world as we know it, it’s the end of the world as we know it, and Ross feels fine…

That column, if you define “column” as a deuce dropped on a golf course for lack of better alternatives, is simply one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.

Red Alert! Red Alert! Earth to Ross, come IN, please!

I read somewhere he was all the rage in conservative intellectual circles. Perhaps Ross never got the memo that Bush The Lesser was not conservative enough. In any case, man am I glad I’m a not a “public intellectual.” I’d feel like an idiot.

…here is something I’ve said out loud frequently and over a long period of time (pretty much verbatim) in my career as a moderately unsuccessful corporate lackey.

It hasn’t worked out for me all that well, either.

Thank the FSM for people like Thers.

An Undeniably Smart Thing I Hope I Do Again.

Meaning, read this. My frustration with over-simplification in the context of human motive and behavior is very much a part of who I am.

I’ll bet the author would or does like one D.F. Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which I’ve been wandering through again for no reason other than immersion.

Update: Also because I stumbled on this blog because of my Wallace fandom.

It’s a very good little slice of historical record. And it makes me sad(der).

Hat tip to Susie.

How long will it be before we start referring to it as the day The Terrorists Started Winning?

One:

…this, from a fiscal conservative himself (Sullivan). John Cole voted for Bush twice before abandoning what is now the Crazy Party. “We’re not going to let the President speak to our kids about staying in school and studying hard?” That’s mental.

THAT’s the part I don’t get. The Republicans sort of “own the brand” of fiscal conservatism, but haven’t demonstrated any for most of most people’s lifetimes.

This is also pretty interesting, with respect to fiscal priorities.

Two:

See, I’m no pussy when it comes to military power. I want us to have the biggest, baddest killing force in the world, forever (though history tells us it won’t matter).

So, I’m having trouble figuring out how we can’t do that plus some other great stuff given the numbers. The health care debate has magically transformed to “the trillion dollar threshold,” for no real reason that I can come up with other than the emotional impact of the number, when if fact we could pay for the whole health care mess with a 15% cut in military spending ALONE over 10 years (we’ll have money coming out our asses if the Bush tax cuts expire at the same time), which could also have the added benefit of getting into fewer unwinnable wars of choice half way around the world, while still retaining the by-a-mile best-funded military in the world. All this is, to me, WJWD.

Facts are sometime uncomfortable things. (The WWJD thing being only a guess, obviously.)

Simplifying and adding total transparency to the tax code, getting rid of the breaks for the super-wealthy (not even me and you!) would save us billions. Ending the WOD would save us millions/year. No more tax cuts for politically motivating “religious organizations,” no more off-shore tax breaks, end the “corporations are people, too, except for the responsibility” exemption which came about sometime in the 1800’s, stop trying to impose change military but don’t stop it economically, tightening up media conglomerate (and conglomerate in general) law, if you do it morally with respect to the values you support you’ll spread the wealth without much pain to anyone but Big Money, no discernible change for anyone but them, and they won’t hurt…and so on.

Too late for us, though! I’m buying a shotgun with a bayonet clip on the end. And I plan on being proficient with it. 🙂

Take care, X. Best to you and yours.

Here’s the deal: I thought that speech was shit.

However, the health care situation is SO messed up that I’ll take anything I can get, and thus I think I relate with the President a bit.

It isn’t the players who are broken, it is the system. If the Wall Street bailouts, in which people richer than you (by a mile) were getting your money via just-fucking-large amounts of your tax dollars because we had no other alternatives to avoid the Blazing Saddles-esque version of Wall St. pointing a gun at its own head weren’t enough to convince you then I don’t have much hope for you. If you need more evidence that the “fiscal conservatives” of both parties aren’t paid for, bought, and sold, you’re a moron.

This country is now prioritizing values (thus your money) in a very weird way.

…I cannot handle zero degrees of separation from Teh Stoopid. Even one degree away is unhealthy for me. How John and the good people at S,N!, and TBogg, and Attaturk and Doug J and IOZ and Thers and hundreds of others do it is spectacularly super-human to me, I’m not kidding. Too much stupid makes me mental.

I haven’t watched any news for a month now on TV. That’s how bad I can’t take it.

The entire discourse makes me want to pick out my brain with a fork through my ears. Just dig dig dig, I figure I’ll get used to the physical pain, until the stupid doesn’t hurt me anymore.

The President addressing kids and telling them that education is important? Really? This isn’t all that complicated on some level: We elected a really likable why-can’t-we-all-get-along blackish guy for POTUS and a very large minority in this country wet their diapers. Such as it had to be, I suppose, when one looks out 50-100 years, but I don’t have that long.

Dear Joe Scarborough,

Because there aren’t any serious GOP leaders, unless they’re serious about party and not country.

You’re welcome. Hat tip to Steve Benen.