Book of the Black Dog

Or buy one from him for $74 +tax& S&H. Yes folks, that's right. The guy who wants to become the first President of Texas after it seceds from the Union, is telling folks to not display the Modern U.S. Flag, or if they must, use a tea stained one to show "Solidarity with the founders".

Aren't these the folks who wanted to make desecrating the flag a Federal felony? Behind Chuck Norris' beard there is no chin...only an self serving opportunistic idiot.

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/chuck-norris-stop-using-the-modern-american-flag----or-use-tea-stained-ones.php?ref=fpblg

Edit: Here is a link to state flag desicration laws, just for shits and giggles.

http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/Flag/flaglaws.htm

For those of you who pay attention to such things, this past weekend there was a massive Tea Party demonstration in Washington D.C. with a substantial crowd (60 to 70K per DC police and fire, 1.2 million per Glen Beck...I wonder who's lying) to demonstrate against governmental spending and expantion. Well apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) asked for an explanation of why the government-run subway system didn’t, in his view, adequately prepare for this past weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

Seriously.

“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”

A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.” Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.

Now, most organizers realize you need to arrange and *gasp* PAY metro for extra service. But apparently free market only works if it's putting money INTO Glen Beck's pocket...otherwise it's the government's responsibility. Honestly, from the pictures, quite a few of the damn marchers could have used the exercise.

Update: The congressman who was complaining that DC Metro wasn't prepared for last weekend's rally, and that some protesters were forced to rely on free market solutions (i.e., taxis) to get to the demonstration, voted against the stimulus package that boosted funding for the subway.

So, I read a couple articles recently that made me think. The first was on fake terrorism, and the political use of an exaggerated threat to overcome a Republic into a dictatorship. The author went as far back as Crassus who arranged for Sparticus and crew to miss their outbound ship, flanked Sparticus with Legionaires giving him no other options to march toward Rome.

Terrified of the impending arrival of the much-feared army of gladiators, Rome declared Crassus Praetor. Crassus then crushed Spartacus' army and even though Pompey took the credit, Crassus was elected Consul of Rome the following year. With this maneuver, the Romans surrendered their Republican form of government. Soon would follow the first Triumvirate, consisting of Crassus, Pompeii, and Julius Caesar, followed by the reign of the god-like Emperors of Rome.

Cicero, and Hitler followed similar tactics. William Randolf Hearst got us into the Spanish-American war by calling the USS Maine explosion an attack by Spain. And of course, most recently Iraq I and II.

I have been among a great number of people who entertained thoughts that our ex president and company used propaganda lies and power to try to force us from Republic to overwhelming dictatorship with any number of black sins along the way. Now, granted some of the things that have been brought to light have backed up those suspicions, while others will remain suspicions or just be flat out fantasy.

But I look at our current president and occasionally lapse into the idea that he can do no wrong. That, dear friends, is dangerous. No I don't believe that he is trying to turn America into a Muslim Socialist New World Order, or what ever hystrionics is being bandied about these days. But, he is a Politician. He is highly charismatic, he had a meteoric rise to the top, he has a broad and powerful support base. It is not the health care issues I am worried about. It isn't even necessarily the wars he inherited. I've been a magician too long to know you don't watch the hand that is waving about, the trick is usually done with the one you aren't watching.

So what is it we aren't watching, while everyone is up in arms at town hall meeting about how death panels are going to kill grandma? I notice the Patriot act hasn't gone anywhere. I know, I know. The Patriot Act was W's god-forsaken baby. But if I find a hammer lying on the ground, I might use it even if it weren't mine. We are giving a lot of people with a lot of money a lot of leeway in the name of economic recovery. Does keeping a lot of people whipped up over a scary boogyman serve a different purpose?

Is this critical thinking or merely cynical thinking. I don't know yet. But I think that it may be prudent to always be suspicious of the motives of those in power.

It's shit like this that makes me once again seriously look at how hard it would be to emigrate. I am seriously trying to understand how some people (and I don't think they are plants. I think they are seriously frightened people who have been swallowing crap wholesale) equate a federally provided HEALTH INSURANCE (not nationalized health care) that you have the OPTION to buy into (if you can't get health insurance elsewhere because of pre-existing condtions or get tired of your insurance of screwing you 8 ways to Friday) to becoming a Socialist country like Russia with rationing of toilet paper. *head-desk head-desk head-desk*. I swear we are becoming an idiocracy.

Bit of background: I for the most part, lost my health insurance at work. One person had cancer and ran up a large medical cost. Our carrier was dropping us, and no one else was going to touch us. We were simply too big a risk...because of one person. Our employer (a not-for profit NH) was offering to put extra money in our paycheck and we would be able to buy into a variety of private insurance plans provided by our previous carrier. I cannot begin to tell you how bad these plans were, how under-insured I would be. It was basically catastrophic insurance that would cover me if I got a bus dropped on me...if they didn't decide the bus was a pre-existing condition.

Fortunately I got on my wife's insurance and was better covered than I was on the plan that had been knocked down twice over 2 years at my work. However, a good majority of folks here at work were left in the lurch. On the floor I work on are at least 3 single moms on the day shift, who now have no idea if their kids are covered enough. Why wouldn't offering these people a subsidized plan be a good thing?

An excellent article by Rick Perstein in the Washington Post, about how the recent upsurge in birthers, death panels and astroturfers at the town hall meetings...not such a recent occurrence. There is always an upsurge in conservative crazy whenever there is potential for real political change.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495_pf.html

( Full article behind cut )

Last political post today, I swear to god.

So another blog post on someone who is trying to meet the right wing not with more anger, but understanding and compassion...with mixed results. I can fully understand where she is coming from, my parents (although my mom lists as a Democrat) are both fairly conservative. My honey's parents are more so (both work tangentially or more so for the Military) and she has got into very heated discussions with her Dad after which neither talked to each other for months.

Yes, I can see that there are clearly people who show up to the town halls who appear pissed off and I don't think they are all astroturfers. The problem I think is that they only get their news from questionable sources i.e. Rush, O'Reiley, Fox news, viral emails, and swallow it whole without bothering to check for facts. They take the message on faith that their source is the only one reporting the facts and the "liberal media" is only going to feed them lies. Where do they get this impression? Rush, O'Reiley, Fox News and viral email. I'm sorry but that's a mind trick used by pimps and cult leaders. So yeah, when they get an email saying that Obama is a foreign born terrorist who is going to purge the government of millions of white men, they take it as a matter of faith. They are more so willing to believe it if times are uncertain and hard. They get scared and they often express that fear as rage and anger. It doesn't matter what information you give to disprove the lie, because it came from "the other side" and is immediately suspect and reject it out of hand.

Here's the problem, I'm scared too, and that hardly ever makes for a good equation, but I'm willing to own up to it. I won't listen to Fox or their commentators, because it's not news, it's rhetoric and I recognize the difference. I will read articles from other sources however.

Here is a link to the article, it's long but good. Please read it and think about it. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/deanie_mills/2009/08/i-dont-trust-your-side-and-my.php?ref=recmuck

A friend of mine posted this piece in her blog recently, and it confirms what I've been feeling in the pit of my stomach for years. Growing nativitism, increase in hate speech, over influence of corporations, decline in civil rights, tv talking heads getting away with spouting obvious lies and then denying responsibility when someone who listens to their crap kills someone. It is for this that I wake up in the night and wonder if I should have a bug-out bag by the door with a loaded weapon and enough cash to get us to the border. It's the reason I started learning French to possibly increase our odds of being able to stay in Canada.

W's dad had said back when it was discovered that GWB was doing illegal wire taps that she shouldn't worry because "they wouldn't be looking for her lilly white ass". I'm sure lots of Germans and Italians in the 30s and 40s had similar incorrect notions. It seemed to sum up the idea that facism is ok as long as they are going after "that other guy".

So please feel free to read the article and join me in my paranoia. The maalox is on the table, but it doesn't seem to help much.

( Full article here )

Link to the article at http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009083205/fascist-america-are-we-there-yet

Jonathan Alter discusses "Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is." J. Swift lives on.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/209817

So in reading TPM today, it was noted that aproximately 28% of Republicans are "birthers" with another 30% being "undecided". Really? I mean F-ing REALLY?! Almost 60% of Republicans are unwilling to admit they believe that President Obama is a citizen born in the U.S. It was noted that the 28% lies eerily close to the theory of General Crazification. What's that you ask? It's the theory that about 27% of the population is just crazy. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement.

Now, is this Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? Well Let's split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification -- either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the basis for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.

This would explain why Bush's numbers never dropped below that 27%. The nutjobs were out there willing to ignore actual facts, swallow the lies and propaganda and take it in the @ss for politicians who completely disregard them. They are the kind of people who would vote for a candidate who eats small children at press conferences before they vote for a Democrat.

But politics aside (can they ever be put aside?) It makes me wonder if the 27% holds true in ANY population? Look at your subgroups: PTA, SCA, Pagans, trafic etc etc etc. If you took the time to ask around and check folks out, chances are don't you think there'd be about 27% of the folks who you would just consider bug ass crazy? If anything that number might be a bit low.

There are sometimes conspiracy theorists drive me absolutely bat-shit crazy. I really should stop reading the comments section on the Star Tribune website. If you don't know what the Birther movement is, let me educate you. No, it is not a grass roots movement toward home-birth. It is not about some guy with the last name of Birther. It is a small but loud bunch of wingnuts who claim that President Obama can not be president because he was not "natural born citizen" as stated in the Constitution. *sigh* F-ing nuts. They make it clear that there is no proof which they will accept. Any documentation is, and will be, declared a forgery. They even claim that the microfiche (remember that stuff?) archive of the Honolulu newspaper's announcement of the President's birth in August 1961 was a scam perpetrated by his grandparents.

As much as it drives me nuts, another writer put his finger on it in a way I couldn't and I quote him here: ( Insight on racism and hypocricy )

Also apparently Chris Matthews publicly shamed one of the Represenatives (John Campbell R-CA) who is a co-sponsor on the "Birther Bill" to require that presidential candidates submit proof of citizenship. After some drawn-out questioning, Matthews got Campbell to say that, yes, he does believe President Obama is a natural-born citizen.

And now NPR is covering "birthers" and why they are crazy.

So after reading an article about the differences between Obama and Palin, it pointed out a very interesting point that resonated with me. Palin's attraction seemed to do a lot with class distinction. Barack Obama represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

The point that struck me was that the Democratic candidate was the meritocratic ideal. The idea that if you have your poop in a group, and have drive and do well you can and will be successful. Where the Republican candidate seemed to express the message of you can and should have a chance to be successful even without that.

To me that seems terribly backwards to each party's core messages. The Democratic Party seems to have always believed that a rising tide should raise all the boats, where the Republicans seemed to extol the virtues of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.

I myself believe in meritocracy. I want my leaders to be the elite, the cream of the crop. But I do realize that meritocracy tends toward cronyism. If you don't go to the right schools, etc doors won't be open to you to provide to opportunity to excell to the elite. On the other hand, over Democratization leads to the observation that cream is not the only thing that rises. I believe that without the competition there is no reason to excel and little progress. A great bland blah.

If you want to read the article for yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/opinion/06ross.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Not unless it's dissolved in a liquid, but I digress.

A story just came out about a pro-marijuana group suggesting that pot may be the way out of CA's financial mess. By legalizing, and taxing it as a means of solving the states massive budget problems.

On the surface, it looks like a good idea, but just past that...not so much. First some qualifiers and reveals. 1) I am for marijuana legalization. I think that it's been over demonized and there are enough products from the plant that I think it should be considered as a taxable cash crop. 2) I'm not a marijuana user, for a multitude of reasons first of which is that it is still currently illegal. Secondly, I don't get altered all that often even by legal means, the other reasons are miscelanea.

So, why do I feel it's not such a good idea? Well a lot of it falls down to enforcement. Sure, there would be a certain population willing to pay their taxes to buy or grow and sell pot. However there is and has existed a much larger population that because of the illegality of the drug would not suddenly look forward to having Uncle Sam (or in this case Cousin Arnie)taking a bite out of their profits and become the updated moonshiners. This will likely not slow down the pot industry, only now they would be adding tax evasion to their resume.

Second, because it is still Federally illegal, there is no way that it would pass a single court case.

Third, in my head it becomes a slippery slope. Great, marijuana taxes fill the coffers, but will likely quickly reduce in intake for two reasons. 1) Initial use would increase out of the novelty, but would probably level out or drop off. 2)Legislators who see an uptick in revenue and unlikely to see the possibility of the money dropping off (I base this on past action and human nature) will increase spending only to be screwed when the tax revenue does drop back off. So then what becomes the next "quick fix"? Legalize prostitution? There are a number of unpopular laws that could be taken off and taxed, but that doesn't necessary mean that taking them off the books is a good thing or benefits society.

So ends my mental rambling.

The MN Supreme Court has returned a verdict that "Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota."

So, now does Cornyn and cronies attempt to fillibuster Senator Elect Franken's seating? Unlikely. I also think that Coleman will drop it in an attempt to look as a viable candidate for the MN govenorship. Personally I think the majority of Minnesotans are willing to kick him in his giant chicklet teeth. I'm just sayin'

*UPDATE*
Coleman has conceeded, saying that he does not intent to take it to a higher court. This makes it very difficult for anyone else to keep dragging this out. Pawlenty will sign it, and Franken will be sworn in...sometime. Will Norm now thow his hat into the ring for the Governorship? Stay tuned true belivers.

Evidently Michelle Bachman has been feeling ignored and lonely. So in a desperate bid to get some facetime she is declairing she's going to break the law. "What?" you say. "Planning a heist?, mugging some orphans?, bombing an family planning clinic? what is she up to?" Well she's going over the top and declairing she WON'T FILL OUT HER CENSUS FORM! as a demonstration against governmental tyrany and corrupt ACORN involvement. Of course, as pointed out by a Census Bureau spokeswoman to the Washington Post, this is illegal and punishable by a $5000 fine which is just fine by me. Somehow I'm not against that. I propose that all the people who voted for MB should follow in her footsteps and also not fill out their census forms! The fines could go a long ways toward funding better healthcare, plus then we might decide there aren't enough people in her district to sustain her seat.

Via Conor Clarke at The Atlantic, we get a visual on what dreaded state of encroaching socialism in the United States looks like after government intervention in American industry:





That's right after all the rigamaroll, and Right wingers saying that we're becoming a bananna Republic (the bad kind not the cheezy frat boy clothing store), it amounts to 1/5th of 1 percent. They should flash that visual every time they let some talking head go on about the "Socialist State of Obama"

Sheesh

So I am listening to the MN Supreme Court oral arguments for Coleman V Franken, and honestly Coleman's lawyers appear to be getting properly spanked by the justices. They are saying "Ok, you don't appear to have done your full work here, but are asking us to accept your argument that it is a proper representation of the whole". So it is kind of like a kid who throws together a book report 15 minutes before class, and then demands an A because he turned it in on time, and the content is technically true.

I'm very interested in how this is going to play out over the next couple days. But as someone pointed out, if your lawyer is getting hammered by questions from the justices, it is not going well for your side.

Myself, I think the Coleman side's arguments are utter crap. But, I'm not a justice, and I've already voted.

It it no longer the Bachman-Palen effect, but instead it is instead called... The Dunning-Kruger effect. Just what is the Dunning-Kruger effect you ask. Well, it's an example of cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". They therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. This leads to a perverse result where people with less competence will rate their ability more highly than people with relatively more competence.

Shall I sum up?

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.

Personally I think this is sums up Michelle Bachman well. Plus I believe that the idea of incompetency is creeping in and leading to an increasing paranoia leading to further bad choices and increasing incompetence.

What brought this up? MB decided to debate Barney Frank on Lou Dobbs over ACORN funding. Frank pointed out that by setting the bar so low of only indictments of any MEMBER of an organization would have prevented organizations such as AIPAC (which later had all charges dropped) or House Republicans (when Tom Delay was indicted) from receiving funds.

Even after the smackdown she got on a conservative talkshow...she posted the video on her website to show her constituents how well she did. *headdesk*

So, I read an intresting article today at fivethirtyeight.com about how the Right has had a consistant decline of Conservitive Intelectuals. I would agree whole heartedly, it's part (among the mirad of reasons) of the reason I've lost such respect for Republicans over the years. They've gone from Buckley and Goldwater to Joe the Plumer, Palin, Limbaugh, and O'Reiley. And heck even Joe's ditched the party. They've gone from actually thinking about their platforms and being able to back them up to emotional frothing, scapegoating, non sequiter name calling, obstructionism, religious litmus tests and threats of violence or at least hints toward such. For fucks sake, people are listening to CHUCK NORRIS on the idea of Texas secession and how he thinks he's make a fine first president of the new Texa-homo territory.

They have become the equivilant of a 4 year old in need of nap. Only this 4 yr old has a say in how you and I run our lives and country.

It is as if they were intentionally shedding them, so they don't have a "grown up voice" telling them what they want is wrong and they can't do it. Perhaps it wasn't intentional, but more of a constant subtle shift until they (the intelectuals) no longer got invited to the table, so they left. But as someone pointed out on 538, there is not necessarily a 1:1 ratio of education vs intelectualism. The scientists, engineers and architects, and other professionals that had been mainstream Republicans were being pushed out of the party by those with little to no education and the fervent belief that the Bible is the word of "god."

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/decline-of-conservative-intellectualism.html#comments

But here is the rub. Has the Democratic party actually gained more intellectuals? Granted, our current President can speak full sentences eloquently. But what about the party? Or are we as a party using the same flawed tactics, only under a different name? Name three Democratic Intellectual writers off the top of your head. Noam Chomski doesn't count.
So, discuss.

So, my MIL and ..., I don't really have a good term for Larry...SFIL? Anyway, family on my wife's side are coming in a week to visit and see IBM's show at circus school. Normally this would be a grand event. But I am always on edge when visiting them, because they are both hard right wingers. Larry has almost all of that damn Colter's books, and several of the same line of political scope in his library. Mind you, they live in FL, and are connected to the military. It's gonna happen. I can accept that. What I try to do is avoid conversations about politics at every turn, especially when we are there staying at their house. They are good people, I just don't agree with their politics.

But all that made me think about what is going on in the Republican Party. Implosion? A lot of denial and piss poor tactics for certain. It just seems as though as the numbers decrease, the crazy gets concentrated. As the crazy concentrates, more people ditch, concetrating the crazy...You see where I'm going here. At this rate they'll be 5000 stark raving lunatics, firing guns into crowds, eating human flesh, and hoarding Confederate money. When your boat is taking on water, you don't drill holes in the bottom to let the water out. But it seems like Republican leadership is going "See? Taking on all that water is a good thing, we've gotten rid of all the rats! Boats that sit lower in the water are more stable. Bring on the water!" Indeed, boats sitting at the bottom of the ocean are very stable.

Will the Republicans become the Whigs? I don't necessarily think so. But I'd love to see the rise of a couple other parties who don't necessarily have political purity tests to be in their tents or wear their buttons.

Ah Batshit is at it again. Opens her mouth, and stupid falls out. Has this woman ever fricken opened a history book? Or has family money simply protected her from thinking all this time?

Her latest? Apparently Bachmann took to the House floor and paid tribute to the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge and the "Roaring 20s" (the era that ended with a massive monetary contraction and the Great Depression). One particular line really does stand out, though -- saying Franklin Roosevelt turned a recession into a depression through the "Hoot-Smalley" tariffs. Here's what really happened: When Franklin Roosevelt took office, unemployment was already about 25%. And the tariff referred to here was actually the Smoot-Hawley bill, co-authored by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.

This also happened on the same day as when Bachmann connected the 1970s swine flu outbreak to Democrat Jimmy Carter being president, even though it was actually Gerald Ford in office at the time. So you heard it here first folks: Democratic presidency causes the flu.

In an aside I also read two polical "top 10" things that would be humorous if they didn't strike a little close to the bone.

( Top 10 behind the cut. )( Top 10 behind cut. Skip if lack political humor )