Hutchinson: national pride above private enterprise

The honorable Kay Bailey Hutchinson spent far too much time on Thursday addressing Obama's plans for NASA. The short version of it is the Republicans just found one more silly thing to accuse the president and Democrats of being anti-american. She shouldn't play poker, because she has an obvious tell - she smirks whenever she blurts out rhetoric. Interesting things I noted during her speech:

1) Reliance on Russia for shuttling astronauts to the ISS is a terrible thing because somehow that makes America no longer a leader in space exploration. Got that? Performing thirty year-old missions is somehow supposed to be glorious and groundbreaking. It's outsourcing taxi work!

2) Obama's idea of getting NASA to use private American companies to get payloads into space is bad. She doesn't believe in private companies to handle such a trivial task. Who's a big-government socialist now?

3) Going to the moon is a worthy plan. Sure, back in the 50's where Republicans seem to be stuck. Obama is talking about looking forward to asteroid and Mars exploration. How are those not worthy goals for a great nation?

4) Republicans can't stand science and research when it's related to climatology, but if it's for war or exploration that's ok. Must we point out how terrible it is when politicians get to decide what scientists should focus on?

5) Hutchinson is still impressed by velcro. Yup- 1950s.

Another round of GOP healthcare spin

A letter to the editor of The Marietta Times somehow got past what passes for an editor in that quaint little town Ohio-West Virginia border. In this mediocre example of sophomoric writing Mr. Ross passionately starts off with the following paragraph:

The Speaker of the House said recently "You've heard about the (health care) bill ... we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." That has to be the stupidest political statement ever. Congress is being asked to pass one of the most significant changes in American domestic policy without knowing what is in it while they are hoodwinked.

Now I'm totally with him in that Nancy Pelosi was a real idiot to use that specific language, though obviously for a different reason. My problem is that her quote allows the bat-shit partisans on the right to use it as more fuel for their accusations of a lack of transparency.

Anyone who reads her words as an admission of some evil government plot to "take over healthcare" has simply deluded themselves to the point of automatically believing all the nonsensical political spin, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. Sadly, these abound everywhere political discourse is found these days, and due to the fervor into which asshats in conservative radio whip such imbecils, spreads over into non-political discussion.

Weapon stockpilers, xenophobes and tax evaders, please remember! The first rule of conspiracy theories is that the truth must be decoded from non-obvious documentation stored on unlikely historical artifacts, not seen unencrypted C-SPAN. The second rule is that the secret group running the world does not make silly mistakes, which is exactly what the Speaker clearly recently did.

Thornberry joined my list

Mr. Thornberry of Texas seems to be confused. He making that tired accusation of liberals being soft on terror and doing so quite poorly.

He just equated an interrogator pointing out to a suspect being charged that the crime has a death penalty to an interrogator threatening to kill the suspect. He also confused a prison guard waking a prisoner with the interrogation tactic of sleep deprivation. Does any adult need the differences explained?

Whether either technique should be lawful is one question at hand, one I leave to those more capable of answering. Regardless of the specific answer, we should recognize there must be a defined line as to what is legal and what is not (i.e. none of that nonsense about vaguely-defined "enhanced techniques"). We cannot exempt someone because they served our country and continue calling ourselves a law-abiding and nation if they violate our laws. And to continue claiming we are a nation which guarantees justice, we must have the courage to not use as excuses subjective qualifiers such as "terrorist" when discussing those our legal system still classifies as not yet proven guilty of such a crime. If we lose these, our experiment has failed.

Tonight's C-SPAN take-aways

So what did we learn about politics today, children?

Today we learned that Republican* politicians are so useless that they are still using the same old tired talking points they were a year ago when they undemocratically blocked the democratically elected representatives of the American people. They've got a couple new ones, but I don't find them as good as the previous ones.

Among the many things said by Steve King of Iowa, Paul Brown of Georgia, John Carter of Texas and other lackeys of the GOP leadership and their puppet masters:

• Republicans are not, as Democrats say, the "party of no". They've got a wonderful slogan now- they're the "party of K-N-O-W". Well at least they can spell n-o-w. But seriously, they know exactly how to solve all our problems. They just didn't feel like doing it during their control of all three arms of the federal government during the Bush administrations.
• Democrats only have one objective: a government takeover of the healthcare system. And a bureaucrat is going to stand between you and your doctor. Which of course is totally different from an insurance company bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor, so different in fact we won't even mention this happens.
• 2000 pages is far too much text for the American people, not that this means the American people are dumb, because they're not, but reading this would make them "jump over a cliff". Just give them simple stuff to read, heavily peppered with pictures, if you don't mind - homeschooling is on the rise.
• Obama is going to cram a bill down our throats at the "so called" healthcare summit except he doesn't have a bill, because the 12 pages he presented have "no legislative language." It's a schrodinger's cat kind of deal- Louie Gohmert is having a fit trying to figure it out which bill Obama is talking about, but he's getting great help from has-been Gingrich on that. Besides- Obama wants to meet with Ahmadinejad and it's a government takeover and it's 2000 PAGES LONG!!! (I shit you not- he actually listed all those things in the same breath- check 9pm on C-SPAN, thankfully he was cut off by a colleague before he provided yet more idiocy thing)
• Democrats think they're so smart, and that they're so elite, and that's stupid. Because... well there's no given reason, just they're so elite, but that's a bad thing, because common sense is better than... Com-? Yeah! Common sense is smarter!
• Democrats' ideas are kind of like horse manure, which stinks... yet is used for fertilizer. So there you go- a winning argument using both a contradiction and an analogy which stinks.
• Obama is a sneaky bastard because C-SPAN doesn't have provide coverage all over the White House. Only our debate here on the floor of congress is open. Please ignore the fact that Louie Gohmert's office isn't rigged with cameras- he's exempted because he's outraged at Mr. Hussein "Socialism" Obama.
• Illegal aliens are our worst enemy. Well, them and abortions. But back to the gentleman from Texas insist there is only one way to make sure we don't care for illegal aliens. This is to require that before you receive emergency treatment you must prove your citizenship. So remember kids: if you happen to suffer a terrible injury, make sure that before you are taken to the hospital you've got three forms of identification, or you'll be sent home. Yes, that includes you little 6 year-old Johnny. We don't care if you cut off your finger at scouts, your mother will have to get here before we look at it. Security is more important- "pro-life" has an asterisk, you know. Besides, the terrorists are trying to kill you and better you die by the hand of government.
• Steve King of Iowa still doesn't understand that the President of the United States cannot pass legislation. Perhaps he should crack open a copy of the constitution and figure out his job description.
• Paul Broun, also of Georgia is pissed off that Obama limited budget cuts to only a 20% area of the budget. Naturally that's a great argument, especially when you consider that this is generally the percentage of discretionary spending available after mandatory items such as defense, social security and medicaid. Talking points are SO much better than truth.
• Paul Broun continues to claim the constitution wasn't written by a bunch of lawyers In actuality it was a bunch of illiterate farmers whom God inspired or something, to craft this perfect document. Except we need to add a clause against those homos, because they're a curse from God because of those liberal Satan-worshiping baby killers. I'd listen to him because he's tight with the founding fathers.
• Democrats have extremist and fundamentalist views, who cannot accept ideas different from their own. Kids: use the following words to build a retort: "black", "pot" "kettle".
• Americans LOVE their cars, especially their American cars, but saving the US auto industry was a socialist takeover over private business, regardless of it saving those companies and jobs, because those jobs are union jobs. Fuck the American people, fuck their cars and fuck those unamerican union members. The only people who care are the investors, who should not get punished for putting their money into a failing company.
• Experts aren't- ever, and "the American people knew better than Wall Street experts." (Steve King, Iowa at 9:35pm). This is why nobody lost their home except those elitist fat-cat brokers. Except for scared and angry Americans.
• Michelle "(God, help us)" Bachmann of Minnesota is infuriated at the idea that healthcare premiums will have price caps. Because whenever governments mess with price-fixing, that leads to scarcity. Except in many places in the world, such as in Israel where I grew up where food staples are fixed so people don't starve. Also, Obama's going to kill grandma, but he's going to keep illegal aliens alive. Yeah, she brought out those old gems again.

Sorry but I'm done now. Bachmann tirades and the whining of sore losers really wear me out.

* The segment I watched was a Republicans-only rant-fest. No debate with Democrats, which they so plead for during. I know it's not a politically-smart thing to yield your limited speaking time to the other party, but if you insist on having better arguments, you may seem like a coward by avoiding honest confrontation. I assume the Democrats make equally stupid arguments in their time, assuming they even care about public relations.

Bad history pisses me off

This is almost as bad as bad science...

The opening to today's Groupon.com email:

"The oldest civilizations flourished around the Mediterranean Sea, likely because the water provided secret salts that improved the flavor of their food. For $20, you get $40 worth of classy Mediterranean cuisine and drinks at Ariadne Restaurant & Bar in Newtonville, named a Best New Restaurant in 2003 by Boston Magazine and just a 15-minute drive west of Boston."

Really? So it was actually tasty cuisine which caused the rise and fall of empires?

Someone tell the president so that he spends a few billion dollars stimulating our taste buds!

Marketing asshats.

Thank God I wasn't homeschooled?

Stephen Colbert gave Conservapedia a good whipping today when he mentioned their current crusade to de-liberalize the Bible. I figure they got tired of all the "Hippie Jesus" jokes and want to strengthen their claim to Him, in the attempt to finally be able to "prove" that they're right. You know you're begging the question when you start rewriting your so-called sacred texts. The argument will no longer be "the bible is true because the bible tells us so," but rather "the bible says we're right because we wrote in the bible that you're wrong."

Anyway, so I paid my first visit in a long time and other than lots of heavy-handed banning going on, I noticed the following "homework" answer (ref. here)

7. Charity is based on the foundation of a successful free market. Or is a successful free market based on a foundation of charity? Describe and explain which is the cart, and which is the horse (in other words, which comes first or is most important, charity or the free market). I think that free market comes first and is the horse - yes, it is true that charity is a huge part of America today, but would people even have the freedom and liberty to decide to be charitable to whatever organization they wish if there was no free market? Consider the communist time when Hitler was ruling - do you think those people under his tyrannical ruling would have been able to donate whatever they wanted to whatever cause they wanted? No! You weren't even allowed to help a Jew, unless you were doing it secretly, and if you were caught you were penalized harshly. Compare that to America today, where there is a free market where people have the right to do whatever they please!

Oh, dear lord, where to start, where to start?

Let's ignore that one should question why the... um... "teacher?"... actually thinks there's a need to explain the (completely unnecessary) horse and cart metaphor. These are bumpkins, not Amish- they don't understand that God didn't create cars, and that they're an evolution of transportation methods developed by humans. Maybe he should have just said "chariot"- they had those in the bible...

One could begin by mentioning that Nazis weren't communist (that was Russia- you know- with the red flags and the bears). Then follow that up with a "what the hell does Hitler have to do with charity?" and point out that saving someone from persecution is simply the moral (one could even say "Christian") thing to do, and not charity. Then close with "just because you were forbidden to help the state-oppressed minorities doesn't mean you couldn't do other charitable works, such as, say making cookies for the Hitler Youth bake-off*."

Looking at an earlier historical perspective, one could not help suspect the free market is a rather new concept, but charity is rooted in antiquity. Thus, there's obviously no need for a free market for charity to exist. I could easily find a couple good quotes in the old testament, but that'd be a waste of time because a self-righteous Christian wouldn't try to argue that point.

Then I suppose the next step would be to say there's no need for charity for a free market to exist either, pointing out that charity doesn't help the free market. To say it provides some counterbalance to allow an unsustainable system built on greed to survive in-between crashes by redistributing the wealth of a divided society... that'd be communist-speak.

Looking back at the structure of the answer I have to wonder at the state of mind of the student. I can't see much deep thought here, other than trying to come up with some way to incorporate Nazis (a "Godwinian answer," if you will). Then there's the use of choosing what looks like an arbitrary answer to serve the current master (it's an economics class, so naturally the free market must win), followed by a weak straw-man to suggest that there was ever a real choice. Finally, comes the useless anecdote with a healthy dose of that good old chest-thumping: "I'm American and we're better than everyone, so our system must be God's will."

If this student doesn't get a failing grade, that's just one more thing wrong with this "school."

* Yes, that's quite nonsensical, but given the context I really couldn't care less.

Blonde, the official color of the GOP

I noticed an ad for a free calendar from the Clare Boothe Luce Institute which states on its website:

"Strong women leaders like Clare Boothe Luce, Margaret Thatcher, and Sarah Palin have inspired millions and impacted the world for the better."

Ignoring the fact that Palin really hasn't impacted the world, why the need to use a British woman, and how idealistically blinded do you have to be to put Palin in the same category as the Iron Lady?

On a related note I've noticed often lately that Republicans tout the beauty of the few women with clout in conservative politics (this calendar is just one more example), contrasting this with older female liberal leaders. It's not even an ideology anymore, it's a high school popularity contest.

Why does the GOP think it is right, and still somewhat gets away with, selling image over content? What will it take for those few good conservative politicians to abandon that floating shipwreck commandeered by insane ghost pirates whooping,, 'hallelujah!' and form a new party with their libertarian kin?