I am Spartacus

MoveOn can be pretty slick.

Last Time I went to Church...

I felt as if I'd landed on an Alien planet, had established rapport with the local indigenous fauna, and then, having been invited to their weekly gathering, had been completely shocked from the ridiculousness and utter lack of reason inherent in their kooky, and otherwise meaningless rituals and sermons:













from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot:

Consider again that pale blue dot. Take a good long look at it. ["That's us. That's Earth."] Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?

Do some "Big Think", and doesn't every resulting religion or ideology resemble or become a self parody of this?

Okay, we poppin champagne like we won tha championship game*

Wayback Machine set to Feb 19th, 2009:

Under Mr. Steele's helm, the “old” may seem inappropriate in the Grand Old Party's affectionate nickname. He said he is putting a new public relations team into place to update the party's image.

“It will be avant garde, technically,” he said. “It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook.”

Does that mean cutting-edge?

“I don't do 'cutting-edge,' “ he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

Okay, all together now, let's go Back to the Future:






I love the 80's.




*

An equal right to keep death at bay

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United States of Jesustan

Now, with no Executive Branch!



Will update with more details later, but for now, read the descriptions of the people depicted and an interview with the artist here.

So far, my favorite mouseover descriptions:
****
UPDATE:
Reagan as “a true patriot of freedom”. WTF does that even mean?

Thomas “Payne” appearing in this painting, even though he wrote a whole book ridiculing organized religion.

The Schoolteacher looks like Sarah Palin.

The “College Student” is holding a copy of “The Five Thousand Year Leap.” A book by a notorious Mormon Crank about how America is awesome because God is an American. (Seriously)

No executive branch depicted, because Jesus IS the Executive Branch.

Dolly Madison looks like Ally Sheedy.

the Fifty Stars and that they stand for the fifty states? Some stars burn more brightly than others. “Real American” states like Texas and Georgia as opposed to elitist, faggy states like California and New York.

And the only two people without description are “Satan” and the “Business Woman”. I guess the nature of those two abominations to American Culture speak for themselves.

UPDATE: Presented without Comment.

Bill Moyers was right, and still is right

UPDATE:

More recently, this week:

Don't watch this anywhere near a desk...

Because 2 minutes in, you will find your head repeatedly bouncing off of it.

Excuse me. Adults are talking.

My first YouTube upload

Abandoning Journalism is an anagram for OLIGARH

Technically, today is Sunday. Praise be to Allah.

What you are about to watch occurred on Thursday:



As of 72 hours later, this individual is neither in a straight-jacket or a padded cell, nor is he unemployed.

Self-described conservative Andrew Sullivan's terse comment:

This Is On National Television:

What else is there to say?

80% Glibertarian, Reason.com editor, and Randian prick in general, Radley Balko, reacts to this vid thusly:

Is that Darrell Hammond?

I haven’t watched Saturday Night Live in a long time, but this parody of Glenn Beck was perfectly executed.

Now I know why Bill Hicks prayed for Nuclear Holocaust within 5 minutes even if out of spite.

RIP Don Hewitt

from Bloomberg:

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Don Hewitt, who created the enduring CBS television newsmagazine “60 Minutes” and was its sole executive producer for 35 years, has died. He was 86.

He died today, CBS News reported on its Web site. A spokesman for “60 Minutes” said he was diagnosed earlier this year with a tumor, according to CBS News.

Although he often said he wanted to die at his desk, Hewitt relinquished his “60 Minutes” post in June 2004 in exchange for a 10-year contract to serve as a producer-at-large for CBS News, giving him a say in the network’s news programming.

“I’m going to be the resident pain in the ass,” he told Broadcasting & Cable magazine when the deal was announced.

Hewitt joined CBS’s fledgling news operation in 1948 before he owned his first television set. He oversaw the 15-minute newscast by Douglas Edwards until it was replaced by Walter Cronkite’s half-hour program in 1963. Hewitt also produced the first television debates between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John Kennedy in 1960.

Hewitt claimed credit for many innovations -- superimposing names on TV images and coining the term “anchorman,” to name two -- but he was most proud of “60 Minutes.” By his estimate, the program generated at least $2 billion in profits in its long run, which began when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and has continued through eight other presidencies.

Hewitt’s greatest talent was spotting and shaping a compelling story. At “60 Minutes,” he approved story ideas, oversaw the editing and wrote the on-air promotions and teases at the beginning of the broadcast.

“Basically, Don is an editor with cold, hard judgment about what works and what will appeal to people,” veteran “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “I’m always surprised at how he can look at a piece once and remember every element of it.”

[...]

Hewitt’s most public hour came in 1995, when he bowed to a CBS lawyer’s decision to kill a Wallace interview with a tobacco industry whistleblower named Jeffrey Wigand because of a possible threat of litigation.

As a substitute for the interview, Hewitt permitted Wallace to reveal on “60 Minutes” the management decision to pull the story. “That was a first -- a network-news broadcast holding its own management’s feet to the fire,” Hewitt declared in his 2001 memoir.

Hewitt later bristled over Hollywood’s unflattering portrayal of Wallace and himself in “The Insider,” a 1999 movie that essentially accused them of selling out.

Hewitt had two sons, Jeffrey and Steven, from his first marriage and a daughter, Lisa, from his second.

Played in the film by Philip Baker Hall, a chapter of Hewitt's memoir is spent dealing with the fallout the movie caused. In the end, the decisions shown in the film were the ones Hewitt went with. However, a glaringly bad call shouldn't outweigh a lifetime of talent and journalistic contribution. Full Disclosure, The Insider is one of my favortie films.




As far as what Lowell Bergman (Pacino's character) has been up to IRL, this particular episode of Frontline is a must-see.

Cynicism, followed by Dismissal is the correct approach here.

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The repulsive analyzing the inane.

Miley Cyrus utilized a stripper pole in her performance at the Teen Choice Awards. Oh my god.

As if her washed-up parents weren't already exploiting the hell out of their daughter's youth and sex appeal. I only mention this because today, of all days, Wingnut back-bencher Laura Ingraham felt compelled to comment on this incident.

Yeah yeah, they mocked her stupidity, her idea of a trailer park, with cut-offs as the embodiment of the All-American Southern Girl. My question is this, if they're so concerned that the Health Care Reform that the Democrats are proposing will lead to Fascism, Tyrrany, and the Government sentencing sick people to death (and they are, just read her front page), then why spend two full segments talking about how stupid a 16-year old Disney Pop-star is?



That is how criticism of pop-culture is done.

Ingraham and her ilk are not to be taken seriously, on any topic. Ever. When a google search of your name reveals that you're widely known for calling people you disagree with "fat" (Al Gore, Michael Moore, Meghan McCain), you should forever be remanded to the hellish dinosaur infested wasteland known as AM radio. Enjoy your dwindling audience.

Update on Blackwater

If you think HBO was degenerate in any way for airing programming with such amoral characters as The Sopranos, then exactly what does that make of the very voters that approved of government officials that granted companies like Blackwater no-bid contracts, no oversight, and billions of dollars?

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What matters is the actual visual, in your mind. A person who voted for Bush in 2004 would rather read about an Iraqi child killed as collateral damage in a firefight between Marines and Sunnis, or an enlisted Airman killed driving a Humvee in print, than watch James Gandolfini act at fucking the actress playing his Russian mistress.

One of these things is make-believe. One of these things is horrible. One of these things is entertaining. You draw your own Venn diagram.

A skeptical look at insurance reform

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Real Conservativism: CLAP LOUDER!

November 2008:


*****

Released by Gallup on Monday:

Religion Poisons Everything: Arms Dealing, Murder, Mafia Envy, and Astroturf

*****
Private Military Contractor formerly known as Blackwater, now known as XE,
implicated in murder, arms-dealing, and other Christianist ideals...

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

*****


Evangelical Leaders currently with their hands on the levers of power, embracing a philosophy and theology they called "The Totalitarianism of Christ". Be leaders that people follow, Emulate people like Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, and Lenin.

"Christianity got it wrong for 2,000 years talking about the poor, the weak, the down and out. God it turns out, wants people to focus on serving the powerful."

*****
What is the infrastructure, the institution of Modern American Christianity, really, other than an umbrella held aloft by millions of uncritical rubes in order to shield those that exploit and profit off of faith as a cynical tool used excuse villainy and to step on those Values Voters keeping them in power?



As Andrew Sullivan said today,

Beneath the elegant philosophical language is a blunter message to George's gay fellow human beings: be straight or go away. And since when is that a practical option in the 21st century?

I repeat to conservatives: we know what you're against, in healthcare, energy, counter-terrorism, taxation, gay rights, abortion. What are you actually for? How do you intend to actually address the questions of our time and place? And if conservatism cannot do that, what use is it?

When you walk through the garden
you gotta watch your back
well I beg your pardon
walk the straight and narrow track
if you walk with Jesus
he's gonna save your soul
you gotta keep the devil
way down in the hole
he's got the fire and the fury
at his command
well you don't have to worry
if you hold on to Jesus hand
we'll all be safe from Satan
when the thunder rolls
just gotta help me keep the devil
way down in the hole
All the angels sing about Jesus' mighty sword
and they'll shield you with their wings
and keep you close to the lord
don't pay heed to temptation
for his hands are so cold
you gotta help me keep the devil
way down in the hole

America's Finest

There's soldiering: Engaging and defeating an enemy through use of military force, and then occupying his territory.


And then there's Policing. Somebody needs to inform police in this country that there's a difference.

"The patrolling officer on his beat is the one true dictatorship in America, we can lock a guy up on the humble, lock him up for real, or say fuck it and drink ourselves to death under the expressway and our side partners will cover us, No one - I mean no one - tells us how to waste our shift!"

-McNulty

03/05/09: Police assault a 22-year old man in an elevator, charge him with assaulting a police officer, and he's only cleared when the elevator's surveillance video comes forward.

03/22/09: Police perform a traffic stop, and without cause, sieze $26,000 in cash.

03/25/09: Detective perjuring herself in front of a grand jury gets nailed when surveillance video proves she lied her ass off.

04/01/09: Phoenix blogger who's highly critical of the Phoenix PD and has sources inside the dept helping him to expose high-level corruption, has his house raided by PPD SWAT, wherein they sieze his personal documents, computers, and business plans. The warrant being served listed "Petty Theft" and "Computer tampering with the intent to harrass" as the Probable Cause.

04/09/09: Police gets misdemeanor charge in the shooting of a college student during a 5-officer police raid over Pot Possession. Not distribution, possession.

04/09/09: City of Chicago pays out over $280,000, over a 2004 special ops police raid on a bar executed under false pretenses and arrests made subsequently with false statements.

04/20/09: 11 Oakland officers the OPD had been planning to terminate for falsifying affidavits to secure search warrants on small-time drug suspects, and now returned to duty:

Allegations that officers falsified search-warrant affidavits arose in September. After the department's acknowledgment that some officers made misstatements to judges, dozens of criminal cases have been placed in question, and criminal charges against 12 defendants have been dropped.

04/29/09: An anonymous blogger writing critically about the ethical practices of a local megachurch has sued his sheriff and D.A.'s offices for revealing his identity to the church even though he had done nothing illegal.

05/06/09: A Grandmother files suit against two Pennsylvania police departments, after a Walmart Photo employee develops pictures of her 3 year old granddaughter getting out of the tub, the police charged her with producing child pornography.

05/21/09: Police Officer driving 109mph without his lights flashing or sirens on, plows into a pickup making a legal left turn in the middle of an intersection. Cop dies, accident victim charged with DUI even though his Blood/Alcohol level is half the legal limit.

06/06/09: New Jersey Police assault a 29-year old schizophrenic man for the crime of standing on a corner.


07/20/09: Cop's son rear-ends a young woman. He drives off. She pulls into a gas station. The son goes to the precinct, gets his dad, they both go back to the scene of the accident, and then the gas station. The officer draws his weapon, grabs the girl from behind and points the gun at her head. She's startled and swings her arm back. He arrests her friends and charges her with assault on a police officer. He then returns three times to the gas station to try and intimidate the clerk and the owner to destroy the surveillance tape of the incident. The owner relents, the tape was shown in court, and the charges against the young woman were dropped. The officer was returned to full duty 8 days after the IID hearing, and the D.A. and the police both declined to pursue any criminal or disciplinary charges.



And then there's Shem Walker.

These are just a very select few in the last couple months of a prolonged systemic failure of law enforcement to see itself as a policing agency, and not as a militaristic institution. Not all cops are bad, many or most of them are quite admirable and do a tough job for below average pay, for which they deserve our thanks.
However, my disdain at an institutional brotherhood expands to include all its members when a reasonable moderate contingent cannot or will not disown it's unstable, poisonous elements.

For more, read Radley Balko's excellent coverage at his site, "The Agitator" under the tags Police Militarization and Police Professionalism.

UPDATE: Boston Cop suspended for racist email over Gatesgate:

"Your defense of Gates while he is on the phone while being confronted [INDEED] with a police officer is assuming he has rights when considered a suspect. He is a suspect and always will be a suspect. His first priority of concern should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance." [my emphasis]

This smug, ID-driven prick and every Cop that shares his attitude should be purged from the force. Unamerican authorities like this should not have the power of life and death over anyone.

There's a reason he's the most trusted news anchor in America

Howie Kurtz has nothing on Stewart's media criticism.


Also, a must see birther takedown


Also, too, lets say for the sake of argument Obama was born in Kenya. His mother was a US Citizen which according to laws passed in the 1950s, would have automatically made BHO a natural born US Citizen born on foreign soil (Even before that it's likely that it would still be the case, as John McCain was born in Panama, but is a "Naturally born" US citizen. The US Consolate in Kenya would have had issued a Passport for him in order for him to be able to return to Hawaii and travel abroad as well. Even if they're right, They're wrong!

Cronkite dies: "I read the news today oh, boy/ About a lucky man who made the grade"

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What a pro.



Case in point...