Grayson and Franken

I want Alan Grayson as Speaker of the House, and Al Franken as Senate Majority Leader.

That is all.

Double Facepalm

When the fail is so strong, one Facepalm ain’t enough

Via religulous stupidity, of course.

Teabaggers. I love saying that.

Of all the silly trends in politics over the past 30 years that I’ve been paying attention to it, nothing has amused me so reliably and continuously, as the use of the term “teabagging” and “teabaggers” in a political context.

It’s so evocative. It’s so fucking funny. A bunch of wingnuts, waving teabags around and shouting incoherently about something or another. Never fails to put a smile on my face, or pull a chortle from my lips.

Plus, it’s a euphemism for sucking testicles. Hard to top that for pure comedy value.

Best yet, it puts it all in perspective. Without knowing them as “teabaggers”, I’d be furiously angry– they’ve been ruining my country for 30 years–, or absoulutely terrified– a lot of them are armed. But, imaging them dangling teabags around, or dipping them in and out fo their mouths, makes the whole thing comedy gold.

I can’t be angry at the teabaggers, or be afraid of them. They’re teabaggers! OK, next3

Treason

Scariest picture I’ve seen this year so far:

A man, with a gun, holding a sign explicitly calling for armed revolution, in "dog whistle" language.

What was the title of that Ann Coulter book?

Walking around armed and calling for the overthrow of the U.S. Government would be pretty treasonous, no?

Like the BlueHampshire guy said: “Ahem, where’s the Secret Service?”

Best summary ever

Stupid + Bipartisanship = FAIL

That’s it.

I’ve finally figured out the pattern

I think I understand now the pattern that Obama is using. He seems to do the same thing every time.

1. He calls for "bipartisanship" and treats his opposition respectfully, and as equals.
2. We activists and partisans howl with indignity, and whine that he’s being too soft and is appeasing those Repug fuckers, who don’t deserve even the slightest bit of respect, and he’s going to lose the whole thing because of it.
3. Obama ignores the partisanship, and keeps treating everyone nicely anyway.
4. The Repugs respond by being total dickwads. Not just being uncooperative, but downright rude, boorish, and even frightening in their level of vitriol and thughgishness.
5. While still being nice and respectful and conciliatory, Obama responds to their obnoxiousness by moving– much to the delight of us partisans– to the left!
6. The Repugs respond by becoming totally unhinged.
7. Obama starts pointing out the partisanship and actual silliness of the Repugs, and shifts even slightly more to the left, as reasonable people kind of shake their heads at the Repugs and join us in supporting Obama.
8. Lather, rinse, repeat. The whole cycle continues, until, of course, Obama wins.

He’s done this several times now, and it has worked every time. In his Senatorial campaign, in the Presidential primary, in the 2008 general election, with the stimulus, with the clean energy bill, with the Sotomayor confirmation, and now with medical care.

Basically, he decides to be reasonable and way too nice, but as his opponents decide to respond by not acting in good faith, he digs in further to his position, but also just keeps on being nice and willing to compromise, and lets them dig themselves into a hole.

That’s because, I think, that he wants to compromise, but, alas, the opposite side doesn’t want to. The big difference with this guy is that he lets them own the problem of their intransigence. It’s simply not his problem if the Repugs don’t want to deal in good faith. It’s their problem, and they own it.

Whatever, hey, it works.

UPDATE: Cool! Governor Dean confirms that this is exactly what Obama is doing! Thinking about this a bit more, it seems that having the first African-American president is a very helpful thing: he’s studied Dr. King. A lot. The tactic Obama is using– which Dr. Dean correctly identifies as "smart"– is exactly how the Civil Rights movement did it. Be dignified, be peaceful, be strong, be calm, and let the other side bring out the water cannons, batons, and attack dogs.

Libertarians explained

I love it when things I’ve been trying to explain for years, get summarized more succinctly and accurately than I ever could… and as a passing comment:

…the freedom they’re fighting for is the freedom of corporations to make even more money off of them.

Exactly. Too many libertarians and objectivists have for long been the "useful idiots" of the corporate power elite. Well, not really "idiots" per se, more like naive abstract idealists getting chumped by the powers that be.

No system at all

This sums it up:

American health care is not really a system at all. It’s a market. In a market, people with money can buy what they want and many people are left out. So we thought, no, we don’t want market-driven health care. We want a real system, something that covers everybody and doesn’t depend on how much money you have.

Best summary of the problem that I’ve ever seen. And, it also sets up the fundamental conflict between capitalism and democracy. Markets are, by definition, anti-democratic. One dollar, one vote. No dollars, no votes. It’s corruption in a bag.

It ain’t about beliefs

In short, a belief question is totally worthless in measuring American’s knowledge on the subject or the value of the theory. It’s a measure of a theory’s popularity.

Exactly. This kind of thing has been driving me batty for years now.

No question about science should be asked in terms of "belief". Science is not made of beliefs. It’s made of data, and theories to summarize and organize the data. Theories are invalidated when the data doesn’t support them, or when a better theory fits the data better. It’s totally irrelevent whether people who have no fucking clue "believe" or don’t "believe" them.

The only reasons

I’ve spent a lifetime getting sidetracked into various traps and dead-ends, and now I think I’ve found a way to avoid them.

Doing things for the money– specifically "to get rich"– is a dead end. It can never work out well. It’s either soul-crushing, health-crushing, or– even worse– both of the above, and doomed to failure too, by its very nature. If you’re doing something only to make money, you can’t actually succeed at it. Believe me, I’ve tried, over and over and over again, and I’ve watched way too many people bang their head against that wall.

Doing things to save money is also a dead end. It never works. Being DIY is great, being frugal and efficient is great, but trying to DIY in order to save money is a fool’s game: it never actually saves money– it usually costs more. The "penny-wise, pound-foolish" trap catches anything done only to save money.

In general, doing things out of terror (of being poor, of looking a fool, of being alone, of making mistakes, of danger, of social disapprobation, of the wrath of some person or group of peopel, of losing money, of not making enough money, of conflict, etc.), are all dead-ends, and IMHO the worst kind. I know people who have actually succeeded with this strategy, but it is hazardous and life-sucking.

So what’s left? The only motivations that seem to actually work towards a sustainable, healthy success are:

1. The love of what you’re doing.
2. The love of others.
3. The love of a moral/ethical/spiritual code (i.e. Doing The Right Thing).

I haven’t found too many ways to hit all three simultaneously, but any one will work. Really, if it doesn’t fit into any of those, it ain’t gonna work as a long-term strategy.