Al Frankin Focuses on Focus on the Family.

You see, this is why Focus on the Family hates those "lie-buh-ral edumacators" and "critical thinkers" and people who actually look stuff up.

They unfairly use these tactics to embarrass "Real Uhmurikins."

Never Let Amateurs do Parody

This is the original, unintended self-parody.



This is the actual parody.



Rarely has Poe's Law bitten so hard, or with such sharp little teeth. Thank Ghu for Miss Vermont, the "winking smiley."

Bob's Correlation: Pretty people don't have to be smart.  People who are happy with being judged on their looks should not be graded on their ability to answer "Gotcha" questions, like, say, "Should it be illegal to divide by zero" or "Where and why did Paul Revere ride."

Bob's Even More Obvious Correlation: Never confuse pretty with smart.

In Which I fail to mourn Tom Ball.

Tom Ball's final stain.

Ok, Since you DID set yourself on fire, I suppose I must read what you had to say. The reason is simple; I'm holding myself to my own standards. You see, I'm kind of on the other side of this story, which, in all fairness, Ball tells well, with all the historical data points as he regards the changes society has been making due to increasing awareness of the impact on children and family of abuse. This reminds me of the punchline of the old joke: "I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid."

As a survivor of abuse, I have a rather different perspective. But at the same time, as a child, any time I felt discomfort, and later on, as a young adult, any time I sought help or spoke of pain that, it turns out, was the result of neglect for chronic, congenital conditions that a responsible parent really should have noticed, instead, my feelings were dismissed.

"You don't really feel that way." 

That was the first, and greatest insult. And the second was like unto it:

"You are just asking for attention."

Well, fuck, duh! I was in agony and couldn't walk, because at the age of 14, my knees were self-destructing. 

But from my father's perspective, I was ... and this was a favorite word of his ... "malingering."

You see, it was all about him. He was the king of the castle, and we were there to serve. If we were unable or unwilling to serve, we were useless, and deserved nothing from him. That is my best guess; I can't read minds and I don't presume to. But when I read Tom Ball's last words - I do indeed hear a great deal of the things my father had to say.

And at the same time, even as I am revolted by his perspective, even as I see the result of ten years of building a whole edifice of self-deception;  at the same time, I also hear the genuine pain, obvious despair, and I realize that he's speaking from a completely genuine place. This is what he really feels and believes; a man who has no reason whatsoever to censor himself.  So, yes, it's important to actually honor that and learn what we can.

Setting yourself on fire just so that someone will read your manifesto is the ultimate in attention-seeking behavior. 

But before I go into this - a word of advice to any feminist allies and/or fellow survivors. There's gonna be some "mansplainin'" goin' on here. Why? Well, because I'm speaking to the men who might find this argument compelling, persuasive and evidence of a lack of justice. (Such as the place I found the transcript.) Feminist reasoning or the language of survivors is simply dismissed as the whining of a subject people. 

As Ball points out, the recognition that the abuse of women and children within the family unit WAS abuse started in the 80's. It's now 2011. Clearly, all those years of feminist and liberal reasoning made no impression on Ball; indeed, he considered them so evil that he was willing to die in a fire rather than admit there was any justice to them.

Well, I respect his choice... even as I regret not having been there with marshmallows. Because, you see, I was raised in that sort of family and I internalized patriarchal values. I tried desperately to understand the reasons for my father's actions, just as I faithfully studied the Christian and military traditions that were cited for it. As an aspy child, I took it all at face value and even tried to make it work.

Well, it doesn't work all that well, it turns out, not without a great deal more support than exists in the typical nuclear family. But nonetheless, most people, most of the time do FAR better than this, even within an patriarchal context. 

You wanna call for a war to uphold the virtues of the patriarchy? First, dear departed soul, perhaps we should know what those are, and how badly you fucked up in THAT light.

Not with a bang, but a whimper...

Bachmann vs Reality

It should not be possible - ever - for an elective official - of ANY party - to be made to look THIS stupid in public without lying.



My question is NOT how stupid the voters are. How stupid are the people that let her EVER get traction in the first place?

Defeat Stupidity Now

The epidemic of stupidity has placed western culture at grave risk; it threatens our health, our future, our survival as a species. So it's time to wake up and respect the intelligence. If you are not willing to do the heavy lifting required to form an informed and intelligent opinion, you don't get the right to have your stupidity respected. Conventional wisdom is under fire from every direction,  and it does not turn out to be particularly bulletproof.

Matt Blum writes in Wired

Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Autism Groups “Kill Children” — And He’s Right

I get a ton of press releases every day in my inbox every day; most of them I just ignore, but yesterday I got one whose subject, in all-caps and bold, read:

OUTRAGED AUTISM GROUPS AND LEADERS TO ANNOUNCE 50,000-PARENT PROTEST IN NYC AGAINST BILLIONAIRE AND MICROSOFT CHAIRMAN BILL GATES AFTER BEING CALLED “CHILD KILLERS”

So I had to take a look, because I wanted to see what Gates had really said, and about whom. It turns out he didn’t actually use the phrase “child killers,” but he did say that anti-vaccine groups “kill children,” which does pretty much amount to the same thing. I can see why people would be outraged by that — I’m outraged, too, but not in the way the people who issued the press release would like me to be. Because I’m outraged that there most likely are 50,000 people who are willing to protest, when what Bill Gates said is absolutely, 100% correct.

I am constantly overwhelmed by the idiocy of so many people. In most cases, adults have every right to make bad choices, and we all make them now and then — but just making the occasional bad choice doesn’t make you an idiot. No, it’s idiotic to make a bad choice, and then when presented with ample evidence that you have made a bad choice do nothing to correct it. It is mindbogglingly idiotic to not only not correct that choice but to form groups with other idiots to try to convince yet more people to make the same bad choice. And it is dangerously idiotic when the bad choice in question kills children.

But there is a lot of dangerous idiocy out there. As infuriating and as stupid as this is, let us realize that this particular brand of idiocy is a manifestation of the same sort of flaming fucknuttery that has become epidemic in Western Society. And idiocy, when it becomes applied as social doctrine, as the basis for policy, kills. It kills people wholesale.

Now, ask yourself - could anyone who thinks and speaks this way possibly be a good parent, of any child?

Discredit: http://amplicate.com/hate/autism

Blum continues:

It’s unlikely that anyone who still believes that vaccines cause autism is going to be swayed by yet another article pointing out that no, actually they don’t. The original British autism study that prompted the whole anti-vaccine hysteria has been retracted and declared by the same journal that published it to be an “elaborate hoax.” In point of fact, there has never been a credible scientific study that shows that vaccines cause autism. Not one.

But really, this is but one symptom of the epidemic I've been blogging about since I started Graphictruth. There are some things that, if they have to be said at all, cannot be said "politely."

How about the idea that "Social Justice" is "a code word for "anti-americanism" - indeed, for "communism and nazism." At the same time. All at once. 

Well, anyone who can say that out loud fails to understand society, justice, the social forces that made people settle North America; it further reveals that they cannot possibly comprehend Communism, National Socialism (or fascism in general) and are no doubt rather confused about Christianity. 

Perhaps it's rude to observe that one would have to be paid very well indeed to be willing to say something that obviously foolish in public - but while rude, it's certainly true to observe that Glenn Beck is very well paid indeed.

Being an Asshole is not a religion, nor a faith, nor a doctrine. It's a lifestyle choice, a popular choice of those who are obsessed with the use and supposed misuse of the arses of others. One might say it's a tenant of Christian Fundamentalism. I would say that is a pun so vile that those who don't understand it deserve to have it explained to them. 

But more properly, a tenant from the Sermon on the Mount comes to mind: "Judge not, lest ye be judged also." 

I'm autistic, and I'm a blogger. I don't blog about autism, much; but I do have a certain perspective that comes from my neuro-linguistic bias, and in some lights, I think that the thing that is most feared about autistics is that we see things in a different way. The entire story about the little boy who said that the Emperor had no clothes ... well, that kid was likely autistic, by our current understanding of that set of traits. And I certainly see things the way that mythical kid did.

There is always some charismatic idiot who realizes that the fastest route to personal power is to gather a bunch of authoritarian followers and convince them that all their problems can be blamed on "those people" - people so morally deranged they will surely go to hell, and might even be so depraved as to vote for the other candidate. See above - or just turn on your television.


Now, if you delve into morality as stated by those for whom the morality of other people is a matter of great importance, you will find that purity and impurity; the politics of disgust are rather more pressing to them than a working, just, functional society of the sort advocated by Jesus.


Mind you, Jesus said all kinds of awkward things, and it got him nailed to a cross during his lifetime.You don't have to be trained by Jesuits to realize that the Crucifix at the front of the church is intended as much as an object lesson as an inspiration.

Everyone else had the social intelligence to not state the obvious truth that the Emperor was butt-naked - but in choosing to not do so, they were participating in a fraud upon the Court.

Of course, the moral of the story is that the Emperor was grateful. That would be the correct outcome - but of course, as you see from the lead example, it's not the usual one.

There's been much speculation as to whether Gates is on the Autistic spectrum himself. He certainly shows traits I associate with being Aspergers-typical autistic, though it's moments like this where I truly wonder aloud whether we can call it a disorder at all. Certainly it seems remarkable to think of someone like Bill Gates or Einstien as "High Functioning Autistics," as if they'd overcome an horrible condition in order to succeed. I rather think that if they considered it at all, they'd think it patronizing.

One of the criticisms of us is our "lack of social intelligence," and our placing of facts and our "inappropriate fixation on matters of justice" over the feelings of our peers.

Yeah, there's nothing so rude as being correct in public and not being willing to soothe the butthurt of the people who get busted pandering to the wishful thinking of the uninformed and thoughtless. Surely we must do something about that. And we certainly shouldn't expect leaders to exhibit actual leadership. No, they know their place and respect our willful stupidity. Hell, they should found their careers upon it!

Many Americans believe that President Barack Obama is a Muslim who is also not a US citizen, and House Speaker John Boehner isn't about to correct them.

The Speaker told NBC's David Gregory Sunday that people have a right to their beliefs and it wasn't his job to tell them what to think.

Last week, 40 percent of Republicans on a Fox News panel insisted that Obama was a Muslim.
"As the Speaker of the House, as the leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?" Gregory asked.

"David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think," Boehner replied. "Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people."

...he might as well have said, "I got elected by pandering to stupid people."

Now, that's often true enough - hell, and Clinton did it! So did JFK. It's true of every president of any party who ever got elected. The difference is, most of them thought of that as a regrettable necessity, not a fucking mandate!

He just said, out loud, that you'd have to be stupid to vote Republican - and he isn't about to disrespect the stupidity of the people who put him in power. Moreover, he's dumb enough to think that's a good thing to say out loud.

Even stupid people wish to be thought of as smart. So don't complement them for being stupid enough to vote for you. They might not actually thank you for that. Hell, they might grind their way slowly to the conclusion that it was pretty damn stupid to say that.

Having realized a leader is indeed, THAT stupid, you have to be very, very stupid indeed to think that it's ok to have anyone that stupid people in charge of heavy machinery, large amounts of money or weapons of war. Shall we turn to the news? oh, better yet, let's turn to the internet. What do we see? Any examples of things going as smoothly as we have every right to expect of those charged to cope with complex and difficult issues in a way to benefit the people as a whole?

A great many people who think of themselves as normal are choosing to believe any number of comfortable lies in the face of some increasingly urgent realities, and there will be hell to pay if humanity does not cash a reality check soon. Facts matter. If provable facts in evidence contradict what you would prefer to believe, tough. You are wrong. There's nothing respectable about being wrong, and no great virtue in being polite about it.

Stupid People

I thought of crafting a reason for posting this video.. but that would be stupid.

Frank Schaffer: "It would be better not to have a Republican party, than have a party that caters to the village idiot."

If I need to explain these videos, all hope is lost.



"It would be better not to have a Republican party, than have a party that caters to the village idiot."



Direct link to the money quote.

Sara Palin's House, as seen from Taiwan

"Ah wad some power the giftie gie us

To see ourselves as others see us."

— Robert (the stupid, it) Burns

It's a dangerous world, Sheeple! Wake Up!

Conservatism does, I admit, feature a certain degree of paranoia. I like to think of myself as a "rational paranoid," in the "keep an emergency kit near the door and fresh batteries in the smoke detector" sort.

I believe in preparedness. I believe in competance and I believe that selecting the right insurance for your needs matters. So, if we look at government as if it were GIECO, what do you get for your premium payments?

(Those would be taxes.)

Let's Run The Numbers:

Fewer deaths occurred in Hiroshima in August 1945 than in Port-au-Prince last week and more people will die there soon than in Rwanda in 1994. Yet the modern global world was unprepared for it, so busy were they with Terrorism, which has killed fewer people in the last thirty years than quarrelsome Americans with handguns in the last eight months. 

When are we going to get the arithmetic right, and distinguish what threatens us mightily from what threatens us barely at all?

Cuba, a socialist state, is well-prepared for natural disaster and few die there in the hurricane season, and rebuilding happens quickly. The United States, a capitalist nation, was ill-prepared for Hurricane Katrina though experts had warned for years of broken dykes, inundation, chaos, disease and looting, and its response was an international joke. 

China, a socialist state, handles earthquakes well. Australia, a social democratic state, handles floods and bushfires fairly well. Yet on the US's back doorstep a million people may die soon, thirsting to death under piles of bricks or in those rapidly-spreading diseases that follow earthquake, unhelped by America whose borrowed billions were that day bombing Kandahar not funding ambulance teams in Port-au-Prince. 

When will we get our priorities right, and realise our biggest foe is wild nature not militant Islam and do such things as we can to survive it?

Ayup. Billions for surveillance to prevent an unlikely event - but rotting bridges and substandard emergency response are simply not priorities in "times like these."

Welcome to the United States, where when you try to make a claim on your policy, you are told that being alive is a "pre-existing condition."

That's mighty white of you, Dale!

H/t to Skippy for this one:

The Washington Independent brings us this moment of revelatory hilarity, in which it is revealed that "All it takes to start a new meeting is resentment and a pot of tea."

Dale Robertson, a Tea Party activist who operates TeaParty.org, is getting stung for an old photo — taken at the Feb. 27, 2009 Tea Party in Houston — in which he holds a sign reading “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”

After the ResistNet listerv promoted “Liberty Concerts” to be held by TeaParty.org, a source passed on this photo of Robertson, after the jump.

Update: Josh Parker of the Houston Tea Party Society tells me that Robertson was booted out of the event for this sign.

So, if I'm parsing this correctly; rather than accepting that the movement is not helped by the growing perception that the Teabagging movement is composed largely gullible white trash blessed with a command of social graces as sophisticated as their english skills, Dale Robertson thinks the appropriate response is to start up his OWN teabagging org to properly represent "real umurikins just laik him."

Well, I'm sure the John Birch Society, the Council of Concerned Citizens and the Hammerskins view this as a positive development. 

Tell ya what, bunkie, I know where you ouggta be handing out your fliers. You'll feel right welcome here!

Young Conservatives and Evangelicals: Can you live up to Al Frankin?

I'm not quite sure how I came to this idea on Christmas day, other than perhaps this commonplace, common-sense observation.

• It's the part of faith to give us a better understanding of God.
• It's the part of religion to make it easier to do that, when things like community and knowledge help with that understanding, and putting that understanding into practice. And as a community of faith, it must needs be as inclusive as possible.
• It's the part of politics to give us a better understanding of the principles of governance.
• It's the part of government to make it easier to put those principles into practice, for the good of all, even for the benefit of those who passionately disagree.

At the top of each parallel stack are individuals with a vocation, a calling to a particular discipline, and the structures support those few for the benefit of the many. This necessitates a certain humility, a recognition that that position - no doubt quite an improbable accident of circumstance - is very much a privilege that one is expected to earn.


I think, parenthetically, that this is the only sense in which the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama can be taken. So it's rather better than being awarded  a Posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor as an inaugural gift, although it's a more difficult expectation to fulfill. I suspect at some point during this term, Obama might wishfully meditate on the relative ease of  falling on a grenade for his fellows.

In writing this, I was looking for a hook, an exemplar for how to do things right; the proper combination of situational awareness, humility and due diligence. And somewhat to my surprise, this brings me back to Al Frankin.

Now, I had expected a good deal of Al. But I was expecting a comedian, much as Michael Medved was.

“I appear to have sort of a Kryptonite effect on Al Franken—not that he’s Superman,” Medved says. “Going back a number of years, in virtually every interaction we’ve ever had, Al ends up blowing up at me.” One such meltdown occurred at the 2004 Republican Convention in Madison Square Garden, when Franken was a guest on Medved’s show and started shouting and slamming his hand on the table when the two disagreed over a convention speech attacking Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. “Al has always struck me as an angry guy,” Medved says.

Yet at the fair this summer, the senator seemed oddly content when he encountered Medved. “I couldn’t believe it was the same Al Franken,” Medved says. “What I saw this summer stunned me. He was meeting with all these ordinary folks and he really seemed to like people, just like most successful politicians do. And this was more than somebody who was just trolling for votes. It was apparent to me that he had real affection for his constituents and he was enjoying himself.”

 I was familiar with his Air America program, where he'd shown himself adept at doing his homework and using his information superiority to severely embarrass conservative guests who seemed unaccountably unable to process the idea that an alumni of Saturday Night Live might actually understand the substance of their unintentional comedy.

But I was expecting a Rachel Maddow or Kieth Olbermann, perhaps a Randi Rhodes - someone capable of creating headline-grabbing moments with well-crafted, perfectly timed moments of outrage. In that, I suspect my support was not a great deal different from the Right-Wing opposition - I was, indeed, expecting a particularly skillful clown. And that, indeed, would have been more than enough reason to vote for him - or oppose him, for that matter. Clown Societies are powerful things, and the song "Send in the Clowns" sums up every good reason why you would want to support such a candidate.

What I did not expect someone with an apparently instinctive grasp of the great parliamentary maneuver, where symbolism and genuine issues can be crafted to create an impetus toward good legislation while incidentally, crushing one's enemies into anchovy paste against the walls.

A clown would have been good, but statesmen are better. And they are rare enough and precious enough that we should hail them wherever and from whatever direction they appear. Because it goes back to the checklist above - people who realize that despite all appearances, their duties are not about them, much less beneath them.

Now, please undestand what I'm saying. I do like Al, and from as far as I can see so far, I like his politics, because his politics are founded in the people he represents. Or in other words, a conservative working off the same general set of principles as Al Frankin would get my praise.

You won't find him or Al being schmoozed and flattered at the C-Street Church, being told that they are leaders because Gawd wants them to be leaders, who's only job is to be a doorstop in the way of anything that might avert an impending Armageddon followed by a thousand years of Christian Riech.

And that brings me back to my essential point; a correct appreciation of one's vocation. Politicians make lousy spiritual leaders - and spiritual leaders should not even try to be good at politics. They are two different paths, and frankly speaking, those who confuse the two do neither job well - and often so poorly that they end up destroying both Church AND State.

Consider the last decade of history, if you have the stomach for it. We have two great exemplars of confusion - the Bush Administration, which exploited people of faith to achieve political goals, and the current Pope, who has committed many acts of politics (aside from the inside-baseball required to become the least objectionable candidate for the office) in order to further his faith.

I am picking on the Pope because I think the man to be sincerely wrong, as opposed to the crop of "evangelical leaders" in North America whom are best compared to P.T. Barnum and Marjoe Gortner. In other words, they are quite good examples of what they are, achieving exactly what they intend - which is to separate you from as much money and power with as little actual effort as possible.

And furthermore - I will say this, they serve a function. They keep the people capable of being so easily exploited away from things that might otherwise inconvenience smart people. The only problem with them as of late has been their arrogance in thinking that their expertiese in fleecing the willful marks qualifies them for a "higher calling," such as determining the fate of smarter and more ethical people, undeserving of their predations.

They must be chastened, so that they once again are restricted to those who honestly deserve and require their attentions.

The current Pope's faith and the former President's politics are both defined by who is kept away from the table.  That places them in tension with the mission itself - to be inspiration and leader to all, to the advantage of all, not merely those that they would prefer. And that is why all such people - who's morality places themselves above the ethical duty of the role they have assumed - must soon be swept away. We just can't afford to tolerate them any more.

Saint Frankinus Tee by webcarve  More Al frankin T-Shirts

Sara Palin's Perfect Plan

LOL Palin Enemies T-Shirt by webcarve
Make custom tshirts at zazzle

RICKY : And that's an Ultimatum!
LUCY : An ultimatum?!
ETHEL : Well, I'm not surprised.
LUCY : I am. I didn't think he knew how to pronounce it.

(Link)

You know, if Sarah Palin were as good as creating genuine inspirational excitement as she is at causing unintentional hilarity at her own expense... but in fact, this is Sarah Palin.

Smarting from criticism that holding events on military bases gave the impression that she was less than courageous in the face of the media Palin set out to hold a book signing where anyone, of whatever rank or station would feel welcome.

Or, so it would appear. Of course, as you may have come to realize over the past decade of experience with such people, the appearance and the reality are usually at odds. This event was an apparently "public" event that turns out to be legally "private" if certain people showed up.

It's like she wants to make enemies, because Important People With Power Have Significant Critics and That Means They Are Right. It makes my head hurt.

Via - all OVER hell's half acre.


The Mudflats

A couple fellow new media types, Gryphen from the Immoral Minority and videographer Dennis Zaki headed north to get some video of Sarah Palin’s “public” book signing at the Curtis Menard Memorial Sports Complex in Wasilla.  You will recall that her only scheduled book signings in Alaska were on military bases, and unlikely to tolerate any displays of dissent.

But, when she got all kinds of flack for not having an event open to the public, she decided to prove us all wrong and show how open, welcoming and eager she was to meet her fellow Alaskans in an open forum.  She had nothing to fear, after all.  And boy were we going to look like numbskulls for saying she was too chicken to have an open event in Alaska.

...

Then, the big announcement came.  The big open, accessible, welcoming, come-and-shake-my-hand event would be…. on Tuesday December 22nd in the middle of the day at the Sports Complex in Wasilla, guarded by police who would refer to it as a “private” event, paid for by Harper-Collins.  Why was this “public” event actually private?  Why was it held in Wasilla and no Anchorage event scheduled as promised?  Why was it held 3 days before Christmas in the middle of a work day?   (Jeopardy music)

So she could ban bloggers!  Yes, it’s true.

When our two friends showed up at the event, they were photographed, told that they were on the “banned” list, and escorted off the premises by uniformed Wasilla police officers!  The police were sure it was them because they had not only names, but photographs of the banned for easy identification.  Wow.  The “banned list” contained four names:  Dennis Zaki, Gryphen, Shannyn Moore and an unidentified blogger.  The fourth person has so far remained nameless.

  
The Immoral Majority,

My first hint that something may be wrong down in Who-ville was when I was asked for my ID, not once, but twice. Then as Dennis and I were about to sign in, and the lady behind the desk took our picture with a little digital camera! WTF? I have never had anybody do that before at any other event that I attended as a media representative. I wondered why there was such tight security, unaware that my question was only seconds from being answered.

Almost as soon as I had my picture taken I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I turned around and came face to face with a local police officer who quickly apologized and then informed me that I was on the "banned list".

"I am on the WHAT list?" I asked.

"The banned list sir, I am going to have to escort you off of the property. This is a private event."

I looked over and saw Dennis talking to somebody else, and clearly receiving the same information.

On my way toward the door I stopped to wait for Dennis so that we could leave together, however the police officer again placed his hand on my shoulder and insisted that I continue on toward the exit. They clearly were under orders to get me off of the premises as quickly as possible.

Outside Dennis joined me and told me that he had learned that both he and I were on the banned list, along with Shannyn Moore, and that they even had pictures of us to reference for quick identification.

Another reporter headed toward the entrance overheard us and asked us if there were REALLY a "banned list". "Yes there is, and we are on it" was our reply. "I have never heard of that!" she said. Welcome to Sarah Palin's Wasilla.

So we loaded up our gear and back to Anchorage we drove. It did not take more than a few minutes before I started to laugh uncontrollably at the absurdity of being banned from Sarah Palin's last book signing. She had not been able to stop us from continuing to write about her, she had not been able to keep us off of Elmendorf, but by God she could damn well have us kicked out of the Curtis C. Menard Memorial Sports Center!

Yep that sure showed us.

Sarah Palin has done everything she could to keep the media as far away as possible during this book tour, however I do believe that this is the first time she actually had anybody listed by name. THAT honor she reserves for the Alaska bloggers. And do you know what? That is an honor that I will wear proudly!

So now we know that, just like Richard M. Nixon, Sarah Palin has her very own enemies list.

 And now The Gawker has picked it up, speculating as who the fourth name on the banned list might be.

The Anchorage Daily News confirms this account, and Gryphen later discovered Palin's banned blogger list contains only four names. So far we know:

• 1. Gryphen, banned for Sarah-Todd divorce rumors and for resisting Palin's attempt to hold his kindergarten class hostage.
• 2. Dennis Zaki, banned for being Gryphen's friend and for repeating his rumors on the Alaska Report.
• 3. Shannyn Moore, Huff Post blogger and local radio host banned for speculating that Palin's gubernatorial resignation was tied to ethics investigations. Moore famously snubbed her nose at Palin's legal threats.

My guess is that the fourth is another local, mostly amateur blogger since (a.) the event was in Wasilla (b.) Palin has no knowledge of the world outside of her local bubble, anyway. So, two guesses at the identity of the mysterious fourth:

• 1. Jeanne Devon, who blogs under the name AKMuckraker for the Huffington Post and The Mudflats. She contributed to Palin parody Going Rouge and has guested on Moore's show and Rachel Maddow's.
• 2. Linda Kellen Biegel, who blogs under the name Celtic Diva and stands accused of "malicious desecration of a photo" of Sarah and Trig.

I wish I could say Andrew Sullivan, but (a.) it's almost definitely Devon (b.) even Palin knows Sullivan is too busy with his twelve-hour fuck fests to fly all the way to Alaska for her. Then again, this woman has no sense of proportion. In her mind, an armchair blogger with basic HTML skills is as great a threat as a federal ethics investigation or the Russian Army invading Wasilla. It's the same way she barely modulates her tone as she moves from Levi-bashing to Obama-bashing.
Banned! Making It On Sarah Palin's Enemies List [ImmoralMinority]
Palin's Wasilla Book Signing Feels Like a Homecoming [ADN]

I can only imagine that there are going to be hurt feelings - and concerted efforts to expand it.

And of course the more political sources are all over it. Think Progress, for example.

Not every attendee was welcome. Dennis Zaki, an Anchorage photographer and videographer who until recently ran the Web site Alaska Report, checked in at the media table and was told by Wasilla Recreation and Cultural Services Manager James Hastings that he wasn’t welcome.
“He said because this is a paid event, they can ban anybody they want,” Zaki said. He didn’t fight it, he said.
Zaki said he was told that he and a couple of Alaska bloggers were on the list, with photos to identify them.

Hastings justified the black list by saying, “If I take three minutes on Google I can see that, given the nature of the people who were here, it wasn’t in his (Zaki’s) best interest to be here. He and others could have found themselves in a negative situation.” At a Palin book-signing at the Mall of America earlier this month, officials initially said that “only English speaking press” would be let in.

I'm sure that was what Hastings thought to be a subtle indication that ejection was preferable to being beaten up by the police officers operating, apparently, as paid political thugs. (And what, exactly, is a public official doing issuing such threats to citizens? )

Andrew Sullivan sums it up succinctly:

Palin draws up a list of pesky bloggers, has their faces recognized by local cops and then ejects them from her last book tour stop. The press, one should recall, threatens her First Amendment right to say anything and never get called on it.

As you see, there's a lot of reaction out there - most of it derisive. But the invisible consequences are the ones that really change the landscape, and those consequences are what I blog about.

Let me nutshell this from my perspective: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." 


The problem with Sarah Palin and her followers is that while most people may be less informed about the stark economic, strategic, political, philosophical and foreign policy issues at stake, the people are very familiar with situation comedies.

And the thing about a situation comedy is that - to a person - we may find it fun to watch, but the thing that makes it fun to watch is exactly the reason we don't wish to be there for the punchline.

I'm not speaking of political choices or preferred economic philosophies. I mean people who have grown up watching television - or hell, anyone familiar with Shakespeare, or Opera, or the Canturbery Tales. We KNOW how this turns out. And it's fine if it's an actor, for when the curtain closes, we all realize that such absurdities are created for comic effect, and that the person playing the role of the Fool today will be the Mad Scientist or the the Protagonist tomorrow.

But that's Television. That's not real life, where there is more to life than pretending that you have one, more to leadership that "crafting an impression."

People are starting to realize, you see, that Sarah Palin really IS the final, ultimate and proper distillation of the Republican party, the ultimate expression of the Gingrich ideal, where there is no real truth and lies are simply a "matter of opinion." Gingrich, of course, can genuinely claim to be one of the founders of this political movement.

It's a "movement" where people like Palin are completely comfortable. People who cannot evaluate reality for themselves, and cannot understand that while idiology informs you what to DO about facts and coping with reality, it doesn't change what those facts are.

People are starting to realize that lies, corruption, mismanagement, lies and fraud are not just a tolerable side-effect, a necessary evil to getting the job done. They are starting to realize that Palin and her supporters, hangers on and funding sources see that as the job, and that doing it this badly is as good as it could ever possibly be. They see power as an end in itself, keeping it justifies doing anything and all other considerations beside the point. Just listen to this nonsense!

"There are parts of government that are so bad you can't fix them," Gingrich said of the health care proposals currently on the table. "If Democrats pass a national health bill deeply opposed by the overwhelming majority of Americans, we ought to have a commitment to replace it. Why should the country tolerate a group of out of touch politicians abusing their power?"

Yeah. It's an "abuse of power" for representatives and senators to do what they were sent to do, by the people who sent them there with a majority - and I might add, significantly higher ambitions for their performance.

As for the "overwhelming majority" opposing health care? No. Not unless you combine the views of those who think the bill is not good enough with those who think ANY reform is a bad idea along with the "unsures and undecideds." Only then could you get an overwhelming majority. That's the sort of shit we have come to expect from the moron-wranglers of the Right.

That is to say, the facts are complex. The way forward is certainly arguable. There are certainly valid ways of approaching Health Care Reform from left, right, up and down. But no legitimate debate can occur when one side is led by people who cannot or will not distinguish between truth and that which they wish to be true. That is the essence of every cartoon villain, from Iago to Emperor Palpatine.

Quite aside from the precise ethical plot-points this story will serve to tell, we all know the formula that defines this particular farce. We all know what happens next.

In the public mind - the one the Palins,  Gingriches, and Roves are trying to manipulate -  that public knows they are at best extras in the drama.  So it's not about "right" and "left" to most folks, though they may attribute political terms to what they believe. Most people think in terms of archeotypes, of moral and illustrative exemplars. They think as our culture has instructed them to think, and for the most part, it does it's storytelling fairly well. It's our stories that teach us what we should do to make the situation turn out right in the end. And one of the most important teaching tales we have, one that founds our understanding of how these tales should turn out in the end, despite the appearance of overwhelming odds... well, that would be The Bible. From Shakespeare to Star Wars - it's themes have been pillaged and recycled so that even atheists understand and accept them as the general pattern for desired outcomes.

At the root of it all, people know their choice - as extras - is between being below decks on the Death Star or to be a witness at the final triumphal scene as the credits roll. For that is how such things must end, and in ten thousand little, tiny, imperceptible ways - they will ensure that it does. Even those who are cast as storm-troopers. Hell, even those who are the very villains of this tale, in some sense, are clearly following the script to the end.

I cannot explain to you in any satisfactory way why Sarah Palin would choose to play this part, but then I cannot explain to you why anyone would audition for The Biggest Loser, Survivor or even my favorite "Reality Show," Canada's Worst Driver.

Oh, by the way, this particular storyline does not warrant a sequel, much less five. I think that's another lesson we can take away from Star Wars.

Monetizing The Base!

If Canter and Segal were Republican consultants ... well, they were almost certainly Republicans.

GOP.am is brought to you from the dim and shameless corner of the Republican tent, the one where all the grafters and fast buck artists congregate to discuss the profit-making opportunities of various Multi-Level Marketing schemes and the various "can't fail" make money fast schemes they are marketing for a new, low, low price.

The problem is that if you spend most of your day pandering to the magical thinking and  bases instincts of the lowest-information consumption units, you might find yourself slipping into the unintentional hilarity zone.

I can almost visualize the thought process - if I may cheapen the term for the sake of irony. It goes something like this:

1. Target a group that wants a "seal of approval" before they read anything.
   
2. Tell everyone in that group that they can use this logo-attaching service to make it easy to pass around The "RIGHT" sort of links in their tweets and chain emails.
3. Take up 20 percent of the screen for ads and a "donation" button that probably skims a healthy "service fee"
4. PROFIT!
   

 The magical thinking part comes in here. You see, for this - scheme - to work, it would have to somehow be entirely different from most other URL shorteners, ...it would have to have a massive overhead of People Who Make Sure That The Link Is Really Conservative.

No computer can do that reliably - it requires extremely sophisticated software and remarkable, Google-scale computational power to even make a reliable guess.

So that would get rid of the PROFIT part. But wait, we are magical thinkers. We don't need to really do that - we just need to make it look like we did! And that will work because only Real Conservatives would WANT to use a gop.am url!

Now, if there were any lights on over at the GOP - and by lights, I mean organic computational facilities capable of passing a Touring Test.

But if they were such facilities - someone like this would likely deactivate them before they could do anything.


 Yep. The stupid has gone viral - and the stupid won't take their shots.

The Stupid, It Burns!

Dear Dick: STFU

Via "Just Go Stand Over There Somewhere"

On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday night, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) had a succinct response to Dick Cheney for the former vice president's recent comments on President Obama: STFU.
"On the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this: STFU. I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means."

There are certain people and certain themes that do not deserve your respectful attention. Dick Cheney would be the poster child for that concept. And frankly, if at this point in history it needs to be explained why we should not listen to Cheny implying treasonous behavior on the part of the US President - well, clearly, it would be a pointless effort on behalf of people who deserve no such courtesy.

Dear Dick: STFU! by webcarve  Browse Dick cheney T-Shirts

Psycochemotherapy for the masses.

The bitter fruits of our common human experience of the last rough decade are being distilled into an un-cordial essence of well-earned contempt. It's a distillation I savor at times like this; while I doubt it's good for me in the long run, and I do try to avoid overproduction from my own fruits - at the same time, perhaps it may do some good.

As does chemotherapy - a toxin designed to be somewhat more fatal to a disease than the organism it's trying to kill. Axel erupts with what might be a promising insight in a thread over at FiveThirtyEight.

Dwight, what you need to understand about today's rightwinger is that he wants all the ideological gratification with none of the work required.

Surely you won't deny him the pleasure of running around with the rest of the mob while chanting the same thing over and over in infantile bliss?

Basically, if y'all want to have your triumph outside of the circlejerks, you have to do some actual work (for *once* in your lives) and offer up some evidence. You can't point at a pile of text and say "it's all in there I'm telling you".

One of the main reasons I want climate legislation through is because I think the conspiracy of dunces against such legislation is a sign that it is good for society. You can tell a man's worth by measuring his opponents, and the haters of Gore and the climate scientists are some of the most pathetic and odious people on the internet - they make 4chan look like a British royal reception.

Do your homework or get out of our sights. I don't go up to my teacher and say "I understand it all - I don't have to do the exam" but you cretins can gurgle with happiness over what these e-mails supposedly show?

That's not how the world works, morons.

Personally, I generally try to say something more positive than that. I don't always succeed, but I do try. More often than not these days, I walk away from the keyboard rather than publishing the incoherent rant I've managed to inflict upon my computer.

But sometimes such a rant will include a truly golden insight; an observation that we would be ordinarily too polite to point out, but which is nonetheless both true and inherently toxic to the dangerous stupidities of our day.

...what you need to understand about today's rightwinger is that he wants all the ideological gratification with none of the work required.

Actually, it's worse than that. Some of them actually seem to think they HAVE done the work, when all they have done is expended effort, evidenced by waste heat and fricative noises.

After the third or fourth time that a person of educated intelligence has been presented a crayon-scrawl as being a Grand Theory of This or The Next Great Novel or Inarguable Proof that The Truth Has Been Suppressed - well, it becomes tiresome in the extreme; particularly when it becomes apparent that they really cannot tell the difference between the nonsense they present and the minimum standard of the form.

Before you can do the work, you have to understand what the work is. Perhaps even more importantly, you really do need to understand the people doing it - because people who thrive in academia and who think that modeling chaotic systems is interesting are not at ALL like "Normal Folks." Actually, they are kinda out of the range of pretty damn smart folks - who are mostly useful for translating the banjo music into human speech.

When you have a broad consensus among people who are capable of looking at the data, People like Nate, for instance, evaluating it themselves and understanding the conclusions ,people who come at it from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, it's really rather remarkable for there to be such a broad, scientific consensus.

Bluntly, if there was room for genuine debate, there would be more "sides" to the issue than "Those who have done the work" and "those who think any opinion is as good as any other."



Do they understand the mechanisms and directions of Climate Change completely? Good lord, no. The fundamental science required to make the crudest models is barely a generation old. The computational power to model that science is scarce and inadequate. So we don't have a complete picture, and are still unable to make very specific predictions about what climate is likely to do in any place at any time. But the picture we do have is accurate enough to be a compelling argument against complacency. What we do know is that climate is changing - rapidly, possibly more rapidly than we can gracefully accommodate. It's far more likely than not that human actions are in large part responsible, which is the ONLY spot of good news. You see, that means there is something we can do about the situation. But there is a large social problem in North America with that insight. It means The Hippies were right all along.

That's what it translates to in the minds of Authoritarian right wingers. That the sky and the earth and the waters are not endless, that resources are measured and that the side-effects of private profit will always have some diffuse social impact, the earth being a closed system. In North America in general, and the US in particular, it's considered to be absolutely wrong to ask any "soverign individual" to do any thing - even such a small thing as checking their tire pressure - for any reason other than absolute self-interest.

Indeed, it's considered intrusive when it IS in one's own direct interest, because it will also benefit others.

Well, it turns out that if you dump mercury in the ocean, it ends up in your tuna salid. If you chemicals into the air - you breathe them - after they have unholy congress with ultraviolet light and their offspring ALSO ends up in your tuna salad.

Likewise, it may seem like an intrusion to be "taxed" by being required to paint your roof white. But does a 20% savings on air-conditioning costs sound like a "tax" to you? In some areas, that's a damn fine return on a day's work. So people who insist on acting against their own self interest in the name of opposing what they think to be the intrest of the group, because they have 'a gaw-damn right' to do as they gaw-damn please....

Well, that's only tolerable to a certain extent. Oddly, these are the very same people who use "toleration" as a dirty word toward people who's actions, such as gay marriage, have NO noticeable effect on the arctic ice pack, while thinking that making bonfires out of old tires and spotted owls saturated in PCB-laced waste oil  is a celebration of individual liberty.

If you take too much water from here (because you have the "right" to do so) - there is too little over there - and those who have too little, and therefore thirst and starve are likely to take action against your absolute interpretation of your right to force them to die of thirst or hunger.

The Earth is not a Pyramid - it is a globe. Crap does not flow downhill - it circulates.

You can never act with complete impunity and you can never absolutely know what the ultimate outcome of your actions will be.

When you act conservatively and within your best understandings of the ability of the various, interlocking complex systems to absorb change, you will maximize long term goals at a minimum cost. 

But that requires that the required response to the problem must have some substantial social-action component. It will require the understanding and application of words like "Synergy" and "Appropriate Technology" and "Social mediation."

But regardless of what faith or ideology states, The Ecology is not something separate from us, nor are we independent of it. The Hippies were right. We do have to live in harmony with the land. The reverse is not actually true, though.

So, we all do have to get along. If that offends your idiology - you need a new ideological framework, because yours will eat your children. 

Don't Piss On The Crazy Bush

By the way: I am to some degree suggesting that we can use "Crazy" in the clinical sense. As in, should be under the care of a mental health professional.

In responding to a comment below, I was reminded of this story: Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic.

Here's a quick test, a sort of free-association game: What do egocentrism, deceitfulness and aggressive criminality have in common?

If you guessed that they are characteristics of disturbed behavior, you're half right. They are in fact features of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised, a template for diagnosing psychopaths, designed by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare.

But what's more interesting about this triumvirate is the fact that it's being employed in the recent slew of corporate-backed, faux grassroots outbursts (also known as "astroturfing" campaigns) across the country.

Perhaps that might make the following make more sense. It's not "crazy" to disagree about political differences. It IS crazy to lie, cheat and threaten people, particularly in ways that show that you are completely unable to foresee the possibility of being caught, or what that will do to your cause.

Now, when you are confronted with a crazy person, realize that you simply cannot deal with them as if you were dealing with a rational, predictable person with a sense of right and wrong. At the same time, you cannot simply crotchpunch them. I know, it seems wrong to me too, but there it is; for some reason, only the police get to crotchpunch disagreeable people.

But you have absolutely no reason to treat them with the respect, consideration and forbearance due rational people. Keep an eye on them and wait for them to do something foolish enough to take them out of play. For they will, surely they will. But there's no reason for YOU to be the victim of their hard-earned karma!



The thing about us cosmopolitan elitists is that we have learned that taking crazy people seriously can make you crazy. They USED to teach people in Journo 101 that you don't give credence to the incredible.

It is fun at times to ridicule the ridiculous - but some things are so fucking INHERENTLY ridiculous that pointing it out amounts to insulting the intelligence of any audience worth having.

Rick Perlstein -- Birthers, Health Care Hecklers and the Rise of Right-Wing Rage - washingtonpost.com: "So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are 'either' the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests."

Never mind watering the Tree of Liberty. Stop pissing on the Crazy Bush!




That's how you deal with crazy people. You firmly tell them that the shit in their heads is their shit, and they have to own it.


At the very least, before inviting others into the private regions of your head, you should pick up the trash and do the laundry. There's a perfect example of that right here.



People who behave like that in public should be treated in the same way as a five year old who has yet to learn that public masturbation is inappropriate.

Renegade Evolution quotes the crazy in full, and mistakenly attempts to respond to the crazy as if she were talking to a rational person who was attacking her for sane, if malicious reasons. A mistake, I fear. I have a stock t-shirt for just such occasions.

While it may have worth citing as a textbook example of disastrously flawed rhetoric or to feature as an example of what happens when you roll a double zero on your critical thinking skill table, one only had to read three paragraphs down to realize that any deeper consideration would be entirely misplaced.

The signers of the letter say they are “members of the academic community.” The media quickly converted that into “50 professors.” In fact, quite a few are not full-time professors or administrators at these institutions; rather, some are adjunct faculty, graduate students, or retired. At least one signer seems to be an undergraduate.

You see, the nutball letter states that these persons who claim to be "members of the academic community" are, indeed, members of the academic community, precisely as they claimed. Citing that media has failed to correctly cite their credentials is not a valid criticism of the credentials they claim, if anything, it more firmly establishes their proper credentials - as representing the entire range of the academic community, that is to say, people who's primary qualification is to think about stuff and derive useful insights that may advise others who may, though no fault of their own, have less time to devote to such matters.

Such as, Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Huges of Citizens Against Trafficking the co-authors of the above paragraph.

See, having established that they cannot think, one may cease to be concerned with what they think regarding any appareant mutual concerns, because any response amounts to Pissing on the Crazy Bush.

Any discussion of any topic of any importance (say, human trafficing and slavery) will be degraded into incoherence by dealing with the sort of people who insist on their right to be heard because of what the insects in their heads tell them is Too Important To Be Ignored.

This advice does not merely apply to such people speaking out against you. It's far more humiliating to have such people thinking they have a place in your "posse."

It's like hearing "Chemtrails" in conversation - it's a signal to switch to meaningless small talk. Trust me, they will not notice the difference, and you won't feel the need to crotch-punch them, so it's a win-win.


Some things are so awesomely, majestically, comprehensively stupid as to be worthy of standing alone in all their awful majesty. I understand why Ren takes this nasty little screed personally, but she's mistaken in doing so.

It's not that I'm saying that she should "understand" their position. She shouldn't even try. You don't encourage people to rationalize a phobic response. You either accept it or you do not, and that reaction depends entirely upon whether the irrational spasms pose any danger.

Likewise, as a responsible person, you cope with your phobia or you do not, and arrange your life accordingly. A phobic has no reasonable expectation that people should accommodate their irrational fears, much less enable them in oppressing the people they are phobic about.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
"Well, then, stop DOING that!"

I may squish a spider in order to keep my wife's brains from leaking out of her head. I will not harm a person because she reacts to them in the same way; I'll take her to the mental health clinic. We both understand that distinction, and she would do the same for/to me. There is a limit to which reasonable people expect their irrationality to be accommodated.

Sane public policy cannot possibly accommodate all irrational fears and phobias, nor may it advantage personality disorders over civility and long persist. Government, along with every other human activity, cannot sacrifice outcome in the name of process.

Bring facts, bring reason, bring a coherent argument with, you know, facts and stuff, or stay home.

From this elitist bastard's perspective, you may just as well. I'm not going to waste precious, publicly funded photons on arguing with crazy.

(Should I forget, do feel free to remind me.)