80's Movie Line of the Week, R.I.P Leslie Nielsen

From the Naked Gun:

Frank: Yes, well when I see five weirdo's dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's my policy.

I Solved the Deficit!

The New York Times has a widget that give you a chance to solve the deficit. I did it with 62% spending cuts and 38% tax increases. Pretty tax friendly for a liberal I'd say. Here is the link to my solution.

What's yours?

Thankful

I'm thankful today. I've got good friends, family, co-workers, teammates, and especially a wonderful fiancee. Lots of other stuff in the world isn't the way I'd like it to be, but all those people make it a wonderful world nonetheless.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Can't Afford to be Sick

Most of the arguments against healthcare reform were the silliest of the silly. The one that is legit is that the reform didn't do anything to control costs. This chart via Kevin Drum shows why that would have been important.

Apples That Fell Very, Very Close to the Tree

The Palins are just not a smart group of people. Apparently, Bristol and Willow recently entered a fray on Facebook. The subject was the Palin reality show, and some facebook posters didn't care for it.

The fight heats up when a guy named Matt jumps in. Matt apparently went to Teeland Middle School in Wasilla with Bristol. At first, Matt sticks to criticizing the TV show and the Palins' attitude: "man these Palins really don't like it when you don't admire them fully, well Im sorry that people don't like some programming," he writes in his initial post. But after Willow retorts, "Your effin fat as hell. Stfu," Matt responds in kind, calling Bristol fat. Willow replies: "Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are. But what I've seen pictures of, your disgusting. My sister had a kid and is still hot." She adds, "Tre stfu. Your such a faggot." Other than the text-speak abbreviations (stfu stands for shut the fuck up), this is all pretty timeless material. Kids have forever trotted out the gay and fat insults, though one likes to think it has become more taboo now to use the word faggot, especially if you're the daughter of a public figure and you're posting the word in public.

The whole article is pretty incredible. With all the money they have on the line, doesn't the Palin camp have someone monitoring what the girls might be saying online? Or does everything they do at this point just incense Palin's opponents and delight her followers? If so, they might be smarter than I thought.

But I doubt it.

Why I Like Joe Biden

Honesty.

People Were Strange in the Fifties

There is an interesting slideshow on Slate showing ads form the fifties with ping pong tables in them. The point of the associated piece is that the ping pong table was a symbol for the good life in suburbia.

It's pretty interesting, but I was particularly struck by this ad.



What in the world was The American Home magazine all about? This cover shoot looks like A Clockwork Orange meets Gilligan's Island, with a group of people protraying a family who have approximately zero chance of coming from the same gene pool.

But it did come with a gorgeous 9 x 12 bird print, so I guess all was right with the world.

Roger Ailes, I Don't Like Him

Howard Kurtz did an interview with Roger Ailes where he said, among other things:

“They (NPR) are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”

and

“He (John Stewart) hates conservative views. He hates conservative thoughts. He hates conservative verbiage. He hates conservatives.”

and most importantly upon Kurtz's suggestion the Fox has moved further to the right

“Bill has not moved to the right,” Ailes says. “He’s moved to the left. He’s been very fair and balanced on Obama, Bush, everyone.”

That's the really special one, I think, because it kind of shows you that reason Fox news can be in its own self-delusional and deceitful world is because it's boss in his own self-delusional and deceitful world. Kurtz didn't ask what O'Reilly had done, he asked what the network had done. And Ailes responded by answering a different and more self-satisfactory answer. I don't like him.

It's Fine for Me Because... Well, Because

If you campaign and win primarily on your opposition to government-run healthcare, perhaps you shouldn't do this at your Congressional orientation:

According to Glenn Thrush of Politico, Harris created a stir at the orientation meeting by demanding to know why he had to wait a month after he was sworn in in January for his government-subsidized health care to kick in. After responding in a huff, he even asked if there was some way he could buy into the government care in advance, seemingly thinking there might be a government program similar to the so-called 'public option' championed by progressive Democrats in 2009.

According to an unnamed congressional staffer quoted by Thrush, Harris stood up at the meeting "and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care."

Fortunately, for Representative Harris, politicians can get away with crap like this almost every time.

Older Women

There is a piece on Slate regarding a study by economists on the relationships of high schoolers. The main conclusion for me... if you can land an older woman, you are a rare fellow.

Boys and girls in the same grade account for about 42 percent of relationships, while older boys dating younger girls make up 40 percent of high-school relationships, and older girls dating younger boys make up 18 percent.

Here's to any of you who had an older girlfriend. Well done boys.

If a Democrat Did This (Part 3,487)

It's been some time since we played "If a Democrat Did This" but this seems like a pretty good opportunity. It seems Eric Cantor met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Wednesday.

That probably in and of itself would probably qualify for "If a Democrat Did This" discussion. But what he said during the meeting takes it from a middling contestant to a surefire winner. And he said...

Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington. He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.

So, what if a Democrat had gone to meet with a foreign leader and told that foreign leader that his party would henceforth be a 'check' on the President of the United States? What kind of outcry would that provoke?

If God Had Intended Spiraldy Light Bulbs...

Joe Barton, Republican House Member from Texas and possible next chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on his priorities:

He laid out the central fronts: the battle to repeal what he calls Obamacare, the fight against the EPA, backing the growing insurgency opposed to net neutrality regulations, taking on "environmental radicalism" and -- of course -- defending the "traditional, incandescent light bulb" against government regulators who want to replace it with what Barton called "the little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones."

Only a bunch of pansy-assed, liberal, government do-gooders would dare give us pig-tailed light bulbs. They are clearly like the gay marriage of illumination.

I'm Easily Distracted

Those of you who know me in real life knew that already. But I was reminded of it again yesterday watching the Chiefs game at a sports bar in Chicago. The Chiefs were playing on a monitor near us, but the audio in the bar was for the Indy-Philly game on other screens.

I think I missed approximately 35% of the Chiefs game because I kept getting sucked in by the audio of the other game. No point to this story. I'm just easily distracted.

T-Wolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves in a nutshell.

Ignorance is Strength

Timothy Noah writes about Jim DeMint's strange advice to incoming Senate conservatives:

"[B]eware of committees," DeMint wrote. "Committee assignments can be used as bait to make senators compromise on other matters. Rookie senators are often told they must be a member of a particular committee to advance a certain piece of legislation. This may be true in the House, but a senator can legislate on any matter from the Senate floor."

Noah gets a theory from Thomas Mann on why DeMint might say that:

"Perhaps," Mann mused, DeMint "is afraid that his new minions will go native on committees and dilute their role in the revolutionary vanguard." Action equals corruption. Mere knowledge equals corruption. Ignorance is strength.

Noah then goes on to decide that DeMint is just being cynical and posturing to burnish his non-compromising image.

But I think Mann was on to something. In the far right wing, DeMint is kind of the minister leading the congregation. And what was that I saw an evangelical minister saying the other day...


Oh right.

Election Thoughts

A random assortment of points about the election:

1. I don't feel nearly as bad as I did in 2004. Perhaps that is partly because I've seen over the last 10 years how quickly political fortunes change. Just because you're down doesn't mean you'll be down in two years.

I think the larger source of my salve, however, is that, while I disagree with them wholeheartedly, the voting populace could at least make a case against Democrats. This is much better than in 2004 when just about every possible conceivable shred of evidence showed that Republicans were screwing things up, and the voting public re-elected them anyway. That year, I was really despondent about who was voting. This year, I disagree with those who voted Republican, but at least I can rationalize that many of those votes were really votes against the state of the country.

2. Get out the vote campaigns should really be amended to place more emphasis on getting educated before you go vote. I received several messages this year about how important it is to make my voice heard, but none about how important it is for me to know what I'm talking about before a I cast a ballot. It's as though the voting itself is the goal. It isn't. Making political choices about how you want your country, state, county, or city run is the goal. If you don't know about any of the things you're voting on, you can't do yourself any good, and your vote is really more of a detriment to democracy.

3. Republicans have control of the House. Democrats have control of the Senate. DOes this allow Republicans to pass legislation in the House, continue to obstruct in the Senate, and blame Democrats for not being able to accomplish anything in the Senate? I'm afraid so, but we'll see.

4. Missouri is really no different from Kansas at this point. The bellweather days seem to be gone.