What Year It Is

Another fine serving from Steve Benen:

Beck claimed, for example:

Vancouver lost, how much was it? They lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics.

In reality, Vancouver's Olympics won't begin until next year. Beck is so far gone, he apparently doesn't know what year it is.

Voting Bloc

Could these people be more braindead? Here's some fool at RedState flailing around because the Senate Finance Committee voted against one of Grassley's ammendments adding additional measures to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving health care. Then he announces:

This is simply another exercise in the Democrats attempting to not only nationalize the US health care system but use it as a magnet to attract a dedicated Democrat voting bloc, illegal aliens.

(my emphasis)

You want to tell him, or should I?

Derby

John Derbyshire's a sick fuck.

Update: Steven Benen summarizes:

Just so we're clear, a leading conservative writer at one of the premier conservative political outlets, argued publicly against a woman's right to vote and against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

If You Can Get It

Wait - congress normally takes off the entire week that includes Columbus Day?

Moment of Shame

The Official White House blog: Reality Check: Trying to Turn a Point of Pride into a Moment of Shame:

Last night Fox News continued its disregard for the facts in an attempt to smear the Administration's efforts to win the Olympics for the United States. In the past, hosting the Olympics has been a source of pride and unity for the country, but once again Fox News' Glenn Beck program has shown that nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a partisan attack to boost ratings.

I like this bold White House blog.

John L. Perry Solves The 'Obama Problem' With A Coup

Yesterday, John L. Perry wrote a ridiculous column for the Newsmax.com website. The article has since been pulled down, but it was archived, in part, by Media Matters here.

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

Then, in an attempt to make his position sound less extremist, he goes on to compare a "bloodless" military coup to a "family intervention", saying that Obama would be responsible for such a coup because his radical Marxist agenda is "inviting" it. Lastly, as if to hide the treachery of his words behind a hypothetical, he recognizes how difficult it is to imagine such a scenario and asks the reader to think up another "non-violent" solution to the current polical crisis.

This column sums up some of the worst of political rhetoric these days. Despite Obama's clear pragmatism and inclination to listen to all sides, wingnuts froth-at-the-mouth and exaggerate the recognition of common goals and an opportunity for common solutions as "radical" socialism leading directly to an oppressive Stalinist state. The fear-mongering is then followed by an around-about suggestion of violent action ("Be armed and dangerous", "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants", "a military coup", etc). And lastly, the writer backpedals, taking no responsible for his deeply dangerous suggestion, and says that violence is only a hypothetical "idea", of course not anything being actively advocated. This rhetoric is an expression of political impotence and disgusting demagoguery. Its fans the flames of anger and prejudice in order to justify a political minority overthrowing a democratically elected government.

John L. Perry is not the first person to take this stance and certainly not he most influential but his voice is part of growing cacophony of the right wing establishment to buy into such extremism. Of course, there will always be kooks who advocate extremist positions. However, because I believe in corporate responsibility, I see Newsmax.com, and by extension the companies advertising with Newsmax, to be responsible for printing this crap.

American Express, for example, who advertises on Newsmax.com, describes some of their core corporate values on their own website here. "Integrity", "Quality", "Teamwork", and...

Good Citizenship
We are good citizens in the communities in which we live and work.

What kind of good citizens advertise with those who support the overthrow of a democratically elected government? Is that the same kind of good citizen who would blow up a federal building or kill a census worker or shoot a president?

In their defense, American Express is not the only company advertising on the Newsmax site (other advertisers on this day include Georgia-Pacific, C12 Group, United Against A Nuclear Iran, University of Phoenix, etc ). And perhaps, given how online advertisement works, American Express might not even know what site their banner ads are appearing on. Nonetheless, there does seem to be a discrepancy between their stated corporate ideals and John L. Perry's duplicitous suggestion of a military coup. Perhaps American Express could find another site to advertise with which fits more with their values.

Shorter Jay Richards

The Nature of an Environmental Ethic

• The problem with environmentalism is that it's not Christian enough.

Exclusively

My Day as David Brooks:

4:25 p.m. – Edit column slightly. Add suggestion that U.S. soldiers wear bulletproof pink Oxford dress shirts to remind them of the super-genius neoconservative hawks who masterminded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4:26 p.m. – Remove suggestion that soldiers wear bulletproof pink dress shirts. File column.

4:55 p.m. – Send e-mail to Times Editor Bill Keller: “Please remind everyone that food in the staff fridge marked ‘David Brooks’ belongs exclusively to David Brooks. Thanks.”

The First Place

I've been enjoying watching the wingnuts, who complained that it wasn't right to call what happened in Hondura a "military coup," face up to the fact that those in charge have started militarily controlling the media.

So here's Ace, doing logic gymnastics:

I'm sure there will be talk of how the interim government is now as bad as Zelaya. Well, no, not really. This is a tough step and one they have put off for a substantial period of time. While it's unfortunate, to say the least, we shouldn't forget Honduras wouldn't be in this position if Zelaya, abetted by Chavez in Venezuela and Lula in Brazil, hadn't put the country in this position in the first place.

It's Zelaya's fault that those who deposed him are not preventing free speech in the country they now control by guns.

"Yeah, there are millions displaced in Iraq, but our hands were tied - for the Iraqi peoples' freedom, we had to destroy their country!"

Golden Orb Spiders

Golden Orb Spiders, originally uploaded by American Museum of Natural History.

These are beautiful! Part of the new Silk Road exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

Not Mesmerized

Dear Right,

NYC is not "mesmerized by the ACORN scandal."

Love,
Me

Shiver

Eric Dondero's got a place for it picked out already:

From our Conservative Cousins comes the Annual "Hot Conservative Women" Pin-Up Calendar. It's the work of the ultimate "stuffy conservative" Phyllis Schlafly and Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

You'll no doubt recognize some familiar faces: Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, Bay Buchanan, Starr Parker, Michelle Malkin and this year's new addition Carrie Prejean. Note the - ahem - "with child" status of Mrs. Kellyanne Conway.

Obscene Trivialization

Tristero:

I don't have an opinion right now on the soda tax. Like everything else food, it's a complicated subject. But I do know for a certainty, that if soda is taxed it will be nothing like the Soviet Union. I saw the Soviet Union and the comparison of a soda tax - a soda tax! - to that totalitarian nightmare is obscene trivialization of the efforts of all those who resisted and protested and suffered under Soviet totalitarianism.

You Want To Feel My Scalp?

Larry King and Tyra Banks perform the Most Banal Conversation Ever:

King: When you look in the mirror, are you happy with the way you look?

Banks: I've -- OK, I might be doing a little TMI -- do you know what TMI is? Too much information?

King: Well, give it to me anyway.

Banks: I always feel great when I don't have clothes on. So at home, by myself, walking past ...

King: Oh, we're glad you mean that now.

Banks: Just too much information. But I always feel good that way.

King: So you don't look at yourself nude and say, "Oh, I don't like this." You like it?

Banks: No, unless the lighting is bad in the dressing room. But, no. I always feel good. But sometimes certain clothes, when I put them on and they don't fit the way that I would like them to, that's when I tend to get self-conscious.

King: All right. You kicked off season five of your talk show by revealing your real hair.

Banks: Let's talk about my hair right now.

I know it's been a big mystery. And I was like it was an unsolved mystery, and I felt like I needed to solve this mystery.

No, I'm serious.

King: This -- is this real?

Banks: Yes. This is me. You want to feel my scalp?

Tetris Tiles

OMG I want these Tetris Tiles so much!

My "Pale Skin"

Via Glenn, here's a recent tweet from the co-founder of Red State. Yikes.

Finest Frog

This Amazon Horned Frog is the finest frog that I have ever seen.

Dumbass

CNN:

"It was speaking at the wrong place, wrong time," ["You Lie!" yeller Joe] Wilson said. "And now, I am the number one target of Washington Democrats, the number one target of MoveOn, the number one target of ACORN."

Wilson's just throwing all the keywords into a big pile. What the fuck does ACORN have to do with Joe WIlson??

Name-Calling

John Aravosis:

We really need a phrase to describe the conservative trick of accusing you of what they do. E.g., we're playing the race card when we call them on their racism. Or, gay people are intolerant (or intolerance) when we expose religious right bigotry. Or, when the Republicans accuse Obama of being mean and partisan. Or, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and ABC are biased. In essence, they're accusing us of what they are. But it's more than that. They're trying to get us to back off because we're getting too close to their dirty little secret. Republicans are afraid that we'll tag them as racists, as bigots, as mean and partisan. So by accusing us of it first they hope to scare us off, and pollute the waters enough that if and when we do call them on their bs, they'll have already accused us of the same thing so hopefully, from their perspective, the public will think both sides are simply name-calling.

Dow Jones Industrial Average Comments

I was just checking the historical ups and downs of the Dow this morning, and noticed that there is a comment board associated with every indicator and stock/fund at Google finance. They seem just as inane as YouTube comments.