And I Approved This Message

All peepers are not created equal

2010-06-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

So Sarah Palin has some concerns about her new neighbor being able to see into her daughter's bedroom. Is there a reason why she was less than concerned about her previous neighbor also evidently being able to see into her daughter's bedroom?

Is it just me...

2010-06-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

...or has Super Soaker gotten a little...um...

...gay.

Oozinator? Major pumping required? Perhaps the less said about this the better.

Muhammad is the greatest!

2010-05-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, the First Amendment can't be knocked out as easy as Sonny Liston.

Rand Paul doesn't have the answer

2010-05-19T21:18:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Everyone who thinks Rand and Ron Paul are straight talkers should see this video. The way Rand evades and obfuscates a simple questions suggests that he is trapped between a repulsive answer and a rigid ideology that he doesn't even fully understand.

To Dr. Paul and his disciples, I'll simply add that the free market had over 100 years to correct racism and segregation. It did not.

Poor Rush

2009-10-16T00:21:00.000-07:00

I felt bad for Rush Limbaugh, I really did. The prospect of him owning some portion of the St. Louis Rams didn't bother me, in part because it would have confirmed my belief that the city of St. Louis is entirely without redeeming qualities, and it would have added a fun new element to watching one of football's worst teams get beat week after week. But mostly, I feel bad for Rush because I'm a liberal. I love the First Amendment, and while I understand that the freedom of speech does not shield you from what other people may think about you, I wish the world weren't that way. Unfortunately for Rush, the world is very much that way, even though what Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did to him was just as repulsive as what Glenn Beck did to Van Jones.

While I don't have any special insight into his character aside from reading his really dated book once, I have always had the impression that Rush is a joke. On one hand, he is happy to let the liberal world believe that all Republicans are as radical as he sounds, he admits that. But on the other hand, he is also playing a joke on his right-wing listerners, who are more than happy to repeat his most radical polemics, oblivious to the fact that he actually believes less than a third of what he's saying. So I fail to see how Rush's exaggerated opinions are less acceptable in the world of professional sports than Marge Schott's actual opinions.

But Rush lost me today, when he -- whether seriously or as part of his big act -- made the deal into a grand conspiracy of his own martyrdom.

Limbaugh blamed Smith, executive director of the NFLPA and an "Obama-ite," along with Sharpton and Jackson, whom he referred to as "race hustlers," for Checketts' decision to drop him. He said his sacking was an example of the political clout wielded by President Barack Obama's administration.

By bringing Obama into this, Limbaugh confirms the same fear opponents of his bid used to deny him this opportunity: That his public persona cannot be apolitical. For the NFL to endorse his purchase, they would be giving a tacit endorsement to his politics, and giving him another pulpit to preach from.

Had Rush simply gone quietly, like so many other potential team owners who don't cry about their loss, he could have been the bigger man and he could have proven himself as someone who can interact with people who are not right wingers, and can not attract controversy. Instead, he proved that he is, in fact, a bigger asshole than Mark Cuban. Congrats, douche bag!

I'm back, monkeys!

2009-10-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

So, did I miss anything?

My time away? Well about six months ago, I started seeing hallucinations of my best friend's dead girlfriend. Turns out my Vicodin addiction was out of control, and I ended up having to check into an insane asylum for a period of two to three months.

Everything's pretty much back to normal now, although until I get my blogging license back, Foreman will technically be running the show.

I'll refrain from any promises about updating regularly, or not growing board of blogging and quitting again, but I do have thoughts I'd be interested in putting into writing, and blogging them -- even to a nonexistent audience -- is slightly less pathetic than simply typing them and saving them to my hard drive unread, or forcing them on people I know in the form of 140-character Facebook updates.

We'll take things slow. Like the Good Book says, one day at a time.

Commence with real content!

Minnesota defies Masionic/Trilat conspiracy

2008-12-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

Dear David Icke,
If the lizard people are as powerful as you suggest they are, why can't they get their votes counted in a lousy Senate race?

My Testimonial

2008-12-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,
I have lived most of my life built around things I thought to be true. Those assumptions, I suppose, contributed in some small way to my driving down a lonely stretch of ice-covered highway yesterday, where I lost control of my vehicle and, at speeds upwards of 70 MPH, spun 180 degrees off the road. As my Jeep appeared headed toward a certain rollover, I was forced to face my own mortality, and that has a way of revealing those things we know to be true, but deny in the vain pursuit of a simpler, less demanding existence.
The truth that filled my mind during those harrowing seconds was this: The kid at the end of “Dead Man’s Curve” explains that that he now knows that everyone was right – he won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve – but the fact that he’s explaining this to a doctor clearly means that everyone was wrong.
If my conversion of beliefs makes it impossible for us to be friends, or for you to continue to read my blog, I will understand. May you find the truth in time.

"Broad lawns and narrow minds"

2008-11-13T08:14:00.000-08:00

Like your journalism free of perspective and inflammatory? Then pick up today's Chicago Tribune and turn right to the article by John Kass entitled "Tolerance fails t-shirt test." Here are some highlights:

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:
"McCain Girl."
"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by the passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she reads the article.

And while Kass never misses an opportunity to drop in an inflammatory and unattributable quote, while seemingly expecting elementary school students to be eloquent and evenhanded spokespeople for their parents' politics, his attempted hit piece has little resonance for this reader, who grew up in Oak Park, and -- horror of horrors -- grew up a Bush supporter. That's right, I grew up supporting the most conservative president in history, in Chicago's most liberal suburb, and yet, in my years of being conservative in Oak Park, I don't have a single story the likes of which Catherine piled up in eight hours. It's certainly not because I didn't share my views; if anything I was more outspoken about my beliefs. It must be by some miracle I wasn't 'crucifixed,' crucified, burned alive, or even threatened bodily harm, and lived long enough to get a look at life in the much more conservative towns of southern Illinois.

I invite any of Kass' readers who are left with the impression that Oak Park liberals are violent and intolerant to come downstate and try the same experiment in reverse; wear an Obama t-shirt for a day in a county that, as recently as ten years ago, still displayed a sign reading "If you're black, turn back" and you'd be lucky if all you experienced was the "intolerance" Catherine faced in Oak Park.

Free John McCain!

2008-10-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

Military lore tells stories of POWs who hold their hands or blink their eyes in photographs and videos made by their captors in such a way as to send a message to their commanders. So when John McCain describes discussions he has with his "fellow prisoners," you could say he's losing it, but I suspect a darker possibility: McCain is trying to convey to voters that the RNC, out of hatred for McCain, is holding him prisoner, forcing him to run the worst campaign in American history.

So much for that bipartisan crap

2008-09-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

So John McCain, who has built his campaign around the idea of putting country above party, has decided to ditch that strategy and instead pursue the bold strategy of accusing your opponent of being a decent guy, who will admit when an opponent has a good idea. In this spirit, McCain put together a video collecting moments when his opponent said "John McCain is right," (three moments, to be exact, about as many times as McCain felt the need to remind us that he was never elected Ms. Congeniality"). Of course, when you spend the entire debate mumbling about how that same opponent doesn't understand anything, and you show nothing but contempt for having to share the stage with him, maybe you don't really want to point out all the places you agree.

But it's understandable that McCain would want to compile this video of his opponent saying "John McCain's right" three times. He hasn't heard anyone say it in eight years.

The GOP loses another great spokesman

2008-09-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

The leader of a statewide group of college Republicans has been forced to resign after posting racially insensitive comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the Internet.

Adam LaDuca, 21, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page in late July that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)"

Wow, so not only is Adam a racist, he's also an idiot. You'd think that, being the president of the College Republicans, he'd know that Miami's population of Cuban refugees is overwhelmingly conservative and that policies encouraging political asylum for Cubans are directly related the Republican Party's electoral success in Florida.

But then again, no one ever said racists were smart.

John McCain's acceptance speech

2008-09-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

Trust me, this was better than his real acceptance speech.

AP: World's most accurate news source

2008-08-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press provided the most accurate handicapping of the vice presidential sweepstakes today:

[McCain's] top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.

John McCain gets an F

2008-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

So you don't know shit about the war going on between Russia and Georgia. That makes you pretty normal, actually. But you want to convince people that the intricacies of Russo-Georgian relations are common knowledge to you. What's the first thing you do? Hit "the Google," of course. Research is important, but passing yourself off as an expert after a simple Google search is awfully disingenuous.

Well, we all know John McCain claims he knows how to do "a Google," and apparently someone on his staff knows how to use the most notorious research source on the net, as demonstrated by a speech McCain gave today on the Georgia situation, large chunks of which were lifted directly from the Wikipedia article on Georgia.

The Political Insider found three instances:

First instance:
one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion (Wikipedia)
vs.
one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion (McCain)

Second instance:
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis. (Wikipedia)
vs.
After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises. (McCain)

Third instance:
In 2003, Shevardnadze (who won reelection in 2000) was deposed by the Rose Revolution, after Georgian opposition and international monitors asserted that the 2 November parliamentary elections were marred by fraud. The revolution was led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, former members and leaders of Shavarnadze's ruling party. Mikheil Saakashvili was elected as President of Georgia in 2004. Following the Rose Revolution, a series of reforms was launched to strengthen the country's military and economic capabilities. (Wikipedia)
vs.
Following fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place, led by the U.S.-educated lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili. The Rose Revolution changed things dramatically and, following his election, President Saakashvili embarked on a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms. (McCain)

I like to think McCain's speech writers were sitting around trying to work the line "Georgia is becoming more integrated into the global trading network: its 2006 imports and exports account for 10% and 18% of GDP respectively" into the speech.

"No, no, no," one of his writes must have said. "That doesn't sound anything like John. Make it like this:

"My friends, Georgia is becoming more integrated into the global trading network: its 2006 imports and exports account for 10% and 18% of GDP respectively.""

Of course, any third grader will tell you that anyone can write pretty much anything on a Wikipedia page, and if you happen to be doing your research after a page has been vandalized by inaccurate or libelous information, you're going to be in trouble. And, of course, any third grader caught passing off a fly-by-night internet source as their own writing would be doing failing work.

But for the Republican nominee who has spent decades studying and then decades more actually writing U.S. policy indelibly linked with Russia and Soviet bloc, who is surrounded by foreign policy consultants, who almost certainly has or can easily get the phone number of Henry Kissinger and who admits that his knowledge of foreign policy is the only reason to elect him president, this is just how he shows his expertise.

I love the internets

2008-08-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama will be announcing his vice presidential nominee soon, and I'll be one of the first to know. Yes, that was likely anyway as I do read approximately 2000 times as much political news as the average voter, but now I'm certain. Because Barack is going to text message me.

Obama has e-mailed his supporters, asking if they would like to receive a text message alert before Obama is about to announce his running mate. Using a technology John McCain doesn't understand to invite voters to receive news through a form of communication McCain doesn't even know exists -- what a brilliant way to flaunt your advantage in the technology gap.

So I'm looking forward to receiving this text in the coming days:

k, i pckd bll rhrdsn!

Damning with high praise

2008-08-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

The purpose of a code is simple: To communicate private information publicly. Anyone can make a code, and pretty much all of us -- at some point in our adolescence -- played around with simple substitution cyphers. But codes are made to be deciphered, so while any kid could make a practically unbreakable code, it would be practically worthless, as the people we want to decipher the code couldn't. This why real coding is the profession of spies and mathematicians and not fifth graders. The perfect code isn't unbreakable; it's simple enough for friends of decipher it with minimal technological aid, while being difficult for adversaries to decipher and appear completely innocuous to everyone else. (Understand why John Nash went crazy yet?)

Strategic communication sounds like a euphemism for code, and in many ways it is. Everyone who uses strategic communication -- whether they're selling a product, an idea or a politician -- has something that they can't say publicly, but nonetheless, wants you to think. This requires figuring out how to get your message to the people who will appreciate it, while making it appear innocuous to the people who you don't want to hear it. Knowing who should and should not hear it, and how you craft a public message that does that, is where the strategy comes in.

It sounds more difficult than coding, and in many ways it is. But the advantage that anyone who deals in subterfuge and half-truths has is that people become most invested in the idea they're convinced they came up with themselves, rather than an idea given to them by someone else. For example, commercials for Head-On are very careful to not make any claims about what they product does. A good strategy for a product that does not want to go through the messy process of scientifically verifying its claims, but it's a great strategy from a marketing standpoint, because it makes it the your idea to use it for a headache, and because it's your idea, not a marketer's idea, it has a higher value in your mind.

Above all, knowing your audience is essential. And nowhere is strategic communication more necessary than in politics. The idea of a political party is far too clean cut to accurately describe the ideological landscape. There are small groups of people simply loyal to a party, but their numbers are dwarfed by the countless ideological groups, often loosely affiliated with the party that -- either currently or traditionally -- is most closely affiliated with their issues(s).

The religious right is a classic example, and also best represent the need to strategic, clandestine communication. The religious right aren't actually conservatives, they're cultural conservatives, so their ties to the Republican Party are for the most part a marriage of convenience. Neither classic conservatives nor cultural conservatives could have electoral success without each other, and both view the other as someone only worth paying lip service to during election season. But on the other hand, appearing overly cozy with the religious right can alienate another important group within the Republican coalition: libertarians, who are much more of a swing group than are the religious right.

So Republicans have learned how to use subtle references and so-called "dog whistle" words to send messages to the religious right without alienating swing voters. The trick is knowing your audience well enough to craft a message they understand. "Just give your programs names with biblical references like "No Child Left Behind," you say. "We know they've read the Bible." Seems you don't know your audience at all.

You can't assume an evangelical has read the Bible, but it's a pretty safe bet that they have read at least part of the "Left Behind" series.

On the surface, Republicans appear to precede their criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama with a string of compliments. Of course, even the most generous assessment of these words would recognize that they are acknowledging his tremendous popularity and natural charisma as a way of neutralizing those as electoral issues, but make no mistake they are trying their hardest to make these issues.

The religious right will never vote for John McCain, the conventional wisdom goes. But Republicans hold out some hope that they will vote against Obama. Especially if they make McCain appear to be the lesser of two evils. Literally.

"...He is charming, people are flocking to support him. He has been thrust to power, seemingly against his own wishes."

Prelude to an attack on Obama? Not exactly, it's a description from Nicolae Carpathia, the anti-Christ in Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' "Left Behind" series (I know, I know, "only a Carpathain would come back now...").

Of course, a right winger like LaHaye presents Carpathia's regime as having all the trappings of an international liberal Utopian movement.

"[Carpathia] felt an obligation to move quickly to unite the world in a move toward peace. He has assigned task forces to implement the disarming of the nations of the world."

Of course, subtlety is important:

Ooops. So much for that.

On the surface, it seems incredibly stupid and counter-productive to run a campaign based on everybody liking Obama and wanting to vote for him as a reason to not vote for him. But it's a little more shrewed if you're trying to convince evangelical Christians that Obama's the anti-Christ.

But, like I said, knowing your target audience is essential, and John McCain has proven time and time again, that he is so clueless about courting the religious right that he can agree with them on every issue, but still fail to convince them to impress them. True to form, convincing evangelicals that Obama is an anti-Christ is a strategy based on a somewhat shallow understanding of evangelical Christianity.

Anyone even remotely willing to entertain something so ridiculous undoubtedly believes that the Rapture of the church will be the biggest moment in human history. Many believe that this will happen in their lifetime, and some see signs forecasting it's coming. The majority of evangelicals believe that the Rapture will occur before the emergence of the anti-Christ. Banking on evangelicals' fear of the anti-Christ is not necessarily a winning proposition because most of them don't even think they'll be here once the anti-Christ takes power. Even post- or mid-tribulation evangelicals would do most anything to hasten the return of Jesus.

Would some evangelicals vote for Obama because they think he's the anti-Christ? Possibly. But of course, the threat of this strategy to Obama isn't that people who've read Left Behind will associate "charismatic" and "popular" with the anti-Christ, but that they'll simply associate "popular" and "charismatic" with "bad." After all, the more they have to actually think about the possibility that a United States Senator is, in fact, an agent of Satan, the less they'll actually believe it.

Of course, for the rest of us, it's the same lame strategy as saying "everyone has iPods, and they're really great, so I'm not buying one just to be different." Which, of course, raises an even more important question: How can John McCain be the candidate for both evangelicals and iconoclasts?

Ron Paul, what evil hath thou wrought?

2008-08-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've come to an important decision. While I have never voted for a Republican in my life, I can no longer support Barack Obama. That's right, in November I will be voting for Senator John McCain.

My decision was, in the end, very simple, because I found a special friend -- my pajama-clad, turtle-shaped conscience, if you will -- who explained to me that a vote for Senator Obama is actually a vote for the evil Senator Zero. And I hope that after watching this video, you too, will see this race for what it really is. Because, honestly, if this video doesn't show you what supporting John McCain is all about, all the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton ads in the world won't change your mind.

Come friends, let's break out of the Cult of Obama, and take a ride on the back of Darth MoneyTurtle:

Populism, Separatism and Evangelism

2008-07-22T01:56:00.000-07:00

What struck me most when I first saw the film Jesus Camp about a year ago wasn't the radical beliefs bordering -- I was expecting that -- but the fact that many of the film's central players appeared so dated. Hair styles, hand-me-down clothes and old home furnishings presented alongside the decay of these peoples' communities all carried a late 1970s early 1980s vibe to it. See for yourself (as best I can demonstrate within copyright laws).

This brought into clear focus for me the appeal of evangelical Christianity to poor, rural America: Right-wing Christianity rejects modern culture as a whole. As it turns out, a great excuse for people who can't afford the luxuries of modern culture to being with. After all, it's very much in keeping with human nature to deny that we even want the things we know we can't have.

It wasn't until this week that I realized that my theory didn't go far enough. The weekly religion column I read offered additional perspective:

My brother, who is three years my junior, had a higher salary his first year out of college than I’ve had in eight years out of college. He lives in Chicago, drives a newish car, and eats at nice restaurants.

My life in rural Illinois, where I drive a car that’s almost 10 years old and eat at fast food restaurants for a treat, looks poor in comparison.

But, sadly for him, I have something he doesn’t. It’s the same something that reminds me wealth doesn’t equal happiness.

The apostle Paul calls it a “secret,” but it’s an open secret, available to anyone who wants it.

At first it struck me as merely a rather tactless "outing" of a family member, but there's more to it. Not only does our columnist have something that her brother does not, she makes an value judgment on their respective positions in life. He has wealth, she does not. But she has Jesus.

You see, not only does evangelical Christianity offer followers a way of denying a culture that is beyond their means, it supplants the entire mainstream economy with an alternative economy, where a commodity they lack (United States dollars) is devalued and the commodity that have in spades (faith) is the new gold standard.

It's this unsettling mixture of populist economics and large-scale separatist ideology that makes evangelical Christianity and the right-wing beliefs it promotes so palatable to impoverished people who would otherwise have no use for right-wing politics. It also means that evangelical Christianity and government will always make a volatile and dangerous mixture.

Bad pop. Bad flicks. Good politics

2008-07-21T02:40:00.001-07:00

Welcome, one and all.

It's like clockwork. I blog somewhere for about a year and a half, gather a small following, get some people linking to me, and then one day I bolt and set up shop somewhere else, for no good reason except to suit my fancy.

My first blog allowed me to master the righteous diatribe. My second centered on short, snarky crap, mixed in with the occasional music review. Oh, and I did a movie blog in there somewhere as well. I envision this as a grand, unifying blog. Bad pop. Bad flicks. Good politics.

We'll get some content up here shortly. In the meantime, older stuff is here.