Eerie

Hard to see much difference between this and this.

You can photoshop a smile, but not the crazy.

Writing The Wrong

In a typical linkorama I came across an idea behind which I can totally get:

Duane over at Abnormal Interests talks about people who refuse to trust the experts. Along the way he quotes the famous Isaac Asimov piece The Relativity of Wrong:

John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

It’s kind of a shame that reality is too slippery for us to quantify the amount of wrongness. Think of how useful it would be to if we had a unit of wrongness. Let’s say we had a unit – for absolutely no reason at all let’s call it a “beck” – that would allow us to express how wrong something is. “Ooh, close, but you’re wrong by 3 millibecks.” or “Whoa, off by a kilobeck.”

Nor would readers of this blog be surprised to apprehend that I strongly support the name of the unit, as well.

For absolutely no reason at all.

(I must admit the very concept of a kilobeck causes the sutures in my cranium to loosen. How wrong could something possibly be to qualify? Could it even exist? Would it not be a black hole of wrong such that all rightness would be sucked into it and light would disappear from the universe? And all parallel universeri? Henceforth and forever more?)

Obvious

If one party continually tries to get people to vote, and the other regularly tries to suppress it, which is the more consistent with democracy?

Let's just admit it: these are terrible people.

"You liberial scumbags should be hung by the neck in public ! We are on to your voter fraud. Keep it up you MOTHER FUCKERS and you will soon be put down for a long dirt nap! Your nothing but a bunch of white guilt ridden assholes, NIGGERS and greasy mexican spics! The WAR is comming and we are going to dispose of each and every one of you while we take OUR (White) nation back."

Juiced up after their take-down of ACORN over non-existent fraud (except for that committed against ACORN by its own workers and reported to election monitors by ACORN), they're back to form, making accusations of fraud toward anyone trying to register voters.

As is regularly the case, the casting of actual fraudulent votes remains a vanishingly small problem; yet the suggestion thereof can be counted on to rally the most desperate among us.

Meanwhile, Rs are no longer even trying to hide their formerly covert efforts to trick minorities into not voting.

It's consistent, though. What's really going on in all this "take our country back" weeping and wailing is the fact, as I've said before, that teabaggers and other right-wingers don't actually believe in democracy. What they believe in is their supremacy. They're okay with voting as long as it's those that share their beliefs. (And by beliefs, I mean the things they cling to, no matter the facts. Pretty much everything they stand for, in other words.)

And so it is that, of a piece with the above illiterate efflux, we get stuff like this:

Stephen Broden, a Republican running for Congress in Texas' 30th District, said he would not rule out a violent overthrow of the government if the midterm elections don't cause a change in government, saying that "our nation was founded on violence" so "the option is on the table."

According to the Dallas Morning News, Broden said in a TV interview yesterday: "We have a constitutional remedy here and the Framers says if that don't work, revolution."

"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," he continued.

Happily, the local Rs disavowed the rhetoric. But is it far outside the teabagging mentality?

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck says he doesn't believe the guy said it.

It's on tape.

Glenn Beck doesn't believe he said it.

Okay, fine: he said if the guy said it, he'd denounce it. Kudos.

But it's already on tape. IT'S ON TAPE.

What's not to believe?

Global warming (he exhales, says that's CO2, so what's the problem?), evolution (he says he's never seen a half-man/half-monkey), the stimulus worked: THEY'RE ON TAPE!!!!!

Take bag, dip. Don't like facts? Dip again.

Self Interest

Could it be any clearer? Of the many times I've pointed out how the teabaggers have been deceived and manipulated into acting against their own interests, is there any better proof than this?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it received an "outpouring of support" that crashed its servers Thursday morning after conservative host Glenn Beck pledged $10,000 on the air to the organization and urged his listeners to donate what they can afford.

So why say teabaggers are being played? Hardly a tough one:

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed new rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has helped wage a national campaign to limit the ability of trial lawyers to sue businesses....

... To support the effort, the chamber has adopted an all-hands-on-deck approach to fund-raising. Mr. Josten said he makes many of the fund-raising calls to corporations nationwide, as does Mr. Donohue. (Both men are well compensated for their work: Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and chauffeur, while Mr. Josten was paid $1.1 million, tax records show.) But those aggressive pitches have turned off some business executives.

“There was an arrogance to it like they were the 800-pound gorilla and I was either with them with this big number or I just did not matter,” said Mr. Tyree, of Chicago.

Another corporate executive, who asked not to be named, said the chamber risks alienating its members.

“Unless you spend $250,000 to $500,000 a year, that is what they want for you to be one of their pooh-bahs, otherwise, they don’t pay any attention to you at all,” the executive said, asking that the company not be identified.

This is the group to which Glenn Beck asks his faith-full followers to send their nickels and dimes! No wonder their site crashed: they have no need of or interest in such piddling proffers from the internetted. And yet, donate the Becked-up did.

To me, it remains absolutely inexplicable. Even the frightened and gullible ought not be so eager to stab themselves. Left alone, people tend to act in their own interest. Don't they? Such self-destructive behavior on the part of so many can only come from careful, well-orchestrated, and deliberate deception. But the media keep buying and selling the myth of a grassroots movement.

For most of the season, I have a pretty nice-looking lawn. Every year, it gets aerated; I fertilize it about three times, spray some moss-killer here and there, pluck weeds when I find them. With my environmentally friendly cordless electric machine, I mow and mulch every five days or so. I water just enough to keep the roots deep. Until the cedar tree's roots start sucking water faster than I can put it in, it looks damn good, clean and green.

Whatever else is true about it, it sure as hell didn't grow itself.

It's A Natural Fact

An ant mill tea party rally is a phenomenon where a small group of army ants gullible people separated from the main foraging party reality lose the pheromone track their ability to think for themselves and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants country will eventually die of exhaustion self-inflicted wounds. This has been reproduced in laboratories and the behaviour has also been produced in ant colony simulations.^[1] This phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies continual propagandizing of Fox "news" and other RWS™. Each ant teabagger follows the ant in front of it lead of Glenn Beck, and this will work until something goes wrong and an ant mill forms actual solution is required.^[2] An ant mill was first described by William Beebe who observed a mill 1,200 feet (365 m) in circumference. It took each ant 2.5 hours to make one revolution.^[3] Similar phenomena have been noted in processionary caterpillars and fish.^[4]

[edit]

Party Like It's 9/11

After enjoying the above, endorph your pleasure centers in this: Sarah and Glenn have gone overt, cashing in straight up on 9/11. The difference is, the latter is not a joke. Their low opinion of their gullible followers knows no bounds.

From these guys to Newt to the whole body of RWS™, 9/11 has morphed overnight into a Republican occasion for hate and fear-mongering. (And fund-raising.) In my calm moments I can manage to say it's pretty amazing. And it's been so easy.

Note to teabaggers: you're being played for fools. And cash cows.

Vested Interest

It's one thing, I suppose, to feel the need to wear a bullet-proof vest when you speak at Abe Lincoln's feet. It's a bit of another to brag about it, to use it as some sort of proof of your fantasies.

Because the thing is, if I look outside and see the sun is shining and decide nevertheless to carry an umbrella, I guess you could say I'm only being cautious... even if there isn't a cloud in the sky and my iPhone weather-radar app shows no clouds within a light year. But were I to go up to everyone I see and tell them that the umbrella is proof of the unpredictability of weather, well, I'd assume most of them would paste a neutral smile on their faces and move away very deliberately. Backwards, so as not to lose sight.

As usual, it leaves me wondering if Beck is truly insane, or just the world's most successful seller of snake oil. I think it'd speak more highly of him if it were the former, make it more honest. Can't make it a positive for his flock, though, either way.

I'd also suggest that the people at a Glenn Beck rally of the sort who'd shoot someone for speaking his or her mind would be aiming out, not in.

Restoring Honor

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

Not huge, I admit. But, given the self-important hucksterism, not insignificant. And sort of representative of the whole shtick: manipulation, based on his own fantasies, sucked up and swallowed whole by teabaggers hungry for validation of their darkest thoughts.

And, as long as we're discussing honor and speakers at the Glenngasm, there's this (to the surprise of no one except everyone):

"The worst stuff isn't even in there," Michael Joseph Gross said on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "I couldn't believe these stories either when I first heard them, and I started this story with a prejudice in her favor. I have a lot in common with this woman. I'm a small-town person, I'm a Christian, I think that a lot of her criticisms of the media actually have something to them. And I think she got a bum ride, but everybody close to her tells the same story."

......

"This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about," he said. "She lies about everything."

I'll leave it to the reader to discover the "she." Tough guess.

The Beckoning

If blogging is an exercise in egotism, then what's it called when you rent the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of one of the most important speeches in American history, and use the occasion to proclaim that by the force of your personal perfection, it marks the moment when the country turns back to God?

I doubt I have anything to say about the Glenngasm that hasn't already been said, other than it finally occurred to me what the origin was of the calls I kept getting that were ID'd only as 828.

Despite not having a lot to add, I'll say I'm still waiting for an answer to my question: if, out of respect to those who object, the non-mosque at non-ground-zero shouldn't be built, what's the counter argument, vis á vis Beckopalypse and those who considered the day and place sacrosanct?

Okay, I guess I do have to ask: in what way has our honor been lost, and by what means shall it be restored? Did the dishonor start when we let black people live in the White House, or was it when we opened Gitmo? Did it have anything to do with Abu Ghraib, or is it just the attempt to provide health care for all? Will we get it back when we get rid of all Muslims in America, or will outlawing gay marriage once and for all do the trick? As we turn to God, what will he whisper in our collective ear? Is he still into the "love thy neighbor" thing or, like the flock at the 'flecting pool, has he moved on from that namby-pamby liberal crap?

Nor is it exactly as if this country has turned away from God, especially the one to which the Beckofoxians would have us genuflect. There's no country in the West that even approaches our claimed levels of belief or our houses of worship per capita; nor the percent that disbelieve evolution or consider the Bible literally true. So what the hell is he talking about? The fact that so many people eat pork and shellfish, and fail to stone their kids to death? Turn back to God. As opposed to what? The purpose of a self-centered event produced by a egomaniacal lunatic is to get people to do what they've already done. Weird, isn't it? Sort of a microcosm: the anger at what isn't.

What is really on the minds of that virtually all-white crowd? What part of their country do they want back, and, like the dog that chases the car, what will they do with it when they get it? Clearly, they don't want the dirty parts; the ones with Mexicans and gays and Muslims. Shouldn't their signs read "I want certain parts of my country back, preferably without having to pay for them, please. Or govern them."

I did note the comments of one attendee and they were cogent: the federal government, he said, should only be there to protect us, and to help us when we need it. Otherwise, he added, everything should be up to the states. Okay. That's a clear statement of classic states rights and old-school conservatism, and I get it. Arguments can be made, and have been, by intelligent people. It's at the very heart of the debate over our founding documents; where one falls along the spectrum defines (or used to, anyway) the extent to which one is a liberal or a conservative. I'd much rather have that discussion than to abide people whose only position is that they don't like what's happening, and whose only suggestion is to cut taxes, along with other ideas that would actually make things worse. And, in their spare time, to deny marriage rights to gays.

I'd like to hear what that Beckophile thinks constitutes help, and what defines need. And whether he thinks there's a federal interest, say, in food and drug safety, or would rather it be left to the kids who are taught in young-earth creationist schools that science is evil, and grow up to run his state.

__________________________

Update: sticky wicket?

He Is Their Leader

Maybe the reason we don't see comments defending Glenn Beck around here any more is that even SomeSympathizers have a toe tethered to reality; the balloon of hot air to which they cling occasionally dips close enough to the ground that they touch it, if only very lightly. Which is not to say that full-throated empty-headed teabaggers are in the same category. Hateful hypocrisy is who they are. But one might wonder if, even among those true believers, there might be one or two who'd be offended by this.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy? Daddy? Daddy, did you plug the hole yet? Daddy?

PAT GRAY (co-host): (imitating Obama) No I didn't, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy, I know you're better than [unintelligible]

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Mm-hmm, big country.

BECK: (imitating Malia) And I was wondering if you've plugged that hole yet.

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Honey, not yet.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why not, daddy? But daddy--

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Not time yet, honey. Hasn't done enough damage.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Not enough damage yet, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah?

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why do you hate black people so much?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) I'm part white, honey.

BECK: (imitating Malia) What?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) What?

BECK: (imitating Malia) What'd you say?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Excuse me?

BECK: (laughing) This is such a ridiculous -- this is such a ridiculous thing that his daughter-- (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: It's so stupid.

BECK: How old is his daughter? Like, thirteen?

GRAY: Well, one of them's, I think, thirteen, one's eleven, or something.

BECK: "Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?" Is that's their -- that's the level of their education, that they're coming to -- they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' " Plug the hole!

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yes, I was doing some deep-sea diving yesterday, and--

BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I was doing--

BECK: (imitating Malia) Why--

GRAY: (imitating Obama) Yeah, honey, I'm--

BECK (imitating Malia) Why, why, why, why, do you still let the polar bears die? Daddy, why do you still let Sarah Palin destroy the environment? Why are -- Daddy, why don't you just put her in some sort of a camp?

Especially because it comes on the heels -- within hours, in fact -- of saying (rightfully, if you can believe it) that kids of politicians should be off limits. Of course, that was in the context of his creation, Sarah Palin.

So not only is Glenn Beck a liar and a paranoid lunatic, he doesn't even make a pretense of consistency. He has no grounding, no morals, no principles. And yet, to teabaggers, he's the soul of their movement.

Sickening. Unsurprising. Depressing. And really, really sickening.

[Update: He has apologized, and I give him credit for that. However, the relish with which he engaged in that banter, and the ease with which he did it having just let the air dry on protestations about the evil people who attack Sarah Palin's kids (whom she egregiously and aggressively used as campaign props and still does) tell me he'll say anything at any time with no regard for truth or principles. I wonder if his apology was spontaneous, or arose from the blowback he got. And I wonder if he got any blowback from his flock.]

Where Credit Is Due

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Explosive and the City 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

They say even a blind squirrel can find a chestnut once in a while. Similarly, it seems Glenn Beck can't be wrong all the time.

From what I can tell -- and it's hard, because the line between insanity and ratings-grab is thin at Fox "news" -- Beck's mind is like those mouse traps with ping-pong balls, bouncing from one thought to another until it's uncontrolled fission, generating far more heat than light. Nevertheless, whether it's a moment of clarity or a random thought that has no relation to his usual paranoid rants, disconnected, it's noteworthy that he believes -- at a single moment in time, anyway -- in affording legal rights to citizens (to the obvious consternation, it should be noted, of his assembled foxed-up friends).

As others have said, when Glenn Beck is the sanest voice on the right, even if only during the blink of an eye, we have truly entered bizarro world, and the conservative movement has lost all its bearings. Which, as I've said repeatedly, is a loss for us all. For what have they become when we have to give kudos to a leader for believing in the law?

Teabaggers aren't gonna like this. Think there'll be "Mirandize Terrorists" signs at the next teabag rally? (It's a word perfectly suited to them: difficult to spell and impossible to comprehend.) To whom can they turn if Glenn Frickin' Beck shows signs of rationality?

I've Been Outed

The Face Of Evil

That's Van Jones, the man Glenn Beck smeared unendingly. That's the man for whose destruction at least one commenter on this blog has expressed her gratitude to Glenn Beck, despite his clear qualifications for the job to which he was appointed. That's the man whose entire career turned on the overwrought rantings of a dishonest and venal, stupid and paranoid egotist.

Ever hear a man spout such left-wing radicalism? Ever see so much hate returned to a hater? It seems he's almost, I don't know, what, Christian?

Ever wonder why a clown with a chalkboard and no actual knowledge is given a platform from which to destroy our country?

Genesis

It's been, what, 6000 years? Finally, God has come up with a new model.

According to the latest specs, etched in two tablets of stone and handed down from atop Mount Sinai, the new bird is anticipated by God to be His finest creation to date. Available in two colors-—male and female—the bird reportedly combines everything God has learned from His previous works into one "new twist on an old favorite."

Wonder what got him thinking he needed to get back to work. I'm guessing it was watching Tom Delay on "Dancing With The Stars," or listening to Glenn Beck.

Once he gets that creation thing back up and running, let's hope he'll recall humans and come up with something a little less embarrassing.

(On the other hand, he did pretty well with this.)