Martin Peretz: Get Butt Cancer & Die.

New Republic owner Martin Peretz calls himself a "loyalist" to the Democratic Party, albeit a "strained" one. Come hear that strain a creakin'...

If you still need proof that what passes for 'conservative' today represents the triumph of petty ignorance over common sense, the usurpation of common decency by bigotry, you could do worse than read Martin Peretz's nasty little article on Islam at TNR. Example:

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

Peretz knocks the NYT for it's "olympian wisdom" in discounting Peretz's own "gut" and seeking instead to give American Muslims the benefit of the doubt. Like, hey, they might not all be terrorists. For Peretz's "gut", there's no proof that they aren't all terrorists, so the NYT must be playing some kinda liberal sleight of hand that flies way over his head. "Olympian wisdom" for that? If this isn't a clear, if sarcastic, admission that wisdom itself is something to be attacked, I'm not sure what is.

Peretz really is living proof that 'conservatives' suspect (with damn good reason) that 'liberals' are smarter than they are and that tolerance, like a UFO, is the product of a more advanced, alien intelligence. But instead of trying to out-smart the enemy, they opt to attack intelligence itself. Even a freakin' ex-Havard professor like Peretz is proud to rant like the dumbest of the haters. It's a great ruse for them because rejecting intelligence means you can be proudly and unconditionally conservative. You can hate liberals without having to listen to their arguments that make your brain hurt. And, best of all, you'll never wonder that there's anything wrong with being an irrational bigot who'd condemn all Muslims based on what your "gut" tells you. Don't worry if you worry that hate might be wrong... It's just your intelligence playing up.

Wingnuts like to accuse me of hypocrisy, of preaching tolerance while spewing hate (against them). How can I hate people like Martin Peretz so much while claiming to be tolerant and open minded? Trust me. It's damned easy.

Slavery Freemarket Style 2

Bloomberg reports that Murdoch's News Corp hires North Korean developers to create mobile phone games.

How classé of them.

Impeach Obama, Save The Unicorn

Dropping off my son at school this morning, I got stuck behind a fellow parent sporting one of these "Impeach Obama" bumper stickers. It begged two questions: 1) is our generation destined to be out-dumbed by a future crop of über morons who've grown up listening to this kind of garbage from their parents? and 2) WTF did Obama do anyway?

When I got home, I Googled my way to the "Impeach Obama Petition" (100,000 green crayon signatures and rising) to find out exactly what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' Barry had committed on the sly. There, dressed up in a bunch of fancy Constitution talk and multi-syllabled camouflage, the arguments were:

Article 1: We didn't like him trying to regulate Wall Street.
Article 2: We think he's from Kenya.

Wow. 100,000 signatures for that? This is the best all those who would have had me thrown me in Guantanamo a couple of years ago for wanting Bush impeached can scrape together? It's extra galling too for anyone who resented Obama's 'turning the page' on the transgressions of the previous administration by not indicting Bush. The best we could have hoped for was that some kind of truce would result from that shameful compromise. But, instead, this is the thanks he gets???

There was a gigantic case for impeaching Bush over the myriad ways in which he betrayed the Constitution and the misplaced trust of the American people. Oh I don't know... torture, war crimes, illegal detention, warrantless wiretapping, dumping Habeas Corpus in direct contravention of the Suspension Clause of the US Constitution, blah blah. But the same people who'd argue all that down as liberal hysteria are now demanding Obama be impeached for two bullsh*t reasons they've pulled straight out of their ass?

This is not double standards. For standards to be double, you need some to begin with.

Quote Of The Day

"I am a rocket scientist. The one thing people always fail to understand about my job is that rocket science is, in fact, quite simple."

I've long suspected that rockets are pretty easy science and that the old saying makes rocket scientists seem smarter than they deserve. Grandstanding a**holes!

Next we must demolish the phony mystique around brain surgery. Hell, I bet rebuilding the carburetor on a 1975 Camaro is way more complicated. Plus brains are not held together by bolts and tiny-ass nuts that roll off and require hours of hunting and rattling stuff. Case closed.

Stating The Obvious Because Someone Has To. Again.

Maybe 'Surge Hero' David Petraeus can talk some sense into the Islam haters. Or maybe they're just unreachable. It would seem that domestic extremists like that Koran-burning Florida "church" wouldn't exactly be open to reasoned advice. But the obvious fact stands: they put American lives in danger when they f*ck with Islam:

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Yeh, I know, First Amendment, freedom of speech, don't back down to terrorists, yadda yadda... that's fine. If you're putting your own self at risk to defend what you mistake for principles. Instead, these a**holes pile on danger for other people's kids, parents and spouses out their doing their duty and hoping to come back alive.

I'd love to see people like The Dove World Outreach Center take their flammable Koran act on the road to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Come on, evangelicals, sac up and put yer money where your big angry mouths are.

Slavery Freemarket Style

L.A. employment agency Global Horizons Manpower Inc. gets mixed reviews on Insider Pages after getting busted for slavery.

According to the FBI:

There are more people living in forced labor today than when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

This accompanies a story about a human trafficking racket that duped Thai workers into unpaid labor on US farms. One difference between this and old-timey slavery? They used to sell slaves. Instead, today's slaves pay as much as $17,000 each to "employment agencies" like Global Horizons Manpower Inc.

Not trying to be a smart ass or a partisan bore... but can I legitimately blame the free market for this one without conservatives getting all pissy and citing something Clinton or Obama are supposed to have done? Just this once? We are talking slavery here. In 2010.

Islamaphobia: The 60s All Over Again?

Aside from a hatred of bigotry in general, the biggest reason I can't stand Christian conservatives is their bratty double standards. That smug, self-righteous attitude that demands everyone respect their 'deep Christian faith' while they'd trash anyone else's in a New York minute (literally if you look at the NY mosque hatefest).

Whether you're a different kind of Christian, an atheist or a Muslim, whatever, Christian conservatives sh*t on your beliefs as a matter of routine, but still get pissed if you don't bow down in reverence before theirs. This is like a bully punching random strangers in the street then complaining because they don't think he's the nicest guy in town. And, man, how these bullies like to punch Muslims more than anyone.

But Michael Gerson at the WP makes the case that the Christian conservative double standard is essentially self-defeating. He refers to their projecting bigotry and expecting respect in return as 'undermining their own faith' and this holds true as far as precedent is concerned. Anti-Muslim hysteria is looking more like today's version of the civil rights struggles of the 60s. And look how that turned out for those conservative Christians who hid behind the Constitution, cops and Bibles to oh-so patriotically preach hate against other Americans.

I'm still convinced that the restraint of Muslims who the Jeezuz bullies attack day after day is the clearest demonstration yet to regular folks that the "dangerous Muslim" stereotype that fuels the hate is a big fat lie. Just as the old "dangerous negro" stereotype was disproved for those gullible enough to have bought into it by witnessing King's pacifism in the face of overwhelming provocation. Every day that goes by leaving the Jeezuz bullies untouched by blow-back from their own hate just undermines their case a little more. Eventually, America will catch on - just like it did in the 60s - and say enough is enough.

Maybe it's the cosmic balance, but a**holes eventually stop being mistaken for third eye chakras and bigots invariably end up on the wrong side of history.

Let's Cut Their Pay. Why Not? We Can't Kill Them.

Arizona Dem Ann Kirkpatrick is suggesting that Congress gives itself a pay cut. I can't really see that happening but it's a pleasing idea and understandably popular:

A recent survey by the Rasmussen Reports found that 75% of Americans think members of Congress should cut their pay until the budget is balanced. And nearly one in eight think members of Congress should not be able to get a raise unless taxpayers vote for it.

Fine. But maybe we should quit giving them salaries altogether. Maybe a flat rate fee for each bill passed would work better? Imagine how fast bills would start sailing through that place... Healthcare Bill? "F*ck it, let's bang that puppy out before lunch. You with me Boehner?" A taxpayer can dream...

My Open Message To The Evangelicals

Wanted to share a dialog I've been having with an evangelical who first piqued my interest by suggesting that God may be using Glenn Beck as a channel. Obviously, I couldn't let a comment like "The Bible is replete with God using some of the least of us as examples to glorify Him" go unmocked. But then, after I called him a tw*t and a maniac and generally mocked evangelicals, something odd happened... it's never happened to me before but I had a fairly reasoned argument with a conservative. An evangelical conservative at that!

We covered issues like voting Republican. I wondered why evangelicals are always so keen to let abortion dominate their decision-making process when it comes to voting. "Really," I asked not unreasonably, "is this the only issue you ponder when you head to the polling station? Don't you give a sh*t about, I don't know, schools, jobs, taxes, etc.?"

I also wondered why they weren't cottoning on to the fact that abortion isn't going away any time soon and that Reps are only pretending they'd ever reverse Roe v. Wade as a carrot to attract evangelical votes. Evangelical guy replied by suggesting that poverty is the Democrat's equivalent of abortion - i.e., something they pretend to care about to motivate the base. I want to recycle my answer and post it here as an open message to all pro-lifers who keep on voting Republican and probably will in November:

I've heard the Democrats' position on poverty equated with the Republican's position on abortion before as if they're each party's special 'bait-and-switch' issue to motivate their respective bases. But it ain't the same.

"For ye have the poor always with you" I heard somewhere... but standards of living and opportunities for the poor can be improved and do, at least incrementally, under Democrat administrations and (I'd give Nixon credit) some Republican ones too. But abortion is either legal or it's not. There can't be incremental change. Those babies are either dead or they ain't.

So what have Republicans done to make evangelicals happy on abortion? Roe v. Wade was passed into law by a Republican chief justice presiding over a majority Republican Supreme Court. The case was brought to court, argued and decided under a Republican administration. It was still legal after two terms of 'pro-life' Reagan. It's still legal after two terms of 'pro-life' Bush.

But a Democrat could hold up the civil rights act, the minimum wage, free public education, the 8-hr work day, compulsory overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, equal pay, blah blah as examples of Democrats working toward eliminating poverty. But what could a Republican hold up to demonstrate their commitment to ending abortion? Why bother voting for them if you're a single-issue, pro-life evangelical?

Jan Brewer Saved By Olbermann?

"That was an error, if I said that," Brewer told the Associated Press yesterday. "I misspoke."

Arizona governor and be-wigged crypt keeper Jan Brewer finally admitted she was wrong about those mythical headless bodies. And it only took her two whole months to quit dodging and 'fess up. I'm seriously wondering whether she watched Olbermann on Thursday when American Prospect Magazine's Paul Waldmann said:

And, you know, the politically smart thing to do when you make a mistake like that, is to say, you know what, I was mistaken. I was wrong. And then everybody will move on.

Maybe she took Waldmann's advice. Could it be? After all, nothing anyone else has said on the subject made her budge. If so, nice job Waldmann. You've made Brewer more electable. Next time, please suggest the "politically smart thing to do" would be for her to run naked down the Vegas strip screaming "Allahu Akbar" while munching on a live fetus.

God Hates Mace

Fred Phelps has a formula: 1) Find a disaster with a death toll 2) attribute said disaster to God and 3) picket funerals of victims holding up their trademark multi-colored (and ironically gay-looking) signs.

I've been waiting for years for someone to take a pop at these wackjobs. But I guess they're just too comically obnoxious to enrage anyone. Then suddenly, after years of begging for it, one guy finally snaps and attacks a Westboro picket:

George Vogel was arrested yesterday after he drove by the protest in his pickup truck and "sprayed a large amount of mace into the air from an industrial-sized container."

Aw shucks... you go to Nebraska to yell abuse at a dead marine's funeral and someone maces you? Shame.

Haley Barbour Rewriting History

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour or someone similar...

Haley 'Boss Hog' Barbour is trying to rewrite history and present himself as part of the generation who brought about civil rights:

"The people who led the change of parties in the South ... was my generation. My generation who went to integrated schools. I went to integrated college -- never thought twice about it."

Let me call bullsh*t on speed dial. Who the f*ck does Barbour think he's kidding? Everyone knows the timeline:

1) Civil rights act passes under Democrat LBJ
2) Solidly Democrat white southern racists get mad
3) Republicans welcome them with open arms
4) Republicans play to the angry white vote ever since

Republicans capitalized on racism: it's what they called "The Southern Strategy", it's what they call their base. So for Barbour to try and present himself as some kind of color-blind proto hippie floating round segregated Mississippi in a dashiki is as ridiculous as it is f*cking loathsome. Barbour, like most Republicans, owes his entire career to racism, bitterness and resentment. His party sucks this stuff up for nourishment.

Snowbilly's Mayoral Ambitions Thwarted

Public Policy Polling has announced Wasilla mayoral candidate Levi Johnston is "the most unpopular person PPP has polled in any state." The previous record-holder was John Edwards. PPP say:

Edwards' 15/72 favorability on our January North Carolina poll had set the initial record for futility but Johnston matches the 72% unfavorable number while only 6% of Alaskans see him in a positive light.

We Don't Need Your Stinkin' Collective Good...

Tea Party tax protesters: Don't tread on me... I prefer you sh*t on me instead.

I'll say again that it's hard for regular people to understand the whole 'cut taxes for the rich' deal because most of us aren't rich and don't know anyone who is. So, instead, we get the mushroom treatment and have to rely on TV pundits and GOP propagandists to keep us in the dark and feed us bullsh*t. According to them, rich folks hate paying taxes and shouldn't have to. According to them, we proles should feel guilty for hitting up on the wealthy to educate our snot-nosed kids and provide cops to keep us from killing each other. Just because we're too lazy or dumb to get rich, why should they have to pay taxes to help us?

Thanks to the Republicans and those 'moderate' Dems in red districts who play along, we can't even have rational discussions about wealth and social responsibility any more. We, the middle class, are supposed to just tip our hats to our betters, work our fat asses off and let the rich keep all the money... just like in that good ol' fashioned institutionalized class system we were supposed to have left behind in the 18th century. (American Dream... yay!)

According to conservatives, we should not expect the rich to "redistribute" wealth and be more active participants in the civilized, prosperous society we aspire to be. That's just rude and somehow un-American. Like the gods on Mount Olympus, the rich and their money are to be left undisturbed... high above and beyond the petty travails of us mere mortals. They're like the the rich overclass book-ending the abandoned, welfare-dependent underclass. And we're the perpetually screwed middle class picking up the endless slack in the middle.

But in spite of all that, you can still glimpse the real world that exists beyond the Reaganite socio-economic fantasy. Sometimes you get to hear the unfiltered opinions of rich folks themselves like Abigail Disney, Walt's rich-as-f*ck granddaughter, who has this to say about taxes:

One thing I do know is this: In a far stricter tax environment, my grandfather still managed to accumulate and pass on ample funds to make three subsequent generations very comfortable indeed. And as an inheritor I am here to tell you, the estate tax is not as much of a bogeyman as you've been led to believe.

Disney also talks about how the tax system "incentivizes people like me to do good with our wealth" through charity donations and investments in non-profits that help stimulate the economy and provide jobs. This is obviously more constructive than just shoveling untaxed income into banks and sitting on it. She then goes on to talk about countries that really are living the small government, low tax dream conservatives keep pushing:

I have seen the business environment in Liberia, for example, a country with no tax revenues. I suspect even my brilliant grandfather would not have been able to build a successful business there. I have been to places like Sudan and Congo and know what it looks like when there is no 911 to call, no schools and where governments are disinterested in working toward the collective good.

But there's the rub: That awkward concept of the collective good. As much as Abigail Disney makes logical sense, conservatism itself represents the perfection of belief over logic... so her words wouldn't sway a conservative 'mushroom' for a moment. For them, the 'collective good' is anathema because 1) it sounds communist to their ig'nant ear and 2) they prefer to worship alone in a church whose credo is "I got mine, f*ck you".

A conservative doesn't even believe in society, the embodiment of the collective, anyway (see Reagan's sensei Margaret Thatcher). Conservatives are happy instead to take their own futures, their own kids' futures, and offer them in willing sacrifice to the rich on Mount Olympus... So how could they buy into a concept like the collective good that entails actually giving a sh*t about you or your kids? Nope. No sale.

But conservatives aren't like this the world over. For all the dumb whooping and hollering about 'socialist' Europe, at least Europeans - even most conservatives - understand the socilist-y notion of the collective good and how it's inextricably connected with the conservative-y notion of individual self interest. That's why Europeans get to work fewer hours, get paid more and enjoy the kind of healthcare, education and employee rights that America's peasantry wouldn't dare to dream of.

Instead, we seem to believe there's a uniquely American third way to prosperity - some nebulous synthesis of Reaganism, the "American Dream" and unrestrained greed that'll work for us. But it can't because it's BS. Historical examples of other societies from - Mesopotamia forward - demonstrate there are only two choices: either build a prosperous society around the concept of the collective good or become a failed society that says "f*ck the collective good" and lets poverty prevail for all but a tiny minority. There is no third way. There is no precedent for a society that somehow prospers by dead-ending wealth. There has never been a civilization even close to the American conservative ideal that ever made it to the majors.

I don't know how you'd change American minds. But I'd say asking more rich people like Disney what they think about taxes - instead of just believing the words conservatives put in their mouths - would be a great start. I'd say we should start looking at the idea of the collective good in a positive light... not just poke at it with suspicion as if it's something socialistic and foreign like a soccer ball. Hell, we could still be America and believe in the collective good. We wouldn't have to go full Sweden.

Welcome To Bizarro World

Ever get the feeling the Earth got hit by a retard meteor and nothing makes sense anymore? AP on the Bush tax cuts:

There is a disparity developing among the more moderate Democrats. It would seem that they are making a strike against those in their party that would end the cuts for the rich.

By what Bizarro World stretch can it be considered 'moderate' to pile $4 trillion on the national debt just to keep tax cuts for rich people who need them like a hole in the head? The correct term in this context would not be 'moderate', it would be 't*ts-out insane'.

Another example of Bizarro world vocabulary from Reuters:

A fiscally conservative Democrat who chairs the U.S. Senate's budget committee on Wednesday said he supports extending all of the tax cuts that expire this year, including for the wealthy.

Again, the correct term here would not be 'fiscally conservative' it would be 'fiscally driving the bus into a brick wall at 120 mph'. I swear by Saint Palin, we really do have a lamestream media...

Blast From The Past

Roosevelt astride Moose Force One... future presidents would be grateful for the invention of the 747.

I'm guessing Hannity, Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, etc., will skip marking this centenary. One hundred years ago today, Theodore Roosevelt delivered "the most radical speech ever given by an ex-President":

We need, Roosevelt told a massive assembly of 30,000 listeners, to “destroy privilege.” Ruin for our democracy, he warned, will be “inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few.”

Those listeners — in Osawatomie, Kansas — roared their approval. Back East, apologists for grand fortune would be aghast. Editorial writers would label Roosevelt “frankly socialistic,” even “anarchistic.”

Like... wow. Would TR and today's Republicans have anything at all in common except a shared dislike for Mexicans?

Ugly Americans

Cheerleaders perform during the FIBA Basketball World Championship game between the U.S. and Iran in Istanbul on Wednesday.

Those good 'Merikun folks at Jihad Watch/Islamophobia central are mad:

USA defeated Iran in basketball today, which comes as a surprise to no one. What may raise a few eyebrows: team dancers were forced to wear long pants in a "nod to Muslim law."

I consider my eye brows well and truly un-raised. Dressing to conform with local standards is just good manners and everyone's been doing it forever. So is it now considered wrong for Americans to be polite everywhere? Or just in Muslim countries?

I wonder how these ignorant tw*ts would react to, say, Kenyan Maasai women strolling round Kansas with their tatas out? Would they admire their insistence on not bowing to our cultural mores?

Bring Back Huey Long

The Great Huey Long: His fist ever pounding the invisible hand of the market's giant invisible balls...

Let me preface: I know I could be the poster boy for what conservatives see in their minds whenever they pinch their noses and use the word 'progressive'. I'm an unreconstructed hater of inequality who's not ashamed to list Huey Long as a personal hero. Hell, I'd even say Marx and Engels were dead-on in their analysis of the class system as rigged to benefit the 'bourgeoisie' and screw over everyone else... So a story that makes corporate CEOs look like c*nts? Big whoopty doo. Just more liberal grist:

A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies... Each of the 50 companies examined in the report laid off at least 3,000 workers between November 2008 and April 2010.

Those CEOs include HP’s [Mark] Hurd, who slashed 6,400 jobs in 2009 — a year when his compensation amounted to $24.2 million.

Hurd made headlines last month when he suddenly resigned after an investigation into a sexual harassment claim against him found he had falsified expense reports related to meetings with a female contractor. Despite the findings, he walked away with a severance package that reportedly could be worth more than $40 million.

It's very easy for me to get angry about this story because I'm not one of those 50 CEOs. But how could anyone else in their right mind not get angry? How could a conservative process this information without wanting to push people like Mark Hurd ass-first into an industrial meat grinder? You'd need an almost Zen-like capacity to transcend anger. But that's not it... As a 'progressive' at the sharp end of conservative opprobrium, I know only too well that the kind of people who'd be cool with this aren't good at anger management.

So this is not even a political question, it's more psychological... hell, it might be anthro-f*cking-pological: What makes conservatives OK with this???

Random Picture of The Day Too

Bad parenting skills or awesome parenting skills? This photo could just as easily show a mom spinning toddlers like Bruce Lee's nunchucks to entertain travelers at the airport. So I'm voting awesome. (Via the mighty Fail Blog of course...)

Impossible To Like

"You betcha..!" (Palin and her trademark "I said not in my eyes, Todd" look.)

Just been watching Michael Joseph Gross on Morning Joe talking about his Vanity Fair profile on Sarah Palin. Enlightening stuff.

Gross had explored the dark side of Mooselini yesterday detailing things like her fights with Todd, her Mafiosa-like appetite for revenge, and how she blew through thousands of dollars of Grandpa McCain's campaign money buying fancy underpants. Even as a Palin hater, I thought the article was kinda lame as it just seemed to dig up dirt to make her look more petty and conniving. As the wingnut commenters said, just another "hit piece", a "terrible, biased article". Or just plain redundant depending on your point of view.

But...

It should make those Palinistas who leaped to defend her pause when Gross says he had intended to write a sympathetic article but changed his mind the more he learned about her. Gross told Morning Joe that he'd identified with Palin as a fellow "small-town Christian" and used to think she'd got a bum rap from the smartypants media. But that was then... now he says "the worst stuff isn't even in there".

So discount the "Palin behaving badly" liberal catnip. The real takeaway from Gross' article should be that this wholesome, small-town hero is a complete f*cking bitch who's literally impossible to like once you know her. Even for people like Gross who profess to having been "sympathetic."

Random Picture of The Day

Good news: Indonesia's famous smoking baby has quit. At one point, he was on two-packs a day.

Rise Of The Indy ISP?

I read a lot about Net neutrality... some of which I understand. The basic scenario seems to be that the megacorps like AT&T want to artificially slow down customer connections, then charge more money to ease off the brakes. As usual in America, it's all about corporations sh*tting on customers by dreaming up new ways of selling the same old product for more and more money.

But there is hope. Ars Technica is talking about Sonic.net, a California internet service provider who's following the dirty, socialist European model instead. They provide unlimited connection speeds as fast as the existing phone wires will allow and promise they won't extort customers with faster connections (or more accurately, less slow connections) for bigger bucks. More power to them guys.

Give That Man A Nobel Prize...

Food scientists told him it couldn't be done, but after much experimenting Texas chef Mark Zable proved them wrong and invented deep-fried beer... Zable's previous creations include chocolate-covered strawberry waffle balls and jalapeno corndog shrimp.

Tagged Porn For Extra Google...

Donny Pauling: ex-porn church guy.

Like all people, male or female, I guess I have an ambivalent attitude to porn. My civilized brain tells me it's wrong and nasty... My civilized brain tells me it's just prurient entertainment for bored guys who should really be doing something more productive with evolution's gift of the opposable thumb. But my non-civilized brain? Psst... wanna see two strangers f*cking? Yes. Wanna see five strangers f*cking? Hell, yes!

But there's an interview with ex-Porn producer Donny Pauling that made me uneasy. Pauling is a porn party pooper (not in a literal, niche way) who makes you wonder if checking out porn is really more like checking out wrecks on the highway and getting a boner:

Porn's not the glamorous fantasy most people get in their heads. The final cut never shows in the credits declarations such as, "This girl was curled up in a ball between takes, sucking her thumb in the corner because her mind is so blown by the scene you just witnessed" or "this model had to undergo surgery to repair the damage done to her body by the scene you just witnessed" or "this model had to do take after take to get the scene right... it took awhile before we could get her to convincingly look as if she was enjoying this, and she knew she wouldn't be paid if we couldn't get usable content".

Pauling goes on to describe how herpes flare-ups, genital warts and other signs of STDs are routinely edited out of movies. He says he was also careful to edit out women 'performers' who'd cry during scenes:

While a small percentage of the population might find that appealing, I didn't want to put out that sort of work.

I know this feels uncomfortably close to antediluvian notions of women as perpetual victims. I know it clashes with the current stereotype of the well-paid, empowered porn 'actress' lording it over dudes. But what the hell? I'm beginning to wonder if this might just be a carefully constructed myth to make exploitation and whore-mongering seem more palatable. That way, those who profit from it (to the tune of $13 billion a year in the US) don't look quite so disgusting themselves. Say it ain't so!

Glenn Beck: Nazi-Sympathizer Sympathizer

Is it just me, or is Glenn Beck starting to remind you of Tom Hanks' creepy neighbors on The 'Burbs?

Oh them 'baggers love them some Hitler comparisons. But maybe not this one...

Becky's long praised Elizabeth Dilling, author of the 1934 anti-communist book "The Red Network", calling her one of the "people who were doing what we're doing now."

With almost painful predictability, it also turned out that Dilling was a leading Nazi sympathizer who spoke at American Nazi rallies, praised Hitler and referred to Eisenhower as "Ike The Kike". Dilling is now revered by white supremacists and neonazis for her "fearless" work against Jewish people.

It's hard to conclude that even Becky could have been this innocently stupid. Could anyone read up on Dilling and just ignore several hundred eye-popping occurrences of words like "Nazi", "antisemite" and "aryan"? Could anyone still push her as an anti-Communist hero and hope to gloss over the awkward fact that she was also a Nazi? Seems unlikely. But whether Glenn Beck has become spokesman for both the Tea Party and the American Nazi Party by accident or design is largely immaterial. Simon Maloy at Media Matters summed up the upshot back in June:

This isn't just beyond the pale -- it's probably the most significant major-media endorsement of American fascist ideology since the 1930s.

At this point it may become necessary to pinch yourself and remember that it's 2010 - not 1934 - and that we were supposed to be long done with this sh*t. Consider, for example, how many of Becky's supporters must have had family members who gave their lives fighting Hitler as part of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation". Or how many more must be aware of the holocaust and the real, non-Obama, Nazis through watching "Schindler's List" or at least "Hogan's Heroes"... So the fact that a modern-day Nazi apologist like Becky gets to be a prominent figure in our mainstream media is quite literally a mind f*ck. Not so much 'pretzel logic' as 'pretzel reality' with a side of very stale sauerkraut.

Random Picture of The Day

Telling it like it is, kids edition. (via Bloodrobots)

Quote Of The Day

Not wishing to push the c*ntservative/Nazi intersect too much... but I couldn't help thinking Erick Erickson's post today read like a desperate exhortation to Red Staters from an embattled Fuhrerbunker:

Conservatives Have Won Nothing. You Read It Right. NOTHING. It has come to this, I’m afraid. We need to keep our perspective. Conservatives have won nothing. Nothing. Ken Buck you say? Sharron Angle? Mike Lee? Pat Toomey? Marco Rubio? Joe Miller? Rand Paul? Nikki Haley? Here, pay attention: they are all candidates!

Thank you Erick for pointing out the obvious (and making me wish Fraktur Bold was available as a Blogger font)... It shouldn't be considered so much of a victory when Republicans win Republican primaries. Elections, on the other hand, can be a bit trickier.

Don't Mess With Texas. We Have That Covered Already...

This is what politics looks like in Texas - Rick Perry spokesman Mark Miner calls a press conference.

A while back, Texas decided to offer same-sex couples the chance to get divorced. Then the logical paradox hit them and they've now quit offering annulments for marriages that don't actually exist in the first place under state law:

"Texas law, as embodied in our constitution and statutes, requires that a valid marriage must be a union of one man and one woman, and only when a union comprises one man and one woman can there be a divorce under Texas law."

Then of course, there was that 'doh!' moment last year when Texas Republicans were so hasty to craft laws banning gay marriage in advance that they accidentally banned all marriages by forgetting to specify the same sex part. Jobs? Infrastructure? Education? Nope. This is the dumb sh*t red state lawmakers prefer to waste time and money on.

If you ever wondered what would happen if you went away and left your 8-year-old in charge of the house, just take a look at what goes on in Austin. It's pretty much the same scenario. For all his 'fiscal responsibility' posing, Governor Rick Perry is currently facing an $18 billion budget shortfall (i.e., nearly the same as California for a state with only two-thirds the population). We've got activist loons dictating school text book content to make slavery more appealing and Thomas Jefferson less important. And what's the best the Dems can offer in response? A guy in a chicken suit calling out Perry for being "too chicken" to debate.

Yup. It would be hard to find a way to mess with Texas that our wise elders aren't already doing.