Maybe George Allen should just stay away from cameras

No macaca moments in this one, and there IS something kind of cool about seeing a politician (or a would-be one) show his true colors after he thinks the camera has been turned off. But if this goes viral, George Allen's attempted comeback could find itself in trouble:



Every time I see George Allen, I think of Bob Roberts:

Why the right should be pointed to and laughed at -- in one sentence.

In a Pew survey last spring, 75 percent of staunch conservatives, 63 percent of libertarians, and 55 percent of so-called Main Street Republicans said there was no solid evidence of global warming.

NOW can we stop taking any of them seriously?

((source)

Only America would have a holiday the point of which is gluttony...

...followed by an orgy of consumerism. Is there anything more American than that?

Because Mr. Brilliant has no family and I have none living close by, Thanksgiving is a quiet affair here at Casa la Brilliant. When Mr. B's father was alive, I once did a big Thanksgiving dinner for the three of us, with fresh fruit, handmade ravioli with vodka sauce (neither of them handmade by me), turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and something for dessert that I don't remember. Then we started just going out to eat on Thanksgiving.

I grew up with the doctrine that eating out on Thanksgiving is depressing, so my mother made a turkey every year, or else we went to the home of one of her friends. But in recent years, I've discovered the pleasure of letting someone you don't know do the cooking. The last few years we've gone to the Thanksgiving Brunch at the Short Hills Hilton. This is pricey, but they do a lovely buffet spread (which Mr. B. likes for its variety) with unlimited champagne or mimosas. If you're a big eater, you can start at the omelet station for eggs, bacon, and sausage and then move on to trips for appetizers and hot food. If you're more like me and always find today to be a minefield, you case the joint first looking for what's OK to eat and then take a little of the things that looks good and also look like they won't have you in the cardiac ward of St. Barnabas on the way home. They do some lovely salads, and have great smoked whitefish, and then I tend to lean towards things like ale-braised shortribs and orichiette with broccoli rabe and sausage and maple-glazed carrots. After 56 Thanksgivings and the advent of Trader Joe's sliced turkey and frozen mashed potato discs making it possible for even non-cooks like Mr. B. to prepare a turkey dinner any night of the week, the whole "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner seems kind of ho-hum.

For me, the worst part of Thanksgiving is the pitying looks that colleagues give you when you say that it's just going to be dinner for two on Thanksgiving. It makes me understand in a far lesser degree what my colleague who recently underwent treatmet for breast cancer described as "That Look". If I had family close by, I'd be there for Thanksgiving. But I don't, and Mr. B. doesn't, and sucking down unlimited champagne and eating pears poached in port wine with goat cheese is a pretty damn pleasant alternative. It's my one concession to consumerism over the Thanksgiving weekend, since I have zero intention of going anywhere near a store this weekend, unless it's to Trader Joe's to buy that big tray of sliced turkey breast and stuffing just so we can say we have turkey leftovers to eat while we watch the increasingly bad New York football teams play.

This year in Blogtopia (™ Skippy), we are highly amused at Pat Robertson's bafflement about whether mac and cheese is "a black thing":



I realize that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about the Potatoes Mashed and Sweet, but for my money, if you're going to eat a high-fat, high-glycemic index food on Thanksgiving, which is all about comfort food, why NOT macaroni and cheese?

I realize that to admit a fondness for macaroni and cheese at my advanced age is akin to confessing to still liking Smarties (which I do) when you are above the age of ten, but we all have guilty pleasures, and that one is mine. And I'm not alone.

You can pretend you aren't making comfort food by coming up with recipes like Rustic Fried Sage and Chicken Apple Sausage Mac n Cheese with Autumn Chutney, and Wild Mushroom and Grana Padano Macaroni and Cheese, but we know the truth.

I mean seriously. Grana Padano mac 'n' cheese? "Autumn chutney"?

I've made passable mac 'n' cheese using cheddar, but it can be difficult to get the sauce consistency just right. Cheddar mac can be a bit grainy. Ken Johnson of Amarillo Grilling says his secret is French butter, though I suspect that the four kinds of cheese he uses for his amazing rendition of this dish has something to do with it, because his macaroni and cheese leaves no pools of separated grease on your plate, but is just forkfuls of rich, creamy, cheesy, crunchy heaven.

Here are some other recipes that look worth trying if you're inclined towards an early death because there won't be any Social Security by the time you hit age 66:

Are you going to argue with Paula Deen's Creamy Macaroni and Cheese? I'm not.

Likewise for Smack Yo' Mama Macaroni and Cheese.

Soul Food Macaroni and Chees uses the entire cheese counter at Fairway, but it does have Velveeta in it, so i'll forgive that something called Soul Food Macaroni and Cheese is on a web site called Epicurious.

If you like a little heat with your mac, try this recipe from Lynne's Country Kitchen (even if "Lynne's Country Kitchen" sounds like it should be featured in the next Blues Brothers movie: Blues Brothers 2012: Whatever DID Happen To Jonny Lang Anyway?).

Admit it. You now want macaroni and cheese today.

Have a great day, everyone. And go the fuck to sleep tonight. The tchotchkes will still be in the stores tomorrow.

Brothers of Different Mothers

Separated at Birth? You decide.

Newt Gingrich:




Damon Wayans as "Oswald Bates" from In Living Color:

This is the problem, right here

"America's best reality show" -- that's the subheading of Newsweek's cover story this week about the race for the Republican presidential nomination. As Chris Christie continues his will-he-or-won't-he fan dance and Michele Bachmann continues to spout whatever batshit crazy pops into her head and the right wing pundit/money axis works frantically to dismantle the Perry Monster that they themselves created, it's perhaps tempting to write about this contest the way you would musings about whether Coach or Ozzy will be able to stay in the game, and whether the producers will be able to keep a lid on the clearly psychopathic Brandon Hantz before he rapes and machete-murders the Evil Temptress Mikaylah for having the audacity to wear a bikini in the south Pacific and make his Christian wee-wee tingle.

But this is what it's become, hasn't it? In a contest that's seen one freak after another throw a hat into the ring, it's tempting to liken them to some of the worst characters on reality television. The problem with so-called "serious journalists" treating it that way (and it's questionable whether anyone writing for the Daily Beastified Newsweek can still be considered a serious journalist) is that in the sheer freakshowiness of it all, it's easy to forget that the office being sought is that of the most powerful leader in the world -- a leader of a country and a world that is currently dealing with huge problems with which it requires both mind and guts to deal. When you turn this into Survivor: Reagan Library or Real Rich Guys of the Texas Oilfields or D.C. Idol, it's all to easy for some nitwit to end up with a job that's confounded far greater men than any of these lunatics currently running on the GOP side. Reality TV is for media whores. When we put the fate of the nation into people like this, we accelerate our already alarmingly fast pace down to oblivion.

Everything that's wrong with American corporations, right here

We have three HP computers -- a laptop, a "tablet PC" with a swivel screen that pre-dates the iPad, and a kickass desktop that we bought a few months ago. HP makes nice machines, and we switched to that brand when Dell quality started to go downhill a few years ago.

I don't know if we'll be buying any moe HPs, though, because the people who run the company and its board of directors are among the biggest bunch of nincompoops ever to disgrace a boardroom:

Hewlett-Packard Co named former eBay Inc Chief Executive Meg Whitman its president and CEO, replacing the harshly criticized Leo Apotheker in a bid to restore investor confidence in the iconic Silicon Valley company.

The decision was made without a formal CEO search and piled renewed criticism on the board, which investors have blamed -- at least in part -- for the storied company's recent missteps.

Chairman Ray Lane, who becomes Executive Chairman with a mandate to help Whitman run a sprawling $120 billion empire with over 300,000 employees, tried to assure disillusioned investors by saying HP is making a fresh start with a new CEO and -- crucially -- a virtually revamped board of directors.

Lane vowed that the days of board dysfunction -- the wire-tapping scandal, the firing of Mark Hurd after a sexual harassment probe, and the hiring of Apotheker -- were over.

The board works well together, he said.

"It's amazing how they challenge the management team, challenge each other," Lane said in an interview. "They are smart, they bring great insight to the table and I think we make good decisions."

Analysts had speculated that Apotheker's departure might presage a backtracking on major decisions taken during his 11-month term and announced -- back to back in haphazard fashion -- on August 18. But HP reassured investors on a conference call the board will not reverse course.

"I don't think we ought to be going back in history. This board did not select Leo. This is not the board that was around for pretexting," Lane said, referring to the scandal in which HP hired investigators who impersonated its board members and journalists to obtain their phone records.

"This is not the board that fired Mark Hurd," he noted. "We are embarrassed about the communications of decisions that could have been done much better. But we carefully considered the decisions made. It is our operating execution that needs to improve."

Whitman, an Internet retail expert with a mixed track record, is not an obvious choice to revive HP, analysts said. The failed California gubernatorial candidate transformed eBay from a few dozen employees in 1998 into a global Internet retail powerhouse, but the final years of her reign were marked by sputtering growth, intensifying Wall Street criticism and a string of unwise acquisitions, including of Skype.

She has been an HP director about eight months. While her elevation surprised many with its seeming hastiness -- for the second time, internal candidates such as enterprise chief David Donatelli were passed over -- Apotheker's ejection had been a matter of time.

He becomes the third straight HP CEO shown the door.

Apotheker certainly seems to be a moron, what with his recent public musings that HP might sell off its personal computer business. But Meg Whitman, who received praise and accolades from turning eBay from a smallish business where you could buy and sell your stuff to other people who would actually pay you if you were selling, and send the goods if you were buying, into a massive free-for-all, where people can hijack your user ID and there is no way that you have to close the account if you owe them fifty cents in old seller fees and no way to pay the fifty cents in seller fees because they need a credit card to do it for all that they own PayPal and they will not accept a payment of less than a dollar, and then if you make a payment of a dollar they won't close your account because you have a credit balance, plans to continue Apotheker's strategies, perhaps because she doesn't know what the hell she's doing either. (Yes, this is a run-on sentence, and yes, this is a true story, and yes, this is my experience with eBay.) What did the Board do, draw straws among themselves to see who would be the new CEO?

This hasty, bonehead move has does not impress the people who actually know something about technology -- not Wall Street analysts who worship before the altar of star power, but in the tech circles, about how a once-great company is being run.

If the Board had wanted to use the Crony Method to choose a new CEO, here are some of their other members: Netscape founder and Mosaic inventor Marc Andreesen; former Verizon president Larry Babbio; and current HP Chairman and former Oracle president Ray Lane.

Looks like our next notebook PC will be a Mac.

I wonder how those twisty Teabagger brains are going to manage this one

In recent years we've seen the political climate on the right fully embrace the Idiocy Is Great doctrine of political discourse. As Barack Obama, the thoughtful, measured former Harvard Law Review editor brought his cool, cerebral, measured, thoughtfulness to the White House, it infuriated those whose crania resemble that of the lunkhead in the much-maligned Planet Fitness commercials who repeats over and over again, "I lift things up and put them down." (By the way, this anti-PF rant is pretty hilarious with its complaints about judgmentalism of bodybuilders while it talks judgmentally about those who aren't, but the whole Planet Fitness foofarah is a topic for another day.)

The Militant Idiocy Movement reached its apex with the rise of Sarah Palin, a woman so incurious and so celebratory of willful ignorance that she can't even string together a coherent sentence. But the combination of her schoolmarm-as-dominatrix looks and reassurance of those who are gray matter-challenged that being stupid is infinitely superior to things like, well, ideas, made her the darling of the right -- at least for a while.

The stupidity-as-virtue doctrine still has a stranglehold on the right, and we see it everywhere, from Palin to Louie Gohmert to Virginia Foxx to the Doublemint Twins of stupid, the Kings Peter and Steve, and so on and so on.

Enter Newt Gingrich.

Say what you will about the Lizard King, he's many things but he's not stupid. He's as crooked as the day is long and he's elevated hypocrisy to an art form, but he's not stupid. His little lizard brain is always cooking up something that can be called "ideas" (if you want to call them that), if only because the rest of his party is obsessed with birth certificates and terror babies and Scary Brown People and evil sluts who won't keep their legs closed and must be punished with the curse of motherhood, which is also what they profess to worship above all else. His "ideas" may seem "intellectual" by comparison to, say, John Boehner, but they're mostly about getting him laid or getting more money into his own pockets. But in the Republican Party, that's enough.

And like the dutiful little puppets they are, the Usual Suspects in the punditocracy are already dusting off their Newt Gingrich Is An Intellectual talking points from those halcyon pre-1994 days.

So what will the teabaggers, who thought they'd get to drink beer with George Bush and that they'd get to fuck Sarah Palin, make of a guy who for all that he's greedy and hypocritical, likes to sell himself as an ideas guy? I mean, on the right, is there anything that shows an ability to think out of the box than to excuse his checkered marital history by saying that he was Fucking for Patriotism? Will they embrace the part of him that taps into their Inner Crazy, or will the fact that he can speak coherently make them suspicious of him?

We will soon see.

Chuck Schumer needs to just STFU

Who needs Republican fearmongering when you have a grandstanding moron like Chuck "Where's the Camera?" Schumer:

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system.

Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide.

"Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the New York Democrat said at a news conference.

U.S. officials last week said evidence found after the raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan indicated the al Qaeda leader or his associates had engaged in discussions or planning for a possible attack on a train inside the United States on September 11, 2011.

Schumer, citing U.S. intelligence analysts, said attacks were also considered on Christmas and New Year's Day and following the president's State of the Union address.

He called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to expand the Secure Flight monitoring program, which cross-checks air travelers with the terror watch list in an attempt to prevent anyone on the "no-fly list" from boarding, for use on Amtrak.

Such a procedure would create an Amtrak "no-ride list" to keep suspected terrorists off the U.S. rail system, he said.

What a fucking moron. Hasn't he ever seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

Now, in fairness, Paul Newman and Robert Redford DID get on that train, not just put a bunch of dynamite on the tracks. But do you think a "no-ride" list would have stopped that train robbery? Hardly. And it wouldn't stop a terrorist from putting a piece of C4 explosive on a train track either. So what purpose exactly does Chuckie Cheese think a "no-ride list" would serve?

It's enough to drive a person mad. I have family in North Carolina, and I'm running out of ways to get there. I don't like to do a 10-hour drive alone in a car with eighty thousand miles on it. I don't like the idea of flying in a tin box piloted by someone who gets paid less than an assistant manager at Abercrombie & Fitch. Now if Chuck Schumer has his way we'll go through the same pointless bullshit at Penn Station that we do at the airports. So what's left? Greyhound buses?

And yet, I'm sure there are people out there, the same frothing morons out in God's country who have lived the last ten years terrified that Muslim terrorists are going to blow up the local Hardee's while they're in there enjoying a Monster Thickburger and a caramel crunch hand-scooped ice cream shake, who are going to be shown on the evening news saying, "Well, if it makes us safer....".

So what's next? Backscatter scans in order to pick up a bottle of White Citrus lotion at Bath and Body Works at the mall? Checkpoints at state borders on highways? Strip searches in order to pick up a venti skim vanilla latte at Starbucks at the Molly Pitcher Service Area? How far are we going to take this? And for God's sake, why is a fucking Democrat advocating this?

What Glenn Greenwald said:

So Al Qaeda breathes the word "trains" and Schumer jumps and demands the creation of a massive, expensive and oppressive new Security State program to keep thousands and thousands of people off trains.  The "no-fly" list has been nothing short of a Kafkaesque disaster: with thousands of people secretly placed on it without any explanation or real recourse, oftentimes causing them to be stranded in faraway places and unable to return home.

To replicate that for trains -- all because some documents mentioned them among thousands of other ideas Al Qaeda has undoubtedly considered over the years -- is hysteria and ludicrous over-reaction of the highest order. Trains can obviously be attacked without boarding them (indeed, these documents apparently discussed tampering with the rails, which wouldn't require boarding the trains at all). And if there's a "no-ride" list for Amtrak, why not for subways and buses, too? If Al Qaeda is found to have discussed targeting restaurants, will we have a no-eat list? If Al Qaeda is found to have discussed targeting large intersections or landmarks, will we have a no-walk list? How about a no-shop list in response to the targeting of malls?

But this, more or less, encapsulates the U.S. response to Terrorism since 9/11: the minute Al Qaeda utters a peep about anything, the political class collectively jumps to restrict our freedoms, empower the Government, and bankrupt ourselves in self-destructive pursuit of the ultimate illusion: Absolute Security. Al Qaeda has caused us to do more harm to ourselves than it could have ever dreamed of imposing on its own. And even in death, Osama bin Laden continues to serve as the pretext for all of this.

Word.

Where do you even START trying to counteract this level of Teh Stoopid?

Via Randi:

=sound of forehead hitting desk=

No idiocy is too idiotic for these women to use to bash the Obamas

I've never had children, but I do know enough about the care and feeding of infants to know that at least in this country, when you have a baby, the choice is not between breastfeeding and a carton from Tuscan Farms, it's between breast milk and infant formula.

Infant formula is not cow's milk. It is not just like Ensure. It's designed to mimic breast milk in terms of nutrition and composition. To the extent that cow's milk is used in non-soy-based baby formula, it's the whey from the milk that's used. Now, I'm not here to debate the relative merits of breast milk and formula. My feeling is that if you have this free source of damn near perfect nutrition, why not use it, unless there's a compelling reason not to. But to each her own. Whatever works.

The National Institutes of Health recommendation for consumption of dairy products in infants under one year is:

# None for infants 0-3 months
# None for infants 4-5 months
# None for infants 6-8 months
# Small servings for infants 9-12 months

If you are giving a baby under eight months the contents of the Tuscan carton in a bottle instead of either breast milk or formula, you are not feeding that baby; instead you are spending too much time listening to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, whose hatred for Michelle Obama knows no bounds:

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is taking issue with Michelle Obama over the first lady's recent promotion of breast-feeding.

Speaking to conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday, the Minnesota Republican said Obama's efforts to promote breast-feeding and the IRS's announcement that nursing supplies that aide in the practice can be deducted from tax returns amounts to a "new definition [of] the nanny state."

"This is very consistent with where the hard left is coming from," Bachmann told Ingraham. "For them, government is the answer to every problem."

"I've given birth to five babies and I breast fed every single one of these babies," she added. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition."

The comments come on the heels of Obama's recent contention that breast-feeding can play a key role in reducing childhood obesity.

"We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child's life. And what we're learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese," Obama told a group of reporters last week, according to Politics Daily.

"Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman," Kristina Schake, a spokeswoman for Obama, later said. "We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."

It's not the first time Obama has faced ire from the right when it comes to childhood nutrition. Sarah Palin told Ingraham last fall that "the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."

What the fuck is this with these two dames, the Crazy Olympics? How is it a nanny state to allow a tax deduction for nursing supplies so that you can provide your child's caregiver with breast milk in bottles while you are at work? And as for Snowflake Snooki, here's what she said in her latest campaign (and don't kid yourself, it is a presidential campaign) on Long Island last week:

"It's no wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody you need to breast feed your babies ... the price of milk is so high!"

This is the kind of off-the-cuff moronitude that reminds me of George H.W. Bush claiming that his dog Millie was smarter than these bozos. It's what you say when you have nothing intelligent to say -- and God knows Sarah Palin has nothing intelligent to say. Because in Sarah's World of Anger, Rage and Fear, it's a mother's God-given right to feed her infant cow's milk and chocolate chip cookies if she wants to, and that mean lady in the White House isn't going to stop her, nyah, nyah, nyah.

Except that before she began exhibiting a very bad case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, she was a promoter of breastfeeding:

WHEREAS, breastfeeding is recognized as an unequalled means of providing food for infants.

WHEREAS, throughout their lives, breastfeeding can offer children protection against serious health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Breastfeeding also saves lives by reducing the incidence of life-threatening cancers in women and preventing premature death in infants.

WHEREAS, breastfeeding forms the most basic bond between mother and baby and is a foundation for lifelong health and wellness.

WHEREAS, government and community organizations have a vested interest in protecting and promoting breastfeeding as a means of preventing infant malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality.

WHEREAS, during October, organizations throughout our state will promote the importance of breastfeeding. This year, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week - October 1 through October 7 - the State of Alaska will support networks that encourage and promote breastfeeding in all communities.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the State of Alaska, do hereby proclaim October 2007 as:

Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Alaska, and encourage all residents to recognize and support the important contributions breastfeeding makes in improving the quality of life for all Alaskans.

Jesus H. Christ. The stoopid....it BURNS.

American Idiot Watch for Friday, November 19

Can we please bring back civics classes in the schools? And turn off Dancing with the Stars for five minutes?

The public sees the big picture when it comes to the changing balance of power in Washington. Fully 75% say that the Republican Party is generally regarded as doing best in this month's midterm elections.

Far fewer are familiar with the specifics relating to the GOP's victories. Fewer than half (46%) know that the Republicans will have a majority only in the House of Representatives when the new Congress convenes in January, while 38% can identify John Boehner as the incoming House speaker.

The Pew Research Center's latest News IQ Quiz, conducted Nov. 11-14 among 1,001 adults, finds a similar pattern in the public's knowledge about economics. The quiz is composed of 13 multiple-choice questions about current events.

Nearly eight-in-ten (77%) say correctly that the federal budget deficit is larger than it was in the 1990s and 64% know that in recent years the United States has bought more foreign goods than it has sold overseas. As in recent knowledge surveys, about half (53%) estimate the current unemployment rate at about 10%.

But the public continues to struggle with questions about the Troubled Asset Relief Program  known as TARP: Just 16% say, correctly, that more than half of the loans made to banks under TARP have been paid back; an identical percentage says that none has been paid back. In Pew Research's previous knowledge survey in July, just 34% knew that the TARP was enacted under the Bush administration. (See "Well Known: Twitter; Little Known: John Roberts," July 15, 2010.)

The new survey finds that an overwhelming percentage (88%) identify BP as the company that operated the oil well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. But as in the past, the public shows little awareness of international developments: 41% say that relations between India and Pakistan are generally considered to be unfriendly; 12% say relations between the two long-time rivals are friendly, 20% say they are neutral and 27% do not know.

Just 15% know that David Cameron is the prime minister of Great Britain; about as many say it is Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP. The proportion correctly identifying Cameron as the British prime minister is about the same now as it was in July (19%).

On a different subject, 26% of Americans know that Android is the name of the Google operating system for smartphones. As in past news quiz questions about technology, there is a sizable age gap in awareness of Android. Far more people younger than age 50 (37%) than those ages 50 and older (11%) correctly identify Android as the Google phone's operating system.

While 75% identify the Republicans as the party regarded as doing best in the midterms, fewer than half (46%) know that Republicans will have a majority only in the House when the new Congress convenes in January. About one-in-seven (14%) say the GOP won both the House and Senate; 8% say they won just the Senate; 5% do not think they will have a majority in either chamber; and 27% do not know.

There is broad awareness among most political and demographic groups that the Republicans did best in the midterms. But just 27% of those younger than age 30 know that Republicans captured just the House; 19% say that they won both the House and Senate while 42% do not know. By contrast, 45% of those ages 30 to 49, and majorities of those ages 50 to 64 (55%) and ages 65 and older (57%), answered this question correctly.

While 69% of college graduates know that the Republicans won only the House, fewer than half as many (31%) of those with no more than a high school education know this. And while nearly as many women (72%) as men (79%) know that the GOP is generally regarded as having done best in the elections, just 39% of women know that the Republicans won just the House, compared with 53% of men.

On the subject of government spending, many Americans (77%) are aware that the U.S. has a larger budget deficit today than in the 1990s, yet far fewer correctly answer a question about what the government spends more on: national defense, education, Medicare or interest on the national debt. Roughly equal proportions of Republicans (81%), Democrats (78%) and independents (78%) know that the federal budget deficit is larger now than in the 1990s.

Overall, 39% of the public knows that the government spends more on national defense than on education, Medicare or interest on the national debt. About one-in-four (23%) say the government spends more on interest payments and 15% say Medicare is the largest expenditure of these four alternatives. Government accounting estimates indicate that the government spends about twice as much on defense as on Medicare, and more than four times as much on defense as on interest on the debt.

More Democrats (46%) than Republicans (28%) know that the government spends more on national defense than on the other items listed. Republicans are as likely to say the government spends most on interest on the debt (29%) as on defense (28%). A plurality of independents (44%) know that the government spends most on national defense.

About six-in-ten Republicans (63%) correctly estimated the unemployment rate at about 10%, compared with 48% of Democrats. A wide partisan gap is also seen in awareness of the U.S. trade deficit: 72% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats say that the U.S. buys more good from abroad that it sells.

Republican are also  more likely to know than the GOP was perceived as winning the midterms and to know that the Republicans won a majority in the House. And while only about half of Republicans (47%) could identify John Boehner as the next House speaker, slightly fewer Democrats (38%) know this.

Republicans and Democrats each are largely unaware of how much of the TARP loans have been repaid and relatively few in both parties estimated the inflation rate at about 1%. As noted, more Democrats than Republicans know that the government spends more on national defense than on interest on the national debt, Medicare or education.

Again:

The return of fact-esque

No, not the blog (and where IS Fact-esque, anyway?)

Remember when Stephen Colbert was still on The Daily Show and did a "Mean Dean" sketch in 2004 in which he backed up his ridiculous claims about Howard Dean by saying "It's been widely reported, Jon. That makes it fact-esque"?

How about the birth of "truthiness":

Well, Michele Bachmann is repeating the right-wing echo chamber claim of Barack Obama as some kind of modern-day Hannibal with the contemporary equivalent of the thirty-seven elephants, claiming that the President's upcoming trip to India will cost taxpayers $200 million a day. How does she know this? Because it's been widely reported, as Rachel Maddow pointed out last night:

Politifact debunks. Not that it will matter to the crazies.

And THAT, Jon Stewart, is why it's disingenuous to compare even the bombast of Keith Olbermann to the right-wing echo chamber. Olbermann at least bases his opinions on decisions reached at by thought and evaluation of empirical facts. The right just pulls stuff out of its collective ass, repeats it in its echo chamber on radio and the internet, and then says it must be true because it's on the internet. Sorry, but that's NOT the same.

A new study shows that Americans are Idiots

Remember how Democrats always refuse to fight back against smears because "The American people are too smart to fall for that"?

No, they aren't. In fact, Americans are no longer capable of arriving at opinions through actual thought:

Americans have a more negative view of government today than they did a decade ago, or even a few years ago. Most say it focuses on the wrong things and lack confidence that it can solve big domestic problems; this general anti-Washington sentiment is helping to fuel a potential Republican takeover of Congress next month.

But ask people what they expect the government to do for themselves and their families, and a more complicated picture emerges.

A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare "very important." They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care.

So let's see...they like Social Security and Medicare, but they want spending cut to the bone. They want Washington to be involved in schools, but they want Washington out of their schools. They want Washington to help reduce poverty, but they don't want social programs for "Those People."

Take this woman, for example:

"I think the less the government governs us, the better we do," Norma Osuna, 48, said in a follow-up interview to the survey. A stay-at-home mother, she sees the country as going in a "socialistic" direction.

Did anyone think to ask her what her evidence was for her view that the country is going in a "socialistic" direction? Has she thought about it, or is she just parroting Glenn Beck? Do any of the journalists who talk to these people actually ask them to explain their views or how they got there?

Or how about this nitwit:

For Scottie Church, 39, of Winder, Ga., the answer is simple: "It's time to get back to basics. It's time for [the federal government] to get out of the way and let the private sector do its job."

And what, pray tell, is the private sector's job? Does Scottie Church even know? Has anyone thought to ask? If Scottie Church is talking about "capitalism", well, capitalism's job is to maximize profit. Not create jobs, maximize profit. And if maximizing profit means poisoning an entire community with toxic sludge or crude oil or benzene; if it means sending all the jobs to Asia in a never-ending chase for the most exploitable workers; if it means screwing over every man, woman and child in America, well, that's immaterial to the goals of capitalism. Capitalism is about profit, and ONLY profit. So I'd like someone to ask Scottie Church if that's what he/she means.

We are a profoundly ignorant. People don't know anything about their own religions. We know little of our own history, let alone our history in context with the rest of the world. We worship sports heroes who torture dogs, but we point at scientists and laugh. A profoundly messed-up woman like Christine O'Donnell can run on a platform of "See? I can't manage my finances either. I'm you." We had eight years of a dry drunk as president because people thought he was the guy they'd want to have a beer with -- as if that were ever going to happen. Now there are people who would vote to give the nuclear codes to an aging high school mean girl because they'd like to fuck her -- as if that's ever going to happen. Smart people are regarded with scorn as "elites." Ignorance is regarded as a virtue.

This is how an empire dies. And we are going to be around to see it.

It's official now: The GOP is the Party of Teh Crazee and Teh Stoopid

I don't know what makes me sadder...to watch an entire political party go completely off its rocker because ZOMG THERE'S A NEGRO WITH A FUNNY NAME IN THE WHITE HOUSE OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!, or because Americans are going to be stupid enough to give this bunch of babbling fools the keys to the car again in November:

A majority of Republicans believe that President Barack Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," according to a survey released on Monday.

That figure, buried at the very end of a newly released Newsweek public opinion poll, reflects the extent to which a shocking bit of smear and misinformation has managed to become nearly commonplace within the GOP tent.

(Read the full poll results here.)

A full 14 percent of Republicans said that it was "definitely true" that Obama sympathized with the fundamentalists and wanted to impose Islamic law across the globe. An additional 38 percent said that it was probably true -- bringing the total percentage of believers to 52 percent. Only 33 percent of Republicans said that the "allegation" (as Newsweek put it) was "probably not true." Seven percent said it was "definitely not true." The rest (eight percent) either didn't know the answer or didn't read the question.

The Newsweek findings add more kindling to the already-heated debate raging around the persistent rumors that Obama is a closeted Muslim (he's not). In an illustration of just how deeply news outlets have been drawn to the topic, the magazine devoted seven of its 24 questions to Muslim-themed topics, producing, in the process, a number of telling and newsworthy numbers.

Fifty-nine percent of Republicans, for instance, said they believed the president favored "the interests of Muslims over other groups of Americans," while only 34 percent of said he had been "generally even handed" in his approach. In contrast, nine percent of Democrats said Obama favored "the interests of Muslims over other groups of Americans" while 82 percent of Democrats said he had been even-handed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 45th President of the United States

Better lay in a BIG supply of Orville Redenbacher and Jack Daniels, because I am telling you right now, that starting January 20, 2013, we are going to have four-to-eight years of listening to (or reading) incoherent stuff like this:

In the past there were many great union leaders who courageously defended the rights of workers. Unions were founded for all the right reasons! They were to give working men and women the clout to negotiate fairly with their employers and to fight for decent pay and working conditions. The unions of old would often end up fighting big government on behalf of the little guy. Today’s unions seem to be big government’s most enthusiastic supporters. It’s turned into some nonsense when union bosses back the government takeover of the car industry, and the mortgage industry, and the entire health care sector. And with the help of big government they aim to push through card check legislation that some characterize as being unfair to workers, and even un-American, because of its insistence on stripping workers of their right to privacy with a secret ballot. And that’s not just me voicing concern over card check – ask current union members how comfortable they are with what some of their leaders are saying about the legislation.

To my hardworking, patriotic brothers and sisters in the labor movement: you don’t have to put up with the scare tactics and the big government agenda of the union bosses. There is a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement. It cares about the same things you and I care about: a government that doesn’t spend beyond its means, an economy focused on creating good jobs with good wages, and a leadership that is proud of America’s achievements and doesn’t go around apologizing to everyone for who we are.

My friends, that woman is an idiot. Compared to her, W. was Demosthenes.

I wonder if Chris Christie agrees with her about the virtues of unions.

(h/t)

Well, what else would one expect from a state shaped like a flaccid penis?

South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee...they have nothing on Florida where concentration of Teh Crazy is concerned:

In protest of what it calls a religion "of the devil," a nondenominational church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to host an "International Burn a Quran Day" on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Dove World Outreach Center says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Pastor Terry Jones told CNN's Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

Jones wrote a book titled "Islam is of the Devil," and the church sells coffee mugs and shirts featuring the phrase.

Muslims and many other Christians -- including some evangelicals -- are fighting the initiative.

The church launched a YouTube channel to disseminate its messages.

"I mean ask yourself, have you ever really seen a really happy Muslim? As they're on the way to Mecca? As they gather together in the mosque on the floor? Does it look like a real religion of joy?" Jones asks in one of his YouTube posts.

"No, to me it looks like a religion of the devil."

Religion of JOY? This fuckwit is calling his flavor of Christianity a "religion of JOY"? His is a religion which says that if you don't believe EXACTLY AS HE DOES, a man in the sky is going to cast you into a fiery pit for all eternity. Now perhaps Pastor Terry Jones, who presumably is not THIS Terry Jones:

...gets his rocks off by imagining heathen burning in a fiery pit. With this kind of wackadoo, you never know. But I'll tell you this much -- Christians like this are ALMOST enough to make me put on a hijab myself.

Snooki is a rocket scientist compared to Iowa Republicans

At least Snooki is good for derision, and she's a girl who knows her limitations. But Iowa Republicans participate in government. Here is the Iowa legislature in finely-honed Emily Litella mode:

If there is an aspect of the human condition that is unaddressed by the platform of the Republican Party of Iowa, adopted last month at the state convention in Des Moines, you’d have to look awfully hard to find it. Its 387 enumerated planks and principles range widely over politics, culture, and economics, from sweeping statements of belief (“America is good”) to the fine nuances of agricultural policy (“We support the definition of manure as natural fertilizer”) and touching on the mythical “North American Union” (against) and the gold standard (for). Even so, it’s a little startling to come upon section 7.19, which calls for “the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th amendment in today’s Constitution.” Since the existing 13th Amendment bans slavery, while the “original” one was about something else entirely, the wording might give the impression that Iowa Republicans wish to reverse emancipation, which is not at all the case, according to state GOP Communications Director Danielle Plogmann. Like many aspects of Republican politics this year, it’s actually about embarrassing President Obama. But you have to wonder whether the delegates knew what they were getting into. In making common cause with “Thirteenthers,” as those who seek to restore the long-lost amendment are known, the party has ventured beyond the far fringes of conspiracy theory, into a mysterious lost land without lawyers or taxes. Maybe they knew what they were doing after all.


Return with us now to the tumultuous years leading up to the War of 1812, when fear of “foreign influence”—by England or France, depending on whether you were a Republican or Federalist—was a dominating issue in American politics. Jerome Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon, had recently spent several years in the United States, where he married Elizabeth Patterson, the beautiful, ambitious daughter of a wealthy Baltimore merchant. In 1810, Jerome was on the throne of Westphalia, while Elizabeth was in America with their son, Jerome Napoleon. (The couple would never see each other again.) According to historian Michael Vorenberg of Brown University, having a nephew of the emperor of France growing up on American soil might have made the pro-British Federalists uneasy, or, just as likely, suggested to them a way to tie the Republicans to the French Legion of Honor, the Trilateral Commission of its day. Desiring to get out in front of the issue—or possibly seeking to score points against the Federalists, who had their own embarrassing ties to the British aristocracy—Republican Sen. Philip Reed of Maryland introduced an amendment meant to strengthen the existing “emoluments clause” in Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution.

This clause reads:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Reed’s proposed amendment extended the ban from office-holders to “any citizen of the United States” and made the penalty loss of citizenship:

“If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.”


[snip]

In the world of the Thirteenthers, though, it’s all a conspiracy, and the leading suspects are those shady characters who put “esquire” after their names. To quote the Web site Constitutional Concepts, “This Amendment was for the specific purpose of banning participation in government operations by attorneys and bankers who claimed the Title of Nobility of ‘Esquire.’ These people had joined the International Bar Association or the International Bankers Association and owed their allegiance to the King of England.” In other words—well, we’re not sure how to explain it any better, but Constitutional Concepts CEO Jim Barrus says in an e-mail that enforcement of the 13th Amendment would strike a blow against “the elected politicians who have grand plans of ruling every facet of America,” and would essentially delegitimize virtually every act of the federal government since 1819. Who wouldn’t want that?

[snip]

There are, of course, other implications of Thirteenthism, such as ensuring that the United States never again suffers the humiliation of having a president win the Nobel Peace Prize. That was just what the Iowa Republicans had in mind, according to Plogmann, who wrote in an e-mail that the plank “was meant to make a statement about the delegates’ opinion about Mr. Obama receiving the prize.” (Presumably they didn’t mind if, in the process, they were also making a statement about any American scientist or writer unlucky enough to win a Nobel.) Unfortunately for them, the Department of Justice looked into whether Obama needed Congressional approval to accept the Nobel under the existing emoluments clause, and based on the meaning of “foreign state” (which would not cover the Nobel Prize Committee) concluded that he did not.

Yes, friends, these nimrods think that Barack Obama winning the NOBEL prize constitutes accepting a title of NobIlity from a foreign entity.

But they don't even have the decency to say, "Oh. Never mind."

Now she's the Chicken and Soft-Core Porn lady

Sue Lowden, the woman who romanticizes a past not even her grandmother remembers when people would trade chickens for medical treatment (which often as not at that time probably involved leeches and poultices), is now the face behind this soft-coreish ad that's obsessed with coddling prisoners:

The mind of a Republican is a very scary place

And speaking of Whole Bunches o'Stoopid...

There aren't even words for the Idiocy of Bobo today.

Well, maybe there are.

Now we know who the Scott Garrett voters are

The South makes an easy target for progressives these days, what with Mark Sanford's escapades, and the lunatic asylum that is the state of Florida. But while I was in Berlin, there was a "pot, kettle" moment that I missed, when Public Policy Polling released the results of a survey which showed that almost one in five New Jersey conservatives is at least inclined to believe that Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

Here in Middle Whitelandia, where voters are getting ready to express their disgust with the council's long refusal to deal with our corrupt, alcoholic ex-mayor by electing a member from that very same council to be the new mayor, I know there are pockets of Christofascist Zombieism, given the preponderance of "John 3:16" signs that show up on lawns now more often than contractor signs. But while we like to pride ourselves here in the Land of Blueberries And Tank Farms on being at least marginally less crazy than our southern brethren, in those pockets lies some first-class lunacy:

Do you think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ?
If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. If you’re not
sure, press 3.
Yes ................................................................. 8%
No................................................................... 79%
Not Sure.......................................................... 13%

Do you think Barack Obama was born in the
United States? If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. If
you’re not sure, press 3.
Yes ................................................................. 64%
No................................................................... 21%
Not Sure.......................................................... 16%

Do you think the federal government should be
eliminated? If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. If
you’re not sure, press 3.
Yes ................................................................. 6%
No................................................................... 83%
Not Sure.......................................................... 11%

Do you think that public education should be
eliminated? If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. If
you’re not sure, press 3.
Yes ................................................................. 5%
No................................................................... 90%
Not Sure.......................................................... 5%

The Obama birthplace question doesn't tabulate for those who do not know that Hawaii is a state, but I'm not sure that would make a whole lot of difference. But however small the lunatic numbers seem to be, the idea that one in ten New Jerseyans either favors or is open to the idea that public education should be eliminated, that one in six either favors or is open to the idea of eliminating the federal government entirely, and that about one in five thinks Obama is the Antichrist shows that Teh Crazy is not limited to the parts of the country south of the Mason-Dixon line.