No privacy, no mas

Andy Sullivan

In the wake of the Petraeus scandal, Melik Kaylan sounds the alarm over the loss of privacy in the Internet age:

This is a huge loss that accompanies the huge gain of the Internet. Non-saints all need some zone of privacy if they are to remain sane. And yet no one can really avoid the tools of email and texting and tweeting and Tumblring and Instagramming if they want to be part of society - and any single image or text or email can be instantly communicated to everyone on the planet by almost anyone. Anthony Weiner will therefore always live with the image of his fruit-of-the-loom chubby as if it were stamped to his forehead like a Scarlet Letter of old. Yes, there are great advantages to transparency - we would never have grasped the full extent of the torture under Bush and Cheney if some hadn't taken digital photos of the Cheney-authorized techniques in use at Abu Ghraib. But there is also great human cost.

He goes into more detail but the caution is simple: every time you hit "enter" or "send" or now apparently "save as draft", it is there for all the world to see if someone really wants to. Be careful.

Or more narrowly, clandestine business is best carried out clandestinely. If it isn't written down, it didn't happen, thank you Tom Clancy. This is nothing new. Carrier pigeons fell into the wrong hands sometimes too.

Ahhhhh, yesssss...

From Shrummy:

The GOP Faces Years in the Wilderness After 2012 Election Losses

Sensible Republicans seeking to renew the viability of a conservative party that seems out of touch after a stinging defeat at the polls are being denounced as ‘heretics.’ Robert Shrum on why the party might never find its way back.

Sensible Republicans?! Perhaps it's simply that abject defeat begets a semblance of thought.

[...] Outside the South, President Obama defeated his opponent 55 to 45 percent, winning a landslide there as well as in the Electoral College. The bottom line: Romney got elected president of the old confederacy.

That's good. When the mouthbreathers secede, they can call him. He'll answer the phone. Hasn't got much else to do these days. He can take over another failure, put it deep in debt, and sell it for pennies on the dollar and further enrich himself in the process. One caveat: whoever buys the South has to tow it away. Far, far away. I would suggest the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. Then sink it.

Obama pollster Joel Benenson responded that such shifts may require two or three more cycles of presidential loss. [...]
...

That’s not where realistic Republican strategists want their party to be. But four overriding realities militate against a GOP return to the White House in 2016 and perhaps for several campaigns beyond.
...

Second, the nature of the Republican primary electorate hamstrings the party’s capacity to adapt. The religious right and the true believers who dominate the nominating process have their own explanations or rationalizations for 2012. Romney wasn’t conservative enough. [...]

Schmidt recommended that Republicans dispense with the Iowa caucuses, where the litmus test is who’s most for Jesus, according to the narrow measures of right-wing fundamentalists. That change won’t happen, not yet; religious and movement forces on the far right won’t yield their hold on the primary process and their veto power over the nominee. In the last two elections, they sacrificed at least five Senate seats for the sake of ideological ultra-orthodoxy. So why won’t they demand their kind of presidential candidate—no doubts, no flip-flops, always there with them? And they believe the country will come around to them. Former Moral Majoritarian Ralph Reed smoothly explained how. Yes, there has to be change, to “combine core principles with outreach.” But outreach to whom, if the core principles are reaction and intolerance?

Outreach to fewer and fewer scared old white hypocrite Christers, that's who. Continue the march, Repugs!

Instead, in the throes of their self-proclaimed reexamination, many Republicans remind me of a scene in Theodore H. White’s classic The Making of the President 1960. JFK spoke in the Boston garden on the last night of the campaign, with politicians and ward heelers smoking cigars arranged in rows behind him. As the crowd cheered, White wrote, a look passed across their faces. You could see what the pols were thinking: Kennedy has a trick; if only I could figure it out, I could be president.

It was a false and easy conceit. And if what the GOP looks for now is a trick, what it will find is a way deeper into the wilderness.

The GOP has missed the point entirely. They pimped off the fringe right for votes and the tables got turned and now the GOP is the trick. Deep, deep, deep in the wilderness is a good place for them. They could only be improved by being turned into bear scat.

Yes, I'm enjoying the, er, scat outta all this. We sure as scat had it coming.

Update:

If you have as strange a sense of humor as I do, go read Numbers 14, which is the story of the wandering Israelites and an eerily uncanny parallel to the plight of the Repugs. Their plight, our schadenfreude. Heh.

The Country that Cannabis Built

A fun read from YubaNet. Lotsa links.

My, how times have changed. In the 1760's, you could be jailed in this country for not growing hemp! Cannabis was so highly prized that King George III made growing hemp mandatory. Tensions that arose from England's demand for raw hemp fibers from the New World were partially responsible for events that led to the American Revolutionary.

As industrial use for hemp declined, a new market developed. Medical uses for cannabis were almost unknown in Western Europe and the Americas due to the suppression of information from "heathen" cultures by the Catholic church. Medicinal Cannabis wasn't introduced to the West until 1839 by a 30-year old British physician, W. B. O'Shaugnessy, who had observed doctors in the Indian province of Bengal treating all manner of illnesses with concoctions made from hemp extracts. (Bengal means Bhang Land, which literally translates to Cannabis Land.)

One company, Gunjah Wallah, made a highly popular maple sugar hashish candy for over forty years that was advertised in the Sears Roebuck catalog as a "totally harmless, delicious, fun candy."

There ya go! Installs the munchies and takes care of them in one swell foop! I'm trying to order some of that from Sears for Christmas presents. I have some uptight Repug friends who could benefit from it spiritually as well as having their eyes opened.

Next week we will examine how every drug prohibition has its roots in racism aided by yellow journalists who promoted "Reefer Madness" hysteria for their own financial gain.

Enjoy.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

STRONG SALES REPORTED ON BLACK FRIDAY
Based on higher-than-expected number of people trampled per store.

Pope: Jesus Born Years Earlier Than Thought
Long before God even met Mary.

Cat'lick Choich, meet John McCain. Two irrelevant anachronisms that ought to go rock on the porch.

Romney Visits Disneyland
After long campaign, says he's glad to “get back to reality.”

Pundits: Jeb Bush Could Win GOP Nomination in 2016
If he changes his name.

Fine. He can be the next Repug loser.

How John McCain Humiliated Himself on Susan Rice

The Daily Beast

We don’t yet really know as a society what a person has to do to completely and utterly cancel out a record of war heroism, but we may be about to find out. [...]

Grampa Walnuts will be the last to know.

Just as conservatives couldn’t see that Romney was losing because they believed their own propaganda, I think McCain probably isn’t aware right now of what a joke he’s become.

This is good! Go read.

Feel sumthin' tuggin' atcher lip, Fox & Friends?

Raw Story, with video.

In a bizarre interview aired Friday morning, “Fox & Friends” apparently got punked by an author who declared that society absolutely has every reason to “destroy the imaginations of our children.”
...

Asked about the premise of his book, Esolen flipped the conversation on its head. “First of all, we do want to destroy the imaginations of our children,” he said. “Otherwise our economy would collapse and people would stop buying things they don’t need and don’t really even enjoy.”


“You can’t let your kid be outside, because a single blade of grass out there is a more wondrous object than anything a kid will see on a screen in a month’s time of viewing television and video games,” Esolen continued. “So, absolutely, you’ve got to keep them indoors.”

He added that fairy tales are also not advisable because “they are based on what every culture really knows about human beings.

“It’s archetypal, it’s natural human knowledge,” Esolen said. “And we don’t want that because that really taps in the imagination. So, instead we’ve to replace it with stories about who ever happens to be politically favored at the moment. This trains the child away from participation in politics.”
...

If Esolen was in fact punking Fox News, it wouldn’t be the first time this particular show has gotten fooled. [...]

Too easy. Those morons are dumber'n a bag o' hammers. Heh.

Woody Guthrie at 100

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Interview and Video

Guthrie’s most famous song, “This Land Is Your Land,” was written in 1940 in response to Kate Smith’s "God Bless America.” "Woody saw ['God Bless America'] as a strident, jingoistic, complacent, tub-thumping anthem to American greatness,” Kaufman says. “And now, he had just come from the Dust Bowl. He’d just come from the barbed-wire gates of California’s Eden there. He’d seen the Hoovervilles. He’d seen the bread lines. He’d seen labor activists getting their heads busted. And so, he’s thinking, what — God bless — what America, you know, is Kate Smith singing of?” In 2009, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed “This Land Is Your Land” for the inauguration of President Obama.

Over the next hour, we’ll hear from folk singer Pete Seeger, the British musician Billy Bragg and the historian Will Kaufman. But first, Woody Guthrie, in his own words, being interviewed by the musicologist Alan Lomax

ALAN LOMAX: What did your family do? What kind of people were they, and where did they come from?

WOODY GUTHRIE: Well, they come in there from Texas in the early day. My dad got to Oklahoma right after statehood. He was the first clerk of the county court in Okemah, Oklahoma, after statehood, as he is known as one of them old, hard-hitting, fist-fighting Democrats, you know, that run for office down there, and they used to miscount the votes all the time. So every time that my dad went to town, it was common the first question that I ask him when he come riding in on a horse that evening, I’d say, "Well, how many fights did you have today?" And then he’d take me up on his knee, and he’d proceed to tell me who he is fighting and why and all about it. "Put her there, boy. We’ll show these fascists what a couple hillbillies can do."

There ye go! Enjoy.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Here's the differentest one yet! Here's all you need to know:

Unsere Rubrik "Pop Secret" geht den bizarren, lustigen, tragischen und skurrilen Legenden und Mythen der Rock- und Popgeschichte auf den Grund. Sie sehen eine kurze Episode aus der Welt des Rock und Pop, die später zur Legendenbildung geführt hat. Und am Ende fragen wir nach einem Detail, das mit der Geschichte zu tun hat.

Finden Sie die Lösung, können Sie gewinnen!

Unter allen richtigen Lösungsvorschlägen verlosen wir ein Comic aus dem Kreuzberger Comicladen Modern Graphics.

Thanks to RBBradioeins, Guessenziewhere.

Ain't it amazin', Macy...

Yesterday was the big Macy's Thanksgiving parade in Noo Yawk City. I couldn't care less about that shit, but Mrs. G likes to watch it so I caught a little bit of it on one of the all-day reruns. I think forty years as a motorcycle mechanic gave me a slightly odd take on things.

Go see this copyright protected photo of an NYC motor cop. Take note of the cop's left hand.

There were about a dozen of these NYPD motor cops leading the parade, every last one of them slipping his clutch in unison with ballet-like precision so they could go that slow and maintain perfect formation.

I saw that and lost my mind just for a second and wished I had the contract for NYPD's motorcycle service business. I'm better now... Heh.

Heh...

Thanks to YubaNet.

Grand Old Planet

Paul Krugman gets to the heart of one of the cruxes of the biscuit about Repugs. Links at site.

Earlier this week, GQ magazine published an interview with Senator Marco Rubio, whom many consider a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, in which Mr. Rubio was asked how old the earth is. After declaring “I’m not a scientist, man,” the senator went into desperate evasive action, ending with the declaration that “it’s one of the great mysteries.”

It’s funny stuff, and conservatives would like us to forget about it as soon as possible. Hey, they say, he was just pandering to likely voters in the 2016 Republican primaries — a claim that for some reason is supposed to comfort us.
...

By the way, that question didn’t come out of the blue. As speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Mr. Rubio provided powerful aid to creationists trying to water down science education. In one interview, he compared the teaching of evolution to Communist indoctrination tactics — although he graciously added that “I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro.” Gee, thanks.

What was Mr. Rubio’s complaint about science teaching? That it might undermine children’s faith in what their parents told them to believe. And right there you have the modern G.O.P.’s attitude, not just toward biology, but toward everything: If evidence seems to contradict faith, suppress the evidence (my em).
...

And then there’s the matter of using evidence to shape economic policy. You may have read about the recent study from the Congressional Research Service finding no empirical support for the dogma that cutting taxes on the wealthy leads to higher economic growth. How did Republicans respond? By suppressing the report. On economics, as in hard science, modern conservatives don’t want to hear anything challenging their preconceptions — and they don’t want anyone else to hear about it, either.

So don’t shrug off Mr. Rubio’s awkward moment. His inability to deal with geological evidence was symptomatic of a much broader problem — one that may, in the end, set America on a path of inexorable decline.

Shorter: Mustn't say anything that contradicts the stupid beliefs of the ignoramuses who vote for them.

They are, after all, the ones who believe that Willard lost because he wasn't conservative enough!

Denialists, Whiners, and Wackjobs

Paul Begala

I used to think Republicans were a monochromatic monolith specializing in Group Think, though without the Think part. The Republicans’ reaction to the reelection of Barack Obama, however, has shown a surprising diversity in GOP thought. At least five distinct -approaches have emerged.

The Vince Lombardi Republicans. Political parties exist to win, this group says. If you don’t win, you can’t enact your agenda, can’t protect your values, can’t advance your cause. The Lombardi Republicans are pragmatic. They saw President Obama win 72 percent of the Latino vote—the fastest-growing segment of the -electorate—and they had a “Ven a Jesús” moment. [...]
...

I happen to think the Vince Lombardi types are right. But, let’s face it, they’re outnumbered by less admirable Republicans.

The Sour Grapes Republicans. For a movement that aspires to macho stoicism, there sure are a lot of whiny wusses in the GOP these days. I hate whiners. I coach my kids in baseball and basketball, and I have two inviolable rules when they lose: don’t blame the other team and don’t complain about the officials. Sour Grapes Republicans do both. Donald Trump, the village idiot of a city of 8 million (my em. Heh.), took to Twitter to call President Obama’s reelection “a total sham and a travesty,” to propose a “revolution in this country,” and to allege (falsely) that Obama had lost the popular vote. Clearly, Trump is living proof that hair spray causes brain damage.
...

The Flat-Earthers. When you listen to Flat Earth Republicans, you’d think they actually won. Karl Rove, the legendary Republican bogeyman, led groups that spent $300 million in opposition to the president and congressional Democrats. Ninety-four percent of that money was spent supporting candidates who lost. Rove’s analysis after the election: “We did good things this year.” Really? It’s not like they spent the money trying to do something truly good, like artificially inseminating zoo pandas or inventing untraceable email so Army generals can make love as well as war. No, Rove spent hundreds of millions and lost bad. That’s an abysmal year. But you wouldn’t know it listening to Flat Earth Karl.
...

The Crazies. An Arizona woman allegedly ran over her husband with her SUV when she learned he hadn’t -voted. She was apparently upset that Obamacare wouldn’t be repealed. Let’s hope her poor husband gets all the health care he needs. Lord knows he’s suffered enough.
...

The Blame America Firsters. On a conference call with his major donors a week after the election, Mitt Romney blamed his loss not on his painfully lame campaign style, his unfocused advertising strategy, or his multiple gaffes and insults. No, he blamed the American people. President Obama, he told his fellow millionaires, followed “the old playbook” of giving “gifts” to special-interest groups, “especially the -African--American community, the Hispanic community, and young people.” First, Mitt, if it was an old playbook, why weren’t you ready for the plays? [...]

I believe Lincoln got re-elected for the same reason. "Gifts" to African-Americans. Like the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. Even if said African-Americans couldn't quite vote for him. Heh.

The real “gift” of 2012 is that, in the toughest economy of our lifetime, the American people had the good sense to turn away from a party that holds them in such contempt.

Give thanks.

A holiday guide to arguing with your right-wing relatives

Article here, but since facts don't matter to them and you don't feel like pissin' into the wind, fuck 'em. Tell 'em if they don't STFU they're gonna be damned uncomfortable eating pumpkin pie with a turkey carcass shoved up their ass.

Give thanks

GOP's Domination Was Only Temporary

Headline of the Day

Would You Like Some Crow With That Rice, Senator McCain?

Wherein McCain is described as an "irascible douche". A little high-toned but it works for me. Heh.

No Twinkies please, we’re dying

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about goings on.

Surely you must see. Surely you must understand. Don’t you know rockets are falling all over Gaza and Israel? Do you not read that more than 100 people have died already in brutal and insidious fighting that’s been going on since God was knee-high to a bogus misconception?

Jesus Christ, quit whining about Twinkies already.

He then proceeds to read the riot act to a certain shallow culture we know all too well. Enjoy.

Just sayin'...

A tip o' the Brain to Grandpa Eddie.

2d Amendment rights are for Repugs only

"I was really hoping that the conservatards would have learned something from having their asses handed to them in the election. So much for optimism! All they've done is act like a bunch of whiny babies and sore losers."

Note to Old Fart: they're not acting.

"How ironic is it that a gun store in AZ which has some of the loosest gun laws in the country is actually doing more to limit people's constitutional right to purchase firearms than the Obama administration has?"

I'm sure the irony is lost on that crybaby. Either that or he's afraid us pussy liberals will arm ourselves. Note to gun store jerk: some of us already are. You will be shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that out. I hope the day never comes, but we won't be the ones to start it. End it, maybe.

More likely, to paraphrase this old tune: "We fired our guns and the wingnuts took to runnin'. There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago."

Thanks to oldfartrants.

Shameless Hometown Whoring

YubaNet

Truckee, Calif. November 19, 2012 - Truckee has found itself in good company sitting among the world's best ski destinations, earning a distinguished accolade from the editors of National Geographic Adventure as one of the world's top 25 ski towns.

The article, which was posted this month on the online home page of National Geographic Adventure, breaks down what constitutes a classic ski town. Truckee is celebrated as "an inviting mountain burg steeped in ski heritage, amenities, and culture."

Truckee is heralded as being a relaxed town where locals live. Squaw Valley, famed for its extreme terrain, is referred to as Truckee's "alpha mountain,"and calls out Northstar, Sugar Bowl, Tahoe Donner and Soda Springs reflecting the variety of terrain and opportunities nearby.

The article has some fun exploring what makes a place really tick by asking local luminaries for insider tips. Truckee's own Daron Rahlves, four-time Olympian, 15-year member of the U.S. Ski Team stepped up to answer the journalist's questions, recommending his picks of where to stay, play, and party.

To view the story online go to: http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/trips/best-ski-towns-photos/

"This article provides the reader with a sense of Truckee's colorful history and authentic charm, and also makes it clear that we sit right in the midst of many world-class ski resorts," said Lynn Saunders, president and CEO of the Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce. "Truckee's mountain culture and fun-loving lifestyle are a draw for people who live here, visit here, and for those who decide that they want to be part of our remarkable community, by moving here."

The article fails to mention that one of the most fun things to do around here is watch the skiers (the "S-word") and boarders try to drive in the snow and stuff it into the snowbank. The corollary is you don't have to go out in the cold to see it. Just go to Safeway where it's nice and warm. They shop just like they drive. Which is to say they don't give a damn what anybody else is doing. The crashes are every bit as comical.

Also not mentioned is that the aprés ski activities are largely fueled with drugs and alcohol, which adds to the local charm and town coffers.

I love it here!

Hater Gasbag Tanks Stocks

Kos

The Rush Limbaugh Show is distributed to 600 radio stations via several radio industry networks. The show is syndicated by privately-held Premiere Networks, which contracts with Cumulus Media, Dial Gobal, and other networks to secure broad access in as many media markets as possible.

On Friday, November 16, Dial Global took a huge financial hit, resulting in the company voluntarily de-listing from NASDAQ. Dial Global's stock dropped by nearly 77 percent. The company identified three causes for its troubles, including "advertisers' response to controversial statements by a certain nationally syndicated talk radio personality in MARCH 2012."

Now, it is becoming apparent that Cumulus is also a troubled company. Dial Gobal appears to be on the ropes; Cumulus is, so far, failing to thrive. Both companies have publicly blamed Rush.

Ahhhhhhhhh...:-)

One hopes that millions of AM radios in F150s will fall forever silent when that pusillanimous puke racist gasbag is shown the door. Or at least replaced by some equally hateful local preacher sponsored by the feed store on stations that don't reach a mile from the transmitter.