“people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government” and “6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government” compared to those who watch no news”…”the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”"
That’s being charitable. ”that something” is known as stupidity.
About a week ago some self-proclaimed ‘moderate’ (I suspect he was really a Tea Bagger in disguise) called me an ‘extremist’ and an ‘alarmist’ when I joked that the GOP was on a mission to roll back all significant labor, consumer protection and other legislation of the last 100 years in the rush to turn us into a 3rd world cleptocracy. I guess he doesn’t actually listen to what his leaders are saying. Check out today’s latest- Newt Gingrich wants to put the children of America to work! Interesting thought, although with roughly 1 out of 5 adults out of work, not sure what he’d have the kids do…sell True Grit? They can’t deliver newspapers anymore, that industry is dying.
Hey Texas...feeling is mutual! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!
Shrubya II aka Gov Perry backs off his calls for secession. Damn it! What a wuss!! Well to hell with him, we should host a plebiscite and just kick ‘em out! And we can build the wall/fence/flashing lights border thingie between us and The Baptist Republic of Texas!
For the record, I don’t favor having the Government at any level act as a VC for technology companies. If for one reason or another we have a strategic interest in having something happen – like decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels while increasing our usage of renewable energy – then I’d rather the Government take some specific steps around reducing demand through taxes on the undesirable and reduced taxes or mandates on usage to promote the desirable – with every intervention specifically time-bombed and diminished over time.
So I also look askance on Obama’s loan guarantees to Solyndra (and the socializing the failure thereof).
However, the real issue here is that the Chinese massively subsidize their solar industry and are dumping their panels below cost in the U.S. market. How could Solyndra (or other non-Obama VC’d manufacturers) compete? This is yet another industry that the heavy guns of the state-controlled Chinese companies have chosen to wipe out (and are in the process of doing so).
The Reactionaries, of course, who would normally love to take an opportunity to criticize China, seem rather pleased to watch Solyndra fail as it makes their nemesis Obama look bad. Same thinking that makes them delight in the still-crappy economy – they’d rather watch a failed America run by fellow Reactionaries than a successful one run by Liberals – positively Miltonian!
During their 8-year Reign of Error, you’d think there wasn’t a war the Republican’s didn’t like. However, there was much gnashing of teeth when Obama decided to join with our NATO allies and blast Qaddafi’s planes and tanks from the skies. Now that the Libyan Action is pretty much concluded, let’s do a compare and contrast of Regime Change that Republicans like versus what they find unacceptable:
Difference
Republican's Iraqi Fiasco
Obama's Libya Intervention
Cost
$792,000,000,000
$750,000,000
"Missing" money
$6,600,000,000
$0
Length
8+ years
5 months.
Occupation Required
Yes
No
U.S. Lives Lost
4,474
0
Museum artifacts looted
15,000
0
Ancient books burned
417,000
0
Fissile materials looted, kilos
10
0
Conservatives support troops?
Y
N
Conservatives okay with criticizing Prez during wartime?
N
Y
By any measure, the Libyan Regime Change seems more effective, but there’s not a peep of support from the Wrong Wing. Conclusion? Republicans only like the wars they start, Democratic wars be damned!
Consider yourselves warned. You can only hide for another week. Because next Friday, July 15, Sarah Palin’s hired hagiographic film The Undefeated (sadly, probably not based on the Iggy Pop song of the same name) will be released in multiple cities across the United States.
If the trailer (see video above) is any indication, the pseudo-documentary is chock full of the same unintentional self-parody that has made Palin herself so popular on the left side of the political spectrum. Really, with the melodramatic opening music and silent titles proclaiming “DAUGHTER – WIFE – MOTHER – WARRIOR,” what viewer can help wondering if we’re about learn that Palin is secretly a programmed-from-birth assassin (sort of The Manchurian Candidate meets Hanna)?
You also have to love that first spoken words in the trailer are, “Like a marine, she runs toward the danger” — this about a woman whose most notorious achievement is quitting midway through her term as governor of Alaska to market herself and her family as reality-TV fodder, and who is too terrified of unscripted questions to appear in anything but the most staged public settings.
Meanwhile, in other faux-populism news, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Death to Medicare) — last seen being portrayed as a heroic, humble man of the people attending town halls in Wisconsin — got caught Wednesday night in a fancy Washington, D.C. restaurant sharing a couple of $350 bottles of wine with two “economists” (who may or may not turn out to be lobbyists).
Ryan later claimed not to have realized the wine was anywhere near that expensive, even though the waiter’s presentation of it was so elaborate that it drew the attention of nearby diners (who took photos to document Ryan’s high living). Fortunately, one of the diners apparently confronted the congressman in time for him to pay for one of the bottles — even though he purportedly hadn’t ordered it himself — and thereby avoid trouble for accepting an illegal gift.
Kind of like those fancy clothes the Republican National Committee forced on Palin in the fall of 2008 without her knowledge, I guess. I tell you, there’s danger everywhere when you’re a culture warrior fighting for the common folks. But y’know, leaders like Ryan and Palin are so fearless they can’t help running toward it.
…if it’s taken them so long to realize that weapons of mass destruction are readily available at gunshows across America. Or maybe all the hoopla about ‘sleeper cells’ was total Bush bullshit, as I’ve suspected for years. If there were any sleeper cells, and they had any brains, they’d do the next attack American style, driving Monster Trucks into Oil Refineries in Texas, with retrofitted fully automatics blazing. At that point they may as well convert to Fundee Christianity and attack abortion clinics…then they’d have Palin and the rest of the Reactionaries rooting for them.
