Here’s a few nekkid little links, for those who aren’t already sick unto death of these topics:
Tim Heffernan at Esquire says “Rudy Giuliani Is Still a Colossal Seven-Letter Word”, this time about the Not-At-Ground-Zero Non-Mosque. He takes just 10 cogent & witty paragraphs to make his case, although probably not many BJ readers need convincing.
Dave Weigel posts his Cato Institute Speech, “Libertarians: How Do They Work?” at his Slate blog. He argues, among other things, that Sharron Angle won her primary “partly because she had the strongest libertarian credentials”, and that she’s slipping in the polls now because she’s not being libertarian enough. Oooookay…
Ben Smith at Politico (you have been warned) breathlessly reveals that “Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and deficit and instead stressing a promise to ‘improve it.'” The Herndon Alliance rebuts: “Our research reaffirms that the more the public hears about the specific reforms in the law, the more they like it. The strategy of informing and educating the public about the law continues to be the right strategy.” Shape of the earth? — Opinions differ, but I know which side I don’t trust.
Tom Scocca at Slate spoils a feel-good week making fun of such worthy targets as Ross Doubt-that (“Douthat Thinks We Could All Learn Something Valuable from the KKK”; “Douthat Still Trying to Explain Why Bigotry Is Good for America”; “Douthat Clarifies Why He’s Still Wrong… “), Rudy Guiliani, Brett Favre (“Even BF Cannot Fathom BF Any More”), Politico (“The Culture War Is Over! Did Your Side Win?”), and Roger Clemons (“Is It Perjury If Your Mind Lives in an Alternate Dimension”) by oversharing on the “missing” BP oil plume and the news that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may have three as-yet-unidentified global siblings.
Bill McKibben has one of his patented jeremiads, “Why has extreme weather failed to heat up climate debate?”, at the Guardian. If you have been looking for a short, well-written link source to combat the forwarded emails from your denialist acquaintances, this is an excellent start.
And, finally, a blast from Jack Shafer at Slate about the “knucklehead” Eighteen Percenters:
… Unfortunately, the percentage of poll respondents who said Obama is a Muslim and could also successfully define Islam was not on the list of questions. Nor was the question, “If a Muslim bit you on the ass, would you be able to identify his religion?” I’m guessing that the percentage of respondents who would answer yes to either of those questions would be low, as would the percentage who could accurately describe the tenets of faith observed by Muslims.
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What we do know from the Pew survey is that beliefs about what religion Obama practices closely track the political assessment of him: About two-thirds of respondents who think Obama is a Muslim disapprove of the job he’s doing as president, while about two-thirds of respondents who believe Obama is a Christian approve of his performance.
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I’d be more upset about the Pew poll if a Gallup Poll hadn’t also reported that 18 percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth or that only 18 percent of Americans believe all or most of what is published in the New York Times. We can count on stupidity, willful ignorance, and intellectual sloth to plague us 100 percent of the time. All we can do is fight the darkness with light.
soonergrunt
Good luck with that.
gnomedad
But, but, it snowed in DC last winter!
arguingwithsignposts
Shouldn’t that be: “Fucking libertarians, how do they work?”
And Weigel is letting his glib flag fly after being unchained from the Kaplan Daily. Sad, really.
morzer
Apparently Weigel has been domesticated by the crazies. Has he missed everything about Sharron “black clothes are ungodly” Angle? Even her fellow-Republicans think she’s nuts, FFS!
timb
@soonergrunt: especially from Schafer, who spends most of his life talking to John Podhoertz and being a contrarian assface
morzer
@arguingwithsignposts:
Give him a week and he’ll be part of Megan McArdle’s posse, dressed in white leather and covered with exotic peppercorns.
Kryptik
Hai gaiz! Look what NYT sez! It sez that the mainstreamed Anti-Islamic rage over the media and blogs is….gasp….helping bolster extremists and terrorists! Wow! Who could have seen that happen?!
…seriously the assholes on both sides need each other. They can’t have their little binary, eternal warfare-ridden world without each other to demonize. Goddamn dumbfucks.
BR
By the way, just as a reminder of how bad climate change and environmental destruction is getting:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-08-18/other-carbon-problem-%E2%80%94-ocean-acidification
Imagine that – an ocean – 2/3 of the Earth – with no fish (or sharks), no whales, no dolphins…
And given the 30 year lag on the full effects of current greenhouse gas pollution from taking effect, the impacts on the 2040s are almost already baked into the climate system.
Viva BrisVegas
Well the Oz election is done and dusted and it continues to be a shambles right up to the end.
The conservative Liberals have won, but only barely. They don’t quite have enough seats for an absolute majority, but barring Gabriel blowing his horn, they will get the support of enough conservative independents to form government. Let the horse trading begin.
I may move to New Zealand.
p.s. If in the near future you see the new PM Tony Abbott wandering around Washington looking for someone’s hand to shake, please feel free to point and laugh.
arguingwithsignposts
@morzer:
You owe me a keyboard, morzer. You can pay for it out of the Internets you’ve won today.
Linda Featheringill
And then there is this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/20/AR2010082005165.html?hpid=topnews
Companies cannot hire because they can’t depend on consumers buying things, it says.
But has anybody asked why the consumers can’t be depended on to buy things? Could it have something to do with the fact that they [the consumers] can’t depend on having a paycheck?
It has always been one of the contradictions of capitalism that the average company needs customers that are financially better off than the company’s employees.
Now what do we do?
jeffreyw
@Linda Featheringill: I see this and am reminded of “The Tragedy of the Commons”-where the commons is the general pool of labor that is another name for “We, the People”.
morzer
@Linda Featheringill:
Can’t we all just use Boehner’s Tanning Emporium coupons for barter purposes?
jeffreyw
I have a bundle of asparagus that I need to cook up today. I’m leaning fritatta but am open to suggestions. Mrs J has been called in to the shelter because they were short handed today, so anything I do will need to wait for her return.
WereBear
@Linda Featheringill: This ginormous DUH is brought to you by 80’s corporate culture, now all grown up and just barely becoming cognizant of the mess they’ve made.
Hal
I’m not surprised about Weigel’s opinion of Sharron Angle’s tactics.
When Republicans lose elections running on far right policies, they come to the conclusion that they were not far right enough, and in the next election, they embrace even more conservative policies. It never occurs to them that maybe their policies are too conservative.
When Dems win elections running against those far right policies, they decide they need to move to the center or to the right in order to keep winning. Which of course has been a huge success for them up until now.
burnspbesq
Well, well, well … Swedish police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange. The charges are rape and molestation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/7957665/Wikileaks-founder-Julian-Assange-facing-arrest-over-rape-claim.html
This song seems appropriate at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGuj50t_P-k
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Viva BrisVegas: I’m still seeing reports that say the elections are too close to call. Was surprised that Kevin Rudd retained his seat but Labor lost Queensland (backlash?). Is there no chance of independents forming a coalition with Labor?
J sub D
Extreme weather?
Define it first, show historical data (anything prior to the 20th century is incomplete and useless) that “extreme weather” events are increasing.
Oh, you say that nobody has done that? That we are using anecdotal “evidence” to make the case? Or are we relying on computer models to “prove” the point?
Data that I trust on global temperature.
It’s alarming enough without all the Chicken Littles running around.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw: Fritattas? You’ve checked out the eggs, I hope.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: I roast asparagus in the oven with an olive oil, lime and garlic dressing and some kosher salt.
middlewest
Hey look, Thomas Surgue used TNC’s blog to call out McMegan’s sociopathy. I guess he missed a memo?
Teejay
And now for something completely different:
What’s become of Cajun Boy? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since his 7/3 post. Anybody know?
burnspbesq
OMG – have you seen the new design on the back of the penny?
Talk about yer delusions of empire …
morzer
@J sub D:
Hmmm a climate skeptic who also believes in intelligent design? Thanks, but I’ll pass.
Montysano
Re the McKibben article: my argument on AGW is very simple:
If I’m wrong (i.e. the activities of man do not negatively impact the climate), then the course of action that I support would result in some needless regulation and an unnecessary restraint on the economy.
If the deniers are wrong, the consequences are a bit more severe, aren’t… they?
To me, the “conservative” course of action would be to err on the side of safety.
Every time I lay this argument on a conservative, we seem to veer off into “Al Gore is fat” territory.
J sub D
@BR:
Yep. The end of the world is nigh. This has been predicted by religious and environmental advocates for a long time, always incorrectly. Maybe this once, this time, this guy, has it correct.
Past experience says otherwise. The birds are still chirping, mass starvation of humanity keeps receding into the future and the environment in the first world is cleaner, with more production, than it’s been for more than a century.
@morzer: Satellite temperature data is what I was pointing to. If you think that chart is fabricated to buttress some point, it isn’t. You can find it elsewhere with minimal googling skills.
middlewest
@burnspbesq: Damn, next thing you know, they’ll put a fasces on a coin!
Bullsmith
@Linda Featheringill:
Ah fickle capitalism. Just when you finally get those unions busted, half your customers go broke. That’s one of the great things about the financial industry: no matter how poor someone is you can still take what little they have and then lend them more! Why restrict yourself to collecting today’s earnings when you can cash in tomorrow’s and tomorrow’s and tomorrow’s as well? Especially when you can turn around and sell of the impending default to some town or pension fund as if it were a bond-rated security.
Ain’t it grand?
tomvox1
From today’s NY Times article on the “hopeless” upcoming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, written by Ethan Bronner:
I suppose that whole Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2008-9 (aka the Gaza War) that resulted in over a thousand Palestinian deaths–and the subsequent (and most likely illegal) Israeli blockade of Gaza–was just not worth mentioning by Mr. Bronner as a contributing factor to the current level of mistrust between the two parties.
And no, it does not come up later in the article…
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/world/middleeast/21assess.html?_r=2&hp
morzer
@J sub D:
Consider the source. Perhaps you should exercise some Googlefu yourself?
morzer
@J sub D:
Sure, ignore the fished-out oceans, the destruction of the rainforest, the loss of multiple species.. who needs those things anyway? Russia burning? Coincidence! More forest fires? Coincidence! What’s next? Let me guess: For this is the best of all possible worlds, and we must cultivate our garden? But you’ve already said that, haven’t you?
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne: Yup, mine are not on the lists.
Mark S.
Weigel needs to hire someone to be his black friend. He is completely fucking clueless as to why Rand Paul’s statements about the Civil Rights law would piss so many people off. Dave, for some people, that argument isn’t really theoretical.
He also dances around the main point: Libertarian ideas aren’t very popular.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Sounds good, but I’m kinda looking for a complete meal and the fritatta I have in mind incorporates ham and cheese and some pretty peppers. I’m already planning angles and lighting. LOL
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Sounds delicious, looking forward to the photos. I am making shrimp fritters, brown rice with some zucchini and tomato salad.
b-psycho
Neither of the candidates Weigel is using as examples are libertarians though, and never were. Angle is just a typical bible-thumper right-winger, & Rand Paul basically ignores civil liberties issues (beyond his “right to discriminate & have the State back me up on it”, that is).
There was a more credible libertarian that planned on entering the Dem primary in New York against Chuck Schumer — planning on running hard from Left on crime & foreign policy — but that guy got bumped from the ballot.
J sub D
@morzer:
I grabbed the first copy of the graph I found. Here it is again, no creationist believer taint at all. Wow! It’s identical. Who’d a thunk that?
BR
@J sub D:
That’s a pretty nonsense argument there. This isn’t a religious argument and nobody said the “world” is going to end. It’s just going to be really really fucked up. And Jeremy Jackson isn’t some crank – he’s one of the most respected oceanography researchers at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Let me put it this way: any way of life that depends on the use of non-renewable resources or depends on the hyperexploitation of renewable resources can’t last. Any five year old can tell you that if you take two cookies out of the cookie jar a week and only one is put in, you’ll eventually run out of cookies. That’s where’s we’re at. Just because people are in denial about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Yep. The end of the world is nigh. This has been predicted by religious and environmental advocates for a long time, always incorrectly. Maybe this once, this time, this guy, has it correct. Past experience says otherwise.
Tell that to the bones of the people who used to live on Easter Island.
Or go read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”.
PaulW
I *am* trying to fight the darkness with light:
I just wrote this right now on my blog.
J sub D
@BR:
Paul Ehrlich, Rachel Carson. The Doomsday Clock and the AGW catastrophists. Also, the entire irrational wing of the environmental movement.
Heard it before, hearing it now, certain to hear it again. I’m pointing out that if you cry wolf too often people stop listening to you.
I’m not saying that serious environmental problems don’t confront humanity, they do. Mostly in poor nations. Hmmm, you think wealth creation and technology might actually have a positive effect here?
I’m not going to dig up the quotes, you’re well read enough to be aware of these folks, the press they have garnered and their unfilled predictions of disaster.