Things I learned from the Internet: corn smut, called huitlacoche, is considered a delicacy. The Wikipedia etymology section is worth a read, too.
Archives for August 2011
Thursday Morning Open Thread
(Scott Meyer’s website)
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Whatever our philosophical differences, at least we can all agree that glibertarians are inherently mock-worthy.
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So… I got nothin’, how ’bout you?
They are the eggmen, I am the walrus
I loves me some Sasha Issenberg anyway, but I find this shit fascinating and will probably pony up ninety-nine big ones to preorder it (via):
Despite his folksy personality and disdain for east coast “elitists,” Texas governor Rick Perry helped spark a revolution in campaign politics. For his 2006 re-election effort, his campaign manager convinced him to allow four social scientists from Yale to come in and gauge the effectiveness of various campaign tools–candidate appearances, yard signs, television ads, etc.–by running real-time experiments in the heat of a campaign. No candidate had done this before and no one has done it since.
I Hate That Name That We Came Up With For Ourselves
So apparently some campaign flack somewhere called out the professional left and called them firebaggers or something. Beyond the fact that it is stupid for OFA members to write shit like this, and putting aside the usual arguments and bullshit that come with any post on this subject, this made me laugh:
“Firebagger” is most likely a combined reference to the liberal blog FireDogLake, founded by Jane Hamsher, and “Tea Bagger,” a less-than-flattering term for Tea Party activists.
Umm, “firebagger” is what they named themselves, back when the fashionable progressive thing to do was to join arms with Grover Norquist and share Rahm horror stories:
Call me PUMA. Call me Firebagger. Call me the last true Progressive standing.
I’ll just call you stupid and leave it at that. It’s also worth remembering that “true progressives” have had it in for this administration before the first year was up, so I’m not quite sure what on earth Glenn is talking about in this post– ain’t nothing going to stop our progressive betters from attacking Obama right on through the election. At which point, no matter what happens, they can claim victory. They can either laughably assert they were the driving force behind his re-election, or they can claim his defeat validates everything they have been shrieking about since day one.
Either way, they are important and here is a link to a 20,000 word exegesis telling you how important they are. And a link to contribute to their PAC so they can continue their IMPORTANT work. Also, too.
I Hate That Name That We Came Up With For OurselvesPost + Comments (353)
One day is fine, next is black
There’s no question that today’s GOP acts much crazier than the GOP of 2008. I hate counterfactuals — leave that shit for Niall Ferguson and BloggingHeads wankfests — and I know this is the second Hillary-based one I’ve busted on you, but I wonder if they would have gone as crazy if Hillary had become president.
On the one hand, Hitlery and the Clenis, on the other, well, teh black. I think the anti-Clinton stuff of the 90s was weirder than the anti-Obama stuff of today, at least insofar as conspiracy theories about mass murder and drug running are inherently weirder than conspiracy theories about birth certificates.
Maybe the biggest difference between anti-Clinton hatred and anti-Obama hatred is that anti-Clinton hatred was driven by elites. The Village hated Clinton for being Big Mac-eating, blowjobs-from-interns-getting white trash, whereas their criticism of Obama is more the usual where’s-my-pony. Somewhat to my surprise, no one in the Village ever latched onto birtherism (I had assumed Kaplan or Slate would eventually write a highly counterintuitive “I’m not a birther but reasonable people blah blah blah” piece about the phenomenon).
In other words, the anti-Obama hatred is organic in a way that the anti-Clinton hatred was not. And there’s nothing more organic than racism. I noticed this in a Times piece today:
So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.
Chauncey De Vega has a long piece about how racism is what’s driving the insanity of the anti-Obama hatred. This struck me:
For the first time in its history, the pristine AAA credit rating of the United States has been downgraded. Through the Great Depression and two world wars America was able to remain first among nations, a sure bet for investors, and the gold standard for following through on a promise that it would pay its debts in full, on time, and with interest. Apparently, the credit rating of the United States could survive all these perils, but not the tenure of its first Black President.
So back to my original question: would the Tea Party have come into being if Hillary were president? Would the Republican party have gone as stark, raving mad without a black president?
It’s hard to be humble, but it isn’t going to get any easier
During a speech before Ashtabula County Republicans in March 2009, Kasich talked about the need to “break the back of organized labor in the schools,” according to the Ashtabula Star Beacon. He did not back away from that quote last week, saying as he pushes ideas to change schools he has often clashed with teachers unions, who have “smeared my record and distorted it.”
What a difference two years makes:
Gov. John Kasich and fellow Republicans William Batchelder, Ohio House speaker from Medina, and Senate President Tom Niehaus of New Richmond, offered today to revise the controversial collective bargaining law, known as Senate Bill 5, if public unions will drop their campaign to repeal the bill on the November ballot.
We Are Ohio, the coalition of unions behind the repeal effort, has rejected earlier back-channel efforts by some Republicans to strike a deal, citing the GOP-controlled legislature’s unwillingness to compromise when the bill was written.
Following a press conference by Kasich, We Are Ohio issued the following statement rejecting a call for a compromise.
“We’re glad that Governor Kasich and the other politicians who passed SB 5 are finally admitting this is a flawed bill,” said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio. “Just like the bill was flawed, this approach to a compromise is flawed as well. Our message is clear. These same politicians who passed this law could repeal it and not thwart the will of the people. They should either repeal the entire bill or support our efforts and encourage a no vote on Issue 2.
Kasich completely enchanted Ohio media with his tough-talking swaggering style. They were running around starry-eyed in love. Bold! Brave! It didn’t matter what he said, as long as he said it in the most abrasive and insulting manner possible.
Eventually, of course, he had to actually govern a state where he didn’t win a plurality of votes, and that poor showing was with the enthusiastic backing of his former colleagues at Fox News and Rupert Murdoch.
It’s hard to be humble, but it isn’t going to get any easierPost + Comments (32)
Despicable He
Our latest from the GOP’s agenda setter.