I went shopping and saw this (click to embiggen). Yum. Looks like the rest of the front pagers are AWOL so here’s an open thread.
Archives for January 2013
Secrets and Lies
There’s obviously been far too much reliance on “it’s a secret” to hide government screw-ups post-9/11, but you know what should be a big fucking secret? The security arrangements for the Obama girls and their schoolmates. Goddam the NRA for bringing that up, and I don’t think Glenn Kessler did the world any favors by reporting that Sidwell Friends doesn’t have armed guards. Those Sidwell kids did not pick the epidural-deadened vagina they were dragged out of by the best OB/GYN in the finest birthing center. Nor did they choose to go to a school that’s a big fat target for crazy fucks with guns. Those Bushmaster man-card carriers don’t give a shit how many goddam stupid Pinnochios Kessler gives the NRA, but their years of playing Call of Duty and masturbating to old war movies makes them think “soft target” when they hear “Quaker school with unarmed guards”. (And why Sidwell couldn’t have just stuck to “no comment” on security is also a good question.)
I’m obviously over-reacting, and the NRA’s ad has been covered here already, but the NRA wrote themselves out of the script when they chose to start talking about the President’s kids. It was a despicable move, and I don’t see how any self-respecting human, gun owner or not, would want to be associated with an organization that would stoop so low.
Update: As Hawes pointed out, their doulas wouldn’t recommend an epidural, so I’m taking out that part.
McPaper Dumps McPollster
After twenty years together, USA Today kicked Gallup to the curb yesterday, probably because Gallup blew the Presidential race and people are starting to expect pollsters to do better. Chalk up another win for the gay wizard–the last couple of paragraphs of this piece tracing Gallup’s errors over the last twenty years are a fairly harsh boot up Gallup’s ass.
I wonder who Gannett will hire to replace Gallup. I’m not a big reader of USA Today, but as far as I can tell the main bias of that paper is towards superficiality and brevity. Even so, a lot of conservatives read it, and if they pick PPP, which is both cheap (because they robo poll) and good, expect gratifying howls of outrage.
(Thanks to reader Dan for sending this in.)
Der Kinderfuckenlieder
The country changes but the song remains the same:
A report about child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, based on victim accounts and released by the church this week, showed that priests carefully planned their assaults and frequently abused the same children repeatedly for years.
[…] The church’s credibility regarding its commitment to an impartial investigation suffered a fresh blow last week when the bishops canceled an independent study into the abuse scandal amid allegations by the independent investigator, Christian Pfeiffer, that the church was censoring information.
Also, too, rape babies are a present from God:
Germans were further outraged by reports this week that two Roman Catholic hospitals in Cologne had refused to carry out a gynecological examination on a 25-year-old suspected rape victim. An emergency doctor who had helped the woman told the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that the hospitals cited ethical objections to advise women on unwanted pregnancies and on steps that can be taken to prevent them, like the morning-after pill. The Archdiocese of Cologne denied that the church refuses to treat rape victims. The hospitals blamed a “misunderstanding” and said the matter was under investigation.
World Book Night (the Interactive Version)
A PSA, for book nerds. Paul Constant, at Seattle’s Stranger, says “You Should Sign Up to Give Away Free Books“:
Last April, I took part in World Book Night, a program sponsored by publishers and local booksellers, in which participants each get boxes of 20 books to give away to non-readers. On the advice of Slog readers, I delivered copies of A Prayer for Owen Meany to the VA hospital on Beacon Hill, Books to Prisoners, and Urban Rest Stop.
On April 23rd, people all over the world will give away hundreds of thousands of free books to worthy causes. If you want to take part in World Book Night this year, you can sign up to be a giver right here. The deadline for signups is January 25th. It’s absolutely free to be a giver. I highly recommend it.
World Book Night home page here, and a list of the 30 books chosen for 2013 here. With choices ranging from Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to James Patterson’s Middle School: the Worst Years of My Life, there’s something on the list to annoy practically anybody who needs vexing…
World Book Night (the Interactive Version)Post + Comments (10)
Late Night Open Thread: Indiana’s New Guv, As Seen By A Native
In honor of the Blogmaster’s current travels, local politics from Doghouse Riley:
INDIANA inaugurated Mike “Choirboy” Pence its fiftieth governor earlier this week– apparently we had to–and while I can pretty much swear I’ll have nothing nice to say about the man from here on out, I will grant that he gave every impression of a man who was wearing a tuxedo for the second time in his life.
I’ve lived here most of my life–in my defense, I am congenitally indolent–and Mike Pence is the sort of man I’ve been expecting to have to survive the governorship of for most of the last forty years. He’s a religious huckster with no other discernible qualities. He was essentially ushered into the Governor’s mansion by his predecessor–who gave then Lt. Governor Becky “GED” Skillman the same chronic and asymptomatic disease Mark Souder’s wife came down with right after Souder was caught dipping into the office help and needed to spend more time with the family–so that Pence wouldn’t either a) come back to Indiana and challenge Dick Lugar in last year’s primary or b) come back to Indiana and wait out Lugar’s last term.
Pence had been the #3 Republican in the House, in case that tells you anything you didn’t already know about Republicans in the House, but quit his post after the 2010 elections because the party wasn’t mixing enough Religious with its Mania anymore, and said that would be his final term. […] The talk at the time was that Pence was planning his own Presidential run, perhaps as a stalking horse for Herman Cain, at a time when Daniels was still milking his own non-candidacy. Then, suddenly, the whole thing arrived like Athena. Or the 2000 candidacy of George W. Bush. Pence suddenly wanted to be governor, Skillman suddenly wanted to be barely ambulatory, and Daniels wanted to tote up some more “campaign” contributions.
Pence’s campaign for governor basically consisted of him assuring concerned Hoosiers that he was a practicing heterosexual. As a result he managed to win by 70,000 votes in a state Mitt “Remember Me?” Romney won by a quarter million….
Late Night Open Thread: Indiana’s New Guv, As Seen By A NativePost + Comments (44)
Friday Evening Open Thread: BoBo Brooks Stripped Bare
Trespassing on DougJ’s turf, for your amusement: Jon Chait in NYMag explains that “David Brooks Is Now Totally Pathological“:
Moderate Republicanism is a tendency that increasingly defies ideological analysis and instead requires psychological analysis. The psychological mechanism is fairly obvious. The radicalization of the GOP has placed unbearable strain on those few moderates torn between their positions and their attachment to party. Many moderate conservatives have simply broken off from the party, at least in its current incarnation, and are hoping or working to build a sane alternative. Those who remain must escape into progressively more baroque fantasies.
The prevalent expression of this psychological pain is the belief that President Obama is largely or entirely responsible for Republican extremism. It’s a bizarre but understandable way to reconcile conflicting emotions — somewhat akin to blaming your husband’s infidelity entirely on his mistress. In this case, moderate Republicans believe that Obama’s tactic of taking sensible positions that moderate Republicans agree with is cruel and unfair, because it exposes the extremism that dominates the party, not to mention the powerlessness of the moderates within it. Michael Gerson recently expressed this bizarre view, and the pathology is also on vivid display in David Brooks’s column today.
Brooks begins by noting that the Grand Bargain on the deficit, which he has spent the last two years relentlessly touting, is not actually possible. Why is it impossible? Because, he writes, “A political class that botched the fiscal cliff so badly are not going to be capable of a gigantic deal on complex issues.”
Oh, the political class? That’s funny. In 2011, Obama offered an astonishingly generous budget deal to House Republicans, and Brooks argued at the time that if the GOP turned the deal down, it would prove their “fanaticism.” Naturally, they turned it down…
What Obama should be doing in response, Brooks argues, is push for policies that provoke no opposition even from the craziest of the Republicans: “We could do some education reform, expand visa laws to admit more high-skill workers, encourage responsible drilling for natural gas, maybe establish an infrastructure bank.” Brooks argues that these issues would be uncontroversial enough to “erode partisan orthodoxies and get back into the habit of passing laws together.” Then, maybe we could pass some laws under a future president.
Note that solving actual problems is besides the point here. Brooks is almost explicit about this. He begins with the need for initiatives that he thinks will lead to happiness and comity between the parties in Washington, and then comes up with policies that might fit the bill. Not surprisingly, viewed from the standpoint of an agenda designed to make life better for Americans in some way, shape or form, Brooks’s proposed agenda is strange….
Seriously, y’all need to go read the whole thing, becasue the fisking is entertaining as well as epic.
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Apart from pointing & mocking, or perhaps implementing one’s inaugural party plans, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?
Friday Evening Open Thread: BoBo Brooks Stripped BarePost + Comments (190)