Monday, October 30, 2006

Republicans: Shut Up and Accept Reality

Laura Ingraham has a silly little book out called Shut Up and Sing - it's what the Dixie Chicks recently adopted as a title of their own, apparently in response.

Well, I saw a great little piece over on democraticunderground.com and it's called "Shut Up and Accept Reality". While I must reiterate here that I don't consider myself a Democrat, I have found myself in their camp lately since the Republicans seem to have left the planet Earth and set up camp on planet Ideologue a looong time ago...I am so sick and tired of the tidal wave of bullshit coming out of this administration and out of the wingnuts on the right, especially the Laura Ingrahams and the Rush Limbaughs. I heard Ingraham defend waterboarding (a WARCRIME, I might add) just this very morning on her little show - apparently, she thinks anything is permissible as long as we aren't cutting off hands and no one dies. That's very Christian of her.

I'm sick and tired of these assholes on the right using what thugs do in other countries or to us on our soil as an excuse to flaunt international law, U.S. law, and basic human decency at every turn. There is nothing we can do about the crimes other people commit in other countries; however, we can do much about the crimes we do, and that is why the left tends to focus on the crimes of the U.S. I know it's a nuanced point that Ingraham and Limbaugh just cannot grasp, but they really should try - we cannot bomb others into practicing human decency but we can try to be a beacon and an example to others, and practicing state terrorism on grander and grander scales is not going to light that beacon. Let me explain it Biblical terms so these so-called Christians can understand: we have to get the log out of our eye before we can concern ourselves with the mote in others'.

And that's not even starting on these Neanderthals for their attack on Fox for his terminal illness - I cannot believe even Limbaugh sunk this low.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Low Meat Intake = Longer Life?

So Tiffany has been dancing with the raw vegan diet for a while now, and even before she began experimenting with raw veganism, I had drastically cut down my meat intake over the years - partly as a (mostly emotional) reaction to the similarity that our dogs seem to have to cows and pigs, I've not eaten pork or beef at all for the past 4 years. I've never been completely at ease with the idea of eating animals, and I suspect most people in their heart of hearts experience this same unease. In the past few months, I've cut way back on even chicken.

I think I'm what a recent WSJ article calls a "flexitarian" - I'll probably never completely get rid of meat in my diet, but lately, it's been down to about 1 or 2 meals a week that have meat in it. I think I could get rid of meat if I tried, but I think cutting out dairy completely would be very difficult for me. As it is, I haven't had milk for years - being born lactose intolerant, I never drank the stuff, but did use it in cereal. The past few years, I've cut down on cheese and butter, but haven't really eliminated it.

Anyway, in the same WSJ article, they mention that data may show that those that have very low meat intake may live 3.6 years longer on average. That's pretty significant when you think about it.

Couple that with some of the data about the CR (calorie restriction) diet and other movements that have emerged like "slow food" in Europe and the rise of farmer's markets everywhere in the U.S and even Wal-Mart getting in on the organic thing and one is staring right in the face of the fact that people everywhere are waking up to what is obvious but systemic. We are the fish and the food that from the Archer Daniel Midlands and the Monsantos of the world is the water - we don't notice it until the data is overwhelming that it is limiting the possible lifespan of the average human being. Most everyone knows intellectually that eating bleached sugar and flour and "natural flavors" and high fructose corn syrup and tons of meat is not good for them, but they generally shrug and say, "eh, whaddaya gonna do?" and chow down.

When reading about technology, we always read about a "digital divide" - I think the next coined term is going to be the "diet divide". Clearly, the upper class generally know how and what to eat, are more health conscious and have the means to buy the foodstuffs from places that have up until lately have been largely boutique style outlets - and as a result live longer.

Firefox 2, QuickCheck and DenverLibPlus

So I finally downloaded the released Firefox 2 on one of my machines, and it seems to be not that much different from 1.5.x - immediately noticeable is that one doesn't need to install the Tab-X extension anymore to get the close boxes on each tab.

In any case, I had to do this to update my extensions, as I've had a few people email me about them and ask if I was going to update them or not.

I have updated my extensions, but they are pending approval on addons.mozilla.org which can take some time. In the meantime, if you want updates, I can email you the updated .xpi file or files on request. In the event that DenverLibPlus gets rejected (again) over on mozilla.org, I'm going to try to find a better place to host than hyperupload.com.

Friday, October 27, 2006

The Homophobic GOP

This is from a while ago, but I have to laugh at GOP who are so insecure in their manhood that they have to argue over the nomenclature of exactly where Jeb hid from steelworkers. I thought these guys represent the little guy, not the elite? Why are steelworkers that upset with him then? Shouldn't they be eager to glad-hand a representative of the little guy?

Oh, and I expressed my dislike for Santorum before, but let me say it again - I so hope Santorum suffers a humiliating defeat this fall. This guy is trying to turn Pennsylvania into an international laughingstock like Kansas.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Actual news on CNN

A hilarious deconstruction of CNN's home page on DailyKos. What's funny is that the broadcast isn't much better - maybe even worse. I'd like to see a breakdown of real news vs. distraction, U.S. news vs. world news over 24 hours on CNN. Once you subtract the stories on Paris and similar D-grade celebrities, Madonna's adopted baby, the commercials, the live coverage of random events (and real journalists seem to decry live coverage as being generally useless to providing any context and thus any real information anyway) and I bet it boils down to about an hour of actual news.

If you believe the wingnut crowd, CNN is supposed to be "liberal". A laughable idea, and immediately dismissed if one actually watches for a while. Just because they don't always dance around sensitive wingnut's pet issues doesn't mean they have a "liberal agenda". Anyway, they piled on as well when Air America announced chapter 11 - when watching some coverage of it (it was on mute, but I saw the bottom 1/3's title) the faces looked positively gleeful. I later read commentary on DailyKos and elsewhere that confirmed this gleefulness. I wonder if, when discussing Air America, they brought up the fact that Fox News itself was losing something like 90 million a year when it first started, and that wingnut paper Washington Times lost millions as well, and maybe still does.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Letter to a Christian Nation

I'm partway through the God Delusion, and Dawkins references this book, so I realized I had forgotten to write up my thoughts about Sam Harris' book.

Well, where to begin? Most of the people that most need to read this book probably won't, but the author has put out a great book that should be read. I think I read almost all of this book over a lunch break, so it won't take too long to get through. This book is written as a reaction to all the letters that came in as a result of Sam Harris' The End of Faith, and the two books are probably best read together.

Sam Harris makes a very powerful argument against Christianity having anything to do with morality. I wish there was a survey available for this, but I'd venture a significant amount of Americans believe they are somehow related, or worse, that the ONLY way a person can be moral is to be a Christian. I've always been very puzzled by that narrowminded notion, especially when the people who hold that notion even attend or attended university, where theoretically, they would at least have an intro to ethics course, either in frosh year or in college prep courses in high school. I guess I almost expect that from people who are barely literate. I actually had a roommate who I'd jokingly spar with in my junior year - he literally thought that if people didn't believe in god, what would keep them from killing, raping, looting and what have you. I suspect that this idea perpetuates because Christianity is specifically designed to deflect any notions that conflict with it, or worse, designed to make believers never venture very far in their inquiries - I mean, there is that whole Tree of Knowledge mythology planted right at the beginning of their text to drive home the point that knowledge is bad.

Well, one argument is to take a look at those areas that are most fervently Christian - the South. If Christianity had any influence on actual morality, you'd expect those areas to be socially healthy. Problem is, that isn't the case. Violence is much higher in the South. I forget actual numbers so you'll have to read the book. :)

There are at least two other arguments and I cannot remember if the author uses those as well. One is to look at whole countries - countries that are more agnostic/atheist tend to be better off. Another is that one can look at the self-identification of religiosity of prison inmates. If atheists are really immoral, you'd expect to find more representation of atheists in jail than in the general population. The exact opposite is true.

What I most like about what Sam Harris is saying is that the religious moderates have something to answer for, too. The fact that they pick and choose what to believe and what to take is allegory is great - however, they have to own up to the fact that buried within those texts are horrible, awful things that some of their flock do believe and do take literally, and that is a danger to the world. Right now the en vogue thing to do is to point at Islam and talk about how much more Christianity has "progressed". The problem is, the texts have not changed and are unlikely to change, always leaving the door open to fundamentalists cropping up and doing evil things in the name of Christianity. As an example, moderates cannot really argue effectively with those Baptists saying "God hates fags" - those Baptists are reading the same texts and it's right there in the texts. Of course, God also hates people who eat lobster.

And one of my favorite talking points that both Harris and Dawkins use - virtually everyone is an unbeliever, except many have made one exception. Christians are atheists when it comes to Zeus, Athena, Baal, Thor, Brahma, etc. In fact Dawkins used this same talking point on the Daily Show, saying atheists just go one god more in their unbelief.

Media Matters Foleygate debunking machine

Media Matters created a nice point by point list of all the attempts of Republicans to either minimize or deflect this scandal of theirs onto the Democrats - along with facts to debunk those attempts. It's called A special Media Matters for America report: debunking the Foley myth machine.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Costco is selling emergency food kits

Maybe I'm just extra alert about things that really shouldn't matter much. Still, I cannot help but wonder why Costco is selling these emergency food kits. They come in these buckets that are about the same size as the containers drywall cement often comes in and if I recall correctly, they have food for 90 days?

Does Costco know something the rest of us sheople don't know, or are they just taking the economically rational course that so many other companies and individuals are doing - cashing in on the fears?

I don't know about all the metaphysical stuff that the LDS (Mormons) believe in, but their idea of having a year's worth of supplies socked away doesn't sound like too shabby of an idea.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Shelley The Republican

Brandon mentioned the hilarious blog Shelley the Republican in the comments on a previous posting. Their stuff is great - done in the style of Colbert or Phil Hendrie.

They recently put up a hilarious posting about Apple computers.

They also have a great entry called "It's time to teach the controversy" with this side-splitter:

We have never been members of the KKK. We merely wish to remain open-minded about American history. I was not around in the golden age of KKK, so all I am saying is that the liberal media (especially Wikipedia) might have distorted the truth about the Klan.


If that sort of stuff makes you laugh, you'll love this blog, because it has lots of similar material (and funny pics to go with).

Wallace on the "Fair and Balanced" Network

Is there any way people could start a class-action lawsuit against Faux "News" for false advertising? Fair and balanced, my ass.

So Wallace tried to do a hatchet job on Clinton, and Rethuglicans and their fellow travelers acted all shocked and taken aback that Clinton would call him out on it...and apparently Fox even went out of their way to edit that interview to make Clinton look rabid and crazy. I have my problems with Clinton, but he's right on about only asking him certain questions and then tossing softballs to neocons.

You're telling me he couldn't ask one question of Condi when he gets at least 20K emails on it, and then justifies asking Clinton the same question because he supposedly got emails.

One might as well watch the Cartoon Network to get one's news - the signal to noise ratio is about the same as Faux "News".

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Some Linux Successes

I've had some breakthroughs in the past few weeks. First, on the laptop, I was able to get what sounds like the proper volume by using a patch on the alsadriver code, compiling and installing.

My ongoing DVR project (installing MythTV) had some success, as well. A few weeks ago at a Linux group, I was given a projector my our gracious host to use. I was able to get X to go out via NTSC to the projector. Since there was no cable feed there to use, I couldn't test the other bits, and haven't set it up at home to try that part out yet, either. But it's getting there.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Denver Development Name Generator

Saw this on BoingBoing - a Denver Development Name Generator. I'm always amused at all the pretentious names given to some of these areas myself. It's even funnier when people take them seriously - I live in the 'burbs and don't have any illusions about its grandeur, but many do.

Many/most McMansion neighborhoods strike me as "projects" for the middle class, and I'm sure many inner-city projects have misnomers like "The Pines", etc. - which I'm sure fools no one. Pretty ironic when you know that the boom in the suburbs/exurbs is driven by white flight, and they end up in similarly regimented areas only with really pompous and ridiculous misnomers which fool damn near everyone.

One more reason to love Showtime's Weeds - really does a good job at poking fun at the burbs. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not - the title song is really an in your face condemnation of "ticky tacky" houses (and people) that are "all the same".

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Michele Bachmann Gets Laughed At

Saw this on some liberal blog somewhere - Michele Bachmann gets laughed at by an audience when she calls global warming into doubt. Now I just need to see a similar clip of some Republican doofus (she will do as well) that thinks we need to "teach the controversy" - evolution vs. a faith based belief system like ID.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Keith Olbermann

I have to admit I've never seen this show, but seeing so many blogs about his "special comments" of late, I thought I'd watch one online. I downloaded this WMV and played it. Holy cow, someone with a dissenting opinion on television with a spine (not sure if he's a liberal or not, but usually the people propped up as "liberals" are usually moderates. If they aren't moderates, a criteria seems to be that they are shrieky and/or non-telegenic)!

Check out Olbermann on Bush's (most recent) lies. This guy isn't pulling any punches, and it's not a silly diatribe in the vein of O'Reilly - it's measured and backed by something other than "truthiness".

I fear for this guy's job(I cannot see corporate masters letting someone like this who makes so much sense and articulates it so well to stick around, but who knows), but I'm gonna start Tivo'ing his show. Over on Youtube, I saw some comment on a Olbermann video saying his numbers are better than O'Reilly's.

The Darknet & Disney

BoingBoing had a posting today discussing Disney's viewpoint on piracy. Very interesting that back in 2002, Microsoft wrote a paper using the term "darknet" and this sentence in the conclusion is saying essentially what Disney is only now saying publicly:

"In short, if you are competing with the darknet, you must compete on the darknetā€™s own terms: that is convenience and low cost rather than additional security."

I wonder if someone at Disney finally got around to reading this write-up from Microsoft and/or read the book Darknet.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Creation Science Polka

I don't know how Church of the Subgenius finds all these gems - maybe people send them in, but the Creation Science Polka was pretty funny.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

One For The Yellow Ribbon Crowd

The little dance number done by these guys is targeted right at the yellow ribbon crowd.

Remember: it's patriotic to stick a yellow ribbon on your car(extra points if it's an SUV!); it's not patriotic to bring up issues about body armor or even the legitimacy of the Iraq war - as the right wing noise machine always reminds us: they volunteered, so that means no one can ever question what they are being asked to do or under what conditions they are asked to do it.

Ingraham Tries Some Misdirection

In my previous post on Ingraham's spin on the Foley thing, I forgot to mention she tried this one, too: (paraphrasing) "Well, the Democrats sure want to talk about Foley, but one thing they DON'T want to talk about is this..."

And this is where it gets funny. So desperate. So shameless. She wants to talk about Amber Mangum, a silly little anecdotal case that has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans in Washington, but hey, what's a little misdirection among friends, right?

Notice I link the site StopTheACLU.com above - the irony is that the ACLU commonly helps people out like Amber Mangum, but that doesn't stop partisan hacks from attacking the "godless" ACLU.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Right Wing Spinmeisters

So last Tuesday we were full swing into the Foley thing, and I thought I'd tune into Laura Ingraham's daily spin, er, I mean, show. I wasn't disappointed. I heard her talking to someone, I'm not sure who, who she's disagreeing with the whole time (not offering any counter-evidence of course, but saying things like "oh, I don't know about that", or "that doesn't sound right to me" - or her stupid little dismissive laugh she always does). Then she takes a call, and the caller is saying something about how "libruls" don't like wiretapping, so where did these IM conversations come from? I doubt "libruls" really are opposed to people in power being watched, it's blanket illegal wiretapping (you know, violating the LAW) that they are opposed to. But nevermind all that...

...because then we're on to hushed discussion between Laura and the caller about CREW, and how they are a George Soros funded (or "someone like Soros", she says) outfit, they can be just dismissed. What I just don't get is why the Republican noise machine always acts as if they are talking about the Illuminati when they talk about Soros. At least we KNOW who he funds - let's talk about another billionaire who funds foundations: Richard Mellon Scaife- why doesn't Laura divulge exactly what role the Heritage Foundation (co-founded by Scaife) played in her life? I think a perfect litmus test as to whether the media is really "librul" or not is to see often Soros' name comes up vs. Scaife's. If my only source of "news" was television, I doubt I'd even know who Scaife was, but I have CNN turned on all day at a typical workday - and I see the visage of Soros OFTEN.

Then Laura (and others - I listened to Hannity later that day when he "interviewed" Hastert - total love-fest) moves on to general implications about how Democrats held onto this for maximum effect - very interesting half-ass theory, and even though it was quickly debunked by ABC (it was Republicans who leaked this), it didn't stop Hannity and other despicable characters like him from continuing to imply this.

And this nonsense increased all week - a clip the Daily Show played of Hannity doing the inevitable - dragging up Clinton for Pete's sake. Clinton was a great whipping boy for the right for a while, but these people need to get a new scapegoat for crying out loud. Even funnier was how Hannity brought up some Democrat from 1983...gold. Besides being 23 years ago, it was also a much different political landscape - there was no internet, there were no bloggers.

Republicans just have to face the music on this one. A Republican did a terrible and despicable thing and they have to own up to the fact that other Republicans covered up for him - apparently some even encouraged him to run again - even after knowing. From the polls taken Democrats now win in polls on every major issue, so apparently all the spin isn't helping and is most likely hurting. Hastert should step down as a bare minimum. When the Sun Myung Moon Washington Times calls for a Republican to go, it's time to go, because if that paper doesn't support you, no one but the most deluded of your base will support the decision to stay.

CERT: Colorado Evolution Response Team

All I can say is FINALLY! It's great to see there is an organized group to fight against the very well-organized (but retarded when it comes to science or apparently even critical thinking) groups trying to push their backward and out-dated belief systems into science classes. I found out about CERT via this article in the Denver Post on Friday, by Jim Spencer. Hopefully other states have similar response teams. I know SEA is national and I'm glad to see them pipe up, too. If the bible bangers get their way, this country will continue to devolve into some poor international backwater theocracy.

I understand why many scientists choose not to get involved in these culture wars - they have real work to do, not argue against people who constantly use old arguments that have been refuted over and over - the people making the fallacious arguments would do well to read the site talkorigins.org or lurk on talk.origins newgroup for a while so as not to appear so stupid, instead of bothering scientists.

However, and even though I think what Penn said (roughly: "everyone who needs to accept evolution does") is a great idea, I think he's influenced by his position on public schooling - as a big-L Libertarian, he thinks there shouldn't be public schools. Well, we have them, and while we have them, we have to fight to keep the superstition out of science, so we can't have people muddying waters with bogus arguments that have been refuted time and time again and saying evolution is "just" a theory. So is the germ "theory" of disease, and we don't have these religious dolts throwing up walls to teaching that, or about the "theory" of gravity.

I think instead of having people put stickers on books, or try to remove the word "evolution" from this discussion because it's politically charged, I think teachers and administrators should be instructed to tell their students (and parents) to read talkorigins.org and find refutations to these old and naive arguments (a fave of mine is the one about the eye and the accompanying argument from ignorance). As an extra bonus, they can also discuss the various logical fallacies, something even the bible bangers won't object to, since some traditions teach their faithful about these as well.

Mathematics Genius

Saw this link on DailyKos - check out the math whizzes. Hilarious.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

My Thoughts On Alan Watt's Theories

I've been listening for a little over a year to a podcast put on by Alan Watt - the podcast is called "Cutting Through The Matrix With Alan Watt". His web site is cuttingthroughthematrix.com. Let me say right up front that I don't actually believe this stuff - but I keep listening because of all the various sources that Alan Watt has apparently read over the years.

I do agree that there are conspiracies - but it doesn't make sense to me that there is one grand vision being executed over thousands of years. I think there are elite groups that think they are the capital-E "Experts" and capital-E "Elite" who are under the impression they were born to rule. However, I think these groups are small enclaves formed (and eventually wither) in a few generations.

I keep listening because I find all the data interesting - and how he chooses to interpret it. I think some of the data itself that he talks about is highly likely to be correct (although I don't know about the chemtrails and things of that nature) along with various writers' and speakers' quotes. I just don't follow him to the same conclusions.

My current thinking on Democrats & Republicans - barring a few differences on social issues, they don't seem that different in what they carry out. Notice both parties think bombing other countries in wars on nouns (Terrorism & Drugs) are legitimate actions. Both helped "reform" welfare. Both have similar opinions on corporate rule, and on and on. I don't think that's due to the Freemasons however. Instead, I think Chomsky's Propaganda Model is closer to the truth as to why the parties don't differ much, and why the corporate media doesn't have much range in opinion, either.

Anyway, he's definitely worth listening to, if not for his conclusions, at least for his references. Even if you listen with prejudice, it's sure to inject a little paranoia into your thinking. :)

Of course, I could be just one more member of the herd, deluded by the Great Work. There is always the possibility of being dead wrong.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

More On Robert Anton Wilson

BoingBoing updated their page with some news about Bob and his recent financial trouble. Man, what a great crowd of people - I've seen some very good comments and blog entries on old Bob, and it's really nice to see the good in folks. It's even better to see that Bob's situation (at least financially) has improved, and he can stay home. Of course, there are always dumbshits out there who don't know who RAW is or the situation, but many commented anyway - the story about RAW made it on to Slashdot, and some of the comments are just terribly stupid.

I generally have a habit of keeping my farking mouth shut when I don't know shit from Shinola about something, but it seems many on Slashdot don't bother with any such notions...maybe it's just me, but that site has really seemed to jump the shark the past few years - maybe the commenting system got changed or something, but some of the dumbest remarks can get marked with a 4 or 5, and I just don't understand that. For someone to call him a "fringe sci-fi author" displays significant ignorance - I don't think Illuminatus! went out of print, something which rarely happens with any fiction, let alone sci-fi.

Oh well. I guess the world will always produce Hunter S. Thompsons and Robert Anton Wilsons and Bill Hicks, etc., along with way too many sanctimonious jackasses who don't get it and instead choose to wallow in their jackass-ed-ness and only value things that make lots of money.

Even back when the only thing I had read from Bob was the Illuminatus Trilogy, he would have ranked as possibly the top five of people I'd like to meet (I read the Trilogy at least 3 times, the first time in frosh year of uni). After reading his other stuff, I'd say he moved up into the number one or two spot.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

My Thinking On Transparency

Okay, so this latest big thing shows just how despicable our supposed representatives are, and it's only the latest in a long string. So before any idiots in Washington push one more iota of surveillance on we, the people, I propose that any continuing surveillance and any new surveillance is piloted on them first.

I've already proposed that we test for steroid use in the police force - frequently and rigorously by a third party group that is not part of the fraternal order of police.

Tom Delay has supposedly said something to the effect of (when lighting up a cigarette) that he "is the government". Well, he (and Foley and Hastert and Abramoff and others) has demonstrated that that power needs some checks. In the modern world, I think that check should be constant monitoring day and night of the legislative and executive branch - audio/video all day long at work, all calls monitored and transcribed into text. All computer, cell, and land lines at home would be monitored in the same manner, and all this made available to the public. Any meetings with anyone anywhere would have the names of everyone involved and who or what interest they represent. No more closed door meetings conducted by the likes of Cheney to come up with national energy policy. No more people from legislative branch or homeland security trying to solicit sex from minors...

And any protest at all from these folks and I have to ask the standard question:

What do you have to hide?

Monday, October 02, 2006

RAW Needs Help

It's with great sadness that I read about this on BoingBoing today. RAW is apparently not far from death, and needs help in his final days.

I cannot think of an author I admire more - in fact, that's where I got the title for this blog from (Domesticated Primate) - and this is very sad news indeed.

I just wish we could get our leaders to read old Bob. If one of the books Bush had supposedly read this year was Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, we'd be witness to quite a world...

At a bare minimum, I suspect that some of his work will be read in more enlightened high schools and definitely in some university courses, if not already. I really think some of his stuff will be in the same sort of canon as Brave New World, 1984, and other classics...

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Air America

After hearing yet another dittohead proclaiming yet again that Air America is going to fail (which I was hearing on the air and in person from people before they even launched), I thought I'd go looking for just what their listenership is. I got sidetracked, though, because immediately I found some article from worldnetdaily.com claiming the same tired old line about Air America's demise. I also found a few other remarks here and there talking about how they wouldn't exist if it wasn't for high-profile rich liberals supporting them. Does anyone else see the irony of these same people saying that, meanwhile reading sites like newsmax.com and worldnetdaily.com (the second not making money until 2 years later, from the wikipedia entry)?

More irony - trying to maintain this idea of speaking for the everyman and loudly bleating about "elitists", and at the same time bashing Air America for asking money from its listeners. I suppose they'd rather have their financial support for their "news" sources be secret? Or funded by someone with obvious bias and clearly an elitist like Richard Mellon Scaife? Or rely on a newspaper propped up by Sun Myung Moon like the Washington Times?

In all truthfulness, I haven't tuned into Air America in weeks, maybe months, but if conservatives really believe in the marketplace of ideas, why do they fear Air America so much? I think at heart, they know that given a level playing field (and by that, I mean dollar for dollar spent - right now, conservative think tanks outspend liberal ones 4-to-1 to get their message out), conservative ideas will lose to liberal ones - it's clear that people want universal healthcare, despite all the work and PR done to tell us why we shouldn't - and it's clear an awful lot of work was done and a lot of money spent on giving us that message. That's quite a colossal failure of PR, but there you go.

These attacks on one lonely little dissident radio network are just pathetic, but I guess I shouldn't expect much from the same crew that thinks that Katie Couric is somehow indicative of the "liberal media".

Liegirls.com

The Church of the Subgenius Hour of Slack sometimes puts up some absolutely brilliant stuff in their audio collage. In #1064, they put in the audio from liegirls.com. Li(v)e Girls is a hotline for Stepford Republicans who obviously like to be lied to.

GM and Hannity

If there are still people wondering why GM is in trouble, look no further than their recent ad campaigns. First they throw Rosa Parks into some ad for cars - huh?

Then to propose to involve an un-American faux patriot flag-waver like Hannity with GM - how out of touch can you be? GM probably already has a good deal of the dittohead market segment and maybe they thought they would shore that up by hiring a knuckle-dragger like Hannity, but now they just lost anyone moderate or liberal.

Hiring someone as controversial as Hannity is just bad business. What's next, Ann Coulter? How about Lyndon LaRouche?

As for buying an "American" car making you patriotic...LOL. Technically, I guess Mexico and Canada are also American, but I don't think jobs lost to Mexico is what the campaign is trying to evoke...

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