Slobber And Spittle (Archive)

Our mania about terrorism reached a crescendo with the Boston Marathon bombings, where a couple of disaffected young men with little or nothing in the way of military training (or common sense) were the focus of a massive manhunt that shut down a major city for a day.

As Maher said in the clip:

After 9/11 we were shell shocked. We didn't know what kind of enemy we were dealing with, but twelve years later, we have a much better idea: Losers, fuckups, idiots!

...

Bin Laden's plan wasn't to kill us all. It was to scare us into overreacting, and destroy ourselves. Because if there's one thing those terrorists proved they can blow up, it's our balance sheet.

I've mentioned this thought before, but bin Laden succeeded brilliantly. The best thing we could have done to persuade them to try something else would have been to, as the old British war posters said, "Keep calm and carry on". Instead, we reacted like Daffy Duck on his first hit of methamphetamine. Not only did our reaction encourage more efforts from the more-or-less professional terrorists, but it showed the losers that this was one sure-fire way of getting attention.

Nothing about this recent bombing gives me hope that we'll be getting over it anytime soon.

Twitter message by @davidsirota, April 25, 2013



Twitter message by @TheTweetOfGod, April 25, 2013

There's something wrong with this idea, that's for sure. When someone who couldn't be bothered to read a book is given lots of money to open a library, it just seems wrong somehow.

Image credit: Kade Crockford/(via Glenn Greenwald) (NOTE 2)

NOTE 1: In addition to that treaty, we signed the Geneva Convention of 1949, which among many other things says we won't mistreat our prisoners.

NOTE 2: I don't have an attribution link, nor am I sure what the copyright status is, so I'm trying to check both. As sometimes happens, this could disappear soon. Perhaps what I should take from Blogger's software issues with images is that they're kinda tricky.

Ron Fournier of the National Journal manages to be more pathetic than Alex Jones over the Boston bombing.

Just take your soiled slacks and retire already

There isn't much I can add to that, really. At least Jones' fevered imagination was able to come up with a scary secret conspiracy we should all be peeing our pants over. Fournier's justification is that we weren't at work when it happened.

It's hard to be more pathetic than that, but I await our punditocracy's next attempt to surpass this. Just like the act that spawned this nonsense, there's clearly nothing we can do about this plague of idiocy. We might as well laugh about it, right?

Twitter Conversation by emptywheel, April 16, 2013

The crap is going to happen anyway, so you might as well laugh about it.

I took a screenshot, because blogger still doesn't have a tool to include Twitter messages inline. If you want to follow the links, go to the link in the byline.

"Somewhere along the way [libertarianism] morphed into some creepy philosophy based on a novel by Ayn Rand"

I don't know that libertarianism ever made much sense really, but the idea that the government that governs best governs least has been a guiding principle that Americans have applied to their political philosophies for a long time. Even we liberals tend to think that there are times, as in the case of making marijuana illegal, where too much government activism isn't a good thing.

Unfortunately, applying that idea as some form of absolute, and particularly saying that the government has no business regulating a magical fairyland called "the free market" is complete nonsense. When the marketplace can't take care of something vital in our lives like health care, then using the government to fix it is not only OK, it's quite often essential. Markets don't fix themselves. That's particularly true of markets where there are economies of scale, because it is quite often the most ruthless people who end up running them.

"Libertarians also hate Medicare and Social Security, and there are problems with those programs, but .. it beats stepping over lepers and watching human skeletons shit in the river, and I also like not seeing those things. I'm selfish that way."

As far as I'm concerned, liberalism (or socialism, if it goes a little further) makes sense from a selfish perspective as well as from a humane one, as Maher alludes in that quote. When the world around us is full of safe, healthy, and secure people it's a better place than when it isn't. I sometimes wonder if most Americans will ever grapple with that notion, let alone embrace it.

For that, and many other reasons, libertarianism justly deserves this smackdown. It really is the province of people who have never had reason to find out how arbitrary and capricious life can be. In other words, it's for people who have yet to grow up, in at least some sense of that phrase.

Image credit: Kathy Chapman/Wikimedia

Too bad Stephen Jay Gould didn't manage to live long enough to see this:

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson reversed his opposition to gay marriage on Thursday, joining a swell of moderate Democrats to do so recently as public support for gay marriage has grown.

Bill Nelson reverses opposition to gay marriage

Which, when you add it to the recent conversions of Republican Senators Rob Portman and Mark Kirk (IL), and Democratic Senators Tom Carper (DE), Bob Casey (PA), and Kay Hagan (NC), looks like there's a whole lot of evolution going on regarding this issue.

Back in the 1980s, Dr. Gould had proposed that evolution happens mostly in spurts, when something in the ecosystem changes. That idea was known as punctuated equilibrium. Many other biologists, Richard Dawkins being one of the more prominent, felt that this wasn't true, that evolution is just something that mostly happens gradually.

At least in the case of political ecosystems, it looks like Gould was right. Folks sure are evolving quickly, now that the ecosystem has changed.

NRA instructor Eugene Kenny would have joined his fellow gun-rights supporters at the state Capitol Wednesday—if he hadn’t accidentally shot himself in the foot.

...

Kenny, a 49-year-old licensed National Rifle Association instructor who leads training classes in pistol and rifle use, delivered his arguments in the front foyer of the two-family Edgewood Avenue house where he rents an upstairs apartment in the Edgewood neighborhood.

Despite Mishaps, NRA Instructor Blasts Bills

I sometimes wonder if anyone on Eugene Kenny's side of this debate even has a sense of irony. The guy is a living reminder of how dangerous firearms are to the people who own them. Yes, I'm sure none of the provisions of the law he was arguing against would have spared him that round through his foot, but when people fight this hard to be able to keep dangerous things in their houses with no more restrictions, it does make you wonder just what, if anything, is on their minds.

(h/t Joshua Holland.)

Image credit: Screenshot of this MLB video by Cujo359

Yes, this really is something that doesn't happen to everyone:

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Charlie Manuel occasionally reminds people he has been in baseball 50 years. He has seen almost everything.

But it took until Sunday for a grown man pedaling a tricycle to crash into him on the field.

Tricycle collision gives Manuel a good laugh

I've read a lot of things today, including some folks trying to sound like they understand what happened in the recent Italian elections (does anyone, really?), and the usual run of strange things at Space.com and NASA. This is the strangest, and second strangest isn't even close.

After all, when you're standing on a grass and dirt surface, the last thing you'd expect to be hit by is a tricycle, no matter what the age of the driver.

Major League Baseball wins that competition today.

Did you remember to spring forward today? Oh, stop complaining that it's too early to be daylight savings time already, and how can that other time be "standard" time when daylight savings time lasts longer? Oh, and don't even think of complaining that we can't be springing forward, because it's not even spring yet.

Just think of all that energy we're saving. No, I have no idea how that works.

Image credit: BrokenSphere/Wikimedia

Yes, it's finally here once again - the day the pre-game interviews finally end, and seventy or so large men push each other around in the mud for three hours until a champion is crowned. Sports fans may recognize this event as the Super Bowl, the National Football League's championship game. People who aren't sports fans, but who have the misfortune to live in America at this time of year, certainly do.

Since this year's game will be in the New Orleans Superdome, though, there won't be much mud. If that's what you're looking for, you'll probably have to go elsewhere.

The only reason I even remembered that this was Super Bowl weekend was that I was grocery shopping on Friday. The nice lady who was checking the groceries asked me "Are you ready for Super Bowl weekend?"

To which I replied, "Umm, sure. Who's playing?" She didn't know, either.

It turns out that it's the San Francisco 49ers playing the Baltimore Ravens. San Francisco's baseball team won the World Series this year, so that alone would suggest that someone else should win here. The Ravens are also the team Baltimore finally ended up with after the city told the Colts they couldn't have everything they wanted, because there were a lot of people who need financial assistance and transportation there. Or something. Anyway, the Colts started playing their home games in Indianapolis, which seems to have upset at least a few people in both cities. Nothing tugs at the heart-strings of city managers like the sound of rich middle aged white guys whining that now that their pro football team is gone, they don't have anything to do with their kids on the days they have custody. So the Ravens were born. In addition, while both teams have won the Super Bowl, the 49ers have won five times, most recently in 1995. I suppose if I were rooting for someone, it would be the Ravens.

The truth is, of course, that I don't care. According to this barely readable preview, this will be a game where matchups are key. Or something. The truth is that the NFL seems like 20-plus versions of the same team nowadays. It's one of the reasons the game is so boring now. Most games, the only real mystery is how many times they'll pass on first down.

For those who do care, or work for someone who does, here are the important points:

• Game time is 6:30 PM Eastern.
• The game will be broadcast on CBS in America.
• Beyonce is the pop star who will be providing half time entertainment. It might be more fun to put on her latest album and lip-sync it, but I'm sure you'll think of something.

If anyone finds out who won, please leave a comment.

Image credit: Cujo359

In yet another excursion to downtown Federal Way in which the main purpose was to get out of the house, I took some photos readings at the by now world famous Climate Change Cherry Tree. As readers will recall, we recently visited another location in Federal Way and noted, much to our surprise, that there were blooms on one of the local cherry trees there.

Three years ago, buds were starting to bloomon February 17.

Image credit: Cujo359

Yes, those are cherry blossoms, in January. It's not the Climate Change Cherry Tree, but it's only a few blocks away. We can't say this is a scientific study without an official observation at the CCCT, of course, but it's sure looking like spring will be here really early this year.

Image credit: Photo by Cujo359

No recycled photos this year, no siree.

If you just got the day off because everyone else celebrates Christmas, hope you can find something to do while everything's closed.

The BPA's transmission lines were still there:

Birds were still flying:

And so was the Air Force:

The place that makes the closest thing to a real Philly cheese steak in this part of the country was still grilling them:

So, you're probably wondering, what about other worlds? Maybe some other celestial body's number was up today, right? The next nearest one looked like it was doing just fine, too:

So, yes, yet another prediction of disaster based on some numerical coincidence turned out to be untrue. Go figure.

If there's anyone who accidentally ended up here who is actually surprised that the world didn't end because the Mayan calendar ran out yesterday, please try this thought experiment the next time you hear the world will end because some ancient civilization didn't bother to make a calendar that went more than a few hundred years into their future:

Remember desk calendars? You know, those old pads of paper that had a sheet for each day of the year that all had clever things that Snoopy or Opus or B.C. said on each sheet? Remember how you tear one off at the end of the day and there's the next day's date on it? When you got to the one labeled "Dec. 31", did the world end? No, it didn't.

You went out and got another calendar!

Same thing here.

Glad we could clear that up.

Baseball isn't professional wrestling. It actually is a contest of skilled athletes trying to compete against each other in a game that doesn't have a predetermined outcome.

But, as MLB notes today, that doesn't mean that everything you see is on the up-and-up. For instance, the arguments managers supposedly have with umpires during the game sometimes go like this:

"I remember a manager yelling and screaming and coming out and saying, 'I have to get run,'" said umpire Ted Barrett, who has governed big league games for 19 years. "So I tossed him, and he starts ranting and raving about how bad his team is. 'My pitcher is terrible. My bullpen can't get anybody out. My hitters haven't hit a ball out of the infield in three days. My clubhouse guys serve crappy food.' And on and on.

"I started chuckling at him, and the guy gets up in my face and says, 'Don't you laugh. If you laugh, then they know this is all an act.' So I did everything I could just to bite my tongue."

“My Pitcher Is Terrible, My Bullpen Can’t Get Anybody Out”: What Managers Really Yell About While Arguing With Umpires

I think most fans who haven't played the game at that level have, at times, wondered just what these arguments could possibly be about. There you are, distracted by the lump of mustard that just dropped from your hot dog onto your lap, and you can tell the umpire made the right call. The fans know it, and even the sportscasters know it. Yet here's an argument. Now I know there's an alternative explanation for the stress having finally gotten to yet another big league manager.

Of course, like jumping from the top turnbuckle without hurting yourself, there is some skill involved:

One such circumstance arose when Terry Collins was leading the Angels in the late 1990s. After a questionable call, Collins sought out Scott and told the umpire, "You know what, Dale? I know that was the right call. But we [stink]. You have to run me."

Scott told Collins he needed him to display more emotion and conviction to warrant his dismissal, so the manager flung his hat and Scott pointed him to the exit.

“My Pitcher Is Terrible, My Bullpen Can’t Get Anybody Out”: What Managers Really Yell About While Arguing With Umpires

There may not be any crying in baseball, but that doesn't mean you don't need The Method.

Image credit: Photo taken and processed by Cujo359

Yes, it's a farmers' market inside a shopping mall. Yes, that's a Santa Claus in there. The Farmers' Market is open during winter for the first time this year. It's hard to imagine what local products would be available there, but I'm told they grow winter vegetables here. Not too surprising given that, but for someone who is used to thinking of farmers' markets as being something that go on when the local farmers can sell their crops, it's a bit strange.

It gets stranger, though. The shopping mall is named The Commons. Yes, it's privately owned, which would seem to me to be the antithesis of something called "The Commons". There was a time when this, too, might have seemed remarkable. Now, I seem to be the only resident in a city of 85,000 who finds this at all odd.

In addition, this used to be the Borders, one of two chain bookstores in town. In Federal Way, there are few retail businesses that aren't chains, which means, of course, that this was one of two bookstores in Federal Way, assuming you don't count the Christian bookstore, or the family Christian bookstore, which I don't. Now, there is just one. The other bookstore is a fairly disappointing one, particularly if you are looking for anything to do with science, computers, or politics. Well, progressive politics, at least, is underrepresented. They stock what looks to be just about every book by Glenn Beck ever written. Maybe if we had more bookstores, more people would know what a commons is, because there'd be something to read that wasn't written by religious fanatics or lunatics.

There's something quintessentially early Twenty-First Century American about a farmers' market operating in a shopping mall named The Commons in the middle of winter in place of one of the few bookstores that once existed here. It's almost as though cognitive dissonance is just another price you pay to live here.

Image credit Steve Fareham/UK Geo

Among other things, I spend my days monitoring and editing a blog for an amateur theatre. They use Wordpress, which is decent software for blogging. There are things I like about it better than Blogger, the software used by this site, but that's a story for another day. Like most modern computer software, it can be augmented with third-party add-ons, a few of which are designed to catch spam comments. Since we have one of those modules, and since it is designed to flag comments that look like spam for the blog's administrators to read, I get to see a lot of nonsense cleverly designed to look like actual comments.

Today, I saw what has to be the cleverest:

Hi, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam comments? If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can recommend? I get so much lately it’s driving me insane so any support is very much appreciated.

The "author"'s profile URL leads to a site that looks deceptively like a site about outdoor recreation, but actually contains links that lead to a website where you can buy products of a well-known line of outdoor clothing. Actually, it's more likely that they lead to a line of cheap knock-offs of that clothing line, given the dishonesty of the folks who send this stuff around.

I don't think we'll be trading spam-prevention tips any time soon. I'm a big fan of irony, though, so I'll give them credit for that.

UPDATE: The previous edition of this article used a photo that is now marked "all rights reserved", so I found a different photo.

Yes, I haven't been around much lately. Writing about politics seems pointless, because, let's face it, doing stupid, pointless things is what humans seem to be best at, unless one considers their capacity to rationalize it all away.

My buddy Henri here has a pretty good handle on why:

French truly is the language of the absurd.