Wishful Thinking

Joe Klein makes an astute observation about Rush and the Rams:

...(T)he news that Rush Limbaugh is too controversial, too much of an extremist to be considered as a potential owner of the St. Louis Rams should be carefully digested by Republicans, especially those elected officials who heed his every call. This should be a reality check for the fevered wingers, as well.

Until you consider the intractability of right wing thought.

Did the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq make them question the Bush Administration's honesty or competence? Of course not.

What about this push for the real vault copy of Obama's birth certificate?

Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession, Terri Schiavo, guns at town halls, the murder of Dr. Tiller, did any of these events spur any soul-searching on the right? Of course not!

Rush Limbaugh's NFL snub is going to change that? I doubt it. Just listen to Rush Limbaugh whine about the liberal media being at fault, when in reality it was the conservative media, specifically Rush's own radio show, that cost him that particular opportunity.

A reality check? First you must have some basic grasp of the concept of, you know, reality...

Fun With Right Wing E-mails

My brother sent me this:

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good..

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he's in labor and then sues.

If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A liberal will delete it because he's "offended".

So I sent him my revisions.

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he's a limp-wristed coastal elitist pansy.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, they don't buy one and try to make sure armed nutcases don't shoot up schools, churches, and political events.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he's a granola eating hippie faggot.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he's an idiot with poor dietary habits.

If a conservative is homosexual, he lives comfortably in the closet, hoping no one (especially his conservative friends) ever find out.
If a liberal is homosexual, he has to put up with "small government" conservatives telling his he's an evil child-molesting pig-fucking faggot who is incapable of love and undeserving of legal protection.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they're considered one of the "good ones."
Their liberal counterparts are barely even human. (Example: Barack the Magic Negro)

If a conservative is down-and-out, he blames liberals, illegal aliens, and poor minorities for his plight.
A liberal blames the corporation who fired him, the bank who foreclosed on his house, the hospital that sends him a bill he could never pay, and the Republican who sold his soul to the corporation/bank/hospital for a campaign contribution.

If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, they mount a letter writing campaign to the FCC. Oh wait, no, that's for boobies and bad language...
Liberals demand that talk show hosts take responsibility for their words. Like...if you want to own an NFL team, don't make a bunch of racist comments that can be thrown back in your face.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he's not a very good conservative. In fact, he might be either the devil or Hitler, or like most atheists, just immoral and maybe a danger to children.
A liberal non-believer doesn't want to practice other people's religions, so there goes the group prayer, the baby Jesus creche at the courthouse, and all complaints about "Happy Holidays."

If a conservative needs healthcare, they get it the same way as anyone else: at an over-priced hospital with the approval of an over-paid insurance company more concerned with their balance sheet than whether you live or die. There's no shopping around, especially if you get it from your employer. (I keep hearing this "shop around" idea, but I wonder how many conservatives actually do this. My guess: Not very many. Maybe one. In fact, I'd say that unemployed conservatives can't afford private healthcare, no matter how much shopping around they do, and employed conservatives will find that their employer-subsidized plan is cheaper than any plan they could get by shopping around on the open market anyway. But hey...we all know reality has a deep seated liberal bias and that the only reason liberals are pushing this whole healthcare reform thing is because they're communist fascists who want to turn this country into Europe-lite...not because the healthcare system actually needs reform.)
"The rest of us pay his." I'm going to guess that whoever wrote this was not a veteran, a morbidly obsese person on disibility, or someone who knows what they're talking about. The first two's healthcare, I already pay for...without complaint...and I'll do the same for the third guy too. Even though he's ignorant and a bit of a dick.

I'm not even going to touch liberal's alleged love of suing, because let's not act like conservatives are loathe to do it. If it wasn't for a bunch of lawyers swooping into Florida, George Bush might not have won that recount. Terri Schiavo wouldn't have become a household name were it not for lawyers using a lady in a vegetative state as a political prop. I mean, don't sue if you're injured...but sue to see the REAL birth certificate? Please...

If a conservative reads this, he'll be pounding his fist and laughing, "Those stupid liberals."
If I read it, I'm going to tear it apart. Cuz that's what I do.

Carl Sagan's Got Skillz

This has gone legitimately viral. It's a great remix, but I think the appeal remains Carl Sagan and his nearly infinite optimism about humanity's potential in the universe.

Sagan, incidentally, is one of my favorite herbologists, too. (I know what you're thinking...I thought he was a cosmologist, not a herbologist. He was indeed a cosmologist, but he was also a connoisseur of the herb. Which makes him a herbologist too.)

Wherein I Endorse Dickies Hoodies

I got a thermal-lined hooded made by Dickies and I have fallen in love with it. I loved it so much, I bought two more.

They are warm, sturdy, have nice deep pockets, and has already become a big part of the whole winter layering process.

Now I just need some more flannel-lined jeans...

Debts

So far, I've shaved three years off my mortgage with extra payments. It's like being in jail. You get years off for good behavior.

I've been paying extra, so they're going to let me out three years early.

Of course, that's if I didn't make another extra payment ever. And I'm not that dumb.

An extra $50 a month (less than what I was paying for cable) will get me out five years early.

When I implement the "Operation: Fuck You, Pay Me" plan, I'll be getting out at least nine years early. That's at least. I haven't factored in my Equity Acclerator payments, which would speed it up even more.

Trust me. I've done the math. Doing it this way, even though it costs me in the short-run, saves me literally tens of thousands of dollars in the long run.

Memoirs

If I were to write a book about my experiences as a guy forced into "green" and "healthy" commuting by virtue of getting his drivers license suspended, I'd call it, "The Year of Living Bikely."

Bus People

I've seen them before, the morbidly obese woman in the scooter with her lovingly attentive companion.

I suspect they go to the Fitzsimmons hospital complex, which is why they're on that particular bus. I also suspect that it's through the miracle of modern science that this woman is still alive.

She carries three oxygen tanks in a basket at the back of her scooter. Propping them upright are one-liter bottles of Mountain Dew and sometimes other food stuffs. Last night, the couple were hoarking down some Del Taco, super-sized drinks wedged in the seat.

One time, I saw her companion feeding her fresh fruit. The doctor probably said, "Add more fresh fruit to your diet." But he meant at home, as part of your meal. Not at the bus stop.

But who am I to judge? I too could have an attentive companion (because when you can't even feed yourself anymore, that's what you need) and get morbidly obese, so fat I can't breathe, can't walk, can't even hardly see. It could happen.

Not this year, of course, what with all the biking, but it could happen. I won't let it, but...well, she picked a different path.

Yet Another Stupid Right Wing E-mail

If right-wingers were intelligent....they wouldn't forward crap like this around:

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is
really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?


If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos
of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic
and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have
approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?


If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de
Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?


If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?


If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?


If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?


If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved.

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?


If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?


If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?


So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.

The thing that strikes me about this is how petty and childish most of this stuff is.

Much of it isn't even political! It's just stupid.

The teleprompter stuff? Since the invention of the teleprompter, every president has used one. Even your beloved Bush.

The stuff about the play in New York? Oh the humanity. Out of context I don't get this criticism...at all. I'm supposed to be mad that Obama went to a play? Nope, sorry. Feeling no outrage. Can't even fake it. In context, though, I don't understand slamming Obama for a single date night when old Dubya spent entire months on vacation. That's what this exercise is about, right? Comparing George W. Bush to Obama, right?

Apparently Obama is also to blame for GM's poor stock performance, which is the only way I can see how he's capable of reducing "your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM." Did he give the unions a majority stake? I don't think he did...but if he did, why would I have a problem with that? The unionized employees do a majority of the work.

The Special Olympics bullshit? Please. I don't believe for one second that anyone was actually offended by Obama's remark. Even the Special Olympics probably just rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, someone made another joke about the Special Olympics? Haven't heard that before." It becomes even more absurd when you consider that Obama joked about the Special Olympics in a failed attempt at humility. George W Bush famously didn't do nuance. The George W. Bush crowd doesn't do humility.

The gifts to Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth? You know who's not mad about that? Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth. You know who is? People who didn't know that the UK had different formatted DVDs until they heard this story.

"If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have
approved?" What if he held his hand like they're going to a courthouse wedding in Massachusetts?

The Austrian language flub? Cinco de Cuatro? Advice?

Did I say this stuff was petty? I mean, I can put together a list of all the things that George W. Bush did that pissed me off, but guess what won't be on there? "He once said he knows how to put food on his family." You know why? Because I'm not that fucking petty.

Jet fuel to plant a tree? I see, using jet fuel to travel to an earth day event is how much worse than using jet fuel to circle around Louisiana? What about the fuel wasted taking Dubya to Iraq for his secret Thanksgiving flyover? I see, you can use mondo jet fuel for a photo op...as long as you're feeding soldiers and not planting trees.

The NYC flyover? Ignorant haters would like to think that Barack Obama was personally responsible for this. He wasn't. Will that stop them from trying to pin it on him? Of course not. That's not hot ignorant haters operate.

This shit about the midwest floods? What the hell is that? The flooding in the midwest was worse than Katrina? FEMA didn't show up in the midwest? Please...

The crap about czars? It's funny that czars were not a problem in any other administration ever, but Obama gets a chance to name a few for HIS administration...and oh my god, we're all commies now.

This stuff about Obama ordering the firing of a CEO, man, that was great. I fully supported that and I see nothing wrong with it either. That CEO, Rick Wagoner of General Motors, was about to cost taxpayers billions of dollars in bailout money. The government that says, "You want a bunch of our money, then you're going to have to fire that incompetent fuck" is much much more impressive than the government that says, "Here's a bunch of money to squander as you please."

(I find it funny...no, hilarious...that the "squander our tax dollars as you please" is the "conservative" position. That's not fucking conservative!)

As for doubling the national debt? Let's talk about this one in 2016, when Obama is ending his second term. If the country he leaves us is worse off than the one he was elected to lead...you know, like Bush and his greatest terrorist attack ever/biggest natural disaster ever/largest recession since the Great Depression/two wars I'm going to leave for the next guy presidency...then you can bitch about that.

Until then...you really don't have anything but PAL DVDs and Cinco de Quatro. So shut the fuck up.