Egypt is in Iraq - according to Fox News!!!

OK, this is old news, but considering the recent worrying news in Egypt, I cannot resist pointing out that, in 2009, Fox News thought that Egypt was that country we've come to know and love as ... Iraq!!! Yet another classic Fox blunder.

(Yes, I've been bad about keeping my site up-to-date, considering events in Egypt. But, sometimes life takes over and priorities change. But no worries; I'm gonna get back to daily updates PDQ, I promise!)

Olbermann disappears

Keith Olbermann's sudden vanishing act from MSNBC on Friday, during the same week that the FCC approved the Comcast-NBC merger has to make one speculate whether this was just mere coincidence...

Of course, both Comcast and NBC deny a connection, but remember that Comcast has a reputation for donating heavily to right-wing causes; could they be "cleaning house" in preparation for the merger? Right now, General Electric owns NBC Universal. After the 13-billion dollar transaction takes effect, GE will retain 49% control - like Comcast, GE is not renowned for being friendly to left-wing causes.

While I did not always agree with Olbermann's leftist viewpoints, there's no question that he was an important counterpoint to the huge onslaught of right-wing punditry that is slowly and perniciously poisoning the much-too-easily influenced minds of the U.S. populace. Balance is important, more so in this era of extremism on both the right and the left.

Rachel Maddow is the next logical target - I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Keith: While I realize that you have to adhere to whatever agreement you pounded out with MSNBC, please do not let yourself be silenced - your voice is important during this critical time in U.S. politics.

Sarah Palin - blood on her hands

Much has been said about the so-called "Tragedy in Tucson." At the risk of being targeted as a subversive, I feel compelled to point out that that while the shooter is clearly guilty of the massacre, I really feel that he is more a "victim" than a "perp." Like so many people these days, he's clearly nuts - nothing more, nothing less.

The problem is that people like this are so easily influenced by the crap that is spewed by the politicians and pundits in this country. While both sides, left and right, are guilty of this, I think we can all agree that it's the right wing that is instigating the vast majority of this bullshit. (And, it should be noted, Keith Olbermann - a leftie - immediately went on air after the incident to apologize for anything he may have said in the past, and vowed not to do it again. It would be nice to see the hate-filled right-wingers do the same.)

Nonetheless, idiots like the killer (I forget his name) are prone to listening to and believing in the agitprop that fills our airwaves. When Sarah and her ilk talk about "bullets not ballots," "don't retreat, reload," and such, not to mention publishing the infamous map on her website, what can you expect? She even listed the names of the intended targets, including that of Gabrielle Giffords (see above).

Now who's the guilty party? It's pretty damn clear to me, and I honestly believe that Sarah Palin should be charged - at the very least - with incitement to kill or whatever the official name of that particular crime is these days.

Quick hits

No time for commentary today, so I'll just point to some very interesting articles, all courtesy of the Huffington Post:

• It seems our old friend George W. Bush lifted (plagiarized?) large parts of his new book from adviser's notes. We always knew he never had an original thought!
• More on the Bush book: Joe Wilson, who you may remember from the scandal concerning Valerie Plame and Niger, has this to say about it.
• Glenn Beck has truly gone beyond the pale this time - I have to agree with this column, where it is clear that Beck really is a disgusting, hideous person. Like we didn't know that already...
• And here we get to see how Sarah Palin believes that Obama is "the most pro-abortion president ever."

Bush, Bush again, Beck, Palin ... and the list goes on. It's disturbing, to say the least.

Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's write-in candidate

If you've been following the story of the infamous electoral battle between Joe Miller (Rep.) and Lisa Murkowski (Ind.), it's interesting to note that Miller appears to be getting desperate.

Briefly: Lisa Murkowski ended up being a write-in challenger, which is an incredibly difficult hurdle to overcome. Voters have to fill in the little circle, as well as write the name of the candidate. Because there was concern about the (apparent) difficulty of spelling her name correctly, the Murkowski campaign aggressively tried to educate voters how to go about doing it correctly.

Now, the write-in votes are being inspected (Murkowski, leading, has 40%, Miller 35%), and the Miller campaign is challenging votes like the ones in the picture - all of them are spelled correctly, and the liitle circle has been filled in, so it's hard to discern exactly why they are challenging these votes. An act of desperation perhaps? Follow the ongoing story here! And some fun pictures here.

Santorum

It's been awhile since the topic of Dan Savage vs former Senator Rick (the Dick) Santorum (R‑Pa.) came up, but I think it's time to resurrect it.

The links here will tell you the complete story, but I'm just gonna give you the good part. My favorite sex advice columnist, Dan Savage, created a neologism for the word "Santorum" and came up with this incredible definition: "The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." He created a (now dormant) website devoted to the topic, and it's well worth a read.

Savage's website, a section in The Stranger, the paper he writes for, is filled with excellent sex advice and his writing is both humorous and cogent. Again, I highly recommend you take a look - in fact, you will notice that I have a permanent link to his website in my Links I like box in the sidebar. The Wikipedia articles (here, here and here) about him give more insight into the santorum story.

In a response to a reader, Savage recently said: "...while you fingered O'Donnelled his girlfriend...". He denies trying to create another neologism, but I dunno - I like the idea!

Knowledge of science

As my regular readers know, I despair about the lack of decent education in this country. Science is one topic that is under intense scrutiny, and here is a test, conducted by Pew Research that speaks volumes. It is a (relatively) simple 12-question quiz, and shows how you fare compared to other demographic groups. Give it a shot, and see how you do. I found the results very interesting, and the section which breaks down the percentage of correct answers by age really supports my hypothesis about the idiocy of the younger generation. Fascinating stuff, yet depressing.

Midterm election results

Well, it turned out as expected - the GOP got the house, while the Dems retained the senate. On the surface, many see the house takeover as a bad thing, but I'm not sure that's true - for too long, Republicans have had zero incentive to step up to the plate and actually take some responsibility. Instead, they've been sitting on the sidelines, refusing to get involved - in essence, just wailing "No, no, no!" like whiny children. Now, however, they can no longer do this. Hopefully this will usher in an era of cooperation with the Democrats, and maybe - just maybe - we'll see some progress. As always, time will tell.

For great election coverage, it's hard to beat the NYTimes. Here's their main page for election coverage, and make sure to explore the links - particularly the two maps at the top, which will take you to great interactive views of what's happening where. No doubt I'll be posting some cynical, snarky items in the days to come...!

As I find interesting/thoughtful/funny articles through the day, I will add them here:

• Huffington Post - Bush did the damage, Obama underestimated its extent, and didn't fix it, at least not quickly enough. (I would argue that the devastation was so extensive that it needs more than two years to fix, but still - Obama should have made that clear.)
• Huffington Post again - How well the polls worked, with an interesting breakdown by polling organization.
• PolitiFact - How you were lied to in e-mails during this campaign. All the "Pants on Fire!" ratings that stemmed from spam. (I guess this shit must work, else why would they do it? It astonishes me how easily people can be scammed by spam.)
• Us Magazine - Bristol Palin forgot to vote!!!!!
• Huffington Post - A Norman Lear piece about how we've had enough of politicians using the phrase "the American people." Here's a quote: "Our experiment in democracy depends, the founders told us at the beginning, on an informed citizenry. Fat chance, American people!" (Boldfaced emphasis mine.)

Election results

As I post this, it's early - results are starting to trickle in, but it looks like the predictions seem spot-on. The GOP will likely take over the house, while the Dems will probably keep the senate (although it looks tight - the lead will probably be only one or two seats). For a thorough, realtime, interactive look at results, these NYTimes pages are pretty good: House. Senate. Looks like it's going to be a long and very interesting night!

Palin the hypocrite

Here's a fun one: Sarah Palin criticizes the use of anonymous sources - using an anonymous source!!!

I quote: "'For Washington consultants to sit around and personally disparage the Governor anonymously to reporters is unfortunate and counterproductive and frankly immature,' the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, continued." Also, see this.

Public funding for TV around the world

I came across some interesting statistics a few days ago when I was doing the story about the NPR brouhaha. This is from the Huffington Post, and focuses on the proposed bill by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and Sarah Palin to rescind all public funding for NPR. What caught my eye was this:

BBC Television Center in London

"The call for funding cuts is particularly galling because the United States already has one of the lowest levels of federal funding of public media in the developed world - at just $1.43 per capita. By comparison, Canada spends $22 per capita, and England spends $80. If you're wondering why we don't have anything like the BBC, that's the biggest reason.

"If the United States spent the same per capita on public media and journalism subsidies as Sweden and Norway, which rank 1 and 2, we would be spending as much as $30 billion a year on public media instead of $440 million. It's no coincidence that these same countries rank near the top of The Economist magazine's annual Democracy Index, which evaluates nations on the basis of the functioning of government, civic participation and civil liberties. On that list, the United States ranks 18th.

"Yet instead of debating how to build a better public media system, we're stuck with a rotting commercial one that would rather help the likes of Palin whip up a frenzy and play up the false divide between left and right. And why not? It worked with the takedown of ACORN, with the smearing of Shirley Sherrod, and with all the other bogus controversies we're told to swallow as news."

Country	Spending per capita per year
Canada	$22.00
United Kingdom	$80.00
United States	$1.43

And now DeMint and Palin want to take that piddly $1.43 away! Say what?!

This bolsters my argument about the apparent "demise" of TV in general, which I discussed in my post on Sunday.

Pants on fire!!!

Two days to go to the election, so it's time to visit PolitiFact and see what they have to say about the campaign. Here's a very interesting article about the "truthiness" of it all.

Being non-partisan, PolitiFact is very careful to avoid pointing out which side of the political fence most of the bullshit is coming from - but take a look for yourself, I have no doubt you will see a pattern here!

Gotta go - Bill Maher is on, and I missed most of it on Friday... (UPDATE: I just watched it - a really good episode!)

That Christine O'Donnell - she's just so damn irresistible

I'm sorry, but you cannot blame me for pointing this little story out. Thank you, Gawker!

It involves a drunken Christine wanting to use a stranger's bathroom to change into her ladybug costume for Halloween, and the two of them end up in bed. Titillated enough yet to click through? I hope so!   ;-)   Damn, I hate emoticons. Where did that one come from?

Yes, I realize that she has become a joke, and that the right wing is, at this point, just using her to deflect real criticism of their dirty, low-down tactics. I guess she's the scapegoat candidate. Or trophy candidate? It's all very Palin-esque, which makes it extra-special!

Update 1: It seems that a number of people (including, of course, Christine) have gotten their tits in a tangle about this story. One would hope that people who read Gawker are smart enough to understand that it is a fluffy, gossipy, entertainment site - nothing more, nothing less. Context is everything!

Update 2: In Christine's response to this story, she says, "From Secretary Clinton, to Governor Palin, to soon-to-be Governor Haley, Christine's political opponents have been willing to engage in appalling and baseless attacks — all with the aim of distracting the press from covering the real issues in this race." Read that sentence carefully. While Clinton is clearly an opponent, I very much doubt that Palin and Haley are!!! Seems that copy editors truly are a dying breed. (And, I think the assumption that Haley is a soon-to-be governor is just a tad presumptuous, not to mention likely incorrect, given current polls!)

2010 midterm campaign - hard to believe, and now barely true!

Let's face it - the level of discourse in the current political campaign has turned into nothing more than a mud-slinging match. Now, my old friend PolitiFact.com, has, for the first time, given a rating of "Barely True" to the entire campaign!

PolitiFact.com is a non-partisan group that analyzes statements made by people in the public eye and comes up with a rating on their Truth-O-Meter™. These ratings are, in my view, both novel and clever. The list: True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, and (my personal favorite) Pants on Fire! Check 'em out.

Centralized vs distributed organisms

This article from Techdirt contemplates the nature of centralized vs distributed organisms, in the context of Wikileak's recent exposures of the U.S. Government's behavior in Iraq. Regardless of one's opinion of this particular situation, it's worth reading because it provides food for thought about what our future may look like.

This is a topic that, through my life, I have thought about in different, specific, contexts - not least of which is how the pendulum has swung over the years with regard to the pros and cons of server- and client-side computing. Central came first with mainframes and dumb terminals. Then minicomputers came on the scene, reducing the cost - which led to "microcomputers" (who among us remembers that term?), aka PCs. And now the pendulum is swinging back, with all our data (and intelligence) in the "cloud."

Perhaps a good illustration of the way this works is the Microsoft/Google analogy. Microsoft built its empire on the notion of putting the smarts into PCs by having you buy their software, and then locking you into occasional "upgrades" - the distributed model. Google came along later, and realized that a centralized model made more sense. So now, Microsoft is in the sad position of having to release updates of its software (e.g. Outlook) on a periodic basis. Otoh, Google, by virtue of the fact that its software (e.g. Gmail) is in the cloud, is in the much happier position of being able to control updates centrally, as and when they want or need to. If you're a user of Google's products, you will notice how they "push" subtle changes to you on a regular basis. Microsoft wishes they had the ability to do this. But that's not really what this post is about, and I happily recognize that I've elided over many points that make the computing example much more complicated.

Back to centralized vs distributed organisms... Beyond computing, where else does this occur?

Well, there's the Cold War, where the enemies were easy to define: sovereign nations. With the Cold War behind us, we now have global terrorism to worry about. Now, the enemy is much harder to define, because instead of countries with clear boundaries, we find ourselves battling ideologies. Small cells of trouble can pop up anywhere, and vanish just as quickly. So: Cold War - centralized. Terrorism - distributed. Is it any wonder the coalition forces going up against the likes of Al Qa'ida are having so much difficulty? We still model our defense forces on the old, centralized model, yet we're fighting a distributed "war." It needs an entirely new approach, one that will not come easily or quickly.

Another example is that of governments. Why is China gaining ground on the U.S. in oh-so-many aspects, not least of which are their respective economies? China uses an autonomous, centralized model. The U.S. has a federal system, which devolves much of the power to individual states - a distributed model. When China wants to achieve something, they simply do it, declaring it as a fait accompli. In the U.S., however, it's a much more complex process - eternal wrangling over, for example, whether to spend or save. The consequence, of course, is that very little gets accomplished here with any alacrity.

So there you have three examples: computing, war, government. I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which is preferable in each case: centralized or distributed organism? And to what other situations can we apply this? Comments, as always, welcome!

Kissin' cousins

Well, well, well! The genealogy service Ancestry.com tells us that President Obama and Sarah Palin are 10th cousins, and Obama and Rush Limbaugh are 10th cousins once removed. Apparently, the chances of this happening are slimmer than you think. Maybe Sarah and Rush oughta stop dissin' and instead start kissin' my guy. Read about it here!

Interesting hypothesis

While this theory was advanced in the '08 Presidential election, I think it's certainly worth re-hashing. This article discusses a trip to a Sarah Palin Teabagger rally in Phoenix, and ends with the following:

"I think the pollsters might be very wrong about the upcoming election. And that's because they are polling the people I saw at this rally - the people with land lines. I wonder how many of the pollsters are polling younger people, or working people with cell phones.

"The people I saw today were the fearful middle-aged white people who have been outsourced, laid off, and "victimized" by diversity. They looked as if they had been outrun by the pace of change, in every area of their lives. They were familiar, like Rotarians. They clearly want things to go back to the past - one man came riding a horse, and the Minutemen were there. Everyone talked about bringing it back to how it used to be and taking it back. Everyone prayed and talked about Christ, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem. It was the old days of baseball games and hot dogs, horses and guns, and the Greatest Generation. I didn't hear anything about taxes; in fact I heard very little political content, except from the local guys.

"I was probably the only geek in the place. And that says it all."

And it says it all for me as well!

Fun with the First Amendment

When Christine O'Donnell had her recent meltdown, she tried to deflect the situation by asking her opponent, Chris Coons, to name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment. This was clearly unfair - after all, it was out of context, came totally out of the blue, and obviously was designed to distract Coons. [Note to Christine: It's a debate, not a pop quiz!] Who of us, even those who know what the five freedoms are, could answer a question like that under those circumstances?

Very few, I'll bet. And now we read that most Americans don't even know what they are, which, while not surprising, is still shocking. So, I figure that a bit of help might be necessary. First, the answer - it's freedom of:
- Speech
- Religion
- Press
- Assembly
- Grievances (i.e. the right to Petition the government, but that would be another P).

Let's see if we can come up with a mnemonic with those initial letters. How about:

Amendment Gives Republicans Speaking Point. No good? Well, that's off the top of my head - if you can come up with something better, by all means let me know and I'll update this post.

Maybe we just need to come up with a list that we can easily remember, again using the initials. And, since I'm doing this in honor of Republicans, how about a list of well-known ones (famous or infamous)? Let's see, we have...
- Steele (as in Michael)
- Reagan (or Roosevelt or Romney)
- Poindexter
- Armey (as in Richard - remember all the Dick Army jokes?)
- Grant (or Garfield)

The G, of course, could also be for GOP (By the way, did you know that the Know-nothing Party was a predecessor of the GOP?!)

Of course, if you, erm, grasp the idea of using the initials ... need I say more?

Finally - I get to criticize the left

As my regular readers know, I try to keep this blog as balanced as I can, but with all the idiocy demonstrated by the right wing these days, I'm hard-pressed to find anything that could point out weakness on the left.

Even this story is not the best example, because it really is more about how silly political correctness has become; but since being PC has been co-opted by the left ... well, there you go. It's also not directly related to the current political nonsense, but in that case the Republicans truly have the edge on stupid - no contest there!

TV commentator Juan Williams, who worked for NPR as well as Faux Fox News, apparently made a boo-boo on Faux [damn, I keep doing that, dunno why] Fox the other day. He mentioned that he has a visceral reaction when he sees Muslims, dressed in traditional garb, at an airport gate, about to board the same plane as he is. He said the reaction is one of nervousness, and passes as quickly as it comes. Later in the segment, he made the point this is not because of any problem he has with Muslims, it's merely one of those gut reactions that we all have at certain moments in our lives.

Well, this got his superiors over at NPR in a froth - and they booted his ass. Talk about making a fuss over nothing! To make matters worse, one of their spokespeople (!), in an interview yesterday, said that this sort of posturing has no place on public TV (even though he said it on Faux Fox, not NPR), and that he should be taking this matter up with his "psychiatrist or publicist, take your pick." (NPR has subsequently apologized for this slip.)

Tempest in a teapot? Fersure. Of course, this is now a major story, hardly a surprise in the U.S., and - again of course - the right is making hay out of it. Faux Fox News is chortling, and leading every hour so far today with this story, spending a large, disproportionate amount of time on it.

Not only that, but now Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) is proposing a bill that would remove the vestiges of public funding that NPR gets. A whole 2% of their budget - shock, horror! But, again, this is all part of their glee over the fact that those damn liberal, politically correct lefties made a boo-boo.

The only reason this is a story is because it isn't. I never cease to be amazed at the very low level of discourse that passes for news in this country.

There has to be a backstory here: My guess is that NPR has been unhappy with Williams' affiliation with Faux Fox News for some time, and that they (prematurely?) leapt on this to get rid of him. But, NPR is the one that ended up with egg on its face. Score one for Juan - especially now that Faux Fox has given him a new $2 million contract!!!

In all fairness to Christine...

OK, so there's been an argument about exactly what Christine O'Donnell meant with her self-inflicted flub about separation of church and state, and its presence (or lack thereof) in the Constitution. (My earlier post.)

Here's the thing: She is trying to downplay this, by saying that she (originally) said the specific phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear. This is true, but c'mon - why on earth would someone even bother to ask about how an idea is exactly worded when the real issue is its significance? Clearly, she is trying to shift the focus.

Trying to be fair, I have done some research, and it is apparent that Christine and her attendants are busy exercising damage control. Here, from Slate, is a good, objective explanation of what went down. Take a look for yourself, and make your own decision.