Irregulation

"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken

"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid." -- John Wayne, Sands of Iwo Jima

As they say, timing is everything:

As West Virginians were learning Thursday of a devastating chemical spill in the Elk River that has rendered water undrinkable for 300,000 people, the US House of Representatives was busy gutting federal hazardous-waste cleanup law.

The House passed the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act that would ultimately eliminate requirements for the Environmental Protection Agency to review and update hazardous-waste disposal regulations in a timely manner, and make it more difficult for the government to compel companies that deal with toxic substances to carry proper insurance for cleanups, pushing the cost on to taxpayers.

In addition, the bill would result in slower response time in the case of a disaster, requiring increased consultation with states before the federal government calls for cleanup of Superfund sites - where hazardous waste could affect people and the environment.


....


The legislation was passed by a vote of 225 to 188, mostly along party lines, with all but four Republicans supporting the bill and all but five Democrats opposing it. One of those Democrats crossing party lines to support the changes to environmental law was Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

Well then, what say we just leave them to their own devices. Sounds like they got it all under control, and they don't need no gubmint goons tellin' 'em how to run things.

Friends 'n' neighbors, I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the discredited notion that there is any merit in trying to convince people with facts and ideas that they might not want to keep voting against themselves. Maybe the best way is to let them do it -- and deal with the inevitable consequences.

You don't like regulations? Fine, enjoy your poisoned rivers and your collapsing mineshafts. You hate paying taxes? Cool, good luck cleaning up your mess, since you don't believe in the evil gubmint forcing those nice bidnessmen who did it to clean it up and make your families and homes and communities whole again. You think the minimum wage is wrong on sacred principle? Fine, get on out there and see how much the world values your back and your high-school diploma. There are plenty of people working their asses off in a variety of menial, physically exhausting jobs, barely getting by. Feel free to join them.

Maybe after reading and writing about this nonsense for so long, I've just hit a wall, and no longer have any empathy for people who refuse to read a book or think about things for a hot second. It's like having a dumb kid who insists on sticking his fingers in doorjambs, even though household pets can see how doors work. But it's rare for kids to smash their fingers in a door a second time, right?

So maybe it's time to settle this once and for all with a referendum, not a media noise meter -- do the majority of people want to have a basic safety net for when shit happens and life goes south, or do they want a Randian Wild West show, let the devil take the hindmost? The recent sci-fi novel The Beam has an interesting take on this electoral and cultural divergence, but I've only read the first few chapters so far. The basic premise is that, every six years, citizens get to vote on whether to be freelance entrepreneurs, living with the outcomes of the risks they take, or wards of the state, surviving on a measly but secure stipend.

I just don't have any patience for this Deer Hunting With Jesus shit anymore. The political climate is as toxic as the river these coal fucks just trashed, and the majority of people in that state have consistently voted to poison their environments and wreck their communities, for jobs that will kill them long before they're old enough to collect Social Security.

Cut bait. Let 'em reap their whirlwind already.

Service with a Smile

I'm working on some Don Young "wetbacks" material, which requires waiting for TV Land to show a Chico and the Man marathon, or maybe some old Slowpoke Rodriguez cartoons, but in the meantime, count me in on Ed's rant here. I'm not really sure why specifically I have a hard-on for this sort of shithead behavior, since like Ed, I never had to go the food-service route for employment. But I've always had empathy for those who do that work; it's not easy and it's frequently unpleasant. And 20% is a lot easier to calculate in my head than 17%, or whatever the "official" rate is.

At least in my experience, it's bars much more often than restaurants where the "Chad" douchebags turn up. Obviously the "instant asshole, just add alcohol" syndrome is at work there, and being in a bar band I've seen people at their very worst. Hecklers are one thing; I once made an unfortunate heckler literally cry after about two minutes of verbal abuse. But I've also had knives pulled on me (guy thought I was trying to pick up his girlfriend; it was actually the other way around), a full beer can thrown and narrowly missing my head. Rock and roll, as they say, is a contact sport.

Fortunately, those toads are the exceptions and not the rule. Being a freelance musician is a little different from being a server -- you won't be there after the weekend, so no one has a stake in helping you out, so you have to be able to talk yourself out of a jam, and willing to fight if talk doesn't work. But in a restaurant, this is where a good floor manager is invaluable, a manager willing to tell the Chads of the world to go fuck themselves, and if they want to play grab-ass and abuse the help, then maybe Applebee's or some such would be more to their liking.

Really, though, for me the question is much less political than anthropological -- who are the parents who raise these fucking assholes, and what emotional trauma did they inflict on them? Most likely, the Chads were spoiled and cosseted, never told "no", and so became used to getting their way. They sharpened their bullying skills in high school, on cheerleaders and/or nerds, and got out into the real world perceiving it to be, as Martin Mull once noted, just like high school, but with money.

So be nice to your server, tip them 20-25%, thank them for their work. And be warmed by the knowledge that, as cool as the Chads think they are, the fact is that none of their friends can stand them. And they know it.

And if, by some mishap, you happen to be in the same group with a Chad at a restaurant or bar, sit well away from them and do not get what they get, because I promise you, there will be mystery fluids in that fucker's food and drink.

Star Bores

Why don't more people call Beyonce a "genius"? Um, because she isn't, at least not a musical genius. A genius at self-promotion and self-regard, sure. Consider just the past several weeks -- the inauguration, the Super Bowl, and now a 90-minute promotional ad for HBO. (To add insult to injury, the HBOZ channel, usually a repository of action flicks and midnight Skinemax cold-shot titty movies, just finished showing the "documentary" on a continuous loop for 24 hours straight. I wish I was making that up.)

It's always peculiar when an adult gushes over any pop star to this extent. That's really all Beyonce is, and as such, she's very competent at it -- great voice, energetic performance, standard material. From what I hear, most of the final rounds of American Idle and Teh Voice have quite a few examples along that line. Again, though, there's a difference between true genius and mere competence.

I think part of this "phenomenon", this general cultural effort to maximize the merely mediocre or even marginal, is at once a vestige of the recording industry and the result of reality-teevee marketing. Record companies always (and seemingly only) thrived on having tentpole products around which to position the rest of their catalogs. And it's hardly worth mentioning that with the proliferation of the bizarre, the mediocre, and the borderline retarded, in terms of what they will now make a "show" "about", and around whom, anyone can become a star.

And when anyone can become famous, whether or not they're talented, talent tends to marginalize as a salient factor. In other words, even if Beyonce was half as incredible a singer as she seems to think she is -- and she is a very good singer -- it wouldn't matter. Her appeal prevails among the sorts of folks who find, say, celebrity pregnancies interesting or even compelling, the sort of moron who will find the most mundane and commonplace activities enthralling, so long as someone they've heard of is doing them.

But that is the hallmark of the fairweather fan; eventually the famous person du jour gets played out, either leg-humping their latest project until everyone's sick of hearing the name (which, between the pedophilia scandals, is part of what happened to Michael Jackson), or whoring their personal life out until no one but the most ADD morlock can stand it anymore. Seriously, is there still anyone out there with an IQ over 50 who cares what any of the Kardashians are keeping up with?

This will happen with Beyonce and Jay-Z as well, as it happens to almost everyone sooner or later. Fans move on; attention spans are short; the types of "music" thetwo of them do is interchangeable and disposable, more a product of songwriting, arranging, and producing than any innate ability either of them might possess beyond brand-building.

Wealthy people who not only have the balls to complain about how rough it is at the top, but then strap on an extra pair to tell the world what photos they are allowed to publish, and who always have to be the center of attention in everything they do, wear thin more quickly than they might realize. An asshole is one thing; an asshole who has no conceivable reason to be an asshole is quite another. In the meantime, I don't spend sixteen bucks a month on HBO so some spoiled princess can commandeer time to tell us all how awesome she is. At least not willingly.

Cat Scratch Fever; Or, You Gotta Be Kitten Me

Few things are more charming than members of the species which has, by far, driven more other species into extinction for no goddamned reason, bitching that another species -- which has proliferated and gotten into the wild entirely because of that first species -- might be adversely affecting the songbird and vole populations.


Tell ya what -- maybe after we TNR all the feral cats, maybe we can do the same thing to the assholes who dump them in the park in the first place.

Me Too, Part 2: This Time It's Hilarious

Guess I'm just in a me-too mood ths afternoon, or maybe I'm just trying to avoid working on the e-book projects I've committed to. Whatever. This "fuck you" response to the high-horse teabillies is one of the most eloquent ass-poundings I've come across lately. Enjoy.

Bush League

Awful swell of The Atlantic to write ad copy for the next inevitable Bush to run for political office. He's pedigreed! He's pretty! He's half-Mexican! Awesome.

Because that's just what we need -- yet another Bush with their thumb on the public scale. ("P." is #3 on the linked list. My prediction about his political future was off by a few years, but will still probably happen.)

I'll give him this much -- at least he hasn't followed the paths of some of his uncles, and become a money launderer, or an S&L grifter, or the worst preznit this nation has ever endured. Kid's only 36, give him time.

Bastards of 2010

[With apologies to the late great Beast.]

Update (1/3/11): Thanks to RD in comments. For months every time I'd tried to access The Beast, I would get an Error 404 message. I had heard that the site was going under at one point, so I just assumed that it had. But the real deal is that my sidebar link was just suffering from a severe case of linkrot, which is now fixed. Thanks, RD!

10. Mark Burnett
Largely responsible for "reality" teevee taking over network and cable airwaves during the past decade. Not that teevee was ever a grand cultural medium, nor have humans ever been quite as exalted as they think they are. But thanks in large part to Burnett's schlocky efforts, anonymous nincompoops consider it a star-making turn to be dumped out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of like-minded assholes, and eat bugs for the amusement of millions of emotionally-stunted couch potatoes.

With his latest entertainment abortion, however, Burnett crosses the line in allowing someone with a lamentable degree of political viability to get paid to pimp themselves -- essentially a two-month campaign commercial in which the candidate gets paid to shill their own happy horseshit.

Sentence: To be dropped on a remote island, forced to eat grubs and deer penises in exchange for life-sustaining basics, only to be shot by Sarah Palin from a helicopter.


9. Fox News
For these guys, the Big Lie is not just dogmatic consistency, it's a proven business model. This year's list alone underscores the fundamental fact that, for a substantial portion of people, "facts" are incidental to the overall narrative they need to remain "vigilant", in the sense that your neighbor is "vigilant" for building a giant cinderblock tower on the side of his house so that he can keep an eye out for unicorns. Has more Republican candidates on its payroll than the RNC, to which it now openly contributes, which at least removes the long-standing pretense of "fair and balanced". Simply calling Fox an irresponsible journalistic enterprise does a disservice to truly irresponsible, yet far less damaging, journalistic enterprises, such as, say, the National Enquirer.

Sentence: To live in the financially, morally, and intellectually bankrupt backwater which it strives to create.

8. The Supreme Court
Ideological handmaidens of corporate rapacity. Purveyors of the periodic charade that Roe v. Wade is the be-all/end-all of jurisprudential knowledge and advancement, whilst bumwipe such as Kelo and Citizens United (not to mention, say, Bush v. Gore) pass through unabated. Possibly an even more sclerotic instituion than Congress, which takes some doing. Home of intellectual reprobates such as Combover Tony Scalia and Long Dong Clarence Thomas, which should be warning enough.

Sentence: Tied to chairs and forced to watch LA Law reruns until they promise to retire.

7. The Democratic Party
The proverbial pawl to the Republican ratchet of awfulness. Considering the supermajority they had after the 2008 elections, pound-for-pound quite possibly the most gutless, ineffectual group of cheesedicks this country has ever seen. Time and again, they found themselves flummoxed by bare minority opposition, undercooked Faux News rhetoric that a sixth-grader could have eviscerated, and a complete lack of internal discipline. It's bad enough when the usual circular firing squad forms, but it seems to be an ineffably Democratic trait to accomplish this feat whilst holding all the cards.

Unless, of course, you happen to be one of the Wall Street rentier scumbags who paid good money to have these chumps look after your bad bets, in which case, they did exactly what they were paid to do.

Sentence: Permanent irrelevance.

6. The Republican Party
From career asshole Mitch McConnell to tanorexic crybaby John Boehner to teabagger godfather Jim DeMint, this is a collection of goofballs and whackjobs right out of a Dick Tracy or Batman lineup. A bunch of moral cretins, acting on borderline treasonous impulses, who would rather stall and further wound an economically reeling nation, just for the opportunity to fuck over Barack Obama. Would probably filibuster a resolution expressing support of Mom and apple pie until they were allowed to attach some district earmarks. Ran two candidates for the US Senate in the last election (Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell) who were so marginal in terms of qualifications and, well, sanity, they made even Sarah Palin look somewhat rational. As difficult as it is to overestimate just what scumbags the leaders of this party really are, it is even more difficult to fathom why supposedly reasonable people would remotely identify with these sociopaths.

Sentence: Unemployment, and benefits have been cancelled.

5. George W. Bush
A solipsistic, birdbrained amateur, who seriously does not appear to understand just how badly he monkeyfucked the country during his reign of error. Still and always a gladhanding butt-boy to the haves and have-mores, if only because he has no concept of anything else. Seriously believes that his biggest failure was his inability to turn Social Security over to ass-raping Wall Street fiends, even after they nuked the economy. A living, breathing, stammering insult to anyone and everyone who has actually busted their ass to earn an honest MBA, or even just worked their way through life. Does not realize or care that most of the shit that's gone down the last several years really is his fucking fault. Still butt-hurt about that Kanye West thing, as if anyone besides Kanye West gives half a goddamn about anything Kanye West has to say about anything. Should stand as a stark warning about putting unqualified morons into higher office, but will probably end up being some sort of totem for the burgeoning know-nothings barnacling their way onto the hull of the ship politic. Brags that he read fourteen biographies about Abraham Lincoln while in office, which may explain why he never got around to learning the nuances of his job.

Sentence: Home mistakenly foreclosed on by predatory slice-and-dice operation that "accidentally" robo-signed his mortgage and tanked his pension on credit default swaps.

4. Barack Obama
In the kingdom of the people without balls, the man with one testicle is king. Constantly treads the fine line between capitulation and collusion. Seems to think punting on first down is a strategy. Not only is unable to garner credit for the few decent things he has accomplished, but has continued many of his predecessor's policies, even after swearing on a stack of Qu'rans that he wouldn't. Has managed to squander a supermajority in less than two years, even with most of the country understanding the enormously bad hand he was dealt. Does not seem to realize just how badly his Wall Street buddies have rolled him, and like Clinton, will ultimately have to hock what remains of his hide to them if he hopes to get what will at any rate be an utterly meaningless second term. May eventually get a clue that the only way to approach a completely thankless job is to say "fuck it" and at least try to take some suckas down with you.

Sentence: Four more years! Four more years!

3. You
You've really let yourself go, yet you don't seem to mind. You've spent most of the last decade watching has-beens and never-weres sort their sock drawers and give each other herpes, and are mightily offended at the notion that someone else might think they're smarter than you. You let smug assholes in DC and New York skull-fuck you at every opportunity, and are enraged that they don't respect you. You think it's always someone else's fault, never your own. If you're a man, you think Sarah Palin wants you to jump her bones; if you're a woman, you think she wants to share her secret moose chili recipe with you. You've convinced yourself that it's your god-given right to have a vehicle roughly the size of a Winnebago to run mundane errands around town. You'll fight to the death to protect your right to guzzle and squander, you might even send a protest letter if Jersey Shore gets cancelled, but not much else seems worth the effort. You know your kids think you're a jerkoff, but you have no idea why.

Sentence: Reap the whirlwind.

2. Sarah Palin
The Oprah dream turned on its head -- a petulant, obnoxious smartass, empowered by pure spite and gall. Let's face it, folks -- a person who knows barely half of what they're talking about, and can't be bothered to learn the other half, is not fit for higher office, as if George W. Bush's rotten tenure weren't proof enough of that. Communicates primarily by crafting catchphrases via incessant twittersniping, then repeating ad nauseam in her fundraising road show, since her audience is generally of the sort that needs shit recited to them over and over and fucking over again. Insists on riding fambly valyews schtick until the wheels fall off, yet has a fairly poor slugging percentage with her older kids, and seems content to use the younger ones as props.

Seems to seriously think that Michelle Obama's initiative to discourage childhood obesity is some sort of conspiracy to forcibly keep Americans from choosing to swim in Cheez Doodles and sodium benzoate (and having the rest of society subsidize their excesses). In a decent society, people like Palin would be relegated to harmless bridge club and quilting activities; here, she's a political rock star for morons. Here is America 2010 in a nutshell -- on a recent episode of Palin's reality show, fellow professional pain-in-the-ass Kate Gosselin made an appearance with her in-vitro brood, and at one point, both women apparently complained about the intrusiveness of the media and the hassle of being famous for being well-known. At no point did it to occur to anyone, including the halfwits who actually sit through this dreck, to turn the cameras (or the teevee) off.

Sentence: After attempting to parlay her heretofore humorous political career into talk-show gravy, Palin is dragooned by her army of gibbering maroons into running for President -- and somehow wins, upon which she instantly nukes Pyongyang (on order from her prayer warriors), and sets off World War III.

1. Glenn Beck
Yet another "only in America" success story -- pudgy alcoholic cokehead finds Mormonism and becomes Fox News' most popular moralizer, surely cable's coals-to-Newcastle moment if ever there were one. Makes a tidy living affirming every John Bircher legend and outright lie to unbelievably credulous audience. Calling Beck a professional calumniator would be like saying Lindsay Lohan might have a little substance abuse problem. As the saying goes, every word is a lie, including "and" and "the". Between the simpering fugues and the messianic delusions, Beck's career arc will make a fascinating case study for some future scholar trying to figure out how millions of idiots bought into Beck's pet notion that Woodrow Wilson turned us all into communists. As with most professional jackasses, Beck's success says more about his followers than about himself. It is actually scary to contemplate so many foaming-at-the-mouth morons willing to pay money for the third-rate product this asshole generates; the only sensible explanation is that they are not working nearly hard enough for their money.

Sentence: Fired, preferably from a cannon.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Perhaps you recall Paul Sullivan's mewling plaint a couple weeks ago about how the rich are barely able to eke their way through life these days. Well, he's back, posturing and pouting at the response he received, as if he truly expected something else. "Gosh, thanks for opening my eyes, Paul! I mean, I got laid off from my job six months ago and haven't been able to find anything, and my ARM just went haywire so I'll probably be living under a bridge by Christmas. But just knowing that somewhere out there is a hard-luck family in Greenwich that might have to keep a more watchful eye on how the trust funds are distributed, that has to hedge their commercial real estate investments because taxes might go up a few points, that's just wrong." Is that what people were supposed to say after wading through that self-serving piffle?

Apparently so, and certainly Steve has already conjured up a perfectly good roaring-populist response, so I won't go there right now. There are a few things worth pointing out, such as the individuals whom Sullivan chose to interview for his follow-up:

Eric Dammann, a Manhattan psychoanalyst

Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii and a co-author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health”

Robert Clarfeld, president of the wealth management firm Clarfeld Financial Advisors

William Woodson, managing director at the Family Wealth Management group at Credit Suisse

Lyle LaMothe, head of wealth management in the United States at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

Quite a topical cross-section, no? To put it in Simpsons terms, this is like profiling Homer's mindset by interviewing Mr. Burns, Smithers, Rich Texan, and Rainier Wolfcastle. And of course Sullivan, and the bookmaking lackeys he interviews, would rather blame the victims for their unhealthy outlook than admit the possibility that there's a deeper cause for resentment here.

There are millions of people who work at least as hard as the wealthy, and not even get by, much less get ahead. But that's part of life, and most of them, unfortunately, accept that lot. What the peons resent is the lack of accountability on the part of the banksters and their henchmen, the refusal to accept any responsibility for what they've done, and what they expect everyone else to pay for. They played with other people's money (OPM), made stupid bets with it that didn't even work on paper, and then got more OPM to cover those losses and more OPM to play with again. And no new jobs are coming of it, and all they're doing now is re-inflating the previous bubble.

The line from my last column that prompted the most responses was about how the wealthy weren’t sleeping well either. The vitriol in the e-mail showed just how deep the anger against the rich is.

Yet put simply, this is not healthy. After all, if you’re wealthy and no one likes you, you still have lots of money. But if you spend your free time obsessing about the rich, you could end up in worse shape emotionally, personally and financially.

Ah, no. You're the one writing tedious mash notes about the rich, sporto. It just never occurred to you that, in a country where 1% of the population already controls over 40% of the assets, that a majority of the people out there who hear nothing but a giant swirling sound creeping up on their lives don't give a shit about a bunch of trust-fund babies and hedge-fund profiteers.

These swells expect to be absolved because they fund symphonies and scholarships, but the symphonies are basically for themselves, and scholarships just underline the fact that higher education (not to mention textbook publication) is increasingly a scam on par with the health-care system. The implicit threat is that they'll take their ball and go home if the plebes don't give them sufficient respect, and they're bound to do it anyway, if only to preserve their toehold in the vertically-integrated economic strata. The main thing is that they prove to everyone else that they feel no guilt about their XKR, even if it was earned merely by percentage-point diddling and spreadsheet manipulation.

When Paul Sullivan bothers to talk to someone who makes less than $100K/year, then maybe the bewildered herd will take him seriously. I think we all get that (apologies to Upton Sinclair) it is in his interest not to understand that rather obvious idea. But he is being deliberately obtuse if he can't see why his toadying and cheerleading is received with hostility.

Bonfire of the Inanities

This Malcolm Gladwell beignet from about a month ago (link via Mike Lombardi's column in NFP, of all things), is as much a profile of a man who's made a reputation overlooking Ockham's Razor in favor trendy aphorisms, than of the mentality of the Masters of the Universe. The "I'm good at this, therefore I'd be good at that" excuse is especially hilarious. "Gee, I won the Super Bowl on Madden 10. Maybe I should be playing or coaching actual football." Only people who don't worry about accountability for their actions have this mentality.

Look, this is not that complicated. Which is more relevant -- obscure and tendentious psych models that may or may not draw valid parallels between upper-echelon finance weasels and the fops who botched Gallipoli, or the more obvious notion that terminal fuckfaces like Jimmy Cayne, John Thain, Lloyd Blankfein, et al, do what they do because there's no reason for them not to?

Seriously, economists and their literary catamites prattle on about incentives and disincentives and such. Very well, then. At what point has any disincentive occurred -- or hell, even been seriously proposed -- to discourage the recklessness of Jimmy Cayne and his bridge buddies, retroactively or pre-emptively? It's other people's money they played with, it's other people's money they lost, and it's other people's money that constitutes the ginormous stack of chips they've been given to play with again. No penalties, no consequences, probably not even any truly meaningful regulatory changes. Can't say they're not getting what they paid for.

It doesn't take a handful of pop-behavioral psychology theories to understand why they keep doing what they do. For all his earnest semantics, Gladwell seems ill-equipped to answer the negative corollary to "why do they do it" -- what's do discourage them from doing it again? Cayne's a loudmouth chump, a pushy rentier capitalist who'll never be forced to pay his karmic freight, certainly not by the government they just doubled down on. This has nothing to do with Gallipoli, it's just a jerkoff who's never been given a reason not to be a fuckin' jerkoff. I've said it before, and not to frighten the Palin Power retards, but "socialism" is when the government runs the banks -- what do you call it when it's the other way around?

Because I'm petty and pedantic, and because I think people like Jimmy Cayne should be dunked in maple syrup and dropped on Grizzly Island, here's a bonus bon mot from the Weasel of Wall Street:

When Cayne told Greenberg that he was a bridge player, Cayne tells Cohan, “you could see the electric light bulb.”

As opposed to what, a mechanical light bulb, an origami lightbulb, a fucking drawing of a lightbulb? Is there a non-electric lightbulb we have heretofore been uninformed (you know, kept in the dark) about?

Maybe a derivative of a lightbulb, where one person actually manufactures and markets the damned thing, while Jimmy Cayne and his parasite bookie friends run their little off-track betting parlors with everyone else's money, betting on esoteric features such as how long the lightbulb takes to sell, how many hours it'll work, what percentage of milfs will buy it at Home Depot, etc. Certainly every lightbulb on Wall Street has been powered for quite some time by the bullshit these assclowns have been selling. Beats working.

Future Schlock

Really interesting post and discussion over at The Oil Drum, just to get the ol' futurism juices flowing (ewwwwww). I have no value judgments as to whether it's true or plausible, fair or foul, moral or indefensible, or merely the natural by-product of getting one's swerve on whilst reading World War Z and watching Children of Men. But it's certainly provocative.

I would, in fact, submit that many of us are living out a similar scenario, to a much smaller scale and degree, obviously. And if we're not, perhaps we should consider doing so. But think about it -- half the world lives on a dollar a day, which means that pretty much every American and European at the very least is subconsciously protecting their nut. Just making a token effort at the notional advantages of upward mobility is a form of socioeconomic self-stratification.

And for every case where that may be a "bad" or "unfair" thing to do, you can make an equally (or perhaps even more) valid case for it being the most rational thing to do. Let's say, just to pick a random example, that you are an idealistic sort of person, or at least would like to be. You endured the last eight years of Cheneyism, and the previous eight years of Republican witch-hunts and Clintonian triangulations and debaucheries. You may even be old enough to recall the predations of Reaganbush. You are battle-scarred and war-weary, in the political sense. You realize that they're all full of shit, and that said realization is every bit as much a part of growing up as realizing the truth about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

So when you cast your sacred lot not just against the least-offensive douchebag, but actually for someone who finally tickles that funny bone of idealism a bit, someone who not only promises Hopenchange, but more importantly accountability, it will harsh your mellow even more to find out that you have once again been rolled. Worse yet, you see that stupid people have somehow managed to become stupider, and more vitriolic.

Suddenly we're in a bad movie where idiots are strapping themselves with assault rifles to attend health-care rallies, and recipients of government largesse have decided it is their sacred mission to disrupt said debates with moronic invocations against the same government beast that keeps them alive. (It is almost a mathematical axiom that these idiots also have the highest percentage of family members who are on some other part of the dole, because they're too fucking dumb and/or lazy to go to Planned Parenthood.) The media's role is to give the screamers a radically outsized voice in the debate, and the governing party's role is waver and cater to that stupidity. Maybe when they get that eightieth Senate seat, they'll come through with all that Change they promised.

So really, faced with all that, friends 'n' neighbors, why wouldn't anyone who had the means set about backing slowly away from the toxic retardation of their fellow citizens and the dickless incrementalism of their elected representatives? Doesn't necessarily mean heading for the rammed-earth bunker in the hills with the raincatchers and solar panels and a few Saigas (though there are days where that sounds better and better), but it does mean judiciously assessing the situation and planning accordingly. You cannot get out of a debt-leverage financial crisis by leveraging more debt; you cannot have an equitable recovery by only bailing out the few hundred people who caused the problem in the first place. That's not politics, that's just arithmetic. What they're doing is not going to "work", except in the short term, and except for their own immediate interests.

The important thing is the basic realization that nobody, not Barack Obama, and certainly not the vipers at Goldman Sachs, give a shit what happens to you. The Republicans, vile as they are and unencumbered by facts or intellectual honesty, are at least more honest about their sociopathy. But in the meantime, I dunno. Be idealistic about individuals, but cynical about people. Be skeptical of people who promise to "help", or at least be aware of what's in it for them. Stop watching the network news, and stop voting (except, of course, when the Republitards offer up their inevitable Sarah Palin/Lonesome Rhodes ticket in 2012) -- the best way to disempower liars is to ignore them. That goes for the health-care nazi protesters as well; those animals need to kindly fuck off and die already.

It's been a while since I've had a good, solid rant on, and damn it feels good to be a gangsta. But I do seriously think that we do not necessarily have to be wealthy to have our own "separate peace". We just have to pay attention and plan ahead, live within our means, keep our skills sharp and keep learning new ones, be nice to those in our lives (and on our teevee screens) who deserve it and rid ourselves of those who just bring toxic baggage with them. Be our own mercenaries, basically, rather than worrying about the bloated plutocrats who think they should rent some to save their own sorry hides from the seething masses they helped perpetuate.

King of Poop

I don't if you've heard yet, but Michael Jackson has died. (I swear I instantly assumed cause of death as "choked on small boy".) So the worldwide rituals of vicarious self-actualization commence (and jeebus, but how psychologically damaged are you when you dress up like Michael Jackson and moonwalk on the sidewalk of his childhood home?), and everybody acts like something could or should have been done.

Eeee-fucking-nough already with this Princess Di schtick. Between the daily Demerol injections and the anorexia and who knows what all else, it sounds like he was lucky to make it to 50. He was never going to live to old age, not like that. But as the shade of Elvis Presley can tell him, there are more ignominious ways to go, like on the dumper at 42, stuffed with pills and peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwiches.

Look, it's sad when anyone goes, but when it's from a lifetime of not taking care of oneself, a toxic blend of chronic hypochondria and mental instability, it's not exactly a shock. What's shocking is that the supposed tour he was promoting just a few months ago had supposedly sold out, presumably everywhere but America. What the hell were these people -- the promoters and the ticket-buyers -- thinking? It had simply been far too long since Jackson had performed or recorded or even written anything at all, and had shown no signs of woodshedding to regain any of those lost skills. It ain't exactly like riding a bike, no matter what they say; you really do start losing it if you stop using it. I guess if you're the sort of person who shells out money to go to a Spice Girls reunion show, none of that matters, in which case you deserve to get fleeced.

A set of Jackson shows would have made Britney Spears' latest go-round look like the Jersey leg of a Springsteen tour. Pop acts don't really bother much anymore with even the pretense of "touring" anyway; everybody knows they're just paying for swag, and to watch choreography more-or-less synched with a backing track. A lot of this was covered in my epic takedown of Jackson's nonsense several years ago, and in review, I wouldn't change a word of it, unfortunately.

In the end, the thing that always annoyed me about Jackson -- and in turn his weirdly sycophantic fans; I mean, who else has such goofy-ass ball-licker fans like that? -- was the insistence on wild self-aggrandizement at every opportunity. He was a talented guy who made some good music over the years, but he could never be content with that; he proclaimed himself the reigning monarch of pop music as if the Beatles or about a dozen other great pop bands had never existed; he awarded himself some retarded "musician of the millennium" plaque as if Beat It was a triumph of composition that shamed Bach's violin partitas or Beethoven's symphonies.

Jackson always acted as if he had some sort of divinely anointed sui generis status that was really just self-anointed. These antics seemed to be inversely proportional to the actual amount of work put out, which made the whole spectacle increasingly embarrassing. The constant need for superlatives and overwrought validation just got old, and betrayed an ever-thinner grasp of reality, and an ever-wider set of unresolved daddy issues.

And it had fuck-all to do with the making of actual music. Seems like it would have been a lot easier to just put down the llamas and the teenage boys once in a while, write a few songs and record them, and keep steadily adding to that body of work, rather than lamely trying to burnish his icon status by lavishing titles upon himself like some comical third-world despot. Perhaps he should have tried to rename the months of the year while he was at it, but only the diehards would have remembered that today is Tito 27th.

As far as I'm concerned, the measure of a musician's efforts are most accurately shown in the depth and breadth of his influence on other musicians. You can find lots of pop acts who flash their Beatles influences, and you can find country acts who have a little Elvis in their sound. There are countless guitarists who are influenced even by people who died very young, such as Jimi Hendrix and Randy Rhoads, both of whose actual catalogs are quite small in comparison to most. Most of your prog acts have some Rush or Dream Theater (themselves disciples of Rush) influences, and pretty much every metal act is just redoing some variation on what Black Sabbath did nearly forty years ago. (In fact, I would say that because metal genres in particular mutate and propagate so fast, they're probably about six or seven generations out from Sabbath at this point -- and you can still hear it, in the tritone riffs and doomy incantations.) The point is that if you're popular and influential, you won't have to tell people about it -- there'll be plenty of other performers who will take what they like from yours, add some of their own, and push it forward. It has always been thus, since Mozart learned from Haydn.

But the only person nominally in the music bidness I can think of who shows a little Michael is our good friend Kanye West, with his lack of self-awareness disguised as hyper-awareness, the clueless over-the-top my-shit-don't-stink spasms of toxic self-regard, and the lack of fun. Music, even heavy music, is supposed to be fun, escapist, make you forget about the rigors of day-to-day life, not a weird pissing contest with the rest of the universe where skill and technique and passion are thrown out as criteria, and replaced by whoever has the largest video budget and the most dancers and moves the most units.

So while it seems like I'm pissing on his grave, there is actually a Michael Jackson I miss, and it's the cherubic little kid with the huge voice and grin. Even with his psycho dad and his equally cowed brothers, that kid was still able to enjoy what he was doing when he was up there. I don't think Michael Jackson had really enjoyed himself for a long, long time, because all his energy had been expended trying to levitate the myth, and all his money and talent had been squandered on his bad personal habits. That's really the sad part. I genuinely miss that kid, but I think we've all missed him for about twenty years or so.

The Audacity of Dope

Remember when Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats and that gave them a magickal filibuster-proof majority and now they were really gonna change some shit? Yeah, that was awesome.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced legislation in the Senate Thursday which would allow homeowners in bankruptcy to renegotiate -- or cramdown -- mortgages with banks.

....

The measure is widely expected to fail, as crucial Democratic senators, whose votes are needed to overcome a filibuster, have publicly declared their opposition.

Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Jon Tester have indicated they plan to vote against the amendment.

....

The banking and real estate industry has funneled roughly $2,000,000 into Landrieu's campaign coffers over her 12-year career, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Bayh has taken in about $3.5 million. The financial sector is Nelson's biggest backer; he's taken $1.4 million from banks and real estate interests and another $1.2 million from insurance firms. Tester has fielded roughly half a million in his two years in office.

That's about nine million dollars -- far, far less than one percent of the amount taxpayers have spent to bail out the financial industry.

Specter also voted against the bill, by the way. Gee, that didn't take long. Talk about your return on investment. Not sure how "Once bought, stays bought" shakes out in Latin, but it's as good a national motto as any.

The Democrats may want to be careful about getting what they wished for, because 60 votes leaves them with no fucking excuse for this kind of shit. Assholes like Nelson and Landrieu are DINOs anyway, and always have been. The supermajority just makes them slightly more transparent for the few folks who hadn't already noticed. This is a party with less discipline than your average cheerleader squad. Forget the magic number of sixty, these clowns couldn't even get a simple majority. What kind of weak-ass flaccid bullshit is that?

At the very least, maybe this will debunk some of the teabagger myths of a sinister Democrat conspiracy to socialize the country. The finance sector owns them, and they don't have the balls or the party discpline to buck that influence. These people could fuck up a shit sandwich; exactly how are they supposed to go about confiscating everyone's guns and socializing their assets?

King for a Day

I don't recall the last one of these inauguration things I actually watched, and I've never sat all the way through one, what with all the ceremonial invocations and doodads. And the media commentary is about as ludicrous as Aretha Franklin's hat. But the sheer size of the throng is certainly impressive. Here's hoping that they and/or Obama mean it. There really is a lot of potential there, between Obama and the legions who believe, and one wishes for real success, even as reality tempers one's expectations.

Decent speech, some veiled repudiations at Fredo's all-encompassing incompetence and institutionalized corruption; mad props to throwing "non-believers" at the end of the "who Americans are" list. Right behind Hindus, yay us. Thanks for that shout out, especially after "Doctor" (of what, gravy?) Warren's presumptuous circumscription of what God is responsible for, and whom He loves.

Look, asshole, if God loved everyone and everything He made, He wouldn't let kids starve while Bernie Madoff holes up in his fuckin' penthouse; He wouldn't let His rats be skinned for Lynne Cheney's coat. Etc., etc. There are at least as many reasons not to believe as there are to believe, and a substantial one is the unfathomable success of sideshow carnies like George W. Bush or Rick Warren. If God loves His children, why does He make them so gullible?

Apparently the financial wizards heard the stuff about accountability (Dow down 200 right after Obama's speech ended), and are afraid he actually means it. One can only hope. It really does all start and end with holding people accountable for what they've done.

And enough with the fawning, credulous commentary over what a gracious exiter Bush has been. Good fucking riddance; the man has been a menace, who treated the country and the world like New Orleans for eight full years. I don't expect them to kick him in the ass on the way out the door, but they don't have to kiss it either. The man leaves under a cloud, largely of his own creation. He deserves nothing but contempt; the least we can ask is that he be ignored. There are few better arguments for the eventual demise of corporate media organizations than listening to them prattle on so.

Global Warming. Catch It!

I feel for you folks east of the Rockies. It's been like April here all week -- mid-70s, low wind, the only reminder that it's nominally winter being the moderately cool (40-45º) nights. Today's been even better -- yardwork all morning, hang outside and read all afternoon, barbecue some chicken and andouille skewers in a while, wash it down with Red Hook Winter Brew.

Come summer, when wildfire season hits like a ton of bricks, compounded by drought from three dry winters, it'll get ugly. But I conserve water and keep my field mowed, as do most of the people in this area, so all we can do is ride the wave. It's just weird to think about friends and relatives in Iowa and Missouri and such, and there's about a hundred-degree discrepancy right now.

Colbert Christmas

After mildly hacking on Christmas specials the other day -- not because they're bad, mind you, just that they're the same ones every year -- I gotta say, Colbert's new special is pretty cool. Elvis Costello was great in a classic Larry Sanders years ago, so he has a sense of humor about himself, and here he's really funny and a really good sport. John Legend shares a filthy song about nutmeg. You may even rethink some of your assumptions about Toby Keith, who lampoons the more jingoistic parts of his catalog with a number about the War on Christmas. Fun for kids of all ages.

Thanks But No Thanks

Here's what the current occupant of the nation's highest office did yesterday:

The importance of having two turkeys at the ready was proved yesterday, when disaster was narrowly averted in this, Bush's final turkey-pardoning moment. The Washington Post has learned that one of the turkeys came down with a cold the night before the pardoning ceremony!

"A little congested," a source involved in the closed-door turkey operation said.

Just like that, the chosen bird was demoted to vice turkey status, and no one would be the wiser.

"Number 2 became Number 1 in the middle of the night," said another source, who asked to be identified only as a member of the turkey-raising family.

And so it was that on a bright, chilly morning in the Rose Garden, President Bush was able to preside smoothly over his last turkey pardoning.

....

This year's national turkey and his alternate both kicked back on Pardon Eve at a suite in the Willard Hotel, a serious upgrade over the digs of their recent predecessors, who holed up at the charming, but fading -- and now closed -- Hotel Washington.

In contrast, the guy who will replace Bush at the White House decided to help people who will never quite afford the swanky digs at the Willard:

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife took their daughters to work at a food bank on the day before Thanksgiving, saying they wanted to show the girls the meaning of the holiday, especially when so many people are struggling.

Ten-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha joined their parents to shake hands and give holiday wishes to hundreds of people who had been lined up for hours at the food bank on Chicago's South Side.

Sasha wore a pink stocking hat over her pigtails and Malia had on a purple striped hat as the family handed out wrapped chickens to the needy in the chilly outdoor courtyard. Those seeking food on Wednesday at St. Columbanus also received boxes with potatoes, oranges, fresh bread, peanut butter, canned goods, oatmeal, spaghetti and coffee.

The president-elect, dressed casually in a leather jacket, black scarf and khaki pants, was in a jovial mood, calling out "happy Thanksgiving" and telling everyone "you can call me Barack."

He told reporters that he wants the girls "to learn the importance of how fortunate they are, and to make sure they're giving back."

I've never been able to quite grok the turkey-pardoning thing anyway; in a world full of ridiculous and meaningless traditions, this is surely one of the more inscrutably tedious. But let's play the game for a moment -- the "tradition", such as it is, is meant to symbolize mercy, compassion, empathy. Which person is embodying those traits to a greater degree by his respective symbolic action?

And perhaps more importantly, when did Bush ever put those values of mercy, compassion, and empathy into action? He brought needless death and destruction to distant shores, and he diddled and fumbled while the economy of the world lawn-darted, and millions of his citizens lost their jobs, homes, businesses, futures. He departs with a seamless wake of failure and havoc, a man who was groomed from childhood by the best educational institutions this nation has to offer, but whose petulance and willfulness, incuriosity and ignorance, bequeath a legacy that will take a concerted effort by the US and the rest of the world to overcome.

And while Bush and Cheney have not exactly obstructed or impeded Obama's efforts to put together an economic team that can hit the ground running in January, they've also done nothing to facilitate the transition, nothing to help the process, nothing save extending meager unemployment benefits to even acknowledge that a lot of people out there are royally screwed, that it's a long two months until competent people even get a chance to implement a new, hopefully proactive plan of attack. They're just fucking around, like they always do and always have, playing with turkeys, Mister Man brushing up on his borscht-belt schtick.

Today also happens to be my wedding anniversary, so I do have plenty to be thankful for -- a happy marriage, a wonderful family, good health, and right now spectacular weather. And leaving a job (as of next week) that I had become disillusioned with anyway. But the large-scale thing that I (and I imagine most Americans) can also be thankful for is Bush's impending departure, the imminent and hopefully permanent removal from public life of a person who had a nasty and regressive impact on the lives of most Americans as well as millions around the world, a man under whose tenure only the lives of his haves and have-mores actually improved.

I think it's safe to say, even among a fair number of self-styled conservatives, that Bush is someone who never should have been there in the first place, someone who made the country and the world worse than he found it, who polarized and impoverished both the political debate and the economic stratification of this country. He will never have the self-awareness to be ashamed or embarrassed at what he's done. I think a lot of us are ashamed and embarrassed for his actions and inactions, as well as of and by them. That's a good thing; it means we might still have a drop of team spirit left in us. We still give a damn.

Were I a person of faith I'd put my trust in a just and vengeful god to mete out an appropriate fate for Bush and his minions, but since empirical reality mitigates that flight of fancy, I'll settle for him just going away, spending the rest of his days covering his nut on the wingnut rubber-chicken circuit. They deserve each other. All any of them care about is money anyway; may they all choke on it.

In the meantime, y'all have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy the Lions' historic run to an unprecedented 0-16 season -- unless, as Michael Silver posits, they can squeak past the inconsistent Saints. I dunno; I think we're looking at 0-16, and probably 2-14 next year for the hapless Lions, whose organizational culture makes the Raiders' look competent. They're that bad.

Update: Re the Titans-Lions blowout, nice move by the Titans who, at 3:39 left in the game and a 37-point lead, and most of their starters still in, challenge a measly (if athletic) 20-yard catch by Detroit WR Calvin Johnson that took the Lions to their own 40. The catch stood, but still -- stay classy, Jeff Fisher!

America Drinks and Goes Home

It's going to take a while to digest everything, let it sink in, see how it all sorts out, but the initial impact of Obama's near-landslide election is undeniable. I'm not quite to the "skies are bluer, food tastes better, sex is more pleasurable" stage the true believers are, but it's a step in the right direction that I wasn't sure enough of my fella 'murkins really had in 'em.

Skepticism and cynicism frequently are what motivate and inform us, but it's nice to at least have the opportunity to start tempering that with a bit of cautious optimism. Also, for the first time in eight years, we'll have an English-speaking president. And I can start using that "p" word which I have studiously avoided so diligently.

Good job, America. After exhausting all the other options, you've finally come around to doing something resembling the right thing. And all y'all closet crackers and ignorant buffoons that have weighted down the country and the world with your drinkin' buddy, kindly go piss up the nearest rope for a few years. Go John Galt like you keep threatening, and do us all a favor. We'll send someone up to your Rocky Mountain fort to dig out your corpses at the next spring thaw.

McCain Campaign Stays Mainly in the Lame

Looking back at the waste and debris that comprises the 2008 Republican campaign, perhaps the most striking feature is how consistently inept and incoherent it has been. It has not been a coordinated campaign with an actual mesage, so much as a series of disconnected weekly stunts and gimmicks.

None of these stunts and catch-phrases have made it beyond what marketing weasels would call "early adopters", but in the political arena are simply (to be charitable about it) true believers. They'll believe whatever they're told, because they're predisposed to. The effective campaign is the one that can move its message beyond that first layer of self-selecting dopes, but all you see at these "events" is the same idiots with their "I Am Joe the Plummer"[sic] signs, proving on several levels that they indeed slept their way through the public school system.

So when I read a breathless, gushing chronicle of McCain appearing in Denver with by far the most famous face of that city's NFL franchise, I instantly wonder what the numbers are. After all, Obama just drew 100,000 in St. Louis, and turned around and drew another 75,000 in Kansas City the very next day. Surely John Elway can reel in some numbers on his home turf for Poor Ol' Straight Talk.

Four thousand. 4,000 people showed up to listen to this mess. Come on. Elway probably can't go shopping at the mall in Denver without attracting a few hundred gawkers, and the draw is only 4k at a campaign event?

Elway said McCain knows how to show "leadership and sacrifice for the good of the team."
Turning to the candidate, he said "It's the fourth quarter, and some have counted you out. But I know a thing or two about comebacks."

Elway urged everyone to vote. "We need to put someone in the White House who puts country first."

First, you know, go fuck yourself, Elroy. You would think a guy who went to Stanford might actually have a clue about the implications of continuing this pernicious little "McCain loves his country more than Obama" theme. But he's got his car dealerships and his new cheerleader wife, so it's all good. He's set, and nobody in Colorado will ever hold him accountable for anything he says, no matter how obnoxious or flat-out stupid. Don't be too surprised if a desperate Colorado GOP taps him for statewide office in the next few years.

But whatever. It's about what you'd expect from pro football players, most of whom just vote for whoever will take the smallest chunk of taxes out of their fat paychecks. The thing is, I'd bet money that the turnout would have been at least triple what it was if Palin had been scheduled to speak. She's their only draw now, because the campaign itself has no meaning, it's just a traveling American Idol, with an indistinguishable group of cartoonish morons at every stop.

Think about that: ten days out from Election Day, and one of the major-party candidates has been so overshadowed by his running mate, who was virtually unknown just a couple months ago, that he can't draw a decent crowd without her. He's gotta know what bad news that is for his prospects, and what that says about his tepid, shallow support, while Obama ground forces dwarf his in every state, red and blue alike. The way things are going, this election won't even be close enough for them to steal this time.

Nobody's voting for John McCain. They're either voting for the naughty librarian they think Sarah Palin is, or they're voting against what Limbaugh and Hannity have told them about Obama. For a guy that's spent a quarter-century in the US Senate, that's pretty damned sad.

Update: Hee hee. Suck it, Elway. Just fuckin' blow me long time. Real mature, I know. But still: Suck. It. Long. Time.

Consequences

I suppose it's encouraging to see erudite expatriate limeys such as Sully the Pooh and Hitchens come around to the side of common sense. The latter in particular is appropriately scathing in his denunciation of Palin's manifest unfitness for the office she seeks, as well as her unblinking hypocrisy and prevarication. Yet he seems unmindful of how the American political system has devolved to this point.

Hitchens was an occasional guest on Dennis Miller's old HBO show, back before the two of them became willing dupes for this nightmarish administration. I distinctly recall (though strangely, cannot find it on YouTube, amidst the numberless squids trying to teach a cat to skateboard or some such) one such instance, either right before or right after the 2000 electoral debacle. Miller and Hitchens were snickering, rightly so, at the prospect of a person such as George W. Bush even getting in the room, much less being granted the opportunity to set policy for this nation. Hitchens in particular riffed on someone else's (favorable) assessment of Fredo as being "able" and "capable", amused and mortified by the acquiescence of such a pale endorsement. Miller, as he always does, knowing his intellectual place around someone such as Hitchens, agreed with a cascade of giggles and esoteric references.

The thing is, Hitchens and Miller were absolutely correct at the time in their perception of Bush. And what Bush's reign of error has shown us is that even a disinterested, incompetent person can have torrents of unforeseen consequences. Possibly the most difficult to undo will be the infestation of federal departments by scads of Pat Robertson-bots, ideologically-driven religious fanatics committed to the mission of gumming up the workings of the federal government. This is a direct consequence of what Rove and Cheney brought to the table -- even if you win by one vote, govern as if you have a full mandate, and reward your base.

Which brings us to Palin's involvement in the current campaign, again an entirely natural consequence of a dumbed-down base endowed with an unearned sense of entitlement. This was McCain's (and, despite his protests, Rove's) present to the extra-chromosome bloc, which they need desperately to even remain notionally in contention. That in turn was because Rove and Bush and Cheney and the lot of them had proven that that sort of shit works, that if you incite the nastiest, most ignorant elements of American society with the most ludicrous fairy-tales, they will literally set aside their own rational self-interest and vote for pure nonsense and lies.

Political junkies, professional and amateur alike, typically focus on policy objectives first, then in how the proponents' temperament and character jibe with those objectives. This is understandable. One lesson every observer should draw from the last eight years, not that there aren't a whole mess of lessons to be drawn, is that a McPalin administration would most assuredly extend the internal efforts begun by Bush and Cheney. They'd probably replace Stevens and/or Ginsburg not with a Harriet Miers cheerleader, but some baby-faced shithead from Falwell's or Robertson's home-school-advancement cracker factories.

Republicanism as such is an incoherent mush of pseudopatriot memes and god-bothering piffle to whip up the base. Its intent is at once self-perpetuating and parasitic, which is ultimately far more destructive than the corporate homilies Obama and Biden have been riding on. Palin's selection says much more about the party's goals in renewing itself, than about McCain in particular. Hitch would do well to realize that the people he has aligned himself with don't compartmentalize things as well as he can. He's a skeptic's skeptic, and seems almost bemused that they believe this shit. It is all of a piece with this breed, and alliances of convenience with them are bound to turn sour.

Sorry Charlie

Credit where credit is due: count me in as admitting that I misunderestimated Charlie Gibson, or at least he well exceeded my lowered expectations. He did pretty well and, contra my predictions, wasn't a shameless suck-up. He could have been more aggressive -- they can always be more aggressive, and without coming off like pushy assholes. But he got his main points across, avoided being unnecessarily deferential, and helped show Palin as she really is -- clueless, way out of her depth, dangerously ignorant and at least as unprepared for her job interview as Fredo was for his. How'd that one work out, newbie Palin cultists? Shit, Gibson came off as more qualified for the job. None of these humps had heard of Palin less than three weeks ago, and in another two weeks or so, they'll be sick of her and forget her, like whoever won the last American Idol.