Wingnut Taste

Hey, what do you think this sequence represents?

2, 0, 0,
0, 0, 0,
51, 0, 0,
0, 0, 0,
1, 0, 1,
0, 1

If you guessed the number of comments left under the posts currently appearing on alleged college perfesser Donald Douglas's blog home page, and that outlier is undoubtedly due to something disgusting because posting cheesecake photos, begging for links from RS McCain, and moralizing about Teh Nihilist Left just isn't driving the traffic, you know your wingnuts!

(h/t: TBogg, via Jack Stuef, via @jim_newell)

[Added] And doubling down on his sad clown belief that "anything that pisses off Teh Left is a win for conservatives!!!1!," he sanctimoniously notes the death this morning of Elizabeth Edwards in his latest post. (Not counted in the numerical series above.) I'd say let's hope for another round of people taking him to task in his comments section, but as he has made clear in the past, he is impervious to criticism. Not to mention to the notion that he should set aside his one-wingnut culture war and at least try to act like a human being once in a while. I probably shouldn't even link to him, but at least this way he knows some more eyes are upon him. For all the good that'll do.

Can't Make This Stuff Up

U.S. Will Briefly Stop Persecuting Reporters to Host World Press Freedom Day

(previously)

Clay Shirky on "Wikileaks and the Long haul"

If you're not up for reading the whole thing, here is the conclusion:

I think the current laws, which criminalize the leaking of secrets but not the publishing of leaks, strike the right balance. However, as a citizen of a democracy, I’m willing to be voted down, and I’m willing to see other democratically proposed restrictions on Wikileaks put in place. It may even be that whatever checks and balances do get put in place by the democratic process make anything like Wikileaks impossible to sustain in the future.

The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us “You went after Wikileaks’ domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site. If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that.”

Over the long haul, we will need new checks and balances for newly increased transparency — Wikileaks shouldn’t be able to operate as a law unto itself anymore than the US should be able to. In the short haul, though, Wikileaks is our Amsterdam. Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.

(h/t: Ryan Tate)

Via Clay: Glenn Greenwald is a bit harsher: "The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks." I must say after reading it that in addition to the US government, there is no shortage of US businesses covering themselves in disgrace here, too. And by "US businesses," I include a discouragingly large number of media outlets.

(x-posted)

[Added] Via Glenzilla: Why Is Wikileaks A Good Thing Again?

"Chart of the day: U.S. taxes."

See Felix Salmon's post from yesterday. As he says:

This chart should be ingrained in the mind of anybody who cares about fiscal policy.

Which, despite megatons of hot air emanating from our politicians and pundits, appears to be approximately nobody in power.

(x-posted)

V

Oh, hey, look at that. I remembered my blog's fifth birthday. Happy birthday, blog!

Thanks for reading, for however long you have been.

(And no, it's just a coincidence that I started on Pearl Harbor Day.)

Some perspective on Obama

Yes, it's easy for a liberal to be pissed off these days. But if you'd rather not completely wallow in the depths of despair, there's a good post by Scott Lemieux over at LGM, with a lot of links worth clicking, especially the one to Matt Yglesias.

There's no denying it: they're the only ones denying it

Just for the record, when the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences last reviewed the data this spring, it concluded: "A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems." Not only William Hague but such other prominent European conservatives as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have embraced that widespread scientific conviction and supported vigorous action.

Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is "no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of."

It will be difficult for the world to move meaningfully against climate disruption if the United States does not. And it will be almost impossible for the U.S. to act if one party not only rejects the most common solution proposed for the problem (cap-and-trade) but repudiates even the idea that there is a problem to be solved. The GOP's stiffening rejection of climate science sets the stage for much heated argument but little action as the world inexorably warms -- and the dangers that Hague identified creep closer.

-- Ronald Brownstein, via Sean Carroll, whose post is also well worth reading.

(x-posted)

Pull the lever, Conan!

Jack Stuef calls attention to that guy best known for getting his ass kicked thirty-five years ago by some small Chinese person, who these days is a regular columnist at WingNutDaily, who has posted another in an endless series of screeds about our godless Kenyan overlord and his godless minions:

Chuck Norris: Atheist National Park Service Sullying Founding Fathers

Because I can never get enough of arguments about why the only way Chuck Norris's fundamentalist butthurt -- "it alarms me when omissions are exclusively divine and so easily exit [sic] and are excused by the U.S. supreme leader," "the National Park Service guide leading their group blurted out five unbelievable lies and distortions about our founders' religious beliefs and history, with school-aged children present as well in the room," etc. -- can be salved is by jamming the Bible down the throat of every public school student in America, I clicked on over. There at the bottom was the real comedy:

(embiggen)

Cool! Fleecing the True Believers by copying, pasting, and packaging a bunch of stuff available for free all over the Internet! St. Sarah would be proud. Let's click that "Order" link:

(embiggen)

(title: vide)

A play button I will never, ever click

Looks like we picked the wrong week to update the DSM.

Speaking of American Exceptionamalism ...

... which we were, stumbling across this should not have surprised me.

Old joke, new to me

What wingnuts see when they look at the New York Times.

(via, via)

Maybe also see here, but (and this'll shock you) I can't tell because Tumblr is down again.

Hey liberals and other sad Obama fans: Need a pick-me-up?

I just finished listening to the latest episode of Liberal Oasis, and the interview of David Rees is especially good. (Starts around 32:47, if you're pressed for time. But if you have time, you don't want to miss the always delightful Bill Scher and his new-delight-to-me partner in podcasting, Traci Olsen.)

And … excitement plus! "The Return of 'Get Your War On'!"

What's that you say? You can't quite place the name David Rees? Hints: "The Moustache of Understanding" and the classic short vid, "New World Order."

Mo' Rees: best response to Lewis D'Vorkin I've read in a while.

(x-posted)

P.S. I don't always use a pencil, but when I do … stay sharp, my friends.

P.P.S. Get your PowerPoint on!

Meet the base of the Republican Party

If you're wondering how the party of Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh managed to reacquire control of the House, here's a hint:

Hurrah for American Exceptionalism, huh?

(h/t: KK)

[Update] Also.

Eight seconds without context

Just because. (Because maybe it will make MPF laugh?)

(alt. video link)

Science!

(They're talking about altruism in vampire bats, if you haven't already figured it out. The whole diavlog, Science Saturday: Beyond Sex, is pretty good.)

Bill Maher interviewed by Fareed Zakaria

Here is a 13-minute clip that's quite good. Probably you should not watch it if you're the sort of person who gets butthurt for being called a teabagger. Instead, just do what you always do -- skip watching it, and immediately fire off comments about how much you hate Bill Maher, because he is rude and likes to smoke pot.

(alt. video link)

Parts I liked best: how he shot down the question "is it because maybe the electorate is farther to the right than you would like them to be?" and his dismissal of the MSM's favorite fetish, Teh Independent Voters. And of course fundie-mocking is always FTW.

He's right about what we're looking for Obama to do, too. (Maybe some of this stuff is starting to get through to the White House?)

(h/t: Twin)

Should I be impressed or scared?

I just clicked Send and got this pop-up window.

"Wikileaked:" FP's new blog

Foreign Policy magazine has started a blog dedicated to stories from and related to Wikileaks. Looks pretty good.

Introductory post here.

Remember the X-37B! (?)

Yeah, that thing.

Did you remember it was gone? Because now it's back.

Secret robot spacecraft, left to its own devices for seven months in orbit. Eh, no way that's going to cause any paranoia.

No, no. It's NORMAL for groundcrew to be in suits like that
when greeting returning spacecraft. Or so They say.

The Air Force had emphasized that the primary purpose of the flight was to test the craft itself but classified its actual activities in orbit, leading to speculation about whether it carried some type of spying system in its small payload bay.

Program manager Lt. Col. Troy Giese said in a statement that all objectives were completed and the landing culminated a successful mission.

The Air Force immediately announced that a second X-37B, which had only been revealed last April, is scheduled to be launched next spring.

Universe Today has more pictures besides that one I stole, above. Be advised that if you look at them, though, you might never get a job at the State Department.

Any questions?

The lede:

Senate Republicans today successfully filibustered two Democratic tax cut bills that would have allowed Bush-era tax cuts benefiting only the wealthiest sliver of the country to expire. The party-line votes were intended by Democratic leaders to put Republicans on the record blocking the extension of tax cuts that would have benefited all Americans in order to secure additional tax cuts for the highest-income earners in America.

How much longer will it be before the Palinistas, the teabaggers, the Christianists, and other components of the Republican base wake up and realize the GOP really does not give a shit about them?

(x-posted)

News of the Unsurprising

Pareene:

Republican opinion outfit ConservativeHome polled 1,152 Republican activists (according to "YouGuv America") on their favorite conservative pundits. The results: mostly unsurprising. Rush Limbaugh is No. 1 and Glenn Beck is No. 2. Republican activists love being angry and scared, and getting lied to.

The only newspaper columnists Republican activists actually like are George Will, at No. 10, and human smarm machine Charles Krauthammer, all the way at No. 3, thanks in large part (I assume) to his frequent appearances on Fox and the fact that he has a professional wrestling stage name. (There is also Ann Coulter at No. 9, but she's more of a mascot than a columnist.)

The winners, in order:

Rush Limbaugh: 41 percent
Glenn Beck: 33 percent
Charles Krauthammer: 29 percent
Bill O'Reilly: 24 percent
Sean Hannity: 21 percent
Newt Gingrich: 16 percent
Michelle Malkin: 16 percent
Mike Huckabee: 13 percent
Ann Coulter: 13 percent
George Will: 13 percent

[...]

And what are the GOP's favorite pundits up to, lately? Rush is dialing up the racial rhetoric and attacking American Indians. Glenn Beck is still flagrantly ripping off his worshipful followers. Krauthammer would like us to act a bit more like the KGB and assassinate Julian Assange. Bill O'Reilly is attacking Andy Griffith. Ann Coulter just wrote an astoundingly homophobic column.

So, these are the people we're dealing with.

From the original source, more observations:

• The list reveals the massive gap between broadcast pundits and newspaper commentators.
• Limbaugh, for example, was named as a favorite by 41% of ConservativeHome's Republican Panel.
• Worryingly, columnists often regarded as among the most thoughtful conservatives did not fare well. David Brooks of the New York Times only mustered a mention from 1.3% of the panel (14 people). Ross Douthat, also at the NYT, won just four votes and Mike Gerson, Washington Post writer and former speechwriter to President Bush, gets just three mentions.
• Another former Bush speechwriter and Rush Limbaugh's leading critic, David Frum, only gets three mentions. Peggy Noonan, however, gets favorited 35 times.
• The ticket to high status is clearly Fox News. One of only two upmarket newspaper columnist to appear in the top ten being Charles Krauthammer, who combines his syndicated Washington Post column with his Fox punditry. He was named by 29% of grassroots Republicans. The other broadsheet columnist, at number ten, is George Will, syndicated Washington Post Op-Ed writer and ABC News veteran.

In other news, the forecast for today calls for periods of light, with increasing darkness expected in the evening.

(x-posted)

Subtlety, Hateway Pundit Style

Jim Hoft begins a post on news related to the push to repeal DADT thus:

Note: This post neither endorses nor opposes gays serving in the US military. It is intended to offer you more information on the topic because once again the corrupt media has decided to campaign for and not report on the subject.

He continues:

Shocker-
Once again a timely report was released today just as Congress is scheduled to debate the topic today in Congressional hearings. The state run media wants you to know that gays can serve in the military openly without hurting the military’s ability to fight.

After a blockquote from an AP story, Hoft concludes:

Of course, what the corrupt media will not tell you is that occasionally a rogue gay soldier may wig out and leak over 250,000 documents to Wikileaks after a relationship falls apart. The media does not believe that this is something you should know. The information does not help them with their cause. Granted, straight soldiers could do this too- They just haven’t yet.

Hard to imagine what it would sound like if he were to write a post in which he opposed gays serving in the military, isn't it?

By the way, don't know if you heard, but Hateway recently moved his blog from FirstThings to RightNetwork. Which will make watching Frasier re-runs considerably less enjoyable. Not that this was ever a big part of my life, but you know.

(h/t: Sadly, No!)

Report from the ground in Afghanistan

Here is Chris Hayes guest-hosting Rachel Maddow's show, interviewing Jeremy Scahill of Nation magazine. It's about six minutes long. I believe it originally aired 23 Nov 2010.

(alt. video link)

(h/t: Glenn Greenwald)

The Sinking Ship of State

I highly recommend Kevin Drum's post, "Willful Self Destruction."

(h/t: Glenn Greenwald/Matt Welch ← a diavlog worth your time, as well)

Wikileaks.org down. Other sites available.

It looks like, at the moment, wikileaks.org is down, and further, that the URL is claimed not to be known by various DNS services.

Various mirror sites are going up; e.g. wikileaks.ch in Switzerland and wikileaks.se in Sweden. Best bet is probably to start with the Wikileaks Twitter feed and Facebook page, since the powers that be seem to be shutting some of the mirrors down as well, or blocking the DNS lookups.

Here's one that's working at the moment: http://213.251.145.96.nyud.net/. Note that a lot of mirrors will likely feature the requirement that you use a numerical IP address to visit them.

[Added] The BBC says the DNS shutdown was due to the provider responding to massive DDoS attacks.

(x-posted)

John McCain in his own words ...

... collected by Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Fear Is the Path to the Dark Side."

Hurrah for Mike Mullen

From (gasp) FoxNews:

Mullen: Troops Who Balk at Change in Gay Service Policy Can Find Other Work

Military members who have a problem with a change in policy to allow gays to serve openly may find themselves looking for a new job, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Thursday.

Mullen told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the military is based on meritocracy, "what you do, not who you are." He said if Congress changes the don't ask, don't tell policy then the U.S. military will comply.

And if some people have a problem with that, they may not want to join the service.

"Should repeal occur, some soldiers and Marines may want separate shower facilities. Some may ask for different berthing. Some may even quit the service," Mullen said. "We'll deal with that."

Mullen added that "there is no gray area" in the debate when it comes to standards of conduct in the military.

"We treat each other with respect or we find another place to work. Period," he said.

Shoutout also to Gen. Cater F. Ham, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe:

"If the law changes, the United States military can do this, even in a time of war," said Ham, who helped lead the working group that conducted the 10-month long study on the impact of openly gay members serving alongside straight troops.

"I do not underestimate the challenges in changing the law, but neither do I underestimate the willingness and capability" of U.S. forces to adapt to change, Ham said.

More from the chairman:

Mullen, who claimed he worked alongside gay service members through his entire career, said combat units who are most opposed to having gays serve openly in the military could lead the way in a smooth transition to a policy switch.

Saying he expects less turbulence, "even in the combat arms world," than some would predict, Mullen added, "In fact, it may be the combat arms community that proves the most effective at managing this change, disciplined as they are. It's not only because our young ones are more tolerant. It's because they've got far more important things to worry about."

Mullen said that U.S. military members are already working on the battlefield with NATO forces from countries where being gay is not a disqualification from service.

"I don't recall a single instance where the fact that one of them might be openly gay ever led to poor performance on the field," he said. "Gay or straight, their troops patrolled with ours and bled with ours."

This being something posted on FoxNews, the comments are an absolute sewer. It's quite possible to read FoxNews's headline and posting of this article as designed to draw just that, but we'll take the good news at face value.

(h/t: JonIrenicus)

[Added] Joan McCarter at DailyKos has posted his full testimony.

Chicago Thuggery! And Worse: The Gay Kind!

Another positive step:

CHICAGO — Illinois lawmakers on Wednesday approved legislation allowing civil unions in this state, and the governor has indicated he will sign it, making Illinois one of only a handful of states to grant to same-sex couples a broad array of legal rights and responsibilities similar to those of marriage.

The secretaries of state for the past five Republican presidents ...

... have an op-ed in the WaPo that bears a look. Here's how it starts.

Republican presidents have long led the crucial fight to protect the United States against nuclear dangers. That is why Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated the SALT I, START I and START II agreements. It is why President George W. Bush negotiated the Moscow Treaty. All four recognized that reducing the number of nuclear arms in an open, verifiable manner would reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe and increase the stability of America's relationship with the Soviet Union and, later, the Russian Federation. The world is safer today because of the decades-long effort to reduce its supply of nuclear weapons.

As a result, we urge the Senate to ratify the New START treaty signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. It is a modest and appropriate continuation of the START I treaty that expired almost a year ago. It reduces the number of nuclear weapons that each side deploys while enabling the United States to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent and preserving the flexibility to deploy those forces as we see fit. Along with our obligation to protect the homeland, the United States has responsibilities to allies around the world. The commander of our nuclear forces has testified that the 1,550 warheads allowed under this treaty are sufficient for all our missions - and seven former nuclear commanders agree. The defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the Missile Defense Agency - all originally appointed by a Republican president - argue that New START is essential for our national defense.

The rest.

Also, Jon Kyl's phone numbers are 202-224-4521 (Washington, DC), 602-840-1891 (Phoenix), and 520-575-8633 (Tucson). I know how important it is to today's Republican Party to deny every last thing that could possibly be seen as A Victory For Obama (the horror, the horror), but pretty much everyone else on the planet would like the increased security that would come from passing this damn treaty.

(h/t: Wonderment)

"The Dickishness Of The GOP"

When Sullivan is on, he is on.

(h/t: Twin)

Thank goodness we've got the grown-ups back in charge

In order to get this Great Nation Back On Track, we're gonna need ... Priorities!

Apparently, wanking over earmarks and trying to cut the last eight cents the government gives NPR wasn't picayune enough, so the Number One and Number Two Republicans in the United States House of Representatives are now Very Concerned about?

Works of art that offend no one but wingnuts who spend their every waking hour searching for things to be offended by. Srsly.

(h/t: Roy Edroso. And don't miss his previous post on the same subject.)

(x-posted)