More Required Viewing

If you've been following the Penn State horror show, you've probably had your mind boggled.

What impresses me in this clip is Jon Ritchie.  This guy looked like an axe murderer when he played in the NFL (above), but he also went to Stanford and clearly learned something there.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/11/more-on-penn-state-and-jerry-sandusky/248363/

As Usual, What Charlie Pierce Says...

Newt busts a move.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/newt-gingrich-leading-poll-6560679

Just read it.  Wow.  It's a great tract on why Newt is for real.  Admittedly a week ago, Pierce had trouble convincing himself Newt stood a chance, but he brings the rhetorical house on this one.

See It And Weep

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Video-Bruins-surprise-serviceman-8217-s-parent?urn=nhl-wp17324

The Bruins had a very special event for Veteran's Day.

I got something in my eye watching it.

Without Comment

Walking Dead Liveblog

Hello, child actress.  Are your parents saving some money for your therapy later?

OK, here we go.  Maybe we can find out what happened to Sophia.

Forgot what a douche Ed was.  Glad he's dead.  Broadly speaking, flashbacks work well in this story, especially with the outbreak episodes.  I guess we'll flesh out (so to speak) Shane and Lori's relationship, since Lori's child is likely Shane's.

"You see eleven condoms, I see eleven minutes if my life I'll never get back."  Reminds me of this.

Rick and Shane with divergent philosophies about survival.  Shane makes sense, which is the horrible logic of survival.

Daryl went and had himself a Deliverance moment.  Punctured by his own arrow.  Probably has Hanta virus on it from that squirrel.

***

I'm going to guess that climbing a cliff with an arrow sticking in your side is more painful than having a splinter in your thumb.

I'm going to guess falling down a cliff with an arrow sticking in your side hurts even more.

So Merle is just a hallucination?  Somewhat disappointing.

Daryl vs. Zombies?  Not at all disappointing.  See he was just leaving that arrow stuck in his side for easy access when he needed it.

***

Yum, squirrel sushi.  And Daryl goes off the rails a bit.  Hint: zombie ears should be kept well away from open wounds.

Merle's scene reminds me of a sequence in World War Z when a downed supply pilot has an imaginary voice guide her to safety.

Herschel is a wonderful example of apparently benign patriarchs who are really control freaks.  Makes a nice comparison to Dale and Rick.

Nice scene with Dale and Glenn.

Oh, shit, they're going to shoot Daryl.

In a way, this season has been an extended argument for gun control.  All these idiots running around with guns have been a bigger threat to each other than the freaking zombies.

You know, in writing "they're going to shoot Dale", it occurred to me that most shows would ratchet up the tension and then not shoot the guy.  Not this show.  Sumbitch got shot.

***

Glad Andrea is not a good shot. (Kind of contradicts my point earlier.)

Ironically, Shane has made the toughest call of all.  Of course, that call involved his own survival. Maybe he thought it was for Carl, but really it was for himself.

Awkward Otis moment during awkward dinner.

And now we are passing notes in Trig.

Carol and Daryl make a nice combo.  Not romantically, but philosophically.

Oops, don't go in the barn, Glenn.  Haven't you read the graphic novels?

What, We All Wonder, Is Wrong With These People?

Actually, the otter is going to simulate drowning the diver in order to find out who stole his mollusk.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/republican-debate-south-carolina-6558266

The GOP candidates who are really running for President (ie not Huntsman and Paul) all agree that they oppose torture, but that torture isn't really torture when America does it, so screw you Al Qaeda.

Basically, except for Huntsman and Paul - Huntsman because he's sane and Paul because he's principled - they all agree that waterboarding is not torture.  Except, of course, it IS torture.  It is defined by the Geneva Convention as torture.  We signed the Geneva Convention.  If A=B and C=B then you can waterboard Khalid Sheik Mohammed 182 times in a month because "AMERICA!"

This is sickening.  Literally sickening.  We have a major political party basically endorsing torture and getting cheered for it.

Disgusting.

(Sorry to bump Jake's essay from the top, but I had to get this off my chest.)

Young People These Days

So, we hear a lot about how the American teenager is a slacker and self-centered and so forth.

I wanted to post an article that a student of mine wrote.  See what today's 17 year olds are thinking and saying.

 “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.” –Thomas Jefferson

            Occupy Wall Street is entering its fifth week of resistance, and the press has had its fun. I know there were Communists there, but it feels like Fox News missed the end of the Cold War. How did we ever come to dub protest class warfare? What makes students feel free to hold a publically-announced meeting solely to ridicule the protesters, at the decided exclusion of liberals? These are lessons from Political Maneuvering 101—check out Nixon’s campaign against Jerry Voorhis—but we can’t keep relying on ideological rhetoric to make our decisions for us. Communists aren’t just the old enemy of Capitalism; they’re the classic sign of deteriorating economies. That feels infinitely more interesting than the observation that hippies attend protests. But it’s not just the media that likes to overreact. Look at our own school; with mention of a dedicated anti-liberal Conservative Club, we should be concerned about how the dialogue of politics is playing out. I checked out the protests with friends last weekend expecting to find it an interesting case of ineffective resistance, but found my presumption to be way off the mark. So we have to be open conversationalists, and here’s where we’ll start.

            Let’s take this seriously. Students like us are at an age where we can’t help but demonize as soon as we can criticize. So we have to drop any preconceived notions we might have about the potheads in Zucotti Park (the same potheads enforce a stricter drug and alcohol policy than Taft). Paul Gilding, an Australian environmentalist and author, would say that the decline of the economy is the result of pressing up against the limits of economic expansion. According to Gilding, we are entering a “Great Disruption” where ruthless economic growth has coupled with a weakening democratic process in such a manner that is unsustainable and self-destructive. And as the fuse on Wall Street burns, where do the protesters stand? They don’t provide a solution, and they aren’t unified under one concrete political platform. Gilding calls Occupy Wall Street the child that says what nobody wants to admit: “the emperor has no clothes. The system is broken.”

            American media theorist and columnist Douglas Rushkoff points out that this could be the new format for protest, “picking up on the sustainable protest village of the movement’s Egyptian counterparts.” When we went down to the park, the things that impressed me most were the library, the discussion groups, and the “human megaphone.” Like any good protester, an Occupier is vocal, but what’s being taken to the streets isn’t a revolution or a political agenda. It’s a discussion. Protesters are replacing a political platform with an open forum. But we’ve always had political platforms at our protests, right? It’s just how things are done, like with the Tea Party.

            The Tea Party comparison is actually pretty weak, because Tea Partiers are campaigners, as opposed to proponents of dialogue. The populace isn’t represented by the Tea Party, which is a partisan organization subsidized by the Koch Brothers, etc. Occupy has marched a force of fifteen thousand students, teachers, union members, and unemployed common men and women on more than one occasion. Fortunately, they aren’t a campaign, because at a time where ideological partisanship is clogging decision-making on every level of government, we really need discussion, not demagoguery. Occupy Wall Street actually manages the kind of discourse that we need to institute in the place of

            The idea of an open forum has provoked debate on its own. I’ve heard a number of students parroting the news’ burning question: why don’t the protesters unify? But they are unified—unified in frustration—and if they succeed in making the world empathize with their struggle, they should be considered credible though they aren’t partisan proselytizers. Our own Constitution was a compromise created by a group of men who couldn’t agree on anything. This country stands on the foundation of discussion, and it’s not a problem that radically different views persist in one group.

            The methodology for political discourse has become the following: make your point, wage a smear campaign, send the bill to somebody else. So, in some respects, the protesters are a tough target. If you criticize their demands or claims, you’ll quickly realize you’ve been butting heads with a faction. Some protesters are more radical than others, but the group is collectively a different machine than any of its parts. Protesters have only claimed that the banks are better represented than the people, and it’s true. Looking at the park from their TV sets are FDR’s economic royalists, determined to pick apart the argument of the poor and unemployed. So let’s go back to Gilding’s analogy: who is doing the most for their country? The kid who critiques the status quo or the critic who attacks the child? Trick question: it’s the person who effectively interprets the kid’s honesty and forms a plan. Occupy Wall Street has changed the discussion, so don’t scrutinize them beyond what they deserve. Just join the conversation. They won’t stone you for disagreeing with them. Maybe, your experience will be like mine, and you’ll come to appreciate its value.

-Jake M

He Turned The Electorate Into A Newt

And yet they might pull this lever for Newt anyway.

So the polls have consistently described a three way race for the GOP nomination between Mittens, the Hermancain and Newt.  After spending a month explaining why Cain was just a flash in the pan, the press is now explaining why Newt can never be the GOP nominee.  And their points are all logical.

So what.

If the 2012 nominating process was logical, Romney would be battling Christie or Daniels or even Petreaus for the GOP nomination.  Instead, he's consistently losing to a serial sexual assaulter and tied with a man with the moral authority of Caligula.

Tony "Not The Gay Actor From Psycho" Perkins says that Santorum is the guy to watch.  To which I say, eww, do I have to?  Yes, Santorum is the real deal for social conservatives, in other words, he combines the religious fervor of Savanarola with the political instincts of Mullah Omar.  I guess it's not out of the question that Santorum surges to a respectable finish in Iowa, but c'mon.

Newt has a few things going for him.

A) He has the sort of low political cunning that will serve him well in the GOP field.  His embrace of Cain in their "debate" was VERY clever.  If Cain continues to implode, he will pick up Cain's supporters.  He has become a consistent critic of the debate formats and the questions.  This allows him to attack the media, a group about as loved as Congress.

B) He has also basically positioned himself as the wizened version of Paul Ryan.  He's the "idea guy" in a party of flat taxers, wall builders and Wall Street deregulators.  Newt has for years managed to convince the press and others that he's an uber-genius.  I think he's more cunning than smart, but hey, you work with what you have.

C) He's the perfect representation of the GOP at the moment.  An angry, middle aged white guy who is awfully sure of his positions.

The downsides?

A) If he's the perfect mirror of the Tea Party voters, is that a reflection of themselves that they want to see?

B) He's got almost no money.  Ideally, Perry will start attacking Romney for him, but we'll see.  Not having money is a real problem.

C) Cain doesn't seem to be really going anywhere.  Cain has to completely implode for Gingrich to become plausible.  It is inconceivable to me that Cain has NOT imploded under the weight of the allegations leveled at him.

But this goes to show how bizarre this nominating process is.  How committed GOP voters are to NOT supporting Romney.

And that leaves the door open for Newt.

Veteran's Day

I went to wish a "Happy Veteran's Day" to a friend of mine who was a Navy pilot in the Gulf back in the '90s.

But I'm not sure "Happy" is the right prefix for Veteran's Day.  If you consider the historical context of 11/11, the only "happy" thing about the armistice was that the slaughter was temporarily abated for 20 years.  But out of that armistice came the conditions that precipitated an even greater slaughter.

And while we can all value the immense sacrifice Veterans have made on our behalf, to be a veteran of a war seems to me to signify more our own failures as the human race to resolve our difference short of wholesale slaughter.  What veterans have done is valiant, self-sacrificing and necessary.  But why is it necessary?

We are finally winding down the second longest war in our nation's history.  Hopefully, we will begin to wind down the longest war in the next two years.

As a new generation of veterans come home, we need to do all we can to ease them back into a life that will seem alien and strange to them after the adrenal madness of war.  We will need to understand why they get sweaty when they see an abandoned couch by the side of the road.  We will need to support them when they become "irrationally" sad or angry.

But we should also dedicate ourselves to making sure that there are fewer veterans to thank in the future.  Fewer men and women who have had to sacrifice their lives, their limbs and their peace of mind because the rest of us failed to find a way to live in peace.

The Meltdown In Michigan

...And start with Rick Perry.

Wow.  I'm guessing we've all seen the self-immolation of Governor Perry.  He's had the sort of fall that not only has doomed his presidential aspirations, but might led to the people of Texas voting him out of office in embarrassment.  I mean, he looks so dumb he won't even be able to land a gig at Fox.

Charles Pierce eviscerates the field here.

He especially lays into Gingrich.

Now, I have to tread carefully here, because last winter I began to beat the drums for Rick Perry.  I clearly missed the boat on that one.  But I missed the boat because I had no idea how vapid he was.  I looked at the bio and the awesome hair and thought, "GOP winner!"

And while I think Pierce's criticisms of Gingrich were spot on, I don't see how they are disqualifying in a GOP primary.  Could there be a better distillate of the GOP electorate than a pompous, pasty, mean, middle aged white guy?  Someone so convinced of his own intellectual infallibility that he doesn't bother with facts?

Yes, it's still Romney's to lose, just like always.  But Perry will likely collapse into the low single digits if he doesn't get out of the race altogether.  Cain is dying the death by a thousand cuts.

If we think that a majority of the GOP simply will not abide by a Romney standard bearer, where else to they turn?  Santorum?  Paul?

Isn't Gingrich following roughly the same pattern that McCain followed in 2008?

I realize I'm engaging in wishful thinking.  But with all the sordid, squalid news out there, can't a boy dream?

Well, This Is Somewhat Sickening

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-pennstate-abuse

Joe Paterno got fired.  He got fired because he was not responsible - as he should be under the law - for reporting the sexual abuse of a minor to the proper authorities.

Joe Paterno is not Jerry Sandusky.  He is not a predator.  But he also failed at the most important job a coach or teacher has: moral leadership and protecting kids.

What is sickening is that the Penn State knuckleheads had themselves a mini-riot over the firing of someone who was far too tolerant of a serial molester and rapist.

Priorities.

The Clown Car Vomits Forth

Rick Perry holds forth on democracy.

Episode 238,947 in So You Want To Be President A Fox Host was tonight.

No, I didn't watch it.

But I saw the clip of Rick Perry forgetting the third of the three agencies he wanted to eliminate.  OK, I didn't watch the whole clip because I am against torture.  Either of me or Rick Perry.  To be fair to him, he's done a heckuva job rehabilitating our opinion of other Republican Texas Governors innate intelligence.  Seriously, if you're a GOP candidate for governor in Texas is an IQ above room temperature a disqualification?

Also, Herman Cain said that for every woman accusing him of sexual harassment, there are thousands who haven't.  Now he didn't say "millions".  He didn't say "hundreds of thousands".  He didn't say "tens of thousands".  He said "thousands".  So, for every woman who is accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment, there are 9,999 other women who haven't.

Now, the population of the US is 309,000,000.  That means there are roughly 1,545,000 women in the country.  Let's get rid of the people women who are not old enough for Herman Cain to sexually harass and just make the number 1,000,000 because I'm bad at math.  If there are 9,999 women who haven't been sexually harassed by Herman Cain for every 1 that has, that means Herman Cain has sexually harassed about 100 women.

UPDATE: Holy Horrifying Crap!  Check out this!

Ah, but Walsh's prize from the FRC is not the most embarrassing award to come to light this week. That honor goes to the Pompeii beneath Google Mountain, Rick Santorum. Nine years ago, it seems, Rick sponsored, for the honor of "Congressional Angel in Adoption," Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach who is presently accused of multiple acts of child molestation and rape, and whose long career as a predator may well bring down the whole football program at Santorum's alma mater. Obviously outraged, Santorum reached deep into the well of his anger and pulled up this bucket of mealy-mouthed slop:

"Look, I pray and hope that he [PSU coach Joe Paterno] didn't do anything he shouldn't have done, but it certainly looks horrible for the university, horrible for the football program and obviously people were fired, should be fired."

Of course, as the report above says, since the Penn State scandal broke, Santorum "has been circumspect in his comments about it. (He is not implicated in any way.)"

By contrast, here's what he once said about gay marriage:

"This is an issue just like 9/11. We didn't decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?"

Twit.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rick-santorum-joe-paterno-6553145#ixzz1dGgfezMB

Yay! We're All Doomed (No, Really)

And if I had my way, I'd dropkick you through the goalposts of justice.

Apparently, with Greece about to enter a sort of purgatory one normally reserves for Penn State Defensive Coordinators, we have now moved on to Italy.

Italy, in case you were wondering, is screwed.

This is scary.  This is 1931 all over again.  After the market crash in '29, the economy wobbled around and then hit the skids like Lindsay Lohan unchaperoned in Vegas.  At least in part this was because of the actions of central bankers.

Guess what?

The European Central Bank is behaving an awful lot like the Central Banks of England, France and Germany in the Depression.  They aren't doing the same thing exactly, but rather they all pursued policies that bright people all knew to be bad ideas.  This is what Barbara Tuchmann defines as "folly".

Saving Greece badly taxed the Eurozone.  Now, they have another economy - even larger - to save.  It is worth pointing out a few things.

Mostly this is about bailing out banks and saving the Euro as a currency.  This is NOT about jobs or supply and demand, this is about financial markets.  In other words, this is about the frakking 1% again.

Of course, as we know, that this is about the 1% doesn't mean that it won't rain shit on the 99% when this all goes sideways.

So, to recap: Financial institutions and central banks feed a massive real estate bubble.  The bubble bursts because that's what they do.  The US and the EU bail out the same institutions that created the mess, because the world needs liquidity.  The US and EU do almost entirely nothing to help the average middle class working families who are suffering.

Small efforts are made to rein in the worst abuses of the financial markets.  But because of "globalization" - which mostly benefits the same institutions that caused this crisis - there is no way to really put the screws on them.  These financial institutions then start shorting the PIIGS to make a quick buck, helping to drive their bond markets to the edge of collapse.  But because they are also involved on the non-derivative side of the bond market, they need the PIIGS shored up so the banking system doesn't fail again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Can I haz my revolution now?

The Truth Of It

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/why-ohio-upheld-collective-bargaining-rights.html

Jon Chait explains why the GOP's success in elections is not representative of people liking their ideas.  Shorter version: People like the government to spend money on PLUs (People Like Us).  Social Security and Medicare goes to PLUs.  Welfare goes to Cadillac driving cheats and big bucks eating t-bones.  With more and more PLUs getting unemployment insurance, it's tough to cut that, too.

As Chait notes, the GOP made ADA seem to be the giving of money to "others".  Which is true to a certain extent with the subsidies for the working poor.  As soon as ADA actually kicks in, people might notice that ADA benefits PLU.

The GOP engaged in ideological overreach - Walker, Kasich, Scott, Ryan's budget - because they forgot the lessons of Richard Nixon and Lee Atwater.  That when you divide in order to conquer, you have to make sure you don't piss off the white people whom you have divided from other working class people.  You have to remember that Americans aren't craven assholes like you, they are simply narrow minded and ethnocentric.

Hell, last night I voted for all the town council members who weren't Italian.  I don't hate Italians, I'm just tired of "them" running my town.  I want some PLUs to run the town for a change.

As many people said back in 2010, the GOP hasn't wandered in the wilderness enough after the Bush Debacle.  They have forgotten that ultimately the American electorate is not ideological.  They think the fact that the Tea Party helped them win in 2010 means that they will win in 2012.

Last night was an emphatic reminder that this is not necessarily so.

Good Thing Global Warming Is A Myth

Get ready, Alaska...

So another "historic storm" is bearing down on people.  This time in Alaska.  I'm sure former half-term governor Sarah Palin would tell us this will separate the sourdoughs from the jackdaws or something, but the simple truth is this: We are screwed.

We are screwed because a warmer atmosphere means more and more violent storms.  We are screwed because we all demand a perfect place to live, so we build in areas that are frequently flooded/tornadoed/hurricaned.  We are screwed because it's only a matter of time before the little earthquakes we are seeing from fracking will lead to a major earthquake.

We are screwed because any sensible person can see that our craven addiction to fossil fuels is literally starting to kill people.  But because a handful of wealthy oil barons can buy off an entire political party, nothing - and I mean literally nothing - will get done about the most pressing issue humanity is facing over the next 200 years.

Well played.