Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

‘Forty-two’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

Let there be snark.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

False Scribes! False Scribes!

This blog will pay for itself.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

Verified, but limited!

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

Reality always wins in the end.

Not all heroes wear capes.

There’s some extremely good trouble headed their way.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Open Thread: Noreen Malone Is Smarter Than Ron Fournier

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Okay, my dog is smarter than Ron Fournier, but this is hilarious:

Millenials Will Run for Political Office, Like it Or Not
Ron Fournier, a Baby Boomer writing in the Atlantic, is worried about what will happen when millenials are in charge of the political world. “[T]hey have no patience for inefficiency, stodgy institutions or the status quo.” This is, apparently, a bad thing. “Consider what they could do to politics and government,” he warns direly.

Fournier talked to some 80 millenials for the story, but quotes mostly fellow non-millenials, like noted youth-whisperer Michael Steele… He quotes stats that show young people think politics are too partisan and that politicians are motivated by selfish reasons and that our political system seems ill-equipped to effectively deal with the current problems facing the country.

This is more or less what any sentient being who has followed the political debate over the past few years would think, and that’s why the argument Fournier builds to—that millenials are a mass of secretly libertarian nihilists who, when given our chance to govern, will instead opt to continue starting companies and looking for private sector solutions—irked me….

Read the whole thing (it’s not long).

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Sentimental education

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I’m trying to read things like Jacobin magazine more these days. I stumbled across this interesting article attacking “moral sentimentalism“:

There is a tension at the core of bourgeois morality. On the one hand, its claims are supposed to be universal. Since its claims presume to govern everyone, the institution requires, both practically and as a matter of ethics, that everyone behave morally. It could scarcely survive without widespread compliance.

On the other hand, bourgeois morality is a matter of the heart. It governs the individual and his intentions. Although it makes universal demands, its demands are not political. Bourgeois morality restricts itself to individual persuasion, proselytizing, praise and condemnation. Whether one behaves morally is ultimately left to individual conscience.

It whacks a lot of my personal boogeymen — Mike Kinsley, Fareed Zakaria, that awful ethicist feature in the NYT magazine (“We are living in a depraved age, while `The Ethicist’ frets about swiping umbrellas from restaurant bins”….heh indeed). But I wasn’t able to understand the difference between what the author class “serious moral discourse” and what he calls “moral sentimentalism”, perhaps because I am one “those on the Left who see morality as mere class ideology”.

Another author at Jacobin counters that:

I disagree heartily with his conclusion: that those of us on the Left must take back morality from the sentimentalists; that we must “revolutionize ethics.” Rather, I see an entirely different path forward for the Left: it’s high time to leave behind this idealistic kingdom of morality and rediscover the realm of self-interest.

I hate the high-mindedness of many on the left. It’s amazing how badly we’ve lost economic arguments by allowing them to turn into some morality play — I tighten up my belt, why shouldn’t the gubmint. The argument in favor of more stimulus is that people need fucking jobs and that you, the voter, could easily be or become one of those people (though I admit in this case, there’s a “common good” argument — the vast, vast majority of the country is better off when the country’s not in a recession).

What do you think? Are moral arguments a waste of time politically? I’m skeptical of their efficacy, and of course all the Brooks/Kinsley-type bullshit is worthless intellectually as well as politically, but I suppose I can see where they have their place on issues like marriage equality….which has become a winning issue for Democrats.

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In the year 2000

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I was talking to a friend of mine about Gore’s choice of Joe Lieberman in 2000. I told him that I thought the base would rebel if something like that happened now. He disagreed, he said most Democratic voters like the idea of bipartisan centrist moderates, that your typical NPR listener (he’s unaware of my anti-totebag jiahd, btw) desperately wants to think that there’s reasonable people on both sides, that the truth always lies in the middle.

He’s probably right, I’m probably wrong.

While it’s a bit sad how much Republicans want to rally around any candidate who promises to stick it to the hippies, it’s equally sad how little Democrats want to punch Galtians.

Do you think this will ever change, that Democrats will ever embrace the idea of wanting to fuck the other side first, reasonable objective thoughtful compromise later? I sure as hell hope so.

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Open Thread: We Are Shocked, Shocked!

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Oh, the horror:

MTV has once again outraged an advocacy group that wants to reduce the level of adult content and profanity on television. The Parents Television Council, a nonprofit group known for criticizing shows, including “Family Guy,” for explicit content and adult jokes, took the network to task for airing condom ads and staging performances with skimpy costumes and sexually suggestive dancing during the Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Some viewers have said that Miley Cyrus’s performance, which included miming coitus with Robin Thicke and rump-shaking among dancing bears, was in particularly poor taste…

“This much is absolutely clear: MTV marketed adults-only material to children while falsely manipulating the content rating to make parents think the content was safe for their children,” a spokesman for the group, Dan Isett, said in a press release. “MTV continues to sexually exploit young women by promoting acts that incorporate ‘twerking’ in a nude-colored bikini. How is this image of former child star Miley Cyrus appropriate for 14-year-olds?” …

Yeah, you guys didn’t have a problem with Billy Ray essentially selling his kid into indentured servitude at the Mouse Factory, as long as “Little Princess Froggy Dimples”, aka Hannah Montana, was selling family-friendly merch and cotton-candy-colored fantasies to your kids. But now the kid’s old enough to act out her feelings in public… and it’s pretty clear she feels like an abuse survivor. So ugly! So off-putting! Why can’t she settle for smiling silence and self-harm, like all those other mistreated child stars?

For extra credit, notice how Cyrus’s fellow celebs are apparently family-friendly, under the Boys Will Be Boys exemption. Maybe it’s just that playing pimp is properly capitalistic?

Video below the fold, since someone complained it auto-played on their machine:

show full post on front page

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Open Thread: Women to the Economic Rescue?

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This is kinda kewl, on several levels, for us progressives. Laura D’Andrea Tyson, in the NYTImes:

Among economists (most of whom are male), there is a tendency to treat diversity and gender equality as “soft” issues – worthy social goals perhaps, but secondary to the real business of economic growth, job creation and productivity.

But these soft issues have jumped to the top of the long-term growth agenda in Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is working to shake the nation out of its 20-year deflationary slump.

So far the world’s attention has focused on Mr. Abe’s bold macroeconomic policies to lift demand and growth in the short run. These policies have been strikingly successful, confirming the validity of Keynesian remedies for an economy suffering from insufficient demand when interest rates are stuck at their zero lower bound. As a result of higher deficit spending and a vast quantitative easing program by the Bank of Japan, the Japanese economy is growing at 4 percent, the highest rate among advanced economies, and the stock market has soared by 80 percent over the last six months.

Now, after his recent impressive electoral victory, Prime Minister Abe has signaled his intention to move forward with the “third arrow” of his policy quiver — significant structural reforms to increase Japan’s long-term growth potential. His list reads like a neoclassical economist’s list of “usual suspects,” including deregulation, industrial restructuring, corporate tax reform and trade liberalization — all worthy objectives. But in a departure from tradition, he is also championing reforms to expand economic opportunities for women.

Mr. Abe believes in numerical targets, and he has established several of them to increase the participation and advancement of women in the workplace. He wants to eliminate day-care waiting lists by creating 200,000 new day-care openings in authorized public facilities by 2015, with another 200,000 by 2017. He wants businesses to double their child-care leave to three years. He wants 30 percent of leadership positions in government and business to be held by women by 2020. He is calling on Japanese corporations to appoint at least one woman to their boards. And he is considering both changes in tax laws that discourage mothers from working and new training subsidies to help them return to the workplace following child-care leave.

These initiatives are not motivated by softhearted political correctness but by hard-headed economic logic…

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MARC Update

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The good folks at the Marion Animal Resource Connection send forward this email:

> John, I am so sorry we have not sent you as promised our weekly diary. We started sort of writing it down each day but soon got side tracked w/ all the activity and completely forgot. Here below is most of what has been going on for the past probably 3 weeks:

MARC continues to stay very busy. During the last three weeks we have helped many animals and people.

The ASPCA grant for TNR in the town of South Pittsburg has resumed after the town was devastated recently by a flash flood. This past week we trapped 11 feral cats, transported them to the clinic 45 min away in Chattanooga and returned them to their colonies in the afternoon after they recovered.

This past week seventeen dogs and cats loaded into Wally’s Friend’s van to be transported to Chattanooga to their low cost spay/neuter clinic. MARC refers people to Wally’s and some animals are sponsored by MARC. This time MARC paid for three dogs. The van comes once a month.

Ten puppies were rescued, fostered for six weeks being quarantined, vetted and sent to North Shore Animal League to be placed for adoption.

A litter of eight puppies was taken in by MARC and being fostered locally.

Four puppies were taken from a mother living on a chain. Of the litter of eleven, seven puppies had died by being tangled up and dragged around by the chain. The mother and pups are being treated for ringworm. The mother is getting spayed on August 27th. MARC will be working to improve mom’s situation because the family would not surrender mom.

Ten Finches and four Parakeets were rescued by one of our MARC volunteers while we were at this home. Conditions were very unsanitary.

One female Pit Bull was rescued from one of the pounds. Sadie f/k/a Gracie is a very sweet girl, is now in a foster home, spayed and vetted. She is ready to find a forever home but we have very few contacts to find good homes for Pits.

One small middle aged male Poodle was pulled from the other small pound. Rusty, now groomed and neutered has found a foster home and is looking for his furever family. Also from that same pound we rescued an Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix young male, Andre who had a very large open wound on top of his head. We first thought it was from a gun shot but we now think it was from a deer hoof. We are treating the wound and it is healing nicely. Andre is heart worm positive and undergoing treatment which will cost approximately $700.00. We hope to raise the money to cover his treatment. He will then be neutered and be ready for adoption.

Two Collie Mixes will be pulled from one of the two very small inadequate pounds on Monday 26th.

MARC (meaning April) will be transporting animals to Dixie Day Spay on the 27th. April picks up and drives approx.15 – 17 animals to Cleveland, TN – approx. 1 ½ hrs away to the next closest low cost S/N Clinic, waits all day until they are finished and then brings them all back and distributes them to their people. It is at least a 12 – 14 hrs day. The low cost clinics are so full that we cannot readily get appointments for all the animals we have so we have to drive some distances to get in wherever we can.

MARC received two calls about dogs living without a dog house, chained to a tree in the rain. April made two trips out to educate family, provide a dog house and a bag of food.

Tractor Supply Pet Appreciation Day last Sat. was a good exposure for MARC to the public. We took Snoopy, Beagle/Dachshund mix from one of the pounds to look for a foster home. No adoption or foster so he had to go back to the pound. MARC made lots of good contacts with people and gave out information to help people get their animals altered at low cost.

We found a foster home for Snoopy and started the vetting process. Unfortunately a visitor to the home left a gate open and Snoopy ran into the road and go hit. He went to North Jackson Animal Clinic in Stevenson, AL, got X-rays to determine he suffered fractures of his tibia and fibula. He will have surgery on Monday 8/26/13. It will cost $700-800.00. We need to raise funds for this surgery. Here is Snoopy. He is a great dog. About 10 mos old.

snoopy

Three kittens were taken in and placed in a foster home. They will be altered and put up for adoption. MARC is now placing kittens at PETCO for adoption.

Sounds like they have been busy.

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Turn on, tune in, drop out

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Alex Pareene has a great piece on the strange paranoia surrounding Fox News, in particular its strange need to discredit anyone who writes anything about the network….as if any Fox News viewers were big readers. He links to this piece on how few younger people watch Fox:

One indisputable attribute of Ailes is that he knows numbers forward and backward, both in the ratings and political arenas. In the former, his network has long been the top dog for total viewers, but lately hasn’t had much to brag about in the advertising-important 25-54 age demo. According to Nielsen, in the second quarter of 2013, Fox lost 11 percent of its younger viewer audience as compared to the same time in 2012. Over the last two years, Fox has had a median age of 65-plus for both the full day and for its prime-time lineup. Younger people fleeing the network, specifically in prime time, goes back even further, as the prime-time numbers in the demo have taken a nose dive for five years straight, down from 557,000 to 379,000 in 2013.

Of course, teh kidz are watching less tv news in general. If you, like me, believe that tv news — along with most mass media news — is primarily poorly disguised corporatist propaganda, then you likely regard this as a positive development.

Ron Fournier of course thinks that teh kidz will become radically centrist nonpartisan moderates, who reject BOTH PARTIES, but we’re talking about a man who masturbates to the thought of Bowles-Simpson.

My guess is that it’s hard to predict what will happen to a generation that receives substantially less corporatist brain-washing but it stands to reason that they’ll be less accepting of corporatism.

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