That Seventies Show

Was watching That Seventies Show last night, and it was the "Punk" episode. You know the one where Hyde meets a girl going to New York to start a punk band. Fez asks what Punk is, and Hyde describes it as "The nihilistic outcry against the corporate rock-and-roll take-over. It's the sound track the revolution."

To illustrate punk, They had three punk songs in the show--Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols, Alison by Elvis Costello, and a final song, that did not show up in the syndicated version last night. Namely, "I'm so bored with the USA" by the Clash.

Here are the lyrics

Yankee soldier
He wanna shoot some skag
He met it in Cambodia
But now he can't afford a bag

Yankee dollar talk
To the dictators of the world
In fact it's giving orders
An' they can't afford to miss a word

I'm so bored with the U...S...A...
But what can I do?

Yankee detectives
Are always on the TV
'Cos killers in America
Work seven days a week

Never mind the stars and stripes
Let's print the Watergate Tapes
I'll salute the New Wave
And I hope nobody escapes

I'm so bored with the U...S...A...
But what can I do?

Obviously it could have been cut because of syndication cuts that they always do--but they did keep the montage for the most part, right before, so I'm not sure. At any rate, it's a kick-ass song, whether it fits the current political climate or not.

Twisted Logic

Follow along with Rush Limbaugh.

1. Democrats care nothing for America; they only care about gaining power.

2. Democrats can only recover power by seeing the economy go into the toilet.

3. Democrats are unhappy about the tax cut being passed.

Conclusion; the Tax Cut is definitely going to revive the economy.

Get all that? Unless of course, Rush is wrong about the Democrats caring only for themselves.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a confusing country. They are technically our allies, but a lot of terrorists and terrorist funding comes from that country. How do we reconcile the two? Well Peter Brooks, in an article at Townhall, feels that the problem is that Saudi Arabia has appeased the terrorists. He calls on the royal family to end this appeasement policy.

Saudi officials also should crack down on the terrorists and their supporters. They can start by dismantling the pervasive radical Islamist infrastructure in the Kingdom that has propagated the ideology of hatred and terror at home and abroad, including the mosques and the militant media organizations.

Addressing the root causes of terrorism is also important, and that means the kingdom must reform its social and political system. Declining living standards, increasing unemployment and the lack of basic civil liberties fuel the engine of terrorism. The Saudi people deserve a more open and accountable government.

The problem is that the royal family might agree with the terrorists or with the wahabbi sect of fundementalist muslims. In that case it's not appeasement is it? Anyway I do hope the Saudi Royal Family get their act together.

Your Weekly Rush

Here's something you can expect to see a lot over the next 18 months or so.

Here's the bold part, folks. The Democrats know they have already lost the 2004 election. Privately, every member of the Democrat Washington intelligentsia knows it. Now, some of these candidates think they have a shot, and some rank-and-file Democrats out there think they can win, but among Democrat pros, the election is over. There is not going to be a Democrat victory in 2004, and they know it.

There's nothing really bold about that statement. It's just smart politics. If Rush can, in his own small way, demoralize Democrats by telling them this election is a lost cause, than why not?

Junk Update

Haven't heard back from Emmet Tyrell on whether or not his piece was satire yet. You know what, I think I'm going to stop holding my breath. I'm going to go hold someone elses.

Junk Calls

Here's some commentary from Justin, who we haven't heard from in quite a while.

I don't know how things are where YOU live, but since I moved to my current residence I have been INUNDATED with unsolicited junk-mail and phone calls. Much of this I can do nothing about, but of late I have blown a fuse about one particular group. People who you already subscribe to using your billing information to call and try to sell you more stuff.

THIS I can do something about...

Today I implemented a new policy. I have told two people so far that not only will I NOT accept their current schpiel, but if I ever get a phone solicitation from their company again, that will be the last day that they will have me as a customer. I mean COME ON people. You already have me as a subscriber every month... you can't NOT think that you are annoying your customers when you do this. You have got to know that using billing information that your customer gave you in confidence to annoy them is going you yield you one very pissed off customer. I must say that it is quite gratifying to have someone audibly backpedal on the phone.

I have also started to get information from phone solicitors about how they got my number and who to contact to get my name removed from that list. Amazingly upon hearing the words "how did you get my number" and/or "let me talk to your supervisor" many of these so called phone experts apparently lose all ability at phone operation... to the degree that they are forced to accidentally hang up on me! Wow... if only I could instill that feeling in them BEFORE they dial my number.

I just wish there were some way to fry the circuits of people who spam email.

Junk Mail

Got an offer to become the next of kin of "Late Engineer Mark Otagaki," who was building a Kenyan Airway Bus, and has since passed on. Apparently, instead of keeping money in the corporations name, as I assume would be standard practice, they decided to put it in Mark Otagaki's name. His unfortunate death has frozen this money, and so it is up to me to free this money for the good people of Kenya. My favorite part of the letter is this phrase;

I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one worried and apprehensive but I am assuring you not to worry, as all will be well at the end of this endeavor.

So, I guess there's nothing to worry about.

The Most Repressive Century in History

Emmett Tyrrel has written a piece at Townhall.com, in which he references this as being the most repressive century in history--but what is he talking? Smoking.

Here is the passage.

With regard to the last great persecution of the 20th century, is it possible that we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel?

The last great persecution experienced in this most repressive of all centuries is, of course, the hysterical persecution of tobacco. And the light that I hope we are seeing is the lighting of an elegant Marlboro poised on the lips of a sophisticated sybarite. Is it not about time that discerning adults be free to light up in a proper setting? In the land of the free and the home of the brave, I view cigarette smoking as a First Amendment Right.

OK, so apparently Mr. Tyrell is comfortable comparing the persecution of smokers to all the other atrocities of the 20th century, including Hitler's persecution of the Jews, the South's persecution of Blacks, South Africa's Apartheid, Pol Pot's Killing Fields, Stalin's Gulags, and so on. Boy Smokers have it rough; they have to smoke outside instead of being allowed to blow their smoke in people's faces.

I also like the idea that Smoking is a first amendment right. What message is smoking intended to convey? "I'm not all that smart?" "I hope that future Iron Lung Models are more fashionable?"

Truthfully this article is bizarre--it's possible that it's satire, and I'm missing the point. Check out this passage; "There are other benefits to be derived from nicotine. It lightens up the gloom now experienced in such unwholesome venues as health food stores and aerobics studios, where the clientele is so morbidly obsessed with health that it has no time for life."

I'll e-mail the author and double check.

Who am us?

Just read a brilliant article by G. William Domhoff. I'd advise reading the whole thing, but these three paragraphs stood out as an explanation of why class warfare doesn't work.

In trying to bring about egalitarian social change, however, it doesn’t make good political sense to frame this picture of economic concentration and class domination in terms of one social class against another. Defining the “opponents” as “the capitalists” or “the rich” is a strategic mistake. Because the problem is developing new policies and gaining political power, the struggle should be framed from the start as a political one, not an economic one. The “in-group” should be all those who come to embrace the program of the egalitarian movement, and the “out-group” should be all those who oppose such changes.

If the conflict is framed this way, an egalitarian coalition has a chance to win over the moderates, neutrals and independents who currently identify with capitalists and might be offended by blanket criticisms of them as a class. It may even attract dissident members of the capitalist class who transcend their class interests and in the process become very valuable in legitimating the movement to those in the middle who are hesitant to climb on board.

But the problem is not just labeling all capitalists as enemies. Once the conflict is framed in class terms, those defined as members of the working class take on all virtue, and those outside the working class are ignored or demonized, whether they are rich or not. Furthermore, doing politics in terms of class categories does not sit well with most of the everyday working people to whom it is meant to appeal. The whole thrust of the average Americans’ experience is to break down class distinctions, not heighten them. They do not like to think of themselves in terms of their class identity, which immediately reminds them that they are not rich and have a lower status than they might like.

It's time the Democrats started thinking of ways to reach out to Americans instead of lecturing them. And, truth to tell, some of the writers at Common Dreams could benefit from this article.

The Failure to Provide a Solution

Cal Thomas writes an alarmist piece today at Townhall. It's one of those "Muslim" menace articles, about how terrible the Muslims are and how we should fear them.

For one thing, they are trying to take over this nation and establish a theocratic state. Cal Thomas states that he has the names of 67 known Communists in the state department. Oh wait a minute, he actually states "What if their intentions are the eventual destruction of this nation through its democratic processes and the imposition of a theocratic state? Would that be enough to get our attention?

In at least 16 states, Muslim groups, by their own admission, are organizing voter-registration drives and political consciousness-raising events for this express purpose."

Of course Thomas provides no names or the opportunity to double check his work--but why would he? We might find out that some of the groups have four or five members. Or we might find out that these groups only want to promote Muslim values, in the same way that Christian organizations want to promote Christian values.

He states, "If politicians succumb to pressure from Muslim activist groups and equate Islam with the religious and political heritage of this country, we will know that an important beachhead has been attained by our enemies. From their behavior in other parts of the world, one can safely predict they will use this beachhead to advance their cause."

And what does he propose we do about the crisis? Nothing. Well, not nothing, he does want us to close the borders. But he doesn't propose any real solution to the "problem." Instead his purpose seems to be to make us worried. To scare us. To make us think twice before welcoming Muslims into our lives. Perhaps to think about letting Muslims know they aren't welcome here.

Male Sexuality

Do you like strippers? You must be a male.

Dennis Prager in his latest article comments that woman just don't have the ability to enjoy a good stripper. They apparently aren't wired that way. His proof? "I asked young women listeners to my radio show to call and tell me if, moral values aside, they could imagine themselves excited by a bunch of gorgeous men taking their clothes off and rubbing their bodies on them as female strippers do for men. Overwhelmingly they called (and wrote) to say that such images actually turned them off."

Well that settles that. Of course the listeners to Dennis Prager's radio show would be a natural cross section of America.

Of course, according to Dennis Prager, this is yet another example of woman pretending they are equal to male. "The false attempt to act like males also explains the current phenomenon of the female sexual predator -- whatever men can do, women can do better. But such behavior, like the bachelorette party, is all pretend, created by a generation of women deliberately confused about their sexual identity by feminism and the university."

I have to say I don't know what bothers me more, Dennis Prager's smug assumptions about women and their sexuality or the way he totally lets men off the hook for wanting to look at strippers. Does he really want to go back to the whole boys will be boys theory where a man's sexual infidelity is totally excused by the difference between the two sexes?

More on Jayson Blair

From the New York Times Columnist Bob Herbert.

Mr. Blair was a first-class head case who was given a golden opportunity and responded by spreading seeds of betrayal every place he went. He betrayed his readers. He betrayed his profession. He betrayed the editors who hired and promoted him. But there was no racial component to that betrayal, any more than there was a racial component to the many betrayals of Mike Barnicle, a columnist who was forced to resign from The Boston Globe in 1998 after years of complaints about his work.

Although Mr. Barnicle is white, his journalistic sins have generally — and properly — been seen as the sins of an individual.

But the folks who delight in attacking anything black, or anything designed to help blacks, have pounced on the Blair story as evidence that there is something inherently wrong with The Times's effort to diversify its newsroom, and beyond that, with the very idea of a commitment to diversity or affirmative action anywhere.

And while these agitators won't admit it, the nasty subtext to their attack is that there is something inherently wrong with blacks. . . .

A black reporter told me angrily last week, "After hundreds of years in America, we are still on probation."

Republican Questions

Great article by Robert Novak today at Townhall.com, about growing Republican Concerns with how President Bush is handling the Middle East. "It takes a brave soul to look the president of the United States in the eye and talk about the sour taste in Iraq following the stirring military victory of Anglo-American forces, but a few Republicans are doing just that."

Novak explores how Republicans are troubled with how the Administration is handling Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel / Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. One common complaint is that we have the strength to topple oppresive regimes like the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, but we lack the fortitude to help in the rebuilding process as we should.

This is a problem for Republicans--because the victory over Iraq has been closly identified with President Bush, and President Bush has been closely identified as a conservative Republican. If we don't follow through on our promises to the Middle East, than Republicans may end up shouldering the blame.

More to the point, helping to rebuild Iraq (and Afghanistan) is both the smart and the right thing to do.

A Farewell to Pictures

Not all pictures. Just an end to my impromptu gallery of images. Most of the base images came from MSNBC.com, although a few cam from other sources. Hope you enjoyed them.

Obviously this was sort of a time killer while I moved. Tomorrow we will get back to the normal political commentary this site is known for.

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