I've Never Been Happier

I apparently missed Jon Alveraz's appearance on the Daily Show. Jon Alveraz, in case you've forgotten, is the boss of Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood (PABAAH). Trying to bring back the Red Scare.

Your Weekly Rush

We have an exclusive fake interview with Rush Limbaugh. Yes, we caught up with Rush Limbaugh and asked him some questions about the recent presidential debate; and he graciously, but not in reality, gave us the answers we needed.

MMAC: So you watched the Debate the other night; what did you notice?

Limbaugh: Ron Brownstein from the Los Angeles Times really hammered John F. Kerry on gay marriage, and all Kerry could do was stammer, "I was clear!"

MMAC: Kerry stammered? I didn't get that impression. And, in fact, Kerry's position on Gay Marriage is clear. Here was his statement this very week. "While I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, for 200 years, this has been a state issue. I oppose this election year effort to amend the Constitution in an area that each state can adequately address, and I will vote against such an amendment if it comes to the Senate floor.

I believe the best way to protect gays and lesbians is through civil unions." That seems clear enough to me.

Limbaugh: Brownstein in effect said, "Clear about what? You haven't answered my question. The only way to stop gay marriages, which you're against, is with a constitutional amendment. You agree with Bush!" Kerry and John Edwards finally said they're against gay marriage, but they practically whispered it.

MMAC: Is the only way to stop people who abuse over the counter drugs to eliminate them entirely? Is the only way to stop alcoholism to outlaw alcohol? Obviously no; and in both cases, it seems that adopting the all or nothing approach will not work. John Kerry and President Bush seem to recognize Gay Marriage as a problem, but disagree on how to approach it.

Limbaugh: Remember, don't call Kerry on his flip-flops or cite his record. That's "questioning his patriotism."

MMAC: Actually questioning his patriotism is questioning his patriotism; which you've done plenty of times. Citing his record without distorting it would not be to your advantage, so I assume you are using citing as a replacement word for distorting.

Anyway that's all of the interview we're going to print at this time. But remember to get the "Bryant Broadside" my monthly newsletter full of distortions and unfunny cartoons. Only $19.95 plus another $19.95 plus Tax, Shipping, Handling, Folding, Spindling, Mutilating and Spinalizing. Remember, sending me money in no way guarantees the receipt of anything.

Soundtrack to a Film that Hasn't Been Made

Songs From the City - Los Angeles

For those of you who have Rhapsody enjoy. For those of you who don't, these are all great songs that you may or may not like.

“I Hate My Generation,” Cracker, The Golden Age

Jake stands up as the bus pulls around the corner. He looks around his home town for one last time. He wipes the sweat from his eyes, turns aside and spits. He gets on the bus.

“Rip off Train,” The Pretty Things, Freeway Madness

The bus driver plays some damn hippie music. Jake tunes it out, watching his past disappear over the horizon and his future getting bigger and realer.

“Everybody Pass Me By,” Pepe Deluxe, Super Sound

The city is warm and dry for the most part; there are a lot of transients, which is a fancy word for bums and hobos. Jake becomes one for a while, watching the world he craves walk by him. He wonders sometimes if this is really better than his home town, but then he curses and carries on.

“Life in Laralay,” Love and Rockets, Express

He meets Mr. Alke. They drive around the city at night, and talk. Maybe Mr. Alke will give Jake a job. Maybe he won’t. Mr. Alke is that kind of person; he enjoys playing with hopes and dreams.

He gives Jake a job.

“Hope,” REM, Up

Jake has a job and a place now. He’s trying to care about his work. He’s trying really hard. But he’s not very good at caring about anything, and this job is no exception. Still, nobody else really cares either, so his apathy goes unnoticed.

“Diamond Dogs,” Beck / Timbaland, Moulin Rouge

There’s a party all the time at The Club. Jake starts going every night; now that he has some money. Mr. Alke sees him there and smiles. Jakes picking up some expensive habits, but he doesn’t really notice. He dances badly, but he looks good leaning against the bar.

“Political,” Halou, Wiser

Lorna Stands near the bar too. She has a body that slows thought and a smile that breaks spines. She knows it too. Jake sees Lorna and the contours of the story become much clearer.

“Paco,” Ladytron, 604

You might have noticed that this story is a bit derivative. That’s because it’s happening all the time. It’s happening right now. It might be happening to you. Jake feels better. He feels like the city is opening itself up to him. He wonders if he’s falling in love. He goes back to the club trying to find away to get close to Lorna.

“For All These Years,” Tanita Tikaram, Ancient Heart

This is Jakes story. So we don’t get to know what Lorna’s story is. You can see it in her eyes though, if you're patient. Jake can no more understand Lorna than he can swallow the Pacific Ocean. But he’s going to try.

“Breath In,” Frou Frou, Details

Of course it’s not the first part of swallowing the ocean that’s the hard part, is it? Jake does ok for a little while. He makes Lorna smile. She takes him places. He goes. The city seems beautiful, for a while.

“You’re So Pretty – We’re So Pretty,” Charlatans U.K., Wonderland

Jake is on top of the world. No, really. Things couldn’t be better. He’s in the greatest place of all time, doing the greatest stuff of all time, with the greatest woman of all time. He hasn’t noticed that Lorna’s smile has become a little brittle. A little cold.

“When Two Worlds Collide,” Simple Minds, Real Life

This is Jakes story, but he lives in a world. There are a hundred other stories around him. Stories of betrayal. Of murder. Of despair. Even stories of hope. But Jake doesn’t really see any of them because he has one eye fixed on himself and one eye fixed on Lorna, who told him that she didn’t want to see him any more.

“Runaground,” James, The Best Of

She’s gone.

“I Am Sound,” Dandy Warhols, Welcome to the Monkey House

Jake tries to go to the club and tries to work and tries to do all those other things that he used to pretend so successfully to care about. It doesn’t really work; he can’t pull it off the way he used to be able to. So he gets drunk instead.

“On the Beach,” Neil Young, On the Beach

Jakes world becomes full of long afternoons that don’t seem to end. He goes home every night excited, and then five minutes after getting home dreads the time he has to spend alone. So he goes out with people he doesn’t like to places he doesn’t like. The Club seems dirty and small and the music sucks all of a sudden. Mr. Alke smiles.

“Run (Single Version),” Spiritualized, The Complete Works Vol. 1

Jake waits at the bus stop, standing up as the bus rounds the corner. He looks around at the lights of the city and spits. He gets on the bus. He’s going somewhere else. Somewhere that used to be home.

“Over,” Portishead, Portishead

Turning our eye to Lorna for one last look we see her destroying her apartment. Slowly and methodically. She has a lot of crystal a lot of glass. Her feet get cut. After a while she goes to The Club and dances with Mr. Alke.

“Sleepy Town,” Jim White, Wrong Eyed Jesus

The bus pulls over the hill and turns, giving Jake a view of his hometown. It’s beautiful in it’s own way. The sun is starting to come up.

“For the Trees,” Matmos, The Civil War

That night Jake lays on the roof of his old house with a blanket. He looks up at the stars drinking in the universe. After a while, he turns aside and spits.

Free Trade Stops Wars

A couple of years back, second season of the West Wing, they did an episode in which Toby Ziegler, the Communications Director for the White House, had to give a speech to WTO protestors. He listed all the things that free trade makes cheaper, and then says, "It lowers prices, it raises income. You see what I did with 'lowers' and 'raises' there? It's called the science of listener attention. We did repetition, we did floating opposites, and now you end with the one that's not like the others. Ready? Free trade stops wars. And that's it. Free trade stops wars! And we figure out a way to fix the rest. One world, one peace. I'm sure I've seen that on a sign somewhere."

Paul Krugman over at the New York Times makes a similar point today on the benefits of Free Trade. "Let me spare you the usual economist's sermon on the virtues of free trade, except to say this: although old fallacies about international trade have been making a comeback lately (yes, Senator Charles Schumer, that means you), it is as true as ever that the U.S. economy would be poorer and less productive if we turned our back on world markets. Furthermore, if the United States were to turn protectionist, other countries would follow. The result would be a less hopeful, more dangerous world.

Yet it's bad economics to pretend that free trade is good for everyone, all the time. "Trade often produces losers as well as winners," declares the best-selling textbook in international economics (by Maurice Obstfeld and yours truly). The accelerated pace of globalization means more losers as well as more winners; workers' fears that they will lose their jobs to Chinese factories and Indian call centers aren't irrational."

See that's one of the differences between Republicans and Free Trade Democrats right there. I know a lot of liberals see no difference; but in theory at least the Free Trade Democrats, like Clinton and, presumably, like Kerry, are about solving the problems of Free Trade as opposed to the Republican strategy of ignoring them.

Like Toby said ". . . we figure out a way to fix the rest." And that's Mr. Kerry's job, but it's also our job. It's easier, I admit, to accept Free Trade uncritically or to reject Free Trade uncritically. But it's better to adopt the more difficult task of reforming Free Trade so that it benefits all Americans instead of just those on the top of the pile.

NY Times Endorses Kerry

They really went out on a limb. Still it's before Super Tuesday, so that's something. Here is there assessment.

If Mr. Kerry wins the nomination, the Bush administration will undoubtedly attempt to paint Mr. Kerry as a typical Massachusetts liberal, but his thinking defies such easy categorization. His positions come from mainstream American thought, centrism of the old school. He has always worried over budget deficits. His record on the environment is extremely strong. He is a gun owner and hunter who supports effective gun control laws, a combat veteran who, having seen a great deal of death, opposes capital punishment. A sense of balance comes through when he is talking. Unfortunately, so far in this campaign Mr. Kerry has shown little interest in being daring, expressing a thought that is unexpected or quirky on even minor issues. We wish we could see a little of the political courage of the Vietnam hero who came back to lead the fight against the war."

They write Edwards off as a bit too young, which is fair enough I guess. Of course what we'd all like is some sort of merging of the two. But Dr. Scientistguy says that that isn't possible yet, and even if it was there would be ethical problems and that's as far as I got before tuning him out.

Emmet Tyrell - Fanning the Flames of Hatred

Well, Emmet Tyrell isn't going to go see the Passion. And he has some harsh words for Senator Kerry.

"And so on to the week's other fantasies, specifically the ongoing presidential candidacy of Sen. John Pierre Kerry, the very French-looking frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race.

When I heard that he was being accused of having had an affair with a young woman, I thought to myself, "How very French." And when I heard Howard Kurtz on his CNN media show say that the story was part of the Limbaugh-Hannity conservative smear machine, I went back to the early stories and discovered that they originated not from conservative sources but from people around Gen. Wesley Clark.

Kurtz's panel of experts also said there was no substantial evidence of an affair having taken place. Apparently, they had forgotten that at least one British newspaper quoted the alleged inamorata's father saying Kerry had pursued his daughter in some vague but troubling way. The father called Kerry a "sleaze ball." Later, the father said he would vote for Kerry, but the man's early aspersion is difficult to explain away.

Well whether or not Kerry had a Francois Mitterrand-like relationship with a cutie, he still seems very Gallic to me. Now it turns out he has a cousin who is mayor of a small French town. Mon Dieu, how French is that? Oh, and by the way, did I hear that he served in Vietnam?

Thank you Mr. Tyrell for reminding us all how much we hate France and French people. Why I had almost forgotten that all true Americans hate French people. Thanks to your inspiration I'm going to go slap around the employees of the local french restaurant. Maybe I'll take away their lunch money. After all stupid Frogs don't need to eat, do they Mr. Tyrell.

But as to your specific coverage of the Kerry intern story; well, you didn't get the facts completely correct. For one thing, there are some justifiable questions about whether or not this story started with Clark. Given his subsequent endorsement of Kerry, it doens't seem likely. You also distort the story by failing to report that the woman involved has totally denied the rumors.

But of course the nail in the coffin is that he has a French Cousin. How despicable! I think we should take Kerry and drown him in french wine (red wine, because it's more telegenic). That would show those Frenchies what we think of them.

Interesting Contrast

"It's interesting to see movie critics suddenly concerned over what they perceive as gratuitous violence and anti-semitism in cinema. Would they express outrage over the graphic depiction of the Crucifixion if, instead Mel Gibson, the writer/director's name were Oliver Stone or Quentin Tarantino? . . . I think not."
David Horowitz

"Anyway, this is a film review, not Sunday school. The paradox of wishing something horrible to stop even as you want it to continue has as much to do with moviegoing as with theology. And Mr. Gibson, either guilelessly or ingeniously, has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end. The means, however, are no different from those used by virtuosos of shock cinema like Quentin Tarantino and Gaspar No?, who subjected Ms. Bellucci to such grievous indignity in "Irr?versible." Mr. Gibson is temperamentally a more stolid, less formally adventurous filmmaker, but he is no less a connoisseur of violence, and it will be amusing to see some of the same scolds who condemned Mr. Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" sing the praises of "The Passion of the Christ." -A. O. Scott, New York Times Film Critic

I know I said I was bored with this controversy (and I am), but did think these two quotes were interesting. Oh, and apparently any film critic who pans the movie is an evil liberal. Nice how that works out. Of course, I'd be interested to know what Mr. Horowitz thinks of fellow conservative Jeff Jacoby's review of the movie, which was pretty negative.

"If you didn't know that Jesus of Nazareth was born and died a religious Jew, you certainly wouldn't learn it from "The Passion." Almost nothing in this movie connects him with the Jewish people. He does not refer to himself as a Jew or take part in any recognizable Jewish ritual. His reason for being in Jerusalem was to celebrate Passover, but there is never any mention of that Jewish holiday. When he is glimpsed praying or teaching, it is always outdoors, never in a synagogue. Only once is Jesus identified as a Jew: when Judas, about to betray him, greets him with, "Hail, rabbi."

Many Christians will see other gaping holes in what "The Passion" conveys about its main character. The movie has precious little to say about Jesus's life and ministry. There are a few brief flashbacks; occasionally Jesus utters a familiar line; but on the whole there is nothing that makes clear who this Galilean was, why he attracted a following, or why anyone in Jerusalem would have given him a second thought.

And if there is next to nothing about his life, there is even less about what followed his death. The last few seconds of the movie seem to show Jesus walking away from his tomb, but there are no words of explanation, no context, no answers. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that for Gibson, what is most important about Jesus is not that he lived and preached, nor that he rose from the dead. All that matters is that he died a bloody and agonizing death."

Noam Chomsky

Mr. Chomsky is one of those people I have a hard time figureing out. I mean, on the one hand, I think he's a valuable voice in our national discussion. On the other hand, I don't necessarily agree with most of what he says, and he has a condescending tone that suggests that as an acedemic he knows a hell of a lot more than I do. In other words, he's not much fun to actually read.

Kind of a contridiction? No. While I don't agree with Chomsky's conclusions, I do think the evidence he brings forward is worth looking at. More to the point, I might be wrong and he might be right. I don't think that's the case, but it could be.

At any rate there is an interview over at American Amnesia (great name for a site, very memorable) with him where in he did make a very good point I think.

"The most significant aspect of the failure to find WMD is that it has lower the bars for aggression. If you look back to the original security strategy that was used as the justification for the invasion, which claims that the U.S. has the right to invade another country if that country means of destruction that could harm us ? suggesting WMD ? the effect of not finding them has been to lower the bars for aggression. If you read Colin Powell or Condaleeza Rice or the rest of them today, they say ?Well, it was justified because Iraq had the capability and intent of developing WMD, so that means we?re entitled to attack them.? Well just think that through ? every country in the world practically has the capability! Who has the intent? Right now ? probably everybody if they can do it. So that means every country in the world is subject to U.S. invasion and attack if Washington decides. That?s the position that Colin Powell and Rice and Rumsfeld are maintaining."

It is kind of scary to consider the lowered bar for attacking another nation.

And as Mr. Fantastic, Tony Blankley

For those of you are not up on your comics, Mr. Fantastic was this dude from the Fantastic Four who had the super amazing ability to stretch. This power proved useless, so he became a great scientist as well.

Well Tony Blankley's ability to stretch will be unquestioned once you hear about his latest theory on Kerry's mental health. As we all know Kerry served with honor and distinction in Vietnam. Well, now, far from being an asset, Kerry's military service may well have scarred him.

". . . there are those for whom the war becomes the great, personally defining event of their lives. It not only shapes, but also distorts, their perception of the world. Often this sort of man entered combat as an idealistic youth. Shocked by the brutality of war, they spend the rest of their lives failing to come to intellectual and psychological terms with the disparity between their youthful expectations and grim battle. These were good men, once. But they become spiritually damaged. Sometimes the more intelligent of these traumatized former soldiers turn to ideas, rather than liquor or opiates, to numb their troubled souls from their painful memories. World War I produced many such examples -- from the pacifist poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, to the sensitive cultural scholar and novelist Robert Graves, all the way to the demented ideologue Hitler.

Is John Kerry one of these types? Certainly he is not a Hitler."

Well it's good to know that Kerry probably isn't Hitler (but I'll bet that sentence was a last minute addition). But according to Tony Blankely, Kerry's service in combat may have left him with "an irrational obsession to never use force."

Yep there's the stretch for you. Of course having proposed the amazing theory, Tony Blankly offers no proof whatever for it. No examination of Kerry's record to suggest that he's always voted against force, for example.

In other news, I contacted my counterpart on a parallel Earth today to see how things were going over there. Apparently Howard Dean clinched the nomination over there. And wouldn't you know it, parallel Tony Blankley is writing about how Dean's lack of service in the military makes him, apparently, "pathologically afraid to fight." I guess Tony Blankley is consistent; Democrats are messed up in the head and can't be president no matter what universe he is in.

Nothing Going On

I just feel bad because I haven't posted much, but the truth is, nothing interests me today.

I'm sick of the Passion Controversy, such as it is. Like many controversies in the world of arts it just seems annoying. Gibson made a movie about the Death of Jesus Christ and he made it how he wanted to make it. Some people feel that it's too anti Semitic. You know what, even with that brief recap I'm already bored. What's funny to me is that I can name about 10 people who have defended and not that many who have attacked it. What's also funny is that it is basically being cast in the Liberals verses Christians story that Conservatives love. I have to say my Christianity isn't threatened because a Jewish person or organization (and it seems that most of the attacks on the movie have come from Jewish groups) feels that a movie made by a Christian is anti-Semitic. But, being a liberal, I suppose I'm not the right kind of Christian, anyway.

Let's also take a moment to comment that this is a Biblical film in Aramaic, described as very bloody. I wonder if the publicity from the controversy helped the movie or hurt it? Particularly since the Limbaugh Brothers and their allies have been selling the movie for months.

"The Passion" directs us to Christ's death so that we might understand the meaning of His life -- and ours. - David Limbaugh

Anyway to sum it all up; the controversy bores me, and I am not going to go see the movie. But I will be in Church on Sunday, and probably won't feel any additional guilt for not going to see it (if anything I'll feel guilty for stealing those Girl Scout Cookies from . . . Well better I don't go into any details).

To conclude, nothings going on.

The Big Lie

According to Thomas Sowell, who is usually pretty brainy, the big lie is that we have working poor in America. Yep the working poor in America have basically disappeared; we have the unworking poor and the middle class. "While there are working people who are poor, most poor people are not working full time, not working very long, or not working at all." He then quotes a complicated formula used to determine this.

"Census data make it unmistakably clear. When it comes to full-time year-around workers, there are more heads of households who fall into that category in the top 5 percent of income earners than in the bottom 20 percent -- in absolute numbers."

Yep. Nothing could be clearer. Of course a suspicious person might wonder at all those qualifiers, and question whether or not Mr. Sowell is being entirely forthright. It would seem his figures would disqualify people who are working nearly full time (as many are; businesses like employees who work 35 hours a week so they don't have to pay overtime or medical). They would also disqualify seasonal workers or workers who have been laid off, no matter how long (or how short) they were out of work.

Of course it's all in the definition of working poor. Sowell, sensing, perhaps, that even a cusory glance around most communities will reveal the existence of working poor, then defines the term for us. Apparently the Working Poor are those who remain poor for a long period of time, for one thing. Consistently poor. So if you had a good year a couple of years back, got out of poverty for a little while, well, you aren't part of this category.

The other factor is what number are we using to determine working poor? Is it $22,000 a year? $15 an hour? Or is it the ability to pay for enough groceries, health care, housing? It's not the latter, by the way. That would raise the bar a little higher than is politically prudent.

More on Nader

From the New York Times Editorial Page.

"Their concern seems overblown. If Mr. Nader didn't learn anything from the 2000 election, the voters certainly did. People might have voted for him once under the impression that sending a message was more important than picking the next president. We doubt very much that they will make the same mistake twice.

So much has happened in the last four years that it's hard to remember how low the stakes seemed when Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush were running. . . .

. . . It's not surprising that in 2000 many people thought they could afford to express their irritation with a vote for Mr. Nader. If they did that again this November, it would be a repudiation of the Democratic nominee so thorough that the party would certainly have bigger problems than third-party candidates to worry about."

This is probably about right. The liberal base is energized, and it seems unlikely that they will be willing to cast protest votes unless they really believe that their vote will have no effect on the election.

It's the Little Things along with the Big Things

In all this talk about whether or not the Bush Administration decieved the American people about Iraq or questions about forcing the CIA to come up with the "right" answer, there are other aspects to President Bush's Foreign Policy that are getting overlooked. Such as the fact that the entire Bush foriegn policy can be summed up on a postage stamp.

Do what we say or else!

Yep. The Bush administration apparently sees diplomacy as a way of presenting our demands to the world. We will tell other nations what to do, and they will do it. That's why Neo-Conservative thought calls for us to treat France as an enemy; because we asked them to do something and they didn't do it.

It's all pretty sad really. I love this conversation. "So why does President Bush want to act unilaterally?" "What do you mean unilaterally, more than 20 nations supported us in Iraq." The proper response is "Yeah, but how many of those nations got even the slightest input on how and when? Great Britain we listened to as long as they told us what we wanted to hear.

I've covered this ground before, back when Newt Gingrich attacked the State Department and tried to measure himself for Colin Powells job.

Which brings us to the man in charge of our diplomatic apparatus, Mr. Colin Powell. Fred Kaplan, writing for Slate, covers his current woes.

From the start of this presidency, and to a degree that no one would have predicted when he stepped into Foggy Bottom with so much pride and energy, Powell has found himself almost consistently muzzled, outflanked, and humiliated by the true powers—Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. (Bureaucratic battles between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon have been a feature of many presidencies, but Powell has suffered the additional—and nearly unprecedented—indignity of swatting off continuous rear-guard assaults from his own undersecretary of state, John Bolton, an aggressive hard-liner who was installed at State by Cheney for the purpose of diverting and exhausting the multilateralists.)

Kaplan notes that it is unlikely that Powell will be part of a second Bush Administration (assuming he gets one, and following Rooks advice over at Rooks Rant, I'm assuming he won't). So in the unlikely event of a second Bush Administration, well, maybe Gingrich will get to try on that new job he wants after all.

New Quote

From good old Alexander Hamilton. And a new Quotes Page too.

Enjoy!