This Is What They Said

On Saturday, Glenn Beck held a rally he dubbed “Restoring Honor” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Sarah Palin spoke there, as did a number of other conservative leaders. A couple of students from Wright State University (who run a media blog called New Left Media) went there and interviewed a number of the people who were attending the rally.

It is actually difficult to watch at times. Many of these people obviously mean well. They aren’t, by-and-large, bad people. But they are astonishingly misinformed at times. Hoodwinked and locked into their own worldview. They are led. But then, aren’t we all?

Just watch it. And think about it. If this thing falls apart now, this is who wins. This is how.

You can watch the whole rally on C-Span if you want to.

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I’m Back, Racist Douchbaggery, and QOTD

So, the event at work is over and I’m back from my trip and you can expect to see a slight uptick in my writing here if all goes well. Otherwise this will be one of those unrequited promises you see on blogs where the person says they really intend to get back to it and then that’s the last post and it was eight months ago. If so, well then sorry for being a lazy douchebag.

Speaking of douchebags, Jon Stewart did an amazing take down of the recent drive to repeal part of the Fourteenth Amendment. You know, that part that was enacted specifically to make sure that Missouri had to grant that a natural born black man was a citizen of the United States and that he deserved equal protection under the law. Because they didn’t. Black people weren’t considered citizens by southern states at that time just after the end of the Civil War.

Seriously… If you haven’t seen it. Click it now. Don’t wait for it to air later tonight or anything dumb.

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This is, of course, besides the fact that the effort would be doomed were it ever to be seriously pursued. You might as well be petitioning for an amendment making swearing or sodomy a criminal act. There is a certain percentage of the people who will love you for it, but you ain’t ever going to get two-thirds majorities in the House and the Senate and then ratified by three fourths of the states. People just love saying “fuck” getting blowjobs too damn much. And there are too many people who profit far too much off of the fruit of those immigrants, including you via the food that you eat.

In fact, in the current polarized political environment I think any changes to the Constitution at all are extremely unlikely, aside from maybe infantile and irrelevant “patriotic” ones like flag burning protections. I mean, you gotta think, it wasn’t that long ago that our electoral map looked like this:

And it wasn’t that many years before that that it looked like this:

It used to be possible to convince the country about things generally as a whole and pass amendments.

It sure doesn’t look anything like that now. Acting like it does just makes you look crazy. And besides, even if it did, we fought a whole war over this stuff like 150 years ago. Advocating that we fight it again makes you look desperate and sad. And, frankly, it is bad politics. It may score you some cheap points right now and energize your base, but it comes at a dangerous cost. Remember, that population makeup thing is tilting.

But anyway, it isn’t like nothing has happened to me lately. There was my car accident, and the Arcade Fire show, and a bunch of other stuff write about, so there will be more of that later. For tonight, I really need to go play with my dog. She deserves it.

UPDATE:  I almost forgot… The quote of the day, John Cole:

Remember, just because someone disagrees with you does not make them a horrible person. Unless you disagree with me, in which case you are both wrong and an asshole.

I also added some stuff above because I wasn’t done.

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When You Don’t Count Everything He’s Accomplished, He Hasn’t Accomplished Anything!

I refuse to link to the Politico if I can help it, and besides, John Cole’s headline is better. But Roger Simon actually said something not terribly wrong:

Who would have thought just a matter of months ago that the Republicans would be the party of enthusiasm? The Republicans were the party of tired old white men who had just been thrashed by the magnetic and mesmerizing Obama, whose words flowed like silver from his lips.

Then, a terrible thing happened: Obama began to do things. He saved the economy from disaster. He provided new medical coverage for children. He passed historic health care reform for the entire nation.

But who turned on him? Liberal Democrats. Eric Alterman, a liberal author and columnist for The Nation, wrote recently: “Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.”

I admit, I did not go on to read the remaining 17,000 words of the article — I am saving it for my next coma — and that is because I had trouble grappling with the phrase “significant accomplishments notwithstanding.” If you toss significant accomplishments out the window, how would FDR or Abraham Lincoln or George Washington do by that standard?

Aren’t significant accomplishments what presidents are supposed to accomplish? And isn’t it more than a little unfair to toss those accomplishments aside and then judge those presidents?

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Did Jenny McCarthy Help Cause the Worst Whooping Cough Outbreak in 50 Years? Did Science?

California is in the midst of what looks to be the worst whooping cough outbreak recorded in the past 50 years, which was when we got serious about vaccination and essentially eradicated many severe childhood illnesses from the country. From the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

A statewide whooping cough epidemic has made its way to the Bay Area, with local counties reporting a sharp increase in cases of the highly contagious respiratory disease.

State health officials declared the epidemic Wednesday – with 910 confirmed cases as of June 15 – more than four times as many cases as this time last year. The numbers put California on pace for its worst pertussis outbreak in 50 years.

As mistermix observed over at Balloon Juice:

Is is just a coincidence that California is having an epidemic of whooping cough after years of autism-related vaccination freak-outs? Perhaps following the vaccination schedule of an ex-Playboy-model celebrity instead of the CDC’s might not be the awesome plan it appeared to be at first blush.

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Maybe The Magic Space-Man Will Save Us

So we’re down to this now?

“Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail,” state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week’s unanimous vote for the day of prayer. “It is clearly time for a miracle for us.”

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast “to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood.”

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We Must Memorize Nine Numbers and Deny We Have a Soul

And in this endless race for privilege and property to be won, we must run, we must run, we must run.

Oh, and while we’re on the way down there?

Hey, at least we broke another record! As Stephen Colbert says, “WE DID IT! WOOOOOO!”

But, shhhh… No one tell Joe Barton. Global warming must be a “myth” because Alaska was once, millions and millions of years ago, warm enough to have an environment suitable to now have oil under the ground. Never mind plate tectonics (or, frankly, that it doesn’t make any difference what the cause of climate change is, it’ll still flood our cities and kill our crops just the same).

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