So Against Her Before They Were So For Her

I guess it should not be surprising any more that Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, et al., will say anything in favor of a conservative candidate and anything to belittle a liberal one. But I still think this short clip is worth watching. It perfectly captures the holier-than-thou, indignant, arrogant, intellectual dishonesty that has marked the GOP punditry for years.



Enjoy

Random thoughts

So I'm stealing Side Bar's usual mail-it-in post thing here, but hey, go fuck yourself. Sorry, don't know where that came from. Moving right along...

The New York Giants, who won the Super Bowl last year (still amazing) over the 18-0 17-1 Patriots, kicked the season off by annihilating the absurdly racist-ly named Redskins, 16-7. Okay, maybe it wasn't an annihilation, but isn't "Redskins" by far the most glaringly racist name for a team or company or fucking anything these days? I know there's a movie called "Towelhead" coming out, but that's nowhere near as offensive as White Men Can't Jump. I can. *fights back tears* I can jump. Just not as high as, you know, black people. Man, I'm so oppressed.

The New York Mets face off against the Philadelphia Phillies in a three-game series this weekend. I won't be going to Shea to see any of the games, but I'm already half-drunk and the first game starts in an hour, so that's gotta count for something. By the way, pitching tonight for the Phillies is the wife-beating uberdouche Brett Myers. God, I hate the fucking fillies. The Mets have been playing really well lately which has, of course, made me even more wary about things. Don't get my fucking hopes up again, you assholes. A much better preview is over at Y2K. (And in case any of those guys happen to follow their trackbacks to this post, can y'all get Cheddar Ben to do a friggin' guest post at least?)

Google Chrome is fucking awesome. I've been meaning for a long time to write about how awesome Firefox is, but I haven't gotten around to it. Sorry to all you cavemen (Side Bar) still using Internet Explorer, I could've improved your Internet experience even more than by honoring your browser by blogging my brilliance (alliteration, bitches!). I don't have the time (between drinks) to get too far into why Chrome rules, but here's a good place to start. Chrome is still not as cool as Firefox, but once it adds extensions, I don't see how even Firefox (much less IE or Safari) will be able to compete. My favorite Firefox extensions: Adblock Plus, Better Gmail 2, PicLens, TinyURL creator, Download Statusbar. If you're a tech nerd, or even a wannabe like me, you'll get it. If not, go here and get these extensions now.

Sarah Palin is awesome. I love this woman. As an Obama supporter, I think she is the absolute best possible pick. By choosing someone without any national-security credentials, foreign-policy experience, or fiscal-conservatism achievements (running an oil-rich state and literally paying your constituents $5,000 a year doesn't mean you know shit about how to run government finances), the GOP has forfeited its (already-suspect) claim to be the party of strong national defense and fiscal responsibility. What they do have in Sarah Palin is a hardcore right-winger on just about everything. First and foremost, she's a super-duper theocrat, which ultimately means that the Republican Party has announced that it is now officially the party of evangelical Christians and that's it. Everyone else, especially you swing voters? Welcome to our side! 

Lastly, where the fuck is LJT? Lumpy and DannyG posted more this week than his lame ass. Chuck had about the worst week any of us has ever had in terms of posting, but hey, at least he posted. (Sorry, Chuck. I know you'll pick it up soon. Just no more dumbassery. Okay, some dumbassery is okay -- even encouraged -- but how 'bout some more shit like this appropos beaut?) 

Okay, have a good weekend. Go get drunk. Get laid. Stick it to the man. ANARCHY! 

(And leave a friggin' comment, for chrissakes. Thanks to Faith, Lumpy, DannyG for their awesomeness this week.)

Becoming A Republican

I've said for years that I can't even wrap my head around the idea that one might choose to be a Republican. I don't dislike Republicans or deny them of their choice, but it's honestly something that makes absolutely no sense to me. The only reason I can think of that one might want to be a Republican is if he or she is worth more than $5 million and wants that money to stay in his or her pocket. Outside of that, and even that is a somewhat selfish motivation, I can't see why one would choose to be a Republican. Is there anyone in this country who is not in the top 1% of the wealth pool who can honestly say that he's better off today than he was 8 years ago? Is there anyone outside of that 1% who can honestly say that George Bush has best served their interests and not those of his cronies? It's genuinely mind boggling for me. I would love for someone to give me a reasonable explanation for being a Republican. I'm not being facetious.

Anyhow, what I mean to say is this. In the last two Republican conventions, the good ol' boys have trotted out two former Democrats to make speeches for their folks. Those two guys are the stodgiest old guys in the history of the world, Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman. Is trotting these two guys out there really a good idea? Doesn't it kindof lend credence to the idea that the Republican party is the party of old dudes who are no longer idealists and no longer care about the little guys. There's got to be a better strategy than pimping out a couple of old margnialized politicians.

The Palin speech thingy and another, entirely separate topic only tangentially related

Settle down there, Scaredy McSkyisfalling.

Yes, Sarah Palin gave a decent speech and she is clearly comfortable with public speaking (she did go to sportscasting school, after all). And yes, I would still hit it.

But the thing is: As was made clear in this speech, she will only appeal to the hard cultural right. As people learn more about her, moderates and independents (i.e., the 6-8% of voters who're gonna decide the election) will be aghast at her views on creationism in schools (for it!), sex education (against it!), banning books (for it!), Jews (against them!), the bridge to nowhere (for it! against it!), animals (against them!), global warming (for it!) and on and on. Hers is not a resume built to appeal to swing voters.

The main thing I took away from last night’s culture-wars-igniting speech is that I really can’t see how she’s gonna persuade any undecided voters. Her best (and only) hope is to increase turnout among the religious right -- people who wouldn’t have voted for Obama anyway.

Those were some really nice images of the Palin family, though. I’ll give her that.

And speaking of her family (Ed. note: That segue was money. Watch how the rest of this post has little-to-nothing to do with what you just read!), there’s something I’ve been meaning to write about, but I wanted to hear her speech first.

In case you haven’t heard, Sarah Palin recently had a child, Trig. And surely if you heard about that, you heard that Trig has Down’s Syndrome. And surely if heard about that too, then you must also have heard about how the Palins knew about this condition, but decided to have the child anyway.

If the boldface didn’t give it away, it’s this last part I’d like to draw attention to. I know we’re not supposed to talk about candidates’ families blah blah blah, but I’ve been hearing about this Down’s baby all over the place. And Palin herself even made a point of bringing it up last night:

“And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig. From the inside, no family ever seems typical. That's how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys. Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge. And children with special needs inspire a special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.”

This is a woman so extremely pro-life that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. (She would allow it only if the mother was sure to die if the pregnancy continued. What a saint.)

That’s why all the praise being heaped onto Sarah Palin by groups on the right for having the “courage” to birth her child grates. This extra dose of adulation for a woman whose decision, in her eyes, came down to this:

Have the baby, or murder an innocent, helpless human being deserving of full human rights (IHHBDFHR).

Hmmm. If that’s how she viewed it, it sounds like a pretty fucking easy choice. Why should she get further credit because the baby had Down’s? She gets no such credit for not killing the other four. But because Trig was handicapped, are you telling me that might’ve made her more willing to slaughter her IHHBDFHR?

And shouldn’t it be the opposite, anyway? If someone decides to kill an IHHBDFHR directly because they found out it was handicapped, doesn’t that make that person even more morally culpable? What, your baby isn’t “normal,” so for that reason alone you decide to kill it?

Pro-lifers who “decide” to have their child even after finding out it has some disability do not deserve additional honor or glory. Rather, it seems to me, those pro-lifers who decide to end their pregnancy upon receiving this news should be set aside for particularly harsh scorn and shame. That’s some big-time, literally life-or-death hypocrisy.

If, as the the statistics say in the above links, 80% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are aborted, and America is way less than 80% pro-life, that means that a shitload of pro-lifers are snuffing their IHHBDFHRs. That, I would think, should be where people’s attention is focused. Why don’t we hear more about this on FOX News?

Sarah Palin is pro-life. That’s fine. She thinks life begins at conception. Okay. She thinks all abortions are innocent-baby executions. Ergo she does not deserve any extra-special credit for giving birth to disabled Trig, a.k.a. not killing her child.

(For the record, this isn’t aimed at Sarah Palin. I think it’s great that she brought Trig up and drew attention to special-needs children. It’s aimed at those on the right telling me how noble she is and using this as an example.)

Sarah Palin (actually) Graduates

I didn't stay up to watch Sarah Palin's speech last night, but I did watch it on the web this morning (albeit in expedited fashion; the Times had a cool feature that lets you read the text as you watch, so it was easy to jump ahead without losing any of the actual speech).

My one thought after watching: shit.

She was very, very good. Anyone who watched that speech and didn't think she did a spectacular job of (a) beginning to demonstrate her qualifications, (b) solidifying the base, and (c) ripping on Obama, wasn't watching the same speech I watched. I guarantee you McCain will not be as good.

Fuck fuck fuck. She was good.

A Lame and Nerdy Joke

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.

Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Sarah Palin Graduates! Sarah Palin Graduates!

With a nod to Chuck's post from a few days ago, I wanted to link my current (and certain to be short-lived) fascination with Sarah Palin to the famed 90210 program (by the way, am I the only one who completely missed the significance of the "902.0" title to Chuck's post? I get it now, and it is actually pretty clever, but it went soaring over my head the first few times I looked at it). Also, a confession: despite my comment that I would not do so, I did watch 90210 for about 90 seconds on the CW 11 last night. When I tuned in, one of the black kids from The Wire (best. show. ever.) was getting yelled at by a white principal (who I think was on Silk Stalkings in the early 1990s) because the principal wanted the kid to disclose who was behind a practical joke involving pigs. At stake if the pork prankster didn't fess up: the lacrosse team's very season. At one point, the black kid says to the principal, with what I assume was the appropriate level of melodrama, "are you asking me this as my principal or are you asking me this as my father." Gripping. And mildly confusing.

But I digress. The point of this post is to make fun of Sarah Palin some more and also make a few cracks about Bev Niner. So, I have decided that my new favorite thing about Sarah Palin is not that she may have flirted with the idea of supporting Alaska's secession from the union (as her husband did), not that she ruled the town of Wasilla, AK (population: 7,000) with an iron fist and fired anyone who disagreed with her, not that she is a pro-lifer who seems to think she is an even better pro-lifer than you are because she did not abort a child that was likely to be born with disabilities (plagiarism alert: this is Open Bar's issue, and he is likely to write something about it. When he does, I will link to it here, here, . . . . and here). No, it is none of those things. Instead, it is the fact that she played Andrea Zuckerman on the original 90210. Yes, it is true: Sarah Palin is Gabrielle Anne Carteris.

Prior to being elected mayor of Wasilla, AK, Sarah Palin's greatest accomplishment was scooping Newsweek, the LA Times, and CNN, and landing an expose with Dylan McKay about the murder of his father to be published in the West Beverly Blaze.

Now, as die hards will recall, despite playing teenagers on television, the actors and actresses of the original Beverly Hills, 90210, were slightly older than the characters they portrayed on TV. In fact, Ms. Carteris (as she was then known) was born in 1961, and was in her 30s when the show aired in the early 1990s. Coincidentally (or not, as they are the same person), Ms. Carteris left the show in 1995. Sarah Palin (as she later called herself) was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996.

Need more proof? Ok, both of them graduated from college, but neither pursued any higher education. What else? Oh, I know - they are both completely and utterly unqualified to the Vice President of the United States.

VPILF-Gate

This is hardly going to be the well-considered, carefully researched, humorous post that you've come to expect from me (what?). But I just cannot keep up. Open Bar and I have been chatting on and off today about the Sarah Palin fiasco, and we are both equal parts stunned and giddy, simply unable to stop and catch our collective breath to process the overload of information that has surfaced about John McCain's VP nominee in the last 36 hours.

As Notorious LJT put it, the media seems to smell blood in the water. They have uncovered the following in the past two days:

• Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant, and will marry the baby's 18 year-old father.
• Palin may have been a member or supporter of the Alaska Independence Party (though that allegation is challenged by the McCain campaign). Her husband was twice an AIP member, in 1995 and 2000.
• Palin had this to say about Iraq in 2007: "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
• She does not believe global warming is man made.

Read more at Huffington Post (I stole some of this from them anyway). And even they don't have them all.

So what does McCain do with this pick? Clearly she is more extreme than he realized (the New York Times had a great cover story this morning, exposing the shoddy vetting job that was hastily thrown together last week). But can he take her off of the ticket? It's a lose-lose proposition for McCain, as a reporter at US News explains quite well:

My guess is McCain stands the chance of completely alienating his evangelical base if he dumps Governor Palin. The evangelicals seem to love her even more following the announcement that her minor daughter will marry the boy who got her pregnant and the fact she has offered unconditional love and support to the child. Then again, he's alienated moderate Republicans and independents, polls show, by placing Palin on the ticket. It's a lose-lose situation for him to consider dropping Palin, if indeed the campaign is considering it at all. He loses his now energized right-wing base if he drops her. He loses mainstream Republicans and moderate independents (the so-called Hillary voters) if he keeps her. In any event, Palin is far from the smart choice she appeared to be last Friday when McCain announced his selection of a running mate.

This was a classic McCain move - a shoot-from-the-hip, take-no-prisoners, look-into-Putin's-eyes kind of move. And now that it is proving costly (it divides, rather than unites, the extreme and moderate wings of the party despite his need to draw votes from both), he will dig in his heels a la Bush, and swear it isn't raining while huddling under an umbrella. Is this the style of macho decision-making we can expect for the next 8 years? Lord help us.

Will You Watch 902.0?

Da-na-da-dernt, Da-na-da-dernt (punch, punch)

The new 90210 starts this Tuesday at 8pm on the CW11 (imagine I said that in my announcer voice). Will you be watching? Don't front like all of you didn't watch the first one. I think I will watch the new one. At least the first few episodes. But we all know I'm the one who watches these silly shows, so I want a real opinion.

By the way, Kelly Taylor is a permanent member of the cast as a guidance counselor at West Bev (I'm down with the lingo), and Shannen Doherty will reprise her role as Brenda Walsh for at least 4 episodes, returning to direct the student play (remember when she left to get involved in the London theater scene?). Tori Spelling was going to come back as well, but now she's not (PS, no one cares).

Seriously though, will you watch? Mrs. Side Bar, I know you must be with me, again.

Pop quiz, hot shot

Who is the most scared of Johnny Mac choosing former beauty queen Sarah Palin as his vice president?




















Answer: The former beauty queen on the right.

Remember why John-boy left his first wife? If you had a clear record of leaving your older, uglier wife for the younger, hotter new chick, why would you stay with the corpse that is Cindy if you could get on this: