Haven’t done this in a while:
(2) Right Wing Talk Radio Relevance:
Born the day Rush Limbaugh mid-wifed Newt Gingrich’s Contract For (On) America, RWTRR lived a healthy and wealthy life duping a great portion of the America public into voting against their own best interests.
Right wing talk grew larger and louder over its lifetime, adding names like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Dennis Prager and many more imitators. They each spent three hours a day catchphrasing words and thoughts – no matter how rickety their evidence (if any) – that the mainstream media would give equal time and space along side the truth.
All of a sudden, the truth was only worth 50% of any issue.
Enabled by a gullible mainstream media hoping to hitch itself to the growing Lords of Loud audience, the Rove-inspired red-herrings were greased up even more by talk radio’s band of Professor Harold Hills and shoved charmingly down America’s throat. And, as with all great con men, these snake oil salesmen sold hole-cloth, betraying the public trust and making fistfuls of dollars doing it.
***
But the one-two punch of November’s mid-terms compounded by the Iraq Study Group’s revelations, knocked a terminal hole in any credibility right wing talk may have had left.
Limbaugh admitted he was shilling for Republicans who didn’t deserve to be elected, then attempted to hush the death knell rung by the ISG by recasting it, oh so hysterically, as the Iraq Surrender Group. Get it? He changed one of the words. Second-rate comics who are dying on stage always go for the insipidly obvious and as with the comics, it never gets the audience back.
Hannity has gone off the deep end calling everyone else but himself wrong. He persists on telling liberal callers that we found WMD even though Bush doesn’t seem to have gotten the same intelligence Sean has while Curt Weldon and Rick Santorum were voted out of office whipping the same dead horse.
Beck asks an American Congressman to prove he’s not working for the enemy.
Prager believes the same Congressman holding his bible will bring down American civilization.
O’Reilly can’t drum up many recruits to fight this year’s War Against Christmas, and how many times can you hear "look at me" with out re-tasting last night’s dinner?
And Savage…? Well, just "Savage."
Oh, they’ll keep some listeners, but they’ll be talking to a choir who doesn’t care that they’re hearing to a bunch of cloutless charlatans who never had the balls to serve our country but have no problem sending other families into life-changing horror; fans who don’t care their heros had it wrong, and had it wrong over and over. And when it came to the war…dead wrong.
Now any relevance these cascading Lords of Loud might once have had, if not dead, is on life support.
I can’t say I’ll miss either one.
Obama fever hits the Granite State:
W hen Sen. Barack Obama takes to the stage in Manchester on Sunday afternoon, he will look out at a sell-out crowd of more than 1,500. Audience members will have traveled from 13 different states, including South Carolina and Virginia. Of the 150 journalists covering the event, a handful will be from as far away as Japan and Denmark.
"As we lead up to the presidential primary, it’s the biggest one so far," said Maurine Bowman, the director of sales and marketing for the Radisson Hotel, where Obama will speak.
If the response to Obama’s planned visit is any indication, he will enter the Granite State a political rock star. Thus far in the 2008 presidential primary process, Sunday’s event is unparalleled in size and national attention. Late Wednesday, the New Hampshire Democratic Party sold out of tickets for the event, which is standing-room only.
Speaking of libertarians (meaning here, my mom), they’ll find this video funny (although, in truth, so did I). It’s called State Employees:
Will the White House get listed on Jerry Falwell’s "naughty" list? Look at the Christmas holiday card that George and Laura are sending out:
RELATED: MSNBC has the following headline: Man Arrested For Alleged Holiday Bomb Plot
Don’t those heathens at MSNBC know that he was arrested for an alleged Christmas bomb plot?!?
11 U.S. troops killed in one 24-hour period — one of the worst tolls of the Iraq War.
Total for this month so far is 30. We’re on track to having it be the worst month ever.
Bush’s disapproval rating for handling Iraq soared to 71%, a new record for him.
And news today that is hardly surprising: the Saudis (you know, Bush’s friends) are funding the Sunni insurgency.
I visited the Second Life virtual world a few years ago, and was unimpressed.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Second Life is an online virtual world with its own virtual economy. It’s not a game — you don’t go on quests and kills dragons. It attempts to simulate life — you have a 3D representation of yourself (your "avatar") who buys land (using real dollars to buy Second Life currency, which now as an economy of its own), buy clothes, and does things.
Apparently, there’s more now things to do now in Second Life than before. Famous people hold concerts (Suzanne Vega, for instance — see picture below). Most large corporations have presences there (yes, there is a GAP in Second Life, along with just about everything else you find in a mall). Harvard Law School has a virtual extension school there, and you can attend classes taught by real HLS professors. And I’ll bet my bottom dollar that in 2008, some presidential candidates will appear in the virtual world for campaign rallies.
But with the rise in popularity and realism of the virtual world, there is — believe it or not — a rise in virtual crime:
And then there is virtual sex. Adults are using their avatars to have virtual sex with each other, with one of them capable of morphing into a pre-teen girl during intercourse. Since no minors are officially allowed in Second Life, it is impossible to say whether any real-world minors are harmed by this virtual sex. But of course, adults may freely give their accounts and passwords to minors if they so choose, and some virtual child prostitutes claim to be real-world minors. If so, is such activity illegal? Is there a defense that I thought my avatar was having virtual sex with a real adult posing as a virtual minor, rather than a real minor who was posing as a real adult posing as a virtual minor? And if that conduct is illegal, which government from which country is supposed to prosecute the offender?
The implications of virtual morality and virtual crime is such a hot topic that there have been serious legal symposia held on the issue.
Strange world(s) we live in.
Janice Shaw Crouse, head of the conservative Concerned Women For America, on Mary Cheney’s pregnancy:
Mary’s pregnancy is an “in-your-face” action countering the Bush Administration’s pro-family, pro-marriage and pro-life policies. She continues to repudiate the work to which her father has devoted his life.
Wait a second, Janice.
If Mary was raised by a pro-family, pro-marriage, and pro-life father, and she turns out to be a lesbian who has a child out of wedlock, doesn’t that refute your entire argument that children who grow up with a pro-family, pro-marriage, and pro-life father are healthier and better off?
Jerry Falwell has a list (PDF format) of companies which are ‘naughty’ and ‘nice’ re: the War on Christmas. For example, here’s what the list says about "naughty" Eddie Bauer:
Yes, that’s how we should celebrate Christmas, the birthday of the greatest Jew ever — by calling people "naughty" simply for their sensitivity to Jews and others.
Some of Jerry’s judgments are simply based on arbitrary assessments. Here’s what it says about Staples:
Well, I couldn’t find the page Jerry was supposedly looking at. Maybe this? But clearly, Staples sells cards which say "Christmas" on them, you pompous lying ass, as well as religious cards for the season.
And is Staples supposed to put "Christmas" on every webpage? Look here, Jerry.
Jeez, Jerry.
No, you don’t know him either.
But consider this: he lived through the entire 20th century, saw 19 U.S. Presidents, served in both WWI and WWII, and celebrated all six Red Sox championships.
How many people around today can claim that?
Don’t worry. I’m sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with global you-know-what:
A tornado hit a residential area of London on Thursday, injuring at least six people, according to ambulance service staff.
Police were alerted to the tornado in north-west London at around 11 a.m., a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.
One man was taken to hospital suffering from serious head injuries, and five people were treated at the scene for minor injuries and shock.
The storm, with winds of around 150 mph (240 kph), ripped roofs off some homes, tore down walls and trees, and left streets strewn with debris. One car was buried under fallen bricks, video footage from the scene showed.
***
Local weather reports said warmer than normal temperatures this fall contributed to formation of the tornado.
D’oh!
Give President Bush credit for recognizing an environmental/health problem:
"Lead is a persistent and highly toxic substance that can cause a range of environmental and health problems. It has an especially harmful impact on the health of children and infants."
– George Bush, April 2001
Of course, that statement was before 9/11, and 9/11 (as we know) changed everything. The events of 9/11 It apparently even made lead non-harmful to children and infants.
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation’s biggest clean-air accomplishments.
Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
– Associated Press, Dec. 6, 2006
Nice.
It seems that many rightwingers don’t bother to READ the report, but choose instead criticize it based on the number of times that certain words appear.
Apparently, the best report (in their eyes) would have gone something like this:
Victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory Furthermore, victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory victory.
Seen it yet?
The video has been making the rounds of the political blogosphere, and rightwing reaction is, shall we say, less than amused. An example:
This little chink should shut the fuck up. We should have killed her parents in Viet Nam when we had the fucking chance.
Burn the bitch.
Nice.
