progressive involvement

Has to be one of the more watchable commercials ever made

The video below has gone viral since about Friday.  You'll see why.  It's fun to watch.  It's also a commercial for a Norwegian television show named Gylne Tider.  The title means "Golden Days", or as salon.com puts it, "'I love the 80's" as a travel documentary," whatever that means.  Story here, along with a Cracked magazine parody, which was also pretty good.

 

 

And ten of them are worse than Will

Alex Pareene is running a series at salon.com on the thirty worst columnists.  Number 11 on his list is Washington Post columnist, George Will.

A distinguished politician once told me that he didn't like a certain university chancellor because the guy wore a bow-tie.  I don't care for bow-ties myself, but try not to discriminate.  Senator Paul Simon was a swell fellow and he wore a bow-tie, as does my fellow Lutheran, Martin Marty. 

No, with George Will, there's more at stake than his sartorial challenges.  The problem is that Will:

...is a sanctimonious moralist, a pretentious hypocrite, a congenital liar and a boring pundit, to boot...

One could well add:  insufferable prig, pompous know-it-all, sanctimonious elitist, neocon warmonger, craven apologist, cabbage-head, plutocrat shill, "cream-faced loon," and flaming hypocrite.  (Yes, I know hypocrite is used twice.  Underline it.) 

Ever since he stole Jimmy Carter's briefing book, used it to coach Ronald Reagan before a debate, and then appeared on ABC to pronounce Reagan the winner of the debate, Will's been a consummate hack.

Oh, how we need columnist Mike Royko today.  Royko took delight in mocking Will's pretensions.  Once, at a press conference, Royko was talking about Will's tendency to drop literary names in his columns.  To give an example, he read the first word of the most recent Will column:  "Seutonius..."  He could go no further because the press was laughing so hard.  (He called Will a "sissy" once too, which is way over-the-top even if Will does wear a bow-tie.)

 

 

NBC looking silly again

NBC hires a former Republican Congressman, who makes his views known on a variety of subjects just about every day, most of them in line with Republican orthodoxy, yet NBC is shocked, shocked when they find out that Joe Scarborough has contributed to some GOP candidates and--Olbermann redux!--they suspend him from appearing on-air.

This is pure speculation, but I'm guessing that somebody at NBC had it in for Keith Olbermann, who can be, let's say it, insufferable.  They thought they could force him out over political donations, but were forced to backtrack because the public was generally on Olbermann's side and they found out that Scarborough, whom they love, had done the same thing.

Having made fools of themselves over Olbermann, they just about had to suspend Scarborough as well in order to spread their foolishness around evenly.

Incidentally, all of the contributions made by both Scarborough and Olbermann were documented, legal, and above-board, unlike, say, anonymous contributions in the millions to various vague-sounding organizations who tried to influence the elections without getting their fingerprints on anything.

Jerry Brown's smart campaign

He marches to the beat of his own drummer, that's for sure, and he appears to have been right.  It seemed he wasn't doing much while his opponent, Meg Whitman, spent $100,000,000 of her own money to pull even with him in late August.

After Labor Day, Brown struck back, and in an interesting way.  He took the calculated risk of reminding people that he was governor thirty years ago.  He looks almost boyish, and with considerably more hair, in old footage from his two terms as governor back in the 70's.

The message is that things were pretty good in California when Jerry Brown was governor.  In fact, some of Brown's moves do seem prescient and in more in tune with today's political climate than they were then, such as an emphasis on smaller government and green technology.

His approach seems to be working.  Most polls show Brown with a lead.  One today had him up 13 points.  Here's his most recent.  It's clever.

 

 

Says the guy who works for Fox News

This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.

Juan Williams

Ignorant, delusional, hallucinatory, puerile, and just plain weird

It took a long time to end slavery; yes it did. But it also took a long time to start slavery, and it started small and it started with seemingly innocent ideas. And then a little court order here and a little court order there, and a little more regulation here and a little more regulation there, and before we knew it America had slavery. It didn't come over on a ship to begin with as an evil slave trade, the government began to regulate things because the people needed answers, they needed solutions. It started in a courtroom and then it went to the legislatures, that's how slavery began.

So said Glenn Beck.  "Seemingly innocent ideas"?  You mean like kidnapping people and then claiming you "own" them?  Who could possibly take offense at an "innocent idea" like that?

This supposed "history" is complete nonsense, like nobody heard of slavery until Big Government tried to regulate it.  Egads.

Bush league, no class

As an egalitarian, small-d democrat, I would defend the right of anybody to tell the president to "go to hell." 

As one views the GOP candidate for Governor of Maine saying that a vote for him is a vote to "tell Obama to go to hell," one is reminded, however, of an episode of the West Wing where the Lily Tomlin character is caught saying some derogatory things about President Bartlett (Martin Sheen). 

Bartlett's ego-strength was strong enough that he wasn't offended by the criticism.  In fact, he noted that she had referred to him as "President Bartlett" and lauded her for being a "class act" and using his proper title.

Candidate LePage didn't do that.  He can say what he wants--it's a free country--but not showing respect for your opponent by using his proper title is bush league and classless.  Maine GOP, here is your candidate for Governor:

 

 

1.38%

The percentage of Fox news viewership which is African-American, which is surprisingly low considering Fox's intensive coverage of the African-American community. 

Why, in recent weeks, Fox has focused on Shirley Sherrod, the New Black Panther Party, the sudden outbreak of racism in the black community, and President Obama's attempt to institute white slavery.

Why aren't the darkies tuning in? 

Fine piece today by Jason Whitlock in the Kansas City Star

I completely agreed with every word.

Great Moments from "The West Wing"