How to Keep an Idiot Busy for Hours

Would comment be superfluous? Couldn't I just sit here and smirk?

But aside from politics, there is the question of whether people who pray the Psalms in this manner stand on any kind of solid theological ground.

Oh, what the hell. There is the answer, too: there is no such thing as "solid theological ground". It's an oxymoron. You can worry, if you like, about some sort of internal consistency within the text (and good luck with that when dealing with thousands of years worth of writing from countless different authors), but you should keep in mind that you're doing so within the larger framework of a ridiculous fantasy world. There is no deity, let alone one who smites enemies, and especially not one who gets enraged about people performing abortions when he designed a "natural" system that allows fewer than one-third of conceptions to result in live birth, with the rest ending in early gestation or by miscarriage.

So by all means, encourage these people to pray their empty fucking heads right off.

Le Mot Juste

From the comments to an Onion A.V. Club review of Wolfmother's latest, the best one-sentence review of a band ever:

ElDan

27 Oct. 2009 | 6:12 PM CDT

Fantomas sounds like a drum kit chasing a retard down a steep flight of stairs.

Now, I do love Mike Patton in all his weirdness, but goddamn, that's funny.

Space Ghosts

Oh noes!

WASHINGTON — America's once clear dominance in space is eroding as other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, step up their activities, a panel of experts told the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics Thursday.

"China is laying the groundwork for a long-term space program with or without us,'' said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. "We should worry if we're not out there with them.''

Last year, China launched a Venezuelan-owned communications satellite that "enabled Venezuela to extend its influence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,'' Williamson said. The satellite broadcasts Venezuela's TeleSUR channel, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has styled as the alternative to U.S.-based news broadcasts.

Why should we be so worried, you ask? Take it away, Noam:

An even greater threat is posed by expansion of the arms race into space; the term "race" is inappropriate, because the U.S. is, for now, competing alone. Its goal is to achieve "full spectrum dominance": a monopoly of the use of space for military purposes. These plans have been available in government documents for some years, and the projects outlined have been under development. They were expanded in the first months of the Bush administration and again since September 11, in a crude exploitation of the fear and horror engendered by these crimes.

It is conventional everywhere for attack to be called "defense", and this case is no exception: the plans for militarisation of space are disguised as "ballistic missile defence" (BMD), only a small component of what is planned. That is understood by other countries, including close allies, and has been clearly articulated and sometimes warmly applauded by strategic analysts, who point out that "missile defense isn't really meant to protect America [but] is a tool for global dominance," for "hegemony."

It is well-understood that BMD, even if technically feasible, must rely on satellite communication, and destroying satellites is far easier than shooting down missiles. That is one reason why the US must seek "full spectrum dominance," such overwhelming control of space that even the poor man's weapons will not be available to an adversary. And that requires offensive space-based capacities, including enormously destructive weapons that can be launched with instant computer-controlled reaction, greatly increasing the risk of vas slaughter and devastation if only because of what are called in the trade "normal accidents" - the unpredictable accidents to which all complex systems are subject.

The goals of militarisation of space extend far beyond, however. The US Space Command is very explicit about this. Its Clinton-era publications announce the primary goal prominently: "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment." This is presented as the next phase of the historic task of military forces. Armies were needed "during the westward expansion of the continental United States" - of course in self defense, against the indigenous population. Nations also build navies, the Space Command continues, "to protect and enhance their commercial interests." The next logical step is space forces to protect "U.S. national interests [military and commercial] and investments." But US space forces will be unlike "navies protecting sea commerce" because there will be a sole hegemon. The British Navy could be countered by Germany, with consequences we need not discuss. But the US, somehow, will remain immune -except, of course, to the narrowly circumscribed category of "terrorism" that is permitted to enter the canon.

The need for total dominance will increase as a result of the "globalisation of the economy," the Space Command explains. The reason is that "globalisation" is expected to bring about "a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots'," an assessment shared by US intelligence. Planners are concerned that the widening divide may lead to unrest among the have-nots, which the US must be ready to control by "using space systems and planning for precision strike from space" as a "counter to the worldwide proliferation of BMD" by unruly elements - a predictable consequence of the recommended programs, just as the "widening divide" is an anticipated consequence of the preferred from of "globalisation."

I Take It Back

When I said that I was "kind of going to miss" Caribou Barbie, that was contingent upon her, you know, going and staying the fuck away. Is there really nothing else for people to write about?

In Defense of Bimbos

After her appearance in which she dubbed King "inappropriate" and attempted to exit the set, Prejean accused the staffer of lying to her, saying King's producers promised no phone calls. She belittled McAusland saying, "Is the intern talking to me? Oh look at the little intern, look at the little intern trying to explain!"

"I've never been treated so poorly in my whole life," McAusland, who recently accepted an executive producer position at Newsie.com of Media Convergence Group, said.

(via Digby)

Huh. A shallow hypochristian who's been treated like royalty most of her life because of her looks has no time for the little people. The hell you say. Well, I'm convinced. She's the lowest of the low. I fart in her general direction and all that.

The thing about the intern reminded me of something else, though...

39
Eric Alterman
Pundit

WHAT LIBERAL DICKWAD? Milhouse is all grown up: He has a goatee, a PhD from Stanford and an online diary where he proclaims his love for Jackson Browne. Liberal bloggers are holding it up like the fucking Alamo, but his run-in with Dennis Miller last month left Alterman looking like he was about to get his head dunked in the toilet for the third time. Even if you agree with him about Ann Coulter and Alexander Cockburn, it's hard not to root against this smirking, center-left prick who likes his dinner dates rich and famous and his fois gras seared. "He constantly wants to remind you that he's Eric Alterman," one of his interns revealed in a rumor-confirming Village Voice hatchet-job, "[and] that he knows a lot of important people, and that you're a lowly intern."

Goodness gracious! And as far as I'm aware, Carrie Prejean hasn't knowingly repeated baseless slanders against Noam Chomsky, or resorted to bullshit Nader-bashing the way Alterman has. And I doubt she makes Bruce Springsteen (or is it Bob Seger? John Mellencamp? All those nostalgia-rockers run together in my head. Their songs all make me think of middle-aged men, Chevy trucks, and shots of prairie grass waving in the wind against a sunset. Anyway, he slobbers all over one of them.) an object of cult worship either, so that's another point in her favor.

I also had to laugh, given that Digby had just posted something a day or so earlier fawning over the great pwoggie hope Al Franken. Guess what Dennis Perrin can tell us about him?

I've seen Franken in action up-close, and he seems to revel in being an asshole. Plus, I've been told all sorts of stories about his abusive behavior from various sources, including those who worked intimately with him, his ex-comedy partner Tom Davis chief among them. Tom probably knows Franken better than anyone other than Franken's wife, and while some of the stuff he told me about his old partner didn't surprise me, I did wonder how Tom put up with it for as long as he did. Still, the two of them produced some really funny bits on the original "SNL", so I will give Franken that. But a Minnesota Senator in the mold of the late Paul Wellstone? Don't make me laugh.

[...]

Well, obviously, she didn't get it. In fact, the experience rattled her in a way I'd never seen before. And who was her main tormentor? Al Franken! Sharon said that she would begin a character monologue as requested, but before she got 15 seconds into it, Franken would shout in that annoying voice of his, "NEXT." Franken also talked to other people while Sharon tried to perform, telling jokes and not paying attention to her efforts. Then he would stop, clap his hands sarcastically, then grunt "Got anything else?" After maybe 10 or so minutes, the audition was over, and Sharon was led out while Franken completely ignored her. She got her first serious taste of the pricks who run much of American comedy, and it deflated her.

Good thing we enlightened liberals progressives know how to keep someone's personal churlishness separate from their thoughts and ideas, huh?

The point is this: Prejean was asked, for some incomprehensible reason, what she thought about gay marriage. She gave her opinion --

"I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

D'oh! My mistake! That was Barack Obama in an interview with the Chicago Daily-Tribune, so, uh, that makes it totally different! Anyway, Ms. Prejean gave her opinion --

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman."

-- which, to my coarse sensibilities, is so mundane and anodyne as to be worth no further attention. Last time I checked, beauty contestants didn't influence anyone's politics or make decisions regarding public policy. All people really want to do is watch them sashay around in bikinis. No one gives a fuck what they think about anything. No one would even remember this if a certain gossip-blogger, notorious for being a gigantic asshole (and a dishonest one at that) hadn't gone ballistic about it. And here we are, still hearing about this trivia like it matters, and hearing about her personal behavior as if it has a fucking thing to do with civil rights for gays. She gets to look like a victim of uptight p.c. bullies to those who follow politics, and after her nude photos and videotaped self-diddling, she could probably run for president and win with the 18-24 year-old male turnout alone.

Bravo, everyone. Bra-vo. I take it it wasn't enough you helped make Sam the Plunger a fixture in the news for months on end by dissecting his every inane utterance? Well, at least this shiny object is easier on the eyes, I guess.

Haunted by the Laughter of Silenus

There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysius, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: "Oh, wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is – to die soon."


- Nietzsche

Terrible news in German football:

Robert Enke, the Germany goalkeeper, lived with the daily dread of his depressive illness being exposed and the fear that it could end his career, his widow said yesterday.

“He didn’t want to seek professional help any more and he didn’t want it because he was afraid that it would all come out and that we would lose Leila,” Enke’s widow said. “It was the fear about what people would say about a child with a depressive father. And I always told him, ‘Don’t worry.’ Right to the end, he cared lovingly for Leila.

“I tried to be there for him, said that football is not everything. There are many beautiful things in life. It is not hopeless. We had Lara, we have Leila. I always wanted to help him to get through it.”

Her tears flowed when she accepted that her husband’s suicide was a kind of personal defeat. “We thought that we could do it all, that with love everything was possible,” she said. “But sometimes it’s not enough."

Love, fame and fortune -- none of it ever is. And for someone filled with insecurity and self-doubt, performing on a world stage in front of an often-fickle, judgmental audience is a level of immense pressure most of us can't even imagine.

U.S. Out of North America

Funny:

"We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies," he added.

I'm glad to see that naïveté, at least, truly is colorblind. What a great country it is, where we're all free to dream that a solitary great man, or woman, or transgendered developmentally disabled person of color, will somehow get elected and proceed to act in opposition to the system that nurtured and produced them.