Can we all just agree that this is very embarrassing, and then move on?
After a long day at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele gave a speech asserting that the party is “alive and well.”
Although he emphasized that the conservative movement must become a revolution and transform America, he conceded that the party had made mistakes: “We know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad. But we go forward in appreciation of the values that brought us to this point.”
According to CNN, Steele was then praised by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
As Steele concluded his remarks, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann — the event’s moderator — told Steele he was “da man.” “Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man,” she said.
Huffington Post
Utterly, completely, irredemptionally clueless.
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I was a bit surprised to see Philip Jose Farmer’s obit in the NYTimes, but I love some of the stories they’re telling.
His first success came in 1952 with a story called “The Lovers,” about a man seduced by an alien with an unusual reproductive system. The story was rejected by the two leading science fiction editors; both said that its graphic description of interspecies sex made them physically ill. Published in a pulp magazine called Startling Stories, the story won Mr. Farmer his first Hugo as “most promising new writer.”
After moving back to Peoria in 1970, Mr. Farmer published 25 new works over the next decade. A 1975 novel, “Venus on the Half-Shell,” created a stir beyond the genre. The jacket and title page identified the author only as Kilgore Trout, a fictional character who appears as an unappreciated science fiction writer in several of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Although Mr. Farmer claimed he had permission for this playful hoax, Vonnegut was not amused to learn that some reviewers not only concluded that he had written “Venus on the Half-Shell” but that it was a worthy addition to the Vonnegut canon.
An agnostic from the age of 14, Mr. Farmer was ambivalent about humanity’s hunger for life after death. “I can’t see any reason why such miserable, unhappy, vicious, stupid, conniving, greedy, narrow-minded, self-absorbed beings should have immortality,” he said in Science Fiction Review in 1975.
But he added, “When considering individuals, then I feel, yes, this person, that person, certainly deserves another chance.” Life on this planet, he said “is too short, too crowded, too hurried, too beset.”
Don’t worry, I won’t be doing much of this. My favorite science fiction authors are mostly all dead already: Roger Zelazny, Robert Heinlein, Gordon Dickson, Isaac Asimov . . . they were giants. In my twenties I read up to 300 novels a year and had the paperback library to prove it. Now, just pixels and a monitor I love, but which works poorly without electricity as I found out from 4 to 5 pm yesterday when the industrial grid I live in lost its power.
I was at a loss as to what to do with myself then realized I had a battery-powered mp3 CD player and so spent the time listening to jazz and watching traffic inch by in the by then not so snowy weather. (No, we didn’t get eight inches here in the Cities, but I’m sure someone did.)
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David Brooks admits “Obama’s budget is far more honest than the ones that preceded it. It imposes real pay-as-you-go rules on future outlays. Intellectually serious efforts are made to pay for at least half of the cost of health care reform.”
Brooks then takes away with his right hand what his center hand has served but he does get around to saying some things I think bear repeating.
The greatest shortcomings are sins of omission, not commission. If you watched Obama’s magnificent speech Tuesday night, you got the impression that he bestrides Washington like a colossus. He imposes his authority in ways large and small, purging old habits. In reality, the situation is messier. At times, there is a weird passivity emanating from the White House, a deference to the Washington establishment. Almost no sacred cows are cut from this budget.
Smart, smart, smart politics. O needs everyone on board for the first one. (Everyone not doing shout outs to Michael Steele, “da man,” that is.) This isn’t Mr. Smith goes to Washington, this is Brubaker, and Obama is reforming a corrupt prison from within.
The next few years should be damned entertaining even if Paul Krugman never lightens up and acknowledges the impact of politics on his economic fixes.
[THE] new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in….
I don’t blame Mr. Obama for leaving some big questions unanswered in this budget. There’s only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now. And this budget looks very, very good.
At least he’s picking up on the limits of what is possible.
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From The Wege’s Dictionary:
pol·i·tics n. 1. The dark art of abusing the science of government: POLITICAL SCIENCE. 2. The activities and affairs of a politician or political party, primarily sexual in nature: BIGGUS DICKUS. 3. a. Conduct of or participation in political affairs, often professionally: HOURLY RATES. b. The business, activities or profession of one involved, usually in preparation for a career in lobbying. 4. The methods, tactics or television network involved in managing the public perception of the efficacy of a government or state: MEDIA RELATIONS. 5. Intrigue or maneuvering within a group: BROWN NOSING; BACKSTABBING; DICK YANKING; TIT TWISTING; ASS GRABBING. 6. One’s general position or attitude on political subjects: SEXUAL PREFERENCES.
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No. He. Didn’t.
G Will responds to his critics and gives us a heaping helping of scientifically illiterate bullshit today.
Tendentious, arrogant, but mostly so fucking goddamned deep in the bag for global pollution the man cannot for the life of himself see what a fool he’s being. He hangs almost his entire column on some very strange reporting from Daily Tech, an eleven-year-old business technology news site I’d never heard of before. Then again I don’t track a lot of biz tech sites. But I do google and the article Will cited was roundly criticized by experts for confusing the issue in nonhelpful ways.
Whatever. One specious article doesn’t change the fact that the scientists whose work Will cited called his interpretation bogus. His response is bogus and in a public debate he’d be knocked out in the opening round.
A bullying coward’s response to valid criticism. George Will is a weenie of the lowest order but worse, he’s a journalist who routinely bends facts and twists truths to make political points not well founded in fact.
He’s a bullshitter, just like his fans. Here’s a comment from a global warming denier at Dvorak.org in response to some of the more scientific critics of Will’s “exculpatory” article:
# 11
Colorado said, on January 5th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Global warming = Tired
Yellowstone calderas = Wired
The Yellowstone volcano will blow in 2012 covering the western US in 10 feet of lava; leaving only the 13 original colonies. Canada will ice over. New radiation-free nukes will clear Mexico for immigration by Minnesotans led by President Al Franken. Their electric car convoy will run out of power 40 miles outside Duluth. The economy will hit new post depression low due to the new ice age. Bill Gates, having bought every company in the US for a buck-ninety-five plus two gum wrappers, will attempt to restart world trade by mandating everyone revert to Windows 95, so things finally work again. The depression has reduced prices on everything by 95%, except Apple laptops. Dvorak takes all but one of the Nobel Prizes when one of his apocalyptic theories finally proves true. The prize not won was for economics when it was discovered he had made trillions by shorting everything but then reinvested it in solar panels, which were last seen sinking in the ash.
99% pseudo-humorous gibberish meant to delight the mouth-breathers who are personally invested in denying global warming as Al Gore-ism, and pretty typical of the pro-anti-global warming comments I found while googling that Daily Tech article.
Will is a cherrypicking bloviator, legitimizing lies and bogus science in calculated support of polluting corporations who cheerfully pay his outrageous speaking fees as journalistically acceptable payment for selling our future by the column.
I’ll link to the more erudite responses to Will’s bullshit over the weekend as I’m sure there will be many coming. Can’t wait? Well, just read the comments on that Daily Tech article Will hung his entire argument on. Wade past the politicized idiotry (of which Daily Tech seems to have no shortage and who are emminently capable of exchanging dozens of comments about school closings and how that proves/disproves global warming) and you’ll find that, sadly, Daily Tech’s comments are almost entirely about politicized idiotry with few rational commenters willing to brave the accumulated wisdom of the graduates of the Institute of Applied Ditto Headistry.
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Jeez what a time waster. If you don’t read those Daily Tech comments your life will be richer for it. I’ve never seen so many people offering stovetop science examples of how our planet functions.
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As Boomers get older, expect your kids to snigger more loudly as obit pix like these surface:
Life on Mars indeed.
