Monthly Archives: July 2010

Good Night and Good Luck…You’ll Need It


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Infotainment Rules

WHAT'S THE DIFF? - With today's oversaturated media market and constant demands for more and more entertainment, the news has become just one more Big Show.

Americans are an easily bored lot. We demand everything be ripe with entertainment possibilities. We’re a nation addicted to 24X7, 500-channel television – which we nevertheless claim has nothing worth watching – on which we gorge ourselves on a never-ending supply of reality shows promoting the most fame-crazed and mentally defective of us to open their lives in the most voyeuristic fashion. Real life made unreal by the millions of gawking rubberneckers tuning in.

And, the most unrealistic reality shows are the news shows.

Television news was once a place where networks expected to lose money on the public service of covering the news. Now ratings make newsrooms just like any other Disneyesque entertainment outlet. The Edward R. Murrow/Walter Cronkite newsroom was a place where serious people investigated serious topics, regardless of their inherent profitability. Today, there’s little distinction between the Daily Show bullpen and the CNN newsroom.

Once profit became the news’ primary MO focus-grouped, ratings-pregnant drivel stepped in as a sort of news lite where interviews are ‘booked’ and ‘talent’ eggs on the most disgraceful, but oh so entertaining, shout-fests. As much as everyone likes to complain about the ‘mainstream media’ – which is curiously deemed both too liberal and too conservative at the same time – we’ve got no one to blame except our infamously Nielsen-rated selves.

Because of our national, self-absorbed entertainment obsession, we’re killing the geese that laid our golden First Amendment eggs. We’ve abandoned print media altogether. Once-vibrant publications like Newsweek are going the way of the dodo because of the printed page’s inability to adapt to our real-time, excitingly manufactured, multimedia entertainment extravaganza demands.

But even e-media is slipping away. We’ve begun sucking the marrow from infotainment’s bones and it’s not long on this Earth because of it. Real TV news has been supplanted by screaming mimis like Glenn Beck. Even the ‘serious’ Sunday news programs are pale imitations of professional wrestling – all faux drama and glittery costumes bumptiously pontificating on the national debt or latest job numbers. We’ve molded the news to our ravenous need for entertainment and are in a rapidly quickening race to put it out of business too. It seems that as we’ve consumed reality shows like Big Brother we’ve unwittingly given ourselves over to Orwell’s Big Brother…

…and become a nation of scandal junkie couch potatoes minus the skills to tell the difference between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart.

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When Judicial Activists Judge ‘Judicial Activists’


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

These days any drop of bipartisanship must be savored like the world’s rarest wine. Ironically enough, a wine that’s thoroughly disgusting to voters because there’s so little of it and it’s sourer than vinegar. Senator Lindsey “Nelly Bottom” Graham was the only Republican to throw in the towel and vote for SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan yesterday. Kagan’s 13-6 escape from the Senate Kangaroodiciary Hearings is about a bipartisan as they come in an environment where one (really) is the Loneliest Number.

Graham’s an unusually magnanimous loser… for a Republican. “What’s in Elena Kagan’s heart is that of a good person who adopts a philosophy I disagree with,” Graham said. “She will serve this nation honorably, and it would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely.” Alas, there was a time when statements like that were normal.

Not now.

Congressional hearings aren’t really hearings, they’re foregone conclusions where the naysayers get to bitch and moan and the triumphant get to do the moonwalk and say, “We win! You lose! It sucks to be you!” The nominees are coached to say as little as humanly possible about how they might decide cases while being subtle enough to blend with the fabric of the chair they are soaking through with sweat.

The past several times around, questions have followed such preset patterns they may just as well have asked the nominee for a form – and not even a notarized form at that.

Republicans, like top Rebumblican Jeff Sessions, have traditionally kvetched about “judicial activists”. That’s code for “someone who I’m going to call a Commie and who doesn’t agree with me.” Oddly, they never seem too concerned about judicial activism when it comes from one of their own.

Scalia, I’m talking about you!

They also like to whine that whatever nominee sits before them will be totally unable to separate personal choices from ones made on the bench. Again, nominees are de facto impartial when they happen to vote the Jeff Sessions line.

By and large, Presidents should be able to choose anyone for the Supreme Court they want, provided they’re minimally qualified for the job (see Harriet Miers). The fact is that all judges are going to be “activist” if they’re doing anything. Laws need to breathe in order to support society and that’s part of what SCOTUS does. If it was as simple as a checklist for subtle Constitutional interpretation, we wouldn’t need a SCOTUS – we’d all agree already

By the same token, none of them will be totally impartial either. People bring who they are, what they know, and how they’ve lived into court with them. Despite Sessions’ great displeasure with Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” quote, these are part of us all and not in an altogether bad way either.

Had Sessions’ actually made it to the bench instead of failing years ago, I’m sure he’d decide against abortion on any case appearing before him. He would do this by bringing in a spring-loaded, prickly, conservative, intolerant white male, demeanor into court with him. I think he’d find it nearly impossible to look “only at the law” as he demands. I’m confident that he couldn’t look at the long history of precedents that have made abortion the law of the land for decades now and not vote only on that law as it stands.

In other words, Sessions’ couldn’t honestly strike down abortion in front of his own court unless he defied the law previously expressed in Supreme Court findings and lower court precedents while simultaneously acting like a judicial activist bent on “changing the(available abortion)  law” as it stands.

Jeff, if you want to see the face of your judicial impartiality and judicial activism look in the mirror. Your dishonest, and frankly troubling, face will be looking back.


Randomness: Strange But True Style


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Click photo for more >>

CHAIRS IN SPACE - Many people have 'flown' chairs, but some people are just overachievers. Click photo for more >>

True Crime

True Life

True Crap Mart

True Robot Stories

True Tokyo

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Where Were These Guys When the War Started?


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
The Amateur Videographer

WHERE WERE THEY WHEN THE WAR STARTED? - American politicos apparently don't remember where they were when the war in Afghanistan started. All of the complainers now forget they did nothing to keep us out of this mess from the beginning. The only person who remembers where he was then is Osama Bin Laden - holed up in a Pakistani cave since the beginning.

It’s common to ask people where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot. Apparently, some political leaders should be asked, “Where where you when the Afghan war started?”

After 9 years of death, destruction, and national treasure pissed away, politicians like Dick Lugar (R-Dumbassholia), Carl Levin (D-WTFistan), John Kerry (D-Flapjackistan), and Newt Gingrich (D, R, ?-Mars) are of the opinion that the war in Afghanistan “is not going to end well“.

Really now. No kidding? Where the f*ck were you guys when the thing started? It was apparent then, and it’s equally apparent now, that it won’t end well and you did as little to stop, or even question it, as your average tree stump.

Clues for the Clueless
What was your clue? Was it when we started with assurances of the evils of nation-building and then got to work building a nation? How about when you told us it was going to be a cake walk over a bunch of 4th century illiterate goatherds? Was it when George the Incompetent “brought ‘em on” and then decided finding Bin Laden wasn’t so important after all? How about when Osama Bin Lunkhead taunted you from a cave – a cave, BTW, that wasn’t even in Af-frickin-ghanistan!?

You’re now delivering the absolutely shocking news that the mission is ill-defined and poorly carried out? No sh*t you bunch of Nostradumbasses!

Bush’s mission definition was… “to win”. However, it might have worked better had he told us what winning looked like, how to do it, or how to pay for it. Was it the “non-nation building strategy”, followed by the “surge strategy”, followed by the “drawdown strategy”, followed by the “let’s just become the de facto Afghan government because that goatskin cap-wearing lunatic Karzai couldn’t govern his way of a wet falafel bag strategy”?

Newt, you come in for special scorn. In December, before the rest of the tarnish rubbed of The Messiah’s™ crown, you were on board. Back then, the Carebear-in-Chief had political courage. “If you are a liberal Democrat who won the nomination with the support of the anti-war left, this had to be one of the most difficult decisions he’ll ever make,” you said.

Now, not so much. Who are you, the evil doppelganger for John “I Never Met a Position I Couldn’t Change” McThusela? Perhaps you’re the, “I was for it until I was against it” version of John Kerry? Oh, and word for the unwise, video, audio, and even good old-fashioned newspapers capture crap like that with the sole purpose of throwing it back in your face when you’re for something before you were against it.

Here’s a towel to wipe it off your pork-chop stuffed face.

And finally, Mr. President, where the hell have YOU been?

You’ve followed your predecessor’s slug track for two years now. A predecessor whose policies you described as “failed”. What made them “failed” when he tried them, but “politically courageous” when you carry them out? We still don’t have a clear mission other than, “We gotta go forward because going back is too hard and quiting might hurt someone’s bipartisan feelings. It’s just not my style to rock the boat.”

Plus, we still don’t know what “victory” looks like. However, I’m guessing most Americans don’t see indefinitely investing $10 billion a year on the army of a country with a $14 billion annual GDP that can’t protect themselves, much less the populace,  as “a win”. Most Americans would be happy with far cheaper extended unemployment benefits instead.

Obama: No Profile in Courage
The only “political courage” you’ve shown on this issue was to fire that 4-star Numbskull McChrystal for being too stupid to keep his yap shut in front of a reporter. Personally, if I’d been him I would’ve cut out the middle man and just come to the White House to call you a bumbling eunuch to your face.

Gentlemen (and all the rest of the political cowards who didn’t lift a finger to prevent this mess), you can prefer not to remember where you were back in the day. I don’t blame you, I’d want to hide out in The Big Dick’s™ secret undisclosed location to dodge the glare of what incredible asshats you’ve been too.

But you can’t. Just ask The Big Dick™.  His support and conviction on the rightness of the war has been as unwavering as his now-missing pulse. Do the honorable thing. Take responsibility for your actions, just like Dick. He’s learned to own his colossal incompetence, you should take ownership of yours too.

That’s what the rest of us call “political courage”.

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You Get What You Pay For


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
The Pre-Unemployed

THE PRE-UNEMPLOYED - It's not just politicians' job actions that are destroying America's employment, we also do it to ourselves. If it keeps up, kids graduating from schools will enter the job market "pre-unemployed".

You get what you pay for, and these days Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay for much. It’s a trend that applies to both the marketplace and the public square and many buyers are unaware their actions contribute to a host of problems the nation faces.

In the current financial climate, it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs. Yet, regular Joes and Josephines have driven once-profitable companies and their employees, right out of the country.

Case in point, Walmart. Not so long ago they touted their “buy American” policy. But because companies wanted irrationally increased profits and shoppers wanted shirts or shoes at unbelievably low prices, the shirt and shoe making jobs now live in Indonesian or Vietnamese sweatshops. Multiply this pattern across thousands of products and you have a stolen golden egg and a dead goose. You can’t sell things – from cars to microchips – if no one has a job or money to buy them.

Something for Nothing
This belief that you can buy something for nothing has also driven increasingly poor quality. Not only are things irrationally cheap, but many times what you buy is crap – a great definition for “false economy”. Sure, you can buy an iPhone, the Swiss Army Knife of phones, but you have to wrap it in duck tape to use it. And when you do, your half-assed phone carrier drops just as many calls as it does with $10 burn phones you can buy at the ironically named Best Buy.

This problem affects government as well. Polls show a majority of Americans are looking for “leaders” with business experience. In other words, CEOs. This is a mystifying preference. From Chimpy McSpend Alot to “Carlyfornia” Fiorina to the nimrods who ran banks and insurance companies into the ground, it’s not as if their resumes are sterling examples of how to run a railroad – or a government.

All too often, titans of business – like California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman – run on a platform of “cutting waste and abuse” or cutting off unemployment benefits for those lazy, purposely jobless malingerers. It’s a great model for a company, which doesn’t worry much about the jobs they kill, because they can sell the jobs to India and get much higher profits in return.

Paying slave wages will do that for the bottom line.

Crackerjack Business Gurus
These crackerjack business gurus often fly in the face of reality. For example, Good Queen Meg never mentions that much of the waste and abuse (California has one of the leanest state governments in the nation) is already gone. What remains is difficult to ferret out. With hundreds of important programs already killed, most of the cuts left are to layoff or furlough thousands of state workers and devalue the quality of services.

For example, California once had a world-class educational system. Today, it hovers just above perennial also-rans like Mississippi and Louisiana. Bright students are being priced out of the education market by double-digit tuition inflation and draconian cost-cutting measures like restricting or canceling new enrollments or completely canceling classes or majors. Yet, university administrators always seem to collect bonuses and spend money on pet projects. The only jobs Meg talks about cutting are meat and potato union jobs. She says nary a word about college presidents who self-servingly run their institutions with all the cost consciousness of graftster Hamid Karzai, which is not unlike how most companies run.

The result? College kids with inferior educations entering the job market “pre-unemployed”. All that expensive, precious education and knowledge goes to waste as their potential jobs depart to wherever engineers or technicians are willing or unable to work for monthly wages lower than the cost of a shirt made by their absentee American companies hiding the Cayman Islands as a tax dodge.

It seems America has gotten the tea bag they paid for – a crumbling, jobless economy with a wage and class gap as wide as the Gulf oil volcano.

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