Outside the Spectrum

   Yet another poll in Iraq showing that Iraqis want the same thing—the rapid exit of U.S. troops from their country.

   W is protested in Indonesia and his father is verbally assaulted in Abu Dhabi for...well, being Drinky's father.

   More evidence that right-wing think tanks help run the country.

This just in from Driftglass--robots think we taste like bacon.


Aaaaaah! The great human-robot war has begun!


And the US vetoes another security council resolution to protect Israel from political censure even as the turmoil in the Occupied Territories continues with little coverage in the United States.

The only thing sweeter than Daniel Ortega winning the elections in Nicaragua recently is listening to the Chicago Tribune cry about it.

  Mwahahahahahahaha! Oh, sweet schadenfreude! Oh, yes! Yes! Or, in the words of Cartman from South Park: "mmmm, yes, the tears of unfathomable sadness, mmmm, they taste so good!" FSLN para siempre!

  But that evil Daniel Ortega! He might withdraw Nicaragua from CAFTA! He might have friendly relations with (*gasp*) Hugo Chavez! Nooooooooooo!

   Rush Limbaugh finally admitted he won’t be “carrying the water” anymore for people he doesn’t think “deserve to have their water carried.” He feels safe to say this because the GOP Party hierarchy is officially eating itself alive so no one is going to punish him for joining in.

    “Carrying the water” is Lushspeak for “lying my fat ass off” or “slandering innocent people.” It’s Lushspeak for saying that the teenage male pages who were objects of Foley’s lust (and who later testified about his advances) were vicious kids pulling a prank on a gay congressman. It’s Lushspeak for accusing the victims of sexual harassment of being liars. It’s Lushspeak for saying that a famous actor with a terminal disease who campaigned against a republican over the stem-cell issue was faking his symptoms.

    Seriously, if you listen to this clown (John McCain’s description) and are a fan you are a moral failure of a human being. He lies constantly. He lied about Michael J. Fox’s endorsed candidate voting against the bill Fox was advocating for. He lied about paying a settlement to law enforcement authorities to drop their charges against him. He advocated in the past for the stiffer pursuit and prosecution of white drug offenders and then cried foul when they came after him. These are just the things I can remember him saying in the past year off the top of my head.

   He’s sick. He tacitly admits to lying. He does it constantly, and all in the service of the GOP. He is so base as to routinely slander people to shill for corrupt politicians.

   Apparently there are 20 million people in this country who don’t mind being lied to, 20 million people who so desperately want to believe in a set of principles that they will close their minds and let craven thugs like Limbaugh lie to them and never confront their faith in him by seeking out a second source or bothering to check up on his infinite set of factual inaccuracies or remembering what he said yesterday that is the opposite of what he said today. 20 million people whose conscience doesn’t raise a red flag when their hero slanders sexual harassment victims baselessly and, in fact, in the face of all evidence.

   Is this Reagan’s legacy? An army of trolls and moral perverts who have no concern for the truth or common decency? Tens of millions of people who any nation would consider a shame to count as citizens?

   So I was bored recently and reading Laura Ingraham's monumental and intellectual tome of political and cultural criticism, Shut up and Sing. I have a few truly choice excerpts:

Remember what happened to the Roman Empire after its elites no longer believed it was worth defending against the onslaughts of barbarians. (page 66)

[Talking about Michael Moore's Stupid White Men] To call the book sophmoric would be an insult to sophomores in high school and college. Don't come a-lookin' for a piece of the pie around Michael. He ate it all. (page 104).

We're the most powerful nation of all time and one that could rule the world if we wanted, but we don't want to. (page 320).

   Honestly, this book was like a master class of how to write a shitty book. I had to skim the last half of this shitburger because it was close to the worst book I have ever read, and I make a habit out of reading the demented writings of right-wing commentators.

   Seriously, just take a look at the top three. Laura honestly thinks the Roman Empire collapsed because some bisexual elite class decided not to fight for it. Her second quote is my fave: she criticizes Moore for being sophmoric by being unintentionally sophmoric. I actually reread that chapter to see if she was some kind of subtle genius but, no, she's sophmoric talking about pretty much every subject she talks about. Quote number 3 reinforces number one: Laura has no grasp of history or military strategy. Although we were straining our society and economy to the breaking point just to try to hold on to South Vietnam or Iraq somehow we could conquer the whole world if we wanted to. Even though we were fought to a standstill in Korea by Chinese infantry and a detachment of the Soviet airforce we really could have just conquered the whole world.

   This book is a 6th-grade-level screed against "elites" and it wouldn't have been published by anybody but Regnery Press.