F U Penguin

If you have ever wanted to see people vent their frustration, jealousy, and annoyance at cute animals, you will want to see this website. A sample of their fine work:


Oh, I get it, Kangaroo. You're just hanging out, right? I bet if I asked you what you were doing, you would probably say you were "chillaxin'" or something. You probably think you look pretty cool, but I know better, Kangaroo, because YOU ARE AS A HIGH AS A KITE RIGHT NOW.

Kangaroo, did you ever stop to think about the kids? Do you ever think about anyone other than yourself, and perhaps Mallomars? No, you fucking don't. So fuck you, Kangaroo. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

The Demon Weed

This is so bad arse.


To sum up, they baited the police and caught them using illegal cameras to look for pot grow lights, when all they were actually growing were baby christmas trees. The police department financing scheme, ur, "drug war" drags on. Read Balko for more.

MoneyHole

I love the old black lady.

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Bi-pedal Life

In my search for the awesomest place to live, I came across a website called Walkscore that rates neighborhoods and individual addresses by their walkability.  They take into account an address's distance to all sorts of things: stores, schools, parks etc. and gives points when they are closer than 1 mile.  It's lovely to look at the rankings of the top 40 most populated cities... look at the map of San Fran, then look at Jacksonville FL.  How will it survive?

An Uneasy Feeling

More than one might expect from a terrorist organization based in remote caves, over the years Al-Queda has shown remarkable sophistication at understanding and influencing American politics. Think back to the famous videotape released by Bin Laden before the 2004 election, which the CIA determined was meant to help Bush win re-election. Along those lines, what will be Bin Laden's reaction as he confronts the fact that America has elected a president named Barack Hussein Obama?

Bin Laden's first thought was probably something along the lines of "well played, sir." In one fell swoop, America has created a powerful propaganda tool to counter Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East. As Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek, notes:

President-elect Obama has powers of his own, too. I will not exaggerate the importance of a single personality, but Obama has become a global symbol like none I can recall in my lifetime. Were he to go to Tehran, for example, he would probably draw a crowd of millions, far larger than any mullah could dream of.

Imagine that! Bin Laden must be more than a little jealous right now. He must be thinking, "what can I do to knock this popular newcomer off his pedestal and get back to that whole 'clash of civilizations' paradigm that was working so well for me?"

The answer is easy enough to guess: a terrorist attack on American soil. An attack would hurt Obama politically at home. It would make conservatives whisper that the new liberal president is too weak to defend America, after all Bush stopped the attacks after 9/11. It would force Obama to counter-attack somewhere in the Middle East, reducing his popularity among Muslims. It would also put another shock in the already comatose American economy.

If I were a more well-known pundit or politician, this would be too dangerous an idea to bring up. But I'd be willing to bet that this is a major unspoken worry of all the top people right now, which added even more impetus for Obama to choose experienced, competent folks for national security even if he clashes with them ideologically from time to time. This is a moment of both possibility and peril-- lets hope the American people stand together and refuse to make the same mistakes made after 9/11 if something awful happens.

Okkervil River

Probably some of the best lyrics ever, says something deeply profound about human relationships.....(listen to the song here)

A Stone

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling,
the loveliest words whispered and meant -
you like all these things.

But, though you like all these things,
you love a stone.
You love a stone, because it’s smooth and it’s cold.
And you’d love most to be told that it’s all your own.

You love white veins, you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone -
you love a stone.

And I’m found too fast, called too fond of flames,
and then I’m phoning my friends,
and then I’m shouldering the blame,
while you’re picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago.

You’re out singing songs,
and I’m down shouting names at the flickerless screen,
going fucking insane.
Am I losing my cool, overstating my case?
Well, baby, what can I say?

You know I never claimed that I was a stone.
And you love a stone.
You love white veins, you love hard grey,
the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape,
the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone -
you love a stone.

You love a stone, because it’s dark, and it’s old,
and if it could start being alive you’d stop living alone.

And I think I believe that, if stones could dream,
they’d dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece,
and turned into a castle for some towering queen
they’re unable to know.

And when that queen’s daughter came of age,
I think she’d be lovely and stubborn and brave,
and suitors would journey from kingdoms away
to make themselves known.

And I think that I know the bitter dismay
of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day
when she turned him away
to remember some knave
who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago...

The Vital Center

To add to the Chronicler's post on the vital center , this is a great piece by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. I just finished reading a book by Taibbi called The Great Derangement, where he infiltrates various American subcultures and reveals their tenuous grasp on reality-- Pastor John Hagee's fundamentalist christian church; the military; the 9/11 "truth" movement; and Congress itself. His thesis was that as America split further and further apart into various conspiracy theories and religious fantasies, the real threats to our nation--corporate control of government, idiotic wars, energy policy--were being ignored at our nation's peril.

So I was surprised to hear Taibbi sounding upbeat in his latest column, something he does not do once in his 300 page book (published in 2007, before the election). He makes some great points:

Like millions of Americans, I watched Barack Obama's victory on Election Night in a state of amazement.... Of all the problems facing this country by the end of the Bush years, the biggest is the absence of a unifying national idea. Since the end of the Cold War, America has been grasping left and right for an identity. We tried being a "world policeman" in Somalia, which didn't work so well. We tried retaining our Cold War outlook by simply replacing communists with terrorists. We created two bubble economies that blew up in our faces, and headed into 2008 a struggling capitalist state with a massive trade deficit and an overtaxed military that suddenly had to ask itself: For the supposed world leader in the community of nations, what exactly is it that we're still good at? Who are we, and what do we represent to the peoples of the Earth here and now — not in 1775 Concord, or 1945 Paris, or 1969, from the surface of the moon?

When Obama took the stage in Grant Park as president-elect, that question was answered. We pulled off an amazing thing here, delivering on our society's most ancient promises, in front of a world that still largely thought of us as the home of Bull Connor's fire hose. This dumbed-down, degraded election process of ours has, in spite of itself and to my own extreme astonishment, brilliantly re-energized the American experiment and restored legitimacy to our status as the world's living symbol of individual freedom. We feel like ourselves again, and the floundering economy and our two stagnating wars now seem like mere logistical problems that will be overcome sooner or later, instead of horrifying symptoms of inevitable empire-decline.

In other words, the momentum has been taken away from the fringes and returned to the pragmatic, forward-thinking center. I might add that my own family has been a microcosm of this evolution. Before Obama came along, one voted for Bush, one was an eclectic libertarian, and a couple were not really that interested in politics. And somehow Obama got us all pulling, and literally working, in the same direction. Not that the Lindquist's are representative of the world, but......its not a bad start.

Which do I choose?

Beards and Moustaches

I'm thinking third row to the right, six rows down. How distinguished!

A glimpse into what we were against

Scary.  So scary.  

The new patriotism

I just heard on CNN, Spike Lee say that "President Obama could only happen on one country in the world....America". Who thought patriotism could ever be cool again?

The value of this event will not be measurable in GDP, or interest rates, or the DOW Jones Industrial Average. But I know, I know, it will be worth more than any number any economist or any pundit can muster.

Politics is history in the present tense. Thats what a CNNian just said. Thats why I'm still sitting up at 1 am mountain time after being up for almost 24 straight hours, typing on a keyboard to remember what it felt like.

It happened, it actually happened

If I may speak for my generation, I may say that Barack Obama has saved us from apathy. He has saved us from not believing. He has saved us from the cold realizaiton that nothing we do matters. He has saved us from the night a couple of years ago, when I was struck by a group of my peers sitting around a campfire saying that neither political party had a shred of difference between them.

And this is all essential to saving America. If the smartest, savviest, most practical, most educated generation of all time gave up on America, what hope would be left for the world? If my friends, if my family, if my generation had given up on a united purpose, a call to public service, a belief in making this world just a little better than we had found it, what hope would be left? If we are all in this together, this global stew of races and ages and religions, who would lead it if not America? Who would lead it if not Barack Obama?

If Barack Obama has inspired us all to be poets, and to shed a tear on behalf of a world we had given up on in the past, has he through that alone already accomplished his purpose? Or is it just the beginning of what we must accomplish, if we are to leave the world better than we have found it?

Optimistically nauseous

Thats how one Obama aide described the feeling right now.

Bill O'Reilly: Bastion of Sanity

Sounds crazy I know. I was flipping around the AM dial and landed on his show. He took the first caller whose question was: "How long do you think before Obama tries to kick you and other conservatives off the radio and TV?"

Bill responded with derision: "If you think Obama is a muslim, or faked his birth certificate, or will try and kick conservatives off the air, you are crazy. He is a practical politician, and he knows the courts would never allow it."

The second caller was pissed at O'Reilly: "You know, there are a lot of us out here who think you have been an apologist for Obama these past few months."

Bill was even more pissed: "nobody who has interviewed Obama has asked him tougher questions than I did. But I am going to be fair to the guy." Or something like that.

Amazingly enough, in the coming conservative civil war, O'Reilly has chosen the side of sanity.

dangrously addictive

This link has somewhat taken over my thoughts.  I have 

become like a 13 year old with his new video game.  Play with 

the create your own map and it's like you are a CNN analyst.  

God and the Constitution

Linking button is still not working, but I had a thought in response to the claim on the Chronicler's blog that the Constitution was founded on Biblical principles. Could somebody point out to me where in the Bible the principles of the Constitution are located? Did King David write a psalm about the importance of separation of powers and freedom of the press? Did Paul take time out in his letter to the Thessalonians to discuss checks and balances or to set up an early christian electoral college and democracy?

Pardon my fascetiousness, but I would be interested in how someone who believes in a Biblical constitution would answer that question. Democratic governemnt was, In a very broad sense, a product of Judeo-christian thought. But most accurately the Constitution was a product of the Enlightenment and Western thought. I don't see a direct link to anything that is discussed in the Bible.

conservatism, again

The Chronicler takes another look at the direction of conservatism discussing EJ Dionne's article (my linking button is not working for some reason, sorry), which gives me a chance to come back to our earlier discussion on the subject. The Chronicler saw close up for fifteen years the healthy side of conservatism, and I agree that it was a strong pillar of thought. But after mulling it over for a while, what I think I was trying to get at is that the difficulty conservatism has faced, and will face, is that it is an intellectual movement on top of a base that does not value intellectualism. That was what I was trying to get at in our earlier exchange.

American conservatism will always face this internal contradiction. Like a birthday cake, an outer layer of conservative thought will always surround a much larger "conservative gut" that will always be essential for the movement's electoral success. These people have no idea who Kirk, or Buckley, or Strauss is. And they couldn't care less, although they share many of the same values and ideas. But the key point is that this conservative gut will go places that the conservative brain will not go, and have the numbers to carry the movement in that direction. This is why conservatism inevitably devolves to Bush and Palin. The urge to prevent change from happening, that visceral style of tribal politics that I identified as the core of conservatism eventually overwhelms a principled, thoughtful conservatism through sheer force of numbers.

So that is why when I hear the Andrew Sullivans and the Chroniclers of the world claim that "true" conservatism is being overrun, I am skeptical that they have ownership over what conservatism is when they are, alas, so outnumbered. And they always will be unless sales of Buckley start to rival Limbaugh's ratings.

Flash-In-The-Pan

The Caretaker speculates below on who might win Republican nomination in 2012.

I think in this environment, with the Republican Party about to collapse and burn, and the Conservative movement beginning to form a circular firing squad, it is simply impossible to foresee who will emerge to lead the 'new and improved' Republican party. It's probaby somebody that hasn't even showed up on the political radar yet.

My gut level is that while Sarah Palin will not disappear, she is still the equivalent of a flash in the pan. Too much superficiality (even her voice is annoying) and not enough substance to go very far beyond Alaska.

"the seventh seal is broken"

Email from a republican consultant focus grouping negative Obama ads that I mentioned last week:

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....

Baseless Speculation: Palin in 2012 edition

Just because it will be fun to look back and see how wrong I was:

The question going around the blogs right now is, assuming an Obama win, how do things go for Palin in 2012?

Palin has got a large group of base supporters if she wants them. But enough to win the GOP nomination? I don't think so. And this is why: I continue to believe that the next republican primaries will be heavily influenced by who was for and who was against the $700 billion bailout. McCain's last chance to steal this election was to come out against the bailout. It would have differentiated him from Obama AND Bush. But he didn't do it, and it will cost him. I saw a recent poll that said that 50% of Montanans are still against the bailout, with only 22% in favor of it. I would expect this is a common figure throughout the country.

This is why the bailout is key: after Obama and the Dems take over and the economy continues to sink the GOP will start to blame the crappy economy on government intervention. Nobody will believe them (at least for a while), but its the only card they know how to play. The bailout battle has been somewhat forgotten in the heat of the election, but I predict it will come back as the true litmus test for conservatives. Who was for it, and who was against it?

Unfortunately for her, Palin is tied directly to McCain and the bailout. Don't know how she gets out of that one.

Huckabee was pretty vocally against the bailout.

Romney, was for the bailout (he's a wall street kind of guy).

So I see the 2012 primaries shaking out this way: Palin is strong among the Limbaugh and "Obama is a Muslim" crowd. They will never vote for Huckabee because he is not a pure free marketeer nor willing to sound like a racist. That's still not enough for Palin to win though.

Romney takes the economic conservative/social liberal people and the wall street-money people.

And Huckabee rails against the bailout and big government while still offering his trademark compassionate message, and at the same time stealing southern evangelicals and joe six packs away from Palin.

Who wins out of all of this?

I think it would be close. But I'd put Huckabee at the top of the heat narrowly.

young'uns

This excellent discussion at Salon gets at the good side of our current youth generation, something I've thought about alot: we are liberal, but practical:

In the '60s and '70s, a lot of it was all about idealism. I think what we have today, in addition to all those wonderful demographics we heard about, these kids are very practical. Very pragmatic. This isn't about, be all good and all be altruistic and if we all make sacrifices, everything in the world will be fine in two weeks. This is a very practical, pragmatic group that understands, it's hopeful pragmatism, if you will, and that requires taking some action.