Decius wrote:
I don't feel it. Our politics has become deeply partisan. Few people are willing to maintain a healthy disengagement from identification with one of the ruling parties. They use the network to seek out information that confirms their prejudices, true or not. There are minor ways in which this helps. I can access legislation being considered, and I can speak out. But there are major ways in which it doesn't help. People do not know how to think critically. They don't really seek truth. They seek social validation. The truth is rarely the most comfortable option. It has a tendency to challenge you.

I have mixed fellings on this matter.

On the one hand, I see parallels in this discussion to the long (and unnoticed, alas ;) commentary I made about music in this age. I think the foundation exists, but the tools don't yet. We're in the relative stone age... blogs are a lot like newspapers writ small and the much vaunted transformative power of the internet in politics has been, to date, in fundraising and the dissemination of information to the base. The tools to do more than that are in progress, but I think they'll get there in much the same way that I'm hopeful that the tools to find and enjoy a lot more different artists will eventually come into being.

At present, there is certainly a strong echo chamber effect, in which people look to have their opinions validated and get that satisfaction, but at the same time, these blogs couldn't exist without a healthy stream of oppositional writing either. That is, a lot, i dare say most, of the content of the lefty poliblogs are rebuttals or excoriations of righty poliblogs or politicians. That means, at least, that the writers have probably read an opposing view point. At least some of the readers will take the time to do the same, perhaps at first in order to get fodder for their own disapproval, but eventually one is forced, i think, with the fact that reading a viewpoint *only* to find stuff to thrash is a waste of your time... it's more useful to actually critically evaluate it.

Too, i think it's necessary to view this all in the context of the present offline climate, to the extent it's separable. I mentioned in another post earlier that there has been a concerted effort on the part of an influential and determined conservative base to actively undermine the value of subtlety, nuance and reasoned discourse. Starting with the derision of "massachussetts liberal elites" through to the false everyman populism of W and his ilk, and most crucially the framing of every issue as one of good versus evil. When you begin to frame everything in absolutist terms, there's no room for negotiation or subtlety, only opposition. When one position is thought to be absoultely right, then there is no other alternative but that any other position is absolutely wrong. I don't know that the internet can, itself, have much of a positive or ne... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

Maco wrote:
If any Republican wins (I hope not...), looks like it better be McCain based on that. Based on other stuff, I've no idea. I'm not going to vote for a Republican, and I'm not going to bother picking one out to vote against before primaries.

I'm with you. I wanted to discuss the abortion questions, and since the site won't let me recommend a story twice, or reply twice to the same post, I guess I'll do it here...

And I think that's the thing we've got to really look at here, is, what are we doing? We talk about abortion, but abortion is a procedure. This is a life that we're talking about. And it's a terrible situation where there's a rape that's involved or incest.

But it nonetheless remains that this is a child that we're talking about doing this to, of ending the life of this child. Will that make the woman in a better situation if that's what takes place? And I don't think so, and I think we can explain it when we look at it for what it is: a beautiful child of a loving God, that we ought to protect in all circumstances in all places, here in the womb, somebody that's struggling in poverty, a family that's struggling. We should work and look at all life, be pro-life and whole-life for everybody.

I want some pro-lifers who share the aforementioned mindset to square that opinion with the universal Republican tenet of personal responsibility and a federal government that provides little to no entitlement programs.

I hear the above over and over again, and I've never once heard a mainstream candidate discuss the social and financial burden that child represents, and what the country's going to do about that. If someone has, I'd love a link or transcript.

Instead, it's all about protecting the life of the child and in other places about dismantling social programs in order to reduce taxes. How is it protecting a child to ensure that it must come to term in an environment that hasn't put into place a support structure to pay for it's existence?

You want to blame the kids who got drunk and got pregnant and say "Well, that was your fault... deal with the repurcussions." well, that's bad enough, but I'll call it ok for now. But in the case of a rape? You say the woman must come to term, then I say -- well, of course, I actually say that's bullshit and oppose it, but for the sake of this experiment, let's say -- that *AT LEAST* the government has a responsibility to ensure that funds exist for pre-natal care, child support for a woman who's raising this kid she didn't ask for or want, counseling services, daycare, medical benefits where necessary, educational stipends, etc. etc.

You *can* *not* force someone to do something against their will, due to an act that not only wasn't their fault, but in which they were a victim of a violent crime, and then cut them loose with regards to the costs inherent in that. I still don't consider such a situation morally sound, but even from the standpoint that abortion is murder I can't imagine less than what I've described could be considered an acceptable situation. "It's up to the community" is a bullshit non-response I've heard -- we all know just how open and supportive most people are when they don't have to be.

For once I'd like to see someone express a consistent support for "life" when they take a pro-life stand. As it is, they're not pro-life at all, just anti-abortion, and there is a WORLD of difference.

RE: Republican Presidential Candiates on Torture

Here is my selected exerpt, with some content cut and some emphasis added...

[Well, there we go. Not that there was much chance of me supporting these candidates, but they've pretty much all gone out the window for sure now. McCain's the only one with a reasonable response, but he's out for other reasons. Fuck all these guys. -k]

Republican Presidential Candiates on Torture

A Galveston County grand jury will decide today whether to indict an Arkansas man accused of burning his 2-month-old daughter's face and left hand by putting her in a motel microwave oven.

Oh, Texas!

Dad allegedly microwaved baby in Galveston | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Here's a clip of ABC's upcoming pilot, Cavemen. "I really like the Cavemen, I thought it was a great idea for a show," said a moron while high on drugs.

Yup, it's based on that Geico commercial. And no, they didn't get the original actor who was really the only good part of those commercials.

O. M. F. G.

I thought we had already hit rock bottom, but there's a ways to go yet it seems...

The clip is here.

ABC describes the show as "a hilarious and thought-provoking social commentary on race relations in today's America."

Um. Yeah.

I Watch Stuff! - See This Clip of Cavemen Before it Goes Way of Dodo

Yes, this is all truly impressive. Glorifying pedophilia with Lolita references is super cool, Marilyn. Why you didn't take it one step further and dress her up as Jon Benet Ramsey or Polly Klaas is beyond me. How about next time you impress us all with a "real" disappearing act, and take your trendy, pain in the ass, pseudo-nonconformist, Hot Topic shopping fans with you. Really, it would be a breath of fresh air if you did something different in your videos like, say, learn how to sing. At this point you should just suck it up and go on tour with Britney Spears.

Yeah, more crucial than any tastelessness (what are we to expect, afterall) is the degree to which this video, song and lyrics SUCK COMPLETE ASS. It looks like some retarded film student's sophmore project work. From a shitty school.

I can't even contemplate how bad this is.

IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com: Marilyn Manson is a Pig

I'll make this quick, as it incenses me to the point of wanting to fly out to El Reno, Oklahoma and throw my laptop at the first person who looks at me the wrong way.

It's within that quaint, Midwestern town that a scandal is raging which has attracted the attention of hack news managers from coast to coast. It concerns a local school teacher who's under fire after a topless picture of her began circulating among students. Parents are of course calling for her immediate death by immolation, and school administrators are trying to decide how to judiciously handle the situation.

Did I mention that the topless picture was tucked away among the digital photos on her personal cell phone, and that the innocent and wholly unimpeachable lambs whom the parents are so desperate to shield from corruption never could've seen the offending image without taking -- or at least finding -- the phone and going through it? Or that upon discovering the picture, they then text messaged it to half the school?

Deus Ex Malcontent: Learning Curves

I'm sure Dems will do their best to commit political suicide by pressing this issue right through a massive terrorist attack. Fundamentally the American public expects any President post-9/11 to do whatever it takes to stop terrorists. Civil rights concerns be damned. Pushing legalisms only tells Americans one side is not serious about fighting terrorism. I'm sure Bush wants to be thrown into that briar patch.

Levaing aside the actual article, this is the scariest thing I've read in weeks. People actually think like this.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Full Transcript of Comey Testimony on NSA Surveillance Program:

Adam said :

The Reverend Jerry Falwell, a leading US conservative evangelist, has died in hospital in Virginia after being found unconscious in his office.

assumming their is a God, which I don't believe but for the purposes of this just suppose, then I would love to have seen Falwell's reaction when he was sent to Hell for being a self-righteous bigot and in violation of everything Jesus said about the meek, humility, praying quietly at the back of the church, the widow's mite and money and wealth in general, casting the first stone, judge not lest ye be judged (well indeed i'm now in violation of that precept but i've tried to live by it not spent my life flagrantly flouting it).

That "judge not" line has always been one of the hardest for me to follow... there's a difference, I think, between making an assessment of someone and passing judgement, insofar as one is final and one leaves room for revision, at least intellectually. But some people you really do know pretty well, because they're public figures, and their deeds are likewise public. So in this case, I'll feel free to judge : Falwell deserves a measure of the pain he's inflicted in his life of falsity and hate. A heaping measure.

I'm still on the fence about wether there's any one or any thing out there providing it right now, but that's unknowable...

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US evangelist Jerry Falwell dies

In the good old days when print was king, nobody spoke ill of the dead, and if someone did, nobody else would know about until the obituaries came out the next day. As we all know, with the rise of the blogosphere things have changed; still, the death of Jerry Falwell today seems to have set new heights in terms of both haste and venom. Here is a sampling:

The friendly folk at Wonkette are typical: “At a time like this, people deserve sympathy and good wishes … except for Falwell,” the blog notes. “Over his long career as a vile televangelist building an empire of bigotry from the donations of poor people, Falwell has supported South African apartheid, called AIDS an invention of Jesus to punish gays, attacked Martin Luther King and U.S. civil rights, and blamed 9/11 on feminists and homosexuals.”

[ Could the NYT come off any more fucking stodgy and pretentious? "The good old days when print was king" my ass. I'm not saying I don't miss certain things about those days, like journalistic integrity and well conducted research, but crimony. Talk about self serving crap. I thought the Times was better than that. As for the premise, it's also stupid. People have always spoken ill of the dead in certain forums, particularly when the person who died was a fucking intolerant, hypocritical asshole. The fact that the web now shows us that hardly bothers me. I'm not saying everyone should just go free-for-all and toss respect out the window, but there's a time and a place for haste and venom, and I think the Times sounds antiquated when they argue for a return to a time when everything was better. Not to mention the fact that I don't think that time has ever existed. Everytime i hear "the good old days" utterered seriously I cringe. It's a myth, and it always has been. -k]

The Opinionator - Opinion - New York Times Blog