Something Someone Else Said II

"Recently, since the election of Barack Obama, common sense has left the Republican Party completely. We are in the era of craziness. As David Frum has written, a deal was there to be made over the healthcare bill. Instead, this ideological purity blinded the GOP. As LBJ said it, instead of being inside the tent pissing out, we choose to be outside the tent, pissing against the wind. And we got splashed by our own nonsense. Why did we do that? Well, when a political party shrinks its electoral based to below 30% and is composed by one demographic group, all that is left are a bunch of zealots. We shrank it by kicking out of the party those who believe that abortion should be legal but limited. We shrank it by kicking out those who believe that an $11 trillion economy, like ours, needs a strong government, not a government that can be drowned in a bathtub. We shrank it when we sanctified Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, and canonized Sarah Palin. These are the leaders of my party nowadays. How did we go from William F. Buckley to Glenn Beck? How did we go from Eisenhower and Nixon to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann? I do not know. What I do know, however, is that these leaders remind of me of the leaders of the Whig Party. And if they continue on their nonsense, they will bring the collapse of the GOP." -Chris Currey, FrumForum.

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Something Someone Else Said

"I got an e-mail from a prominent Republican asking why I am so anti-Republican these days. Since many of my friends ask the same thing I thought I would share my reply:

I think the party got seriously on the wrong track during the George W. Bush years, as I explained in my Impostor book. In my opinion, it no longer bears any resemblance to the party of Ronald Reagan. I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider myself to be an independent. Mindless partisanship has replaced principled conservatism. What passes for principle in the party these days is “what can we do to screw the Democrats today.” How else can you explain things like that insane op-ed Michael Steele had in the Washington Post on Monday?

I am not alone. When I talk to old timers from the Reagan years, many express the same concerns I have. But they all work for Republican-oriented think tanks like AEI and Hoover and don’t wish to be fired like I was from NCPA. Or they just don’t want to be bothered or lose friends. As a free agent I am able to say what they can’t or won’t say publicly.

I think the Republican Party is in the same boat the Democrats were in in the early eighties — dominated by extremists unable to see how badly their party was alienating moderates and independents. The party’s adults formed the Democratic Leadership Council to push the party back to the center and it was very successful. But there is no group like that for Republicans. That has left lunatics like Glenn Beck as the party’s de facto leaders. As long as that remains the case, I want nothing to do with the GOP.

I will know that the party is on the path to recovery when someone in a position of influence reaches out to former Republicans like me. We are the most likely group among independents to vote Republican. But I see no effort to do so. All I see is pandering to the party’s crazies like the birthers. In the short run that may be enough to pick up a few congressional seats next year, but I see no way a Republican can retake the White House for the foreseeable future. Both CBO and OMB are predicting better than 4% real growth in 2011 and 2012. If those numbers are even remotely correct Obama will have it in the bag. Also, Republicans have to find a way to win some minority votes because it is not viable as a whites-only party in presidential elections. That’s why I wrote my Wrong on Race book, which no one read." -Bruce Bartlett, New Majority.

I'm pretty sure that I've voiced most of these political points before myself but I'm fairly drunk right now so I could be slightly wrong on that count. Regardless, I predict that the Republican party will wander in the political wilderness for many more years to come. Barack Obama is not the sophomoric lightweight most other Democratic presidents have been to date and I don't expect him to capitulate intellectually to his enemies the way his predecessors have. This is a brand new day and I expect to see new faces popping up in the political discussion soon. If I'm wrong this is where you can all chastise me for my ignorant naivete...

Bill O'Reilly: Still Crunching Those Numbers...

In a previous post I took FOX News to task for a misleading report about the Netherlands by using actual facts and data to counter their claims about Holland being a moral cesspool because of the high levels of atheism amongst the population there. Bill O'Reilly then followed this up by claiming that Amsterdam was being overrun by crime and corruption because of their permissive legalized drug and sex policies, which spurred a native Dutchman to make this video countering his claims.

Well now he's claiming the same thing about the Netherlands again but this time he's refuting the Dutch statistics using the same logic he once applied to Canada:


Is it any wonder I love watching this guy? In Bill O'Reilly's world (and it seems that most of the less intelligent right-wingers live in this same world) the United States is inherently superior in whatever category you're measuring simply because that's what they want to believe. Verifiable facts and provable data say something different? They use different math in those countries, what do you expect?! And failing that of course, just rub some Wikiality on it:

You see O'Reilly and Colbert don't need literal facts, just the right facts. And in both cases those facts are the ones they make up for themselves, the only difference being that Colbert is actually playing a character making fun of serial conservative liars like O'Reilly. I'll say it again: The bar for getting your own television show in this country is set depressingly low.

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Jumbo Elephant Landing

From Neatorama:

Here is a really neat PSA from the “International Fund for Animal Welfare” from Germany concerning the trafficking and buying of products made from protected and endangered animals such as the Elephant.

If you liked the flying penguins commercial you're going to love this:

The GOP Problem Solver

If their world-view included any semblance of honesty or nuance then perhaps it would be harder to write a computer program that exactly mimics their prescription for every problem under the sun but as things stand I'm afraid that this is the only recourse they have available to them. Sad.

Cartoon Of The Day

Um, kettle? This is pot: you're black.

10 Types Of Republicans

When you get past the annoying voices and Seussian rhyming, this little video actually does a fairly good job at dissecting the modern Republican party. Moderate Republican is my boy, but we all know how that story turns out:
If any of you find a comparable video on Democrats, send it to me; those guys annoy me too, just not as much.

Pachyderm Picasso

Ok, Ok, I know; just posting video after video is one of the signs of a lazy blogger but I assure you that I'm not being lazy. Just a lot to do lately and the weekends are slow periods as far as what's happening in the news, but I didn't want the site to seem fallow. I promise to have some more erudite musings in the near future.

So, one more amazing animal video and then I'm done with these. In the recent past I've posted a dancing walrus and a kung-fu bear and while this one is just as interesting it does move at a slightly slower pace. It's one of several elephants in Thailand who have been taught to draw self-portraits that are sold to pay for the reserves that protect them from poachers.

Although the skill involved does seem quite human, everything I've found on this topic says that they are merely mimicking pictures that they've already seen and not creating from pure imagination. To be expected but it's still impressive nonetheless: