politics

Wednesday various

  • Yeah, I think John Scalzi pretty much sums up how I feel about last night’s election results:

    But as I’ve noted before, the GOP may have put a gun to the head of the Democratic majority in the house, but it’s the Democrats who said, “dude, you’re holding it wrong,” jammed the gun into their own temple, and then pulled the trigger. The most accurate word I have for my feelings about the Democrats right now is disgust; disgust that they could get elected on a platform of substantial change, execute on many of the changes they campaigned on, and then allow the GOP and its allies to turn those actions in liabilities — well, again, disgust is not too strong a word.

    Dear Democrats: You managed to lose the House in historic proportions to a party whose strategy was to harness the inchoate anger of old white people so stupid that they don’t sense the inherent contradiction of screaming about a smaller government whilst cashing their federal checks. You are morons. Please find someone who can play this game and put them in charge of your electoral strategy, because what you’re doing now isn’t working. Also, henceforth, every time you whine about Fox News and shadowy financiers of the Tea Party, we get to beat you with a hammer. This is the political landscape now. Deal with it

  • Not to knock a cure for the common cold, or the research that will have gone into it, but it seems to me there are significantly larger health risks that we face than sore throats, runny noses, and sneezes. Is the common cold the holy grail just because of its ubiquity? Is the idea that if we can cure that, we can cure anything?
  • I continue to find the story of Randy Quaid and his wife sad and strangely fascinating.
  • But at least Quaid’s just starring in movies I don’t want to go see. Some people divorced from reality actually got elected last night. It would almost be amusing if Rand Paul didn’t think there were any poor people, if he wasn’t now an elected representative.

    Frankly, it’s like Scalzi also says in that post above:

    And oddly enough, most people aren’t the whole package of white, male, heterosexually-paired and well-off. I’m puzzled that enough of you keep looking out for me, even when I really don’t want or need the help. Really, folks, I and people like me are fine. Take care of yourselves, please.

  • And finally, the Monolith Action Figure. Zero points of articulation! [via]

Election Night Special

Headed back downtown at lunchtime this afternoon, this time finding the place I was looking for, no problem. It’s amazing what happens when you turn the right way instead of the wrong.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful day, even what with it being Election Day here and everything. This year, they replaced the old voting machines, which I think were already old when representational democracy was first kicking around as a human idea, with a new paper ballot that’s then scanned into a machine. It felt simultaneously high-tech and very low-tech. But it couldn’t have taken, all told, more than five minutes.

I haven’t really been paying attention to the election results this evening, electing instead for a little calm, but I’ll admit to taking a little delight (or maybe just relief) at some of the Tea Party losses this evening. Although maybe that’s just because I know I have to steel myself to prepare for their wins. In New York, we have some important races this year, including for our new governor, but I don’t think Democrat victories were too surprising there.

And now, as I prepare for bed, allow me to leave you with Monty Python‘s “Election Night Special.”

Election night various

  • Some interesting Tea Party slogans [via]
  • “An Election” by John Scalzi
  • Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party:

    A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it. [via]

  • The AV Club on the Rally to Restore Sanity:

    Ultimately, I’m okay with the Rally being mostly pointless entertainment—I don’t know that it could have succeeded as anything else. And you’re right that it did promote conversation, at least among those of us who spend our time pontificating on the Internet about such things. But I’m left with a feeling of “Is that all there is? Is this the best we can do?” You said earlier, Steve, that while watching the rally, you were waiting for a moment of catharsis that never came; I think that’s because there’s no opportunity for catharsis when an event is built on a foundation of moderation and ironic distance. We wanted to feel like we were part of something big, a sum that was greater than its parts, but ultimately we were just a bunch of butts in seats—or shoes on grass, whatever—watching a spectacle unfold. I like spectacle, I think there’s a place for it in society and even politics; I just worry about it getting conflated with, or confused for, real action.

  • Also, their interview with Taibbi:

    Right, exactly. That short-term thinking, what’s so amazing about it is how widespread it is. It requires everybody to have that same mindset, not just these guys who work at AIG, for instance, who bet half a trillion dollars on mortgages knowing it’s eventually going to blow up their company. But they’ll get a huge bonus this year. It’s not just guys like that, it’s these politicians who work in the city of Chicago who know they’re doing a terrible deal, who know they’re going to lose their city billions of dollars in the end, but it’s going to get them through this year in the budget. It’s expedient for 10 minutes. After that, it’s someone else’s problem. I guess that’s one of the themes I was trying to get to in this book. One of the reasons this stuff didn’t happen before, I think, is that there was just a little bit more, I don’t know, patriotism, or decency, or whatever. I’m sure the opportunities to do this kind of stuff were there, but people just didn’t do them before. That change is pretty chilling.

  • Is it too late to claim that $1000 from the Christine O’Donnell campaign?
  • You know, I’m sure not all of Rand Paul’s supporters stomp on someone’s head and then demand that person apologize…Still, one seems like way more than enough. [via]
  • The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves. Amazingly, not a crazy Tea Party conspiracy theory. [via]
  • John Seavey on the Tea Party:

    Let’s be blunt and call this what it is: An attempt to rebrand the Republican Party in the wake of their disastrous performance over the last decade. The Tea Party is nothing more than the radical right wing of the Republican Party, and should be referred to as such. Anything else is just giving them exactly what they want: A chance to pretend that despite having the same worldview, policies, and goals for America, the Republicans of 2010 have nothing to do with the Republicans we’ve thrown out of office over the last four years.

  • This is about a month old, but it bears repeating: New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified
  • Along the same lines, here’s more from John Scalzi:

    I really don’t know what you do about the “taxes are theft” crowd, except possibly enter a gambling pool regarding just how long after their no-tax utopia comes true that their generally white, generally entitled, generally soft and pudgy asses are turned into thin strips of Objectivist Jerky by the sort of pitiless sociopath who is actually prepped and ready to live in the world that logically follows these people’s fondest desires. Sorry, guys. I know you all thought you were going to be one of those paying a nickel for your cigarettes in Galt Gulch. That’ll be a fine last thought for you as the starving remnants of the society of takers closes in with their flensing tools.

  • And while I’m at it, Scalzi’s thoughts on Atlas Shrugged:

    All of this is fine, if one recognizes that the idealized world Ayn Rand has created to facilitate her wishful theorizing has no more logical connection to our real one than a world in which an author has imagined humanity ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt.

  • All those people who’ve been shouting “I want my country back” at political rallies? Yeah, I’m with Robert J. Elisberg on this one:

    Me, I want my country forward. [via]

  • And finally, What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far. In case you were wondering.

Just a thought

If the Tea Party, a wildly divided group built largely on anger and frustration, lies and misinformation, who throws its support behind under-qualified and ethically questionable candidates like Carl Paladino and Christine O’Donnell, and whose most vocal spokesperson, who many in the Party would support in a bid for the Presidency, is a failed Vice Presidential candidate who quit halfway through her own scandal-ridden single term in major office and who brings misinformation and under-qualified to new heights — if this group can pose a serious threat to the Democrats in the midterm elections, maybe the Democrats don’t deserve to win today.

Thursday various

  • There’s water on the moon. What are we waiting for? [via]
  • I have to admit, when people talk about Doctor Who continuity, I just laugh and laugh and laugh. Case in point, the tempest in a teapot over how many regenerations the Doctor gets. Russell T. Davies, who recently changed it to 507, says:

    There’s a fascinating academic study to be made out of how some facts stick and some don’t—how Jon Pertwee’s Doctor could say he was thousands of years old, and no-one listens to that, and yet someone once says he’s only got thirteen lives, and it becomes lore. It’s really interesting, I think. That’s why I’m quite serious that that 507 thing won’t stick, because the 13 is too deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. But how? How did that get there? It’s fascinating, it’s really weird. Anyway, that’ll be my book in my retirement!

    Frankly, I sort of feel about it the same way I do when I read arguments like this, that Stephen Moffat’s characters are all Mary Sues. That’s an interesting and amusing idea, but it sort of ignores the fact that he — and in the case of the 507, Davies — is creating the show. It’s not fan fiction, it’s canon.

    And it was a canon that was ridiculously, horribly, gloriously, convoluted when they were both just fanboys watching it from behind the couch.

  • Kate Beaton on Dracula:

    Here we have Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a book written to tell ladies that if you’re not a submissive waif, society goes to hell and ungodly monsters are going to turn you into child killing horrors and someone is going to drive a bowie knife through your heart/cut off your head/etc. As you deserve! Thanks Bram! I wrote it down so as to remember it.

    There’s a little more going on it the book, but yeah, she’s not wrong.

  • Money Talks Louder Than Ever in Midterms. Looking at how campaign finance works now, thanks to decisions like Citizens United. It isn’t exactly pretty. [via]
  • And finally, Terry Gilliam’s next movie? No, not that Don Quixote adaptation he refuses to let go of? A filmette for NASCAR.

    With this and the recent Arcade Fire concert webcast — as well the opera he’s reportedly going to stage — Gilliam does seem to be picking some very weird, much smaller projects. Maybe he’s just trying to keep busy until some new kind of funding comes along?