The Funhouse

Linda Ronstadt and Bobby Darin - Long Long Time

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Warren Zevon - My Shit's Fucked Up

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:05:00 +0000

The Late Great Warren Zevon RIP

How Wingnuts Roll.

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:23:00 +0000

Although I think most of the most rabid wingnuts are personal cowards in both the intellectual and physical sense, that is not what’s motivating them with all this oh noes, hand wringing shit. IMHO

I think at this point, it is pure unadulterated tribalism for a party and brand with three legs in it’s grave and the other slipping. Much as they now forget who GWB was, mainly due to him losing all power for their cravings in that regard, they still have center stage and defend his policies. Largely, because they believe in them, but also because what the hell else they going to do. They were spawned by Bush and Cheney and are children of the damned in that regard. Guarding the Alamo with little more than clenched teeth and spittle.

There are other, and somewhat more sensible and sane republicans out there, at least to know when to quit and do something new, or at least repackaged new. This is what’s behind the crazy tea bag shit and the crazier still notion they can sell it outside the wire of the south and a few other places. Desperation doesn’t care about the odds, it is seat pants flying of the cornered with no where else to turn.

The problem for the GOP and right sided people is there are so many of them, and they are well funded by other crazies that have money to keep it going, until all that is left is Bachmann, Steve King, Eric Cantor et al and the Titanic Stringed Quartet.

Then things might get a little better for them when the bottom comes up to hit them in the face.

Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for strings)

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:40:00 +0000

State of Health Care Reform

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:24:00 +0000

This has been the big error in dems and Obama’s initial rollout of hc reform, but they have corrected in time I think,. Beginning with the Joint Session speech where Obama laid it out better, and more to the point. Most folks are ok with helping out those who can’t get healthcare and from a distance can see problems with the system as a whole. But most have not had the experience of major illness or accident where they have to use the system in a big way.

On paper, their policies look good, but they have no way of knowing what would happen if they had to use it to survive and not go broke. Cases like Lee Benders are testament to this, and more folks are now coming around to the notion that even they with good policies are not secure and cannot depend on a scurrilous insurance institution to do what’s right when the chips are down.

So the numbers of people supporting a PO and all the other reforms have gone up since Obama has taken full time to the bully pulpit, and shot holes in the facade of lies put up by wingnuts and their ignorant mobs. Watching the Senate Markup, I am even more confident, that though it will be messy and tough, we are going to get a decent reform bill passed. Now that the public is starting to realize that nobody is safe with the status quo/

This has been you weekly Stuck See’s A Pony A Coming Through the Rye.

GOP Odds For 2010

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:54:00 +0000

It’s still too close to Bush for there to be a big GOP gain. They will pick up some seats they lost closely in wingnut districts, and if not this cycle, then the next will see the virtual extinction of the white democratic CC’r in the deep south. And I look for Landreux to fall, though she is tough as nails and could well pull it out.

The Senate lineup so favors dems in 2010, it should make up for any punishment by voters on the economy, that likely won’t start creating decent jobs till too late next year for it to matter.

And the pundits have a stake in keeping the numbers balanced to perpetuate the eternal dem/repub street fight. And for someone like Charly Cook to buckle to the rush predicting for dem defeat speaks for itself and the rest of the braintrust punditry. They are not so stupid as pure self interested. Though many are dumb as Turkeys.

Dick Cheney and the Conservative Movement

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:20:00 +0000

No. they have always been that way. It’s a pseudo philosophy that intellect or pure ideas can solve the problems of men. Like the free market model governing itself and a country. Pure ideology for success, until it’s put to the test. Then all the human failings and the angst and failure and redemption take hold, and they have no antidote for that. It becomes a disease to them to be shunned and that has thwarted their well thought out designs for harmonious existence.

That is why empathy has become the enemy. Because the day to day fumbling of human imperfect persons always beats the ideological in the end. Dick Cheney is the perfect leader for this cause because he runs on pure ideological thought of action reaction to solve every problem. And the action is always force of will, that too often simplifies itself to physical force of one kind or another.

But all of the work to build a “conservative movement” has itself dissolved in failure, as it was destined to once put to the test. Man is not a creature of predisposition to follow set rules that don’t account for human frailty. They don’t get this simple fact and are even blind to the fact that they also belong to it.

So now we see the aftermath of emotionally arrested people whose blueprint for governing a country that turned out to be a futile attempt to bypass the complexities of life here on planet earth. Nothing is left but resentment and bewilderment on how to proceed. And Cheney reminds them that force is always there to pick up and use one way or another. This is the tea bagging movement. A minority with no sanctioned power generates it’s own with pathetic attempts at intimidation to get their way. Cheney can’t help them, his room in purgatory has been decorated with the lost souls from which his actions turned them out early from this life.

Todays State of the Union

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:52:00 +0000

We have two countries IMO, and always have. And they are existing together only for reasons of shared wealth and defense, or potential for shared wealth. They are ideologically disparate and geographically divided which makes overt rebellion more possible.

I do believe the majority are 1st world citizens, but it is not a large majority, and there are enough who can be swayed by bullshit in any given election. It’s just a sense on my part, but I get the feeling that the bond to generate shared wealth is dissolving into concentrated ideology. I hope I’‘m wrong, but right now, doing away with the filibuster would go far in breaking the bond completely. Aggravating as it is.

And I think the founders knew this about the American condition from day one, and why they made the government we have, with shared powers, and means for the minority to participate in the debate and have some favors of their own, by codifying the debate as extended.

It is also why we only change when in genuine crisis, whatever the issue is that’s causing the emergency. No way to run a country, but it’s what we have.

The Color of Wingnut

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:09:00 +0000

Talking about racial stuff is uncomfortable. And when I do it I feel like I am doing something wrong, and using it as a political weapon blithely. I figured there would be some of it bubbling up from some quarters on the right, but pieces like this Mccain dude and all the birther shit and behaviour at the teabagging parties has surprised this early on.

And now with the speech to students, it seems like whatever coding for it is being rapidly rinsed away and it soon will be more overt than we’ve seen since the 60’s. Even the talking heads like Mathews et al are citing it as fueling the over the top emotion coming from the right. There are legitimate ideological differences present, but the blanket rage and irrational myths being propagated and apparently believed by a large faction on the right can’t be explained away from just political disagreement.

And Obama is not doing anything that wasn’t declared by him during the campaign, and sometimes I wonder if his recent timidity isn’t just a kneejerk reaction to not fan the flames any more than they are. It is going to get uglier and uglier. The subliminal messaging from the right is do what we want or else, It wreaks of entitlement in the extreme, combined with mob hysteria and a complete lack of intellectual engagement toward reasonable compromise.

The GOP State of Play

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:14:00 +0000

What the GOP is doing is nothing less than what they tried to do with Lincoln before the Civil War. To zero in on the most primal core of human fear, or that what is most different and unknown to the prevailing pale skin public.

The cartoons and fearmongering about lending equality to black skinned peoples from exotic lands far away was the only real weapon they had against a man who had bonded with so many. Even in the north, that was basically against slavery, racism of the kind lending to full equality was exploitable by southerners and their sympathizers before

Abe was finally elected and then re-elected, so it didn’t really work, but caused much more unnecessary divisiveness beyond Lincoln’s sole promise to end slavery by whatever means necessary.

Lincoln was never about granting full equality to blacks, just to end the practice of slavery. Notwithstanding efforts of his enemies to portray full equality as what he was secretly after. Sorta the same with Obama on about anything he’s for, it is warped into something false.

Now these same nativist whites who fear a loss of power are playing the same cards of rank skullduggery and loud and persistent fearmongering lies to reach that core of insecurity the majority white folks naturally have. Someone different that they, a person representing at once a chance for many to be free from overt bigotry that they have scratched and clawed out of not all that long ago, but also opening the possibility of sliding back into the paranoid grips of racial anxiety.

This second thing is what the wingnuts are banking on, though disguised with labels of commie, muslim, Nazi. or whatever. It is about race, added onto at least semi-legitimate political ideological disagreements. And what is surprising and what makes it so dangerous, is the Right Wing brain trust actively and passively promoting it, in some desperate hope it will win them back in favor and power from a country that has shown them the door without courtesy, for epic failures of governance.

Allahpundit and The Boss (Malkin)

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:05:00 +0000

Allahpundit used to have a functioning brain cell or two, for a winger. He has gone full raving tea bagging fool lately. His latest cause is torture apologist and all the winging wraiths he calls commenters make me wonder if the Death Panel thing might worthy of actual debate.

He and Ed and the rest of Chickenhawk Brigades hide behind layers of wetsuit protected registration blog boards, where no one can question their dedication to turning America into Idi Amin’s wet dream of screaming cell blocks manned by squads of patriotic fingernail pullers. Meanwhile, the The Monster Queen lays egg after egg of hate filled wanking wingnuttery to kept the Mighty Wurlitzer turning.

Fuck em with abandon. They are not my countrymen, regardless of technicalities.

Wingnut Saturday - TK Funeral Edition

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:16:00 +0000

Jaysus Christ on a pogo stick. JUst was reading the braintrust over at Protein Wisdom. Jaw dropping concern for the integrity of Teddy’s funeral service and all that, shameless libtards. In between screes of “hope Ted Kennedy burns in hell”. someone mentioned Sarah pimping Trig on anti-abortion politicking and of course that was different. Also.

Then there’s Bush filling the east room with “Snow Flake” babies to justify his culture of life numbnuttery on Embyo Stem Cells. The ones in in-vitro clinics waiting for the dumpster.

All this on a day the WAPO goes all in for the neo-con torture project. And BTW, though I don’t often read Sullivan because he really is a republican on most issues, he is spot on today in rebuttal to the WAPO nonsense. A must read.

The idiocracy never rests, not for a single damn day.

Wingnut Saturday

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:15:00 +0000

They are completely insane. Even some of the ones who made an effort to not be, or at least sound that way. They are digging through ancient files of past wingnuttery, and bigotry (see NRO wistfully recollecting it’s segregationist past for a little modern day spit and polish) in efforts to find a new and improved narrative that will pass muster with the intractably crackered core of the GOP. It will take of lot dolling up the facts for prime time, but it’s all a long war anyways. Unless it jumps to the real thing of politics by other means./

What Was Old Is New Again

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:29:00 +0000

When you think about it, what route to electoral success does the RW have left. Their economic theories have run the country into a fiscal ditch/ And as older whites die off, the old wedge social issues of gay marriage etc,,,,, are dieing off with them as younger voters take their place with more acceptance,

They have completely screwed themselves with HIspanic’s ,with all the Xenophobic wingnuttery, and blacks have long since slammed the door in their faces, despite the RW intelligentia efforts to make the GOP a more welcoming place for them, only to be undercut by the anti-affirmative action crowd hollering about white mans angst.

Might as well go all in for white power to save their raggitty asses from a permanent minority. I look for more and more desperate devolution to past racial and ethnic roots, and maybe even sectarian anxieties of the white populace. Especially in the south, in an attempt at electoral evening out since white anglo saxons are still the majority in this country.

They will succeed only in paring down the remaining faithful to an even more distilled wingnut, but they will be loud and increasingly more seditious. There is really no other course other than to split the GOP into two separate parties which would further isolate them in a static minority, at least in the short term. They cannot ever coerce the screaming teabaggers into moderation because they currently have the numbers to beat back any effort to do so.

Rock and a hard place for the right, and a damaging course for the country as a whole to have one third of it’s citizens afflicted with the rage virus.

Bi-Partisan Time is Up

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:53:00 +0000

I don’t really blame Obama for giving it a go at the bipartisan approach. This is the dudes style and who am I to pan it. But it is rapidly coming time to fish or cut bait.

And after Grassely’s nutty endorsement of Palin’s Death Panel shit, it is now time to cast aside any hope of getting a few GOP votes in the Senate. Obama knows and every dem on Capital Hill knows, that the wingnuts were never going to let government touch their precious cash cow we call our Health Care System, at any degree more than it does now with medicare, which they hate with a white hot passion.

Political Kabucki has it’s place, but is not the game. And as surely as repubs won’t vote for govment involvement, there are a plethora of progressive dems in the House who won’t vote for a meaningless bill, with no PO. This die was cast before the curtain even opened. We have heard a lot about the Blue Dogs, but they are only about 50 in number. There are a whole lot more liberal House members.

Obama’s error and dems in the Senate was letting the Senate Finance committee drag out their non-sense and become THE focus of attention. I suspect the corrupt Baucus and his winger pals were more than delighted they could.

But this isn’t an election year, thank Gawd. And when congress returns and hands are forced, we will have something solid to debate and the largely pre ordained drama will play itself out, and it will come down to Senate dems having the gumption to go it alone and do the right thing, or not.

I really don’t think we are going to get a bill without a strong PO. The House liberals, even though they are presently quiet, won’t have it. So it will be either a good bill, or none at all. Opinions are like A-holes, everbody got one. This is mine.

That Was Then, This Is Now

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:19:00 +0000

It isn’t 1970 anymore and moderates and independents are wiser from suffering 15 years of GOP congress control and the past eight of Bushism. No going back to the old race baiting, God, Guns and Gays, at least for the foreseeable future.

Economic destitution wrought by the goopers still trumps faux patriotism wedge plays and hate mongering has permanently turned off NE fiscal conservatives. And young people are having none of the old bullshit. Throw in thoroughly alienated Hispanics from the RW Xenophobes and the gettable vote contracts even more.

The only viable card in the winger deck is spending/deficit concerns that are at least legitimate. But the racial fears, anxiety, and outright hatred are mussing up any message on spending trepidations of the center. Welcome to the GOP entrenched southern base and the blood curdling Rebel Yell serving as political debate for hope and prosperity. You bought it wingnuts, now you own it.

I Call Your Death Panel and Raise a Denial Engine

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:41:00 +0000

Sarah says democrats want to establish “Death Panels” to deny health care.

I give Sarah the “Denial Engines” currently being used by private insurers to deny claims when people get sick.

“Denial Engines” exist and are killing people, Government “Death
Panels” do not, nor will they ever. Herein lies a lie versus the truth.
There are many more.

The problem is bound to grow as insurers make use of
sophisticated data tools dubbed “denial engines,” which are touted to
reduce reimbursements by 3 to 10 percent. Bearing brand names like
Ingenix Detection Software and Bloodhound Technologies’ ClaimsGuard,
they search patient records for any signs that claims have strayed
outside company parameters. Weeding out fraud or speeding up processing
is one thing; serving up excuses to deny legitimate coverage is another.

Technology of death.

Hummer live cam

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Hummercam

The Cranberries - Zombie

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:39:00 +0000

The World of Megan Mcardle

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Here is another Mcardle article on how people who don't pay their own medical bills do not add on to the rising cost of healthcare. She uses a graph by AEI to show the level of Veterinary care people pay for their pets is commiserate with the what the country spends on healthcare. both of which rise at same rate.

the graph is a gross total expenditures for pets and people health care and not per capata, or doesn't account for the fact there are more people than in 1984 with steady population growth. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but wouldn't more people also mean more pets and vet visits overall during this time frame and account for the lineal correlation?

anna nalick - breathe (acoustic)

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:20:00 +0000

Geihtners New Plan Like Old Plan

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:06:00 +0000

Seems to me what Obama/Geithner are going for is short term gain for the quickest way to unfreeze credit which greases the wheels of commerce as it is currently designed. Therefore, It is is more a political plan for recovery than a long term plan for economic reconstruction, and actually lessons the immediate political hazard for Obama. The overwhelming percentage of the public does not care much for long term reform and simply wants the good times to roll again. They may be outraged that people who caused the problem, are getting made whole again, but that will be a shallow concern compared with a higher DOW and a return to easy credit and more jobs.

The problem is, that it is setting the stage for another disaster likely worse than this one down the road, unless the business model is changed as the Krugman’s of the world are rightly demanding. Far be it from me to guess accurately what Obama is thinking, but maybe he figures he can reform an economic engine better and with help from congress, if it is actually running and not dead as now. Krugman wants the changes now, but he is not a politician and doesn’t factor in the reality of politics into the equation as a limiting factor on a presidents elbow room for passing legislation.

I will have hope if this plan is followed up with brisk new regulations and necessary structural changes to our econ model, that is if temporary economic improvement doesn’t once again breed complacency.

A layman’s take

Comrade Stuck Ponders the Conservative Mind

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:17:00 +0000

Question posed by Comrade Jake -- I struggle to understand their worldview at times, and so I find it interesting when it’s defended intelligently

Comrade Stuck responds

I’m convinced that much of their worldview is a contrived amalgam of contrarian ideas often taken to extreme to set them apart from so called liberals.

Why would they do this? The better question might be what is it that motivates your average wingnut, more than anything. I think it’s a need to control that comes from a kind of systemic innate permeating fear. And what do people who are always afraid about everything do to compensate? They need to control their external world, and if they can pull that off, then they can not be afraid.

We live in a democracy where people vote for their leadership and offer solutions to make people feel secure and well off. So any party or group that wants to strike at that deepest primal need of feeling safe and secure will likely get more people to vote for them. Some of these folks are sincere in their beliefs and longing for a more controlled and ordered society. But many are nothing more than huckster charlatans who covet power.

A large number of us see this onerous tactic for what it is, and will likely never buy in. But there are those who are at times susceptible, and give in to let these people into power, and they do things like wiretap, torture, subvert science and mold the constitution into all sorts of means to further control and to enhance their power.

Up until GWB/Cheney, the country had chosen mostly people on the right who don’t necessarily have this perverted worldview, at least to a significant degree. We made a mistake but luckily have woke up and threw the bastards out of power, but the damage and legacy remains of a party geared to this sort of crap, mostly derived from southern ideology, with leadership and punditry frantically trying to keep it alive. We must not let them and work relentlessly to kill the beast, or at least send it into political oblivion.

End of sanctimonious rant.

Comrade Stuck Disembles On the Douthat Choice

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:52:00 +0000

A stream of conciousness rant not meant as too serious.

It’s kind of amusing to me that people parse through these guys who right from the right, searching for a sensible conservative who understands the true meaning, like it was some mystical ancient belief system that needs to be carefully unwrapped from it’s former self, in a simple way we can understand.

I don’t think it’s at all complicated or mystical, it has just been thrown under the bus at least since Bush SR. was presnit. Conservatism by definition is efficient simplicity. But not without the epoxy of responsible to hold it together. Lower taxes, but not so low it threatens the economy and the viability of the government to function. Be ready for war, but don’t go looking for them. Only enough regulation to not overtly kill people with industry, and on and on. There are many nuances to these principles that an opposition party is needed to provide more protection and met needs of average citizens, comes the liberals/progressives.

The problem is, that the GOP has become infected with a virile strain of an atavistic ideological virus that covets authoritarianism and social Darwinism above all else. It has always been present in this country and has raised itself again as current the leadership of the Republican party.

People giving voice to how it should be is a good thing, I suppose. And who does that matters for an influential newspaper, but only action on the ground will change things. If Douthat, or whoever, uses such a position to agitate for a new way, and likely a new party for a decent and truly patriotic party from the right, then I will listen and care. Because we operate without a viable and responsible opposition party at our peril. If it’s just more careful noodling to not offend, then I won’t listen and won’t care.

Question For a Blog Crawl

arnold40zz@gmail.com (nightjar) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:51:00 +0000

Has Howard Fineman gone insane? Or is he just funnin’ us?
You decide.

A Turning Tide?

Swimming in the middle, he’s denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats.

Mysterious technocrats? Does he mean bobbleheads on Cable News? Or Malkin’s Magoo Crew?

Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK’s.But, in ways both large and small, what’s left of the American establishment is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking.

The American Establishment—Does he mean House Republicans? Chuck Norris? Glenn Beck?

And yet he is by temperament judicious, even judicial. He’d have made a fine judge. But we don’t need a judge. We need a blunt-spoken coach.

Last week Fineman et al were bitching that Obama needed to sweet talk talk us and the markets more about how ever thing is gonna be alright. Instead of all that pooh poohing blunt talk about how bad things are.

If the establishment still has power, it is a three-sided force, churning from inside the Beltway, from Manhattan-based media and from what remains of corporate America. Much of what they are saying is contradictory, but all of it is focused on the president:

The Establishment, or the Three Stooges of brain death.
Medicine, Howard, you need medicine!