The Olbermann Counter: Media BJs Given to Barack Obama to Date.. Clear History.. There Are No Adequate Words.. The Perpetual Motion BS Generator: Democrat Propaganda for the 21st Century..
IF YOUR LIFE ON THE WEB is running too s l o w, if your browsing and grazing at this site or that is just b o g g i n g d o w n, what do you do?
Like any good cybernaut, you look for the "techno-fix."
There are, of course, many fixes to find. New connections, new computers, new hard drives, new browsers, new plugins, and more. But the first thing everyone should do is to take the cure common to all cyberspace slowdowns. You click on your browser menus and tell it to "Clear History."
"Clear History" works wonders for your cyberlife. As you move within the web, your History grows, and the more History you hold the slower your web brain, your browser, thinks and acts. Thinking slowly and acting slowly may be wise in life, but it takes the zip out of your online drive.
When you "Clear History" your browser forgets all the places it has been, all the things that it has seen, all of what it has learned. All that bitsludge is wiped away and your browser's internal brain is made as smooth as a baby's bottom, as blank as a goldfish's brain. Things run faster, you get loaded more quickly and will probably stay loaded longer. You flash but you don't crash. Why would you? You've "cleared your history."
I probably didn't have to tell you to "Clear History." You knew it. Pretty much everyone knows it. But this better browsing tip seems, like many other dubious cyberspace insights, to have oozed out into the real world, into the world dimensional.
And when 2D goes 3D there's always a problem.
Applying cyberspace notions to the world at large, like beliving the Mapquest is the territory, is usually a mistake, but people, being people, are always eager to make new mistakes. After all, "cyberspace" explains so much, doesn't it? Cyberspace has become the new paradigm and controlling metaphor of our age, supplanting the use of the computer as the controlling metaphor in the last quarter of the 20th century, much as the idea of the "clockwork universe" caught on at the dawn of the Enlightenment as the Age of Reason was driven forward on the escapement of the highest tech of that time, the clock.
As humans, we prefer that our "things" define us. It is always easier to explain ourselves through things than to explain ourselves outright. If mistakes are made, well, "Things didn't work out."
Of course, during these intellectually eviscerated times we can look back on the clockwork universe of the Enlightenment as a time when giants walked Europe's Cathedrals of Thought; Newton, Descartes, Voltaire, Montaigne, Kant, Hume, Jefferson.... the list is, as you know, still dominant though it be mainly male, all dead and very white. They all rose up in the age of clocks but they, in a real and metaphorical sense, wound the clocks. They "had" time and they would never "Clear History."
As much as these founders of our world valued time, they valued History more. Out of that time and that History, the Enlightenment swept across the world. When that wave receded it left many gifts on these shores, not the least of which were "The Declaration of Independence" and "The Constitution of the United States."
The Declaration and The Constitution: These two artifacts of history were the quintessence of the most revolutionary ideas to arise in the mind of man since .... not fire or the wheel, but previous... previous.... long before... since standing up on the hind legs.
Both Democrats and Republicans have long understood one of basic truths about the US: "In America, you never outgrow your need for bullshit." The difference is that the Republicans seem to want to apply that maxim to make profits and get rich, while the Democrats want to use it to obtain power to take away the profits from the rich -and everyone else - through taxes and regulations.
When it comes to making money, the Republicans utilize bullshit brilliantly. Advertising, Marketing, Point-of-Sale, Packaging, Sales Pitches -- all these vast oceans of bullshit are theirs to command and control. Then it all goes to hell.
Strangely, Republicans can't seem to extend their talent for creating, managing, and deploying bullshit into the political realm. For when it comes to making propaganda for the political arena in 2008, the Republicans are running so far behind the Democrats that they are faced with a critical --perhaps lethal -- "Bullshit Gap."
The strategic "Bullshit Gap" in our politics is most obvious when contrasting the small flakes of bullshit drifting down from the John McCain camp these days with the radiant rays of luminous bullshit currently bedazzling millions when projected through the lens of the greatest JFK impersonator since Vaughn Meader, Barack H. Obama. But the bullshit gap is even visible in the small towns of America, those areas bypassed by the large mercantile bullshit generators of our culture and hence starved for fresh bullshit of any kind.
Not only does the Republican Party need to grow a pair, sack up, look to its roots, and stop losing, it also needs to .... GROW.... A.... BRAIN! I'm not sure who this party is paying to advise it about propaganda, message, logos, and slogans, but if they are paying them more than 25 cents and two Wheaties box tops, they need to get it back.
This item just in from RightWingBozo Central, D.C.:
"It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, "the change you deserve." - House G.O.P. Adopts Change Theme "
"The change you deserve!" Ah yes, that resonates with the American people.
Speaking for myself, I always expect to get "The change you deserve" in America. If I buy something for $4.95, I expect to get a nickel back. If I don't see that nickel in my hand, you'll hear about it. I like to toss nickels in the penny cup. Makes me feel rich. But as far is this "slogan" goes, I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel for it.
The fact that the Republican Party would even think of taking on a slogan like this confirms only that the Republicans responsible must have been given large shopping bags full of $100 bills from the Obama slush fund. I hope so. I can respect some old-fashioned bribery. Old fashioned stupidity is just too, too embarrassing.
If this is the best the Republican party can do, and more and more it looks like it is, I think they should forget "The change you deserve," and take up my own personal slogan for them that I minted a few months ago. It's free....
"I'm here to vote."
"Do I know you?"
"Sure you do. My name's Bill Smith. I'm a friend of Barry's."
"Oh, yes, you are quite clearly someone with whom I am personally acquainted. Go right ahead, Bill."
Polling Place 2 11:20 AM
"I'm here to vote for Obama."
"Do I know you?"
"Sure you do. My name's Will Smith. I'm a friend of Barry's."
"Oh, yes, you are certainly someone with whom I am personally acquainted. Go right ahead, Will."
Polling Place 3 12:20 PM
"I'm here to vote."
"Do I know you?"
"Sure you do. My name's William Smith. I'm a friend of Barry's."
"Oh, yes, you are indeed someone with whom I am personally acquainted. Go right ahead, William."
Polling Place 3 12:25 PM
"I'm here to vote."
"Do I know you?"
"Sure you do. My name's Bubba Klinger. I'm a friend of Hillary's."
"I'm sorry, you'll need to show me a picture ID and your current voter registration card."
"They told me you were a big Obama supporter, but I had no idea...." Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., greets Obama supporter Doris Smith during a campaign stop at Tudor's Biscuit World in Charleston, W. Va.
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2008) - A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet's crust to become locked in place.
Forget about that big quake in San Francisco! Party on!
Remember Americans, only YOU can prevent global warming! So be sure to recycle religiously, cram yourself into the smallest possible bicycle-powered car you can, use only one square of toilet paper, and change all your light bulbs to those crummy dull ones with a nice dab of mercury in the center.
China needs your help and hopes you are all just that stupid. Here's some China news by the numbers:
30: Number of nuclear power plants being built in China
500: The number of coal-fired power plants China plans to build in the next decade
97: New airports to be built in the next 12 years, bringing the total number to 244 by 2020
160: Cities in China with populations that exceed a million. In the USA there are nine; in the UK just two
0: Miles of motorway in 1988
30,000: Miles of motorway today
6.3 million: The number of passenger cars registered in 2007 (compared with 2.3 million in 2004). More than 1,000 new private cars hit the roads every day in Beijing alone.
Kids can be so cruel. Especially those kids in the cool kids' clique. Once they decide that somebody who was cool once is cool no more, there's no limit to what they'll do to get that person out of the clique. They'll shun her, they'll rank on her, they'll make fun of her pants suits, they'll even call her the baddest bad name they can think of -- "Racist."
Hillary was a cool kid once, but now she's cool no more. What made her cool -- "She's a chick running for class President! How cool is that?!" -- has been trumped by the coolest Democrat cool of all -- "He's a black guy running for class President! Dude!" You can't get cooler than that. There is no American cool cooler than black cool, especially if it shows up in sharp suits and talks smooth with only a soupcon of ghetto speak.
Obama is now the coolest kid in the Democrat clique. The clique, as cliques will, wants Hillary to butt out and just let him be Class President. They want her out before Democrat High gets together in the Denver gym to nominate their President.
After all, when everybody who's currently playing at Democrat politics was playing at high school politics popularity was always trumping real elections, real nominations. Why actually finish the race? It will only, so the polls say, underscore the real popularity and base that Hillary's won. It will only point up the deepening flaws in the Obama run. How uncool is that?
So Hillary should just realize she's now uncool and, well, "Just fuck off girlfriend!" She needs to get out before the cool kids have to do the really bad thing -- slap her with the Racist paddle, cover her with tar and feathers and ride her out of town on a rail. They're warming up the tar. It's at the melting point now. You can see the Racism paddle being dipped in the pot. Here comes the big smear. It's gonna leave a mark.
In her 93rd year, this happenstance kitchen collage of my mother's life is growing both richer and deeper. The image above is of what once was a bulletin board. It is kept in my mother's kitchen in her apartment to the rear of an unassuming but decent collection of apartments in the small city of Chico, California.
It's too bad the image of it is so small here on the page. But no matter how much I might enlarge the image of it, it could never be as big as what it represents. Although small in scale it is larger than the lives it chronicles. It is the sum of all love.
You'd miss that. If I could show it to you in real time and at its actual size, you'd still miss it. It would remain much as you see it here -- just a jumble of clips, slogans, photos, handicrafts and images. Aside from its complexity, it wouldn't mean all that much to you. These icons of other people's private lives never do.
And yet, if you have anything that even resembles a functioning family, there's a bulletin board like this somewhere in the various dwellings of your family. If you're lucky, there's more than one. You don't know what this one means, but you know what yours means. You know it all -- for better and for worse.
The horns of our illegal alien dilemma are simple to state. Those who oppose the illegals among us insist that the bulk of them, being Mexican, be deported forthwith from the soil of the United States. Those who support the de facto presence of these 17 million human beings assert that it is not only immoral but simply impossible to deport such a number. Both these propositions seem a bit extreme to me as well as unimaginative. Applying a bit of imagination to this clefstick yields an acceptable compromise.
While it is clear that allowing 17 million residents to break the law is unacceptable if you wish to continue a society based upon the law, it is also clear that sending anybody back into the global chancre that is Mexico against their will is immoral. Sending anybody to Mexico forcibly should be reserved as a punishment in our penal system, and not seen as a part of our immigration policy.
Indeed, most of the illegal and legal people of Mexican descent among us are here because their were both astute enough to see Mexico as it is, and resourceful enough to get the hell out of there. When all is said and done, the primary "cause" of illegal immigration is not that the United States is so great, but that Mexico sucks about as deeply as a country can and still not blow up. For the most part we benefit by receiving the cream of the Mexican gene pool any way we can get them. I present the wide availability of a decent mole sauce as exhibits A, B, and C. But still, the law is the law.
Remember Americans, only YOU can prevent global warming! So be sure to recycle religiously, cram yourself into the smallest possible bicycle-powered car you can, use only one square of toilet paper, and change all your light bulbs to those crummy dull ones with a nice dab of mercury in the center.
The horns of our illegal alien dilemma are simple to state. Those who oppose the illegals among us insist that the bulk of them, being Mexican, be deported forthwith from the soil of the United States. Those who support the de facto presence of these 17 million human beings assert that it is not only immoral but simply impossible to deport such a number. Both these propositions seem a bit extreme to me as well as unimaginative. Applying a bit of imagination to this clefstick yields an acceptable compromise.
