I’m happy that Scott Brown ended up defeating Martha Chokely for Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat. I know, I know. It’s not Teddy’s seat. It’s the PEOPLE’S seat. I get it already. Populist anger makes for good bumper stickers. I hope Brown does the right thing and gives David Gergen a cut of the royalties.
But I should be a lot happier. We (the Republicans, in this instance) just won a Senate seat in Massachusettes. Sure, I mean we took it from a wicked retahdid chowda head who had a better chance of seeing Flipper swimming in Boston Harbor than winning a contested election, but, hey, we’ll take what we can get, right? It was a referendum on ObamaCare and Obama himself, right? Right?! Then why do I feel like this was not so much Winning One for the Gipper as it was floating one for him.
Maybe it has something to do with us celebrating like we won the World Series (Curt Schilling – MVP) when all we’ve done is obstruct the other guy’s shot at fixing a system that we all agree is broken. Am I too naive to think that if we had more in the way of ideas and solutions, we wouldn’t so easily resort to obstruction and other weasel tactics for fear that the other side would pull them on us the next time we have a great idea? Did I hear an echo? The next time we have a great idea, idea, idea, idea. Am I alone? Or am I just …….. All this does is ensure that nothing will ever get done unless one party holds a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. This is the political equivalent of the military’s MAD. Anybody up for a game of Tic-Tac-Toe or Global Thermonuclear War? We’ll need something to keep us occupied while we’re doing nothing in Congress for at least the next 10 months while Joshua and the WOPR are figuring out that the ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.
So it is finally 2010. That’s a date that has invoked images of flying cars, alien invasions, personal jet packs, and time travel for Publius since childhood. As for my childhood, I always had these weird, hazy prophetic dreams involving animals and food, but I could never figure out what they meant. There was the one about a Tiger getting beaten up by a Fox. A pineapple giving some cabbage to a newt so he won’t get eaten by a donkey. A hound getting in trouble with a coyote for chasing a gordita. Weird stuff.
Publius asks, “Can our authors and commentators do any better?” with their 2010 predictions than prognosticators past? My prediction: Maybe.
Mr. Kotter’s bold predictions for 2010:
- Bacon will formally join the pantheon of condiments and be placed on restaurant tables in red shakers.
- Mark McGwire will resume usage of performance enhancing drugs after watching clips of his interview with Bob Costas. To enhance believability. They won’t work.
- In a bid to satisfy America’s growing appetite for healthy, yet convenient white meat options, the Tyson Foods will genetically engineer a chicken that is 98% breast with only 1 large bone. They will call them, “White Meat Roasters.” We will call them, “Pam and Tommy Reconciliation Roasters.”
- A music fan will go to a concert and have the entire first freaking verse of his favorite song destroyed by fellow concert goers who insist on shrieking like 13-year old girls who just saw the New Moon trailer for the first time because they recognize the first few bars. “He’s playing a song I recognize! What were the odds?! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!” (high clap)
- PETA will piss off the wrong people. It will go something like this.
- Rush Limbaugh will receive a heart transplant. From a Haitian. This will fulfill the seventh prophecy and irony will descend upon the world for the next 1,000 years.
- Nebraska’s unicameral legislature will sponsor Lance Armstrong’s run for the 2010 Tour de France Yellow Jersey. The slogan: Our One is Just as Good as Your Two.
- Massengill and Summer’s Eve will sue the bejeezus out of Pat Robertson for misappropriation of likeness. The 700 Club will pray to God for donations to cover legal fees. God will send a thunderstorm of vinegar and rose petals.
- Cold Case investigators will make an arrest in the 1983 death of Sesame Street’s beloved Mr. Hooper. Ernie will be indicted on charges of 1st-degree manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. He will be replaced by John Boehner (R-OH).
I thought I’d never have a worse day, Double Standard, than when you left that Dear John letter on my kitchen counter:
November 5, 2008
Dear Mr. Kotter,
We’ve had a lot of fun these past eight years. Our walks in the park, trips to the farmers’ market, the aneurysm-inducing mental editing before we spoke of anything that had a remote possibility of even tangentially being misconstrued as racist. But I think all of that’s over now. Barack Hussein Obama is our new President. We had a lot of fun with that one on the campaign trail, didn’t we? I never felt more alive. Being called racist for using a man’s middle name. But only if you’re a Republican. Good times. Remember Trent Lott? Classic.
You remember the Mogwai, right? Of course you do. Who could forget the ridiculously cute and cuddly critters so adorable you would take a bullet for one? I suppose if you were born after 1980, you may need a refresher course. This will get you up to speed:
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This clown is Cousin Oliver. This clown is “a very special episode of Diff’rent Strokes,” the one where Nancy Reagan does a guest spot , tells Arnold to quit freebasing heroin because it will stunt his growth (too late, Nancy!) and then her neck bends backwards and a Pez pops out (this is how I recall it). Who are these clowns, you ask? Robert and Brenda Vale, experts in sustainable development. Why must these two seemingly upstanding and learned individuals wear the chapeau du cul? This is why - Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living.
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Mark the date. On December 20, 2009 at 4:00 P.M., a sitting United States Senator committed Attempted First Degree Murder. Murder One, baby. Right there on the Senate floor and it’s actually not as far-fetched as it may seem. You see, the democrats have, by the skin of their teeth, constructed a filibuster-proof voting bloc for the Senate version of the Health Care Reform Bill. Therefore, if one member of the democratic bloc were to, say, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible prior to the vote, the Republicans could tie up the bill indefinitely. Enter 142-year-old coffin-dodger Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV).
How Methuselah Light isn’t already deader than fried chicken eludes me (Crisp West Virginia air? The occasional cross-burning? Michael Clarke Duncan?), but Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) sought to hasten the elder klanstatesman’s departure by invoking the power of Christ. That’s right, Sweathogs. Coburn called upon us to pray for the death of Robert Byrd. How awesome and Christ-like is that? Bonus points for issuing a FarRight Fatwa on the Sabbath. But, Mr. Kotter, how is asking others to pray for another person to die a crime, you ask? Follow me down Tommy Coburn’s rabbit hole and I’ll explain.
- Murder One is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
- Attempted Murder One is just that, an attempt to unlawfully kill a human being with malice aforethought.
- Senator Coburn, a deeply religious man, believes strongly in the power of prayer and it’s ability to manifest itself here on Earth (God’s Will!).
- He beseeched each of us lucky enough to pray to his God to implore Him to strike down Byrd.
- Recent scientific studies indicate that remote prayer can generate measurable physical effects.
- The burgeoning field of Noetics also suggests that human consciousness can be directed and affect the physical environment.
- Senator Coburn asked us to bring about Byrd’s demise by prayer, an act which Coburn strongly believes will lead to the desired result and is buttressed by scientific studies.
- Death by prayer is the same as death by any other premeditated means.
- If anyone out there (including Senator Coburn) prayed for Byrd’s death, they are guilty of Attempted Murder One.
- Even if Senator Coburn did not himself pray for Byrd’s death, he is guilty of conspiracy to murder.
There you have it. Senator Coburn, in the Cloakroom, with the Remote Prayer. Coburn has the mens rea (legal term meaning, a “guilty mind”) and the actus rea (legal term meaning, a “guilty act”). Even if the concept of death by prayer itself is soft in the head (another legal term), the law doesn’t care. He thinks it will work and he set it in motion. That’s all that matters. The best part? Is he going to deny that prayer is not effective? Is he going to renounce the power of prayer? I think not.
The sad part about this whole episode is that no Republican stood up and said, “For Chrissakes, Tom. Give Jesus a rest for once and use your brain.” How will we, as Republicans, ever have any credibility if we don’t stamp out this idiocy on sight? Are we so short on ideas and solutions that our best bet is to, literally, throw a Hail Mary and ask God to smite down this good ole boy so that we may prevail by technicality? Seriously. How close are we to 72 virgins here? If we’re going to ask God to take time away from granting glory to touchdown-scoring football players (this is his busy time of year, what with it being bowl season and the playoffs being just around the corner), I think we should ask for a little more than the death of a ridiculous, frail old man. Perhaps we could have Him throw in a little common sense. As it stands, I’d settle for a little laryngitis to go Senator Coburn’s direction. It’ll be worth the 90-days time and community service.
Shakespeare got it right. Brevity is the soul of wit. Almost 218 years ago to the day, with a mere twenty-six words, the founding fathers enshrined our right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. That’s right. Second Amendment. Not third. Certainly not fifth. Don’t even get me started on the tenth. Second. As in not first, but pretty darned close. Frankly, if TJ hadn’t been screwing around out back of Independence Hall with the help, it’d probably have been first. Tom liked the guns. And the help. Less so the help with guns. Keep ‘em separated. That was his policy. He was progressive, but not too progressive. You know what I mean. Alas. I’ve made peace with this being second. Where was I? Right… brevity is the soul of wit. Well, right here, we have ourselves one heckuva witty amendment.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Boom! What part of bear arms is ambiguous? What form of Clinton-esque parsing leads one to believe a well regulated Militia should be fending off threats with nothing more than a sharpened stick? Can you really argue that the threat of the Government coming to get me in 2009 is less than it was in 1776? C’mon. The British wore bright red coats and had always had some clown playing the flute wherever they went. They’d have brought the full oompah band if the brass section didn’t take up so much space on the trip over.
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… and I wish it were the one you were thinking of when you clicked on this story. Alas. The erstwhile vixen of such memorable fare as MTV’s Singled Out, the Tony Danza Show, the Dennis Rodman World Tour, Playboy Wet and Wild: the Locker Room, and… um… well, I’m sure she’s done some other really classy projects (not counting Jim Carrey; can’t be “classy” with this on your resumé)… my point is that she’s not working in the industry anymore. Nope, she’s traded in the soft core porn for the soft core science. That’s right, my friends. Jenny McCarthy gave me the measles.
Measles, you say? Didn’t measles go out with with Al Capone and the speakeasies? Well, listen up you palookas and let ol’ Mr. Kotter here give you an earful, on the level. This lovely tomato’s got everyone all bottled up over this vaccine business. Says it gave her bouncing baby boy a bad case of the Autism and now she’s got a bunch of the other Janes zozzled on the same gin juice she’s been gurgling and I’m the one left holding the bag. The measles bag, that is.
Yes, it seems that Ms. McCarthy’s son was afflicted with autism. Nothing funny about that. I wouldn’t wish it on any parent or child. Struggling to find a reason for why her son became a victim of this tragic form of developmental disorder, this mother warrior latched onto what she believed to be the boogeyman responsible for her son’s illness: Common Childhood Vaccinations. This isn’t to say that Jenny came up with this notion on her own. The anti-vaccine movement was well in place before her son was born. Vaccines contain (or most of them used to) small amounts of nasty things like mercury and other toxins. Put enough of that in your kid’s system and what do you expect is going to happen? That’s the theory anyways. Never mind the fact that it doesn’t hold water when subjected to scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless, Jenny formed Generation Rescue a few years later. Mixed with the starpower of her beau, Jim Carrey, and her own gritty determination and considerable flair for straight talk, ka-pow, the anti-vaccination tipping point drew nigh. You’ve got an angry, desperate group of mothers (and fathers, too) who now have a convenient target to blame: the pharmaceutical companies. Big Pharma gave my kid autism, they scream. They make billions of dollars giving kids autism! Sick kids and rich corporations. Great headline, lousy premise. Lousier still is that Jenny and the witchdoctors with whom she associates now claim they can cure autism. Check out vaccine wunderkind Paul Offit’s book, Autism’s False Prophets. This will put the misdeeds of the Enron, Worldcom, and AIG in perspective. All they did was bankrupt your 401(k). These charlatans are giving false hope to parents of sick children.
Now we have a bunch of moms who outright refuse to get their kids vaccinated. The numbers grow every day. What’s the big deal, right? Let these idiots contract childhood killers like polio, diphtheria, and whooping cough. If they want to risk measles, mumps, and rubella, go ahead and let them. It’s America, they have the right to choose. If it were that simple, I’d be on their side. I’m generally OK with other people doing whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t hurt me (or make me wake up screaming every night). Trouble is, unvaccinated kids (adults, too) pose a threat to public welfare. Amy Wallace wrote a fantastic article on the topic in November’s Wired (some anti-vaccination folks wrote fantastic, and telling, comments, as well). Because vaccines are not 100% effective on every person, a small number of “vaccinated” people end up not being protected. In communities with high vaccination rates, that tends not to be a problem. Because most folks are vaccinated, the virus can’t get a toehold in the community and will likely die out before making its way to the unprotected. In relatively unvaccinated communities, however, this isn’t the case. The virus can perpetuate itself in hosts and continue to replicate, eventually making its way to the “vaccinated” person. It’s safer to be unvaccinated in a community with high vaccination rates than it is to be vaccinated in a unvaccinated community. In other words, little Billy stands a much better chance of not contracting a preventable, life-threatening childhood disease if the kids he shares boogers with in Mrs. Cornmussel’s kindergarten class happen to have mothers with enough common sense to not let their pride-and-joy run the risk of catching Hib meningitis.
As it stands, the anti-vaccination movement continues to gain steam. Because real science hasn’t yet figured out the real cause of autism, the pseudo-science shysters have stepped in. Kids are still getting autism and now they’re getting nasty preventable diseases. Vaccine-prevented birth defects are on the rise, too. In this germ-phobic society, is this really a problem? I practically have to lay an offering at the altar of Purell to gain access to my office building and these clowns are allowed to bring in small pox? These are all questions I will ponder as I spend the next two weeks coated in Jergen’s. Decidely not the first time Jenny McCarthy, lotion, and I were mentioned in the same sentence. But certainly the last.
Forgive me if I’m not able to join in on the L’il Elitist© ennui party TR throws for himself in his latest post on the administration’s Open Government Initiative (OGI). To be clear, it’s not that I think the OGI represents some earth-shattering development in government-public communications. Put more plainly, it’s more likely another Obama-style, buzzword-laden effort that sells us more synergistic sizzle than it does best of breed steak (“Now with 20% more proactivity! Look at those paradigms shift!”). Quick challenge: I filled my bingo card by 3:48 of the Promoting Transparency in Government video produced by the Office of Management and Budget. Can you do better? Without wanting to shoot yourself in the face? You’re a better man than me… which is a pretty good segue into TR’s post.
TR would have you believe that the particular breed of hairless chimp (some not so hairless; exception proves the rule) you see in the mirror every morning belongs to the homo nonoeconomicus branch of the evolutionary tree, incapable of acting as a rational, self-interested agent for himself. Which is to say, TR thinks you are an idiot. Based on Cinnabon’s annual sales figures, I’d have to agree (join me in my hatred of all things cinammon). Don’t worry, though. I’m an idiot, too. And so is TR. There, I said it. It’s out in the open. We’re all idiots. The good thing is, though, that we’re all different kinds of idiots.
We tend to put a lot of stock in the concept of experts. This has always been true of the financial markets, where “chase the expert” is practically a competitive sport. “Nevermind the contradictory empirical data telling us there is no such thing as an expert, this guy beat the market by 0.38% last year! Plow the kids’ college fund into into it! Hey, these guys at this place called Enron all went to Harvard… and the CEO’s brother is the weatherman for WGN-TV, America’s Superstation (an expert in his own right). Take out a home equity loan and ram it all in there. Oh, wait. The experts tell me I need to diversify. Tell you what, let’s put half with these Enron guys. They’re the smartest guys in the room, right? Real experts. Then, we’ll take the other half and put it with these guys over at AIG. They have about 20 or so guys (I hear some are pretty good at math) up in a skyscraper that have come up with a pretty good thing with these Credit Default Swaps. Why would I know what the hell that is? These guys are the experts. They do the thinking so I don’t have to.”
The problem with experts is that they suffer from the same malady as the rest of us. Yep, they’re idiots, too. The bad part about that is there’s fewer of them. TR links to a few tomes about the “Madness of Crowds.” The concept of most of these missives is that individually, we can do alright by ourselves, but put us into a crowd and we turn into a booger-eating cess pool of irrational loonies (see Nascar and American Idol). Trouble is, these theories have been debunked roundly. Turns out, if you put together a group of folks under certain conditions (transparency and access to information is one of them), they’ll invariably end up beating the expert, be it at stock picking, cattle-weight guessing, locating a missing nuclear submarine, what have you. James Surowiecki, in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, gives an excellent overview of the profoundly counterintuitive idea that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few. Certain elements of our government have already bought in (the CIA, no less). Give it a read, give it some thought and let me know if it gives you (i) a little hope for America and (ii) a little chill down your spine when you hear folks like Nancy Pelosi and TR talk about a Nanny-State model which will care for the great unwashed by letting their more intelligent and civilized masters make the major decisions for them. As for me, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the retched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. I’ll put me and my merry band of idiots up against the New Aristocracy any day of the week.
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