Incoherant Poltical Rant

Just parsing through the text, can anyone take this guy seriously? As much as I don't like Ron Paul and his paleo-conservative distortion of libertarianism, he's genuine, and has built a political career out of fighting Right and Left. Ron Paul demanded government spending cuts equally to tax cuts during Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and now Obama. I only hear of Glenn Beck talking about government spending cuts when Democrats are in power.

Trillions to foreign wars is ok, but trillions to the domestic economy isn't according to Glenn Beck. And Glenn Beck proposes no way to pay for his foreign adventurism financed by debt.

Where was Glenn Beck when it came to the Patriot Act, or Patriot Act II that eroded the liberties of American Citizens?

Where was Glenn Beck when Bush added layers of Federal Bureaucracy by establishing DHS?

Cap and Trade establishes a PRIVATE MARKET for Carbon emission rights. As the cost to mitigate carbon emissions goes down, those cost savings will be instantly realized by private corporations. It's a more capitalist solution compared to a straight up carbon tax, or set untradeable carbon emission regulations. Why do they deride MARKET based solutions?

Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from criticism. In fact, it's the opposite. Freedom of speech gives me the right to call him a dumbass free from criminal prosecution. If I'm wrong, he has the right to claim otherwise, and exercises that right daily on Fox News. No one credible is trying to take that away.

Voting to establish a union is not the same as voting in a government election. Why is a regulation saying you have to have a secret ballot good, but regulation that allows for a card check OR a secret ballot bad?

I will however give him credit for citing Medicare Part D. But Bush's Medicare expansion will cost the Government more money and put future generations in more debt than all of bailout money passed by BOTH Bush and Obama. Yet teabagees complain about Obama wanting to spend money to fix the potholes on I-95. Well if government doesn't pay for the Wilson Bridge, who the fuck should? Or should people from Miami drive around the Potomac to get to NYC?

Still though, his relative small grievance against the largest unfunded government mandate passed in the 21st century is a joke. Add to that no mention of the boondoggle that is DHS, and I'll chastise him for only offering scant criticism to Bush's huge contribution to the federal debt.

My working definition of an Astroturf teabagger is someone who complains about bailouts adding debt but overlooks the larger debt Medicare Part D will add to current and future generations... while failing to offer senior citizens complete prescription drug coverage. Thanks to GWB, I get $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities and my parents and grandmother still have exorbitant prescription bills if they fall into the coverage hole.

Only in American Capitalism do we have expensive government run programs that are intentionally designed to not fully accomplish their stated goal out of respect to "market forces", "private enterprise", etc.

Instead of having private markets that work, or government that works, we have shortcoming for private markets and an expensive government unwilling to resolve those shortcoming.

Largest military on the fucking planet that has to pay six figure salaries to mercenaries while US troops make $25K. What The Fuck.

The fundamental failing of Republican governance in the 21st Century was its ineffectiveness to provide for the public good. Katrina. Iraq. Economy. Federal Deficits. That's what Republicans don't get. And Tea Parties aren't the solution when Republicans use the occasion to cover 8 years of incompetence.

Jack Black is Jesus

Who knew it would take something so unfunny like the denial of civil rights for funny or die to make something funny. Oh the Irony...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Elite Squad Review

RT Link here

What I like about the movie is that it isn't overly preachy. I found this movie's fast edits and shaky cam actually appropriate for this gritty crime drama. That made the movie fun and entertaining, in a way a more serious film might not have been. For that I might rate the movie higher than I should, because I didn't quite feel preached to. My main beef with the movie was the narration, which personally I kind of wish I could have seen the movie without. Narration might have been necessary to keep some focus on its plot themes, and not get lost in action. The problem is that the narrator switches between his personal story and his God’s view of what’s happening with the main characters. It probably should have been one or the other, but telling ends up with too much narration. Remove either of these elements, and I think the added subtly would make the film feel more layered and complex. But with the narration and action, it became an assault of the senses which I can see why it turned off so many critics.

If the movie adds anything to the debate, it's that it tries to link the systematic societal failures that result in drug violence to upper class individual moral behavior. The movie asks, "How many poor kids have to die for a rich kid to smoke weed?" It's a message that gets buried under a lot of on screen violence, torture, and over narration. Even asking that very question ignores the role the state has in that violence, with the creation of a paramilitary police corp and corruption among the regular police. The movie points the finger at drug gangs, the state, and the affluent classes alike, and links individual actions to systemic issues. I can't knock the movie for that.

The movie doesn't tackle urban violence as a result of poverty, and treads likely on the subject of urban violence being a result of classism. In this movie, the race/class division almost seems acceptable if only non-black/non-poor kids didn't travel to the Favela to buy drugs. Then again, other films have documented classism elsewhere, and doing so here probably would have made this movie less of a shoot-em-up, and it would have been less appealing to me. A police drama has to be about the police, and by showing a liberal sympathizing university student resorting to torture to extract information from a witness, there's more to blame than just the cop, regardless of how disturbing the cop's actions are.

The worst endorsement ever

So Slate did a feature where their writers said who'd they support in the election, and 1 person came out for Bob Barr. But you have to check out what he actually says...

Raffi Khatchadourian's profile of Barr in this week's New Yorker depicts him—accurately, I think—as no more Libertarian than your standard Newt Gingrich clone.

Who is the real Bob Barr? When he was an unrepentant hard-right Republican, he did have notes of libertarianism to him. But in his libertarian rebranding, he can't quite mask his old, musky self. He's a fraud.

Some endorsement. In the end, he stands by his party rather than the man. But personally, I feel any person who stands by his party's nomination of this charlatan does almost as much a disservice to the Libertarian party as Bob Barr's congressional career has done to libertarian ideals.

Al Gore and Obama address

The final day of the DNC was better than the other nights I saw. I liked Al Gore's speech. It was somewhat bitter, but I can't blame him for that. It was a straight forward message that hit on all the shortcomings of the past 8 years. I'm glad he spoke on it with clarity. Also, there is a real difference in passion when he speaks of climate change vs anything else. That difference in passion is probably why he's doing the best thing for himself by staying out of politics and sticking to promoting climate change awareness.

Obama's speech was... wow. I can't recall a better speech. It lacked specifics that would quell my hesitation concerning Obama's support of civil liberties, but barring that it was perfect.

On Tuesday I commented on Digg just how pointless this whole circle jerk exercise was, but I have to admit that this speech mattered. Color me impressed.

Obamamania

I don't want to sound like a Ron Paul supporter, but the Constitution matters. What makes the American Republic special isn't democracy, but rather the limits government places on itself. At the core, there is a division of private life and public life, and government should be limited from intruding into private life. I think I could live with all of Obama's other reversals, but the FISA one is just makes a WTF moment. I guess he can say he voted against it before he voted before it.

I'm so used to seeing McCain change his beliefs, it's nothing new. But to see Obama do the same thing... is disappointing