Sunday, October 25, 2009

Weekend Update - Empathy Edition



  • Arthur starts our weekend: "I heard this guy on NPR today on 'Science Friday.' Fascinating stuff. He spoke about empathy as being something seen in animals, obeying some of the same characteristics we see in humans, where those seen as most similar to us are responded to, while those increasingly less like us are far less valued or taken into consideration. Something I have obsessed about for years. The author called out Senator Kyl for saying that he personally didn't need maternity care, so why should the government pay for it? Why indeed, since Kyl doubtless was hatched from a lizard's egg.

  • You know how those staircases are getting longer, and the arthritis and the colon cancer is getting worse? We feel for you. Yes, we here at the Coca-Cola Company feel your pain. Or rather, we don't, actually, but we like to say we do in marketing copy, because it makes us sound beneficent and honest, like a good corporate citizen, when in fact we're all about figuring out sinister ways to keep you wildly addicted to as many of our products for as long as humanly possible -- which, if you drink enough of them, won't be that long at all. Mark Morford empathizes.

  • And we can certainly feel for that little boy who kept throwing up everytime he was supposed to lie on camera. We can be empathetic and morally superior at the same time. No matter what our own faults as parents, we could never top Richard Heene, who mercilessly exploited his child for fame and profit. Nor could we ever be as craven as the news media, especially cable television, which dumped a live broadcast of President Obama in New Orleans to track the supersized Jiffy Pop bag floating over Colorado. Frank Rich comments.

  • Now this one's going to be difficult. Let's see, how could we feel empathy for Rush Limbaugh? How 'bout, it must be really tiring carrying around all that bullshit in one golf shirt. Hey, really, we care.

  • John Hagee teaches "theological racism," the idea that the destiny of peoples is based on their biblical genealogy. Hagee claims Jewish souls are different from those of gentiles and that, according to divine plan, Jews have no right to live anywhere on Earth but in Israel. Hagee's fellow Christian Zionists predict that a coming, divinely ordained paroxysm of anti-Semitic violence, a "second Holocaust," will be necessary to force all Jews to make aliyah. So why is Elie Wiesel supporting events sponsored by John Hagee's Christians United for Israel? An open letter to Wiesel from Rachel Tabachnick.

  • We all feel other people's pain from time to time, it's only human. That is, except for some people: About 300 protesters outside a downtown hotel blew plastic horns, tossed shoes and burned George W. Bush in effigy Thursday as the former U.S. president spoke to a luncheon of the Montreal Board of Trade. Darn those Canadians. (tee hee)

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Weekend Update - October 18th



  • "The Governator is stale news," writes Bad Hat Marin County Political Correspondent Arthur. "There are those who worry that Governor Schwwartsawhatever will run for Senator from California and win. Not very likely if this Field poll is any gauge of public sentiment, which is far from approving, even amoung Republicans. The experience of having a steroid-addled Austrian body-builder and stiff actor serve as one's Governor is beyond my powers to describe. In a recent encounter with the California Democratic Caucus at a dinner in San Francisco where a good deal of drinking had already gone on, most reports of the encounter had a lot of blank spaces where family newspapers were not able to print what the attendees told the Governor. Nothing was actually thrown, aside from insults and curses, presumably because the Governor travels with a security detail. But from this Fields poll it really does look as though Arnold has scored a perfect trifecta: the Legislature hates him, Democrats hate him, Republicans don't trust him and can't stand him. What an amazingly unifying figure he is!"

  • It's a story from the dark political underbelly that makes you question the entire setup, rethink humanity, and lean out your window and scream: what the hell is wrong with these people? Who are they, really? Why do we give them power? Mark Morford writes about a gang rape and 30 Republican senators who don't give a damn about battered women.

  • I swear I'm not making this one up: "Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. " From Time Magazine.

  • I read somewhere recently that the audience for FOX News is supposedly up 20%, sort of like the most popular newspaper is the National Enquirer. As Bill Mahar would say, "Americans are stupid..." At any rate, the Obama Administration has had enough. They've finally declared war on Fox.

  • In an interview with CBS News radio, former President George H.W. (Poppy) Bush assailed the tone of our national discourse. He even went so far as to refer to Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow as "sick puppies." Oh gasp.

  • Rush Limbaugh wanted to be part owner of the Rams football team. NFL players said they wouldn't play for a big fat racist like Limbaugh. And the world, as we know it, keeps on turning.

  • And we can't close out this week's report without yet another Vaporub induced weep-fest from The-Creepy-Clown-Who-Is-Glenn Beck.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Weekend Update - Nobel Peace Prize Edition



  • Pop! Pop! Pop! What's that? Oh, just the sound of hundreds of pinheaded pundit heads exploding. President Obama, in case you didn't hear Friday, has won the Nobel Peace Prize for ... well, for not being George Bush, actually. It seems that replacing BushCo with Obama gave the rest of the world a whole new outlook on America; so much so that they're giving out prizes in sheer relief. Glen Beck, meanwhile, is whining and rubbing vapo-rub in his eyes and wants Obama to give back the award. Limbaugh doubled his output of spit and venom and called his pharmacist. Tell me something. These people cheer when the President of the United States can't get the Olympics for Chicago, and boo when he wins the Nobel Prize. Why do these men hate America?

  • Guess the boys at NASA got bored this week so they decided to blow up the moon. Well, at least a chunk of it. Mark Morford explores the cosmic reasons why we do things like this.

  • Sarah Palin stands ready to stump for the Republican gubernatorial candidates running in the two most closely watched campaigns in the country this fall, but neither seems to want her help. Poor baby. We thinks this is just the beginning, or rather the end for Sarah.

  • "Michael Moore has made the most important and urgent political film of our time. In fact, he might have made the most American of films since the populist cinema of Frank Capra." Or so says Dan Siegel in this report. We will be in line.

  • "The pain came as I began to realize for the first time that I had been using my faith to bring harm to others. That's not a pleasant realization for anyone who marches under a Christian banner of love, respect, and compassion." Holy Crap! Evangelical Christian Brent Childers explains his journey from believing that homosexuality was an abomination to marching in a pro-gay march on Washington.

  • Does the financial industry in this country OWN our government? Check out this alarming article from Salon.com.
  • Arthur writes: I love it. Tired of breaking all those pesky "commandment" thingies? You know, the sissy stuff about the seven deadly sins and coveting your neighbor's wife and all that namby-pamby stuff? No problemo. Let's just write our own! Yes! Our own Bible, the one God should have written, if he wasn't such a wussy boy!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Weekend Update - October 3rd



  • Congressional Republicans are furious indeed that uppity Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) claimed, right there on the House floor and using a big piece of paper with large, clear letters they could actually read and everything, that the GOP's health care plan basically consists of hoping that sick people will just "die quickly." Of course, the GOP is outraged. Mark Morford reports on this and 9 more important stories you may have overlooked recently.

  • Ever wonder why Right-Wing Demagogues Are Trying to Peddle Ludicrous Conspiracy Theories? Even before Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, the internet was seething with lurid conspiracy theories exposing his alleged subversion and treachery. As far as some of these nutbags (and you know who you are) are concerned, it's the end of the world as we know it.

  • ...late in the afternoon, Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the committee, requested consideration of the "Grassley F-1 Modified Amendment." Its goal: eliminate $7 billion a year in fees that the government would charge private health insurance companies, and make up the shortfall by reducing benefits to poor people and legal immigrants... It's like Robin Hood, the amended version.

  • Glen Beck has revealed that he uses Vick's Vaporub under the eyes to get his "sincere" tears rolling for the camera. What a guy. We suggest he try pepper spray next time.

  • And speaking of our beloved Beckster, let us take a trip back into history. Not ancient history. Recent history. It is the winter of 2007. The presidential primaries are approaching. The talk jocks like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest are over the moon about Fred Thompson. They’re weak at the knees at the thought of Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, they are hurling torrents of abuse at the unreliable deviationists: John McCain and Mike Huckabee. David Brooks actually writes a column worth reading: "The Wizard of Beck."

  • For many years now, the Religious Right in this country has battled the evils of sex. But apparently they've tired of all that, and are returning to their racially bigoted origins. What a difference an election makes. Even if you believed that compassionate conservatism was always a bit of a con, it's amazing to see how quickly it has vanished, and how fast an older style of reaction, one more explicitly rooted in racial grievance, has reasserted itself.

  • Idiot of the Month: Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. There's something in the Health Care bill that just has her goat. Sex clinics! "... someone's 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser. They don't know any different." How did this moron ever get elected in the first place?

  • David Letterman shows us how adults handle extortion attempts with intelligence and dignity.

  • Yesterday, Newsmax columnist John L. Perry brought up the possibility of a military coup against President Obama. Most chilling, perhaps, was the fact that Perry seemed to offer tepid support for the idea. "A coup is not an ideal option," he acknowledged, "but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible." (Just want you to know that "John L. Perry" is NOT affiliated with Bad Hat in any way.)