I'm Not Calling it That

I learned today, as I watched coverage of the abomination that is the Pro-Bowl, that the stadium the Miami Dolphins play in, the stadium where, in one week, the greatest holiday of the American civil religion--The Super Bowl--will be held, has been re-named. Now it is called Sun Life Stadium. I guessed that Sun Life was a bank, and I was right. Sun Life Financial, a Canadian bank, in a business decision that must make sense to them, reportedly paid $37.5 million over the course of five seasons to name the stadium.

Over the last decade or so the stadium has been graced with horrendous names like Pro Player Park and Landshark Stadium (although the Buffet connection helps). This is the 7th time the team has changed the name of the stadium. And the name is unacceptable. Sun Life Stadium? Sounds like a stadium at a retirement home. Forget it. I'm out. It's JRS forever.

Not Going Anywhere Near the iPad

First of all, stupid name. Okay, with that out of the way, I'll defer to MacLife for a good working list of the important things that Apple left out. I'm not the most tech savvy person on my block, but no USB port? Are you fucking kidding me?

A commenter on the post I linked to above weighed in with their opinion on why Apple left out so many seemingly rudimentary features:

You can't put all of these features on the 1st generation iPad because it comes down to two things......smart business and making more money! If they had put all of these features on it then it would have given them limited features for the 2nd generation. Take the iPhone 3G for example. The 3G was capable of everything the 3GS was capable of so why would they leave video camera, voice activation, etc. off? So people will get a sense of buying something new and improved. If the 3G had everything the 3GS had....why would I buy a 3GS? It's called smart business. Yes, you can say that if this doesn't sell then there won't be a 2nd generation iPad but that's highly unlikely. This product has college students written all over it especially having the iBook and iWork apps involved. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me on this but I think Apple knows what it's doing.

I think Apple is playing with fire. Having very little discretionary income to speak of, there's no way I'm going to spend a dime on something that I know is going to be ten times better and cheaper in a year or two. Innovation is different than "milking it". While Apple is being coy, I sincerely hope some other company is going to sense an opening here and simply give the people what they want. Then Apple will have to react to them.

He Did Ask Politely

So, if there was any hope that President Obama publicly asking the Republicans during the State of the Union to work for what's good for America would, you know, actually work, we can go ahead and forget about that. Every Senate Republican voted against bringing back "pay-as-you-go" rules. Since Senator Lieberman is taking a short break from being a huge prick, the measure passed, 60-40. So much for vaunted Republican fiscal responsibility that was bullshit all along anyway.

Psst. They Can See You

Understanding how television affects the rules of politics can present opportunities to reveal things about your opponents that they do not what the people to know. One thing that Republicans probably wouldn't want the average low information voter to know about is the fact that they are using the filibuster egregiously to create the impression--and the reality--that the Democratic majority can not get anything done.

Last night night President Obama brilliantly used the structure of the State of the Union, which has evolved into the following structure: President says something, camera cuts to one party to see their reaction, then sweeps over to see the reaction of the other party. President Obama continuously put the Republicans on the record by talking about populist issues. One after another he made very reasonable, populist statements about tax credits for small businesses, ending tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs, student loan relief and keeping foreign money out of U.S. elections.

Each time, the Republican side sat there, stone faced, chuckling or scoffing (Crooks and Liars has the video). Like Nixon's sweaty debate performance against Kennedy, the simple rule that optics are everything in politics was lost on the Republicans once more. Wether this actually influences anything is highly debatable, but it could provide an opening if it's followed up on properly.

Set Fazers to Auto-Filibust

TPM has a telling graphic on the rampant use of the filibuster.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

The great historian Dr. Howard Zinn died today of a heart attack at age 87. Zinn has long been one of my favorite writers. He was among the most ardant and articulate voices against the Vietnam War.

In this clip, actor Wallace Shawn reads the speech Zinn gave at Johns Hopkins University on the subject of Civil Disobedience in November of 1970.

Yes We Can

Yes, technically, we can. But will we? Eh... Probably not.

UPDATE--Oregon Passes Tax on Rich, Corporations

Oregon Public Broadcasting's Chris Lehman writes, "Both measures passed by about 54-to-46 percent."

Disinfecting My Brain

I just spent about thirty minutes lurking in a very dark tube of the internets. Starting with one particularly well known fringe website about how things are not how they seem, I circumnavigated the virtual backwaters until I got lost in a soup of paranoia so thick it crashed my browser, which--firefox, I'm looking at you--is clearly not what it used to be.

Anyway, I haven't been there in a while, but, as it turns out, all the crap going wrong in this world is all the fault of a single minority group that has been blamed for shit many times before in our history. I don't want to mention the ews-Jay by name, but holy crap, these anti-Semites are as focused as they are unoriginal. No ADD among these troopers.

We're Not Moving Right; We're Moving Back in Time

Bill O'Reilly says that the country is moving to the right. Shit! Again? This is amazing. We moved right when Reagan was elected. We moved right further with each subsequent Bush. Clinton wasn't a move to the left because he never got more than 50%. Then we moved right when George W. Bush magically won Florida. We moved again, this time waaaaaaaaaaay to the right in the aftermath of 9/11. All this moving right resulted in an even bigger Bush win in 2004--by 2% and the state of Ohio. We didn't move left when Katrina and Iraq became historic disasters. Nor did we move left when President Obama won his election in a massive landslide because all the people voting for the socialist were really just mad at Republicans for not being far enough to the right.

The truth is the people in this country doesn't care about left or right. They hate Democrats and Republicans enough for both parties to be considered a joke even by members of those parties. They hate the system that keeps making things worse.

The problem is, a lot of that anger is being directed at the wrong targets.

A clear expression of this misdirected rage was on display in Ravalli County, Montana, where a group of nearly 200 people are demanding that local leaders form a militia that they will use to do away with vaccinations, the EPA, and gun laws. Federal employees would need written approval in order to approach citizens of Ravalli.

They certainly won't be pleased with the upcoming H1N1 vaccination clinic. Oh, and you should hear how pissed they get when you call it "Ravioli County".

Meanwhile, the people of Oregon have a chance to raise the taxes of rich people and corporations. A special referendum will determine if new state-wide taxes, which will be temporary, will conclude on Tuesday; Oregon votes via mail. So far, the two measures each have at least ten point leads.

While it's nice to see states closing the gap between the classes, it would be even nicer to see the Federal government get on it. In the wake of the election of Scott Brown, the White House seems willing to at least talk a good game. I do find it both hilarious and nauseating that Republican Senator John Thune is accusing the president of class warfare for his sudden desire to push back on three decades of Wall Street deregulation. This first wave of resistance comes after a year of allowing the nonsense that crashed the economy in the first place to go utterly unchecked.

This comes one day after the latest devastating blow in the ongoing and very one-sided class war was fired by the conservatives on the Supreme Court when they blew a huge hole in campaign finance laws. The New York Times wrote, "With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding."

We're not moving right, we're moving backwards through time, to a place we do not want to go. Until we can focus our ire in an organized manner at the targets that truly deserve it, the systematic dismantling of our freedoms that teabaggers fear will happen. But it won't be done by President Obama. It will be done by the million cracks and holes in the system that make him and any other single individual irrelevant. The war is against the influence that sheer monetary power exerts over or elected representatives and appointed officials.

Pouring Fuel On The Fire

What's the best way to alleviate the suspicion spread by militant Islamic terrorists that American secular democracy is nothing more than a posture the U.S. government maintains as a means to cover up what our enemies perceive as their obvious Christian-Zionist agenda?

That's a tough one. I know! Let's put references to Bible verses on the scopes of our guns!

We're already doing that? Wow! I'm so not amazed.

Steve Doocy defended bible sniping by pointing out that "they started it"? Not surprised there either.

2009--Nothing Cool About It

In fact, it was hotter than a dung beetle on a hippo's taint.

From Earth Times.org:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

"There's always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year's ranking, but the ranking often misses the point," said James Hansen, GISS director. "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated."

Of course, if there's even a single typo anywhere in this report, then global warming is a farce. Farce!

Somewhere Sam Seder is Laughing

Well, they finally killed it. Air America has declared bankruptcy and halted programming they announced today. They were too failed to be big. For just over six years the liberal network tried to make inroads against the predominantly conservative talk radio landscape. While there is little doubt that conventional wisdom, driven by those radio hosts and the corporate media who listens to them, will attribute the failure to what they consider the inherent conservative-ness of America. The truth is much more simple--the people who ran Air America really sucked at programming a radio network.

Air America's legacy is manifested in the talented alumni the network either couldn't keep or drove away. Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes are stars on TV and radio respectively. Marc Maron maintains one of the most popular and critically acclaimed podcast in the country. Senator Franken wasn't great on the air, but that's because no one was comparing him to Montel Williams. Thom Hartmann continues to be an impressive, nationally syndicated presence.

In the end I'm glad to see the network gone. They killed Morning Sedition, The Majority Report, fired Randi Rhodes, fired the Young Turks, fired Mike Malloy, fired Sam Seder and Marc Maron multiple times--at least three times each! Seriously, what kind of twisted, sadistic shit is that? Tell Conan that NBC's programmers don't have shit on the clownfuckers that ran AAR into the ground. Any corporation that shits on that caliber of progressive talent is not on our side, no matter what their imaging says.

Get Out of the Bubble

Yesterday Cenk Uygur assessed what the Democrats' loss in Massachusetts means before the loss actually happened. The best line: "If it seems like they're still in league with Wall Street, and they haven't done anything to help the American people, yes, then in 2010, they will get crushed and they deserve to get crushed."

I Think The Penguin Is Trying to Tell You Something

It's Penguin Awareness Day! Wait... really? Yep. So, listen up! The penguin has something to say:


By the way, he ain't too happy about climate change either!

Image by Stacy Sedai. Visit her blog here.

What 41 Republican Senators Means to Me

Apparently I'm completely out of touch. This doesn't disturb me as much as it may have in the past, but I'll get to that later.

First I have to answer the question, "How do I know that I'm out of touch?" Well, I'm being told by news sites and blogs all over the Internet that a Republican is likely to win Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. This event, which is happening in liberal Massachusetts, is seen as a harbinger of the utter destruction of health insurance reform (or not, how would I know?) and the Democratic Party as a governing entity. I thought those people in Massachusetts were communists of the first order, and yet here we are, poised to watch them return the Republican Party to their 41-vote super-obstructionist non-majority.

But, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not too worried about being this far out of touch because the return of Republicans to the 41-vote super-obstructionist non-majority means that nothing will get done at all. So there's nothing to be in touch with anyway. Go outside. Take in a movie. Go fix a bridge by yourself. Whatever. Just don't expect the government to do anything.

Clinton and Bush Team Up for Haiti

Yep, the young Bush and Bubba are picking up where old Bush and Bubba left off. Anyway, here are the 42nd and 43rd presidents with some information on how to help out.

Jimmy Kimmel Unleashes Nearly Funny Frontal Assault on Leno on Leno's Own Show

I really need to get a life, but I find this whole Jay Leno vs. Conan and the entire internet feud fascinating. Now Jimmy Kimmel is in on it. I'm not much of a Kimmel fan, but I am a big fan of uncomfortable situations, so this was very good. How Leno's people didn't see Kimmel's suckerpunch coming a mile away when they booked him I have no idea.

We'll be Raffling off the Presidency in 2012

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum says that he is "considering putting my name in for the 2012 presidential race". He does know that it isn't a raffle, right? Anyway, a Santorum presidency would make this nation pine for the good ol' days of George W. Bush or strict colonial rule. How this affects Santorum's prospects for a show on Fox remains unknowable because I made up the possibility in a paranoid nightmare.

"Have You Read This Book?"

In the wake of the stunningly insensitive comments of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, Jon Stewart went to work on these men of God with actual quotes from the Bible. Blue Gal writes, "You know the church has failed when the Jester must remind us of scripture."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Haiti Earthquake Reactions
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

"The Machine is (Changing) Us"

This is an excellent critique of current American media and our response to it presented by Kansas State Anthropology professor Michael Wesch at the Personal Democracy Forum 2009.

Taking Sides

This blog endorses Conan O'Brien for Tonight Show host (at 11:35 pm). Conan issued a very good statement on his refusal to move an inch. Jay Leno seems like a good guy, but he's not going to look like one unless he bows out and takes his act elsewhere. This deal was made years ago and Leno knew the risks when he took 10 pm show, which was an insane, desperate idea in the first place.

I even know what Leno can do for his new gig--he can take over as pitchman for AT&T freeing up Luke Wilson to find a manager who gives better career advice.

Lightning Round--2010 Sucks Already Edition

Huffington Post: Cenk Uygur issues an invitation to the tea partiers to prove they're not just tools of the elites by fighting the banks.

Alternet: The fact that the upcoming and very tool-ish tea party convention next month in Nashville won't allow media coverage of speeches by Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann doesn't bode well for Cenk's hopes.

Ragebot!: Big update on how Fox News plans to use Sarah Palin.

Les Enragés: Dumbasses in Alaska seem to have made mocking Al Gore with an ice statue a tradition.

TPM: George W. Bush will be headlining the Safari Club International Annual Hunters' Convention in Reno, Nevada. What could go right? While you're keeping up with our former overlords, torture memo author John Yoo went on The Daily Show to defend the indefensible.

If Harry Reid Resigns, I Resign From Hope

Well, I resigned from hope for Democrats long ago, but if Harry Reid resigns over this phony Republican outrage then all the Democrats may as well resign.

I can't stand Reid. He sucks as a Leader and we would be better off without him as a country and a party. But... if he resigns I'm turning against the Democrats on general principle.

A party that lacks the wherewithal to know when their opponents have over-reached to the point of lying prone before them with their bare ass shown to the world does not deserve to exist. If David Vitter can keep showing up for work, the bar on politicians facing consequences for anything is a lot higher than Reid's insensitive, trite, passe comments.

This is not a matter of Harry Reid showing courage and holding his ground in a shitstorm. There is no real shitstorm. This is a matter of the Democrats' inability to perceive reality on a very basic level. This is a co-ordinated media phenomenon that most Americans The political skill needed to respond to this is minuscule. When asked about Republican accusations all you do is say, "What do you expect people like them to say?" And then ask for the next question.

Musical Interlude

While I'm working my way back to the South Pole, here's some music for you good people.

They Hate You Like Poison, Joe

One of the marks of a great politician is knowing that if you have to be unpopular, the best time to do it is when there isn't an election anytime soon. Joe Lieberman is taking unpopularity to levels previously known only to Dick Cheney and OJ Simpson.

TPM's Eric Kleefeld writes:

Lieberman's overall approval rating is only 25%, with 67% disapproval. Democrats disapprove of him by 14%-81%, Republicans by 39%-48%, and independents by 32%-61%. Only 19% approve of his actions on the health care bill, with Democrats at 8%-80%, Republicans at 26%-55%, and independents at 30%-59%. Among those who support the bill, 84% disapprove of his handling of the issue, and in addition 52% of the people who don't support the bill also disapprove of Lieberman's actions.

Joe has over three years to build on this seething hatred. Since he probably will retire rather than allow the voters the chance to kick his ass out of office, there's no sense in a guy like Joe worrying about trivial things like how his constituents feel about his job performance. God knows what he'll do.

Michael Pollan Visits The Daily Show

Terror writer Michael Pollan went on The Show that is Daily and discussed his latest hair-raising book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Pollan
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

EDIT: Turns out Pollan is not a terror writer, but rather a journalist who focuses on food.

Calling For a Global Warming Joke Moratorium

I'm in the last leg of a three week stay at my parents' house in my hometown of Hollywood, Florida, (also known as "The Wood") where it's far colder than these people are used to. I actually had a tense argument with my Dad because I was about to leave the house without a jacket on a night when the temperatures were set to plunge into the low fifties. Tonight we're facing temperatures in the thirties. Mayhem, I assure you, will ensue.

This cooler than normal trend will continue for a while--not just in the Wood, but nationally--and, once again, every amateur comedian is looking to score and the inherent irony of global warming in these frigid days is an easy target.

I come to you with a plea for sanity. If you're thinking about unleashing this joke, please, control yourself. Do not do it. Move along to some other source of comedy; not just for the sake of the environment, but also for the sake of comedy. That joke is crusty. It was old before Al Gore invented the internet jokes were old. It's right up there with telling the cashier that an item must be free when the barcode won't scan. It's horrible. Please, help me out people. We can end this joke once and for all if we just band together.

I Didn't Know You Could Use Ammonia for That

I'm no expert on the process of killing off bacteria in meat. I know--who is? But this article detailing the role of ammonia in the process reads like it came from the Onion, not, you know, reality.

Can I Get a Refund?

I found this image on Digg. Apparently it's a receipt from a Portland area Burger joint that tells the customer the nutritional information of the food they are about to eat.

Haloscan

Our good friend SbT informs me that soon Haloscan will be no more. Many posts on other blogs seem to back this up. So far, Haloscan still works, so I'm willing to leave HS in place on this blog until it goes offline.

What I am not willing to do is to spend even one little penny on the service that HS is becoming. It pains me that years of comments on this blog and others I really like are likely about to be destroyed. I responded to almost every comment posted on this blog and a record of those exchanges should survive. Please do not blame me for this. Blame the companies running this scam.

Any long-term commenters or readers who would like space on this blog that will never be deleted, feel free to send me an email and we can arrange for you to write a guest post.

The Decade of Sanchez?

Will the Twenty-tens be the decade of Rick Sanchez? Absolutely not. But, he did take Senator Ensign to the woodshed in this interview.



At no point in this interview is Sanchez rude, loud or otherwise unprofessional. Nor did he yield. Awesome work.

Happy New Year, Station Nation, We're Four Years Old!

Whoopie! Hope you're all having fun. I know I probably am. See I set this baby to post at 3pm, so I can't say whether I'm officially having fun or not. But I can say that I have a New Year's resolution to "bring the fun back." That may not always be easy, but that's the plan for 2010 and beyond.

What are you people thinking? Let me hear it. It's your new decade too, though not technically. Technically the new decade begins after 2010, but no one gives a shit about that, so new decade is still on! Get in on it people.

Oh, and, since it's midnight, that means Ice Station Tango is now officially four years old! Thanks to everyone who helped out and that followed this silly blog.

I only have one question: Cake...

or...


DEATH?