Simonize 2016

Roger el-Simon y Simon will tell you how the Republican Party lost in 2012 -- It let the EMESSEM ask its candidates questions in their primary debates:

The Republicans certainly did their best to prove [they were fools] in election 2012.

And how were they fooled? The last election was arguably over and done before the real battle started when the mainstream media overtly and covertly made mincemeat of the Republican candidates during the primary debates, effectively neutering them [sic] for the main event.

Well, except for, momentarily, Newt Gingrich, who provided the one intellectually stimulating moment during that tedious and seemingly interminable series of events when he called the media out. That, unfortunately, could only be effective once.

You will be unsurprised to learn that el-Simon y Simon identifies exactly no questions or techniques the dastards posed to emasculate (Simonize?) the G.O.P. he-men and Michele. It is artilce of faith that Republican failures are the fault of someone else, who tricked the party establishment into not being wingnutshit-crazy enough. 

el-Simon also fails to explain how voters will view the debates without EMESSEM involvement -- perhaps a paid subscription to PJTV!

el-Simon ain't just whinin', however.  He proposes a solution:

One approach might be to start with a list of intelligent right-of-center people who will ask reasonable questions eliciting substantive responses. You can find them in abundance at such places as the National Review, the Weekly Standard, Breitbart.com, Townhall.com, HotAir.com, RedState.com, and, to be self-serving, PJMedia.com. There are plenty more, including, naturally, the Wall Street Journal opinion pages.

(Another approach might be to run candidates who advocated reasonable political agendas and could articulate those agendas in an intelligent and articulate manner.  But don't tell Rog.)

I like this idea, because it ensures that next Republican primary will include an extra layer of bitter allegations between the Allen West and Scott Walker factions, as each side accuses the third-rate bloggers of being RINO apologists for their opponent. And that those battles will be fought in utter obscurity.

The good news for el-Simon is that he won't be alive to see the 2016 elections.

Deadweight

Aiming to cut costs in an increasingly troubled advertising environment, The New York Times announced on Monday morning that it would offer buyout packages to newsroom employees. While the primary goal of the buyout program is to trim managers and other nonunion employees from its books, the company is offering employees represented by the Newspaper Guild the chance to volunteer for buyout packages as well. In a letter to the staff, Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times, said she was seeking 30 managers who are not union members to accept buyout packages. 

She stressed that the paper had been reducing as many newsroom expenses as possible, like leases on foreign and national bureaus. But the hiring The Times has done in recent years to help make it more competitive online has restored the newsroom to the same size it was in 2003 — about 1,150 people. 

Start with the entire op-ed lineup except Krugman. Save more money - don't offer them buyouts. Terminate them for gross incompetence. Dowd can collect Social Security and Douthat can become a sperm donor. Friedman can sell appliances....

These buyouts are not being offered to members of the editorial department. Andrew Rosenthal, the ditorial page editor, wrote in a note that “we, too, have made reductions to our expenses to meet our share of this burden, but we are not going to be offering buyouts in the Editorial Department at this time.”

Like I said, just can them. And whoever hired Douthat too.

Where Are They Now?

Ever wonder what ol' whats-his-name has been doing? Me neither, but the Washington Post apparently cares.

One longtime counselor contrasted Romney with former vice president Al Gore, whose weight gain and beard became a symbol of grievance over his 2000 loss [sic]. “You won’t see heavyset, haggard Mitt,” he said. Friends say a snapshot-gone-viral showing a disheveled Romney pumping gas is just how he looks without a suit on his frame or gel in his hair.

Don't count on that, anon. counselor:

Over Thanksgiving, one of Romney’s five sons, Josh, his wife and their four children packed into a single bedroom at the Spanish-style villa on Dunemere Drive here. One friend said they ordered their turkey dinner from Boston Market, the home-style restaurant chain, because there were too many kids running around the house to bother with cooking a feast.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is undergoing 'roid detoxification at a private clinic in Green Bay.

None Dare Call It Reading

Joe Queenan takes it easy on Ayn Rand:

"Atlas Shrugged” is moronic beyond belief, though it just narrowly edges out “The Fountainhead.” Rand is a fascist and a creep, either of which could be forgiven. But she also cannot write. 

And so are her fans. 

All Fail The Conquering Zero

Thor Thorassson has rejected the universal uproar demanding that he primary Saxby Chambliss. Thor thays that he can't afford the pay cut, and then offers this incoherent tearjerker:

In December of 2006 my wife lay dying. She had six months to live. We talked in ways we never talked before about what it would be like when she was gone. She said she had seen me grow in my role at RedState as a catapult, launching others into the arena to do the fighting while I stood on the outside assisting and fighting. My role is that of the catapult still. I’ve been in the arena. I’m meant to be on the outside helping. I am more useful to the ideas I believe in and the cause I love being where I am. I have a television presence, a well listened to radio show on the largest talk radio station in the nation, and RedState itself.

Luckily, my wife got a reprieve. She had been misdiagnosed. But I won’t put her or my family through something like that when I don’t even view it as my calling.

So Thor's wife wasn't actually dying, she was the victim of medical malpractice. But as she lay not dying, Mrs. Thorassson recalled the days when her fat manchild was a fat child, endangering other children by mounting the teeter-totter. And that little big man grew up to be a Palinesque city councilmember, Clark Howard's warm-up act (when there's not a basketball game preempting him) and a CNN stooge. 

But why can't Thorassson at least endorse Moe Lane for the Senate seat?

Let's Have The Best Christmas Ever

Grand Old Police Blotter: Staats' Rights Edition

A Tennesee gun nut even more loathsome than Glenn Reynolds:

Tennessee Republican Brad Staats, a losing congressional candidate earlier this month, was arrested early Sunday morning on a domestic assault charge after police responded to a call from his wife claiming that he slapped her.

According to a report in the Nashville City Paper on the police affidavit, Staats denied his wife Bethany's account of the incident, but said that "he pushed his wife ... down onto a bed then left the location.”

The affidavit, also notes, however, that "Ms. Staats did have a red mark on her left cheek consistent with her statement." The Tennessean got a hold of Staats on Monday, who told the outlet that the situation was “not what it appears to be.”

Staats ran in Tennessee's 5th Congressional District on a "family matters" platform that stressed traditional values and Second Amendment rights. He drew national attention in October after posting a photo of his handgun to his Facebook page, alongside a message "welcoming" President Barack Obama to Tennessee. He denied that it was meant as a threat.

Brad is lucky his wife wasn't armed.

Here's some further background on Brad:

Brad received Baccalaureate of Arts in English Literature from Oral Roberts University with a second degree in Music. While continuing his education at Florida State University, Brad was offered an opportunity to perform on Broadway and travel with their touring group. His performances include well known hits like “Phantom of the Opera,” “Evita,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” and even performed at Dollywood [sic].

With the birth of his first child, Monet, Brad decided that “show business” and the type of family life he wanted were not compatible. He changed careers and decided to settle down, raise a family and begin a business career.

Of course, Brad is a staunch defender of "traditional marriage."  I suspect Dolly would kick Brad's ass.

And naming his firstborn Monet Staats might not have been a great idea either.

Erick Erickson, Socialist

In a screed aptly titled "The Incestuous Bleeding of the Republican Party," Red State's Oly Olafson has laid the blame for the failure of the Romney campaign on incestuous party hacks who made more off the election than he did.

If money is the root of all evil, for the Republican Party evil is located on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza, Alexandria, VA 22314.

Strip away the candidate and coalition and it is on the fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza where the seeds of Mitt Romney’s ruin and the RNC’s get out the vote (GOTV) effort collapsed — bled to death by charlatan consultants making millions off the party, its donors, and the grassroots.

Strip away the bullets and the bleeding, and Abe Lincoln died of boredom at Ford's Theater.

And damn those collapsing seeds!

This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The fifth floor of 66 Canal Center Plaza reveals a tangled web of incestuous relationships among Republican consultants who have made millions all while the GOP went down the tubes. Here the top party consultants waged war with conservative activists and here they waged war with the Democrats. On both fronts, they raked in millions along the way with a more fractured, minority party in their wake. And they show no signs of recognizing just how much a part of the problem they are.

Why the fact the consultants made millions off the election is troubling isn't clear from Yumpin' Yiminy's screed. (And they didn't necessarily "make" millions -- they were paid millions and spent it hiring employees, conducting research, creating ads, etc., like any other enterprise.)  Erickson isn't claiming that Romney would have pulled off a victory if he'd only had those extra millions.  Instead, he appears to be claiming that the pencil-necked flacks didn't pander enough to the true believers.  Yet Erickson gives no examples to support his claim.  Surely he's not stupid enough to believe that the most rabid Obama-haters stayed home because Mitt wasn't enough of a pro-rape birther.

The only rational explanation is that Erickson believes that Karl and the Kochs didn't share enough of their largess with him.

Finally, despite all his pious posturing, Erickson doesn't know his Bible very well.  Contrary to his intro, it's the love of money which is the root of all evil.  But if he acknowledged that, Erickson would have to stop fleecing his own flock, and disavow the G.O.P. immediately.

Behind the Red Whores

It took four PoliticHos to pen this exclusive insider account of ... nothing:

Behind the Susan Rice meeting meltdown

In just two quick meetings on Capitol Hill, Susan Rice may have blown up any goodwill she had with the very senators she’ll need for confirmation if she’s ever tapped as the next secretary of state.

Over the past two days, four key Republican senators have emerged from private meetings to blast the United Nations ambassador’s explanation about what happened during and after the deadly attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

It's not clear what Rice said behind closed doors to anger all these senators, but it’s obvious the meetings went badly and this was hardly a nominee-in-waiting charm offensive.

Shorter PoliticHos: "We don't know what the fuck happened, but we'll pretend it was the Ambassador's fault.  And we'll call this inside information."

The Three Douchebagateers (McCain, Graham and Ayotte) said they had more questions before the meeting than after. As far as can be gleaned from the article, the PoliticHos didn't get around to asking the 3Ds what those questions were, whether those questions were actually posed during the meeting, or how those questions were or weren't answered. The PoliticHos did get one anonymous elephant to assert that the 3Ds "were so incensed after their powwow with Rice because they felt she was not being straight or candid with them about Benghazi." The PoliticHos then forgot to ask this anonymous GOP asshole why the 3Ds felt that, and what the factual basis for that feeling was.

It would be fine for PoliticHo to write that the 3Ds came out and bitched after their meeting with the Ambassador, but failed to give any substantive explanation for their bitching.  It would also be fine for PoliticHo to report that the 3Ds refused to explain their complaints or, alternatively, that the PoliticHos were two stupid or cowed or corrupt (or all three) to ask for explanations. 
Either the 3Ds explained themselves, or they did not.  But the article doesn't provide that explanation, or any excuse for the failure to report it.

The only "behind" in this article is the four PoliticHos bending over and taking four up the ass for the GOP.  (And not in a good way.) 

Reasons to Be Thankful

Number one: You're not Thomas Sowell.

Kid Kidneys took the stage from Palo Alto to Los Angeles the other day, and landed in one of them new-fangled boardin' houses:

Recently, at a well-known luxury hotel in Los Angeles, I found that something as simple as turning on a television set can require a phone call to the front desk, and then waiting for the arrival of a technician. Then it took another phone call to get a list of which of the dozens of channels were for which networks.

Why the turning on of a television set should be anything other than obvious to a newly arrived hotel guest is apparently a question that never occurred to the people who ran this hotel. Nor did it apparently ever occur to them that someone just arriving from a journey might want to be able to relax, instead of having to cope with complications that the hotel could easily have avoided.

Just pay for the damn porno, Tommy, and don't pretend you couldn't understand the remote just to get your $16.95 back.

Even more confusing for Tom was the Ablutio-Tron 3000:

The next morning, in the shower, I found myself confronted with a dazzling array of knobs and levers, none of which provided any clue as to what they did. The lever rotated and four of the surrounding knobs both rotated and tilted forward and backward.

Tommy called down for a technician on this occasion too, but the hotel was on to him by this time.

Tommy then gets his personal bathrobe stolen and laundered, then bitches about how different lamps have different types of switches, and then flashes back to a problem he had with a hotel light switch "years ago." After a great while, he moves down the coast, to San Diego, where his woes continue in a new venue:

Later I had to fix a toilet that kept running after being flushed. I once had a toilet like that at home, so I knew what to do. But I replaced my malfunctioning toilet at home, unlike the hotel.

So if he didn't replace the crapper, which is what he did when he had the same problem at home, how did he fix it? Or is he bragging that he accomplished a temporary fix, but wasn't stuck with replacing the toilet? Either way, the story makes no sense. Why didn't he just ask for another room?

Link via Sadly, No!.

Update (11/26):  Name of fictional futuristic shower corrected.

Jock Sniffing In The News

Maureen "MolDold" Dowd has a painfully painful column comparing the Washington D.C. Football Club's quarterback Robert Griffin to President Obama.

Spoiler Alert: Obama compares unfavorably to Griffin.

The column also features cameos by Extenze pitchman Jimmy Johnson, Tiger Woods, Joe Paterno and an (uncredited) Joe Lieberman, who is quoted as saying:

As a Democratic senator recently told me: “If only the president would have us over to the White House sometimes and talk to us, it could really help. When Bill Clinton called and asked if he could have my vote, I was more prone to do it because we had developed a rapport.”

MolDold's column reminds me of the Joe Theismann ad for Super Beta Prostate, wherein Joe allows, "And no matter what stadium I broadcast from, I always had to find the closest bathroom...."  Joe, did you really think that  your need to urinate frequently would vary depending on which stadium you were in?

Grand Old Police Blotter: Hiram Lewis and the (Good) News Edition

Some wacky goings on in the Black Lung State:

Hiram Carson Lewis IV, 41, was arrested over the weekend on a warrant alleging he had threatened Clay County Sheriff Randy Holcomb. Holcomb is a witness against Lewis in a previous case alleging Lewis shot and wounded a man at Lewis' home in Procious.

Lewis, a lawyer and an Iraq War veteran, ran unsuccessfully for the office of attorney general in 2004 and ran unsuccessfully in the 2006 Republican primary to challenge U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. He again ran for attorney general in 2008, but was edged out in the Republican primary by Dan Greear.

According to a criminal complaint on file in Clay County Magistrate Court, Lewis went to Holcomb's camp in Procious on Oct. 28 and asked the sheriff to go to the Clay County prosecutor's office to help drop charges of malicious wounding and wanton endangerment filed against Lewis in June.

According to the criminal complaint, Lewis told the sheriff on Oct. 28 that he might have to sue over the criminal charges, and allegedly threatened to sue Holcomb as well.

Lewis then allegedly told Holcomb that the sheriff and State Police Trooper B.E. Young were the only witnesses left to testify against him in the June criminal case. A third witness, former State Police Cpl. M.L. Bailey, was shot and killed by a suspect in Wallback in August.

Lewis, who runs a Christian-based organization called Elk River Ministries, allegedly told Holcomb that Bailey had been shot "because of spiritual wrongdoing done to him," according to the criminal complaint.

Lewis says he wasn't trying to intimidate Holcomb, but was only inquiring as to whether Holcomb had been saved.  Some people just don't like being proselytized, I guess.

As for the underlying charges:

On June 13, Lewis was charged with wanton endangerment and malicious wounding for allegedly [sic] shooting Steven Bogart in the leg at Lewis' home in Procious.

Lewis said he shot Bogart after Bogart kicked the door in despite repeated warnings not to come into the house. Bogart said Lewis had invited him to stay at the house in exchange for carpentry work, and wasn't doing anything wrong at the time he was shot.

Jesus was a carpenter, but if He tried to kick Hi Lewis's door down, Lewis would've shot a cap in His ass too.

Okay, so usually these are a lot funnier. (The death of Corporal Bailey is of course tragic.)  The idea that a former candidate for the job of top law enforcement official in the state would let some dude live in his house in exchange for home repairs is almost there, but there's something .... missing.

Wait.  I know what it is:



Reminder:  All persons charged with a crime are innocent until proven guilty.

The End of The Bamboozlement

Reality has set in for Allen West:

After nearly two weeks of legal and electoral jousting, Mr. West, 51, conceded on Tuesday to his Democratic challenger in the Nov. 6 election, Patrick Murphy, a political newcomer from South Florida. Mr. Murphy, 29, won the race, in St. Lucie, Martin and northern Palm Beach Counties, by 1,904 ballots, or 0.58 percent of the vote.

“While a contest of the election results might have changed the vote totals, we do not have evidence that the outcome would change,” Mr. West said in a statement on Tuesday morning. “Given the extremely high evidentiary hurdles involved in a successful challenge, I will not ask my generous supporters to help fund a drawn-out, expensive legal effort with little chance of success.”

No word on whether West intends to return the $4 million left unspent after the election:

West’s $21 million as of Nov. 8 was the most raised by any U.S. House candidate, except for Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who was also running for president. But West spent money almost as fast as he raised it.

His $17 million of spending was the third highest total, behind only Bachmann and House Speaker John Boehner.

So Republicans spent $42 million or more backing a whackjob of color and a female whackjob.  Wonder why the G.O.P. isn't trumpeting those accomplishments in response to claims that the party's isn't diverse?

The Ghost of John Derbyshire Pinches A Loaf

From The Corner: 

Twinkies may have fueled generations of late-night writing and homework binges by journalists and students, but what was purer or more uplifting than the snow-white perfection of “Wonder Bread”? What else more perfectly reflects America in the 20th century, its rise of supermarket consumerization, the growth of suburbs, the promise of efficient mealtimes? I know we’re a low-carb, health conscious, seven-grains society now, but without the hope of redemption implicit in Wonder Bread, I fear dark days ahead.

Self-parody, to be sure, but is it witting or unwitting? You make the call.  (Hint:  The author was a Romney advisor.)

Don't tell Mikey, but Wonder Bread was the original Nanny Bloomberg, and not that pure:

During the 1940s, Continental Baking began adding vitamins and minerals to Wonder Bread as part of a government-sponsored program of enriching white bread which was notoriously deficient in vitamin and mineral content, to combat certain diseases. Known as the "Quiet Miracle", this development is credited with greatly reducing the incidence of the diseases beriberi and pellagra.

Don't You Know Who I Am?

So Kathy Jean Lopez gets a free cruise out of bamboozling rich elderly folks to fork over thousands for the privilege of listening to John Fund and Scott Rasmussen while seasick, and she's still got to complain about the burdens of privilege:

Customs Sunday morning coming off the USS National Review resembled the nightmare scenarios some of us have for the future of U.S. health care. As best I can estimate, I was in line with hundreds of fellow cruisers (the wise ones opted for the “expedited” line at 7 a.m., but I’m under the impression they encountered complications as well) for two hours. Rob Long, who can make Purell hand sanitizer and vacuum cleaning funny, couldn’t make light of this material, instead reminding us this could be the emergency room, and you could drop dead before you get to show your I.D.

Or the line at a polling place in Flordia, if you're the kind of Lopez the G.O.P. doesn't want to vote.

Too Batshit to Quit

The people of Florida have spoken again, and have again told war criminal Allen West to go waterboard himself at both ends simultaneously:

Florida Rep. Allen West’s reelection prospects grew dimmer Sunday, as a recount of early ballots showed him falling further behind his Democratic opponent.

Democrat Patrick Murphy, a 29-year-old construction company executive, gained 242 votes after the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections completed its re-tabulation, increasing his lead to more than 2,100 votes over West, a tea party hero. ...

One remaining option for West is to file a lawsuit contesting the election. Under Florida law, the congressman would have until Nov. 30 to file such a contest.

After that, the only opitions are prison and involuntary committment. 

Music Makes The People Come Together

The G.O.P. brainstorming has begun: Palin/DuJan '16:

A Palin "war against women"? Hah! Not only is she a woman, she's got a single-mom daughter, Bristol, to help with the swelling single-mom demographic. On social issues, Palin, unlike Romney, has been absolutely consistent. And let's remember that most Americans, whatever their view of choice, disapprove of most abortions.

Gay marriage? Palin opposes it. But she is also a strong advocate of states' rights, and I'm betting she'd be fine with letting states and their voters grapple with the issue on their own. Remember that all of America didn't swing toward approval of gay marriage on Nov. 6. Three reliably blue states and their voters did. If she were smart, Palin would recruit a member of her impressive gay fanboy base — yes, she has one — to help run her campaign. I nominate Kevin DuJan of the widely read gay conservative blog HillBuzz, a Palin stalwart since 2008.

The author, Charlotte Allen, is serious.  And she's actually seconding the nomination, since DuJan himself  nominated himself to run Palin's 2012 campaign.  (For the record, the other half of Palin's gay fanboy base is Gay Patriot.)

If only McCain/Palin had tapped a gay blogger read by literally hundreds of heterosexual PUMAs, McCain would be President right now, and through mid-January.

Allen anticipates objections:  

There are also the snooty East Coast Republican intellectual types, such as Peggy Noonan, who look down their noses at a woman who doesn't shop at Neiman Marcus and didn't attend an Ivy League university. But Peggy made a fool of herself calling the election for Romney on Nov. 5. Who's going to care what she and her ilk have to say next time?

I don't know where Nooners shops, but she certainly didn't attend an Ivy.  And you know what other fool  called the election for Romney on November 5?  That's right. 

Fucking idiots.

Jews You Can Use

Is anybody surprised by Rupert Murdoch's anti-Semitic conspiracy theory of a Jewish owned press?  Or his laughable "clarification" that he was referring to "reporters" (presumably only the Jewish, press-owning reporters)?

The only question now is which of Merde's flunkies will deliver the biggest apologetic ass-kissings in the days to come.  My money's on Krauthammer.

Roger's Election Post-Mortem

Although there's still votes to be counted in shitholes in Arizona, I'm posting my recap now and moving on.

Worst election prediction, single

Michael Barone: Romney 315, Obama 223. Sure, there's Dick Morris and Karl Rove. But Bill Clinton was the last person who took Morris seriously and Rove's a known fraud. Barone was once considered a credible political analyst, at least among in the Broder bipartisancest set. No one will ever make that mistake again.

Worst election prediction, overall

Jim Inhofe: Republicans take White House and Senate.  To be fair, the Senator was on crack when he made that prediction.

Bitterest wingnut whine about the election outcome

Mitt Romney pulled it out in the late innings, channeling his inner Gateway Fuckwit with his theory that the ungrateful electorate returned his gifts of forced abortion, war and full employment in Cambodia without even a thank you note.  Enjoy the victory, Willard. It's the last thing you'll ever win.

Most bizarre wingnut theory about the election outcome 

Mind control -- Chip Rogers.  Chipper avoided brainwashing by not having a brain.

Most bizarre wingnut theory about the election outcome, non-conspiratorial

Hurricane Sandy had an effect on the outcome of the Presidential election -- various idiots, including Bill Clinton, if you believe Willard.  EMESSEM darling Chris Christie couldn't convince    anyone to vote for Romney, let alone Obama.  If anything, Sandy cost Obama in the popular vote by reducing turnout in News York and Jersey.

Most pathetic and predictable wingnut theory about the election outcome 

"A true conservative would have won."  -- Various and numerous.

Most humorous wingnut meltdown, election-related

"Have a neighbor who votes for Obama? You could take a crap on their lawn" - Libertarian philosopher Eric Dondero.   

Honorable mention: Deployment of military metaphors by the likes of the Virgin Ben Shapiro.

Most important electoral victory

President Obama's re-election (with a popular vote total greater than Romney, Johnson, Stein, Goode and Barr combined).

Most enjoyable electoral victory  

Marriage equality ballot initiatives.   

Honorable mention:  Elizabeth Warren, California Prop. 36.
(I'm also mildly happy that Rep. Giffords' former seat in Arizona has been snatched from the jaws of teabaggery 10 days after election day.)

Most enjoyable electoral defeat

Allen West, because he really, really doesn't want to go. It's not a life sentence of hard labor, but I'll take it.  

Honorable mentions:  Joe Walsh, Dan Lundgren, Linda McMahon. Also, Bibi Netanyahu.  (Akin and Mourdock disqualified because their opponents aren't much better.)  

A Late Sack In Sac

A late entry in the Best Result of the 2012 election contest:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Republican Rep. Dan Lungren lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger Ami Bera on Thursday in one of California's most hotly contested congressional contests, but the congressman refused to concede.

Voters from the Sacramento suburbs ousted the veteran lawmaker in the race for the state's newly redrawn 7th Congressional District. This was the second attempt for Bera, a 45-year-old physician who failed to unseat Lungren two years ago.

Bera was defeating Lungren by nearly 5,700 votes, or 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent, with about 38,000 provisional and vote-by-mail ballots outstanding in Sacramento County. The 7th Congressional District covers part of the county. The Associated Press made the call Thursday.

Seeing Lundgren always made me want to paraphrase Henry II: "Will no one rid me of this oleaginous mope?" 

Mother of Pantload, Is This The End of Ring Dings?

Sad news.  Jonah Goldberg will no longer be able to stuff his piehole with "fresh" Ring Dings, in light of the news that Hostess Brands, Inc. is shutting down.

Undoubtedly lard-filled wingnuts such as Goldberg and Erick Erickson will bemoan the corporate death of the manufacturer of lard-filled treats, and blame the President for refusing to bail out the American snackcake industry.  Perhaps they'll stock up as Hostess liquidates its inventory, but after a few years they'll have to resort to Little Debbie. 

No, I said, Little Debbie.

Update:  The New York Times offers a possible solution, at a terrible cost to Lucianne and Erickson's mom.

Mike Hunt Says What?

National Review has found the male equivalent of Kathryn J. Lopez, a homeschooled Scott Stapp look-alike named Nathan Harden. And Master Harden has become quite aroused by a billet-doux-me in New Haven:

You won’t believe what they’re up to in New Haven. The latest example of a Yale’s depravity is so graphic that I can’t even mention much of it on these family-friendly pages. It involves an innuendo-filled flyer that appeared all over campus this week, advertising a fake event by a female author of a sex-themed book supposedly entitled “Let’s Find Out The Hard Way.” Crude, and woman-demeaning, this is comic material worthy of a 13-year-old’s intelligence and sophistication. How bad was it? Take a look for yourself at the Yale Daily News.  The fictitious flyer wouldn’t be so troubling if it weren’t so true to life.

How depraved and graphic is the crude unmentionable yet linkable leaflet?. Well, the name of the fictitious author depicted in the flyer is Wilma Dickfit. 

That's it. No graphic images. No other gags more overtly sexual than "big new hardcover." No use of the word sex. No words that can't be mentioned in Highlights for Children. Nothing demeaning to women, unless you find a woman responding affirmatively to a sexual proposal demeaning. On an anonymous joke leaflet. 

I have no personal knowledge, but I suspect dick jokes have been around Yale at least since the days George W. Bush was branding Lanny Davis' ass and Bill Buckley was blowing his roommates.

I can see why someone named Harden would be sensitive to erection puns. But he graduated from Yale three years ago, and has accomplished nothing since that time apart from writing a 301-page sexphobic book (forwarded by that pillar of sexual rectitude, Chris Buckley) .  It's time for you to take it like a man and move on, Nate.

Roger's Hollywood Minute

More appeasement from liberal Hollywood, coming to a wide screen near you Thanksgiving week:

Red Dawn is a 2012 American action war film directed by Dan Bradley and written by Jeremy Passmore and Carl Ellsworth, based on the 1984 film of the same name. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The film centers on a group of young people who defend their hometown from a North Korean invasion.

The remake was announced in May 2008 and went into production in September 2009. The film was originally scheduled to be released on November 24, 2010, but was shelved due to maker Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's (MGM) financial troubles. The invading army was changed from Chinese to North Korean in post-production.

....

 In March 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that MGM changed the villains in its Red Dawn remake from Chinese to North Korean in order to maintain access to China's lucrative box office. The changes reportedly cost less than $1 million and involve changing an opening sequence summarizing the story's fictional backdrop, re-editing two scenes and using digital technology to transform many Chinese symbols to Korean. The film's producer Trip Vinson stated, "We were initially very reluctant to make any changes, but after careful consideration [of our contracts with MGM -- RA] we constructed a way to make a scarier, smarter and more dangerous Red Dawn that we believe improves the movie".

Apparently the United States' 10-to-1 numerical advantage in military aircraft, nuclear arsenal and 13-to-1 population advantage cannot stop the wily North Korean military from invading the U.S. mainland.  And apparently Hollywood is still full of racist dicks.

Are You Being Nutted?

Is it too much to hope for that this guy looks and sounds like John Inman?

Two former law enforcement colleagues said Mr. Humphries was a solid agent with experience in counterterrorism, conservative political views and a reputation for aggressiveness.

“Fred is a passionate kind of guy,” said one former colleague. “He’s kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he’d be a bulldog.”
....

Mr. Humphries passed on Ms. Kelley’s complaint to the cybersquad in the Tampa field office but was not assigned to the case. He was later admonished by supervisors who thought he was trying to insert himself improperly into the investigation.

Convinced that the case was being stalled for political reasons, Mr. Humphries in late October contacted Representative Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington State, where the F.B.I. agent had worked previously, to inform him of the case. Mr. Reichert put him in touch with the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, who passed the message to the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III.

New Country for Old Men

Oly Olafson is too too old and fat to lead Civil War II: Confederate Oogaboogaloo, so others have taken his place:

Derrick Belcher, a 45 year-old topless carwash owner, is behind the Alabama petition, according to AL.com. He supported Ron Paul in 2012 and told the site he’s serious about creating a new union of states that did not vote for Obama’s reelection. Belcher said that a nation of red states could do away with entitlement programs — and the people who rely on them.

Well, not exactly.  Belcher's topless car wash-owning glory days have passed:

Belcher blamed the government for shutting down his former business. Belcher said his Euro Details car wash, which featured topless women, was successful for a decade on Halls Mill Road in Mobile. But he said he was arrested and charged with obscenity by city officials in 2001.

“The government ripped my business away, and now they’re choking America to death with rules and regulations,” he said.

With that boot stomping on his face forever, it unsurprisingly took Belcher eleven years to come up with his secession plan. And apparently no one suggested that he move to a more topless car wash-friendly jurisdiction during those long years.  Just imagine Belcher's surprise when the newly-independent Free State of Alabama still won't let him wash cars in the buff, even if he promises to pay his employees eight cents an hour to do so.

Bloodbath At Tiffany's

Over at Commentary, happily-married father and confident heterosexual John Podhoretz has terminated a blogger for making "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage."  If it's not good enough for Israel, it's not good enough for J-Pod.

Republican Family Values: Petraeus Don't Betraeus Edition

David Petraeus was once the latest greatest whitest hope of the Republican Party for the 2012 presidential contest, albeit in the same way the faithful fantasized about Christie, Schwarzkopf, Guiliani and other putative G.O.P. hardmen.

Petraeus is now fulfilling that fantasy again as the man who will blow Benghazi open wider than Rush Limbaugh's inflatable love doll.  Apparently the CIA Director was going to throw the Administration under the uparmored Humvee at a closed Congressional session next Thursday, but instead decided to go back in time and bang an author not his wife two years ago.  Or something.  In any event, it will now be treason for anyone to mention that Petraeus is a Republican.

Update:  Summary of letters to National Review Forum here.

Good Deed for the Day

Kathryn J. Lopez is looking for some good books to read on the National Review Lose Cruise aka The White Male Vote Boat.

Help a sister out.

Because right now she's getting suggestions such as "Start with anything recent by Pat Buchanan, John Derbyshire, Steve Sailer, Ron Paul, or Ian Fletcher.  The center-left commentariat which has hijacked Republicanism has a lot of unlearning to do before 2016." 

No one seems to be volunteering the work product of any writer currently affiliated with National Review, which is usually the point of these exercises.

Burying your nose in a book might not seem like the best way to spend a Carribean cruise, unless your other options are discussing the election with Scott Rasmussen, Ed Gillespie, Ralph Reed and John Fund, or a shipboard romance with Ed Whelan or Mona Charen.

Act quickly, because the Titanic leaves port on Sunday.

You're Doing It Wrong

J-Rubb, whose last piece of brilliant advice for the Republican Party was "nominate Mitt Romney as your Presidential candidate," has 10 groovy new strategies for the party.  You will not be surprised that none of them involve adopting policies which are not regressive, intolerant or war-mongering.

Number eight is the Libertarian Fonzie gambit: 

Libertarians have made freedom and opposition to big government “cool,” and Republicans need to follow suit.

Ms. Rubin apparently has never seen Reason magazine, or any libertarian. 

KausFails

Midget Mickey Kaus is still alive, if you call that living. And he is freaking out that his fellow Republican immigrant bashers are going soft on Reconquista in light of the recent election. He's lost Krauthammer and Hannity, and he seems genuinely shocked that such stalwarts would abandon their deepest prejudices just to garner more tax cuts for themselves, and rape babies.

Just last week, the hairless hack was pretending to endorse President Obama because, among other things, "A Republican president, on the other hand, is a constant threat to sell out strike an amnesty deal in order to curry unaccustomed favor with America’s fastest second-fastest growing immigrant group."  Kaus' game of one-dimensional checkers apparently didn't allow for the possibility that an Obama victory on a pro-immigration platform would be seen as a rejection of Romney's severely anti-immigrant conservatism, and that politicians would act accordingly.

Kaus should self-deport now, preferably to a country without internet access.

Mitt the Moor

Here's an interesting theory: Willard Romney was Othello to Crisco Christie's Beast with Three Chins Iago.

Not only that, but Romney blew through all his campaign cash building the stage for the Tampa Convention, and Paul Ryan was the new Sarah Palin.

Warning: Lnk to Chris Ruddy at Newsmax.

He diddled you with that hocus-pocus, did he?

Will any sound person ever buy Karl Rove's yarbs -- ugh, ugh! -- ag'in?

It's: "It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham."

Donald Trump can't even plagiarize correctly.

In The Land of Complete Idiots, The One-Celled Brain Is King

The only way this could get uglier is with photographs:

[Dean Chambers] said he probably won't go back to "unskewing" polls next time. He actually thinks conservative-leaning pollsters like Scott Rasmussen have a lot more explaining to do. 

"He has lost a lot of credibility, as far as I'm concerned," Chambers said. "He did a lot of surveys. A lot of those surveys were wrong."

This ATM Is Temporarily Out of Cash

The world's biggest loser is a sexist self-loather too:

Via Election Law Blog, Norwegian TV got a very brief interview with Sheldon Adelson as the casino magnate and billionaire Republican donor left Mitt Romney’s election night event in Boston on Tuesday night.  

Asked how he thought the millions of dollars he showered on Romney’s candidacy was spent, Adelson responded: “By paying bills. That’s how you spend money. Either that or become a Jewish husband — you spend a lot of money.” 

Adelson spent over $53 million on the 2012 election, including on his support of Newt Gingrich in the GOP primary. Nearly all of the candidates he funded lost. 

I thought Newt was a Catholic.

Let's hope Shelly is a just a good a judge of criminal lawyers. 

Early Results

I knew it was all over when Matt Incontinenti of the Washington Free Beacon said on NPR sometime before 6 p.m. PST that Mitt Romney could win the popular vote even though the President won the Electoral College.  I could have turned off the radio and gone to sleep right then, except for the fact I was driving a car.

Roger's Election In Review

In the coming days, I'm going to be collecting candidates in the following categories for the 2012 election:

Worst election prediction (single and overall).

Bitterest wingnut whine about the election outcome.

Most bizarre wingnut theory about the election outcome (conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial).

Most pathetic and predictable wingnut theory about the election outcome (sorry, with one tenth of one percent of precincts reporting, the race has been called for "a true conservative would have won"). 

Most humorous wingnut meltdown, election-related.

Most important electoral victory.

Most enjoyable electoral victory.

Most enjoyable electoral defeat.

 Most likely not to return from the National Review Cruise.

I've already started choosing likely candidates, but feel free to nominate your own in comments. Results will be announced next week.

Day One

We have just obtained an exclusive copy of Romney's new Day One to-do list:

Block cell numbers of Donald Trump and Kid Rock.

Have Ann return "World's Best President" mugs to CostCo., with receipt.

Unlock the closet where Paul Ryan has been kept.

Lie (just for practice).

Drown Grover Norquist in the bathtub.

Circle this week's Matlock airings in the TV Guide.

 Rehire undocumented landscape gardeners.

Have head examined.

Thor Asses and Dumbasses

From Glenn Beck's World of Haemorrhoids:

Citing a “very solid source” in Chicago, [novelist Brad] Thor says the Obama campaign is looking to make it appear to voters that they have “this thing sewed up and are less than 24 hours to victory,” according to his source.

Meanwhile, team Obama will also urge voters to get out and vote so they can say they were part of the important 2012 election that resulted in a second term for Obama.

While Thor can’t reveal his source, he told TheBlaze multiple times that the source is very reliable.  (What Thor thays fwee timeth ith twue! - RA) 

Obamaites are claiming their man will win in less than 24 hours and and urging voters to vote Obama. I'm scandalized.

This is a Glenn Beck site, so I'm guessing that the author of this report doesn't realize how fucking stupid he or she is.

Adventures In Voting

At 7 a.m., there was already a line of three people behind me.  It was not a scene of chaos or confusion, except on the part of the poll workers.

There was a self-identified Republican woman voter being a jerk, although not in a disruptive way.  Most of the voters were youngish (compared to me; in their late to mid 20s) and had walked to the polls on a beautiful November day.

Rock on.

And What Do We Say To The Acolytes of High Broderism? Fuck Off.

PoliticHo's professional pecksniffs Dylan Byers and John Harris learn a new word:

It is one of the signature developments of Washington during the Obama years: a flourishing F-bomb culture, one that has spread far beyond the White House and now pervades government-media relations in both parties, all across the capital.

It gets worse. In bemoaning the death of Washingtonian gentility, the pecksniffs actually quote talking penis Ari Fleisswhore praising the dead Dean: 

Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said. “In the older days, young reporters could turn to a David Broder or a veteran reporter, and the veteran would put their arm around the reporter and help the reporter. Who does a reporter turn to for wisdom on the trail? And if I’m a press secretary with a complicated story I want to put out, who am I supposed to turn to?”

Don't be so modest, Ari.  You knew all the Republican house organs in days of older, and played them well. Especially PoliticHo.

Byers and Harris don't go so far as to claim that Obama invented "fuck."  (Their article is accompanied by a slideshow that demonstrates vulgarity by pols predated the 2008 election.)  
Their more modest proposal is that the political press flacks used to kiss their large, pale asses in exchange for repeating the pols' lies, at least until 2009.  No proof is forthcoming, which leads one to suspect that they simply long for the company of a G-rated Mormon who will lie to them in the most chaste language.

No Brainer

Scott Lemieux on the election.

Perhaps a Smoking Billboard Instead

Statue of Chris Hitchens Proposed.

What is Roger Reading?

Buzzfeed (quoting some website run by former Bush/RNC hack Patrick Ruffini) says:

Conservative readers love Drudge and Ayn Rand; liberals like the Times and Noam Chomsky.

This earth-shattering conclusion is based on Facebook "likes," not what people are actually reading. Thus, what the groups actually read -- internet porn and their e-mail -- is not addressed.

Presently, I'm reading Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie and The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter.

A Nation of Illiterates

Not the entire nation, but the nation of Beltway hacks.  Here's PoliticHo's hackery on the Pew study:

From August 27 through October 21, 71 percent of MSNBC's coverage of Mitt Romney this year was negative, far outperforming Fox News's negative coverage of President Barack Obama, which came in at 46 percent, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The negative-to-positive ratio on MSNBC was roughly 23-to-1; the negative-to-positive ratio on Fox News was 8-to-1.

Howie Kurtz all but read this verbatim in the CNN clip below. I'd wager even money that Kurtz didn't even read Pew's summary of its study; he just cut-and-pasted Byers' inaccurate summary of the Pew summary into the teleprompter.

As a scholarly analysis demonstrates, here's what Pew actually studied:

So pesons working for Pew watched 1.0 to 2.5 hours of a cable net every weekday, with different amounts for each net. Unless, as this page suggests, Pew only "codes the first half of an hour long show ("For all television programs, we code the first 30 minutes of the broadcast (with the exception of PBS Newshour), regardless of how long the program lasts," which would bring it down to .5 to 1.5 hours per net per day). And "When a show is pre-empted for a special live event, such as a presidential campaign debate or the State of the Union address, we do not include that period as part of our sample." (Both political conventions occurred during the subject time period.)

So we're not taking about "the coverage" of the two networks. At most, we're talking about approximately 4 to 10.5 percent of the weekday, non-special event coverage. 

Again, the point is not whether a study which actually studied the actual coverage of the candidates by MSNBC and FOX would demonstrate that one channel sucked harder than the other (assuming you think that negative coverage of a presidential candidate by itself means that something sucks).  Because, really, who gives a fuck? 

The point is that Howie Kurtz and PoliticHo and Mediaite can't be bothered to report accurately what is spelled out for them in remedial English.  It wouldn't take much extra work to write "a Pew study in which researchers selectively viewed from 1/48th to 1/10th of programming on MSNBC and FOX concluded that MSNBC's coverage of Romney was more negative than FOX's coverage of the President."  It would have taken no extra work for these hacks to accurately state what was in the Pew executive summary.  

The Daily Beast and PoliticHo and Mediaite have so little respect for their readers that they don't even try to summarize a press release accurately.  Nothing at any of those sites should be taken seriously.

Late Faking News

Is there anyone with an i.q. over room temperature in Antarctica who is surpised by the Daily News' endorsement of Mitt Romney?

 There shouldn't be.

Joementum

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Howard Kurtz Sucks Even Harder

Not surprisingly, Howard "The Putz" Kurtz's media malpractice on the Pew study is even worse that Mediaite's misrepresentations.  Howie, the reigning Uncle Ernie of Beltway incest, didn't  read much past Pew's headline before misrepresenting the study:

No mention is made of the narrowness and unrepresentativeness of the study, the flawed definition of negative coverage (which the Putz confuses with bias) or any of the other flaws which are readily apparent if one bothers to read more than a few paragraphs. Kurtz is more interested in the study's bogus praise of his employer, CNN.

At least Mediaite linked to the Pew report, where the truth could be found.  Howie, the conflicted hack, doesn't even both to do so on Unreliable Sources website.

The Ghost of Joe Lieberman

Who is going the win the election?  I certainly don't know.

The fact that dimwitted fucknozzles like Michael Barone and Dick Morris think it's going to be a blowout for Romney only means that it's not going to be a blowout for Romney, not that Obama's going to win.  The fact that Scotty Rasmussen says it's too close to call gives me some hope, but I suspect that he's hedging his bets because he wants to be the go-to crooked Republican pollster after November 6, and declaring either major candidate the likely winner would jeopardize his gig.

It's all well and good that Nate Silver is positive Obama's going to win unless all the all the Electoral College polls have been biased for Obama, but I'm a life-long pessimist.  Just remember what happened 12 years ago. If Republicans can't win the Presidency, all they have to do is steal it again.

Why Mediaite Sucks

In a previous post, I bashed Mediaite without explaining why.  Let me elaborate.

Most of the posts there are simply recaps of cable news video clips, work a trained monkey could teach Dan Abrams to perform.  However, when one of their unpaid interns/columnists has to summarize something more complex than longer than a two-minute sesgment of Fox & Friends, failure is guaranteed.

An example.  Mediaite "reports":

A new survey released by Pew examined the negative coverage both President Barack Obamaand Mitt Romney have received in the mainstream news as well as in social media. While MSNBC and Fox News are often seen as two sides of the same partisan coin, the survey found one network to be notably more negative toward a candidate.

Seventy-one percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Romney, from August 27 to October 21 of this year, was negative (with three percent being positive). By contrast, Fox News’ negative coverage of Obama during the same period came in at 46 percent (with six percent being positive).

Not even close. 

Executive summary of survey says:

On [MSNBC], 71% of the segments studied about Romney were negative in nature, compared with just 3% that were positive-a ratio of roughly 23-to-1. On Fox, 46% of the segments about Obama were negative, compared with 6% that were positive-a ratio of about 8-to-1 negative. These made them unusual among channels or outlets that identified themselves as news organizations.

So we don't have a percentage of coverage, we have a percentage of "segments studied."  

Here's where a bright junior high school student would realize that Mediaite was just plain wrong in its summary.  And where a bright middle schooler would ask "what segments were covered?"  These:

Daytime (2:00 to 2:30 pm) coded two out of three every weekdayCNN
Fox News
MSNBC

Nighttime CNN - coded one or two out of the four every daySituation Room (5 pm)
Situation Room (6 pm)
Erin Burnett OutFront
Anderson Cooper 360

Nighttime Fox News - coded two out of the four every day
Special Report w/ Bret Baier
Fox Report w/ Shepard Smith
O'Reilly Factor
Hannity

Nighttime MSNBC - coded one or two out of the four every day PoliticsNation
Hardball (7 pm)
The Rachel Maddow Show
The Ed Show

So pesons working for Pew watched 1.0 to 2.5 hours of a cable net every weekday, with different amounts for each net. Unless, as this page suggests, Pew only "codes the first half of an hour long show ("For all television programs, we code the first 30 minutes of the broadcast (with the exception of PBS Newshour), regardless of how long the program lasts," which would bring it down to .5 to 1.5 hours per net per day). And "When a show is pre-empted for a special live event, such as a presidential campaign debate or the State of the Union address, we do not include that period as part of our sample." (Both political conventions occurred during the subject time period.)

So we're not taking about "the coverage" of the two networks. At most, we're talking about approximately 4 to 10.5 percent of the weekday, non-special event coverage. 

It can be argued that the specific 1.5 to 2.5 hours of programming chosen aren't representative of the total output of the channels (because they aren't).  For some reason, Pew also chose a ifferent block of programming hours for its nighttime CNN sample than for the other two nets.  

It can be argued that Pew's vague definitions of "tone" and positive and negative coverage are worthless (apparently pointing out that someone is trailing in the polls is considered negative, and true and false allegations accusing someone of lying are treated equally as negative. Is showing a clip of one pol criticizing another positive coverage of the first and negative of the second, or vice-versa? Pew knows?).  

But the point here is that Mediaite, which claims to be "the site for news, information and smart opinions about print, online and broadcast media" can't be bothered to understand basic facts about the press releases it attempts to paraphrase.

And that's one reason Mediaite sucks.

Lessdick In Indiana

Dick Mourdock is prove to be this year's Sharron Angle/Christine O'Donnell/Joe Miller, the Teabag idiot who keeps on giving:

(CNN) – A poll of likely voters in Indiana showed Democratic Senate candidate Joe Donnelly with an eleven point lead over GOP rival Richard Mourdock, whose comments on rape and abortion in October drew consternation from Democrats and some Republicans.

The survey from Howey Politics and DePauw University indicated Donnelly, a three-term congressman, was at 47% among likely Indiana voters in the race for the state's U.S. Senate seat, compared to 36% who support Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer. A Libertarian candidate, Andrew Horning, was at 6% in the poll.

Mourdock still could win. This poll was taken by a university which gave Dan Quayle a degree.  But the Democrats had no hope of defeating Richard Lugar, not even with an anti-choice conservadem like Donnelly.

Yet Another Reason to Hate Menards

Most recent in a series:

The course, titled “Civics 101: The National Self Governing Will In-Home Training,” incorporates much of the material comprising the Prosperity 101 program that AlterNet, working in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, exposed last year — a program concocted by Koch-linked political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, late of the now-defunct Herman Cain presidential campaign. In March, Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the FBI is investigating possible financial improprieties involving two non-profit organizations founded by Block that are linked to Prosperity 101, which is a for-profit venture.

Menards employees who sign up for the course are graded on their knowledge via a multiple choice pass-fail test, and those who pass the test are acknowledged in company publications and bulletins. While workers are not required to take the course, those who hope for promotions may feel pressure to do so, since it is clear that management is paying attention to who is or isn’t taking the at-home classes, which are conducted on the employees’ own time. The civics course is offered as part of a battery of courses, most of which pertain to products sold by the company, or other aspects of working at Menards.

Menards is pushing the morally bankrupt philosophy of the morally bankrupt Spermin' Cain.  It would be a pleasure to boycott Menards if there weren't already so many other reasons not to shop there.

Back On The Blogroll

The blogroll, cleverly named "Bogroll," is being repopulated.  I've got to recreate it from scratch because of the template change, and the powers that be at Blogger insist on alphabetical order.

If I haven't re-added (or added) you, just let me know.

A really pointless diatribe when I should be blogging about the election

It seems disgraced plagiarist Box Turtle Ben Domenech is a Star Wars fanboy.  Not the laughable SDI scheme of St. Ronnie, although he's probably a fan of that too. The Star Wars movies.

He makes an argument that others have made, which is that George Lucas ruined Star Wars.  This is incomprehensible to me.  Lucas created the original movie and the characters in it.  Yes, there were thousands of other people involved in making the movie.  But there wouldn't be a Star Wars without Lucas.  I understand the arguments that Lucas is a terrible writer and an evil merchandiser, etc., etc., and he's a hack who got lucky with the first film. I understand that if Lucas gives up control of the franchise (which he apparently just did), someone else can do something different (and call it Star Wars) and the critics might like that better. But, ultimately, the critics are a bunch of wankers (like Domenech) who are pissed because Lucas doesn't make their action figures do what they want their action figures to do. (When Domenech plays with his action figures, Darth Vader is a Communist who molests white women and the Rebel Alliance speaks with a Southern accent.)

I don't really care about the Star Wars franchise. I've only seen one of the movies in its entirety, when I was a kid, and don't know anything about the cartoons or the books or the video games or any of the other crap.  George Lucas may well be a hack and fatuous blowhard and the biggest dick among stiff competition in Marin County.  But your playset wouldn't exist without that evil untalented fuck.