Month: December 2010

What's next, world domination? Ken Layne responds to Bristol Palin's new home purchase in Maricopa, Arizona:

Wonkette operative “Steve M.” suggests there’s something more to Bristol’s WTF home purchase than her congenital need for a shoddily-constructed exurban home she can fill up with babies and unused Bow Flex machines just like back home in Wasilla. He says this means she has political ambitions, beyond all her other obvious talents, such as being able to get pregnant without a condom:

So here’s the best part.

Maricopa is a half-empty town south of Phoenix. Most of the homes are either in foreclosure or heading in that direction. That’s why she could buy a 5 bedroom house for $172,000.

But guess what? Arizona will get a new, 9th Congressional District thanks to the new census. Most observers think Maricopa will end up smack-dab in the middle of this new district.

Bristol for Congress!

Think I’m joking. I live in the 3rd Congressional District, represented by none other than Ben Quayle!

We sure hope Santa kills us all tonight, because this is getting to be a bit much.

by Chris Bodenner

Raising your Christmas consciousness:

The tree tweeted along the way:

by Zoë Pollock

The Economist takes a jab at the mood and tensions on the European continent with a year-end emoticon diplomacy map.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Radley Balko hates cable news too. His whole post is worth reading, and it all sounds characteristically spot on to me save one line:

People don’t watch cable news to be challenged or to learn. They watch it to get the latest talking points that they can use in their next political argument at the bar, over the water cooler, or at the dinner table.

This is doubtless true of some cable news viewers. But one of the most pernicious things about the medium is that not everyone is in on the joke. There are indeed people who watch Fox News or Keith Olbermann in an earnest attempt to inform themselves for civic purposes. Scare mongering segments about sharia law in America or kidnappings of little blond children fill them with genuine anxiety. And it's difficult to blame these credulous viewers for their dearth of media savvy. They're mostly older Americans who spent their lives in an unrelated profession.Their main mistake is failing to understand how base, mendacious and cynical some of today's media professionals can be.

It isn't as if cable news networks fess up to the fact that they're just spoon-feeding talking points to their audience. Confront Roger Ailes with that accusation. He'll angrily deny it. Anyone who wants to fully appreciate how indefensible that man's career is need only locate the nearest senior center that broadcasts his network, converse with its residents after they sit around watching for a few hours, and appreciate how much misinformation and pessimism about their grandchildren's fates they suffer to make infotainment profitable.

Corky White incites an airline food rebellion, and envisions what the alternative could taste like:

On a flight from Budapest to Vienna, on the Bulgarian Civil Air Transport, there was in-flight perfection.

The aircraft itself was not promising. It served two purposes: cattle lift and human transport, alternating. For humans, they slotted in seats and hung air fresheners around the cabin. The dominant scent was not human. And I had no high expectations for any aspect of the flight, let alone for a gourmet meal. But soon after takeoff, a burly steward came out of the galley, his arms lined up and down with baskets. In each basket there was a perfect picnic under a cloth—a hunk of local salami, a hunk of rough cheese, a half loaf of dark brown bread, a small bottle of Bulgarian red, and a perfect peach.

Michelle Legro describes Thomas Edison's other invention, the failed phonograph doll:

The doll was meant to be hand-cranked, just like a phonograph, and had a large handle sticking out of its side. It cost $10 in 1890 – more than $200 in today's money – an adult sum for a child's toy. The toy weighed four pounds, too heavy for a small child, because its torso was metal — the head was porcelain, the arms and legs wood, but the chest looked a jet engine and there was a speaker where the heart should be. Edison's doll was about as cuddly as a carburetor.

by Chris Bodenner

A heartwarming tale that blurs the battle lines in the War on Christmas.

by Chris Bodenner

"The great liberal ascendancy of 2008, destined to last 40 years (predicted James Carville), lasted less than two. Yet, the great Republican ascendancy of 2010 lasted less than two months. Republicans will enter the 112th Congress with larger numbers but no longer with the wind – the overwhelming Nov. 2 repudiation of Obama's social-democratic agenda – at their backs. "Harry Reid has eaten our lunch," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, lamenting his side's "capitulation" in the lame-duck session. Yes, but it was less Harry than Barry. Obama came back with a vengeance. His string of lame-duck successes is a singular political achievement," – Charles Krauthammer.

Helsinki, Finland, 3.11 pm

by Conor Friedersdorf

The Atlantic Wire rounds up a lot of commentary suggesting that Barack Obama is in the midst of a comeback. It's largely from folks on the center left, and guess what? People on the right are arguing that, in fact, "there's no Obama comeback."

I'd ask everyone who has made arguments on either side of the question: why does it possibly matter? Can anyone make a compelling case for the importance of this conversation? Or is it, as I suspect it to be, an exercise in forgettable punditry that'll be completely without consequence and forgotten entirely by the time Congress returns next year? It makes some sense to focus on the horserace aspect of politics in the runnup to an election, or even when a consequential bill is coming up for a vote.

Why does it make sense to have the comeback argument at all? Seems to me like a lot of partisans making speculative arguments they'd like to be true, and a few political junkies weighing in to offer unbiased analysis without realizing that, given the high degree of uncertainty involved, this particular conversation isn't worth having.

On a related note, I wonder if it would be profitable to launch mirror sites called Catharsis For Team Red and Catharsis For Team Blue, where partisans on either side could go to hear a soothing voice – perhaps that woman who plays the call screener on Frazier – tell them whatever it is that they want to believe. This would be different from the existing iterations of the same concept that masquerade as ideological political magazines because there wouldn't be any claims to accuracy. The whole enterprise would be a lot more honest and ethically defensible. The motto could be, "We tell you pretty lies, and you like it." That need met, people could get start to get their news from more reliable sources.