Jinx McHue redux.

Sigh.

And just like a regular outbreak of cold sores, Mr. Jinx McHue is back with a predictably asinine posting on his site Shock and Blog (or, as I prefer to call it, Schlock and Barf), in which McHue takes your humble correspondent to task for ... well, I'm not quite sure what since the subject of his post has nothing to do with me. But, as we've seen before, McHue is quite impervious to the lance of mere reason so what else is new?

Now, normally, I'd just ignore his rantings since, as I've posted a number of times, I really don't care what McHue or his conservative nutbar buddies choose to write on their own blogs. Sadly, however, McHue has raised the stakes this time, which necessitates a reply from me.

As you can see from this posting, McHue discusses an Alabama state representative named Alvin Holmes who very foolishly made a bet on what Scripture does or does not say about what The Big Guy thinks about marriage. He (McHue, not The Big Guy) seems to think it clever to refer to me indirectly, which is fine and, normally, I'd just ignore his infantile prose and open another beer.

However, as you can see (and, yes, you might as well read his article since we'll be discussing it in some detail), McHue doesn't stop there. Instead, he links to what I'm assuming is the motivating article at the website of one David Limbaugh. (For those of you unfamiliar with the name, David Limbaugh is the self-absorbed, pretentious, semi-literate, bloviating conservative wingnut Limbaugh brother who is not the OxyContin addict. For all I know.)

Again, by itself, that's still not enough for me to give a shit one way or the other until you notice that, in an obvious fit of self-adoration, McHue left a "trackback" at the bottom of Limbaugh's article, inviting Limbaugh's audience to visit his blog. Sadly, this means that all of Limbaugh's groupies who read his work might, indeed, follow the trackback link, get to McHue's article and follow the link from there to this blog.

What this means is that, sadly, I'm going to have to launch a pre-emptive strike against McHue's silliness. That is, I have little choice but to lay a beatdown on McHue that will leave him pissing blood for a day or two, mostly as a warning to any little freepers who show up here itching for a fight. And, no, I won't take it personally if you're bored to tears by this. I am, too, but honour is at stake. And I will at least try to be entertaining and educational.

Now, about Rep. Holmes who, according to Limbaugh, "promised on the floor of the House to give $700 to any person who could show him a biblical passage stating that marriage is to be between man and woman." Quite simply, in making this promise, Holmes was being incredibly foolish, for at least a couple of reasons.

First, it's almost meaningless to say that you're going to prove any position whatsoever from the Bible. The biggest problem in even trying something like this is the massive differences in philosophy between the Old and New Testaments.

In the Old Testament, God is simply, well, a Jerk. He's not particularly tolerant, and spends a lot of time just smiting the crap out of people. You can pretty much open the Old Testament at any page and put your finger down at random and, chances are, someone is getting the bejeezus smitten out of them for something.

The New Testament, however, is a different beast. In the New Testament, Jesus is a much more Southern California, tie-dyed t-shirt, hot tub, live and let live kind of guy (who just happens to hang out with a dozen other guys who just happen to all wear loose-fitting robes that allow easy access ... but that's neither here nor there). Love thy neighbour, turn the other cheek, that sort of thing. And given these obvious differences, it's pretty meaningless to say that you're going to "prove" anything from Scripture unless you can at least narrow it down to one of the Testaments.

The second problem in trying to "prove" anything from Scripture is that, because the Bible is such a seething mass of inconsistencies and contradictions, it's actually not that hard to prove pretty much anything you want.

Take capital punishment. (Please.) If you support capital punishment, you might point to Deuteronomy 19:21: "Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." On the other hand, if you're opposed, you might latch onto the commandment that states that "Thou shalt not kill.", or perhaps Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek. See how easy that is? The lesson here is that it's ridiculously simple to prove almost anything from Scripture simply because Scripture itself takes both sides of most every issue anyway.

For this very reason, it also means that it's unspeakably foolish for someone to make a bet on Scripture not saying something, as Holmes did. If you read carefully, you'll see that Holmes was basing his entire case on Scripture not containing a particular type of passage. And that means he's almost certainly doomed to failure.

So, does Holmes actually lose his bet? Oh, yes. You bet. But you at least have to work to prove that. Consider Limbaugh's evidence list. The first passage he cites refers to creating a "companion" for man. And, actually, I don't think that qualifies. I see nothing there about marriage, so I'm going to have to reject that one.

Limbaugh's second example talks about man and woman joining into one. Touching, to be sure, but still not definitive proof. So, no that doesn't count either. In my opinion, you have to work your way down Limbaugh's list to 1 Corinthians 7, which opens with:

Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

And while I'm a bit creeped out about that "good for a man not to marry" part, it should be obvious that, yes, this is the smoking gun that buries Holmes. I don't think there's any doubt that this refers to opposite-sex marriage, and Holmes should stop weaseling and cough up that $700 (now, as I read it, up to $5,000).

At this point, one might argue whether that's actually what that passage is saying; that is, is that the proper interpretation? And this is exactly how Holmes tries to get out of paying:

"Anybody could have any interpretation they want of the Bible," he said Thursday, "but that's not my interpretation."

But why should Holmes' interpretation be the deciding vote? McHue links to blogger Don Johnson, who correctly calls Holmes on this tacky weaseling:

That is obviously a ridiculous and unsavory way to handle the wager, but let's clarify just why. Holmes initial claim was that the Bible didn't dictate that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. He was so sure of this supposed fact that he wagered $700.00 just to make the point. Now in order to make this claim, and in order for the wager to work, he had to be appealing to some common, objective standard of literary interpretation. After all, he was appealing to scripture for vindication of his position and putting money on the fact that his position was correct.

If you are going to appeal to a book for proof of your position or challenge people with monetary rewards to prove you wrong, you have to expect people to be able to interpret that book the same way you do. I assume that would mean some sort of "plain sense" reading of the text - taking the words at face value. You can't make a wager or support your position based on a floating, subjective standard of interpretation such as the one Mr. Holmes appealed to when confronted with the texts. It destroys the support for your initial proposition and makes the bet ridiculous.

And Johnson is dead right. If Holmes is going to base his entire argument on Scripture, he has to allow what most people would consider a fair and reasonable interpretation of the text. And, from where I sit, 1 Corinthians 7 pretty much puts the nail in Holmes' case.

So, after all this careful reasoning and Scriptural analysis, why is McHue such a total dickhead? First, he dragged me into this without thinking that, given that I like to consider things with at least a minimum of logic and critical analysis, I might actually agree that Holmes lost that bet and should pay up. And he did, and he should.

More to the point, given that I had no idea who Rep. Holmes is, had never heard of this idiotic wager and hadn't posted so much as a single word on any of this, it's pretty asinine and patronizing for McHue to write of Holmes' tap dancing that "CanadianCynic would no doubt approve." Really? And McHue can conclude that out of absolutely thin air, with not a shred of evidence to support it? Gosh, by the same logic, I guess I can surmise that, although I don't know McHue personally or have any idea of his sexual preferences, he "would no doubt approve" of getting boned, slowly and lovingly, up the ass by former White House journalist and gay army stud Jeff Gannon.

It's not like I'd care one way or the other about that but, if I were Mr. McHue, I'd at least make sure the kids weren't in the room. It might be awkward later when they're asking Mommy what that big, crew-cut army man was doing to Daddy when Daddy was down on his hands and knees and squealing like a pig. If you know what I mean.

Liberal media? What liberal media?

Kos has a nice summary of the Washington Post's "incoherence" (his word, nicely chosen) about the Bush administration's refusal to discuss Canadian Maher Arar's arrest and removal to Syria, where he claims to have been tortured. As Kos points out, the WaPo steps on its own tongue when it:

• first suggests the administration might have a legal claim to not admit anything to Arar, yet
• suggests that same government "owes more than silence", and that "the American public is entitled to some assurance that the government didn't intentionally send a man to be tortured by Syria and isn't now covering that wrongdoing with a smear."

So the American public (who almost certainly doesn't give a shit about what happened to Arar) is "entitled" to know something about this, but Arar himself isn't. Bastards. Isn't this the sort of thing we have ambassadors for? To grab by the nutsack and twist until we get some answers?

Deja vu, all over again.

Gay male prostitution linked to the White House. Hmmm ... that sounds so familiar. Where have I read about that before? Oh, yeah. Here. (And make sure you read the comments section. :-)

And credit where credit is due -- I found that piece linking through James Wolcott.

When bad educational systems attack.

Once upon a time, I proferred some advice: You can only get away with snark when you're right. If you try snark and you're wrong, well, you kind of end up just looking like an asshole. Which brings us to a recent comment here by one Mr. Ian Scott, who nicely demonstrates what happens when the school system fails its students miserably.

In responding to my original posting, Mr. Scott might actually have taken it seriously. Apparently, satire is lost on the young. And the stupid. But, wait -- it gets better.

In criticizing the (completely fictional) dialogue I put in Bezdek's mouth, solely for entertainment value, Scott goes first for the ad hominem attack: "Too bad the kid, like a lot of socialists, ...". To which I can similarly respond, "Too bad Mr. Scott, like a lot of pedophiles and child pornographers ...". Wow! Wasn't that easy? Apparently, we left wingers can make stuff up out of thin air just as effortlessly. And with just as much total irrelevance.

But seriously, folks, consider the meat of Scott's argument:

Too bad the kid, like a lot of socialists, forgot to factor in the part about the money going out though. Sure, as long as money is coming in, and no money is going out, no one will go bankrupt.

But that ain't the way it works, friends :)

Guess the Canadian socialist math whizz needs to hit the books again, and learn a bit more about somethin' called "expenses." They don't teach that though until about Grade 10 Accounting class.

Apparently, the word "bankrupt" has an utterly different meaning on Mr. Scott's planet. As countless observers have noted, if the scheduled outgo from Social Security would exceed the income from payroll taxes, and there is nothing at all in the SS trust fund, all that will happen is (unless something is done ahead of time) benefits will have to be scaled back accordingly to bring those two amounts into balance. Now, what part of the above is that mathematically difficult to comprehend?

And, yes, that is the way it works, friends.

BONUS RAMBLINGS: I've been told (more than once) by friends that it's really kind of unbecoming to take critical comments on this blog so personally. And, for the most part, they're right. I'm still working on it but, every so often, someone tries to lay the totally wrong kind of punk smackdown on your humble correspondent.

In particular, I just don't take well to right-wing snark questioning my innate mathematical talent. Perhaps it's my two degrees in computer science. Perhaps it's the undergraduate and graduate courses I've taken in calculus, numerical algebra, number theory, analysis of algorithms, cryptography and combinatorial mathematics. Or some combination of the two.

In any case, if you want to bust my chops on something related to mathematics, you really want to show up with more than an Ann Coulter blow-up-doll fetish and an insolent attitude. Because I will slap you around. And that's a promise.

Li'l Scottie's defense of "Jazzy Jeff" gets a big hole blown in it.

From this article in the NYTimes, we have White House spokeslizard Scott McClellan explaining how hot military stud and presidential fluffer "Jeff Gannon" got clearance to attend WH press conferences:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters yesterday that Mr. Bush did not know who Mr. Guckert was. Mr. McClellan said that Mr. Guckert entered the White House under his real name and "like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly, and so he was cleared two years ago to receive daily passes, just like many others are."

Two years ago, you say? Fascinating, since a simple InterNIC query shows that Gannon's erstwhile employer, Talon News, only registered its domain name in March of 2003. For the right-wing, mathematically challenged, that would be less than two years ago.

In addition, a simple perusal of Talon News' archives shows the oldest article from (you guessed it) April of 2003. So how exactly did Gannon get accreditation "two years ago" based on an organization that didn't even exist yet? Stay tuned as your razor-sharp, intrepid White House press corps fails totally to ask this, and many other, pertinent questions.

Valentine's Day, cynically speaking.

Let the other morons feed each other candy out of heart-shaped boxes while wearing silk undies and quoting Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- you and I remember all the shitty, lonely and/or humiliating Feb 14ths that have come and gone in these, our decidedly non-Hallmarkian real lives. Whether you're truly an anti-romantic or just having a bad day, the good news is that you don't have to sulk and scowl in your filthy apartment this year. Leave your heroin-addict boyfriend at home (but hide your ATM card) and come out to Cafe Du Nord, where, "pumped on sex-hormones and black coffee, drunk with the horny mating rituals of the urban damned," Lydia Lunch, Cara Bruce, Thomas Roche and Blag Dahlia will tell it like it is. As the devil-dressed-as-Cupid on your other shoulder says: "Sex ain't pretty, and neither are you."

-- Jan Richman

... and the right puts on its crown of thorns.

Some predictable martyrdom from over there in Right Wing Wanker Land as the conservative media contort themselves into uncomfortable positions, trying to paint "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon as the victim in all of this. Like this piece, which involves Accuracy in Media's [sic] Cliff Kincaid crying like a little girl.

Consider the following precious excerpt:

[Gannon's] crimes were that he was too pro-Republican, attended White House briefings, and asked questions unfair to Democrats.

Well, darn, I could have sworn there was more to it than that. Like how "Gannon":

• allegedly "worked" for an online news service that was closely affiliated with GOPUSA.com,
• had no legitimate journalistic credentials whatsoever,
• had already been denied a Senate press pass because of that lack of credentials,
• had an unpredecented two-year access to White House press conferences with nothing more than a constantly-reissued daily pass [Ed: note proper use of the word "unprecedented"],
• continually lobbed creampuff questions at either Commander Chimpy or Scott McClellan, and
• did all of this under an assumed name.

And, oh, yeah, there's that whole gay military prostitution website thing. That, too.

TBogg all over "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon. In a purely heterosexual way, of course.

Just head over to TBogg for this piece and follow the links -- the highlight being when the Washington Post's Dana Milbank says he now wants to be known as "Dirk Diggler". Oh, yes, this really is the gift that keeps on giving. And giving. And giving.

From Cynic HQ, this is "Vin Diesel", signing off.

BONUS TRACK: Ooooooh .... even the Canadian media is jumping all over this. But, then again, we know fake journalism when we see it.

Talon News: Your source for dishonest, right-wing propaganda.

Just for the entertainment value, you really have to check out Talon News, the former home of gay male stud J. D. "Jazzy Jeff" Gannon/Guckert. This is a news "organization" that makes Faux News look almost honest, and that's tough to do.

As an example, consider a recent Talon piece on Medicare (which is actually on the GOP USA website -- no conflict of interest there.) And the first paragraph of that article:

The White House was peppered with questions Wednesday regarding a Washington Post report which estimates the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug plan at as much as $1.2 trillion over ten years. When first proposed in 2003, the costs of the plan were said to be $400 billion. This figure was later revised to $534 billion by the Medicare Actuaries.

"Later revised"? Hmmm ... Medicare costs ... Medicare costs ... Oh, right, Medicare costs, I remember that. That's where the Bush administration deliberately hid its true costs before bringing it before Congress, but it's OK -- apparently, this didn't actually represent criminal behaviour.

Whew. I'm sure we can all agree that that's a relief. I'd hate to think this administration was capable of doing anything ... you know ... illegal. Somehow, I think that the description of "later revised" doesn't quite do all of this justice.

A hockey story for the non-hockey fan.

Personally, I've never been much of a hockey fan, so the fact that the season is about to vanish in the current lockout doesn't lose me a whole lotta sleep. But here's a great hockey story that anyone can appreciate. (If you can't get to it because of registration or something, leave a comment and I'll just reproduce it here. It's worth the read.)

The "Hey, let's help CC pick a new template cuz' this one sucks" contest.

Yes, I really want to upgrade the aesthetics of Cynic HQ, so I'm perusing the list of blogger templates. I'm open to suggestions -- certainly, something that is easily customizable from the basics.

Thoughts?

RNC threatens legal action against critical media.

Oh, yeah, this is going to play really well. From this Yahoo story, we have the Republican National Committee, threatening to sic the FCC on dissenters:

... RNC officials promise more challenges. "This committee will not cede one inch to any organization or group that tries to mislead Americans about the president's record of achievement or his vision to preserve Social Security," spokesman Danny Diaz said...

The RNC's letter noted that the stations have a responsibility as holders of Federal Communications Commission licenses "to avoid broadcasting deliberate misrepresentations. ... This letter places you on notice that the information (in the ad) is false and misleading."

Wow! Has Fox News heard about this?

... In 1998, the two filed a civil court lawsuit seeking employee protections under the state Whistleblower Act that resulted in a $425,000 jury award to Akre.

That verdict was overturned in 2003 when an appellate court accepted Fox's defense that since it is not technically against any law, rule or regulation for a broadcaster to distort the news, the journalists were never entitled to employee protections as whistleblowers in the first place.

Irony. The other white meat.

Drinking cynically -- the new trend.

And in the spirit of the well-established Drinking Liberally motif, perhaps it's time to get together for the occasional spot of cynical imbibing. If you're in the K-W area and have a taste for, say, some of the local brews, we should reserve the occasional evening for just that.

If you're up for it, leave a comment and we'll try to arrange something. If, on the other hand, you have no idea what "K-W" stands for, chances are you're not geographically available, anyway.

The Social Security trust fund. Now you see it ...

Can anyone in this lying, sack-of-cat-crap administration keep a simple story straight? No, no, according to Commander Chimpy, there's no Social Security trust fund:

Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust.

No, wait, yes, yes, there is a trust fund:

Realizing that Social Security is going to run out of money very quickly because of the generation of workers who will be retiring within the next 10-20 years, Bush said it is obvious that the "system has changed."

But Bush was quick to assure current retirees and those nearing retirement age that they "don't have a thing to worry about."

"The Social Security trust is solvent," Bush declared.

Can anyone in an upcoming White House press gaggle ask about this with a simple, direct, non-tap-danceable question? Anyone? Bueller?

(Talon News ... Talon News ... where have I heard that name before? Oh, yeah. Here.)

"Jeff Gannon", in a nutsack. Uh, nutshell. I meant nutshell.

Confused about this whole "Jeff Gannon" thing? No sweat. The NY Daily News boils it down to its essence. I'm pretty sure I'm not done with this yet.

BONUS TRACK: Nice overview on this over at DailyKos, where he provides several links.

DOUBLE BONUS TRACK: Oh, my, this is just so adorable. An excerpt from the Boston Globe article linked to from Kos:

Kelly McBride, who teaches media ethics at the Poynter Institute, said the investigation of Gannon's personal life crossed traditional boundaries and was characterized by ''mean-spiritedness and snarkiness."

''Those are not tactics you would see practiced in most traditional newsrooms," McBride said.

Awwwww ... did somebody's widdle feelings get all hurt? Yeah, it's really pretty mean-spirited and snarky to dig into someone's personal life, isn't it? I mean, that sort of thing would be just awful.

Somehow, the word "asshole" doesn't begin to do justice to McBride. Give me time -- I'll come up with something.

Open thread.

My, but it's been a busy day today.

CNN and Howie, whoring for the White House as usual.

Following a link from Atrios, we find the hacktacular Howie Kurtz, reaching nauseating new lows, even for him, in discussing the "Jeff Gannon" brouhaha:

A lot of people are questioning, well, why does [Gannon] have White House press credentials? Because he doesn't write for a newspaper or magazine. Everything he writes is simply online. But in the age of blogging, that's hardly unusual. And he doesn't have a permanent -- what's called a hard pass. He just gets cleared into the White House on a day-to-day basis, which is a privilege that is pretty much open to any journalist.

Really and truly? "A privilege that is pretty much open to any journalist"? Wow, I'll bet that comes as a surprise to Russell Mokhiber.

Yes, he just stole over $1.5 trillion.

Josh Marshall has the scoop on the suddenly non-existent Social Security trust fund over here. As you can see if you follow the link from his article, we have Commander Chimpy:

Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true. The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust. We're on the ultimate pay-as-you-go system -- what goes in comes out. And so, starting in 2018, what's going in -- what's coming out is greater than what's going in. It says we've got a problem. And we'd better start dealing with it now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to fix the problem.

In short, as Josh explains so well, Chimpy has just caused over $1.5 trillion in SS trust fund to disappear into thin air. But is there really no trust fund? The Social Security Administration would undoubtedly be surprised to hear that since, at their official government website, you can read:

Q: Is there really a Social Security trust fund?

A: Yes. Presently, Social Security collects more in taxes than it pays in benefits. The excess is borrowed by the U.S. Treasury, which in turn issues special-issue Treasury bonds to Social Security. These bonds totaled $1.5 trillion at the beginning of 2004, and Social Security receives more than $80 billion annually in interest from them. However, Social Security is still basically a "pay-as-you-go" system as the $1.5 trillion is a small percent of benefit obligations.

Oopsie. I think li'l Scottie McClellan is going to have some splainin' to do at that next press gaggle, now that "Jeff Gannon" isn't there to run interference for him anymore.

Fake reporters, fake names and male military prostitution.

I can't even begin to summarize what's happening over here. Just a few days ago, someone pulled a thread and the eventual unravelling defies description. And it's not over yet.

Iraq's bloodiest post-election day.

Oh oh. Bombs and mortars kill 30 in post-ballot Iraq's bloodiest day. Apparently, those vaunted elections didn't quite solve all of the problems. No problem. I imagine this just proves all those dead-ender insurgents are getting "desperate". I'm sure this is all good news. Somehow.

The Corner lays a beatdown on Intelligent Design. Go figure.

Will wonders never cease? Even the wingnuts (well, one of them, anyway) over at The Corner have figured out the deal on Intelligent Design. If you're a pro-ID, right-wing wanker, read it and weep. If even the Derb is giving up on the current incarnation of ID, it is seriously on life support.

(By the way, I'm not recommending Derb's piece just because it says bad things about ID. I'm recommending it because I read it carefully and, glory be, he actually gets it right. Apparently, some of those folks really do have their occasional moments of lucidity.)

Whoops! Now I'm starting to get worried.

Apparently, they don't plan on just arresting dissenters anymore. Uh oh ...

"You're a homeless, paraplegic vet with terminal cancer? Fantastic!"

Others have blogged about this, why not me? The apparently sorry state of Chimpy's compassionate conservatism:

Bush's fast-moving manner can make his listening skills appear suspect, Lahkani says. This point is bolstered during Bush's onstage "conversations."

In Omaha on Friday, a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin tells the president, "I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters."

"Fantastic," the president exclaims, and he tells her she has "the hardest job in America, being a single mom."

Yeah, life just doesn't get much better than being a divorced, single mom with three kids, one of them mentally challenged, does it? And then there's:

Later, the 57-year old Mornin tells Bush that she works three jobs, which the president deems "uniquely American" and "fantastic."

And she works three jobs as well! Damn that woman! Why do some people get all the breaks?

Ann Coulter: Night of the living dead.

OK, so it's not the whole Oil of Olay thing that preserves her youthful appearance.

How (not) to ask questions at a White House press gaggle.

If there's anything you can learn from the transcripts of the regular White House press gaggles, it's that the majority of reporters there are jaw-droppingly clueless about how to ask a decent question. As Exhibit A, I draw your attention to an exchange between one reporter (I believe it's President Chimpy's archnemesis Helen Thomas) and White House spokesferret Scott McClellan:

...

Q Is the President going to ask the RNC to back off of Harry Reid at all?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q Is the President going to ask the RNC to back off --

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made it very clear that he intends to work closely with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, on our common priorities. And the President wants to work closely -- that includes working closely with Senator Reid. The President has reached out to him and will continue to do so on ways we can work together to advance common priorities.

And he attended a private dinner at the White House last night. The President was pleased that he did, and they had a good visit there. And -- they've had a number of previous conversations, too. But the President has always been someone who has worked to elevate the tone and reach out to members on both sides of the aisle. And that's exactly what he will continue to do.

Q Is he finding it constructive, though, what the RNC is doing? Is that helping him at all in his effort to reach --

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, the President's focus is on reaching out to all members who want to work together to advance our shared priorities. And that's what he will --

Q Does the letter --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and Senator -- well, you can talk to the Republican National Committee about what they did. I'm not familiar with all the aspects of what they're doing.

Q It's not like they do what they do in a vacuum --

MR. McCLELLAN: I can tell you -- I speak for the President -- I can tell you that the President has made it very clear time and time again that he is interested in working together to accomplish the people's business here in Washington, D.C. And that's what he will continue to do. He has talked to Senator Reid on a number of occasions since the election, reached out in private phone conversations, as well as talked to him last night in the private dinner that he invited him to attend at the White House. That's the way the President will continue to operate.

...

Q Does he or does he not support the letter from the RNC about Senator Reid?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think I addressed -- I think I've addressed the issue.

Q You just dodged the question.

Now, as much as I dearly love Helen Thomas, this exchange is depressingly lame.

First, by just reading the transcript, you have no idea what the issue is. What letter from the RNC? What she's talking about is this -- the Republican National Committee demonizing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid simply for being endorsed by gay rights groups. But you'd never know that from Thomas' vague and meaningless question, would you? More to the point, though, even if she had managed to squeeze in that explanation, there's still too much latitude in the question, and it allows McClellan to pretty much blow her off.

So, what would have been a better question? I'm glad you asked. How about:

Q Scott, did the President or any of his staff have anything to do with the RNC's recent letter, gay baiting Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid?

Not to sound unhumble or anything but that's a question that's a lot tougher to tap dance around. In the first place, it at least briefly describes the issue for people who come by later to read the transcript.

More importantly, it addresses that issue in a far more unequivocal way. It's the difference between asking the following two questions:

Q Did the president do X?

Q Why did the president do X?

Note the critical difference. If you ask the first question, you're leaving the door open for someone to say, "No, he didn't." The second question doesn't allow for that; it assumes that X has already occurred and is not open for debate, and forces the respondent to deal with it. If said respondent wants to deny X, they have some work to do. And notice that that's what's happening in my rephrasing of the question -- we're already working from a position that the RNC sent out a letter gay baiting Reid, now we want to know whether the president had anything to do with it. Way less room for tap dancing there.

By the way, there's another common evasion McClellan uses a little further down. Still referring to the RNC/Harry Reid issue:

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you can direct those questions -- you can direct questions about RNC letters to the RNC just like you would about the Democratic National Committee. The President is committed to reaching out and working together on shared priorities. That's what he'll continue to do.

But the question wasn't asking about the RNC's opinion on the subject; it was asking about President Chimpy's opinion, so redirecting the questioner to the RNC is meaningless. This is a tactic that was honed to pretty near perfection by McClellan's predecessor, the spectacularly sleazy Ari Fleischer, whose legendary evasions went something like this:

Q Ari, what does the president think of the Israelis' bulldozing and wanton destruction of Palestinian olive groves?

Fleischer: Well, you'll have to ask the Israelis about that.

And why would we do that, when we want to know the president's opinion? But McClellan has learned well, and it's clear that no one in the press corps has figured this out. Lame. Really, really lame.

Might as well hoof him in the nads while he's still down.

Michael Berube piles on Doughy Pantload.

Abject apologies to Jonah Goldberg.

I've been told I was way out of line in a previous posting, referring to Mr. Goldberg with an off-the cuff nickname of "Doughboy". Apparently, the proper appellation is "Doughy Pantload", as you can see here.

And this is today's lesson that it pays to do your research.

Social Security brain teaser. Open to everyone.

By way of introduction, there are typically two ways of refuting someone's argument. The first is to go outside the bounds of the actual claim, looking for external, contradicting empirical evidence. This generally suggests that you first know where to go to get this evidence, and sometimes that can be a bit of work but it is, of course, a fairly common strategy.

The second way is to demonstrate that the claim itself is simply absurd because it is internally contradictory and unsupportable based on its own words. If you can pull that off, it's generally a lot easier since it's a lot less work. And herein lies the brain teaser I'm going to leave you with.

Based on a private e-mail from a friend (who apparently likes to prolong all of this suffering), I refer you to Mr. Gatsby's ... uh, Mr. Gillespie's opening salvo defending the privatization of Social Security. In hideously misrepresenting the actual logistics of the Bush plan, Mr. Gillatsby writes (in part):

The money for your Social Security account would come right out of your paycheck automatically. That money is invested in a conservative mix of stocks and bonds ... Those bonds will allow your account to grow at a greater rate than in normal Social Security funds.

Sure sounds like a good deal, don't it? And who will be the first to spot the gaping logical flaw in Mr. Gillatsby's description of how this scheme works? You don't even need to know the context of the passage above -- everything you need is right there.

The floor is yours.

Sigh ... all right, I've been suckered yet again.

Apparently, there is no real conservative blogger "Dizzy Gillespie". It is, in fact, just our old buddy "Jay Gatsby" posting under a new pseudonym. Need proof?

Consider Mr. Gatsby's now-defunct blog "View of the Republic". Scroll down until you see his list of favorite links (what he calls the "Republic's Top Sites"):

• American Lady
• Blame Bush!
• Free Iraqi
• Impudent Finger
• Iraq The Model
• Jihad Watch
• Little Green Footballs
• Michelle Malkin
• Road of a Nation
• Sand in the Gears
• Shock and Blog
• The Captain's Quarters
• The Dawn Patrol
• The Story Teller
• Wizbang

And over at Mr. Gillespie's blog, we have his list of "Gillespie's Links":

• American Lady
• Blame Bush!
• Free Iraqi
• Impudent Finger
• Iraq The Model
• Jihad Watch
• Little Green Footballs
• Michelle Malkin
• Road of a Nation
• Sand in the Gears
• Shock and Blog
• The Captain's Quarters
• The Dawn Patrol
• The Story Teller
• Wizbang

Now, what are the odds that two people could have such similarly depressing, anti-intellectual tastes in other people's work?

And, yes, that's a rhetorical question.

1,000 visits as of today.

My sitemeter page tells me that I just clicked over to 1,000 visits today. Now, given that I've had this site since last April, that normally wouldn't be something to howl about. But for most of that time, I never bothered counting hits. I only installed a sitemeter counter on Feb. 27, so that's 1,000 visits in 13 days. Wheeeeee!

I don't think either Atrios or Kos are worried about me swinging by and scooping up their advertisers, although I may celebrate by finally getting around to reformatting my site with some cool template. In my copious free time.

Open thread.

Now, this is where you get to say whatever you want.

Freedom of speech? Not in Smirky's America.

Thinking of criticizing Admiral Bunnypants' Social Security plan? Or anything else about this administration? Think again. The next time some right-wing wanker blithers on about how the current administration supports freedom of speech, just reach across the table and slap them. Hard. It won't make them any smarter, but at least you'll feel better.

Jonah Goldberg gets his (sorry) ass handed to him. Again.

If you've wondered about the value of getting sort of personal in responding to online criticism, well, wonder no more. Check out this latest installment in the ongoing war of words between left-wing academic Juan Cole and the National Review Online's lardass, doughboy chickenhawk Jonah Goldberg. Apparently, Goldberg just doesn't get it that he's getting slapped around the parking lot by the infinitely more intelligent and knowledgeable Cole, and he simply won't let go. (And does this sound depressingly familiar?) But that's not the best part. Aside from this main discussion, there's an amusing side story that's worth following.

It starts here, already well into the Cole-Goldberg pissing contest, when a commenter to Cole's site writes of Goldberg:

He looks to be of military age. Ask him why his sorry ass isn't in the kill zone.

A perfectly reasonable question, given that Goldberg and his fellow comrades in the 101st Fighting Keyboarders are invariably gung-ho about military action and all that unpleasant stuff as long as it's other people who have to do all the, you know, actual fighting. And dying.

Amazingly (and, I'm sure, against the advice of counsel or anyone else who could have warned him off of it), Goldberg replies here:

As for why my sorry a** isn't in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give -- I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few -- ever seem to suffice.

There's more, and it's just as evasive, self-serving and nauseating as the above. Now, while doughboy Goldberg tries to laugh this off, lots of people really do think this is a pertinent question: Why should Goldberg get a pass from having to tote that barge and lift that Humvee? Or be able to avoid getting one or more limbs blown off by improvised explosive devices buried along the roadside? Or stuff like that there?

According to Goldberg, well, that just wouldn't do -- he has a wife, he has a kid, it would kind of inconvenience his lifestyle of hanging out at The Corner sipping Perrier, that sort of thing. Mercifully, Atrios lays a smackdown on Doughboy, pointing out that having a wife and kids doesn't keep other people from getting shipped out. And killed. (More of the same here, if you're feeling particularly literate this morning.)

At this point, one should expect Doughboy to wax apoplectic, redefine the terms, change the subject and claim victory. It's all depressingly predictable, isn't it?

BONUS TRACK: TBogg, of course, says much the same with way fewer words.

DOUBLE BONUS TRACK: Attaturk in fine form.

How to avoid embarrassing yourself.

As Atrios also pointed out, until one reads and understands this piece by Josh Marshall, he or she should simply stop saying anything about Social Security.

George W. Bush. Total fucking idiot.

From a recent presidential press conference, we have the transcript, with the following revealing excerpt regarding Social Security:

So, to give you an example, in 2027, the system will be $200 billion short. In other words, they collect X amount of payroll taxes, but because baby boomers like me are living longer and have been promised greater benefits, we're $200 billion short that year -- that year. And the next year is bigger than $200 billion. In 3037 [sic}, it's like $300 billion. And finally in -- 2037, it's $300 billion. In 2042, it's bust. Those are the facts.

George W. is a total fucking idiot. And that's a fact.

How do you support the troops?

Why, by raising the prices for their prescriptions. And, given that that story is registration-required, I'll just reproduce the first few paragraphs for your edification:

President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.

The proposals, they said, are in the $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday. White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year.

"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here."

The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations, Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans.

Mr. Cheney said the White House had judiciously identified scores of domestic programs to be cut or eliminated. "It's not something we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society."

The proposals could provoke months of furious debate on Capitol Hill. Democrats have already indicated that they are poised to pounce on any sign that the Bush administration is stinting on veterans' benefits.

Sorry, refresh my memory -- how was it that the Democrats were betraying the troops again?

Where do these people come from? Really.

An open letter to Mr. "Dizzy Gillespie":

Mr. Gillespie. Can I just call you "Dizzy"? Somehow, it just seems more appropriate under the circumstances. I'm not sure exactly how my blog has become such a magnet for underage, self-absorbed, badly-educated high school students but ... how else to explain your recent presence here, when I had to delete your comments for being thoroughly off-topic and obnoxious?

Having gone through this a couple times already, I'm really not interested in starting it all over again so I'm going to wax philosophical for just a bit, in the (almost certainly) vain attempt to educate you, even minimally, so that you can avoid making a total fool of yourself in the future. Sadly, based on what little I've seen thus far, I am not optimistic. But I'll give it a shot. Seeing as how you're new to this whole blogging thing, it's possible you just don't know the protocols yet.

To begin with, let's talk about the comments of yours that I deleted. The first rule of leaving comments on someone's blog is that those comments should, at least tangentially, relate to the posting to which they are attached. My posting related to Andrew Sullivan's rather nauseating love affair with himself. Your comments, on the other hand, asked me why I wouldn't debate "Jay Gatsby", then proceeded to reproduce one of Gatsby's comments that I deleted.

Now, I'm not going to get into why Mr. Gatsby is persona non grata around here anymore. If you'd bothered to read the archives, you'd get an idea. All of that aside, given that I (the owner of this blog) have made that decision, it is certainly not up to you (a blogger newbie, junior high school student) to override that decision. I've made my opinion on this topic abundantly clear, and it's not up to you to drag it out further, then add something to the effect that, "Oh, here's the comment Gatsby posted that you deleted, but I thoughtfully kept a copy of it so I'll post it again for you." That is incredibly inappropriate and childish. But it gets worse.

As hard to believe as it might be, you committed the same sin again when, on my posting discussing mathematics and Social Security here, you added a comment apparently accusing Canada of being involved in the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program. Again, one is not related to the other so, once again, you were being childish and irresponsible. The general rule is, if you have something you want to say, you get your own blog. And, lo and behold, as I have already pointed out, you do have your own blog. So it would have made far more sense to write something about it there, rather than clutter up mine with utterly irrelevant comments. One has to wonder why you bothered to even start a blog if you don't seem interested in writing anything on it.

(Aside: if you want to be taken seriously, here's a piece of advice from someone who has worked with words for well over four decades: it's spelled "journal," not "jornal". And, seeing as the blog site "gojournal.blogspot.com" is still available, you might want to switch quickly before you start looking like a total prat.) But here's the kicker.

I actually followed the link you posted, so I can give you a free lesson in how to do research. Your insinuation was that, somehow, Canada was being given a free pass in terms of getting its sleazy, little hands on Iraqi oil. A fascinating accusation, to be sure. But let's try something a little different here, shall we? Unlike you, the rest of us will actually read past the headline to get to the substance of the article. A radical research strategy, yes, but it's amazing what you can learn when you actually read the text to which you link. First, right in the opening paragraph, we have:

Oil exported from Saddam Hussein's Iraq under a scandal-ridden United Nations program helped revive the fortunes of the troubled refinery at Come By Chance, Nfld., according to its owners, industry sources and a U.S. government report.

Note the important passage: "under a scandal-ridden United Nations program". In other words, regardless of the problems associated with the program, it was still an official U.N. program. But note what else you read in that first paragraph -- it's not described as an official Canadian refinery, but simply as a refinery in Newfoundland. What an odd choice of words. Which are explained in the very next paragraph:

The refinery's Swiss-based owner, Vitol SA, was a major holder of permits allowing it to buy Iraqi oil through the controversial UN scheme, and says much of the crude it purchased went to Come By Chance.

Well, isn't that enlightening? It wasn't really a Canadian refinery after all, was it? Although it was on Canadian soil, it has a Swiss owner who is "a major holder of permits allowing it to buy Iraqi oil." Boy, that extra little detail really slants the story in another direction, doesn't it, Dizzy, my boy? Up here in the Great White, we refer to this technique of digging into the actual text of articles and exposing the salient details as "reading". You should try it someday.

And just to tie things up neatly, in the very next paragraph, we read:

Working through a former senior French diplomat, Vitol bought 21 million barrels of oil under the program..."

So, to sum up, the Canadian refinery was used by its Swiss owners, working through a former French diplomat, to acquire Iraqi oil for which it had official U.N. permits. And this is Canada's fault ... how?

Anyway, I'm sure you get my point by now. Regardless of what you might have been led to believe by your teenage friends and by Mr. Gatsby himself, you are not in any position to take me out to the woodshed intellectually. Please disabuse yourself of any such notions. And, please, I beg you, do not start challenging me to any debates. You are not even remotely ready for such stuff.

Instead, take some time and start blogging. Write a few articles. Express a few opinions. Ask for some feedback. If you're polite, I and my loyal (and long-suffering) readers would be glad to help, I'm sure. But, really, given that you have your own blog, you need to start using it and getting some experience before you start sauntering into town at high noon, lookin' fer the sheriff so you can make your reputation.

If you know what I mean.

LINER NOTES: By the way, Mr. Gillespie, despite what you might have heard, I do not delete anyone's comments just because I disagree with them. If you want to see real censorship in action, I recommend this piece highly.

I, on the other hand, will delete comments if they are offensive, irrelevant, childishly inappropriate or annoyingly repetitive. Or have anything to do with "Jay Gatsby". And that's it. If you disagree with something I've written, you're invited to say so, and I can guarantee that anything you write will not be deleted, subject to the above rules, of course.

And one more thing. There has been a lot of discussion here about "debating". Let me clear this up -- what we do here in terms of posting and commenting is debate. One does not need to get together in real time to have a debate. It's just as much of a debate if I post something, you disagree, I offer a rebuttal, and so on and so on. That's debating, and it's precisely what the previous Mr. Gatsby refused to do.

Rather, Mr. Gatsby had an annoying habit of making bogus claims and, when those claims were questioned, he'd stand there, his arms akimbo, stamping his little foot, demanding a debate, then changing the subject. As proof, way back on Friday, December 31, 2004, Gatsby wrote on his blog that the money for President Bush's inauguration "was not government money but private donations". I pointed out that this simply was not true, and I provided the appropriate link to substantiate my claim. Notice further that Mr. Gatsby now clearly knows this since he left a comment, and he even writes, "Well, I'll have to update it then". And yet, to this day, over a month later, Gatsby has not corrected or retracted his claim -- it's still up on his web site.

This is why Gatsby is not welcome to post here anymore -- he refuses to engage in actual intellectual discussion, and refuses to retract lies that he's posted. I'm hoping that you have somewhat higher standards when it comes to debating, Mr. Gillespie. That choice is entirely yours.

FINAL THOUGHT: One more thing, Mr. Gillespie. While you're renaming your blog so that you don't look illiterate, you might also consider modifying your profile so that it at least makes some logical sense. You write of yourself, "I am conservative, and my views will reflect this." And yet, in the very next sentence, you write, "That does not mean I will present biased news sources or promote one side over the other."

If you state openly that your views will reflect your conservative ideology, then, by definition, you will be promoting one side over the other. That's not a criticism -- it's simply a fact. You might want to rethink this whole blog thing until you're a little more prepared for it.

Canadian teen math whiz solves intractable problem.

CC News -- Feb 6, 2005.

For most of us, balancing the family chequebook at the end of the month is the head-scratching height of our mathemetical prowess.

For a 14-year-old Calgary junior high school student, solving a 500-year-old geometry problem is "fun, not work".

Daniel Bezdek, a Grade 9 student, has won major national and local science fair awards for his efforts in unravelling a mathematical mystery first posed by German artist Albrecht Durer in the early 16th century...

While the published title of Bezdek's work may sound intimidating, the result itself is actually straightforward -- Bezdek has established that it is mathematically impossible for the U.S. Social Security system to go "bankrupt", as many prominent conservatives have claimed lately.

"I first got interested in the problem," explained Bezdek at a recent press conference, "when I was watching President Bush's State of the Union address. He said something about the Social Security system going 'bankrupt' or 'flat broke', and that struck me as kind of funny. So I asked my math teacher, Mr. Feinstein, about it and he encouraged me to look into it. Mr. Feinstein's kind of cool that way."

"Anyway," continued Bezdek, "we'd been covering some pretty neat stuff in advanced math class lately so first I applied the Poincare conjecture, but that didn't seem to do much. Next, I tried to use a modified version of the Reimann hypothesis and quadratic fields, but I kind of ran into a dead end there, too."

"Finally," said Bezdek, looking almost sheepish, "I resorted to some pretty basic arithmetic -- you know, just addition and subtraction. And the result just fell right out."

As Bezdek explained, given that the Social Security fund is continually replenished via payroll taxes, it's theoretically impossible for it to go bankrupt.

"I mean, it's kind of obvious when you think about it," said Bezdek. "As long as you have money coming in, you can't go bankrupt. It was kind of a no-brainer. You'd have to be pretty dumb not to realize that."

Most reporters in attendance quickly grasped the financial implications of Bezdek's work. However, given that there were several Fox News personnel at the event, Bezdek was forced to repeat the explanation, this time more slowly with several pictures.

The reaction from the right-wing blogosphere to Bezdek's proof wasn't long in coming. Donald Luskin, a self-proclaimed economist at National Review Online, sarcastically responded to Bezdek's work by saying, "The kid's 14, for crying out loud. 14! How can he possibly know as much as me about economics?"

When several reporters present pointed out that, based on recent writings of his, Luskin clearly knew absolutely nothing about economics, Luskin quickly changed the subject.

Several conservatives representing the right-wing website Free Republic also were quick to announce their disapproval of Bezdek's work. "How did we react?" wrote a senior freep wanker. "The same way we react to everyone who tries to present a differing point of view to us. We deleted the posting, removed the thead and barred him from posting ever again. I mean, think about it -- if we let everyone with a different opinion post here, pretty soon, we'd actually have to start considering arguments on their merits. And nobody here wants that, I'm pretty sure."

Right-wing hack and banshee Ann Coulter was more blunt when being told of Bezdek's work. "That snot-nosed, treasonous little socialist shit. We should invade his country, kill all their math teachers and convert them to Republicanism."

Finally, although no one asked him, gay, conservative ex-blogger Andrew Sullivan wrote a short piece. "Well, I've officially stopped blogging but, given the significance of Bezdek's proof, I thought I'd share with you a recent e-mail I got from an adoring fan explaining how I changed his life ..."

The (distinctly creepy) advantage of being gay.

I guess, in one sense, Andrew Sullivan is a lucky man; being gay, he probably feels less guilt than the rest of us being so thoroughly, overwhelmingly, head-over-heels in love with himself.

At the end of this piece, Sullivan accepts some loving fellatio from one of his adoring fans:

In short, I am a new person. I see the world through new eyes. Isn't it amazing? Think about it. You changed my life.

Responds Sullivan:

It doesn't get much better for a writer than that, does it?

No, I guess not. Always nice to know there might be more up-and-coming gay, conservative, hopelessly-conflicted schizoids ready to make their mark on the blogosphere.

Sullivan has recently announced that he's packing it in and retiring from blogging. But, sadly, he just can't make a clean break:

I guess this is becoming self-serving, but here's an email that makes me happy.

No, no, Andrew, it's not becoming self-serving. It's way past that and thoroughly into narcissism. If you're going to keep this up, at least get a room or something. Think of the children.

George W., taking a walk on the wild side.

New right-wing talking head Brian Williams, interviewing First Lady and new homey Laura and giving us way too much information about Commander Codpiece:

Williams: Your husband was in a playful mood during a television interview a few months ago, when he answered a question about what media he sees — newspapers, magazines, television. He said, in effect, "I don't read the papers. I don't watch television news. I get briefed orally."

I'm pretty sure it was that whole "briefed orally" thing that got Bill Clinton in trouble in the first place.

Teddie K. lays the lumber on Alberto Gonzales.

Time to give Cathie from Canada some props, so I'll just link to her link.

Emergency SS update! Quick, Alfred! Another rationale, if you please.

What would we do without the Internet? Or, more specifically, without Josh Marshall, who brings us this gem with excerpts from an LA Times piece collected by an alert reader:

"In a significant shift in his rationale for the accounts, Bush dropped his claim that they would help solve Social Security's fiscal problems — a link he sometimes made during last year's presidential campaign. Instead, he said the individual accounts were desirable because they would be "a better deal," providing workers what he said would be a higher rate of return and "greater security in retirement."

A Bush aide, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, was more explicit, saying that the individual accounts would do nothing to solve the system's long-term financial problems."

And the money quote (or, more accurately, the money panic attack and moment of revelation and clarity):

"Oh, my God," one GOP political strategist said when he learned of the shift in rhetoric. "The White House has made a lot of Republicans walk the plank on this. Now it sounds as if they are sawing off the board."

It just doesn't get any better than seeing Republican hacks suddenly realizing they sacrificed their political careers for Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. Are you starting to see a pattern here? "We invaded Iraq because of ... WMDs. Yeah, that's it. WMDs. No WMDs? OK, then ... they were behind 9/11. No? OK, then ... well, Saddam was a really bad man who gassed his own people. Sorry? We knew all about that? And still wanted to be best buddies? All right, then, he conned the food-for-oil program. That's it. We knew about that, too? Damn ..."

And on it goes.

Social Security spin control! Battle stations!

Uh oh ... the tap dancing has begun, as Li'l Scottie goes into full weasel mode:

MR. McCLELLAN: It was the story that said that individuals investing in personal accounts will have to return money to the government, the money that they invest in those personal accounts. The story is wrong. Individuals get to keep everything they set aside in personal accounts, plus the increased rate of return they'll realize on their investment. So to suggest otherwise is wrong. It is the individual's account and the government cannot touch it -- and the article suggested otherwise.

Q -- that reporter's report?

MR. McCLELLAN: I just wanted to mention that, because it was wrong and there is some comments from people in the article suggesting that our plan was something that it is not.

How long until McClellan announces he's stepping down to ... uh ... spend more time with his family? Yeah, that's it. Cuz, you know, they're all family values kind of folks.

Making that whole Social Security con game painfully clear.

In case you still need convincing about how the Bushistas' SS piratization scheme is flat out going to rip you off, flash back to here and look at the table (labelled "Table 2") and, as one example, look at the row for the year 2000. And what do those three numbers mean?

• "Scheduled Benefits" ($26,400) is what you'd get if all went well and Social Security kept motoring along without running a deficit before then.
• "Payable Benefits" ($19,900) is what you're predicted to get based on no fixes to SS -- this is the much-quoted "75%" that people keep talking about that you should expect to get given the current predictions that SS will run into trouble but will still be able to pay the bulk of what it should. In other words, it's what you should expect to get if SS is not fixed in any way.
• Finally, "Benefits (Social Security Plus Private Accounts)" ($13,092) is what you should receive as a combination of SS plus your private account under Bush's reformation scheme.
  

That's right -- Bush's fix to SS will cost you several thousand dollars. This is his idea of a fix. He takes a system that is allegedly going "bankrupt", well on its way to being "flat broke", and manages to make it worse.

Coming soon: right-wing economists defend the President's plan to reform Social Security. You know they will. It's their job.

That "freedom of speech" thing again.

Freedom of speech? Hell, no, you don't even have freedom to listen in Generalissimo Bush's America. Kind of like this. No, you can't talk. No, you can't even listen. And if you show up wearing the wrong clothes, we'll have you arrested.

So, between this and the Social Security scam, I guess Bush's uplifting message to America is, "Just give us your money and fuck off." At least it's catchy.

Now we see what SS piratization is all about.

Holy shit! Yes, you have to go read this post over at Eschaton. Unbelievable. (I feel guilty about just linking to someone else's stuff with this frequency but, really, everyone should see what happens when the details of Commander Chimpy's SS "privatization" scheme finally see the light of day.)

Here are a couple of the juicy bits:

"Under the proposal, workers could invest as much as 4 percent of their wages subject to Social Security taxation in a limited assortment of stock, bond and mixed-investment funds. But the government would keep and administer that money. Upon retirement, workers would then be given any money that exceeded inflation-adjusted gains over 3 percent.

Whoa! Say what?? They'd only get to keep the excess? I don't recall anyone mentioning that little detail before yesterday.

Then there's the real boot to the nads here:

Under the system, the gains may be minimal. The Social Security Administration, in projecting benefits under a partially privatized system, assumes a 4.6 percent rate of return above inflation. The Congressional Budget Office, Capitol Hill's official scorekeeper, assumes 3.3 percent gains.

If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars, but the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account. The remainder, $21,100, would be the worker's.

Or, if the return was only 3 percent, the worker would, after paying in for 40 years, get to keep ... squat. Zip. Sweet fuck all. I'm pretty sure this is coming as a wee bit of a surprise to all those right-wing wankers who've been touting the benefits of this scheme all these months.

(Think about it: you invest a total of $40,000 over 40 years, knowing -- knowing -- that, if things go well and you get a 4 percent return, you will get back less than what you invested. What sentient person would buy into that scheme? You'd be better off sticking it in an empty coffee can on the top shelf and leaving it there.)

There is going to be some serious backpedaling and tap dancing over the next few days. You knew this administration was full of shameless, pathological liars but, bloody hell, this kind of sleaziness is absolutely breathtaking, isn't it?

Bush to single people: You suck.

As Kos points out here, we have Commander Codpiece:

"Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage."

Um ... excuse me? Marriage is "the foundation of society"? When exactly did that happen? Suddenly, I feel so inadequate. No, no, wait. No, I don't. Go Cheney yourself, George.

I'll take "Examples of ridiculous self-importance" for $200, Alex.

From an article in today's National Post, a nun describing Pope John Paul II's current hospital stay:

"His suffering embodies the suffering of the world."

Um, no, I don't think so. But thanks for playing.

Social Security: And the other shoe drops ...

Oh, yes, Atrios is (predictably) all over this. Ouch. And, for those who want some meatier reading, Josh Marshall weighs in as well. And what is this bullshit with maintaining the anonymity of the "SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL"? Since when have the mainstream media outlets been such suck-ups?

Uh ... never mind. Forget I asked that.

Give the General a hand.

The General is asking for help from the troops. Cynic HQ has already kicked in $50. Your turn.

UPDATE: Mission accomplished. In a totally heterosexual way, of course.

Open thread.

Whassup? (And, yes, sometimes I really don't know when to let it go. :-)

Ready for that debate.

Having ignored every challenge for a debate until now, after having followed the utter silliness over here regarding right-wing dingbat and nutbar Ann Coulter and her position that Canada sent troops to Vietnam, I am now ready to debate. I even have the resolution for that debate: "Canada sent troops to Vietnam."

I, being a member of the reality-based community and actually, um, knowing the facts, will naturally take the position that Canada did not send troops to Vietnam. You, my right-wing opponent and most likely an unabashed groupie of Ann Coulter who believes she is the closest thing to God you are ever likely to run across, will take the position that Canada did send troops to Vietnam.

In fact, given that my carefully-planned strategy for the debate will consist solely of, at appropriate moments, standing up and saying, "No, you're wrong," there appears to be little need for me to actually appear or participate. Instead, my place in the debate can easily be taken by anyone who has enough of a sense of timing to say, "No, you're wrong" at the right moments, with my final summation consisting of standing up and saying, "No, really, you're wrong."

Finally, you have my permission to videotape the debate. If you do, by all means, send me a copy. I'd love to see how it turns out.

Too dumb to know how dumb they are. Seriously.

Jesus, Mary, Mother of God! You have got to see this! It's even more idiocy in the comments section following the blog posting on how right-wing screech harpy and pathological liar and idiot Ann Coulter embarrassed herself on Canadian TV by claiming fairly adamantly that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam" (a subject on which I posted previously).

When I last wrote about this, blog admin Norm over there had posted the last comment on Feb. 1, 2005 at 1:04 a.m., and one would have thought that would be the end of it. Fat chance.

I won't insult your intelligence by explaining yet again why Coulter's claim is total crap. But if you have the stomach for it, just look at the desperate dodging, weaving and tap dancing as right-wing blogomorons still try to defend that statement. At one point, an anonymous poster pathetically tries to explain why this situation is not the same as John (Walker) Lindh representing the Americans and fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is an analogy I used on this blog, so one suspects that some of those commenters have been poking around here, then wandered off to make fools of themselves over there.

(As you can see, that particular anonymous commenter is apparently too appallingly dense to realize that he/she is posting a rebuttal comment on the wrong blog. God Almighty, just when you think you've reached the bottom of the barrel in terms of intellectual bankruptcy, someone comes along and manages to lower the bar yet again.)

And poor Norm struggles to make a point that even my houseplants would understand. Give it up, Norm. Been there, done that, failed miserably. As the saying goes, never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level, then defeat you with their experience.

Democracy, Iraq-style

As several others have pointed out, the joy of democratic voting in Iraq was sullied ever so slightly when it was revealed that some people had to vote before they were given their food rations. Kinda diminishes the excitement of that new democracy smell, doesn't it?

What could YOU do with almost 9 billion dollars?

Well, if you were Iraq's U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, you could just "lose" it. In response, the CPA's Paul Bremer, apparently as punishment for this gross negligence, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Some weird kind of reverse psychology here, I guess.

When you need a little faith and courage to get you through.

A lady who's a good friend of mine is going through a tough time right now, wondering how hard it's going to be to suck it up, pull her life back together and move on. In response, I present the lyrics to the title cut of Christine Kane's latest album, "Right Outta Nowhere." It's never hopeless, kiddo. You're always stronger than you think.

A Midwest morning
October snowfall
She packed her Chevrolet
And she brushed the fear away
She's got a great big dream
And a history of playing small
And everybody seems to think
She'll be back before Christmas day
She hit that highway
With every ounce of faith she could summon
When courage finally comes
You never see it coming

Right outta nowhere
You open your heart
And that changes everything
You're going somewhere
And all you need to know
Is that you're free to go

A summer night
The soft smell of seashore
All the deadheads dancing
Out on the beach
He's got a ten-year tan
And his own little junk store
He says, some people got a lot to prove
And that's the way I used to be
Now I'm just an old hippie
With a half a dozen PhDs
Some choices hold you down
Some chances set you free

Right outta nowhere
You open your heart
And let go of everything
You're going somewhere
And all you need to know
Is that you're free to go

Dream and the way will be clear
Pray and the angels will hear
Leap and the net will appear

Right outta nowhere
You open your heart
And believe in everything
You're going somewhere
And all you need to know
Is that you're free
Right outta nowhere
You open your heart
And have faith in everything
You're going somewhere
And all you need to know
Is that you're free to go