Algore's Dim Bulb

Thanks Al for inventing the Internet. Now millions of common folk have a venue to make fun of you. Talk about your unintended consequences. I'm really digging that Inconvenient Truth. Not the movie but the part about his house using more power in a month than most use in a year. I'd say right about now his carbon footprint is in his mouth. The Department of Irony called the Gore campaign to see about a celebrity endorsement. Or was that the Department of Hypocrisy? Schadenfreudelicous.

Ares

Gloating

Just wanted to give a shout out to all our peeps that are freezing their junk off up north. It was 69 degrees here yesterday and sunny with a nice breeze. There was much outside cavorting done by all.

Ares

Big Brained

I’m currently plowing my way through Global Brain by Howard Bloom. It’s a good, if chunky, read about the history of collective consciousness and group thinking. Sort of reinforces Scott Adams’ proposition that we’re all just “moist robots”. One passage in particular caught my attention. Bloom is outlining how visual perception takes place.

“…Cells in the retina scrap 75 percent of the light which pours in through the lens of the eye. They diddle mercilessly with what’s left, transmogrifying the photons of which light is made into pulses of electrons and bursts of unpronounceable chemicals like lumirhodopsin. They fiddle with the contrast, tamper with the sense of space, and report not the location of what we’re watching, but where the retinal cells calculate it soon will be…… Adding insult to injury, the eye crushes the information it’s already fuddled, compacting the landslide of data from 125 million neurons down to a code able to squeeze through a cable – the optic nerve – a mere 1 million neurons in size. On the way to the brain, the constricted stream stops briefly in the thalamus, where it is mixed, matched, and modified with flows of input from ears, muscles, fingertips, and even sensors indicating the tilt and trajectory of the head, hands, legs, and torso. The rearranged gumbo is sent off to the visual cortex, where it is divvied up again….. Finally, a council of representatives from the superior colliculus, the thalamus, the locus coeruleus, the hypothalamus, and the occipital cortex poll their squabble of conclusions and cast a vote on what the twinges of light impinging on the retina might be. Not until they’ve agreed on an image do they send it to the left cerebral hemisphere, presenting it to the conscious mind as a paranormal accompli. What we see is no the product of direct perception, but a reconstruction bordering on collage artistry.”

Or as the haggard old detective once told me: “Eye witnesses suck”. Even more succinctly told to me by a crusty, tattooed Master Chief when I was 16: “Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see”. An excellent read thus far. Along the same lines as Bill Bryson’s *A Short History of Nearly Everything. Wish there had been science books like this when I was growing up.

Ares

Blood Sport

Went for my daily dose of Tom Barnett today. As usual he’s dead on, this time about the ill wind that’s blowing through the body politic these days. The blood sport, it’s-about-power-not-governance, all or nothing mindset that has been creeping in from the flanks of the respective parties for a few years is reaching a higher pitch. We don’t merely disagree with the other side anymore. Now they have to be demagogued into being evil and a threat to your very existence. It’s the politics of intolerance brought to an exquisite point.

This is a strange, dark new world we’re entering. And we’re entering it faster than anyone is comfortable with. (Friedman talks about this some in The World is Flat. The book is well worth the time, can’t recommend it enough.) When a Democratic candidate for president declares publicly that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace we all need to consult our collective compass. When the leading Republican candidate will most likely be kicked off the dais by his own party for because he doesn’t oppose same-sex marriage we have to ask exactly whom that party is representing. Of course, the mere fact that we’re doing this two years before Inauguration Day should offer clues about the health of the machine Aaron Sorkin once wrote that politicians win elections by doing two things: making you afraid and telling you whose to blame for it. That seems to be all we’re doing anymore.

One last thing while we’re in this neighborhood. I finally realized what bothers me about Hillary’s run. I think only having two names on the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania for the past 20 years in enough. It’s come down to the electoral equivalent of Coke versus Pepsi.

Ares

It's Not News...It's the New York Times

In what is quite possibly my favorite media screw up in a long time, the New York Times offered up this little nugget on it's web edition last Friday. The headline promises a story about the House debate about troops in Iraq. The picture is from a concert of the metal band Slayer. Or it could be from the Democratic National Comittee Headquarters, who knows. I know that Nancy is a big Slayer fan. Ted Kennedy, always on the prowl for new ladies to take swimming, is known to frequent speed metal shows. I think I see Dennis Kucinich on the left side of the picture. Would somebody please throw John Edwards into the pit. You know, if debates in the House actually looked like this C-Span viewership would go through the roof.

Ares

And the Winner is......

Congratulations to Time Magazine, winner of this week’s Ares and Athena laziest publication award. For the benefit of everyone living under rocks and bridges for the past few years they’d like to inform us that there are only 648 shopping days until the next presidential election. Whew! I was worried it was tomorrow or something. Forgotten in the “___ Days Until” theme was the 457 days until the next total solar eclipse, 354 days until the start of the 2008 Major League Baseball season, and 147 days until Charles Manson is up for parole again. Sadly, this issue does not appear to contain any Anna Nicole Smith references. Guess I’ll have to stick to CNN for all the Breaking News nuggets in that case.

Time Magazine, the Official News Flavored Product of journalism.

Ares

Blended Brain

Sorry about the lapse in posting. Just finished four days of 12 hour shifts. Feeling a bit wound up and waylaid at the same time. Wanted to give a shout out to my dad, who is probably up to his receeding hairline in snow and reading this in between trips to the firewood pile. Stay warm.

In other news, Anna Nicole Smith is still dead. The media can STFU any time now.

Ares

Officially Sanctioned Woman Beating

Found this on the web. Simple enough and straightforward. It's easy to go around your elbow to get to your ass when trying to make a point. It would be intellectually lazy to point to this and extrapolate that it applies to all Muslims. That said, if this doesn't bother you on some level your humanity is suspect. What is so difficult about viewing women as human beings?

Hat tip: StrategyPage.

The Astronaut and the Space Cadet

You heard it here first. I’ve got an idea for a new reality TV show. Jennifer Wilbanks, the “Runaway Bride”, and the astronaut woman should go on a road trip together. The commitment phobic and the co-dependent. The stalker and the runner. Like Thelma and Louise on Haldol. Just to keep things flowing Jennifer could wear the diaper sometimes and the astronaut could call 911 in different states and try to convince the police she’s been abducted by Mexicans. It would be like Reno 911 meets Fatal Attraction, but funnier.

Ares

Out in the Wild Blue Yonder

NASA Mission Patch $5.99

U.S. Naval Academy Ring $1500.00

Set of U.S. Navy Captain shoulderboards $24.99

Gasoline for the drive from Houston to Orlando…. $129.00

BB gun and Pepper Spray $59.99

Package of NASA spec adult diapers $199.99

Trench Coat, rubber tubing, latex gloves, and wig $159.99

Getting busted by the police wearing a diaper while stalking you’re ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend……………….priceless.

The Last Great Heresy

The global warming drumbeat feels like it’s gotten louder over the past year or so. What’s interesting about this to me isn’t the rise in the voice but the ‘authenticity’ it’s bringing this time around. Disagreement with the global warming hypothesis is one of the last great secular heresies you can engage in. Announce in a meeting at work that you’re an avowed atheist and people won’t even look up. Announce at a party that you think this global warming thing is a bunch of crap and you’ll get fingers poked into your chest. A little bit of science coupled with a little bit of fear and you’ve got a believer. The nice thing for the zealots is that there’s no shortage of apocalyptic predictions.

This is a secular religion that’s undergone some repackaging and rebranding to make it palatable for those that can’t digest belief in a supreme deity. God is an abstraction but you can hold a handful of earth. Whereas god kills indiscriminately when the earth does it now it has to be a result of something we’ve done. Scientists politely refer to those that don’t accept the hypothesis as ‘irresponsible’, read “sinner”. For me, the fun part of all this is watching people twist the apocalypse concept into the scariest scenario they can construct. After a while it becomes more about the elaborate play they’re composing in their head than the facts at hand. Being really scared tends to grant importance to life when you fail at constructing it on your own.

Ares

Killing Children

Mrs. Ares and I watched a little thing tonight called Execution in Iran. Hard to get your mind around. Back in 2004 the Iranian government tried and executed a 16 year old girl for crimes against chastity. Not murder or drug smuggling, but chastity. Story goes something like this. Little Atafeh Sahaaleh was orphaned in place. When she was young her mother died in a car accident. Stricken by grief, her father fell into a well of drug addiction. Atafeh was forced to care for her elderly, infirm grandparents and generally fend for herself. This included being out and about in a society where women are supposed to have a male relation in attendance. One result of this was being arrested by the morality police for being alone in a car with a boy. This ended with a sentence of 40 lashes. When she was 13 she was molested and raped by a 51 year old cab driver. It went on for 3 years. The morality police eventually produced a ‘petition’ that said the girl was a danger to the moral standing of the community and arrested her. After a brief trial where the judge acts as prosecutor she was sentenced to death. (By they way, according to Islamic law the age of consent for females is 9. Yea, 9.) On an August morning they marched her into public and hanged her by raising a crane into the air.

I know better than most people the ways and methods of evil in the world. This is a whole new level. So much about this is wrong that it almost defies cataloging. This is evil on a level that would have made Hitler blush. Find me the mullahs and muftis that decry this practice. They may be out there, but I’ve yet to come across them. Instead we have to settle for Refuseniks in the West like Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan that live under a death sentence for daring to suggest Islam might not always be right. Another thought that popped up was where is Amnesty International’s media engine of righteous indignation? I suppose it’s easier to take cheap shots at Koran mishandling at Guantanamo. I’m not espousing some neo-con world domination fantasy and I’m not fronting for the Bush Iran Plan, but I can’t get away from the feeling that there needs to be some different kinds of killing going on there. I don’t think confrontations get much more justified than this. Forget my earlier post about CAIR and beating the women. They’re killing the children for being raped. I’m issuing a challenge to all of the Koran-thumping, five-times-a-day-headbangers to articulate to me the value of a religion that espouses killing the children. If you think its wrong we’re well past the time for saying it. Its time you started shouting it.

Best....Quote.........Ever

"I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with."

Denis Leary

War Porn

Just a slight digression for a Wednesday afternoon. Caught a piece of CNN over the weekend. (I really only flip through to see what they’re fixating on at a given moment. I’m not a viewer.) They were looping cell phone video of a gun battle between Iraqi forces and terrorists in Najaf. At least that’s what the banner told me. The video was one giant blur with people yelling in Arabic. For all we know it could have been 8 guys having a water balloon fight in the desert. Is CNN really that pathetic that they’ll just throw up any incoherent blur that can be associated with violence? I know, I answered my own question.

When we get to this point it feels an awful lot like war porn. Anything to feed the monster of ratings in order to portray strife, chaos, and disorder. The poor bastards at CNN know they’re competing against websites like YouTube and Consumption Junction for the snuff film audience. It’s a competition they know they’re going to lose. My prediction? At some point in the future CNN will introduce some sort of “prime” or “restricted” website where the can display all of their violence porn, hoping to get a piece of the game.

A Place to Call Their Own

Had a brief thought on the treadmill. We’ve entered a perpetual election cycle. Sports and politics have merged in one respect: They’re really more about entertainment than competition. That said, politics seems to clog an inordinate amount of time in our media. Professional sports realized a long time ago that it was easier to create your own venue than fight for airtime in the mainstream. ESPN was born. We need an ESPN for politics. Some little television/web/print home where all the political entertainers can run off and play their games, thereby freeing up valuable time and space in other venues to discuss real issues.

It could play out like the World Wrestling Federation/World Championship Wrestling ‘wars’ of the ‘90s. Jessie Ventura could get his old gig back as an announcer. Can’t you just see him standing there in a tux, doing a standup with Barack Obama.

Jessie: “What do you have to say to your opponent?

Barack: “We’re coming at those puny little Republicans. When they feel the power of our drug rehabilitation program they’re gonna quake in their boots and run home to momma! We’re gonna bleed their quorum and smash their filibuster! I’m telling you brother!”

Jessie: “That’s gotta hurt, Gene! Back to you in the booth.”

And so on, and so on. I think it should be a law that in all debates the participants will have to wear masks like Mexican wrestlers. Maybe it would even spawn a chain of political themed restaurants. They could serve endangered spotted owl to the red side of the restaurant and Tofurkey on the blue side. Republicans would pay for their meals on maxed out credit cards. Democrats would try to barter services for their dinners. This has enormous downrange potential.

Ares

The First Rule of Political Fight Club

Now this is interesting. It can be explained by one word: fear. This reeks of panic. Add this to the “revelation” within the last week that Obama attended a madrassa as a child and you can paint a picture of an opposition in panicked hysteria. Two years from Inauguration Day and folks are pulling out the nuclear option. By all accounts the madrassa piece is being traced back to Hillary’s campaign. The timing, less than a week after declaring, does smell a bit.

Interesting thing about the madrassa story, nobody is actually carrying the story anymore. (If Google can’t produce it the piece has gone under.) They’re all just talking about it, saying in effect that “other people have said”. This is what the news product profession does best. Take an unsourced hit piece that’s dropped in from obscurity and quickly retracted, and then work itself into a lather about the “story” instead of the original facts presented. News about the news. And a special Shame On You shout out goes to Sean Hannity, for leading off a piece on his website with the sentence “Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?” No Sean, we're ready for a world free of bloviating assholes that pander to people's fear.

Ares

Excitable Animals

I caught a few minutes of the Situation Room on CNN the other day, something I usually try to avoid. Is it just me or does Wolf Blitzer seem to be aroused by death, chaos, and mayhem? Granted, that stuff is the mother’s milk of the news product profession. But Wolf comes off as fixated to the point of fetish. And what’s with the ADHD wall of television feed? Does anybody, anywhere, ever feel more informed after a few minutes of that high-speed pass of talking heads? I’ve had this feeling since 9/11 that the news product profession has been trying to top itself. You can almost sense their professional depression that nothing on that scale has happened in over 5 years. Katrina was a widespread visual orgy of destruction. Problem is, they boned that one all the way through and keep quiet about it while hoping people forget how badly they handled it. I'm coining a new term to describe Wolf and is ilk: Professional Schadenfreudist.

Ares

Elephants Turning Tricks

In the interest of granting equal time I thought we could take a quick mosey through the right side of the isle. Again, WTF are these folks doing getting muddy this early in the game? This entire exercise feels completely asinine as Inauguration Day is two years away. I guess there’s advertising space that needs to be sold, so we’ll have this shoved in our faces 24/7 henceforth.

Rudy Guiliani. Gotta give some props to any guy that can unfu** New York City. For anybody that thinks he doesn’t have genuine leadership ability I have two contrasting words for you: Ray Nagin. Rudy’s biggest problem, aside from his ego, is going to be his own party. If memory serves he’s pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, two things the right flank of the party are going to whip him with. He’s gonna have some issues when he has to account for his personal life, but anymore that seems to be an admission criteria for entry into politics. Also, there’s that troubling baldness thing. Who was the last bald president we elected? Ike?

Newt Gingrich. Yea, much like Algore, that’s already been tried. Newt’s actually a pretty smart guy, but it’s not gonna matter when he gets to talking. His mouth seems to attain a velocity all its own when he gets going. If he’d learned the less-is-more philosophy a dozen years ago he might stand a chance. Probably the next best thing the Republicans have as far as shitstorm lightning rods go, behind the current POTUS and VPOTUS.

John McCain. It’s hard for me not to like John for personal reasons. He’s got honest to god steel in his spine that he paid for with his own blood. Also a bit of a centrist, which could end up being a blessing or a curse depending on how he views his own party. (Side Note: I’m still holding out hope for a concept I saw last fall: A McCain/Lieberman ticket. I think it would be f****** fabulous! Best thing to happen to presidential politics in a century.) Kinda crotchety though. Also, getting a head start on that Reaganesque falling asleep in meetings thing.

Mitt Romney. Any Republican that can get himself elected in Massachusetts bears looking at. We’ll have to wait and see if he can dance on the big stage without stepping on his junk. His own party’s going to flog the crap out of him over same sex marriage. He’s probably a political corpse that doesn’t know he’s dead.

George Pataki. Yawn.

Jim Gilmore. Who?

Sam Brownback. A little too much like our current president for his own good. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a decent guy, but he’s gonna get Bush fatigue in a big hurry. Probably gonna come down to delivery on his part. My gut tells me the body politic is tired of bible thumpers.

Mike Huckabee. Who?

Chuck Hagel Ha ha ha ha….ouch! Sorry, just fell out of my chair laughing.

Tom Tancredo. Threw that last one in just because Tom’s more a Libertarian than a Republican. It would be nice to see a serious challenger from that angle. If they’d just stop insisting the rest of us read Atlas Shrugged folks would be falling all over them.

This public service announcement was brought to you by Ares and Athena, LLC; Political consultants worldwide with offices in Juarez, Cairo, and Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

The Donkey Race

Just in case you were wondering who is in the arena thus far I’ve decided to offer an Ares-slanted analysis of the candidates that have declared. Kinda dumb to declare this early if you ask me, but it’s not my money.

Hillary Clinton. See previous post.

Barack Obama. By all appearances a pretty smart guy and one of the best orators to hit the scene in the past 20 years. Thus far he’s stayed away from bloody-edged partisanship, hope that lasts. As for actual skills it’s a pure wait and see game. After 7 years of Dubya we’re so elated by a politician that gives a good speech we’d follow him to a whorehouse in Tijuana just to hear what he had to say about it.

John Edwards. Because what this country needs is another lawyer in the White House. He comes off as kind of smarmy. And let’s face it, he’s too short. We don’t elect short presidents anymore.

Al Gore. I’m no Democratic Party strategist, but I think that’s been tried. Algore could put free basing meth addicts to sleep. Yes, I know he’s a good person because he cares about the environment. Decency doesn’t impress me nearly as much as competence. Little evidence in that department.

Joe Biden. Not a bad guy, aside from being a lifelong Washington political operator. I think we could use someone with experience that extends beyond the beltway. Hard pressed to think of anything off the top of my head that he’s done that’s been noteworthy.

John Kerry. Just announced he’s not going to run after all, much to the chagrin of the Republican Party. It’s rare that you get piñatas that large in political life.

Wesley Clark. Hard pressed to think of a single thing he’s done, ever. Makes me wonder if he’s overextended on his mortgage and needs a paying gig to make ends meet.

Denis Kucinich. Looks like a troll. If we don’t elect short presidents we sure as hell don’t elect trolls. If he were president we’d have tofu instead of meat in every school cafeteria. I think he’s a quiet Democratic version of Pat Buchanan.

Christopher Dodd. Who?

Tom Vilsack. Sounds too much like ball-sack. He could be FDR and JFK reincarnated but he’ll never get past his name.

Bill Richardson. The best qualified candidate that’s never going to get anywhere. Richardson has political street cred. He’s actually sat face to face with Kim “I’m so ronely” Jong Il and could probably get a handle on that mess. He’s been a governor for the past five years, and a good one at that. Also a former UN Ambassador from the mythological Clinton presidency, so he’s got global experience. A Spanish speaking Hispanic that’s actually done something about illegal immigration in his state. If we elected leaders based on competence instead of appearance and style he’d be the horse to put your money on.

This public service announcement was brought to you by Ares and Athena, LLC; Political consultants worldwide with offices in Paris, Tokyo, and Ball Ground.

Why I Don't Want Hillary

This one could get ugly in a hurry so I’ll keep it short. There are two pretty simple reasons why I’m dreading her run. The biggest one is that both sides are going to engage in euphoric recall/vilification about the Clinton presidency of the ‘90s. It’s over man, let it go. Nothing in the way of progress is going to occur while we spend a lot of wasted time arguing about things that happened 10 years ago. Hillary would be only too happy to let this happen, as it would allow her to avoid the hard questions. Hillary is to the right was Dubya is to the left: A two-legged shitstorm with a magical ability to bring out the worst in half the country. After 14 years I’m thoroughly tired of absolutist, blood sport, in-your-face trench warfare. Second reason: She’s not her husband. Love him or hate him, you have to admit he could give a speech and work the charm. Hillary’s got none of that. She comes off like a pinched and pissed off headmistress at a school for insolent children. And please don’t give me that bullshit about needing a woman president. It’s not about your race or gender, it’s about your politics. There’s an easy way to test that “we need a woman” president crap. Ask the issuer of that statement if they would support Ann Coulter if she ran. I didn’t think so. My objections are the same for both male and female presidents. I’d like to see one that isn’t bathed in the blood of partisan politics. I wonder if this country will ever produce another Teddy Roosevelt or FDR?

If this doesn’t get Athena out from under the pile on her desk I don’t know what will.

Ares