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Joe the Not a Plumber is still an uninformed right wing douche, except now he’s being paid wingnut welfare to travel. I just hope he doesn’t ever make it to China, for his own sake.

Notice how on their side the bigger an idiot you are, the more likely it is that the right will pay you. They celebrate stupidity.

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Viva la Palin!

The infamous fake sex offender postcard mailing was only three years ago.

That worked out well. And if they think I’m going to stop bringing it up, they’re wrong. It was sort of a local Schiavo case. Republicans in all their naked depravity, exposed. Good times.

For us.

Barney Frank is right about Barack Obama:

Frank worries that Obama’s evenhandedness may prove to be a political liability. “On the financial crisis, Obama said that both sides were asleep at the switch,” Frank said. “But that’s not true. The Republicans were wide awake, and they made choices to oppose regulation. They had bad ideas. He says, ‘I don’t want to fight the fights of the nineties,’ but I don’t see any alternative to refighting the fights of the nineties if we want to change things.”

Frank illuminates the president-elect’s chief weakness.

Also: Has conservative ideology been discredited by reality? Frank thinks so:

“We are at a moment now when liberalism is poised to have its biggest impact on America since Roosevelt, because the conservative viewpoint has been so thoroughly repudiated by reality,” Frank said. “Someone asked Harold Macmillan what has the most impact on political decisions. He said, ‘Events, dear boy, events.’ Events have just totally repudiated them, and we’re now in a position to take advantage of that.” He went on, “You know Hegel. Thesis: No regulation at all. Antithesis: Now the government owns the banks. What I gotta do next year is the synthesis.”

Conservatism doesn’t exist anymore. One could argue that conservatism isn’t so much an ideology, but rather a reaction to liberalism.

Conservatives do not feel obligated to offer solutions to problems. Why? Because if government is used to solve problems, then they can no longer argue (with a straight face) that government is always the problem.

Conservatives, like alcoholics, come in varieties. There are “unrepentant conservatives.” They argue from absolutist positions that have no basis in reality. There are “functional conservatives.” Bush is a bigtime “functional conservative.” No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug program, bailouts for businesses… While Bush’s programs have a mixed record of success, you have to give him credit for at least attempting to solve problems with government.

The Philadelphia Eagles beat the hated New York Giants today in the NFC divisional playoffs, 23-11, and will head off to Arizona for their fifth NFC championship game in eight years.  I like their chances of getting to the Super Bowl, but for an Eagles fan, just facing the Giants in the playoffs is kinda like a Super Bowl in itself.

TANGENTIAL ASIDE:
I’m listening to the post-game sports talk on Philadelphia’s WIP, streaming over my iPhone, and I’m not hearing any local ads.  Nada.

Obviously, CBS Radio is running only national ads on its radio streams, which makes a ton of sense, since local ads aren’t of much interest to a national audience.  And while the size of the streaming audience for each individual radio station may only be a fraction of the broadcast audience, combined across CBS’ many stations, it starts to add up.  Strikes me as a great way to use the Internet to monetize existing content.

Bob Caldwell, editorial page editor of The Oregonian, in a column about civility in public discourse. (article not on-line right now, print version Jan. 11, 2009, page B1)

Also last week, some readers greeted the launch of Elizabeth Hovde’s local conservative column as the occasion to make their comments personal, and, in a few cases, downright vile.

And here’s the first sentence from Hovde’s debut column last week:

I’m not David Reinhard, but I’ll take his hate mail.

Hard to imagine a few kooks took her up on it. Dirty hippies!

It’s a strange newspaper world when shoving right-wing columnists down people’s throats is a civic duty. I’m not tempted to cancel my subscription over the hiring of Hovde, as a newspaper can print whatever it wants pretty much, but I am tempted to cancel my subscription because Caldwell insists on defining his new columnists as “center-right,” which is essentially a Republican canard. (You’ll recall the desperate attempts after the election by Republicans to reassure themselves that the country is still conservative, despite the most solid evidence of all, the election itself.)

By defining his new “center-right” columnists as being in opposition to the O’s editorial board, he magically transforms a traditionally Republican-leaning newspaper into a liberal one. Voilà! (Yes, they endorsed Obama. So what? The choice was between insane and not insane, the insanity being another four years of Republican rule rather than John McCain himself, the choice of running mate notwithstanding.)

Hey, here’s an idea. Newspapers, seeing as they are all going out of business and stuff, could judge their opinion columnists by the intellectual strength of the ideas they write about rather than making sure enough of them piss off the DFH. It may be fun to make the libruls mad but it’s kind of a zero sum game, and there was enough of that mindlessness in the last eight years to last a lifetime.

Thus when columnists are inclined to parrot RNC and stink tank talking points, this would count against them! Those with their own knowledge of history, government and politics and original ideas might thrive!

For example, if a conservative could actually make a convincing argument why unions have no inherent right to exist, based on history and the law, I might listen. Here’s a hint: personal resentments and “free-market” folderol are not convincing arguments.

I know, I know. I’m being uncivil by bringing any of this up.

Talks over a possible new I-5 bridge between Vancouver and Portland have heated up a bit, according to this article from The Oregonian:

Portland and Vancouver squared off Friday on the size of a new Interstate 5 bridge, with Vancouver officials aiming for a high-capacity span and Portland insisting that a smaller, more environmentally friendly alternative could suffice.

The article quotes new Portland Mayor Sam Adams as saying he could possibly support a ten lane bridge, and then David Bragdon, who heads Metro, weighs in along the same lines:

Metro Council President David Bragdon sided with Adams, saying he could agree to 10 lanes. But that support would be based on charging high tolls to encourage mass transit use and discourage rush-hour commuting.

On the Washington side, both Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard and the city council member challenging him, Tim Leavitt, didn’t seem to like the idea of a smaller eight lane bridge, with Leavitt immediately playing to the peanut gallery by saying

“I’m not really interested in compromising on issues related to safety and congestion and the economy of our region,” said Leavitt, chair of the board of C-Tran, Clark County’s mass transit agency.

I’ve always found sanctimony to be the best possible political strategy, which could explain why I never ran for office. But I digress.

More than a few things strike me as interesting here. [Read more…]