Medley‘s been birddogging some interesting GOP quotes lately, and she’s found another in this article on Matt Labash, senior writer for The Weekly Standard. Says Labash of his fellow cronies in the conservative media, “We’ve created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective…. It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It’s a great little racket.” Sounds like conservative flaks are suffering from what Robert Wiebe called “the illusion of fulfillment.” As with the Norquist piece last week and as this Tom Paine article notes, it’s exactly this kind of public wink-and-a-smirk about their own fraudulent gimmicks that’ll (hopefully) help bring their “racket” to an early end.
Author: KcM
The Mercenary.
With NBA coach firings coming fast and furious, Slate takes a moment to burst the Larry Brown bubble. I have to say I’m inclined to agree. Given both his own coaching tour and his often inexplicable trades every year, it seems Brown’s got a terminal case of basketball ADD. Is he really the right guy to take Detroit over the hump?
Grand Slam, Eggs Rummy.
“Now is not the time or the place to talk. It’s the time to order, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.” Donald Rumsfeld orders breakfast at Denny’s.
Spiders and Bots.
Two stories from the Welcome to the Future dept: NASA and the European Space Agency send dueling rovers to Mars in search of life, while scientists perfect gecko tape technology to create real-life “Spiderman” gloves. There’s a few origin stories in here somewhere.
The Powell Rules.
On a party line vote, the FCC eases ownership rules, paving the way for another wave of media consolidation over the nation’s airwaves. With Chairman Michael Powell now playing kingmaker for the likes of Rupert Murdoch, the Commission has come a long way from low power FM in two short years.
Visions of Arda.
In the spirit of the custom FOTR covers blogged almost a year ago, Adam Koebel has now designed several beautiful Two Towers DVD covers for the second installment. As before, some of these are really nice.
Hell hath no fury.
AICN gets their grubby hands on publicity stills of Hellboy and Abe Sapien. To be honest, I’m not very familiar with the comic, but Ron Perlman looks like every Mike Mignola sketch of the character I’ve ever seen. Good to see the art of make-up is still alive and well in the era of CGI characters.
Better Living through Death.
Meant to blog this last week but forgot: FPS games increase brainpower. Experienced players of these games are 30 percent to 50 percent better than nonplayers at taking in everything that happens around them…They identify objects in their peripheral vision, perceiving numerous objects without having to count them, switch attention rapidly and track many items at once. Glad to hear my endless logged hours of Day of Defeat have not gone to waste. And considering I rented Enter the Matrix over the weekend and spent an unhealthy amount of time beating it, I must be operating on a Zen plane right now.
Dropping the Other Shoe.
In a strange moment of candor, Wolfowitz tells Vanity Fair that the WMD argument for overthrowing Saddam was chosen “for bureaucratic reasons,” since “it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” (He also lends credence to the argument advanced in this Fred Kaplan article that removing troops from Saudi Arabia was one of the central purposes of the Iraq war.) Meanwhile, in the same AP story, the head of US Marines in Iraq says of the WMDs, “they’re simply not there.” Looks like the Bushies have some explaining to do…If they follow the usual pattern, I suspect they’ll answer any tough question with a flurry of 9/11-esque horror stories.
No Child Left Behind?
Surprise, surprise. Dubya and the GOP’s new tax cut leaves out an increased child tax credit for the nation’s poorest Americans. After all, gotta keep the priorities straight…Some families out there might want a second SUV.