Political quote of the day

When simplistic tag lines are ordered up at Fox News by Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and Prince Waleed, and they are parroted within hours by every politician and talking head on the right, perhaps ask “is this the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, any longer?” Ponder: what do these New Lords get out of teaching you to hate every American elite of science, intellect or skill, along with your own freely elected government… while demanding that you ignore the one elite that threatens everything we love? Theirs?

David Brin, scientist and best-selling author, from Class War and the Lessons of History.  (via Quotation of the Day Mailing List)

Its the end of the world

Or it is not the end of the world. You decide.

Mark Morford has his own thoughts on the issue that are well worth a read.

Excerpt:

Reports are flooding in from around the world that the Fukushima meltdown was one of the worst disasters in mankind’s short history, a game-changing horror of unimaginable scope and psychological timbre that will wreak emotional and environmental havoc for years, decades and even millennia to come, spreading radioactive particles over thousands of square miles of Japan and beyond.

What’s more, none of that is really true, the disaster isn’t really all that bad, the radiation levels are relatively low and Japan is feeling much better already, thanks for asking.

The Fukushima meltdown is easily as terrible as 1979′s Three Mile Island, which, it turns out, wasn’t all that bad, depending on who you don’t care enough to ask. Fukushima is probably the second worst disaster of its kind in history, even though no one really knows how to measure the full extent of these things so that’s probably false as well, although we do know it’s not as bad as Chernobyl because nothing could ever really be that devastating ever again, except for the fact that it totally could.

Political quote of the day

Juan Williams
Juan Williams

At least there’s one good thing to come out of this whole Juan Williams v. NPR mess: we’ve finally found a program that Republicans are willing to say they would cut.

– an unnamed reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

Political quote of the day

Come on now. She is a nice. How many of y’all have met her? She is a nice person. She’s a nice person. You know, let me give you a little lesson here. I hope you will listen to me. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean that they’re not a good person. And I want to tell ya, I’ve been in the Senate for five years and I’ve taken a lot of that because I’ve been on the small side, both in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party. Just because I don’t agree with them, it doesn’t mean I’m bad. It means I have a legitimate point of view that’s different than theirs. And what we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make the determination yourself. So, don’t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody’s no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), defending House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and disparaging Fox News.

Republicans are crazy

For those who remember, there was a poll commissioned by blog Daily Kos a while ago that showed many in the Republican Party where insane.  Fox News and conservative commentators attacked the poll as purposefully inaccurate.  Well there is a new Harris poll out that shows Republicans are even more insane than I thought (I have cut and pasted below an excerpt from a recent article).

  • 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
  • 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
  • 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
  • 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
  • Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

Week in review (updated)

I have always found that Media Matters provides a good summary of what has been in the news over the last week or so.  The sad part about this week is how little important news dominated last week’s news cycle.

Also, did Glenn Beck really ask if Tiger Woods was really O.J. Simpson? I new he had expressed extremely racist thoughts in the past, but I’m not sure I have ever heard him say anything so appalling.

(Update by Brant):  By the way, Glenn Beck was recently “covered” on South Park.

Beck: I have a plan

Glenn Beck has announced that he has a “plan.” Or maybe that should be “The Plan.”  Basically, he says that his “plan” involves a series of “conventions” (so far only one has been announced at a special patriot price of $25 to $85 per head) giving you a chance to meet with him all day to be educated.  Then later on August 28, 2010, the full story will be revealed by Beck at the “feet of Abraham Lincoln.” Apparently Lincoln didn’t see him coming.

Given his claims that Obama is a socialist, it is of interest that Beck was quoted today as saying:

We need to think like China and have a 100 year plan for America!

At that same rally, a Beck fan snapped this picture of the crowd. Note carefully how Glenn Beck appeals to all ages and races.

By the way, August 28 is the anniversary Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. As between the Beck event and MLK’s speech, which do you believe will continue to be regarded as a high point of American oratory.