They may not be smart, but they sure are funny!

"The rise of the tea party movement is the most important development in politics since the advent of the Reagan Democrat," Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley told the Washington Times. He added:

"Today, the American tea party represents the intellectualism of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan. These men believed in the citizenry and not the state . . . The intellectuals of the American tea party don't confuse sophistication with intellectualism. They know better even if the elites do not. The tea party also knows that it is impractical, indeed anti-intellectual, to try to govern this vast and diverse country from one corrupt city by the Potomac River." Link

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

The dominoes are falling

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled Wednesday that Texas' ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News report.

Very soon, much sooner than anyone could have guessed, marriage equality will be the law in every state. Conservatives are trying desperately to stop it, witness Arizona’s recent passage of “we hate you so we won’t serve you” legislation against gays, but they are failing and will continue to fail.

Marriage equality is coming.

Remember, it's a feature, not a bug

Oops: GOP Bill Would Strip 1 Million Workers Of Health Coverage

A Republican-led bill designed to "save American workers" would cause 1 million workers to lose their health care coverage and increase the deficit by $74 billion, according to Congress' official scorekeeper.

The legislation, offered by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) and 208 co-sponsors as a tweak to Obamacare, would change the definition of a full-time work week under the health care law from 30 hours per week to 40 hours. The aim was to mitigate the effect of the law's employer mandate, which says businesses with 50 or more workers must offer insurance to full-time employees. Link

So the “Save American Workers” bill is going to cost 1 million workers their health care coverage while providing a huge benefit to those businesses that no longer have to provide insurance to their employees. Of course, those million workers will then have to get coverage through the exchanges, which means government subsidies, or they’ll go on Medicaid, again funded by the government, which is why this would increase the deficit by $74 billion.

Sounds like a fantastic idea. It screws working Americans, gives a financial windfall to big business, and increases the deficit which Republicans can use to argue for cutting social welfare programs. It’s a win-win for Republicans. Of course, it’s a lose-lose for Americans, the people the Republicans are supposed to be helping.

"Judge" Andrew Napolitano is an asshat

And this nicely proves it. Plus, it's funny.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

But also enraging.

FACT: The Stimulus Worked

Happy 5 year birthday, Recovery Act.

From the New York Times:

Of all the myths and falsehoods that Republicans have spread about President Obama, the most pernicious and long-lasting is that the $832 billion stimulus package did not work. Since 2009, Republican lawmakers have inextricably linked the words “failed” and “stimulus,” and last week, five years after passage of the Recovery Act, they dusted off their old playbook again.

“The ‘stimulus’ has turned out to be a classic case of big promises and big spending with little results,” wrote Speaker John Boehner. “Five years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, millions of families are still asking, ‘where are the jobs?’”

John Boehner who has passed approximately, oh, ZERO, jobs bills during his tenure as Speaker may not be good at creating jobs, but he is really good at at least one thing. Lying.

The stimulus could have done more good had it been bigger and more carefully constructed. But put simply, it prevented a second recession that could have turned into a depression. It created or saved an average of 1.6 million jobs a year for four years. (There are the jobs, Mr. Boehner.) It raised the nation’s economic output by 2 to 3 percent from 2009 to 2011. It prevented a significant increase in poverty — without it, 5.3 million additional people would have become poor in 2010.

And yet Republicans were successful in discrediting the very idea that federal spending can boost the economy and raise employment. They made the argument that the stimulus was a failure not just to ensure that Mr. Obama would get no credit for the recovery that did occur, but to justify their obstruction of all further attempts at stimulus.

So the American Jobs Act was killed, and so was the infrastructure bank and any number of other spending proposals that might have helped the country. The president’s plan to spend another $56 billion on job training, education and energy efficiency, to be unveiled in his budget next month, will almost certainly suffer a similar fate.

This may be the singular tragedy of the Obama administration. Five years later, it is clear to all fair-minded economists that the stimulus did work, and that it did enormous good for the economy and for tens of millions of people. But because it fell short of its goals, and was roundly ridiculed by Republicans and inadequately defended by Democrats, who should have trumpeted its success, the president’s stimulus plan is now widely considered a stumble.

This enabled Republicans to champion an austerity policy that produced deep reductions in discretionary spending, undoing many of the gains begun in 2009. The result has been a post-stimulus recovery that remains weak and struggling, undermining an economic legacy that should be seen as a remarkable accomplishment..

That's exactly right. All Americans have been screwed by an insanely hostile Republican party that will do ANYTHING to prevent even a perceived victory by President Obama. They'll even reject policies they've championed in the past, so long as the President endorses them.

Had the stimulus been bigger, had the Republicans not been obstructing at every opportunity, the economy would be roaring, deficits would be down even more than they are already, we'd have fewer poor people and things would be better in many ways.

Thanks, Republicans.

Get to know me! TV Shows

I was watching part of a Gilligan’s Island episode the other night on TV Land and got to thinking about TV shows that made a big impact on my life or that I really, really loved. I haven’t seen many of these shows in years, and I may never see some of them again, but at some point, they were really important to me.

This isn’t a comprehensive list as I’m pretty sure I could come up with dozens more, especially sitcoms from the sixties and seventies. But I’ve tried to limit the list to just those special shows.

In more or less chronological order, here they are.

Captain Kangaroo
HR Pufenstuf
Scooby Doo, Where Are You?
F Troop
Gilligan’s Island
Star Trek
Happy Days
Welcome Back Kotter
Quark
Battlestar Galactica
Taxi
Doctor Who
Soap
Hill Street Blues
Cheers
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Simpsons
Mad About You
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Friends
Futurama
Survivor
24
Pushing Daisies
Battlestar Galactica
Lost
Community

Which brings us to 2014. I reserve the right to amend the list if I remember anything I’ve missed.

What about you?

Wrong ideas I had for way too long

I saw an article the other day about misconceptions, discussing ideas that people held for long periods of time that they now understand were wrong. And not just any old misconceptions, but really stupid ones; misconceptions that make no sense at all.

So, here are a couple wrong ideas I had for a long time.

The first is not particularly relevant to everyday life and is really a misinterpretation of a movie plot point. In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch turns over her ginormous red hourglass and tells Dorothy that the time in the hourglass is how long she has to live. Today I interpret that as a deadline at which time the Witch would return and have Dorothy killed (possibly by the Winky guards). For decades, however, I thought the Witch meant that Dorothy would just magically drop dead the instant the red sand ran out. I never understood why Dorothy didn’t just keep turning over the hourglass to give herself more time.

The second is historical. Like most people, I know that Hitler killed himself in his bunker. I used to think that Hitler’s bunker was located on the coast of France and that he killed himself when the Allied Troops invaded France on D-Day. I could vividly picture him looking out and seeing the landing craft and directing defenses before he killed himself. When I finally realized that Hitler died in his bunker in Berlin nearly a year later, it caused a major readjustment in how I visualized the war and Hitler’s end.

Please feel free to share your own misconceptions in the comments. I’m sure I’ll think up some more as well.

Waaahhh! Bwaaaaa! Bwaaaang! Wooooo.

One of my favorite parts of the 1950's classic science fiction film, Forbidden Planet, is the eerie "music" throughout the film. To my surprise, the tones were not created using a Theremin but something that sounds remarkably similar and adds a creepy, science fictiony undertone to everything that happens.

If you'd like to try your hand at recreating some of these sounds, or create all new ones, Luke Philips has created an on-line, customizable Theremin. It's great.

Check it out here:  Theremin

The Do-Nothing Party

From The Hill:

House Republican leaders, having dispensed with the debt limit and put immigration reform on the back burner, will return to their political comfort zone with a legislative agenda focused on attacking the Obama administration and government excess.

So no reauthorizing unemployment benefits. No funding of infrastructure projects or other legislation that would create jobs. No tackling of income inequality or climate change or any of the other problems America faces.

Because that’s why we elected them. To bitch and moan and do nothing to actually help Americans. Because that might, you know, make Obama look good. And they can’t have that.

Rachel in London 4

Rachel sent us a text last night that she was in line (at 4:30AM!) to get a ticket to stand along the red carpet for the BAFTAs (British Oscars). She did get her ticket and was there when the celebrities walked the carpet. She posted that she saw Christian Bale, Christoph Walz, Dame Judy Dench, Prince William and Oprah, among others, and got autographs from Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Gattis, and a few others. She was really hoping to see Benedict Cumberbatch but he was a disappointing no-show.  KHAAAAAN!!

The BAFTA coverage started airing here at 8PM on BBC America and Carol was watching the red carpet footage looking for Rachel. And she found her!

Here's Leo signing autographs with Rachel taking his picture.

Here's Rachel, dead center with the black glove and camera.

The Lego Movie

We just got back from seeing The Lego Movie.

It was brilliant.

The screenplay is smart and funny. The movie is self-aware and cleverly uses that self-awareness to paint the Lego universe with fantastic results. The third act features a twist that brings the entire thing together and is surprisingly warm and touching. This movie is NOT a ninety minute commercial for Legos. It was pure awesomeness.

If this isn't one of the best, if not the best, movies I'll see all year, this will be an excellent, unprecedented year for film. Go see it. I can't wait to see it again.

For a really good review, check out SJ Honeywell's review at 1001plus.

Snochi

The snowstorm cleverly christened Snochi canceled school and work today. School is already canceled for tomorrow and there's a decent chance we'll be out of work tomorrow as well. We're getting more snow now, so the total snowfall is going to go up. The news reported earlier that Germantown got 17 inches.

Here are some pictures of our snowfall. The third picture shows some of the hundreds of bird tracks on our front porch. Apparently they were adorably trying to get out of the snowfall.

Yes, that's our van.

Adorable bird tracks

Rachel in London 3

Rachel has started her blog, Life in London. She's writing every day, but she doesn't have the time to post every day, so the posts are a little behind the actual date. She's posted up to Day 7 and she's currently living Day 13.

Her writing is very stream of consciousness but she doesn't hold back her thoughts. And she posts some great pictures.

If you're interested, her blog is here:  Life in London

Some "tribute"

On the radio this morning, they were talking about a place in DC that's holding a Phillip Seymour Hoffman tribute this weekend, showing his best films. The film reviewer for the station, WTOP, ranked Hoffman’s top ten films.

Tied for #10 on his list were Twister and The Big Lebowski.

Yes, that’s what he said. Twister tied with The Big Lebowski.

I'm pretty sure that not only disqualifies you from being a film critic, but also from being a human being with a functioning brain.

Hemione and Harry is just wrong

Recently, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, said that she made a mistake in the books by not pairing up Hermione with Harry.

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” she reportedly says. “That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”

As a huge fan of the books, I disagree with her assessment and am really glad that the books and movies are done so she can’t change them. If you’re a Potter fan, for a really good analysis of the issue, check out this well-written article by Alyssa Rosenberg. I think her conclusions are spot on.

I'd like to teach America not to be so stupid

Last week, an MSNBC employee sent out the following Tweet:

Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/biracial family.

Given the conservative freakout over a previous Cheerios commercial featuring the same family, the Tweet seems absolutely fair. But the Republican National Committee demanded that MSNBC apologize, which they did, and MSNBC went so far as to fire the Tweet manager who had sent it. This was an act of cowardice, but it's how people not of the rightwing generally behave when they think they've made a mistake.

Please note that the rightwing news network, FOX News, regularly uses far more offensive and provocative language to describe anyone they disagree with including the Pope, Sandra Fluke, Attorney General Eric Holder, Hilary Clinton and the President of the United States, Barack Obama. No Republican calls on FOX News to apologize or demands anyone be fired.

Ironically, conservatives held their ire over the Cheerios commercial as they found another target.

If you watch or read the news, you are undoubtedly aware of the "controversy" that's erupted over Coca Cola's Super Bowl ad featuring "America the Beautiful", the clear spiritual descendant of the iconic, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" commercial. Despite being a wonderful affirmation of the diversity and promise of America, prominent conservatives from FOX News commentators to Rush Limbaugh to actual Congressmen have gotten the vapors and condemned Coke.

Here's the commercial in case you haven't seen it.



I'll make this as clear as I can.

If you find this commercial offensive because it features people singing in different languages, you are an asshole.

What's more, you are an asshole who has no real understanding of what America is. We are, and have always been, a nation of immigrants. Aside from Native Americans, ALL our families have been immigrants at some point. (And technically even the Native Americans were once immigrants.)

We are a nation composed of different nationalities brought together with the common belief in human rights, representative government, freedom and all that jazz. We are not a whites-only club that requires English to be spoken here. We are not fearful of people who are different from us. We are those people.

This isn't an agree-to-disagree type issue. You are free to dislike the ad because you don't like the music, or you found the direction distracting, or you don't like its promotion of sugary soft drinks. But if you don't like the ad because you don't think America the Beautiful should be sung in any language but "American" you are an asshole.

A HUGE asshole.

Ben at 16

Sixteen years ago today, my son, Ben, was born. Ben's a great young man, smart and funny, with a lot of musical talent. He plays a very mean guitar and is a fearless performer.

Ben is autistic but functions on a very high level. He's had his issues, but through a lot of hard work and some fantastic support from the school system and, most importantly, his Mother, Ben has overcome many challenges and is able to lead a normal life. We believe he has a great future ahead of him.

Fortunately, he doesn't read my blog, since this would embarrass him greatly. Perhaps some day he will, though. And he will know then how very proud I am that he's my son.

Super Bowl After Analysis

This is, of course, completely appropriate.

Sport History Repeats Itself

Geez. Yet another Super Bowl blowout. What an overrated sports event. How many Super Bowls have actually been close games? Two or three? Sheesh.

(The second half just started and it's 29 to 0).

What, this isn't an election from the 19th century?

While not especially surprising, this is pretty ridiculous.

All the Republican candidates running for Texas lieutenant governor agree: Creationism needs to be taught in schools.

At a statewide televised debate Monday, the four Republican candidates said they would like to see the religious theory taught in the classroom, according to videos of the event.

100% of the Republican candidates for lieutenant governor in the second largest state in the country believe that public schools should teach their own particular religious dogma.

No wonder Texas is so screwed up. If these guys were elected everywhere, America would be a third world country in 30 years.