iPhone apps for modern-day Republicans
Are you a modern-day right-wing Republican needing some new apps for your iPhone? If so, this video is for you:
On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
When Norway's Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to Barack Obama, they hit America's right-wing zealots with egg in the face. Here's how Steven Weber put it at Huffpo:
As the predictable mobs of crypto-racist/sexually repressed obstructionists coagulate around the recipient, the Norwegian Nobel committee has acted unilaterally and struck a blow for the rest of humanity. The big tent Republicon party, which shelters everyone from flat-earthers to Taitz birthers, from gun-toters to Swift Boaters, in other words every scrap of social flotsam which identifies with the right's disdain for All Things Other, is coming away from its stakes.
The many ways the right wing has become dysfunctional
Not all right-wingers have completely lost it. Not yet. Now before you assume that I'm a knee-jerk liberal, keep in mind that I once voted for a Republican, Ronald Reagan, and I am still attracted to many traditional positions of conservatives. And I fully admit that there are still many thoughtful conservatives out there. That said, check out the current crop of the salient qualities of prominent Republican spokespersons. As David Brin sums it up so very well, this hasn't been Barry Goldwater's party for many years. Not in the least. What are the most bizarre changes we've seen? Here are a few from Brin's long list: * prudence to recklessness * accountability to secrecy * fiscal discretion to spendthrift profligacy * consistency to hypocrisy * civility to nastiness * international restraint to recklessness * efficiency to no-tomorrow wastrelness * personal rectitude to flagrant licentiousness I would differ with Brin on one issue. I wouldn't attribute these dysfunctions to "stupidity." Rather, I interpret them as the results of a combination of fearfulness, groupishness, over-reliance on disgust as a form of morality, and deep compulsion to constantly display badges of group membership.
Alan Grayson on “The Republican Health Care Plan”
What is "The Republican Health Care Plan"? Alan Grayson made this presentation yesterday:
Spotting fake libertarians
Darksyde at Daily Kos presents 10 clues for spotting fake libertarians (Republicans). Here's one of the clues--you are a fake libertarian:
[I]f you think government should stay the hell out of people's private business -- except when kidnapping citizens and rendering them to secret overseas torture prisons, snooping around the bedrooms of consenting adults, policing a woman's uterus, or conducting warrantless wire taps, you are no Libertarian.