El Baradei | Existential Ennui

Tags

Al-Jazeera, Bill O'Reilly, demographics, Egypt, El Baradei, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Health care, Israel, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Muslim Brotherhood, Newt Gingrich, Palestine

Okay, it wasn’t actually THAT bad. To be honest, we don’t really know how much snow we got. All the places where we measure were clean of snow. It blew THAT hard. There are places where there are a couple of inches, and then drifts that are two feet high. I’m guessing we got about 4-5 inches.

Still, we are most assuredly snowed in. Which is okay sort of. I mean we got food, and wood. We don’t have any special treats for Superbowl Sunday.

I can’t go shopping til whenever, because when we get out we have to get a new alternator first. And there is plenty of snow in the forecast, though amounts are still up in the air–“up in the air”– get it? And after about four days in the twenties, it’s going back to single digits and subzero at night.

February can go suck an egg.

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I don’t like much I’m reading in the news so far. Just a few snippets minus the links. Rand Paul is trying to suck money from his supporters with a baseless fear about the US signing a treaty that will strip all private gun ownership. This with the UN. It’s all nonsense as even the NRA admits, yet Paul will scare a lot of folks into sending him money. What a jerk.

A woman tried to mail a puppy in a two-day priority mail box. Puppy discovered and saved. Woman crazy and should be locked up.

Anderson Cooper assaulted in Cairo as pro-Mubarak forces are sent out to engage violently with the anti-government forces. Meanwhile of course the wackos continue to claim that the “pro-al Qaeda Muslim Brotherhood” has as its first priority to attack Israel.

Within hours of the faked up anti-planned parenthood video, websites and marches are set up and ready to go. Does anyone smell a rat here? All the usual right-wing groups are signed up.

I’m not sure I want to read any more news.

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Steven Benen does a good analysis of Glenn Beck’s latest insanity. Turkey, a republic since 1928, is in fact a dictatorship according to Beckian land. He posits that China will take New Zealand and all kinds of other squirrelly nonsense. Beck has lost some 1/3 of his followers and seems desperate. Thus the claims get even more insane. Read the analysis and link to the embedded video to see the wacko in action. Followers are being told to “store up food.” Oh and PS: read the comments which are hilarious: “It’s like taking Jack Benny seriously as Hamlet.” Too funny.

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El Baradei, thought by many to be a likely head of an interim government in Egypt, is well thought of by most of the moderates and liberals. Of course that means he is an enemy of the far right. Both Gingrich (who cares), and John McCain (who cares even less) have warned on Fox Crap that El Baradei is a secret radical and an enemy of the US. What a crock. El Baradei, you will remember, raised the ire of the neo-cons back in the day when he told the truth about Iraq and made their “dangerous” Iraq proofs all the harder.

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It seems the media is more fun than ever these days. Billo the Clown, touter of “fair and balanced” made it quite clear, that when one “knows” fair and balanced, one knows “not fair and balanced.” And Al-Jazeera is not fair and balanced, and if Alan Colmes suggests they are, well Billo just screams him down. I think that Billo just felt a jab of guilt, don’t you?

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Reagan’s Solicitor General, and now Harvard professor, Charles Fried says that the new Health Care Law is surely constitutional. This pissed off Orin Hatch to no end, but I’m guessing Fried is a bit more knowledgeable than Hatch. A video of his testimony at Truthout.

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The call it “Fox Geezer syndrome” and more and more people are complaining about it. It seems that our elderly, left with nothing to do, are turning to Fox and Beck and well, becoming conspiracy fanatics. When they kids call or visit, they are met with endless diatribes about Obama, and the left, to the point that such conversations must be avoided. Funny, but sad it in a way too, because many reporting this are conservatives themselves, and find their parents descent into Fox madness quite disconcerting.

Also, Beck’s numbers have fallen by 1.5 million, and Fox’s median age is, get this: 65! Retirees with nothing to do, sit and watch this crap show all day and night and are the elderly zombie generation. Unreal isn’t it?

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But another reason why fundamentalist beliefs and rational politics don’t mix. Mikey Huckabee is against the Palestinians having a homeland of their own. Forget of course that it was their homeland long before “God gave it to Israel.” No, Huck believes in the biblical history that suggests that Israel gets all of the promised land. It begs the question that if Huck runs for president, he’s gonna have to explain if he is a biblical apocalyptic believer. If so, I’m thinking he has disqualified himself from the job. Scary crap.