Onyx Lynx

Cerberus (Sadly, No!) on conservative attempts to reclaim cool.  (Short version:  In your dreams, Buster.)  But the supporting arguments are much more fun.

And it’s a real shame, because these posts practically write themselves with their total failure to grasp even the outlines of the broader culture the wingnut finds themselves lost and confused within. I mean, with their insistent demand to dominate all culture and gain its reputation without work or effort, and of course their myopic failure to grasp just why they will never ever understand the culture they flail around, it’s pretty much a gold mine for us snark merchants.

Even more so when the whiny conservative in question decides to mix some good old fashioned dominant group with a persecution complex baggage into the mix in order to blame his personal failings on some Lovecraftian conspiracy of PBR beer cans and trucker hats.

In short, ladies, gentlemen, non-binary individuals, and fluberts, start up the popcorn, because we are in for a treat.

(That may be one of the reasons reactionaries keep trying to clutch meaningful rock/folk songs in their dripping claws--they know music gets to the emotions, but they don't know how to write anything but dreck.)

Terrance Heath reports on What Money Buys, I mean, the Billionaire's Primary, um, I mean a spring meeting/conference in Las Vegas for Republican politicians and donors.

[Sheldon] Adelson and the Kochs show how the wealthy can use their wealth — in a post-Citizens United political landscape — to impact races and shape policy. Their fire-hoses of money can easily drown out other messages, and narrow the field of candidates for office. The cost of running for office increasingly requires candidates have personal wealth, or wealthy patrons. Those who have neither almost need not apply, even at the state and local level.

See also Zandar Versus The Stupid.  Fair warning.

1. Metsgrrl's collection of best posts is out on Kindle, if you want to read a real baseball fan.
2. Southern Beale on voter suppression shenanigans (riffing off this piece in the Palm Beach Post) that even embarrass a Wisconsin Republican.
3. Culture, class, history, pathology, race, and gender.  Also codeswitching and conflation of similar things.  Ta-Nehisi Coates for the win.  [ETA:  See this article for a response to the response Coates got.]
4. Red Emma of WiredSisters at Noli Irritare Leones looks at the Hobby Lobby case through the lens of conscientious objection.
5. Pacifica Radio is at war with itself and losing.  (I am an ex-listener; some people I know may still have shows.)  [ETA:  via Oakland Local]

Conflict:

1. Monday there will be official baseball for the next seven months.
2. Monday there is a greater than 50% chance of rain.

It's a tossup. Possibly a fielder's choice.

(In local news, it has been a week of reading the news and screaming "What are they, stupid?"  This makes analysis and understanding difficult.  When I saw this article (via Making Light):

FBI agents are interviewing employees at FEMA in an investigation of unusual changes in federal flood insurance maps that benefited oceanfront condo buildings with a history of flooding, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The investigation follows a report by NBC News documenting more than 500 instances in which FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

I wanted to flail about with a week-old codfish (thank you, oursin) upon both the developers and the residents.)

"First direct evidence of cosmic inflation."

When asked to comment on the implications of this discovery, Harvard theorist Avi Loeb said, "This work offers new insights into some of our most basic questions: Why do we exist? How did the universe begin? These results are not only a smoking gun for inflation, they also tell us when inflation took place and how powerful the process was."

Beverly Mann at Angry Bear suggests that it might be smart for Democrats to boost the ACA.

• "Unaffordable," long-term illness:

  Here’s a suggestion to these candidates: Why are you not using people like Terry Coppage and his wife to illustrate that only Americans, among citizens of the entire world’s developed economies, face financial ruin because they or a member of their nuclear family needs extensive medical care. Only Americans. [Emphasis in original]

• Free political consulting offered:

  Maybe by the time the insurance industry realizes that the AFP ads need to be countered with an ad campaign of hard-hitting refutations and real-people stories, the Dems will have figured that out, too. I never got this idea of addressing the ACA with generic we-need-to-fix-rather-than-repeal it, and hope that that nullifies the law’s unpopularity as a political problem.

(I don't believe Democratic party "refusal to thrive" is mere cowardice, by the way.  A really long time ago now somebody (bugsybanana on Live Journal?  Somebody) (bugsybanana it was, linking to an article at Fact-esque in 2010) referred to the exhibitions of the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals and nothing has changed even as the Republican party moves further to the right and harks back more to the past.  Remember Howard Dean in 2008?  Remember that almost as soon as the 2008 elections were over, he was disappeared let go?  Is the manager/coach whose team wins the championship usually dismissed immediately?  I wouldn't crack that egg if I were you.)

• First:  I know someone who now has health insurance thanks to Obamacare.  Let me expand on that:  I am personally acquainted with someone who, because of preexisting conditions, could not  get health insurance; who now has health insurance for the first time in several years because of Obamacare.  (Hey, anecdotal evidence is good enough for conservatives!)
• Via skippy:  Corn-eating worm evolves to feed on GMO corn designed to kill it.  Excuse me while I giggle.  Not the desired outcome, what?

Yahrzeit.

1. Yes, I did rearrange the blogrolls, somewhat, even though Blogger really didn't want me to, and doesn't like titles for my blogrolls.  Migrating this mess to Wordpress is not on the agenda.  Yet.  (Incidentally, the signing party for Metsgrrl is today.)
2. Terrance Heath is totally incandescent lately.
1. Another conservative outraged that the poor still eat.

   Only a conservative like Varney — and possibly Paul Ryan — could be outraged that poor people aren’t starving in the streets, for the sake of the national debt. It’s par for the course for Varney, who has in the past boasted about being “mean to poor people.”

   With videos.
2. Why conservatives keep trying to undermine Obamacare, part umpty-ump.

   Obamacare isn’t perfect. It still leaves 31 million uninsured, because it’s not a universal program. But conservatives don’t have an alternative path to health care reform that even comes close to accomplishing what Obamacare does, because it would run counter to their core ideology. That’s not a “bug” of conservative health policy. It’s a feature.

It is disgraceful that Mr. Heath is not better known than Mr. (ugh) Brooks. Speaking of whom,
3. Driftglass (complete with Fail-Safe and Fawlty Towers videos) observes the rest of the MSM finally catching up to Mr. Brooks' lack of substance.
4. Jurassicpork (Welcome Back to Pottersville) on voter turnout.  (Actually, ahem, lack of voter turnout.)  [ETA:  Seeing the Forest suggests that the voters had no reason to turn out.  Hmmmmm.]
5. Late in this article by Cerberus at Sadly, No!, this sentence appears:

   The more homophobes seem to think that people will stop having straight sex the second that people are allowed to be in queer couplings, the more I am convinced that the homophobes arguing this don’t have a straight bone in their bodies.

   That's why I love the blogosphere.  Another mewling right-wing-identified writer's column thoroughly analyzed and found to contain negative nutritional value.
6. Lagniappe:  Long post at Welcome to Pottersville 2 touching on various subjects, including Mr. Varney.  (I am restraining myself from typing "the Vampire" because it's too obvious.)  I forgot this blog's existence because it didn't update for a while, but apparently now it's current.

70 degrees F. Why am I indoors?

Zandar deconstructs one with a hand tied behind their back.

Let's understand that the entire point of being a black conservative pundit is saying whatever President Obama does or does not do is "downright offensive" to blacks, because all the grim statistics backing up the notion of centuries of struggle by black families in America only became a problem on January 20, 2009.

I might support the idea of the "level playing field" if such existed (in the same way I support the Kingdom of God on Earth), but it doesn't, and pretending that it does just gets people hurt and/or killed.  Plus the conservatives/reactionaries are in fact doing their utmost to un-level the playing field.

Requested reading:

• Healing and disinformation about cannabidiol, from AlterNet.
• The Prodigal Son analogy, from Spocko's Brain.
• Work…and work, from Lance Mannion.

I'll wait over here.

OK.

ETA, 3/8/14:  Apparently I am not going to write this because the thoughts these essays sparked seem to have escaped and taken up residence in an ancient oak.  Very annoying.  And I have been slacking except for comments.  (I won't promise more frequent writing because that leads to semiannual posts.)

Meanwhile, Bartcop, who had a blog before the word was invented, died.  Skippy had the news and a link;  Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast has a meditation on grief and loss.  If any of you could spare some help for Bartcop's widow there's a Paypal button at the site.

Also, I see that some folks on my blogroll haven't updated in over a year (Metsgrrl has, actually, but either Blogger isn't picking it up or her blogging software isn't laying it down).  Archiving is on the agenda.  As is deletion (Santa Claus, alas, is gone and so when I get a Round Tuit, he will be delinked).  Spring cleaning is coming.