The right wing is going nuts about the idea that Obama might want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. They claim that it would destroy right wing radio. There are a lot of things wrong with this argument, but in the meantime, let’s make fun of them with the help of R.E.M. (whose lead singer happens to be openly gay, so that ought to tweak ‘em a bit more.)
It’s the End of The Show As They Know It Original Words and Music “It’s the End of the World As We Know It”
by Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck 1987
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2009
That’s great it starts with a fruitcake,
Words of hate to entertain, Michael Weiner’s gone insane
Guy on the radio, listen to his head blow.
Words serve the right’s needs, dummies hear their own needs, (more…)
Who cares what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it? That isn’t the point. The point is what it is that she is accused of knowing – That the Bush Administration, in violation of both US Law and International Treaty, tortured people. (more…)
Original Words and Music “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” by John Charles Lodge
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009
I’m not the president or someone of his worth
Seeing so many problems
And just trying to succeed
As they’re unraveling we hear so many words
Lots of rhetoric spoken
Now it’s plain to see (more…)
While watching Countdown tonight, something struck me. Absorbing all of the new information regarding the torture memos; reading the unambiguous objections of several JAGs against the torture techniques; hearing Richard Wolffe’s eloquent words – all against the background of the lies, lies, and more lies from the Bush Administration now being contradicted by the flood of information which has come out over the last few days – I finally was hit by the full and terrible realization that our country, my country, which I love for so many reasons, had died.
As I began to weep, varied images and thoughts jostled in my mind: (more…)
“…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”
The United States Constitution, Article II, Section 3
I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I don’t know what to say. I was watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and I remember growing numb as I listened to what I was hearing. I’m still kind of numb, even as Rachel Maddow interviews Rep Adam Schiff about what we learned today, and I don’t know how to admit it, but I can’t quite remember exactly what it was that they say our former president, George W. Bush, the man who stood before the American people and said, “We do not torture!”, authorized be done in my name, in your name, in all our names, to the people we captured after September 11. I remember this: It was torture. And we did it.
I’m not going to tell you that I stood by our president the whole time and said, “Well, if he says we aren’t torturing anybody, then I take him at his word.” I’m not stupid. I’m not insane (by certain definitions). I’m not naive. At the time he stood before us and said those words, those four words far more nefarious than the sixteen words, I knew what kind of person was telling me that. A pathological liar. A sadistic man-boy. A spoiled child who was given everything he had in life, including his millions of dollars, and never once understood the concept of responsibility. A man who didn’t know how to admit a mistake, even when it was obvious to people less intelligent than he. A man who could not make the mental connection between the the things that he did and the events that resulted from them. Or between cause and effect in general. His mind simply does not operate from a factual basis. He makes decisions based on things that he believes, not necessarily things that are actually, provably, demonstrably, inconclusively true. He knows that torture is not legal. But he was told that what we were doing was not considered torture. And he believed that. So it was, as far as he was concerned, if he had any concern at all about the subject, true. And so he told us, “We do not torture.” Except that it was. And it was done in our name. It was torture. And we did it.
No, I knew immediately that when George W. Bush uttered the words, “We do not torture,” that we were, possibly at that very minute for all we knew, torturing people. (more…)
So, will Sarah Palin really try to run for president in 2012? Did she learn anything from the last time she ran for national office? Let’s find out with some help from The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”.
Don’t Hand Those Clothes To Me Original music and lyrics, Sting, 1981
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2009
Young gov’nor, the subject
Of blogger fantasy
She wants this so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there’s nothing
This girl’s a prop on stage
Veep-picking, she’s so close now
This girl is half his age
Well, a whole bunch of people (or so we are told) will be out having their Tea Bag Parties on Wednesday, April 15th. Supposedly these folks are going to be protesting government spending, or taxes, or something they don’t like. No matter what they’re protesting about, it’s a good bet that almost everyone of them will be getting a tax cut under Obama’s new budget (though it’s hard to convince them of that.) Fox News Channel is planning threatening to cover the protests, so we’ll get to see the mixed bag of nuts that plan to attend.
Anyway, I wondered what attending one of those things would be like, and with the help of Rick Nelson’s “Garden Party”, it might go something like this…
Tea Bag Party Original words and music “Garden Party”, by Rick Nelson, 1971
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009
I went to a Tea Bag Party to demonstrate with my new friends
A chance to shout obscenities and raise our voice again
When I got to the Tea Bag Party, they all played the game
No one recognized me, I didn’t sound the same
But they’re so right wing, They honed their hatred well
You see, they can’t please anyone, so they got to please themselves
People came from miles around, cable news was there
Bill-O brought his goon squad, it was tragic ev’rywhere
‘N’ over in the corner, much to my surprise (more…)
And now, Rep Michelle Bachmann (R-LaLa Land) as Mary Richards in
Truth Is All Around (The Michelle Bachmann Song 2) Original words and music “Love is All Around” by Paul Williams
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider
Who can turn her brain off with her smile?
Who can start an interview, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? (more…)
If you haven’t heard about Minnesota Rep Michelle Bachmann’s latest departure from reality, you can read about it at The Zoo.
I’m A Deceiver (The Michelle Bachmann Song) Original words and music “I’m a Believer” by Neil Diamond
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider
I thought facts were only true in fairy tales
Meant for someone else but not for me
Libs are out to get me (doo-do do-doo)
Now that’s the way it seems (doo-do do-doo)
Real annoying fact checks haunt my dreams
I am posting this thread because I would like to have a serious discussion with everyone, but especially conservatives, about the core principles of our liberal and conservative philosophies. I am Liberal (well, Liberal-Libertarian, technically, according to PoliticalCompass.org; it only takes about 15-20 minutes to see where you fall on the political scale) and I want to have a serious discussion about why we think the way we do. I am not a philosophy student, just someone trying to learn things.
I am asking everyone who participates in this discussion to please be polite. I have tried to have such discussions on other sites (mostly ThinkProgress), and, unfortunately, the negative tone of some of the comments toward these people left them, shall we say, not in the mood to continue the dialog. I would not like that to happen here, so I am asking all participants to be respectful to the commenters personally even if you are being disrespectful to the comment itself. Remember to keep the two separate. I would like this to be a discussion of ideas, not of personalities. And since this is my blog and not someone else’s, I will edit and/or delete comments that I feel are too insulting to the person. Rip the comment itself to shreds if you wish, but don’t insult the person making it. I will hold myself to this standard, too.
One last thing before I start things off. This is only a conversation, not a competition. So, please, no wagering.
At the core of the difference between Liberal and Conservative beliefs is the question of whether we, as humans, are born inherently good or inherently evil. Thomas Hobbes believed that without some strong authority keeping us in check, mankind would devolve into a constant state of warfare. In contrast to Hobbes, John Locke believed that man’s natural state was not one of warfare. [Full disclosure: This are general summaries I got from Thom Hartmann's great book "Cracking the Code". Some day soon, I hope to sit down and read those links I put in above in full. It's okay if you don't right now, but they are there for your own edification.]
So, do you believe that humans are inherently evil and must be dominated by a strong authority of some kind? Or do you believe that we are inherently good, and that our natural state would be to live in cooperation with one another? When I think of this, I am always reminded of a great scene from “The West Wing”. After pipe bombs killed some students at a college and the perpetrators were caught, President Bartlett said of them, “They weren’t born wanting to do this.”
Filed under: Commentary — Wayne A. Schneider @ 12:27 am
In How Much is a Trillion, we talked about how a trillion of anything could relate to us as individuals. For those seeking a great job, one paying $1 for every second, they were unlikely to even earn a trillion dollars, as it would take more than 31,000 years to do it. Remember, that’s $1/second. And it would take more than 31,000 years to spend/earn a trillion dollars. Moving on, for sports fans, we compared a trillion dollars to the amount of money it would take to give every major baseball player on the 40-man roster of every one of the thirty teams, a $250 million contract just like A-Rod’s. And we found that they were short of a trillion dollars, with plenty of room to spare. So much room, that they could have, effectively given every player a $750 million contract, and still not quite reached a trillion, though they would be close. Then we looked out into the depths of space to find that the furthest things we’ve seen out there were about 90 trillion miles away, but the light from them would take 15 billion years to reach us, just so we could see what they were up to 15 billion years ago. Well, here’s some more perspective. We found out from our $1/second job that it would take 31,709 years to reach one trillion seconds. (That’s 1,000,000,000,000.)
One trillion seconds ago, humans were just becoming humans. We used to call them Cro-Magnon, but scientists seem to favor the term “Early Modern Humans” (or EMH) now. Not sure why. Something to do with them not really being all that different from Neanderthals after all. A trillion seconds ago, the Earth was coming out of its last ice age.
Well, it won’t be long before George W. Bush is sitting at the inauguration of his successor, thinking about how much trouble he might be in. (Sorry I couldn’t find a video to post with this one; all the good ones were taken down by request.)
Too Much Crime On My Hands Original Words and Music “Too Much Time On My Hands”, by Tommy Shaw
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009
Yeah, I’m sittin’ on this grandstand
Giving out the glad hand
Got the twelve o’clock noon blues
And I’ve given up hope
‘Cause I can’t really cope (more…)
As we approach the 1,000 hours-to-go mark in the Still Bush Administration (Dec 9, 2008, 8 PM EST, 5 PM PST – 1,000 hours to go), Bush must be looking around and watching people getting ready to leave. Here’s Harry Nilsson to help me describe it. I hope you enjoy the parody. I know you’ll enjoy the song.
Everybody’s Walkin’ Original Words and Music “Everybody’s Talkin’” by Harry Nilsson, 1969
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008
Everybody’s walkin’ on me
I don’t hear a word ‘bout stayin’
Only the voices in my mind
Hello, and welcome to “Ask the Grammar Guy”, a friendly guy who wants to help you with some common spelling and grammatical errors on the many sites he visits.
Some of you know me from my long boring or short stupid posts at ThinkProgress (thanks for stopping by). Others may have come across me at TheZoo (thanks for stopping by there, too.) I see a lot of people posting comments (there and in the other big blogs, not this one) and they’re using the wrong words, especially where apostrophes are concerned. I’m not going to name any names, and if you recognize yourself in here, please don’t take offense. Instead, take it as constructive criticism. I see earnest efforts at erudition erode to entropy, eventually ending erroneously. (I’m sorry, I just couldn’t shake that sentence out of my head, but as the song goes, “That’s What Blogs Are For”.) So, to help you out, here are some tips.
Here’s one I’ve made myself and, to be honest, I’m a little embarrassed by it, (more…)
People have reported episodes of taking Ambien and, not merely sleepwalking, but sleepliving. They’ve been found doing things like driving down to the store and going in to buy something, and not really being awake at all, just in a kind of stupor. Which made me think of this, to the tune of “Ramblin’ Man”, by the Allman Brothers Band.
Ambien Again Original Words and Music “Ramblin’ Man” by Forrest Richard Betts, 1980
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008
Lord, I took Ambien again
Drivin’ down the highway and sleepin’ as fast ‘sI can
And when they pull me over
I hope they’ll understand
That I took Ambien again
As one of the nation’s premier non-economists, I have some thoughts I’d like to share about how to fix the economy to the betterment of the many over the enrichment of the few. We’ve all heard the expression, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Most of us believe it to be true (because it is), but the naysayers are almost always from the elite class of people who have quite a lot of money. More than they need, if you want to be perfectly honest. And to me, therein lies the heart of the debate: Should Capitalism be about getting what you need, or getting what you want?
The people who study this stuff refer to it as Wealth Condensation, but I’m a non-economist, so I’m simply going to refer to it as a “flaw” in the system. In a nutshell, the way things are set up right now, wealth flows through the system into the hands of an elite few – the Super Rich. I’m talking about the people with, like, a hundred million dollars or more. They’re out there, and they have a lot of the money. (more…)
The Right-Wing in this country uses fear and hate to win public support for their ideas. This cannot be disputed, and was even studied by Associate Professor Jonathan Haidt (“What Makes People Vote Republican?). In a nutshell, when our fears and emotions are tapped, we tend to react first and rationalize what we did later, even if our “rationale” is in conflict with the facts. Rather than appeal to our intellect and ability to reason our way to a solution, the Right-Wing stokes fear and hate and then tells you who to fear and who to hate. The reason why you should fear and hate becomes completely irrelevant once they have tapped into your emotions, for any kind of “reasoning” will make sense if it makes you feel justified in doing what you did, even if you normally would have thought that what you were doing was wrong. Without this tactic, they could not win support for their arguments on the facts alone. (And when I talk about “facts”, I’m talking about things that are actually true, not what many people might believe to be the truth.)
Whether they want to admit it or not, this attribute in humans to have our sense of fear and hate be easily tapped comes from our evolutionary survival skills. (more…)
The Depravity Song Original Words and Music “The Authority Song” by John Cougar Mellencamp, 1984
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008
I like to stay out of a compromising position
I like to get somewhere and stay in my place
I think they’re so cute and I start to get that condition
Then I become a total disgrace
And I say
I fight Depravity, Depravity always wins
When I fight Depravity, Depravity always wins (more…)
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, armistice began. World War I, The “Great War”, the war between the Entente Powers (the Allies) and the Central Powers (led by Germany) had finally come to an end. The next year, President Woodrow Wilson declared November 11, 1919, to be Armistice Day. His proclamation began, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”. (more…)
I decided to re-write McCain’s next stump speech, with some help from The Police. (The rock band, not the law enforcement officials.)
King No Brain Original words and music “King of Pain” by Gordon M. Sumner 1983
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2008
There’s a younger black man on the trail today
Says the same old things as yesterday
There’s a black man caught by a high-strung cop
There’s a flag pin flap and the smears won’t stop
I have stood here before and said this same refrain
That the world’s turning circles going fast insane
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll let me reign
But it’s my destiny to be the King No Brain
Here is what I would say to John McCain, if I thought he’d listen to me. I was looking for a video to post with this one, and I almost rejected it until it got to around 3:14 in the video. What a hilarious shot. I hope you enjoy it. And John McCain, I hope you listen.
Dear John McCain Original words and music “Photograph” by Richard Starkey and George Harrison
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008
Ev’ry time I hear his voice
It reminds me of the choices, we have to vote
But all I want is a Democrat
Who will realize we’re not going back to before
I think I’ll make it the day you go away
But I can’t take it
If you get voted in to stay-yi-yay-yi-yay
I can’t get used to living here
While my bank is broke, my fears supplied by you
I want the one who’s young and bold (more…)
Blinded By The Right Original Words and Music “Blinded by The Light” by Bruce Springsteen, 1973
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008
Madman Georgie-Porgy and contractors in an orgy, well he ain’t no diplomat
On the outs with his bouts as the alcoholic doubts his way is where it’s at
With the story of his glory feelin’ kinda gory I skipped the Sunday-go-round
With this very unnerving curving and swerving the calamity crashed to the ground.
Some half-hot all-snot was talkin’ up the hot spot, pointin’ his fingers, joinin’ his man
And some Bush-bot mascot was tied into a legal knot with his what-not in his hand
And then poor Scott, put on the spot, falsely told a bunch of rot and boned our soldiers in the sand
And some bloodshot drunken sot whispers Pappy’s within earshot, save the buckshot, don’t play your hand
Yes, we were blinded by the right,
Oh, got juiced by a ruse, another rumor in the night (more…)
A number of very prominent conservative voices have come out saying that Gov Sarah Palin should be dumped from the Republican ticket. It’s as if they were saying this…
Turning On You Original Words and Music by Blue Oyster Cult
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2008
Wrong in Wasilla
Wrong for this city
Wrong isn’t pretty
Ain’t no good to me
It’s the Torture, Stupid
Who cares what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it? That isn’t the point. The point is what it is that she is accused of knowing – That the Bush Administration, in violation of both US Law and International Treaty, tortured people. (more…)