The Morning Watch’s blog

Someone needs to photoshop these people into a band photo:

Lars Ulrich: Drums
Bono: Vocals
Dave Navarro: Guitar
Sting: Bass

and they will be known as "Band of Dicks"

GO!

Mickey Kaus over at Slate seems to think Geraldine Ferraro's comments were right, but since in order to prove that she's right he first has to write an entire article that still doesn't quite make the case for her, I've gotta say she's still wrong.

http://www.slate.com/id/2186324/

I just want to know - how the hell can you be in politics for over a quarter of a century and still be so absolutely stupid as to be surprised when somebody's feathers get ruffled when you say (to REPORTERS, for God's sake) that someone's blackness is the reason for their success?  I don't even think they have to go over that in Public Relations classes anymore, I think it's something most sane people just kind of pick up along the way.

Apparently, according to Mr. Kaus, what Ms. Ferraro (is it Ms. or Mrs.?  I feel like people are just calling her Ms. because she's old and has a short haircut) meant was "that white and black voters alike are caught up in the idea of ending identity politics" and even "Nor does she does she seem to be arguing it's wrong to be at least temporarily 'caught up' in this concept."

But if that's what she meant, then why hasn't she bothered to say it?  Why instead has she treated the media dogs to more bacon-wrapped bloody-rare cat meat by responding with "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"  It's kind of like a scene in about a billion Hollywood comedies, where the main character is at a dinner party for his boss and his drunk idiot brother says something really stupid, and the main character goes "Oh I'm so sorry sir, what my brother meant to say was-" and just when it seems smoothed out the idiot brother throws up all over the boss's new Armani suit.

So, no, she's still wrong, and she will continue to be wrong until she bothers to use all of his press scrutiny to actually explain herself in a way that doesn't involve sounding like a dusty old coot on a porch with a rifle.

My Geraldine Ferraro Metaphor

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26044314

Politics is dead. Long live politics.

Fuck politics. No, seriously. Fuck politics. Bend it over and give it one good mercy fuck, roll over and go to sleep. If politics presses you to cuddle, pry its pathetic fingers off of you and go pass out on the couch if you have to.

Sting was right about two things - Tantric Sex is just a big practical joke, and: "There are no political solutions." None. Every person who has ever thought they had the answer for everybody else was wrong. Anybody you're thinking of right now, singing to yourself, eyes closed, "if only we could get everybody to vote for him, we'd be on the right track", will either fail right away, or be successful long enough for the world to grow bored of their good ideas, and move on to something more exciting, like car races. Or that "Music is my girlfriend" iPod video. Or Grand Theft Auto 4 (when is that coming out, by the way?).

This doesn't mean give up on everything. After all, politics never had a chance. What chance could pathetic ideas have ever had against the goliath that is the natural predisposition of every human being to look out for their own, short-term selfish interests, even while pretending to care about the long-term or the greater interest every time it's convenient, like when you go to Starbucks and that hot-ass girl is at the counter again and you're all "Oh yeah, you love John Mayer? Yeah, me too, I'm gonna buy his CD right now actually. I love that song 'Waitin on the World to Change', you know? It's like, he's so, right, you know?" and you take the cd home, never open it, and in three months give it to your 11 year old cousin for Easter.

Stop listening to everybody; absolutely every person that tries to hand you any kind of received wisdom, or inherited truth. Religion is the best example. I don't need to explain it to you though, because you're so smart, aren't you? Yeah, you read Christopher Hitchens' sniveling little treatise. Here you go, Chris: Stalin. That's right. Stalin. The dude massacred hmmm, I dunno, ten million people, and he didn't need a single God or Mahomet or freaky Native American Jesus to sanction it for it to happen. How? Because he just used a dangerous idea to exploit the worst parts of human nature, and then did it en masse. All because a bunch of people thought he had a solution.

So stop caring. Stop thinking you can change anything. Stop thinking about fixing the world and instead just start caring about fixing yourself. You're out of shape, fatty. You'd better get to the gym before you have to buy another set of pants because you outgrew your last set again. You know you could just save some money if you bought elastic waistbands... yeah, I know, they're not as comfortable and they leave those weird hash marks on your hips, like silly putty on a screen door. That's right, I said your love handles are like silly putty. What're you gonna do about it, fatty?

Good ole military rule of law, eh?  In Iraq, they can hold you for no reason for 19 months without charging you.  That's what just happened to AP photog Bilal Hussein.  The worst part of that article?  Our military is currently detaining 14,000 people worldwide, 13,000 of them are in Iraq.  Most of them are never charged, because military code says they can hold anyone they deem a "security risk" for as long as they want.  So how, exactly, are we acting any differently than Saddam here?  Guilty or not, doesn't matter, you don't just run around arresting anyone you feel like and never presenting the charges against them.

The United States Patent Office is full of a bunch of racist sonbitches.  I am constantly getting back documentation where they somehow take a patent application assigned to a company that is in the Republic of Korea, and "mistype" JAPAN where it should say Republic of Korea.  Racists.

Well, it is.