Other Stuff White People Like

#80: Butt Play

No, seriously.

Anyway, if you've been to see The Man's foibles, then you know it has over 5 million hits. This 'cheer modest endeavor has less than 10,000 and it's been up for, oh, 3 years plus. Somebody decides to point and laugh at the palefaces, barely 2 months ago, and gets 5 million viewers like that!

I guess the #81 thing white people like is reading about their doofiness.

This People Am The Reasons

So this is who/what stole my dream? Do(es) they (it) even speak English? You cannot tell from the script...

You Mean, College Sports AREN'T Rocket Surgery?

I hate Duke. Not just because it has a rivalry with the University of North Carolina--which is one-sided, since UNC is better in every conceivable way--but because I dislike every person I have ever seen, met, or heard of who went there. The institution was founded by actual slave drivers who made a fortune selling cancer to poor people. Today, it is filled with overprivileged teenagers who think they own everything. And yet, they are morons.

The foremost joy in life for the last several years has been to watch Duke's basketball team fold up like a cheap tent every spring, just in time for the NCAA Tournament. It seems that every season begins with a dominant Duke team bolting out to a 10-0, 15-0, or 20-0 record, only to falter in February and March, leaving disappointed and teary-eyed fans to fling their snifters of brandy into their hearths before beating their illegal immigrant servants until their weak, bony girl-arms grow tired and they have to retire to the boudoir.

Now, a major sportswriter has decided to write about this phenomenon. Hooray! I mean, "word." Because I'm from UNC and I'm all street, and shit.

The conclusions of the article are hardly surprising: it turns out that, yes, Duke actually IS the State University of New Jersey and s--OK, so that isn't in there. But it should be.

It turns out that a cupcake non-conference schedule, plus a refusal to play road games, along with a highly-structured style of play that covers up glaring weaknesses in inferior players, equals gaudy numbers against low-level competition. Then, when Duke actually has to play somebody--anybody--on the road, it loses.

In other words, and I don't think I'm putting too fine a point on it, Duke is a con game--on the court just as much as in the classroom (you don't think it's really a $40,000-a-year education you're paying for, do you, dummy?). It's smoke and mirrors and the people who broadcast college basketball and vote in the national polls and pick the seeds in the NCAA Tournament should know that. Shame on them.

But more than that, shame on Duke. The nation's most visible basketball program is a tightly-controlled shell game for rubes, by which I mean the media and Duke students and fans. I wonder how they feel, now that a national magazine has made the argument that they are all just suckers? Oh, how it must hurt to be common!

New Links

Democratic Milquetoast has been dropped. The title is still open for nominations and may reappear, but the site it was linked to, Talking Points Memo, with one Joshua Micah Marshall, is no longer to be viewed by anyone. Ever. No house divided against itself can stand, and that crapshack of a website was so divided and subdivided it was turning into a flophouse for every weak-water liberal, war hawk, "reformed" conservative (kill yourself!), and starry-eyed dumbass in all of Democrat-dom. So, fuck 'em.

In its place, we now offer an essay giving just a few of the reasons that Libertarianism Makes You Stupid ("I Own You"), and Stuff White People Like ("The Man's Foibles"). You may find them entertaining. Or not. Fuck 'em. It's just that kind of time.

Nader Hader II

My God it's...it's all coming true! Remember when some smart guy said that, he hoped Ralph Nader would make another run for President because he would get so few votes that it would marginalize all the worst people in America, once and for all? (Republicans are bad, but Nader supporters should and do know better, so they get the title of "worst.")

Well, it's happened. Despite the fact that the actual Son of God--to hear some of his supporters tell it--is already running, in the mortal form of Barastafari Selassie Obama I And I, Ralph Nader has thrown his colostomy bag into the ring. Never mind that a 74-year-old man cannot climb to the top of the greasy pole; Nader is doing it for the kids, man. His candidacy is all about giving the young people a choice, to wit: a 74-year-old man. John McCain, I guess, is just some sort of black, female 72-year-old with nothing at all in common with Ralph Nader.

Ralph's got problems, though. The biggest one is that the constituencies he seeks to woo, the pissed-off youngsters, the over-privileged do-gooders, and the hopeless dreamers, are all firmly aligned with Barack Obama. And Obama ain't about to let Nader talk to them.

Maybe he's the real thing after all. Obama, I mean. Anyone who can bitch slap an old liberal like this:

"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about."

maybe can also cut the nuts off a few Republicans, beginning with that whippersnapper, John McCain (of course, Obama'd have to go to South Carolina, in a time machine, in 2000, find McCain's nuts, and then get Karl Rove to agree to have them surgically reattached to McCain's groin, and then cut them off again).

But it gives one hope, does it not?

Reaching Around

Our presumptive nominee wants to "reach across the aisle" and embrace Republicans on a host of issues. Now, forgetting that we have already learned, time and time again, that you can't make a deal with Republicans unless you're offering something they actually want (and the filibuster minority in Congress has shown nothing but contempt for Democrats thus far), here's a lesson for all would-be compromise Democrats:

Republicans Walk Out During Memorial Service for Rep. Lantos

Jesus Buttfucking Christ. Why would anyone piss on a dead guy's grave like that? GOP'ers don't want Bolton and Miers cited for contempt, OK I get that. The imperial president is their good buddy and all, even if they don't want to be seen with him on the campaign trail. But, this is a memorial service, you retards.

Are Republicans the retards here? I think, in times like this, that Democrats who dream fuzzy scenarios where all political issues are solved by rounds of inter-party patty-cake, rather than hand-to-hand combat, are the actual 'tards. When you let them run wild without consequences, this kind of shit is bound to result. Happy Hugs-a-lot, Obama, doesn't look like he'll make any difference.

Why Conservatives Love Obama

From Andrew Sullivan, who gets no link because he is a wanker:

"What is a vote for Clinton for, in the face of a movement like this? A reader described his experience at a Washington state caucus. It tells you a lot:
'It's just like you said, at Obama's speeches the crowd chants "yes we can". In contrast, at her events it's the plagiarized "yes she can". His campaign is an inclusive movement, hers is a well oiled behemoth benefiting from name recognition and fuzzy memories with her as a pseudo-incumbent seeking re-election and the historical vindication of her spouse.
Rural white males, the foundation of the "Reagan Coalition", are very intrigued by the idea of President Obama and very "unstoked" by the idea of President Clinton. These people, who at my caucus self-identified as "Independent" or "Conservative" came out to the Democratic caucus because they are fed up with the current Republican regime and are willing to vote Democratic for this cycle--but not for her. If she is the nominee--especially if it involves any superdelegate shenanigans or back room deals the Democrats will lose them, lose me, and lose the election.'
There is a huge desire among many independents and conservatives in this country to punish the GOP for their betrayal of core conservative principles and basic competence and decency these past few years. These folks are plentiful enough to jolt the Republicans toward McCain. But a lot of these conservatives and independents like Obama because he's obviously a smart, decent guy, because electing him would kill off Jesse Jackson style racial politics for a while, and because he seems like a liberal pragmatist who's interested in getting things done. A lot of people will tolerate a move back to the center, even the left, if it means an end to this awful period in history and a fresh start for the country.
That's my sense of things anyway. The Democrats are beginning to realize their choice is between a loss and a landslide victory that could change American politics for a generation. Moreover, I don't think Obama is an ideological figure who would govern in ways that would affront the center. I can't know that, of course. But there is a reason George W. Bush was so dismissive of him. Bush also knows that Obama is a rebuke. Clinton, in contrast, is a peer."

That's a nice spin that Sullivan's put on this supposed pattern of conservative support for Obama, but to me this looks like an open bid by conservatives for clemency from a Democratic nominee. Republicans see absolutely no threat from Obama. He won't make them sorry for their crimes, or force them to take any hard looks at their shallow and moronic political commitments. He'll just take them along for the ride and drop them off, in 4 or 8 years, right back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, exactly the same as they are today, unreformed, unrepentant, and just as proudly malevolent as ever.

Also, Sullivan's informant asserts something I've been hearing more of late: for many who support Obama, it's either him or nobody. Which tells me that some of his supporters really are embracing him as a messianic figure. Which is to say, those supporters are dangerous, apolitical people who think Obama is something he most clearly is not: a revolutionary. What happens when he fails?

See the previous speculation for the answer: the Republicans win, sooner or later. They're biding their time in the face of this surge of support for Obama. When Obamania loses steam--say, in a first term--the GOP ranks will swell again with all the disgruntled white conservatives who voted for him over The Bitch and the Bush surrogate.

We, liberals, are headed in a dangerous direction as long as some Obama supporters insist on viewing this election as a millennium. Unfortunately for them, there will be another day after this particular Rapture, and what then?

How Much Change Is Possible?

Chicago is a racist city. That is to say, the city is divided along race lines and most day-to-day activities have racial implications. You cannot drive on the expressway without remembering that it was constructed to cut off the lakefront from west and south, black Chicago. You can't ride a bus or train without the knowledge that you, a white person, have buses and trains precisely because southside blacks don't. The transit authority allocates its resources to white areas. Shopping, watching local television, using infrastructure--everything is targeted at white, liberal Chicagoans, and then, after them, Latinos.

Barack Obama got elected to the US Senate by Richard Daley. Period. No support from Daley = no Senate seat for Obama. And Daley is the head of not only corruption in this city, but he is also the enforcer of the racial taxonomy that his father first utilized to shore up his power.

So, if elected, what would Obama do to end this patently unfair and racist reality in Chicago? Nothing? If he's going to heal our divisions--which presumably means racial divisions, as well--then will the President of the United States end the reign of America's most corrupt mayor?

Don't bet on it.

#666

Post #666 goes to Attorney General Mukasey, who has some interesting ideas about how to do his job, and about the law and when and to whom it applies. First, he declared that torture is legal, if the Department of Jutice says it is. And, it's still legal if the DOJ later changes the decision and says it's illegal. Also, if DOJ decides torture is illegal and then later changes its mind and makes it legal, then any torture that happened back when it was illegal becomes legal. Are you following all this? Basically, the Attorney General of the United States has asserted that anything could be legal, at any time, if he says it is/was. Thus, there are no laws that apply to the United States government, or potentially to any citizen, as long as that citizen has an out from the AG.

Yesterday, Mukasey also informed Congress that he just doesn't feel like enforcing either the subpoenae or the contempt citations for Harriet Miers or that other Bolton fag. So, subpoena powers, and by extension all oversight of the executive branch of our government by the other two branches, is null and void. The Attorney General has declared this.

What is going on? Congress, as usual, appears to be content to swallow hard and do absolutely nothing. Congratulations, Democrats: you were duped. You bought the lie that Mukasey had a shred of integrity and wasn't just a Bush puppet, and you were willing to play the lead in the comedy of his confirmation.

I'd like to take a special moment here to thank Ralph Nader, once again, for running in 2000.

Also, special thanks to congressional Democrats, who have been consistent in their refusal to exercise any oversight in the last 7 years, leading us to where we are today--that is, where the AG has declared that laws don't apply to anyone if he says they don't. And, a belated thanks to Democrats for never fixing our broken elections that, as much as Nader, contributed to this bullshit, nightmare scenario.

Finally, for all the "independents" out there who, at least today, are leaning towards either Obama or McCain: 1. if you call yourself an "independent," then you obviously haven't been paying attention and 2. if you vote for McCain, you can expect more of this behavior. If you vote for Obama, you are voting for someone who apparently thinks Republicans are open to the idea of bipartisanship and that they will play along and surrender all the horrific, anti-democratic gains they've made since Bush took office. I can totally see that happening, right after Hell freezes over and Ralph Nader apologizes for his crimes before committing Hari-Kiri.

End post #666.

John Zogby Needs to Go Away

When was the last time pollster John Zogby was right about anything? He is currently telling people that, hey, he was correct in 13 of 17 races so far--but I (dammit, nothing is more emphatic than a capital "i"!!) was right about all the races. All of them. Go check. Done? Good. Let's move on.

Zogby, you may recall, was famously "wrong" about Gore. But, asked and answered, Gore won. Kerry also won...except for those Ohio machines. Hmmm...

The result of his "wrongness" appears to be that Zogby has gone round the bend and now makes crazy predictions about things based on a new set of formulae he came up with in the wake of the Gore and Kerry debacles that weights polling data to account for those fucking lying-ass American voters who made him look bad in 2000 and 2004.

Except, they didn't. They told him who they voted for. Gore and Kerry won. Millions of votes were never counted. That's not the polls' problem, it's the pols' problem. Sorry.

But, here's Zogby again, basically saying, "oops. I just, naturally, assumed you assholes were lying to me again, so I made a crazy prediction about California going for Obama, like, huge, and instead it went for Clinton, exactly as voters said."

Go the fuck away, Zogby. You suck at this. 99% to 1%, in favor of "true."

Bed Time

Clinton is expected to win California, you say? Again, the question is by how much, because it's proportional representation. But, this would seem to indicate that...why, I was right about South Carolina being indicative of nothing. I guess you really can't believe everything you read on blogs like Talking Points Memo. Huh.

Note to CNN, CBS, and ABC (whose coverage I have been scoffing at all night): I'm available. Not cheap, but I can be had. Call me.

Score One For the Home Team

So, how's that endorsement from the Kennedy family working out for Obama? Should have run for the Senate seat, dude. If Ted Kennedy could get someone elected president, wouldn't it be him?

Primari-ly, This Is Boring

A few thoughts on the primary returns so far:

1. Katie Couric is terrible at her job. She still apparently doesn't know which camera to look at, when, and she also just referred to John McCain, GW Bush's pussywhipped little bitch, as "such a maverick." Suck it, the both of yous!

2. Pollsters have gone to shit since 2000. Look, fuckers, you weren't wrong! Gore DID win! The election was FAKE! Stop intentionally skewing your data to account for "voter caprice" that isn't there and never was! (This is the reason we've been bombarded for a few days with a bunch of "Obama is going to win New York!" bullshit, I think.)

3. McCain isn't winning the conservative vote. He's winning in states that will vote Democratic in a general election. Who is going to run for the conservative (by which I mean, "crazy as a shithouse rat") vote? Third party candidate? Will Huckabee be McCain's VP?

4. Obama and his "hopey hopetastic hopefulness" can't be negative, even once, or else he falls short of the ridiculously high bar he has set for himself. (note to him, by the way: I go to the polls to vote for a politician, not a Pope. I'm not in the market for a savior or a religion. I want policy improvements, and you'll have to do better than just saying you'll "heal" the divisions in the polity.)

5. By contrast, Clinton only has to appear human a few times--much the way Bush only had to appear semi-competent once or twice in 2000--to improve her image while still being free to run a campaign as she likes.

6. Coverage of this non-event in Illinois is insufferably pro-Obama. Some cocksucker from CBS 2 just came on to say that, Holy Shit!, 9 states are in the Obama column as against only 6 for Clinton! Popozao!! It's a primary, shithead. Delegates are allotted by proportion of the popular vote for each candidate. This is something less than a meaningful statistic, Mr. CBS Cocksucker, sir; in fact, it ain't even news. Sorry to be a grouch, as Obama is OK with me as long as he wakes up and joins the real world before the general election, but all day today every second of coverage across all media has been, "Obama woke up, drank coffee, took a dump, didn't wash his hands, then voted in Hyde Park, had lunch, thought about how, in his more hopeful America, the rolls would have been hotter and buttery-er instead of crusty and a little stale, and then went home to watch us slob him all day just because he maintains a residence in Illinois!!!"

7. Jesus, this shit sucks.

Clocks and Telephones

The two worst sounds in the modern world are ringing alarm clocks and ringing telephones. And yet, advertisers and directors seemingly believe those two noises to be irresistible to viewers. How else to account for the frequent appearance of the very loud, very insistent, buzzing alarm clock in television commercials? Now, if I had to pick a sound that puts me completely at ease, piques my curiosity, and disposes me favorably towards whatever's being offered for sale--and is worlds apart from whatever it is that starts me from bed every workday in a foaming terror and has me clawing at the nightstand in a frantic attempt to stop it stoP IT STOP IT!!!--then it's got to be a blaring alarm clock! I can't believe everybody's not using them to sell things!

And the telephone, the fucking telephone. Perhaps in the 1930s, when it was a novelty, the ringing telephone was a smashing way to build suspense. You know, because viewers were fascinated with the gizmos and would tolerate endless fucking ringing...see The 39 Steps, for example. But today, Jesus Christ! Can't you people think of anything less annoying than a telephone that nobody moves to answer?